My daughter turns twelve tomorrow. Today I went to a jewelry store with a silver charm that I received for my own twelfth birthday. The jeweler cleaned the charm and placed it on a new silver chain. The charm is round and reads “Grown Up Twelve.” But I was not a grown up at twelve and neither is my daughter. She may stop growing soon, like I did when I was ten, but we were both still little girls at twelve, despite looking like women well before our time. This… Read more grown up twelve →
I’ve never read The Hunger Games, or The Fault in Our Stars. It’s not that I’m dismissive of young adult (YA) literature, it’s just not my thing. I also don’t read westerns, mysteries, science fiction, or most fantasy, but I do read the news and couldn’t miss the frenzy over The Fault in Our Stars film and author John Green. I was curious about the title because I’d read that it was from a Shakespeare play, so I looked it up. The source quote is from Julius Caesar and about… Read more The Fault in Our Hearts →
Staying true to not writing about Liam’s personal life, I’m going to do my best to share only my feelings. Sufficed to say, Liam has never, ever liked Holter monitors, a documented historical fact, and it’s not gotten any better. The Holter monitor came back yesterday, it’s like a boomerang. For those not in the know, a Holter monitor is a smallish box that connects to five leads that are attached to the skin over the ribs and sternum, and Liam happens to be allergic to the adhesive in most… Read more G is for Graduation, H is for Holter →
I wrote this on Facebook tonight. What a blessing it is to forget. Eleven years ago right now, I was drifting off on my very first overnight in a hospital, 22 hours later I would have a living child. 34 hours later we would chose for him: life or death with no guarantees of the former and plenty of opportunity for the latter. Eleven years ago, at this moment, on a Sunday night, I fell asleep on the precipice of the most precarious fall and meteoric bounce a mother could… Read more Eleven →
Recently, at the behest of our cardiologist, we met with a neuropsychologist who administered a great many tests and even called our son’s teacher for an interview. There was no recent trigger for this visit, other than my intense interest in the “Whole Body” health care approach to CHD and our recent trip to the Single Ventricle Survivorship clinic at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The field of neuroscience is advancing rapidly, and the leading pediatric cardiologists are realizing that you can’t put a body on life-support multiple times during a… Read more Half-heart, Whole Body: Part Two, B-R-A-I-N-S →
Thursday, February 20, 2014: 4:30 am: Woke up from a dream that began with me taking graduate classes in a Safeway store on Easter, getting into my car to drive home, and having no breaks, despite pulling the emergency brake backward. 4:32 am: Fell back asleep. 6:20 am: Silently cursed my cell phone/alarm clock as I stabbed the snooze button 6:29 am: When the second alarm goes off, whine to Sunny Morning Jim who is already showered and dressed that I hate mornings . . . after 22 years, he kind… Read more A Day In The Life →
I didn’t write a blog post on the 26th. Instead, I took my children and one of their friends to a Hogwart’s Halloween Party that the city hosted. Last year… Read more Living Instead of Blogging Part One →
I was ill-prepared for this stage of my life as a mother. I absolutely adore my life. I want exactly what I have. I want everything that I have, including… Read more When You Have Everything You Want →
Amanda Rose Adams 