Last week, I got an unwanted glimpse into a world I hoped I would not be welcomed into -- cancer. It's a word that strikes fear into almost everyone, and I quickly learned I was no exception.
To be clear, while I have no fear of doctors, I very rarely visit one. In fact, I can count exactly two times in the 14 years I have lived here that I went to a doctor because I was sick.Once in 2002 when I had strep throat so severe it took me an entire day to drink one Sonic slushie. And once when I was pregnant with Reagan and had severe bronchitis (and truth be told, if I wasn't pregnant, I probably never would have gone).
I visited several doctors after an injury in 2009, and of course, there were plenty of doctor visits surrounding the pregnancy and birth of Reagan. I'm very good -- diligent, even -- about annual check-ups, but I'm definitely not someone who goes to the doctor for every bump and bruise.
This year, we experienced a significant, and unexpected, loss of income, while also experiencing a significant, and unexpected, increase in our bills. But when I noticed two odd-looking moles on my side last month, I didn't waste any time in calling a dermatologist, knowing that my co-pay would still be pretty high. Funny how having a child changed how I perceive health. I also knew the visit would most likely involve a needle (hands down, my biggest fear), but the fear of a needle is miniscule in comparison to the fear of having a devastating, and potentially fatal, illness.
The morning of my doctor visit, as I was getting ready, I found a lump. Small, movable, directly under my right arm. I would be completely lying if I didn't admit a wave of fear rushed over me. I waited a minute or two, then checked again. Yep. Still there.
I told myself over and over and over again that it was nothing. I didn't even plan to tell my husband, but he knew by the look on my face when I came downstairs that something was wrong. I assured him it was probably nothing, while I was frantically doing a Google search for "lump under arm."
I went to the dermatologist, who told me the moles I saw were fine, but there was a "sinister-looking" one on my back he'd like to remove. (Note: when they tell you the numbing shot is like a bee sting, it is -- if the bee is as big as a human. Seriously, OUCH). He removed the mole, and told me to call him on Monday for the pathology results.
To be honest, by that point, skin cancer was low on my list of worries. I ran some errands, periodically checking to see if the lump was still there. It was.
I told myself I would wait a few days to see if it went away, but, propelled by the fear of leaving my son motherless, I called that afternoon. Her nurse asked if I could come in the next morning.
"Can't we wait a few weeks to see if it goes away?" I asked, hopeful. She said, "Oh no, dear. We don't wait when a lump is involved. When's the earliest you can come in?"
I made an appointment for the following Monday. In hindsight, I should have changed my plans and gone in the next day, because the five days I had to wait for my mammogram and ultrasound gave me way too much time to figure out how advanced my cancer was, what radical treatments I could have to eliminate the cancer cells that I imagined multiplying inside of me each day, and figuring out how I would take care of a child while recovering from the surgery I was sure I would have to have.
Over a romantic birthday dinner for my husband Saturday night, we discussed what the potential treatment options would be. (I know, I have a knack for romance). By Sunday, I vowed to not do one. more. Google. search on the perils of lumps under the arm. I totally ignored the fact that only 4% of lumps in women turn out to be cancerous. I became consumed with the fact that there was a deadly disease taking host in my body.
Monday morning we all went to the hospital together. I had to have a mammogram and ultrasound, and they said they would give me the results that day. It occurred to me that I would find out within the next few hours if I had breast cancer and skin cancer, so it would either be a very good or a very bad day.
Once I got to the hospital, within one hour I saw five different people. I have to say, each person was nicer than the last, and, for a place that undoubtedly doles out plenty of bad news, it was one of the calmest, most serene places I have ever been. They even had a coffee bar! Oh happy day for me.
The office was directly across from the radiation wing, and I realized I was on a floor I sincerely hoped I would not become accustomed to. I looked at the other women, and wondered what their story was. Were they here for a routine visit? Or were they already on a painful and scary journey? I tried to read their faces, but most just smiled politely and returned to their magazine.
As I was sitting, waiting, I received a voice mail on my phone from the dermatologist's nurse. It wasn't urgent, she assured me, but she did need to talk to me that day, so could I please call her at my earliest convenience? I listened to her message twice, trying to decipher if her voice sounded positive or sympathetic. I couldn't tell.
Finally, after spending time with the fourth person, a wonderful nurse named Sadie who shared with me photos of her two grown children, while I scrolled through picture after picture of my sweet Reagan, a doctor came in. She was young, pretty, and I instantly liked her. Regardless of whatever news she was about to share with me, her presence made me feel at ease.
She stared at the screen for a minute and then asked if I had been sick recently. Yes, I told her, recounting my recent flu bout that had me shivering under a blanket when it was 81 degrees in the house, so miserable, even my skin hurt.
"Yep," she said, nodding affirmatively. "It's just a lymph node, probably from your sickness last week." She went on to explain that sometimes when a lymph node is swollen, it can indicate another kind of infection that would require a closer look, but everything looked as healthy as it could possibly be, and there was no need for me to come back for another year.
I could have skipped out of the hospital room. In fact, maybe I did. I hugged Sadie, and found my husband and Reagan, who were riding the elevator to kill time.
Ok, one down, one to go. I called the dermatologist on our way home and left a message. The nurse called me back in about 15 minutes and said the mole was benign, but there was some change, so he wanted to remove more of it in a few weeks. I asked several questions to make sure I was understanding correctly, and she assured me this was just preventative, and everything was ok. There was no cancer.
There was no cancer.
I spent five days imagining every worst-case scenario, and there was no cancer.
I was healthy.
I wasn't having major surgery. I wasn't having chemo.
No cancer.
Of course, my mind went to all of the other women who didn't receive such welcome news. I have friends who have battled cancer. I have a close friend who came out on the other side of breast cancer. I have a beloved cousin and uncle who both passed away from an aggressive form of cancer.
I didn't have cancer. I was healthy.
Since then, I've included gratitude for my health in my prayers throughout the day. Would I have been as thankful if the outcome wasn't as positive? Probably not. But, in my case, I received good news not once, but twice, in the span of a few hours, and for that, I am very, very, very grateful.
To those who have received news that wasn't as positive, I'm sorry. I'm so very, very sorry. I can't imagine how you feel. I won't pretend to understand. But after this experience, I hope that at the very least, I will become more empathetic, more understanding of those who face bad news instead of good. And I promise I will always be just a bit more grateful for my health, for as long as I have it.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Food For Thought
So I'm fed up, literally -- and figuratively -- with food. Or, to be more precise, with the majority of the food that is on our shelves, food that is erroneously marketed as healthy, which we eagerly and blindly buy into.
Disclaimer: I am the longest grocery shopper in the country. Between my label reading of every. single. item, and my coupons (and then checking my master list to see if the coupon matches a coupon already loaded on my shopper's card for even more money off), it's a two-to-three hour affair every week.
A lot of times I will find an item that, with my discounts, is free or almost free, only to put it back on the shelf because I can't in good conscience give my family the ingredients in the item. Take cooking spray. Almost every household has cooking spray. I used to have it, too. And then it ran out and I never replaced it. A few months ago, I had a coupon and it was on sale, and I started to put it in the cart, and then I read the ingredients.
Not only was the second ingredient grain alcohol, but it also had a fun little word in it called polysorbate, which is the same ingredient found in a lot of women's cosmetics, as well as in Orajel and in hair growth medicine. That sounds like the perfect thing to consume, doesn't it?
I had a HUGE awakening when I wanted to pick up some yogurt for Reagan (who so far, amazingly, likes plain yogurt mixed with fruit the best). I thought it would be nice to give him some flavored yogurt for a change, and since I had a coupon for Yoplait ... and then I read the ingredients.
Yikes.
In what seems to be an innocuous container of strawberry yogurt, I found that it is colored with carmine, which is produced by boiling (apologies to the squeamish) some scale insects in ammonia, and then adding alum (aluminum) to create the red color.
Yum.
How is this food?
We have done a large disservice to ourselves, and our health, by assuming that if a food is called healthy, it's actually full of healthy things that we want to eat.
For example, if you look at the case of butter in the grocery store, you will find a wide variety of "fat free!" "no cholesterol!" "good for your heart!" options. Except, these so-called healthy options often include phosphoric acid, which is also used as a rust remover and as a plaque-remover.
Same thing with fat-free whipped topping, i.e: Cool Whip. The first four ingredients in most brands are water, corn syrup, hydrogenated vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup. But this is, somehow, supposed to be the 'healthier' version?
Please.
We have somehow assumed that if it's calorie-free and/or fat-free, it has to be healthy, and in so doing, we have begun ingesting chemicals, additives and other ingredients that were never intended to be edible.
There's a TV show and website called Hungry Girl that epitomizes to me everything that is wrong with nutrition in America. It is run by a woman named Lisa Lillien, who I'm sure is a lovely person, but she is spearheading a movement that is creating far more harm than good. Her premise is 'healthy' foods that are low in fat and calories, so therefore, as she calls them, 'guilt-free.' She's appeared on several talk shows, including Dr. Oz, to teach people how to change their diet with her recipes to be healthier. Her cookbooks have become national best-sellers.
But the recipes she teaches takes out edible ingredients and replaces them with chemicals. Case in point -- she recently posted a recipe for a 'healthy' version of Arby's famous Jamocha shake (which, admittedly, is a ridiculously indulgent food). Instead of cream, Lisa suggests using non-fat dairy creamer.
Let's be honest - there is no way a powder is going to taste half as good as the real thing. But, even if I was willing to sacrifice taste for calories (which I'm not), the ingredients in non-fat dairy creamer are: Corn Syrup Solids, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, and/or Cottonseed Oil, Sugar, Modified Cornstarch, Dipotassium Phosphate, Sodium Caseinate, Artificial Flavor, Mono And Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Carrageenan, Salt, Betacarotene. Color.
Yeah, that sounds yummy. I'll take two helpings of Sodium Caseinate, please.
I'd much rather take the calories and fat of whole milk than add all that other garbage to my body.
I'm not sure where we became so disillusioned with the idea that calories and fat are bad. They're not. It's how we get our energy every day. Yes, too many calories and too much fat lead to weight gain. That's a given that everyone understands. But somehow, we've swung the pendulum so far the other way that we idolize thinness above health.
Moderation is a word we use often in our house. We don't ban anything, in moderation, including sweets and the occasional bag of potato chips. But what we do believe is that if we eat it one day, we don't have to eat it every day. We understand that we might order a pizza on Sunday (which we often do), but on Monday we're going to have chicken and a vegetable.
Entire series of books have been written on this topic, and I could go on and on about the risks of what the majority of Americans are feeding their bodies, but I won't. What I will say is that I don't think it's a coincidence that the incidences of cancer have risen as we continue to add chemicals to our food. Nor is it a coincidence that many of the 'cancer diets' that have proven to reduce cancer risk, or in some cases even help in the curing process, focus on whole foods with all natural ingredients.
I understand that people have lost weight using the fat-free, low-calorie options, and if that has helped them in turn become more active, thus healthier, more power to them. But I really believe that, unless something drastic is done to the way we market food in America, we are on a steep slope that will do us far more harm than good.
Disclaimer: I am the longest grocery shopper in the country. Between my label reading of every. single. item, and my coupons (and then checking my master list to see if the coupon matches a coupon already loaded on my shopper's card for even more money off), it's a two-to-three hour affair every week.
A lot of times I will find an item that, with my discounts, is free or almost free, only to put it back on the shelf because I can't in good conscience give my family the ingredients in the item. Take cooking spray. Almost every household has cooking spray. I used to have it, too. And then it ran out and I never replaced it. A few months ago, I had a coupon and it was on sale, and I started to put it in the cart, and then I read the ingredients.
Not only was the second ingredient grain alcohol, but it also had a fun little word in it called polysorbate, which is the same ingredient found in a lot of women's cosmetics, as well as in Orajel and in hair growth medicine. That sounds like the perfect thing to consume, doesn't it?
I had a HUGE awakening when I wanted to pick up some yogurt for Reagan (who so far, amazingly, likes plain yogurt mixed with fruit the best). I thought it would be nice to give him some flavored yogurt for a change, and since I had a coupon for Yoplait ... and then I read the ingredients.
Yikes.
In what seems to be an innocuous container of strawberry yogurt, I found that it is colored with carmine, which is produced by boiling (apologies to the squeamish) some scale insects in ammonia, and then adding alum (aluminum) to create the red color.
Yum.
How is this food?
We have done a large disservice to ourselves, and our health, by assuming that if a food is called healthy, it's actually full of healthy things that we want to eat.
For example, if you look at the case of butter in the grocery store, you will find a wide variety of "fat free!" "no cholesterol!" "good for your heart!" options. Except, these so-called healthy options often include phosphoric acid, which is also used as a rust remover and as a plaque-remover.
Same thing with fat-free whipped topping, i.e: Cool Whip. The first four ingredients in most brands are water, corn syrup, hydrogenated vegetable oil and high fructose corn syrup. But this is, somehow, supposed to be the 'healthier' version?
Please.
We have somehow assumed that if it's calorie-free and/or fat-free, it has to be healthy, and in so doing, we have begun ingesting chemicals, additives and other ingredients that were never intended to be edible.
There's a TV show and website called Hungry Girl that epitomizes to me everything that is wrong with nutrition in America. It is run by a woman named Lisa Lillien, who I'm sure is a lovely person, but she is spearheading a movement that is creating far more harm than good. Her premise is 'healthy' foods that are low in fat and calories, so therefore, as she calls them, 'guilt-free.' She's appeared on several talk shows, including Dr. Oz, to teach people how to change their diet with her recipes to be healthier. Her cookbooks have become national best-sellers.
But the recipes she teaches takes out edible ingredients and replaces them with chemicals. Case in point -- she recently posted a recipe for a 'healthy' version of Arby's famous Jamocha shake (which, admittedly, is a ridiculously indulgent food). Instead of cream, Lisa suggests using non-fat dairy creamer.
Let's be honest - there is no way a powder is going to taste half as good as the real thing. But, even if I was willing to sacrifice taste for calories (which I'm not), the ingredients in non-fat dairy creamer are: Corn Syrup Solids, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, and/or Cottonseed Oil, Sugar, Modified Cornstarch, Dipotassium Phosphate, Sodium Caseinate, Artificial Flavor, Mono And Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Carrageenan, Salt, Betacarotene. Color.
Yeah, that sounds yummy. I'll take two helpings of Sodium Caseinate, please.
I'd much rather take the calories and fat of whole milk than add all that other garbage to my body.
I'm not sure where we became so disillusioned with the idea that calories and fat are bad. They're not. It's how we get our energy every day. Yes, too many calories and too much fat lead to weight gain. That's a given that everyone understands. But somehow, we've swung the pendulum so far the other way that we idolize thinness above health.
Moderation is a word we use often in our house. We don't ban anything, in moderation, including sweets and the occasional bag of potato chips. But what we do believe is that if we eat it one day, we don't have to eat it every day. We understand that we might order a pizza on Sunday (which we often do), but on Monday we're going to have chicken and a vegetable.
Entire series of books have been written on this topic, and I could go on and on about the risks of what the majority of Americans are feeding their bodies, but I won't. What I will say is that I don't think it's a coincidence that the incidences of cancer have risen as we continue to add chemicals to our food. Nor is it a coincidence that many of the 'cancer diets' that have proven to reduce cancer risk, or in some cases even help in the curing process, focus on whole foods with all natural ingredients.
I understand that people have lost weight using the fat-free, low-calorie options, and if that has helped them in turn become more active, thus healthier, more power to them. But I really believe that, unless something drastic is done to the way we market food in America, we are on a steep slope that will do us far more harm than good.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
The Struggle of Motherhood
Let me start by saying, I love my son. And by love, I mean that deep, aching part inside of me that realizes I would give my life in half of a second for this child. That love that would rather throw a ball back and forth with him or read Good Night Moon 10,582 times (in a row) or watch him accumulate handfuls of dirt and rocks in his pudgy little hands, than do just about anything else. That love that can stare at him in wonderment for hours, just marveling at his perfection. That's the kind of love I'm talking about. It's an all-encompassing, eternal, bigger-than-me feeling that I've had for this precious little boy since I first found out I was pregnant, and impossibly, continues to grow exponentially every single day.
Because my husband and I were, ahem, older when we became parents, I thought the whole parenting thing would be a breeze. By the time Reagan came along, I had traveled, enjoyed my freedom, saved up a little bit of money, experienced some unbelievable life events, and checked just about everything off of my List of Things I Want To Do Before I Have a Baby. So, I really thought adding a 7 lb. bundle of sweetness would only make everything in my life more magical, more special, more ... better (yes, I know, bad grammar).
And, for the first couple of days, it did, aside from the ridiculous amount of sleep deprivation babies make us go through. His delivery was a breeze -- as in (women who gave birth, please don't hate) an I-pushed-for-10-minutes delivery. He ate, and he slept, and repeated that cycle for days on end.
But somewhere around the end of his first week of life, my perfect ideal of how I imagined this chapter of my life to go, started to unravel a little bit. It began when I had to supplement nursing with formula because my milk production was so low. Reagan discovered that drinking from a bottle was much easier than Mommy's method, and he began to loudly, and angrily, express his preference.
And then, just as we were figuring out the balance between nursing and formula, he developed colic. (Let me just stop here and offer my sincerest and deepest apologies to all of my friends who had a colicky baby and I did not offer the appropriate amount of Advil and chocolate, because both are vital to surviving this phase of infancy).
In a matter of days, it seemed our almost-perfect child turned into a miserable, crying, whining, angry little boy. For days (Weeks? A month? The time frame is a blissful blur by now), by late afternoon/early evening, nothing made Reagan happy. No amount of driving, swinging, rocking, singing, walking, or any combination of the above, could even begin to silence this wailing, pitiful child. Nothing. We took him to the doctor (twice), we took him off dairy, we read all the books about dealing with a colicky baby, and we gritted our teeth and sometimes just cried along with him.
And then, just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. But, soon after that, he became ... mobile! Who knew there came a time when you could no longer just lay them in the middle of the floor on a blanket and walk away? Who knew that they started pulling on things, and getting into things, and staying on the move all. the. time?
I should add, that while my husband goes above and beyond in doing housework and taking care of the mundane stuff of life (I wash dishes maybe once a month, for example), he was at the time working 6 days a week. And some of those days, he left at 8 in the morning, and got home after 7:30. There were moments I'd get excited to see the UPS man, just to have another adult to talk to for 4 seconds.
Here was the rub for me: For years, my time was my own. Completely. Outside of a work event (which I could accept or decline), every hour of every day was entirely structured by me for the past 10 years. And then suddenly, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, someone else was telling me what to do with my day. Cute as he was, sometimes I didn't want to stop what I was doing to rescue him from whatever perilous situation he was in. Sometimes I didn't feel like rocking him for 45 minutes so he would nap for 10. Sometimes I didn't want to feed him yet again (where do little babies put all their food, anyway?) And let's not even talk about how many diapers this little boy could fill.
True confession: 95% of the time I delighted in his sweet little angelic perfect cherub-esque face. But the other 5%, when people would say to me, "I bet you love being a Mom," I would smile and nod and kiss his ample cheeks and silently think, "Are you crazy??"
A well-meaning -- but pretty clueless -- friend, who started her family when she was still in her early 20s, would say to me, ad nauseum, "You have no idea how much your life is about to change." She didn't say it with the sense of happiness or excitement from the pure joy that babies, even colicky ones, can bring. She said it from a sad, almost resentful place of, "Enjoy your free time now, because soon you won't have any. Ever." Others made similar comments, of course, and some of them I chewed on, and some I dismissed, but mostly I just wanted to smack them on their foreheads and go, "Duh! I know it's about to change!"
And I did know all of that. But what I didn't know was how much I (gulp) didn't always want the change. I wanted Reagan. Desperately, madly, fiercely, I wanted him. I just wanted him to eat and sleep and play on my schedule. But there's a funny thing about babies -- they are pretty self-centered.
Here's what I wish someone had said to me: It's going to be hard. It's going to be really, really hard, and some days you will want to give up. But for every difficult moment, there are a thousand good ones. For every sleepless night, there are beautiful baby cuddles. For every crying fit that goes on for hours, there will be a spontaneous giggle over bath bubbles, or a puppy dog, or the way your hair touches his face. For every moment you want to run away, there will be the times when he reaches his arms up for you, and you're almost positive it's the best feeling in the world.
Now, Reagan is a 17-month-old non-stop force of energy, and he makes my world. Every morning I wake up excited to spend another day with him. I can (almost) forget those challenging early few months when I was trying to find my footing and my new identity, because these days are just really, really good. He sleeps nine to 10 hours a night, he naps without crying (most of the time), he talks (Mama, Dada, Oh mo, Oh yeah, Oh wow, ice and some odd syllable that I'm pretty sure is supposed to be "shoe"), and he makes us laugh all the time. He loves to be chased, he loves to eat, he loves to splash in his kiddie pool, and he is a ridiculously great traveler.
Yes. My life changed. In every way, my life changed. And every day, it keeps getting better and better and better.
Because my husband and I were, ahem, older when we became parents, I thought the whole parenting thing would be a breeze. By the time Reagan came along, I had traveled, enjoyed my freedom, saved up a little bit of money, experienced some unbelievable life events, and checked just about everything off of my List of Things I Want To Do Before I Have a Baby. So, I really thought adding a 7 lb. bundle of sweetness would only make everything in my life more magical, more special, more ... better (yes, I know, bad grammar).
And, for the first couple of days, it did, aside from the ridiculous amount of sleep deprivation babies make us go through. His delivery was a breeze -- as in (women who gave birth, please don't hate) an I-pushed-for-10-minutes delivery. He ate, and he slept, and repeated that cycle for days on end.
But somewhere around the end of his first week of life, my perfect ideal of how I imagined this chapter of my life to go, started to unravel a little bit. It began when I had to supplement nursing with formula because my milk production was so low. Reagan discovered that drinking from a bottle was much easier than Mommy's method, and he began to loudly, and angrily, express his preference.
And then, just as we were figuring out the balance between nursing and formula, he developed colic. (Let me just stop here and offer my sincerest and deepest apologies to all of my friends who had a colicky baby and I did not offer the appropriate amount of Advil and chocolate, because both are vital to surviving this phase of infancy).
In a matter of days, it seemed our almost-perfect child turned into a miserable, crying, whining, angry little boy. For days (Weeks? A month? The time frame is a blissful blur by now), by late afternoon/early evening, nothing made Reagan happy. No amount of driving, swinging, rocking, singing, walking, or any combination of the above, could even begin to silence this wailing, pitiful child. Nothing. We took him to the doctor (twice), we took him off dairy, we read all the books about dealing with a colicky baby, and we gritted our teeth and sometimes just cried along with him.
And then, just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. But, soon after that, he became ... mobile! Who knew there came a time when you could no longer just lay them in the middle of the floor on a blanket and walk away? Who knew that they started pulling on things, and getting into things, and staying on the move all. the. time?
I should add, that while my husband goes above and beyond in doing housework and taking care of the mundane stuff of life (I wash dishes maybe once a month, for example), he was at the time working 6 days a week. And some of those days, he left at 8 in the morning, and got home after 7:30. There were moments I'd get excited to see the UPS man, just to have another adult to talk to for 4 seconds.
Here was the rub for me: For years, my time was my own. Completely. Outside of a work event (which I could accept or decline), every hour of every day was entirely structured by me for the past 10 years. And then suddenly, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, someone else was telling me what to do with my day. Cute as he was, sometimes I didn't want to stop what I was doing to rescue him from whatever perilous situation he was in. Sometimes I didn't feel like rocking him for 45 minutes so he would nap for 10. Sometimes I didn't want to feed him yet again (where do little babies put all their food, anyway?) And let's not even talk about how many diapers this little boy could fill.
True confession: 95% of the time I delighted in his sweet little angelic perfect cherub-esque face. But the other 5%, when people would say to me, "I bet you love being a Mom," I would smile and nod and kiss his ample cheeks and silently think, "Are you crazy??"
A well-meaning -- but pretty clueless -- friend, who started her family when she was still in her early 20s, would say to me, ad nauseum, "You have no idea how much your life is about to change." She didn't say it with the sense of happiness or excitement from the pure joy that babies, even colicky ones, can bring. She said it from a sad, almost resentful place of, "Enjoy your free time now, because soon you won't have any. Ever." Others made similar comments, of course, and some of them I chewed on, and some I dismissed, but mostly I just wanted to smack them on their foreheads and go, "Duh! I know it's about to change!"
And I did know all of that. But what I didn't know was how much I (gulp) didn't always want the change. I wanted Reagan. Desperately, madly, fiercely, I wanted him. I just wanted him to eat and sleep and play on my schedule. But there's a funny thing about babies -- they are pretty self-centered.
Here's what I wish someone had said to me: It's going to be hard. It's going to be really, really hard, and some days you will want to give up. But for every difficult moment, there are a thousand good ones. For every sleepless night, there are beautiful baby cuddles. For every crying fit that goes on for hours, there will be a spontaneous giggle over bath bubbles, or a puppy dog, or the way your hair touches his face. For every moment you want to run away, there will be the times when he reaches his arms up for you, and you're almost positive it's the best feeling in the world.
Now, Reagan is a 17-month-old non-stop force of energy, and he makes my world. Every morning I wake up excited to spend another day with him. I can (almost) forget those challenging early few months when I was trying to find my footing and my new identity, because these days are just really, really good. He sleeps nine to 10 hours a night, he naps without crying (most of the time), he talks (Mama, Dada, Oh mo, Oh yeah, Oh wow, ice and some odd syllable that I'm pretty sure is supposed to be "shoe"), and he makes us laugh all the time. He loves to be chased, he loves to eat, he loves to splash in his kiddie pool, and he is a ridiculously great traveler.
Yes. My life changed. In every way, my life changed. And every day, it keeps getting better and better and better.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
So I'm blogging ....
I know, I know -- it took me long enough to join the blogging world. The truth is, I have many, many blogs written in my head, but getting them down on paper (er, computer) is easier said than done. But, I am committed to giving a voice to the ramblings that go on inside my mind, thus, the blog.
Here's what I hope the blog will be: part funny, part family, part faith, part food. Here's what I hope it's not: political, offensive (to anyone), or a one-way conversation. I hope to gain new friends, listen to new opinions, and share a few smiles along the way.
I'm still working out the kinks and figuring out how to set everything up, so the site will, hopefully, change appearance and become better looking as I (who is admittedly not the most tech-savvy person) figure everything out in the near future.
Stay tuned ...
Here's what I hope the blog will be: part funny, part family, part faith, part food. Here's what I hope it's not: political, offensive (to anyone), or a one-way conversation. I hope to gain new friends, listen to new opinions, and share a few smiles along the way.
I'm still working out the kinks and figuring out how to set everything up, so the site will, hopefully, change appearance and become better looking as I (who is admittedly not the most tech-savvy person) figure everything out in the near future.
Stay tuned ...
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