our MANDY

We have always talked about how blessed we are to have our Mrs. Mandy to watch Easton. I have said and wrote it a million times. We are so lucky to find someone who adores and loves Easton as much as we do. But our world has been flipped upside-down, but not nearly like Mandy’s has. A couple of weeks ago Mandy found out she had breast cancer and cancer in one of her lymph nodes. She may hate me for this, but she is 28. Yes 28… cancer doesn’t discriminate. And it just pisses me off that she has to go through this as such an young age. They caught it early. Thank God! Within a week of removing the cancer, she was given her game plan. Every two weeks for the next 4 months she will receive chemo. After 4 months she will get a short break and jump right into 30 treatments of radiation. Mandy was determined to keep her life as normal as possible and wanted to continue to watch Easton. Seriously what a heart of gold! However, after her first round of chemo she realized that she would not be able to watch Easton until she had completed all her treatments. It would just be too tough on her and not fair to Easton.

When Mandy first told us my heart sunk. As selfish as this may seem, I was mad at the cancer for taking our Mrs. Mandy away from us, even if it was just temporarily. No one will do as good of a job as she does. I have shed many tears over this. Worried beyond belief about taking my baby to a stranger. Mandy was never a stranger. I knew her since… well forever. We may have estranged from each other after high school, but she has never been stranger. I trust Mandy. We have the same ideas when it comes to raising children; firm believers of routine; eat smart; play and enjoy life; read, read, read. I could go on and on. To find someone to live up to Mandy… hmmm… that will never happen. She is definitely irreplaceable. This is hard on Mandy, too. In the end she needs to take care of herself and fully heal. All while trying to still be there for her family. I get that, but I am selfish and want our Mrs. Mandy. I keep telling myself that it is temporary and we will be back into our “normal” routine before we know it!

We have found a lady to watch Easton until Mandy is ready to take on our Easton bug again. She is located in Edwardsville and not too far from parents. She watches two 3year old boys right now. She was been doing if for 31 years. When we left I asked Josh what he thought of this lady. He said "She isn't Mandy." I replied with a simple "Nope, she defintley isn't our Mandy". Of course we are going to compare everyone to Mandy and hold them to the Mandy standard, as I like to call it. But like I said before there will never be another Mandy. Don't get me wrong we are not sending our daugther to some witch. The lady is nice, enjoys kids, and has a good setup for play and nap time, but like I said a million times we just LOVE our Mandy!

So we will suck it up for the next serveral months until we get our Mandy back. Please pray for Mandy to have more good days than bad.