Joy, Relief, Remembrances, and Celebration

Summertime and the living is easy...

This will be a fragmented post. My apologies.

...

For all of you who have been keeping RH in your thoughts, I'm happy to report that we have the results of her MRI. (Yes, I'll write about the MRI itself, once the trauma has worn down.)

She does not have a cord tether.
And she does not have brain cancer.

She'll still be getting physical therapy, starting next week I hope, but in the meantime we can relax and stop worrying about it.

Because she's still doing great.

This kid? She knows how to freak me out. She seems to WANT to freak me out once in a while. So she waited until right before that MRI, and what did she do?



That's right. She crawls. And it's adorable.

Unfortunately, now that I've started saying things like, "Oh no! RH is escaping!" as she makes a bolt for the door of whatever room we're in, DD and SI have started giving her brand new opportunities to escape.

Like opening the front door to our apartment so that she can "escape" down three flights of stairs.

Fun.

...

Did you know that May is ALS Awareness Month?
I have a blogging buddy. She lost her mom to ALS last year. It was a long, excruciating process. This post is heartbreaking, and it puts this disease into perspective for people who might not realize what ALS is, what it does. For one agonizing, horrific weekend we were terrified that M might have ALS, and that the diagnosis "brain cancer" was a comfort should give you some idea. Please take a moment to learn about ALS this month.

And maybe consider donating to an organization that helps ALS patients.


...

Did you know that May is also Jewish Heritage Awareness Month? I had no idea this was even a thing. And so here are what I think might be my most raw posts about my Jewish Heritage.
What's In A Name?
Day of Remembrance


...

Poppa and SI at the zoo

Tomorrow, the family is heading off for Iowa, to celebrate Poppa. He's receiving an honorary doctorate from his alma mater. At first he thought that this would be a sweet gesture on the part of his old college, but it's sort of snowballed. There will be 14(!!) of us there to cheer him on, he'll be delivering a speech at commencement, and he'll be joining a fairly prestigious club of honorees. There were a couple of presidents, Martin Luther King, Jr., you get the idea.

I think he's starting to freak out just a bit. I'm sure he'll be great. His hair is... fine.

And so, tomorrow the motley crew and I will pack ourselves into the minivan and drive to the middle of nowhere.

DD and SI have recently learned that only ONE of them can actually see RH at a time in the car. They fight endlessly about who gets to make faces at the baby. This is a five hour drive. With no functional DVD player in the car.

Should be a blast. :)

...Life is But A Dream

Rolling down the river...

Well, we didn't "Row, row, row" the boat, but it was an amazing time nonetheless.

To celebrate M's victory over his Master's program, I got him a little graduation gift.  Thanks to the modern marvel that is Groupon (and all the other group-based discount companies- this one might have actually been Living Social) I was able to rent us an electric yacht (with a Captain!) for a leisurely architecture tour and dinner cruising down the Chicago River.

...I don't think he realized he was going to be carting around a bunch of art, architecture, construction, engineering, and urban planning nerds.  That certainly changes the tenor of any conversation about, well, buildings.

It's amazing... when you live in a world class city, there's sort of a stigma to "tourist-y" activities.  You don't need to go to the top of the Sear's (sorry, Willis) Tower- you're a LOCAL.  You don't need to dedicate days to museum hopping, you're a LOCAL.  You certainly don't need to go around downtown looking straight up at the buildings' dizzying heights- what are you, some sort of country bumpkin?

No.  You're a local, dammit, and that means you are officially too cool for those sorts of activities.

Which is utter nonsense.

Fun is fun, cool is cool, and the things that get relegated to the sphere of "tourist activities" aren't by default lame or uninteresting simply because they're a great way to enjoy the Chicago-ness of Chicago.

We had never taken a river tour.  And this was an amazing way to do it.

We picked up Five Guys for dinner (don't worry about my gall bladder- I had some fruit and veggie rolls from Whole Foods- YUM), and met up with some of M's best friends from college for the boat ride.

The day could not have been nicer.  Around eighty and sunny, with barely a breeze, we started off about half an hour before the sun started to set.  It was absolutely gorgeous.

The girls had a BLAST.  I think their favorite part was the other boats, they loved waving to people on the water taxis!  My favorite was when a little speed boat was going by- the driver topless- and SI shouted out over and over again, "That daddy is naked!"

That was freakin' great.

So without further ado- the photo spam!  (And many thanks to Aunt Texas, who's photographs are way better than mine!)

Before taking off (or even getting her life jacket on)- SI with Grandpa

DD was nervous at first- but the presence of french fries quickly calmed her down.  Just as the sweet tea vodka did for Grandma.

We love Aunt Texas!  Which makes it all the sadder that she and Uncle Texas are moving... back to Texas.

Uncle Texas, Max (one day you'll get your own blog name), and M

Our fair city

On for ten minutes every day (weather permitting), the Centennial Fountain commemorates the reversal of the Chicago River.  Which is a fascinating story that I won't tell you now.

My kind of town...

DD, SI, Uncle Texas, and Aunt Texas 

Mini-cupcakes in M's new school colors

DD enjoying the sights

I might be pointing out ducks, I'm not sure.

Warming up to Max- who they don't see very often

Seems like Max is okay...

Yeah, he's cool.

Congratulations M!  And hooray for boats!

Master of the House

M, Master of Structural Engineering

Some things are not easy.

My husband has a lot of experience in this department.  He had a position that was just this close to his dream job, at a firm that supported him through brain cancer, through our wedding... his boss was a friend, mentor, and ally.  And then the market crashed, investors pulled the plug on the thousands of construction projects, large and small, that kept M's industry going, and he lost his job.  That was a few weeks before the girls were born.

...it was also three months before he had enough work experience to take a major licensing exam that would improve his prospects exponentially.

For a year, my husband searched and searched for work.  He even had a job for a day- one day- when his employer learned that he was on anti-seizure drugs as a result of his brain surgery... and he lost the job.

He finally got a job, right around the girls' first birthday.

We didn't bring the girls- it was cold and rainy.

And that job was Hell.  He would wake up at an ungodly hour, drive to Gary, IN of all horrific places, spend all day in the steel mill inspecting reports of inspections of things that nobody would repair, and making photocopies.  His office was a masterpiece of inefficiency.  He was the only person who knew how to use Excel, and ended up- thanks to his intimidating size- being wrangled into acting as security every time his boss fired somebody.  He was yelled at daily for things like looking at other people's desks- which he had to do in order to scope out available work stations.  Because in the fifteen months he was there, he never got a computer to do his work on.

He worked seventy to eighty hour weeks.

I managed to sit where we could make eyes at each other

And on top of that, the same month that he finally started working, he also started working on his Master's.

He left our house at four in the morning, worked all day, and then drove past our house, back up to school.  And he stayed there and studied.  And then he came home, slept for about four or five hours, and did it again.

On weekends as well.

When he finally got a job that took him out of Gary and put him back into his actual field and area of expertise, it was in a chaotic crunch for a deadline.  He went from working seventy hours a week at the mill to working seventy hours a week downtown, engineering what I believe will be the second tallest building in Europe once it's completed.  He loved the work, but it gave him so much less time to study.  There just weren't enough hours in the day to keep up the pace.  And still, he kept at it.

I love this man.

During last semester, my husband held three different jobs in two states.

For a remarkable amount of the last year and half, my husband has hardly seen his children.  They all live under the same roof, but more days than not M has been out of the house before the woke up and didn't return until well after bedtime.  But whenever he could be he has been here, and his children have never doubted for an instant that they are the most important thing in his world.

My husband is a brain cancer survivor, and he still has some problems relating to that cancer.  He has a lowered seizure threshold.  He has nerve damage in one leg.

What he accomplished would have been a remarkable feat for anyone.

On Saturday, my husband received his Master's degree.

M with Grandpa and Grandma

He says he doesn't feel like it's a big deal.  He sees it as just another step he needed to take to get back to where he wanted to be before the floor fell out from under us.  He thinks that he could have done better, he could have prioritized his time better, he could have done more.  Already, he's pus aside any pride or excitement about his degree, in order to focus on that licensing exam coming up in the fall.  It's been three days.

Nobody could have done more.  Nobody else could have been everything that M has been to this family.  Nobody besides him could have possibly believed that with all of the things he had done... all the work, all the studying, all the sleep deprivation.... that it wasn't enough.  That they didn't do enough.

It was more than enough.

I am more proud of my husband than I can say.

Congratulations, M.  You earned this.

You are enough for this family.  And we are so grateful to have you back again.

And we love you more than you can possibly know.

I love this man.
...he is both a giant and a genius.  And he is the most important thing in my world.

Alternate Plans

Several weeks ago

As you probably know from glancing to the right hand side of your screen, or from glancing at this picture right here... I'm super pregnant right now.  Due with grubling number three in a number of weeks.  I anticipate that she'll be a little early.

And, as you probably know from reading several recent posts, it has been my plan to have a VBAC.

But, as my OB constantly likes to tell me, "There's just something weird about your uterus, isn't there?"

What's weird about it?  The only position that babies like to hang out in there is transverse.

...babies can't come out vaginally if they're transverse.  It just doesn't work.  It's like a German Shepherd trying to climb through a cat door starting with one hing leg.  Not going to happen.

Sort of this time last pregnancy- with twins
(I had actually already popped by now)

(Yes, I just compared my vagina to a cat door.)

So we're back to the glorious days of "trying to turn the baby around."  How I remember this from my previous pregnancy.  The daily moxabustion, the routine acupuncture, the hanging out upside down, the flashlights, the music, the firm but cautious belly massage to gently encourage this stubborn little one to just get her damn hip out of my cervix and replace it with her head...

And in the meantime, I need to reconcile myself to the idea that I might very well be facing a repeat c-section.  Because nobody will let me try to labor a transverse baby out naturally, even under the best of circumstances.

And while I endeavor to make peace with the facts of my "weird uterus" and the remind myself that the invention of the c-section is responsible for such advances as ensuring that a woman and transverse twins can all survive the birth process, I learn/remember more and more of the things that I loathed about the end of pregnancy.

Over eating is a problem.

Like "Things That Cause Contractions."

1. Over eating
2. Coughing
3. Climbing the stairs to my third floor walk-up
4. Laughing too hard
5. Lifting up my daughters to tickle them
6. Vomiting

...oh right, vomiting.

I caught a stomach bug this week.  Always glorious when you're into your final month of pregnancy.

I should be back at 100% in... well... let's face it, not until after this baby comes out.  Give me another month, and we'll see how things are going over at Casa SuperMommy.  In the meantime, what's happening around here?

They're awfully cute.

On Friday we're going out to celebrate M's success with a dinner cruise down the river.  Yes, there will be lots of pictures of the girls being very excited on a boat.

Saturday, my husband receives his Master's degree.  I've never seen anyone work so hard as he has these last two years in my entire life.  There will be many pictures of him with his hood and diploma.

The following Monday, it's back to school with me for my final class.

...and the following weekend my friends are throwing me a baby shower.

...and then it's me and M's anniversary.

...and then Baby X is due.

Somewhere in there, the girls are being evaluated for a speech delay (twins, what can I say?), I'm *hopefully* finishing up some nursery projects and belated wedding presents, and we're taking the girls to their first baseball game.

So in short, I'm sorry I haven't been around much.  Things have been busy.  They are SO busy.  And much as I love you all, and I LOVE writing, and I wish I could be here, writing, daily...

Well...

This month is non-stop insanity.

I think you all probably understand.  :)

That said, you can expect a post for each of the super fun things we do around here.  Which means, at least two a week all month (plus the Sunday Blogaround).  And then?  Then I think I'm going to hand the reigns over to Poppa to write about the early days with Baby X for a while.  If he's willing.

Cheers-
Becoming SuperMommy

Pomp and Circumstance

You might have noticed it's been a bit quiet over here the last couple of days.

I didn't even post a Sunday Blogaround this week, and I'm sorry for that.

But you see... I've been busy.

I graduated from college.

...sort of.  I still have one summer class I've got to hammer out- it starts a week from today.  And hopefully, I'll finish it before this baby evacuates my womb in a safe and relatively friendly manner.  But I did the graduation thing.  I put on a cap and gown, and I walked across a stage, and I shook hands, and grinned like a crazy idiot, and received an empty folio to put my diploma in when it finally arrives.

Although I could have, I didn't graduate with honors.

I graduated with my totally unspectacular credentials at 28 years old.

I graduated in a TINY class, comprised only of people who knew each other well.  Who, for the first time, I opened up to in a personal way.  Because for the first time, I was presented with them as people, rather than obstacles to my success.

Most of my classmates?  They didn't know I was pregnant.  I've been scarce this semester.

Most of my classmates?  They didn't know I had kids.  A husband.  A life outside of my brief intrusions into their class discussions where it was clear that only I and the token neo-Con had done the homework.

But I did get to graduate with a few of the folks that I considered *my* classmates.  When I started with the program, I knew everyone.  There were about a dozen of us at first, and my two favorite classmates were there with me.  One is now the assistant to the undergrad department head, the other was receiving his master's.  They know what the last five years have been like for me.

Since I started at this program, five years ago, my husband was diagnosed with and then beat brain cancer.  I took time away from school to take care of him.

I got married.  I took time away from school for that.

I got pregnant with twins.  I took time away from school to gestate them.

And I went back, part time, and got pregnant again.  And this pregnancy has been hard.  I've had gall bladder disease, skin cancer, SPD, and I've been under a ridiculous amount of emotional strain.

And here I am, nine months in.

One class left, but the hard part has passed.

From here on out, I have no idea what is going to happen.

But I know how hard I worked to get here.

And I am proud of all I've done.

Thirteen years, I've been at this.  Thirteen years I've been taking classes, learning, at first loving my education for every minute lesson it offered me, lately slogging through because it didn't matter whether or not I was learning- the end was near.  And now?

Worth it.

Every single second.

If I was giving a commencement speech, it would look like this:

I've been very busy.  Tomorrow, after about thirteen years of studying whatever the hell I wanted at a college level, I'm graduating.  And because I can't do anything BUT write whenever my mind dwells on an event or a milestone or an emotion... I wrote a commencement speech.  And here it is.




There are some who would say that, now that college is over, our best years lie ahead.

That may be true.

There are also those that say that our best years are already behind us.

And this might also be true.

You have no doubt heard that you get out of college what you put into it, that all of your hard work or lack thereof will pay off.

And this might also be true.

But I don't think any of it is.

Life is life, simply put.  It is not always fair.  Sometimes, you work as hard as you can and you have nothing to show for it.  Sometimes, you coast through without a care in the world, and everything just works out for you.  Sometimes, the best time of your life seems to have passed, and you are faced with a future filled with terrifying unknowns.  Sometimes, the future seems to be full of nothing but promise.

But I do know one thing...

Life is what you make it.

What matters not only to you but to the success or failure of your life only makes a difference because you have made certain choices, set certain priorities.  It only matters because you choose to make it matter.

Today, we can celebrate one fantastic accomplishment.  But only you know how significant it will be to your life, to your future, to your success.

And then again, maybe you don't.

Life is what you make it.  Go into the world a make a difference.  Go into the world and work your butt off, and collect your paychecks, and enjoy the fruits of your labors.  Go into the world and do what brings you joy.  Make your permanent mark on society.  Change the landscape of our lives.

This is a time to revel in possibilities, but every day is a time to revel in possibilities.

Every day is filled with the promise of the rest of your life.

If you figure out how to live your whole life with that in mind, you cannot help but to succeed.  Because you are the only measure of your own success.

You are the champion of your own cause.

You are the author of your destiny.

Whatever ideas you have now for your end game, abandon them.  Life has no end game.  There are no winners and losers.  There are only those who reach the end satisfied with the journey, and those who leave behind an endless wake of "what ifs" and second guesses.

You have the tools to take control, to succeed in your dreams.

And that makes today no different from every day of your so-called "adulthood."

Today you are one step closer to a lifetime of happiness, because today you are one step closer to having led a full life.

Congratulations.

And good luck.

Sunday Blogaround 4.29.12

It's that time again!  Best blog posts of the week!

"Bip!" - Suburban Rebel Mom
This one had me laughing my ass off.  I can totally picture M in his epic battle to get something just out of reach- particularly as so much of his self identity is defined by his absurd height.  ;)


"Help!  I'm Pregnant!" - The Happy Hippie Homemaker
Yup.  I'm with her 100%.


"Because I Said So, That's Why" - Momaiku
This blogger writes a haiku a day about parenting teenagers.  This one cracked me up so hard that I had to forego some of her other fabulous posts this week to bring you this one instead.


"When Wilbur Met Henry" - Daddy Knows Less
It's never too early to teach your children about love, acceptance, tolerance, and diversity.  Well done to DKL for this gem.


"Bros for Life, Bro" - Preposterous Pace
Another one that cracked me up, start to finish.  I freakin' hate college students.  And this is hilarious.


"Fatkini 2012" - GABIFRESH
I think we could all use a dose of this kind of self confidence.  I'm not saying that I'm going to rock the Fatkini... but I'm definitely tempted.  She looks awesome. :)


"Defining Moments: Lea" - The Mom Pledge Blog
I know, it's an interview with me.  But it's about my birth experience with DD and SI, and I'm very glad to share it.


"And There Will I Keep You Forever" - Fall of James
I think every parent has had this moment of reflection and awe.


"Oh... is for Opera: A Parent/Teacher Guide" - Departing the Text
I love this.  I mean, I love opera, but this is a wonderful explanation of why it's good for children, how to introduce it to children, and what operas might be the best for different age groups.  Lotsa love to Looney Tunes in here.

The (Almost) Final Stretch

My second year of college

Today is Monday.  On Friday I will take my last final, and after a week of calm decompressing and general tying of loose ends... I graduate from college.

I won't technically be *done*, I still have that summer class.  But THAT is IT.

I started going to college when I was 15.  It was my mom's idea.  My high school had a new dean who had changed a lot of policies... policies that were why I was there in the first place.  Suddenly, I wasn't learning.  And I wasn't challenged (very related).  And I stopped going.

For the first time in my life, I brought home a report card filled with negative comments, bad grades, and truancy.  And when I told my mother why, she said, "Just drop out.  We'll tell the state we're home schooling you, and you can go to community college instead."

And that is just what I did.  I enrolled for two classes my first semester.  I loved them.  The next semester I enrolled full time.  I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to do that- apparently, you can't enroll full time in college unless you've graduated from high school.  But... nobody noticed that I was young, nobody noticed that I was actually a high school student hanging around the community college... and so I did.  And I loved it.

Each semester I got more ambitious.  Not about what I was going to do after college.  I don't think I ever spared a moment's thought to that.  I got ambitious about what I could learn right then.  I took every class that appealed to me.  I switched majors.  Twice.  I became a regular fixture in the advising center to get permission to take more than the normally allowed 18 credits.  I took summer classes.  For the heck of it.

Me as Magenta in the Rocky Horror Picture Show

The fall of what would have been my senior year of high school, I registered for 28 credits.  I also performed in a local production of "La Casa Bernarda Alba," "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," helped build the costumes and set for Rocky, did my first featured art show, and began visiting university campuses and applying to transfer to different schools.

I only slept for two hours a night, most nights.  During "Mash," from 5-7am.  I finished the semesters with seven 'A's and a 'C.'

Then I transferred, with a scholarship, to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  And starting on the day of orientation, I began to think about the future.  About what the hell I was going to do once I was done being in college.  I was an eighteen year old junior.  I took a few master's level writing classes.  I got in fights with my professors about the "correct" size for a collage.

I left art school and joined AmeriCorps as a VISTA, and I spent most of a year working in the Chicago slums.

After AmeriCorps I went to fashion design school, on a scholarship.

I left fashion design school and went back to community college, only this time in Chicago- majoring in philosophy.

Prepping a mural on Chicago's south side

I left community college and went back to AmeriCorps for a second year, with City Year Chicago.  It was my job to advocate for what the volunteers did, to organize events, to basically lobby our cause with local politicians.  I met Barak Obama (who I asked point blank to run for president) and Bobby Rush (who seemed harmless and detatched) and John Edwards (who struck me as the biggest turd I had ever encountered).  I loved it- everything except the organization.  I decided that maybe- just maybe- public service was what I wanted to do with my life.

While I was in City Year, I learned about a brand new undergrad program- starting the next fall- in Urban Policy and Public Administration.

And I got into that.

I was a twenty three year old junior.

My fiance was diagnosed with brain cancer.  I got married.  I got pregnant.  I had twins.  I got pregnant again.

And now, five years after I started, after watching every single student to ever be in that program graduate, I am finishing.

These things kept me from finishing... for a while

I have never graduated from anything.  Not from high school, not from college.  I've never put on a cap and gown.  I've never been congratulated and called a "graduate."  I've felt indignant and misunderstood every time I've checked a box that described my education as "some college," because I had enough credits for more than an ABD Ph.D.  I could have had a doctorate in learning fascinating things and acquiring useful skills at a college and post collegiate level, but they don't hand out diplomas for that.

I am actually going to graduate from something.  I think.  Probably.  Unless some sort of epic disaster strikes.

I'll still have one class to do, but I can do it.  I can do one more class.

One more class.  And a new baby.

The end is in sight.

Looking Back to Look Forward

It's been a good year.

This year's holiday card

We're getting ready to head off on our last holiday journey for the year.  Packing (rather, laundering and re-packing), cleaning up after the Christmas and Channukah toy explosions, and cramming in as many last minute important appointments as possible.  Which means that this is the last you'll hear from me for the year.

As I think back on 2011, I have a hard time distinguishing it from pretty much the entire length of time that my children have been here- out of the womb and in the world.  I know that will pass, that eventually time will return to something resembling the progression I knew in my pre-SuperMommy era.  But in order to get a handle on the year, I went back and reviewed everything I wrote here, in this blog, over the course of 2011.

So today, rather than an expose on my incredible OCD tendencies (which I promise I will subject you to as soon as we return from Michigan), I will instead share with you again the eight posts from the year that I think best summed up my 2011, with a little introduction explaining why they mean so much to me.

This year's holiday card- inside

I know, I could have thrown in announcing my pregnancy or my thoughts on the tenth anniversary of September 11th to round it to a nice solid 10 posts, but neither of those meant as much to my year as individual events as the general feeling of the other eight to explain the whole effect of my 2011.  So please excuse the random number, and instead take them for what they're worth- the entirety of a year in the life of Yours Truly.

I hope you enjoy them as much the second time around as I did.







Glaciers and Caterpillars
I don't know how it happens.  They just keep growing up.  Every once in a while M comments that he SWEARS that when he went to work the previous day, they didn't know half the words they did when he came home again.  Some days, he seems to be right.  This post really summed up those feelings for me.

One of our Holiday Pics

Teacher's Helper, or, Childcare Disaster Zone
This post sums up two very important aspects of my life- the first, how incredibly difficult it can be to be a parent AND a college student.  Seriously.  The second aspect of my life it illustrates is how absolutely VITAL it is to keep a sense of humor.  Seriously again.  If you have days like this and you CAN'T laugh it off, you will lose your mind.  And not in a good way.



Aunie Lea's Home for Wayward Orphans
I've spent a lot of the year looking towards the future.  Maybe it's because I'm finally narrowing in on my degree, maybe it's because we decided to have another baby, maybe it's because of some other reason bubbling up from my subconscious.  Whatever the case, this post is very much about what I want from (or for) the future.

The Pitter Patter THUMP of Little Lubricated Feet
This is, quite simply, the funniest thing I think I've ever written.  And I'm proud of that.


It Wasn't My Fault

A wonderful moment, caught by a stranger.

This post is another thing that I've been very proud of this year.  It was hard to write, and it's hard for me to read.  But it helps me, and I really do like to think that it might have helped somebody else.  It became almost immediately my top-read post, and I doubt that any other post will ever take its place.  If this was my five minutes of internet fame, than I can be truly proud of that.  And if not, I can always hope that I'll get noticed for writing something funny instead.


The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
One of many posts this year waxing rhapsodic about my father's philosophical approach to parenting.  More than that, this post sums up my beliefs about parenting as activism, and the vital importance of constantly setting an example.  I'm sorry to say that I haven't been able to donate blood again since this post, as when I was next both eligible and available, I was also pregnant.  For some probably extremely good reason, pregnant ladies aren't allowed to donate blood.  But you can bet that I'll be bringing my nursling along to a blood drive sometime late next summer.

Another of our Holiday Pics

SuperMommy and the Potty
This post represents all of my failures.  Yes, there are lots of them.  Many of which I haven't shared with you.  I keep coming up with excuses for why we haven't just gritted our teeth and freakin' potty trained properly.  I've been sick.  I've been pregnant.  We've been traveling.  I am officially out of excuses, and I am determined to have the girls OUT of diapers before Baby X arrives and is IN them.  So, you can bet that this one is back on the resolution list for this year.  And of course, this post is also utterly hilarious.


Pouring My Heart Out
Last but not least, the most important person in my life... M.  I always have a hard time giving friends advice on their own marriages, because I think that mine is fundamentally different.  Not because of some Princess Bride-esque "true love" reason, but simply because we know every day how lucky we are to have each other.  Because M might not have lived for us to have this time together.  That's what this post is about.

I love this man more than anything in the whole world.

Here's to a wonderful 2012, filled with new life, new love, and new adventures.

2011 has been one of the best years of my life.  I've grown, I've changed, and I really like the person I'm becoming.  Perhaps it's because I like all of the changes I've seen in my children, and in my husband.  Perhaps it's that I've reached a point in my life where I'm done with the petty drama that used to be so much of my life before kids (I can already hear my parents laughing at that one).  I don't know.

But whatever it is, I can't imagine that the New Year will bring anything less than the best.  M and I will finish our degrees, Baby X will join our little family, and DD and SI will continue to grow and change and blow my mind continuously.  And hopefully, I'll manage to keep you all more up to date and in the loop than I have this year.

Kisses from SI and DD

All my love, lovely readers.  Thank you for spending the year with me.  :)