The only time I can ever remember Steven crying over any of it was after my treatment, when I tried to use my foot on his bass drum pedal, and we realized I could never play a drum set.

It's amazing--my parents call everything a discussion. If I were standing across the street, firing a bazooka at my mother, while my father was launching mortar back at me, and Jeffery was charging down the driveway with a grenade in his teeth, my parents would say we should stop having this public "discussion".

I’ll probably just stand in a corner, trying not to be noticed, until the decoration committee accidentally packs me into a box at the end of the night. There I will lie, crammed in between rolls of crepe paper, until the New Year’s dance two months from now. Jeffrey thought about this for a moment and said, Won’t they notice the box is too heavy when they go to put it away?

Finally the kitchen clock said 5:17. It was time to roll out. I shouted for my mom, woke Jeffrey up, ran upstairs, changed into my concert clothes, put on my shoes, and was standing by the door to the garage by 5:19—chanting “Let’s go! Come on!” (Feel free to try that at home, by the way; moms love it!)

The only time I can ever remember Steven crying over any of it was after my treatment, when I tried to use my foot on his bass drum pedal, and we realized I could never play a drum set.

I tucked him in with his stuffed-animal pet dog—cleverly named Dog-Dog, by the way.

But nobody ever tells you in advance when you should concentrate on the good times-that's why you're supposed to do it every day.