Abnormally Normal

This  morning I woke Georgia up to get ready for her clinic appointment, first question, "I get a poke?"  She said, "ok" after I told her yes, and we were out the door a few minutes later.  She always becomes shy upon checking in at the Hem/Onc desk but was willing to smile at a few familiar faces.  We made our way over to the lab and her name was called shortly after.  I appreciate that Children's is a teaching hospital but am always annoyed by this whenever we have a newbie doing her labs, they just aren't as quick and painless.  Unfortunately we had a newbie today and although she did a decent job, Georgia was in tears over the whole event.  I asked her how many stickers she wanted for being so brave, "three" she answered, I said great, as far as I'm concerned she could have the whole basket if she wanted.
We made our way back to the car to have a little breakfast before our clinic visit and hour later.  We played around and laughed before it was time to head back in.  We stopped by the clinic bathroom before returning, I heard a mom talking to her son, who I would guess to be around six or seven.  "Don't touch that, wait, come over here, let me open the door, wait, don't touch that either" she said.  I smiled at her as we met at the sinks,  I said, "you sound like me,  we're two years into this and I still say all of those things." she said, "we're two weeks in."  My heart sank, we both have beautiful children with full heads of hair but we are in such drastically different places. 
Back in clinic we were shown to our room after Georgia's height and weight were taken, our room was right across from a large bulletin board full of pictures.  After vital signs, our nurse left and I glanced out the open door, there was Mia staring back at me, her picture stood out against all the rest.  We went out in the hall poured over the pictures, we pointed out faces of kids we know and commented on so many darling faces.  Georgia asked why someone was crying down the hall, I knew it was because a child was in the "sleepy room" about to be sedated but told her it was because that kiddo was having a rough day.
Our doctor rounded the corner minutes later and before we were back in our room she said, "her labs look great!"  We talked about her skin and the mild improvement I've seen and the rest of the appointment was mostly chatting about things like finding a dentist and what we are doing for the holidays.  She said that the SCCA will see us in January for a two year work up and that she will put in for us to see her again in APRIL!  One more appointment then maybe, just maybe we will graduate to the "three month visit" mark.
As we left today, after a very successful appointment I couldn't shake one thing--- I had looked around at the faces in the waiting room, some familiar, some new, there were feeding tubes, wheelchairs, bald heads, hearing aids and sick looking children.  I was reminded how absolutely abnormal our norm has been for so long.  I was reminded how tiny Georgia was when all of this began and how cruel the process has been to get us here to today.  I am so grateful for the distance between appointments and that our lives are not 100% focused on cancer, treatment and finding our cure.  I look at Georgia and thank God that she is here to hug and love, I am thankful for the moments where I get frustrated like normal parents because that means things are just that, normal. 
Take some time to be thankful for the precious gifts we take for granted every day.