Embracing Life

I wanted to write a moving and inspirational post about celebrating my two-year post-transplant milestone. (I also wanted to post a nice family picture, where everyone was looking at the camera, the twins did not have to be separated because they were hitting each other, the shorter boy on the right was not squeezing his brother's stomach too tightly, and I did not have a glowing bulb of sunlight shining brightly on my lady parts, but well... you know... that's life.) Instead I will share one of my favorite pictures of this day. We had wanted to do an outdoor autumn photo shoot with my family (grandparents included). It was scheduled for the end of September in Chicago. So of course, I bought (matching) long-sleeved shirts for the boys, had a pretty (color-coordinating) sweater picked out for my girl, Keith was going to wear his grey pullover, and I lovingly pulled out my tights and boots for what I thought was going to be a cool and beautiful fall day. It was 88 degrees...

So here's the thing - I have a really sucky disease.  Well, sort of. I mean, it's not that bad in the grand scheme of things. (Despite what my mom thinks.)  A little girl I follow on FB just had a liver transplant, and they think the new liver is failing. Don't even get me started on all the gun violence in the world... especially Chicago and my hometown. Life could be worse. Strangely enough, I seem to be the only person in my family with such a positive outlook. I say that loudly and proudly on my blog - 1, because most of my family doesn't read this, and 2, because I say it to their faces as well.  But do you know what sucks about being positive, even with a life-threatening disease? People think you're cray cray. It's true. They don't know what to do with me. Apparently I am not your typical kidney failure person.  I'm always out and about, I work full-time, and I am not on dialysis. Well not yet anyway.  T-minus one day until I go for th...

I'm that person - the one who makes a list of resolutions - floss more, lose weight, etc - and then never follows through.  It's not because I don't have good intentions.  Truthfully, I just don't have the time. I thought when the kids started grade school, I'd have more free time, more time to myself.  Instead, I find our lives are even more busier than before. Sometimes I find myself wishing for the diaper stage again - at least then they took naps. So this year, I decided to take a different approach and make a list of what I am NOT going to do this year.  Let me tell you, on day 6, I haven't completely succeeded but that's why there are 365 days in a year! If things don't go the way you planned, there is always tomorrow. 1 - STOP being negative.  This is a hard one. By the end of 2014, I was really feeling the pull of life.  I was (am) overworked and stressed out.  That, of course, cannot change overnight (or even by the end of January), but...

August 19, the twins will be headed into a big hospital in the city for a meeting with a pediatric neurologist.  What led us to our   my (because Keith leaves all decisions to me) decision for this: 1 - Keira has low muscle tone and has been seeing a pediatric orthopaedist as well as a physical therapist.  It was suggested by the ortho that all LMT patients have an MRI to rule out any sort of issue in the brain that could be causing it.  (The bizarre example he gave me was that one of his thousands of patients had part of his brain missing, which caused the LMT.  Chances are this is not the case and Keira's LMT is just a result of the wiring in her brain being a little off when it comes to muscle tone.) 2 - Colin was admitted to the NICU after birth because of low temp/low blood sugar.  Away from his momma, he decided not to eat (after nursing wonderfully after birth) so they kept him there for 14 days while he learned to suck, swallow, and eat l...

I was on amazon the other day and found a book called The Happiness Project .  I read a snippet and decided that I needed to work on my own happiness project.  Now, I am not the type to make big resolutions at the start of a new year, because I used to make a big list and then give up after a few days   weeks..  Rather I like to focus on one new thing, big or small, each month.  January was a small start - washing my face every night before bed.  Doesn't seem like a big deal, but I wear make-up on most days so my co-workers can't see how exhausted I really am.  At night, I was getting quite lazy about removing my make-up, so I made it my January resolution.  February was a bad month with the kids being sick quite literally everyday, so nothing really got done.  I did however attempt to get more sleep.  Most nights I am in bed by 10.  Still no where close to 8 hours a night, but it's a start.  March was used to focus on ...

I'm not fat. I will admit it. I can eat (mostly) what I want, and I don't gain weight. But I'm not tiny either. With the twins, I gained 46 pounds during my pregnancy. It was a healthy weight gain for a twin pregnancy. With Connor, I gained 32 pounds. Again, totally normal. (Not like that what's-her-name from Grey's Anatomy who gained a whopping 10 pounds while pregnant and was so proud of herself for going up a pant size. *insert eye-roll here *) And I'm not motivated either. I mean, after having Connor, I went to Kohls and bought a few new shirts, 2 pairs of pants, and figured I will lose this weight when I do. It was right about the time McDonalds was having $1 cokes and I just can't say no to those! ;) At that point, I was probably 10 lbs over what I was when I first got pregnant. And around the time I actually got back down to my pre-pregnancy weight, someone had to go and get knocked up again. With twins, no less. Nine months later. 46 pou...