Otto, our now 11-week-old puppy, was sick last week, with some kind of rash on his neck and a vomiting problem. We feed him healthy dog food that comes from a reputable store, yet he still insists on eating leaves, sticks, feces and winged insects in the backyard. I get it, he’s a dog, and there’s not much you can do about his dietary predilections. “Don’t eat that bee!”, for example, proved to be ineffective.

But Scarlett was really grossed out by his throwing up. “IF I hear him making that sound one more time like this,” she announced, making a gagging sound herself, “I will completely lose it.”

I don’t think I talk like that. In fact, I often suspect she gets most of her vocabulary and phrasing from the books that we read. But per-haps her dramatic flair and penchant for hyperbole do come from me. My husband is a pretty calm person. You can make him mad (and, in case anyone is curious, I know exactly how to do that), but for the most part he’s even-keeled and takes things in stride. Thus far, those qualities do not seem to have rubbed off on our daughter.

“I’m mad at you,” she’ll inform me, after watching two episodes of the Care Bears on our giant TV. “You never let me have anything, and this behavior is unacceptable.” This is because I said no to gum.

She’s not always Veruca Salt, I swear. We have so many incredible conversations where I am amazed at her ability to process a situation, and formulate thoughtful questions around it. She’s been really curious about the #whatwouldyougive fundraiser. Why are people not talking? Why is daddy taking the wheelchair to work?

She knows that I have ALS, but she doesn’t know everything that this entails. “People are supporting us,” I tell her. “It’s amazing.” There are more questions.

Rob and I have been talking about the fundraiser a lot lately, since his big day cruising  around the Twitter office in my travel wheelchair (in which I cannot imagine how he fit.) He got such a good response from his challenge on Friday that we can hardly talk about anything else.

The good folks at Twitter even had #whatwouldyougive trending in San Francisco for a brief amount of time before it was knocked off the list by #whenhumansactlikedogs, which is probably also a very important cause that people are rallying around.

The success of the campaign, the kindness and generosity from family, friends, coworkers, and even total strangers, have made these happier days in our house. ALS can be an isolating disease, but right now, we feel like people are surrounding us, with support and love and hope. These are things we need.

On NPR this week, a correspondent was talking about Hillary Clinton’s fundraising efforts. “Did she say fundraising?” Scarlett asked with excitement. “That’s like us!”

Yes, that’s like us. In many ways, we’re just a normal family, dealing with our gross adorable dog, readying ourselves for Kindergarten, navigating the shifting demands of a feisty five-year-old. But of course, we also have our other life, the one that ALS built, the one that can leave us all feeling tired and helpless and more than a little frustrated.

Facing that life head-on, feeling like we’re doing something to make a difference, finding the right words so that we can explain it to our daughter, has helped both me and Rob feel a little more power around our situation. Even when three out of four family members are whining about something.

The author Toni Morrison once said, “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

I wonder if, right after that, she said, “Now give me some gum, before I completely lose it!”

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