My Baby... Not My Baby

Dempsey IS my baby.

My baby is energetic. Happy. Adventurous. Laughs easily. Plays hard.
Runs fast. Is independent. Is courageous. Learns quickly. Minds his
manners. Helps where he can. Eager to learn. Active and slender build.
Loves friends. Talks a lot. Asks questions. Tries new things.

Right now he's not my baby.
He has little energy. Even he had it he couldn't do much with it.
Perhaps that why he seems to not have energy. He says he's happy but
it's not the happy he was 2 months ago. He mostly smiles because he
thinks he's supposed to. You know, how you smile at someone because
they smiled at you first. He is the opposite of adventurous right now
because he knows his body isn't functioning right. He doesn't laugh as
freely as he did those short months ago. Because of this, when he does
laugh we eat it up. Play hard? It's hard to play hard when your body
won't let you do what you want to do. Running? Please. My baby can't
walk on his own. Independence is fickle. It requires you to not need
someone... he needs someone right now. Courageous. Sure. But not how
he was. He still learns quickly but he doesn't really want to talk
much right now. Manners are tough these days because of how the
steroids are altering his personality. Disrespect still doesn't fly
around here but the boundaries have expanded since starting steroids.
He still enjoys helping but it looks VERY different than it did. He's
not really eager to do anything except eat- thank you steroids. His
little body is anything but slender right now. His belly and cheeks
have ballooned. His little lips just don't move like they did before
this. He still loves friends but it doesn't come across because he
knows he can't go play with them and the steroids have zapped his
enthusiasm. Our chatter box has clammed up. It is so hard to get
anything out of him. This is hard for this mommy. He doesn't really
ask questions. He doesn't really communicate right now. He is not at
all interested in trying new things. Even things that he's had or done
before... if it's been awhile since he's had it he fusses. So
frustrating.

I keep trying to look a bit down the road of this journey because
these things are all temporary. Praise God these things are temporary.
I'm just so scared that these things are changing my baby. I like who
he was. I liked where he was headed. He seems so closed off right now.
I'm trying so hard to extend the grace he needs but fear creeps in.
The moment I correct him, on anything, he cries or yells. Granted, he
still isn't anywhere near a tyrannical child or anything.

At the moment, I can hear him and Sawyer playing well together in the
playroom. This after Sawyer was a putz for the sake of being a putz,
made Dempsey whine, I reprimanded BOTH of them and made them turn off
technology.

Parenting a child with cancer is a strange reality which I cannot
explain to anyone who hasn't lived it. Trust me, it's strange.