End of the Year

So, I spent most of this week transferring our home videotapes to DVDs. It was so amazing to go back over the girls' early years, watching their transformations from babies to toddlers and on. About late 2005, Fiona starts taking on the look she had when she got sick. Her hair was really long and her manner was incredibly engaging.
I am not just saying this because I was her mom. I would watch people turn and watch her in the grocery store and smile to themselves. She was very outgoing and articulate. She would get extra cookies from the bakery at the grocery store, without asking. Once when I was getting another key for our car, the owner of the dealership ( I didn't know that he was the owner) took one look at her and went to a display case, took out a teddy bear, and gave it to her. It felt like she had gotten an extra sprinkling of sugar, a double extra sprinkling of spice, and a bunch more of everything nice before she got here. Everyone knew who Fiona was, I would hear things like, " Oh! You're Fiona's mom."
While I watch the videos right before she got sick, it's a bit like watching a train headed for a wreck. You know what's going to happen, but you are powerless to warn anyone, much less stop it. I just keep waiting for the first video to show up after she was diagnosed. If I could've warned us, I am not sure what I would've said. Something horrible that happened to you as a child is going to happen to your sweet little baby? Everything will eventually be okay?
I am not sure how much, if any, video we took while she was ill. Our video camera was dying and I don't think that was something that our much needed funds were going to be 'wasted' on. Now I wish that we would've replaced it and documented her experience more. Most of what she went through is recorded only in the mind of Fiona and myself.
Oh! We do have some video while she is balding and chubby. Maybe if we would've made more video this wouldn't be so shocking. She's so little. Her voice is so high pitched and squeaky. She is singing and dancing and playing with her sister for the camera like nothing is wrong. It's so heart breaking and yet inspiring at the same time. She is still Fiona underneath the steroids and the missing hair. I might have to try and figure out how to upload this little interview she had with her dad around Halloween of 2006.