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 →
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 →
An early draft of my first book about my son’s several heart surgeries, included a chapter of upsetting things people said to me. These comments might be seen as microagression, or I may have just been hypersensitive. My friends whose children are like my son loved that part. People who hadn’t lived through a similar experience were confused. One of those friends asked, “What can we say?” That question led to a list of supportive things to say and do. Many people told me that was helpful. Since then, however, I’ve seen a ton of blogs… Read more Whatever you Say →
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 am not sleeping, so I will write. Tonight (which is now yesterday) at dinner, Liam asked, “Do you know what today is?” and Jim and I looked at each… Read more It Was a Monday →
The kids and I went trick-or-treating tonight while Jim (he’s battling a cold) handed out candy. It was an evening of irony. Liam was being such a pain in the… Read more So Proud →
Amanda Rose Adams 