"Are you wearing a wig?"

My 4 year old is embarrassed of her mother...already. Lord help me! Throughout the whole cancer and chemotherapy conversations I have had with the Little One, all she has really been concerned with is that her Mommy is going to (and then did) lose her hair. I would imagine that is confusing and hard to swallow for a young child because it completely changes the way you look. She stopped making comments about scarves or skull caps, and really doesn't talk much about it anymore but she still hasn't wanted to see me without something covering my head. She will say "Can I see you take your scarf off?" I'll ask if she's sure, to which she always replies "No no, I changed my mind, I don't want to". I should probably just let her see, but to tell the truth, I'm a little afraid she'll talk openly about it when we're out in public. I can just see her telling the cashier at the grocery store "My mommy doesn't have any hair" or "Did you know my Mommy is bald?" or something equally traumatizing for me. So, I let her keep whatever crazy image she has in her head of what I look like under the scarf. Will it damage her? I can only hope not. I have some pics that I'll show her one day when this is all over.

Well, I say ALL that to tell you this story: The other morning I was getting ready for a day of running errands and going several places with the Little One in tow. She was in the bedroom with me, watching tv while I dressed. I got all ready, but still had a scarf on my head because I didn't want her to see me put my 'hair' on. She looks at me very seriously and says "Are you wearing a wig today?" I wanted to see where her mind was so I said "No, I'm ready to go, aren't you?" She actually said to me "No, I don't want to go anymore, I'll just stay home" I asked if it was because I was going to leave the house wearing a scarf & she said "Yes and I don't want to go". So I told her I couldn't believe she was embarrassed of me & that I was just kidding, I was wearing a wig. We left and went about our day.
The next morning, she was getting ready to go to the babysitter's and we were talking about her day. I had a scarf on my head at the time and she says very sweetly "It's ok, you can wear a scarf today, I'm not embarrassed anymore". Bless her little heart! I don't really know how she knows what embarrassed means, but I guess she figured it hurt my feelings and felt bad...well that or she knew I was only going to drop her off and she wouldn't die of embarrassment if the people there saw me. If she's embarrassed of me now, imagine how fun life will be when I'm taking her to school at 14...Wow!
She loves me, hair or not and I'm thankful that she understands as much as she does. She's SO excited that I only have one more Chemo treatment, and also that my hair is growing back! Oh, did I tell you that yet? It really truly is and I couldn't be happier about it!!!

I wish I was bold enough to post the picture I took after this one, without the hat, but I am just NOT that brave. Sorry! Maybe when I have a full head of hair again I'll feel good enough to show you what I looked like as a bald chick. Probably not though ;-)

This is a recent pic of me trying my very best to not look like a cancer patient. Eyebrow pencils & heavy eyeliner (which had faded by this time of day) were things I knew nothing of before chemo. Guess it's a fair trade-off that the time I'm saving on doing my hair is now spent 'putting on my face'!