Peach snuggled in and nuzzled her face against mine, then softly whispered:
“You’re my mommy.”
“You’re my mommy, forever.”
I opened my eyes. Looked into hers, and said, “Yep. You’re my daughter, forever.”
Sometimes I look at him and just think, “Where has the time gone?”
I love that he can talk and say just about everything he wants… but it also makes me kind of sniffly.
Those moments of being able to cradle him for hours and kiss him endlessly are over (unless he’s fast asleep).
Here he is at 2 months old – sooo tiny! I LOVED the way he smelled so I’d pull him close and breath deeply over and over – memorizing the smell of his skin and breath.
These days he’s able to play baseball with Daddy…
And he’s regularly making it to the potty! (A recent breakthrough, although far from completely potty trained.)
I know every mama thinks their kid(s) are the smartest and cutest but really… just look at him!
I can’t help but swoon.
Okay, I know a lot of y’all have already seen it since it started playing a few weeks ago. I’ve only seen it live once – on Bravo – but supposedly people have seen it all over the place.
My first PointsPlus commercial was a full 30 second spot sharing my story but the new one is a mashup of several success stories.
By the way, U.S. News & World Report ranked Weight Watchers as the #1 weight loss diet choice in its first-ever diet rankings. But then again, I could’ve told you that. ;)
Today marks the 6-year anniversary since my dad died. I had just turned 22 and was a semester away from graduating college.
I still miss him and think about him all the time but over the years I’ve realized his death was a kind of last gift.
As much as our culture tries to cordon sickness and death off to hospitals and nursing homes, I feel infinitely blessed to have been part of my dad’s dying process. My dad got to die at home surrounded by people who loved him while we held his hand and stroked his head as he passed away on the living room floor.
Looking back I can see how scared I was of the process. I’d spent so much of my life trying not to disappoint this person who always had this aura of strength and resolve about him, that towards the end I often struggled to know how to engage him because suddenly his armor was off.
He didn’t even look like himself because cancer had so thoroughly destroyed his body – he reminded me of photos I’d seen of emaciated concentration camp victims. He was no longer the fearless leader, but instead, my dad was someone who needed help walking from the kitchen to his mechanical armchair. In those last days, I remember him struggling just to swallow the ice chips we fed him.
Even though it was uncomfortable and frightening, I hold those days where we all held vigil around him in my heart. As someone who often felt like an outsider in my family, I distinctly knew I belonged there with my siblings.
In the last real conversation I had with my dad he told me he was proud of me. He was excited about me going off to grad school and reassured me that ‘everything will be okay – life will go on’.
The two nights before he died he managed to get himself down onto the floor to kneel and pray. My dad was far from perfect but I think towards the end he tried to reconnect and make amends for some of his mistakes.
I’ve taken a lot of lessons away from my dad’s life and death, and hopefully they’re making me a better person than I otherwise would’ve been.
- Life is terribly short. 80 years may sound like a long time when you’re a kid, but it goes by quickly… so don’t waste it.
- Relationships matter the most. Money, fame, and the myriad of stuff that seems important loses its value when death approaches. The investments that we make into other peoples’ lives are the things that really last.
- Siblings need to stick together. It seems most people focus on parent-child relationships but the odds are your brothers and sisters will be around to either support or torment you much longer. Strengthening those bonds will pay dividends, especially as you get older.
- People will fail you. No matter what, people are not and cannot be anywhere near perfect. Getting hurt and hurting other people is inevitable – what matters more is the response to those failures.
- Shades of grey are okay. While it might be more comfortable to believe the world is made up of concrete absolutes where things fall neatly into buckets of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, life is more complicated than that. There’s an exception to virtually every rule and it’s easier to just accept that early on.
- Love is always worth the risk. Whether it’s putting yourself out there for a date or plunging into parenthood – allowing your heart to be vulnerable is painful because rejection or loss is always a real possibility. Love is the ultimate expression of our humanity – when we stop being willing to give/receive it, we’re sure to lose our way.
Last week was our big court date. The one we’d been pinning our move date to San Francisco on. The one where Peach’s birth mom (S) was supposed to do the voluntary termination of her parental rights. Yea, that one.
Well… here’s what happened:
I talked to S two days before the hearing and she confirmed that she wanted us to adopt Peach. She had a few legitimate questions like, “Are you 100% sure you want to adopt her?” and when I said yes she proceeded to say the plan was for her to do the voluntary for Peach but not for her 2-year-old brother (who is being foster-adopted by another family).
After our conversation I told Nick I felt relieved that I got a chance to express myself honestly, even if nothing else came of it. Nick was already convinced she’d back out (like she did at the last two court appearances) but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and figured it was a 50/50 toss up.
S asked if I could give her and her boyfriend a ride to court, and I agreed, even though it was strictly against the GAL’s advice.
My position has been to continually offer a hand of friendship to S, despite the inconveniences that has posed, which is why I ignored the GAL this time.
In the end, the GAL was right about one thing – her boyfriend’s anger issues flared up while I was driving them home but thankfully he asked me to pull over and let him out to walk the rest of the way. Bullet dodged.
But back to the court drama…
After S’s attorney announced that she was “seriously considering” doing a voluntary at the next court date, she and her boyfriend (not Peach’s birth dad) asked for official visits to be reinstated ahead of their TPR trial in January. Which really upset the judge.
“You two are treating these kids like pawns. Coming and going from their lives whenever you feel like it. It’s time you start owning up to your decisions – you made your bed, now you’ve got to lie in it.”
A few moments later he issued a no contact order that completely bars S from seeing Peach at all, which means she’s been entirely cut off.
This is the first time since Peach was removed that there have been any real consequences. Pretty much every court hearing since her removal has been about giving S more time to get herself together and to start complying with the requirements of return… but this time the judge decided to take reunification off the table and make adoption the only part of the permanency plan. Finally.
The irony is that she had it pretty good before she decided to try and keep playing the system… up until now we’ve facilitated unofficial visits and I was even planning on throwing her 1-year-old son a birthday party the very.next.day. Which of course we had to cancel because of the no contact order.
Had she gone ahead with the voluntary she would’ve been invited to Thanksgiving again and to Christmas, plus we’d have allowed other visits in between. Now our hands are tied and she’s effectively disappearing from Peach’s life yet again… and I’m not sure that we’ll be as open to having her re-enter the picture. Last time there was a 4 month gap between visits and it was really upsetting to Peach when the visits started up again – she told me, “Seeing Mommy S made me remember I’m sad.”
It’s a tough balance. We don’t want Peach to think we’re keeping her from S but then again it’s as if seeing her prevents the wounds from fully healing.
The judge’s decision makes it easier for now – there won’t be any visits until the trial is resolved, and we’re confident that the trial will result in the termination of S’s parental rights. Depending on when that all happens we’ll have to figure out what’s in the best interest of Peach. Is it to cut ties, at least until she’s a bit older? Or is it to have S stay in the picture as an auntie-type figure?
I honestly don’t know anymore.
I started a life list back in college that somehow I’ve held on to all these years – it had about 40 items on it when I stopped adding things to it, and when I found out I was going to the Mighty Summit I decided to dig it out.
Turns out I’ve been busy crossing things off my list and I didn’t even know it.
Own a moped.
Marry someone who thinks you’re beautiful and super smart.
Live in Europe.
So, I dusted off the life list and updated it just in time to head to Russian River Wine Country, two hours north of San Francisco, to hang out with 28 amazing ladies working in the digital world. (I’ll share my updated list later, but for now, I wanted to show a few photos and say thanks to Maggie Mason and Laura Mayes for just the kind of weekend I needed, at just the right time.)
Photos courtesy of Maile Wilson of Epiphanie
I attend a lot of conferences and events each year. Most are big, a couple are huge.
Even though I often know a bunch of the folks attending and can find a group to hang out with there’s nothing quite like the intimacy that a small gathering in a lovely setting can bring. Only two other events have rivaled the feeling of camaraderie and candor felt in Sonoma last month – a one night gathering of Midwesterners referred to as Cupcake and the yurt-filled love fest in Ojai called Creative Alliance.
I admit, being surrounded by this beauty definitely helped set the tone but ultimately what made it special was the collection of unique, uber-talented women in attendance… many of whom I’d never have met, let alone hot-tubbed with if it weren’t for this retreat.
We went to several wineries for tours and tastings, which only confirmed my inability to select or appreciate fine wine. I’m one of those folks who prefers it taste like juice instead of wine, which is probably why my favorite is Door County Blackberry even though I loved hearing the stories behind the places we visited – especially the teacher-turned-wino who designed and built the biodynamic, gravity flow process at Moshin Winery.
So yes, there was a lot of this:
I knew some of the ladies, like the lovely Isabel Kallman and Kristen Howerton (pictured above), but I also got to hear the hearts of so many new women like interior designer extraordinare and mom-to-two adopted kiddos Kirsten Grove (pictured below).
We all walked away with amazing camera-laptop bags from Epiphanie that were filled with pretty things like the Feisty Elle bamboo necklace, the comfy yet stylish Tieks fold up shoes that fit perfectly in a purse, and a couple of the Photo JoJo iPhone lenses I’d been dying to try.
I had a great time talking with Stacey Ferguson about the evolution of Blogalicious, a conference and community that celebrates diversity, and being able to share (and know she understands) the challenges of trying to juggle multiple jobs while also raising kids and trying to be a good partner.
The last day we all sat around sharing 5 of our life list goals that we want to accomplish in the next year – and asked for help from the group for one of them.
The one that’ll probably take the most work on my part this year will be:
- Hunt down copies of baby/toddler photos and stories from relatives for Peach’s lifebook
The one I’m most excited to do is:
- Host a murder mystery dinner party
The full list of attendees can be found here (it’s worth looking through – there are some amazing bloggers on that list!)
Photo credits belong to Maile Wilson of Epiphanie Bags
