Finding Our Way

"Just keep swimming."

"Just keep swimming."

"Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming..."

Words made famous by a little blue fish named Dorie in the 2003 hit movie Finding Nemo.

If you think this post is going to be about how our family has adopted little blue's sing song-y mantra as our own, it's not.

This post is about choices.

Specifically, the choices we make as parents.

You see, Nemo was Addie's baby-sitter all-time favorite movie from age 18 months to probably about age 4. Pop that baby in and you knew you could get a little work done around the house - if you didn't get sucked into watching it too. Shark Bait, Hoo-Ha-Ha.

But, being the cautious parents that we were, Scott and I always went to great lengths to start that DVD at Chapter 2. If you're at all familiar with the movie, then you know the opening scene shows Nemo's parents, Marlin and Coral, scoping out their new digs. Then a big, bad fish swoops in, eats all but one of the 'lil fish eggs, and mom.

Yes, mom.

Our little girl was not going to play witness to that.

Too scary.

Fast-forward a few years to Marley and Me.

Oh, Marley and Me. I've only seen that tear-jerker once and once was enough.

Even though we have it stored on DVR, Addie the animal lover, never got to see it. Because her parents said she couldn't.

Too sad.

These were the choices we, as parents, made to protect our little girl - along with keeping up with childhood immunizations and enforcing the look both ways before you cross the street rule. Heck, we even kept all of children in rear-facing car seats way past the guidelines just to be safe.

Safe.

What's that?

There's nothing safe with a cancer diagnosis, but there's a whole lot of scary. And sad.

I'm often left to wonder how this will affect the choices we make in regards to Isaac, Tripp, and Baby No. 4. It sure seemed like we did everything "right" and yet we still ended up with a pretty crappy deal.

What more can we do?

Routine blood draws, I guess. I'm only half-serious. It's not as if I take the boys in every month and request a CBC. But I'd be lying if I said they haven't each had one.

So what about Nemo?

Do they get to see it in its entirety? Yes. But let's face it. We'd relaxed (a bit) in our parenting ways long before this.

And Marley?

Lucky for us, we have a few more years before we have to address that one.

But it's not as if my boys don't know sad.

And that, to me, is sad.