#WeAreLucky

“No parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life.” – Jimmy Kimmel By now, you have probably seen Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional monologue detailing the birth of his son Billy and the heart condition that he was born with. Within minutes of watching (okay, seconds), Peter and I were in tears. As Jimmy shared the harrowing and terrifying first few hours of Billy’s birth, we were fluttered by the memories of our own terrifying experience during Oliver’s birth. In September of 2015, our son Oliver was born with a very large and undetected (in utero) Lymphatic Malformation-a vascular anomaly that affects roughly 1 in 50,000 children.  (Read ...Read More
11.24.16
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WE ARE GRATEFUL If I could go back and tell my 12-year old self that life that one day, the real version of “let’s play house” would be a reality, and I would be sitting in a beautiful kitchen preparing to have 30 people at my house for Thanksgiving with a new puppy in my lap, a baby asleep in a crib, a 9-year old kicking a ball outside (okay, playing on the iPad, but dreams are fun), and an amazing partner/husband at work, and I’d be happy, like really, really happy, I wouldn’t believe you. At 12, things suuuuuck. You can’t see past tomorrow. You have no idea how things are ...Read More
11.01.16
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I have been sitting on this post for a long time. But because of the sensitive topic, and because I could not tolerate anyone casting any judgment but that of love and understanding, I have kept it private. But with just 7 days until the election, I can no longer contain it. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my childhood and trying to remember at what point I learned what certain words meant… As a mom to a 9-year old boy, it’s hard for me to remember what I knew at his age and what I may have known just by virtue of being a girl/daughter to a single ...Read More
Oliver’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear Birthday Party What Oliver wants, Oliver gets. Since day UNO. When he was a newborn…You want my boob at 1am, 4am and 6 times between 5:45 and 8:45pm? Here you go, baby. (Insert cartoon of a woman – hi, that’s me- throwing hoisting her boob over a nursing bra like a large net in the Bering sea). When he started to crawl… You want to push mommy’s new sunglasses around on the floor? Have at it. (They’re knock-offs anyway. Because, you.) When he started eating… You want to eat your weight in puffs and cheerios? Fine. Just, fine. (At least they are loaded with spinach and kale anti-oxidant chia flax omega 3 DHA super green beet juice. Who needs ...Read More
09.15.16
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For a Year Of course tonight I held him a little extra longer. Because a year ago, at this exact time, I couldn’t. I was on the 3rd floor and he was on the 4th. I was still drugged, shocked and unable to move from the waste down. He – attached to machines and in a glass basinet, unable to sleep against my chest, like I had planned. Like he was supposed to. The truth is though, I didn’t know that night how I would or should hold him anyway. Not just because of all the cords attached to him, and attached to me, and the knives that moved through my ...Read More
Go Forth and Forty I’ve typed and retyped an opening sentence 58 times. I was going to start by saying something simple and straight to the point like: “My 40th birthday is in 10 days” But that is so… it’s just… so… And not what I’m really trying to say. The problem is, I’m not sure what I’m trying to say about my birthday… That I’m sort of freaking out? That I’m sort of thrilled and excited? That I now understand the horror “magic” of my rear view mirror and all that it reveals? A lot of my older girlfriends tell me that 40 is fabulous. That at 40, you are finally confident– you know who you ...Read More
Back to School Style with JCPenney I don’t know about you, but my almost 9-year old is growing at a warp speed. Like, feet a half a size away from being the same as mine. I can’t keep up. It feels like every other month, he needs a new  — (insert clothing item here). Luckily, his birthday falls right around going back to school. Why is this lucky? Oh, because I can say “happy birthday, here’s your gift” when I buy him a new pair of sneakers… You know, the kind that comes with a huge NBA superstar guaranteeing to make your kid jump higher (as in the kind that cost ...Read More
#WeAreLucky: Supporting Children’s Hospital Los Angeles I can remember at about 3am, a nurse, (I can’t remember his name. Was it Herbert? Let’s call him Herbert) came  in and checked Oliver’s vitals. Half asleep and in a daze, I watched as then he picked up my baby boy, and gently sat him on his lap to feed him the bottle of breastmilk that he offered to give (so that I could sleep). But I couldn’t sleep. Should I get up? I can’t get up. It was night 2 of our 3 day stay at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and sleeping wasn’t in my cards. It wouldn’t be for a few days. But I could ...Read More