12. 7/30 - 7/31/2013 - Happy at dinner.

By this point, we were accustomed to bursts of medical appointments and new information followed by periods of waiting. Toddlers are pretty amazing in their ability to recover quickly and focus on their immediate surroundings. Hattie was too little to be concerned about her impending diagnosis or how it would affect the rest of her life. All she cared about was eating what she wanted to eat, playing what she wanted to play and seeing how much TV she could convince her parents to let her watch. A normal 21st century toddler, in other words.

The calm between the storms was tough because you knew your world would be turned upside down again in a short amount of time. Looking back, those periods of waiting were absolutely essential and gave us a great appreciation for the simple things like a messy dinner.