Given that Wyatt has been diagnosed with Down syndrome, it means there is a lot that is different about this pregnancy from my pregnancy with Ben. While I had complications with Ben — namely, preeclampsia — and had to be monitored constantly, for the most part it wasn’t too bad. This time though? It’s like an overload of constantly having to be monitored and tested and examined. Currently, I’m having to see the doctor twice a week. I get NSTs, or Non-Stress Tests, at each visit, and then one ultrasound a week. If I have to see my maternal-fetal medicine specialist as well, then it’s three visits a week. And it will continue this way for the rest of my pregnancy, if not more often. It’s been a few weeks of this by now, and I am already so over it. I am so over the twice-weekly NSTs more than

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I’ll admit it – I’m not The Fun Mom the vast majority of the time.  My to-do list is always longer than I’d like to admit.  I also don’t like dirty or messy, and with little guys, dirty and messy is often a key component of fun.  So, as of late, I’ve been trying to be a little less busy and uptight and a little more fun. Last week, Joshua had a cast check in Morehead City.  Nathan was at preschool, so it was just Emily, Joshua, and me.  Perhaps that’s why I was brave.  Anyway, the appointment ended early, and we had just enough time to go visit the shoe store, grocery store, and some other stores before going back to pick up Nathan.  Joshua and Emily were both great for the appointment, though, so I decided it was time to go have some fun instead. Emily felt that

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There’s a woman at work due to have her baby any day and it fills the climate of the school with that super-feminine hopped up babyness that can only be accomplished with a group of women that has reached critical mass. Those with young ones at home are called upon frequently for advice or to answer questions, those recently married or just starting to think about families listen attentively, leaning in for a preview of what’s just up the road. The anticipation ebbs and flows and circulates like ocean currents around me. Around me, but not within me. I suppose as I enter the building with my own two “babies” in tow, one of whom is as tall as I am, it may not occur to her that I once had to make the same most paramount decisions: cloth or disposable, breast or bottle, co-sleeper or crib? I guess my

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The challenge each year is how to show appreciation for who mom is and what she has done.   Certainly we all know that without moms, we wouldn’t be here.   Chan and her sisters took on the challenge and began making plans to make this Mother’s Day very special.   It is always a bit of struggle because there are really no adequate ways to give thanks to someone who has sacrificed so much for others. One year the girls created memory plates with handprints.   Another year, the girls made a series of redeemable coupons for special services.  This year, from fresh cut flowers, breakfast in bed, five hand-made butterfly magnets, and a card, Chan and her sisters worked to make Mother’s Day a special one for their mom. Mother’s Day has roots as far back as the mid to late 1800s.   With official recognition by President Wilson in 1914 in the

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If there were four traits that you could be assured of your children having as “second nature” , what would they be?  That’s a great question I was asked recently. I liken the answer for some reason to construction work. Raising kids is a lot like building a “home”. I have torn down and rebuilt my “house” several times, so to speak, especially since Sharon died. Does the Devil ever leave? Sickness strikes with the deftness of a Cobra, then rolls in like an ominous incoming tide on a full moon, surging with a steady torrent of traits abhorrent to our very nature. Dread, pessimism, uncertainty and helplessness accompany this phenomenon with a Devilish glee. A parent many times is rendered helpless while observing these insidious traits invade their children’s countenance while they guard a loved one felled by sickness. It is quite disconcerting knowing the Devil is very happy

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