The First Time I Felt Like an Adult*

There are two kinds of people in the world: adults and children, and these designations have nothing to do with age.

My world today, at this moment, is crowded with all things adult. I've been trying to suck up all the adultness I can muster to find rational, effective, and productive ways to fight all the new battles that have been launched by our new administration.

In the midst of all that, my best adult role model — my mom (who I am pretty sure was born an adult) — is lying helpless in an ICU hospital bed. There is nothing like a critically ill parent to make you have to adult-up.

Then along came Christine Wolf (an amazing writer), who shared a writing prompt from ChicagoNow: When was the first time you felt like an adult. Thank you for the prompt and the distraction, Christine. I've already paced every square inch of this hospital and you reminded me that writing is my way through things.

It's almost ubiquitous that having children suddenly makes you feel like an adult. My first high-risk pregnancy and my very preemie twins certainly started me down the path to adulthood, but the first time I really felt like an adult was a couple of years later, when the daily traumas of their premature birth were pretty well behind us.

It was an ordinary day with two toddlers (if there is such a thing). I was on the phone getting a fix of adult conversation when I heard a small crash in the kitchen. Upon investigation, I realized Molly had knocked over the trash. Not a big deal. I picked everything up while I continued my conversation.

Molly came up to me and put her arms around my neck and hugged me tight. I finished up my call and picked her up into a hug. She was not crying and didn't seem upset, but she wouldn't let go of me. I set her down and noticed that her fists were squeezed tight. A stream of red leaked from her right fist down her arm. I started hyperventilate. I wasn't great with blood.

You are the grownup, I reminded myself. "Sweetie, open your hand so Mama can see," I told my daughter. She did, and I saw more of the internal anatomy of a hand than I had ever hoped to see. I figured out later that she had picked up the sharp lid of a tuna can from the garbage and in transferring it from her dominate left hand into her right, she had sliced open her palm. Not good.

I grabbed a clean kitchen towel and told her to squeeze it tight. Then I called my husband at work. "Hi …" That's all he got out.

"Molly cut her hand. It's really bad. And I just realized you can't help me." And I hung up on him. Poor man.

About to panic, I once again reminded myself that I was the only adult in the house and that meant, well, that I had to be an adult.

I called my neighbors who had four kids. Ed tried to chitchat, but I told him what had happened. He, being a full-fledged adult, asked "What can I do?"

"Come get Isaac," I said. I grabbed Molly and one diaper bag, practically threw Isaac, his blanket, and the other diaper bag at Ed as soon as he got to the door, and buckled my wounded daughter into her carseat.

A wave of vertigo swept over me as I started the car. "Stop it," I said to myself. "You can do this. You must do this." So I rolled down the car window and spoke encouragingly to Molly all the way to the hospital where they had spent the first five months of their lives.

Molly and Isaac were practically legends at Evanston Hospital. Several people on staff (even in the ER) recognized us. We had to wait quite a while for a hand specialist to make sure there was no ligament damage before they could stitch her up. Molly was stoic. She still had not cried.

Once the x-rays and exams had been taken, a nurse in the room let me step down from being an adult during the most crucial moments of the night. "Look," she said. "You don't need to be here. You won't be able to hold her. We have to strap her down. If you stay, she's going to think you are a co-conspirator. Go take a break, check on Isaac, and when you come back, you can be the hero who rescues her from us monsters."

I wavered for a good 15 seconds before I took her advice and bailed. Some adult! I called to check on Isaac. He was sleeping peacefully at the neighbors. I called my husband to apologize for leaving him hanging and to update him on everything. I waited five more minutes and then I made my way, guiltily, back to the ER.

The nurse was right. Molly stopped crying and reached for me the second I came back into the room. She glared at the medical staff as if they were the devil's own and clung to me as we left to go home and pick up her brother. In her eyes, at least, I was the adult she could count on.

*Thanks again, Christine, for allowing me to escape being an adult for this hour while I played with my words.

Teach a Man to Fish

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

— Chinese Proverb

There are two kinds of people in the world, facilitators and enablers.

The verbs facilitate and enable are synonyms, both generally meaning to make it easier for someone to do something. The noun forms, however, have taken on opposite connotations. A facilitator is a someone who helps a person or organization find a solution to a problem, while an enabler has come to mean a person who makes it possible for someone to continue with bad or destructive behavior.

A good boss knows how to be a facilitator — to help employees learn, grow and move forward. Most of us have experienced supervisors who are more concerned with their own success than that of their subordinates, a short-sighted vision at best. Effective leaders learn to delegate, support and encourage all team members.

I'm good at the supporting and encouraging part of this equation, but I think I fail as a delegator. I don't know if it's a lack of trust or my own control issues that get in the way of delegating, but I have never really learned to let go.

Good teachers also know the difference between facilitating and enabling. A teacher can talk and talk and talk, but most students need, in one way or another, to figure things out themselves. In this NY Times post, students were asked who were their best teachers and why. Over and over, responses included teachers who had high expectations and who encouraged independent thinking and learning.

But perhaps the arena where the difference between facilitation and enabling is seen most clearly is parenting. If you are a parent, you know that it is usually easier to do something yourself than to let your children to do it. Just think back to the last time your young child "helped" you fold the laundry or cook dinner or shovel the walk. If you're like me, your fingers itched and you had to swallow your offer of: "Here, let me do it." But that kind of restraint is essential for effective parenting, because we all know children who have been "over-enabled"; they're called brats.

Each child has different expectations of what constitutes parental help. My daughter has always been an "I'll-do-it-myself" kind of kid. I can't count the hours wasted when I butted in trying to help her, only to have her rip off her tights (for example) and begin again. "I do it myself" was practically her theme song. Despite sticking my nose in many times where it didn't belong, her innate independence has turned her into a highly motivated, successful young adult. She can be snappish, but she gets things done, and I think the art of delegation is going to take her a long time to master.

Her twin brother, on the other hand, has always welcomed any and all help. These babies were born at 24 weeks, and the boy's size and development lagged far behind his sister's for many years. There were things he could do and things he couldn't, but he was, and is an easy-going, lovely human being, graciously accepting any favor, large or small. I have never once heard him say "Let me do it myself."

When the twins were four, I learned about something called "assumed disability", which often goes hand in hand with an actual disability. With assumed disability, we assume that because someone cannot do one thing, they cannot do something else. From the beginning, my son had two loving, willing females to take care of him, and it took me a long time to figure out we weren't doing him any favors. One day, I heard myself ask the girl to go get her shoes and put them on; then I asked her to get his shoes so I could help him put them on. The bell finally rung and that poor boy's life has never been the same.

But the line between facilitating and enabling a child (especially one with disabilities) is a tricky one, serpentining across the sands of childhood, moving and changing while you're not looking. What is facilitating one day is enabling the next, and staying on top of that moving line takes constant vigilance.

I wish I had been better. I wish I had devoted more time, been stricter and demanded more. I wish I had worried less about his happiness and more about his independence. (Notice that I say this with perfect 20-20 hindsight.) Now the line between facilitating and enabling is a dotted one, and I'm not at all sure how to help him make the right connections. I feel lost, hamstrung by his age, the law and my own expectations.

Don't get me wrong. I've taught him many of the skills necessary for independent living: he does his own laundry, is a pretty decent cook and can get around on public transportation. But his ability to think things through from start to finish or to anticipate are impaired. Is it possible to teach common sense?

I know (hope, believe) that if he could find his passion, the independence would follow. But can you facilitate passion? Can you even enable it? I don't think so. This is just one of those things he's going to have to do himself. And I'm going to have to learn to let him.

How have you been facilitated, or how have you been a facilitator? Or tell us your tale about enabling instead. Just click here.

Chicago, Let's Clean Up Our Act — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Chicago's image has been severely tarnished over the last week or so. We lost our Olympic bid in the first round of voting, a defeat that happened so quickly, the crowds who had gathered for the announcement in Daley Plaza were left dazed and confused, while echoing strains of Peggy Lee's "Is that all there is?" seemed to float on the breeze.

Prior to the vote and the other recent events that have placed Chicago squarely on the world's front page, I had been feeling a great deal of civic pride. On my brother's last trip, he remarked again how clean Chicago is compared to other large cities. When good friends visited last month, we took the El from Evanston and spent the entire day on foot, starting in beautiful Millennium Park, where they ooohed and aahhed over the "bean" and Priztker Pavilion, then wandering north up the Magnificent Mile all the way to Oak Street Beach, where they marveled over our perfectly preserved lake front.

But then came the tragic beating death of young honor student, Derrion Albert, followed less than a week later by another teen beating that resulted in a cracked skull. The nation and the world are shocked by these horrific acts of violence, but are we, here in the Chicago area, equally shocked? Most of us would like to pretend that Derrion Albert's horrendous death was an isolated incident, but the fact is that more than 30 school-aged students were killed in Chicago last year. Chicago's Olympic plan promised "uncompromising safety for the games through a fully integrated security operation … without compromising the protection of the city and its residents."

Our city cannot even deliver uncompromising security to it's most precious commodity — its children.

A few weeks after school started this year, I was waiting around the corner from our high school to pick up my teenaged twins, who are now seniors. Across the street, a group of 10 to 12 students started a shoving match that quickly escalated when one young man picked up a brick. My younger son, who was in the car with me, was terrified. "Let's just go, Mom," he begged. Instead, I called the high school security department and waited for police to arrive, which took only a few minutes, since Evanston police routinely patrol the blocks around the high school campus at the beginning and end of the day. I remember my heart pounding as I anxiously watched the dustup brew into a potentially very dangerous situation.

My daughter is infuriated every time she hears of another act of school-related violence. "Everyone thinks Chicago and Evanston students are a bunch of gang-banging thugs. Most of us aren't like that." When I asked if she is ever afraid at or around school, she said "No, I feel perfectly safe." I wish I had that same sense of security.

It's a running joke in our family that the only time the house gets completely cleaned is when we're expecting company. While I won't totally cop to that, there is something highly motivating about an impending visit. One of the reasons that cleaning up for guests seems almost fun is that you can concentrate on the surface and feel fairly confident that, with the exception of a few nosy in-laws, no one will look under the bed for dust bunnies or check out your underwear drawer to see what you shoved in it.

In many ways, I feel Chicago's Olympic bid was just that — four years of cleaning up for company. We polished our lake front and swept up the streets of the proposed venues, but we didn't look under the beds or in the drawers. Dirty laundry, however, begins to stink after a while and it gets pretty hard to hide. Instead of welcoming the world's elite athletes, Chicago will be visited by Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who are both being sent by President Obama to address youth violence in Chicago. Let's hope we take this opportunity to clean up our act and protect our real future — the children of this city.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan Bearman isn't busy airing dirty laundry, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Summer's Bounty — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not much of a gardener (OK, huge understatement). But this summer, everywhere I look, I see growth.

It's true. Each time I walk into my kitchen, a new crop of dishes has sprouted. Bowls and cups are especially plentiful this season, but the silverware must also be pruned regularly, lest it overrun the countertops.

Summer is only half over, and already the piles of laundry are as high as an elephant's eye. In theory, shorts and t-shirts are smaller than sweatshirts and jeans, and therefore should mean less laundry. In reality, sweaty play results in more changes of clothes, not to mention the trips to the pool and the beach, so the harvest of summer laundry has actually outpaced the winter crop.

Towels, which here-to-fore have restricted their growth to the bathroom floor, are proliferating throughout the house like colorful ground cover. Bath towels, hand towels and especially beach towels are the creeping phlox of my indoor garden.

I shouldn't really be surprised by the fecundity of my summer garden. After all, since the first thaw, the entire family has tracked in layer after layer of top soil each time they traipse through the house.

With all six of us home this summer, our grocery bills have more than doubled their yield compared to the previous three seasons, and show no signs of stopping. While mild temperatures have limited the amount of beverages required for irrigation, the increased feed for the livestock has more than taken up any surplus.

Outside, in addition to the huge assortment of perennial summer toys and equipment that began to emerge along with the daffodils, this year's annuals include one new bike, several balls, a frisbee, and a new hammock. No matter how often we weed, they continue to mushroom across the lawn.

Yes, it's been a bountiful summer season, and with August just around the corner, I predict bumper crops of school supplies, doctor bills and new shoes. We are truly blessed.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan Bearman isn't tending her family garden plot, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Saying Goodbye to Elementary School — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

On Friday, my youngest child completed fifth grade, which means it was our family's last day of elementary school after 12 long, mostly wonderful years.

This child has literally spent his entire life at this school, having been born same the year his twin siblings were in kindergarten. He has attended 12 years of school picnics, talent shows, and band concerts. He has met every teacher, joined every club, and climbed every inch of the school's two playgrounds. He's bored, well-prepared and more than ready to move on to the challenges of middle school.

But what about me?

I really don't think I'm ready to leave elementary school behind. No more crayons, no more playground bonding, no more room parenting. No more little kids with cute backpacks and silly winter hats. My house will now be completely taken over by smelly adolescents with attitude — some of them taller than me.

Elementary school has been a sweet time, a relatively leisurely time, a time when I had the opportunity to get to know my children's teachers, as well as their friends and their friends' parents. It's been a time when parental PDAs were not only acceptable, but welcome; when my kids waved goodbye from the bus windows or ran back to me for one more kiss and hug.

But all that's over. From now on, school is about moving up and out and away. It's about making new friends and trying new things. It's about moving from classroom to classroom with many different teachers and influences. I get that. I know the whole goal of parenting is to develop independent human beings.

I also know that the three years of middle school fly by, and that high school goes even faster. I know that their job between now and high school graduation is to pull away until they don't need me any more. Knowing it and accepting it are two different things.

I thought I would be weepier during this particular transition. After all, I sobbed for two days when my twins moved from preschool to elementary school.

Perhaps it's because, as the youngest of six, this particular child has the grace to recognize my angst as well as his own. He has always reached into adulthood with one hand while holding on white knuckled to his childhood with the other. He's wise enough to know that growing up isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be; that the rewards and freedoms come with hard work and consequences. And he indulges me no end, holding my hand (even in front of his friends) and understanding that just because he'll always be my baby, doesn't mean that he still has to be a baby.

So, I was a little melancholy, but dry-eyed at the fifth grade recognition ceremony — until people started asking me if I was going to cry, which sent me over the edge. Good thing my son was there. "It's OK, mom," he reassured me, "you can still read stories to me." Maybe having only big kids won't be so bad after all.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't sobbing over baby pictures and wishing her kids would stay little forever, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Birthday Parties Run Amok — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog post:

Birthday parties just aren't what they used to be. They are more — too much more.

When I was a kid, birthdays were fun. My mom made us whatever we wanted for dinner and on the closest weekend, family (cousins, aunts, grandparents) came for cake and ice cream. We only had birthday parties for what my mom deemed to be "special" birthdays: 5 — because you weren't a baby any more; 10 — because you were in double digits; and 13 — because you were finally a teenager. I also had a sleepover when I turned 16, but I was totally responsible for it.

I remember these parties vividly. For my fifth birthday, five little girls come to my house dressed up in their mama's hats and dresses and high heals. We played musical chairs in our dress-up clothes and had a tea party. My special gift was a Tammy doll cake. There was a real doll, and her dress was made of the cake and icing. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My mom used Tammy because she thought that, at five, I was too young to play with a doll that had breasts (i.e., Barbie). It was a lovely, sweet party where the thrill of dressing up and putting on a little lipstick remains a tender memory for me more than 40 years later.

Nowadays, kids have birthday parties every year — often elaborate, expensive birthday parties. Parents are "encouraged" to invite everyone in the class so no one feels left out. While I can appreciate the underlying premise of this "fairness" policy, I found with twins that it got to be ridiculously cumbersome and expensive: one birthday, two children, two classes of 20+ kids. I refused to buy into it, but it did get hard to limit the invitation list.

This month, our local parenting magazine ran a special advertising section on party entertainment. (Full disclosure here: I was checking it out because my husband offers a party package through his pet store.) A full-page, tabloid-sized, four-color ad promoting a princess party caught my eye.

A local salon was offering princess party packages "just for preschool girls" (five and under). Ranging in price from $34.95 to $59.95 per girl, children come dressed in their own costumes and receive a "party up-do", shimmery make-up application, a 15-minute "runway dance", 20 minutes in a party room and a goodie bag with a tiara, glitter spray, lollipop and photo. The more expensive packages included a "mini-mani and mini-pedi" and a "strawberry paraffin hand treatment." Parents provide snacks and drinks.

Is it me, or is this just wrong? Maybe I'm a real Scrooge, but the cost alone gives me heart palpitations, particularly in this economy. For my daughter and five little friends, this party would have run $359.75 + treats and drinks.

While I get that a princess party is many a little girl's dream, the overt sexualization of very young girls that this party package implies makes my stomach more than a little queasy. I admit I don't understand the whole pageant community, and this seems like a direct extension of that mentality.

I don't mean to be a party pooper. There's nothing wrong with a little dress up and make believe. It just seems to me that this same idea could be accomplished in a much more age-appropriate manner, pretty inexpensively, with a little imagination and a reasonable tolerance for mess.

Besides, I didn't get my first pedicure until I was 40.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't busy party planning, she can be found blogging at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Sliding Scale Standards — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Though we have a big family, the six children tend to break down into three distinct subgroups: the big kids — my husband's son and daughter who are now adults; the twins — sometimes called the kids — now 17; and the little boys, 11 and 12 now, but who, because of the nature of family nomenclature, will still probably be called the little boys when they are 41 and 42 years old.

In 20 years of parenting I have learned one thing: never say never. Never say your child will never throw a public temper tantrum — because she will, and very soon. Never say your darling won't read comic books or Mad Magazine, because one day you will be thrilled to see that he is reading anything rather than turning on another screen. And never, ever say my kids won't watch _____________ (TV, cartoons, horror movies, music videos, Disney crap — pick whichever poison comes to mind when you fill in that particular blank).

The big kids were just 10 and 13 when we got married, and most of the movies and television we watched were throwbacks from my childhood. It was fun to watch the old stuff together: screwball comedies, really old Disney flicks, and black and white TV shows like the Munsters and I Love Lucy.

When the twins came along, I restricted their viewing to public television and a few well-chosen videos (Road Construction, Dead Ahead was a favorite). That was about it until they hit grammar school and found out from friends that cable offered a much wider variety of programming than their mother had led them to believe. Still, I set our boundaries and stuck to them: violence was my big bagaboo and I remember hearing my son say, "Sorry, I can't watch that — there are too many guns." I was so smug proud.

But things began to slide about the time the twins hit third grade. I had two toddlers, two school-aged kidlings and two high school-aged stepkids who all had lives and needs and trasportation requirements. I simply no longer had time to monitor every single minute of television that was watched in my house.

First, it was cartoons like Rugrats and Animaniacs that began to slip in. Then the occasional cop show showed up. PG-13 movies were introduced into family movie night when the big kids starting groaning at suggestions of yet another Disneyfest. And my toddlers came right along for the ride.

I rationalized as best I could: "Oh, that innuendo went right over their heads," or "We've talked about what language is appropriate to use and what language is not," and even "Hey, guys, cover your eyes during this next part, OK? It might be a little scary." You try keeping six kids between the ages of 2 and 21 happy with a single form of entertainment and then get back to me.

The little boys have both reaped the benefits and suffered the consequences of this more lax attitude. I try to tell myself that I'm older and wiser, and that I know most of these things really aren't very important in the long run. You know that old saw — little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems? Well, it's true. And if you have a big family, you better learn not to get your knickers in a knot over every little thing or burnout will set in well before your last kid reaches middle school.

But I wonder if I really am older and wiser, or just plain older and tired. Last weekend, my husband said he had rented a movie for the family. When we cranked up the DVD player and I saw that it was the 1995 classic The Usual Suspects (rated R, thank you very much), I ordered a pause to discuss the situation. "If I remember correctly, this film is wildly inappropriate for the 12-year-old," said I. "He'll be fine, and younger brother bailed and went to bed," said my DH. "It's very violent," I countered. "He'll be fine," DH repeated. "It's riddled with profanity," said I. "It's not like he hasn't heard the words before, right kid?"

"Yeah, I've heard them. But I would never use them, Mama," he said, all wide-eyed innocence. Yeah, right.

I gave up, or gave in, or something. I justified this decision by making sure we discussed the film and all its meanings and ramifications. It was a teachable moment, I reassured myself. Don't roll your eyes at me. Your time will come; your standards will slide right off the scale and into the sewer, just like mine did. But don't fret too much about it. There are bigger things to worry about right around the corner. Trust me.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan Bearman isn't busy lowering her standards, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Most Improved Mom — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

It's an act of hubris to brag about our children, but as moms, we're all guilty. After all, those accomplishments we love to enumerate — the straight As, the home runs, the chess standings — they really belong to our children. It's hard, though, to keep our pride from bubbling out of our hearts and through our lips, even when we are doing it out of love and not a vicarious sense of competition.

In Hollywood, the award season kicks off with the Golden Globes in January, but every mom knows that kid awards are in May. In this two-week period alone, I will attend at least five ceremonies for my twins, who are high school juniors. (Please note: the following list does not constitute bragging, as I'm trying to make a point here.) My daughter was inducted into the National Honor Society, will be recognized as an outstanding student by three of her teachers (Anatomy, Applied Science and English), and will receive a few other honors, as well. Her twin brother received a "most improved" award in history.

I'm proud of all my children, but these awards for these two children are particularly meaningful because their futures were so precarious when they were born 16 weeks prematurely. At that time, we were hoping they would breathe on their own, so scholastic achievements weren't even on our radar. As I have proudly touted their most recent accomplishments to friends, grandparents and other relatives, it's been hard not to notice the imbalance of accolades. I hear myself saying "she did this" and "she got that" and … she, she, she. Oh, yeah, and he got an award, too — most improved.

A friend recently asked how my son felt about all this attention being bestowed upon his sister. Frankly, it's hard to say, because this is a boy who doesn't register accomplishments (his or anyone else's). This phenomenon is actually part of his set of learning disabilities and reflects an inability to connect planning and effort to achievement, as well as difficulty reading social cues.

This is the second time my son has been recognized as "most improved". The first was after an extraordinarily difficult transition to high school. When you ask him how he feels about these awards, he says "I'm happy," and then wryly notes that it's not hard to be most improved when you start at the bottom — an interesting observation from someone who is supposedly "socially delayed". When you tell him you are proud of him, he says "Thank you." When you ask how he feels about his sister's awards, he says "I'm happy for her."

As his history teacher presented my son with his award, she made special note of his kindness, his upbeat attitude and his positive contribution to the atmosphere of the class. I wish I could give her an award for recognizing these as accomplishments.

"Most improved" is a stunning accomplishment, especially when you improve upon most improved. My goal over the next year is to follow in my son's footsteps to become eligible for the Most Improved Mom Award — a mom who devotes as much of her braggadocio to her children's behavior and character as she does to the more coveted awards and public recognitions. I will strive to instill in my son the same sense of pride I feel for the person he is. It's clear I have a long way to go, but with a little more effort and self awareness, I may have a fighting chance.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog Post. When Susan isn't boasting about her brilliant, beautiful, talented children, she can be found blogging at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Life's Not a Paragraph

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have already experienced profound loss and those who will.

I've been lucky so far in this life. My losses have been quiet goodbyes, gentle by most standards, the soft leavings of old age, cushioned by the generations between them and me. Secondhand losses. 

After my grandfather died, and my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, I asked her if she was afraid of death. "Oh, honey," she said. "At my age, death is almost a friend. It's a story I read about every day in the paper."

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it is a thief, robbing us of our dearest treasures. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about my greatest fear — a recurring nightmare I have that one of my children has died. I knew even as I wrote it that I was trampling on someone else's grief. Tragically, unbelievably, one of my fellow bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group is living this nightmare right now, having lost her baby just two days after I posted my nightmares.

Madeline Alice Spohr 

(November 11, 2007 - April 7, 2009)

I've never met Maddie's family, but so much of her story is familiar — difficult conception and pregnancy, traumatic, premature birth, eating issues, growing issues — but more importantly:

joy,

fun, 

giggles, 

first teeth, 

first baths,

FIRSTS. 

Her story may not be a long one, but it is a story worth knowing.

This loss, like so many others, was not a quiet one. When a child dies, we roar with the pain, the grief, the missed opportunities of a story barely started. 

A writing friend, Cindy Fey, wrote beautifully about the sudden loss of her dear friend, a peer, a cohort, a man who was walking this life at the same time as her husband when his footsteps suddenly stopped. His premature death left a novella, not a full novel perhaps, but a story worth knowing. 

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it is the harshest of spotlights, the cruelest of mirrors, shining stark light on our own mortality, leaving us gasping and keening.

Another dear friend has experienced more deaths in her family than anyone I know, whittling her immediate family down to a precious few, leaving her clear-eyed and unsentimental. Her losses are a series of short-stories and tall tales, an epic saga — a story worth knowing.

Death is not always a friend — sometimes it's a relentless clock, ticking off the lives of those we know and love as surely as it counts off the seconds of our individual lives — a never-ending death knell.

I know I am lucky — death has brushed by so closely that the hairs on the back of my neck still rise and tremble at the memory. In grateful acknowledgement of those near misses, in tribute to Maddie and Eric and Jill's family, and in celebration of April as National Poetry Month, let's remember that no life is just a paragraph, but a full story worth telling:

since feeling is first

by ee cummings

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all the flowers. Don't cry

- the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

Please click here to share a thought, a poem or a comment.

The Nightmares are Back — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

I have a few neuroses — who doesn't — but I don't live in constant fear. On the rare occasion when my mind travels down "What If" way, I scare the crap out of myself and do a u-turn as quickly as possible. I'm always afraid if I go too far down that path, there will be no coming back. How's that for neurotic — I'm afraid of being afraid.

But the subconscious is like the highwayman of mental health — it creeps up on you in your dreams and steals your sanity. In times of stress (and with four kids and a dog in a floundering economy, there's not much stress-free time), I have nightmares. I know I'm not alone. According to one recent poll, nearly one in three women has frequent stress dreams.

Mine usually start with the basic college stress dream. You know the one. It's the day of the final exam and you haven't been to class since the first session; you get to the classroom and the venue has changed and you go from room to room searching for your professor as the exam time ticks away. It's been a long time since college, but I'm still taking exams in my dreams every three or four weeks.

Next come the dreams of never-ending frustration. The kitchen floor that keeps growing as you try to wash it; swimming across a pool that keeps getting longer and longer; the endless search for a public restroom when your screaming toddlers have to go potty RIGHT NOW. These dreams exhaust me, but I understand them. I recognize they are my body's way of telling me that I've got too much on my plate — that it's time to figure out what needs to be done and what can be let go.

But the nightmares are different. I should say nightmare — it's always the same — only the roles change. In my nightmare, one of my children has died. I am in the immediate aftermath and I have to figure out how to go on, how to keep living and be a mom to the children who survive. It's a different child every time, and the bulk of the dream is about the altered family dynamics that such a devastating loss brings and my utter failure in navigating it.

I have friends who would be appalled that I'm writing this nightmare out loud. "Puh, puh, puh, don't say such a thing." It's strange trying to express and dissect such a visceral experience, complete with the hyper-reality that the dream state induces. It's also strange that, while I'm always overwhelmed and fully present in the dream, I am also somehow always aware that it is a dream.

My intellectual self understands that these nightmares are also stress induced, exploring in my sleep the unknown future, dangers and ultimate loss that face my children in a way that my practical, daytime mind won't allow. My spiritual self grieves for those families who are living this nightmare in real life, and is grateful every day for our health and well being. But my neurotic self, the one I try to keep in check, is truly terrified by these nightmares and, frankly, a little pissed off that I have absolutely no control over them. They come when they come and there is nothing I can do about it.

Over spring break, three of my children and I are driving down to Florida to visit my parents and my wonderful, talented stepdaughter. My oldest son is flying out to Seattle to spend time with his wonderful, generous big brother — my stepson. I've been having the nightmare every night for the past two weeks. I know I'll have it every night until we're all back home again. If you have a cure, let me know. In the meantime, maybe I'll just stay up and blog all night.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't fretting in her sleep about things she absolutely cannot control, she can be found daydreaming about Two Kinds of People and all things pet related The Animal Store Blog.

Photo Credit: The Unmade Bed by Richard Pluck.

Crushed by Parental Paperwork — CMB Post

Originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Of the myriad skills necessary for effective parenting, I would have thought that years of working through school and in offices would have prepared me well to handle the paperwork. Wrong.

Four kids, four schools, six doctors, two dentists, several teams, too many extracurricular activities and one dog add up to a lot of paperwork. That doesn't even take into account my own personal papers. No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to stay on top of the never-ending influx of health forms, permission slips, report cards, sign-up sheets, camp forms, registrations, family histories, and emergency contact sheets. And those are just the forms I have to complete and return.

Then there are the read-only materials, the read-and-file materials, the read-and-act-upon materials and the what-in-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-this materials. You've got your newsletters, your flyers, your invitations, your reminder sheets and your save-the-dates. And don't forget or misplace the calendars and class lists and team rosters and schedules. Clearly, the promise of a paperless society is nothing but cruel joke.

On top of the sheer volume, there are the two additional complicating factors in the battle of parental paperwork. First, many of these materials arrive weeks or months before they are due, like the camp forms that come in November for activities that won't take place until the following July; or the forms to schedule a Bar Mitzvah that is still two years away. This early-entry paperwork is just a disaster waiting to happen. Forms are like socks — half of them are sucked directly into the black hole that hovers over our house.

The second factor that interferes with efficient paper handling is that many of these materials want me to return them with checks — you know, actual money — for fees, deposits and dues. I don't know about you, but our family does quite a bit of financial juggling, so I can't always afford to write a check for monies that aren't technically due for a month or more.

So, here is where my tale of woe leads me down a bumpy path directly to the the hall of shame. My daughter, one of the world's most organized individuals, is taking an advanced placement (AP) class in high school. We are new to the world of AP and its particular brand of red tape. In addition to taking the class as part of their regular course load, AP students take special exams that are given on the same date everywhere in the country. There are registration forms and fees associated with each AP class and exam.

About six weeks ago, we got a packet in the mail with all kinds of information about test dates and fees and schedules. The $86 test fee was due absolutely no later than Friday, March 20 — no exceptions. If you have been paying attention, you have probably already guessed that I missed the deadline. I could give you a million very good excuses, but the fact is, I screwed up. My girl has busted her butt all year in a college-level class, and I forgot to send in the stupid check. I couldn't sleep all weekend, waking up a hundred times a night with the same cold sweats and stomach churns that have prevented me from pursuing a master's degree. I can't take the pressure of the paperwork.

What to do? Stoop even lower, of course, and give my daughter some brilliant advice about how to wiggle out of the mess I made — I told her to lie. We woke up extra early Monday morning and headed to school, where I coached her to go in and tell the woman collecting the checks that her mother had been out of town for a week and had accidentally taken the form and check with her. It was a plan — not a good plan, I admit, but it might have worked, except the woman wasn't there.

So, I sent my girl back into school, telling her to put the envelope in the woman's mailbox with a note that said she would check in with her Monday morning. Remember, it was already Monday morning. The implication was that the envelope had been turned in on Friday after the woman in charge had already left for the day. I know, I know. I am a terrible, horrible mother.

The good news is that there were many other similar envelopes in the mailbox, and when my girl checked in with the AP woman (as she promised she would), she was assured that everything was fine.

Fine. Unless you count the fact that I totally flushed my integrity, credibility and any hope of ever claiming the moral high ground again with my daughter, then sure, everything is fine.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't hanging her head in shame or digging out from under an avalanche of paperwork, she can be found writing pulp-free at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Kids are Gross — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

A good laugh is hard to come by these days, so I welcomed the one I ran into the other day, even though it was at someone else's expense. I was talking to an expectant first-time dad who was so excited about all the plans he and his wife have made for their new baby. His enthusiasm was infectious and I remembered how thrilling it was when we were planning to bring our own twins home from the hospital.

I listened, smiling, as he talked about having to put the crib together twice, their concerns that the baby already has more stuff than the two of them put together, and whether their first "baby" (a six-year-old Chocolate Lab) would welcome his new little sibling. It all sounded perfectly normal, until he told me about an agreement he and his wife had made. "I plan to help with everything," he said, "except poopy diapers. That's just too gross!"

I laughed — out loud and right in his face. "Kids are gross," I said. "Get over it." I will grant you that moms have a leg up on improving their GTF (Grossness Tolerance Factor), what with all the interesting changes we experience during pregnancy and the less-than-pleasant after effects of childbirth. What mom will ever forget the first time her milk lets down in public, soaking the entire front of her shirt? All of that is personal, however, and we develop a pretty high GTF for our own bodies. But babies and kids are a whole different story.

I so wanted to burst this new dad's bubble by telling him about the booger bubbles his new baby will blow out of his or her cute little nose, and how you have to learn to suck out the junk with those weird, bulbous nasal aspirators. Turns out babies can't use a tissue for years and, even then, you have to hold it while they blow, and then you get to dispose of the mess.

Or how about when that baby boy waits until he is de-diapered and then takes aim right in your eye — or worse, your mouth.

Or when your newly potty-trained princess swallows a bright green plastic button and you get to fish her deposits out of the bowl and sift through them for SIX days to be sure she has passed the button safely and that it is not obstructing her digestive tract.

Or when your little boys decide to visit the bathroom together and use their streams as dueling light sabers (really, they do things like this). You won't even recognize your own voice when you hear yourself yelling: "The next time someone pees on the wall, you will all become sitters! Do you understand me?".

Or when your little girl explores the recycling bin, slicing her palm with the lid of a tuna can and giving you a graphic lesson in anatomy. You can't faint. You can't run away. You are the grownup!.

Or when they say: "Here, hold this," and hand you their ABC gum (that's already-been-chewed, thank you very much).

And even though you have told your little darling a million times that his shirt is not a napkin, he insists on wiping his face on his sleeve or the front of his shirt. Or even better, your shirt.

Or how about that time when your twins got their first bout of the stomach flu when they were four and you were pregnant and you spent five straight hours cleaning up her puke, running to the bathroom to throw up yourself, running back to clean up his puke … you get the picture … until your husband finally came home and took over (bless his heart).

Or how about when your beautiful baby girl comes home at the ripe old age of eight with BO so bad that she smells like the boys' high-school locker room and you have to buy her deodorant and invest in Dr. Scholl's foot powder.

I won't even talk about the disgusting things children will put into their mouths … and noses … and ears … and hair. My friend, the soon-to-be dad, will just have to discover those joys on his own, along with lancing boils, freezing off warts and clipping toenails.

In the '90s, there was a comedy duo called "The Mommies" and one of their funniest bits was about how intimate you become with your baby. Just yesterday, I found myself both gagging and giggling as I looked at my 17-year-old's frighteningly large feet and remembered The Mommies' reflections about how much they used to love to kiss their babies' little tootsies.

Poopy diapers, while certainly not pleasant, are just not that bad on the GTF scale. The good news is that children grow out of them in a few short years. The bad news is that when you bring a new baby into the world, something really terrifying happens. You become the parent. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan isn't busy cleaning up messes, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Little Kids, Big Problems — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Until just a week ago, all my parenting experience as a mom and stepmom of six children (ranging in age from 29 to 10) has borne out the underlying truth of the old adage: "Little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems." Now I know that the problems of our little kids are big and getting bigger every day.

This week, our community was rocked by the news of the tragic loss of a fifth grade boy, who was found unresponsive in the bathroom at his public school and who later died, apparently of self-inflicted injuries. I cannot begin to comprehend the devastation the family* of this child is feeling and my heart breaks as they struggle with their pain and dispute even the possibility that he could have taken his own life.

While we do not know this family personally, the loss has had a profound effect on our family, particularly my own fifth grader, as it comes on the heels of a traumatic week for him. A week ago, he experienced his first encounter with verbal and physical bullying. The details are unimportant, but a few facts are worth mentioning. Though he felt threatened for several hours during the school day, my son never went to an adult for help. Though a number of other students in the fifth grade knew of the threats, they never went to an adult for help, either. When I asked my son why he didn't go to an adult, he said he was just scared. He was so scared, in fact, that he ran into the street without looking and was almost hit by a car.

I give credit to our school principal for the way he handled this incident. I think it was particularly insightful that he recognized and addressed the more global issues of keeping dangerous secrets. In speaking to the entire fifth grade, he explained the difference between tattling and going to an adult to keep someone safe. This can be a difficult concept for children to understand. You're not supposed to rat out your friends.

A few days later, in a completely unrelated conversation, my same 10-year-old boy told me that he has been feeling completely overwhelmed all school year and he has no idea how he is going to be able to handle the work and logistics of middle school. His 17-year-old sister smirked at the idea that his fifth-grade life is so hard. After all, she is having to take exams, and ACTs and SATs, and choose colleges, and pick a career, and make decisions that will affect the rest of her life. All he has is a little bit of homework.

It was tempting for me to smile at his worries, too. But I get it. As the youngest of six, this boy has a preternatural understanding of the fleeting nature of childhood. On the one hand, he sees clear-eyed what the future holds in store for him and that growing up is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be. On the other hand, he is holding on white-knuckled to what is left of his boyhood, trying to squeeze out every drop before the well runs dry.

And then we lost another fifth grade boy in our community. I knew when I heard it on the news that the rumors were probably already flying at my son's school. Fifth grade is all about gossip. I also knew that he was probably going to be very upset. We had a long talk that night. We talked about how sad we were for that other little boy and his family. We talked about living in the moment and trying not to worry too much about what's going to happen next. Mostly, we talked about the importance of talking. I reiterated how much we love him and helped him enumerate all the adults in his life he can trust and turn to whenever he needs them. I don't know if it comforted him. I hope it did.

There is no question that the stress our children face is increasing. My adult stepchildren are shocked at the amount of homework their youngest siblings are expected to do every night. When my high school juniors were in elementary school, they didn't even know when the standardized tests would be administered. Now, my little boys worry about them for weeks in advance. I can't help but wonder what else they worry about. I can't help but worry that we, the adults in their lives, are somehow failing them when they feel that they cannot come to us with their problems. Fifth graders should be thinking about books and video games and friendships and snacks and play dates and the myriad other exciting things that being 10 means. They should not be carrying the weight of the world. It's too heavy for those slender shoulders.

*The Oakton Elementary School PTA has set up a fund to help the family of Aquan Lewis. For more information, click

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. Susan also writes Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Photo credit: The Weight of the World by Jen via Creative Commons.

Lousy Lice — CMB Post

Originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog post.

When I was a kid, before the F word stunted my vocabulary, we used far more descriptive language to express our feelings. For example, if the ball went over the fence during a kickball game and it was your turn to retrieve it, you would mutter "Dirty, rotten, stinkin', lousy fence." Those four words, in that order, seemed to cover all the negative bases. It wasn't until this weekend that I connected "lousy" with "louse" and then "lice."

This will teach me to be a good Samaritan. I took care of an ailing friend's two boys on Saturday, one of whom ended up spending the night. Sunday afternoon, I got the call. "Don't scream," she said, "but K (not his real initial) has lice. Don't use the chemical stuff. We read on the Internet to use a combination of petroleum jelly and tea tree oil." I did not scream, but dutifully stopped at the drugstore to pick up the necessary supplies, all the while thinking: "Dirty, rotten, stinkin', lousy, f-ing lice."

My two youngest boys share a room and both had played closely with our infested guest during his overnight stay. While I did not spy any of the creepy critters when I searched the boys' skulls, I thought we should go ahead and treat them just in case. So, I mixed up a batch of the glop and slopped it onto their heads, rubbing it right down into their scalps. The crabby 11-year-old complained every minute, while his 10-year-old brother embraced the situation with humor, fashioning his goo-laden locks into his first-ever Mohawk. Then began the four-hour wait.

In the meantime, I stripped the beds, washed the linens and mattress covers in hot water with the extra rinse cycle on, and sprayed down the pillows and mattresses. Just before bedtime, I put one of the guys in the tub to wash out the gunk. Or so I thought. It turns out that it's not so easy to wash out petroleum jelly. I knew it wasn't water soluble, but my friends had assured me that a couple of wash-rinse-repeat cycles with a clarifying shampoo and a final rinse with white vinegar would do the trick. Not so much.

I washed that boy's head seven times and marinated him in vinegar. It didn't even make a dent. Next I did a quick Web search for remedies to remove petroleum jelly from hair. I had just gotten to the part where it read "… if that doesn't work, try corn starch" when the phone rang.

"Um, have you been able to get the jelly out of their hair?" asked my friend sheepishly. NO. "Don't try the cornstarch," he said, "it just makes a bigger mess. I think it would have been better to use mayonnaise. Let us know if you find anything that works."

What did work, at least modestly, was to go over their hair with a fine-tooth comb (ah, now you know from whence that saying came). We combed and combed and combed. "My hair is falling off," yelled the complainer. "It feels kind of good," said the sport.

I checked the Web one more time. "If that doesn't work, try using a blow dryer and then blotting the hair gently with a towel." The complainer was done, so we just covered his pillow with a towel and sent him to bed. But the sport and I thought the blow dryer method was worth a shot. Armed with a couple of towels and my 1875-watt turbo hair-straightening big gun, I set to work trying to melt the goo out of his hair.

"Mom," he said, trying to get my attention over the roar of the blower. "Mom! I think the oil is starting to boil my head! Hot, hot, hot!" Poor boy. Now we were done. "I think we should just get a pet monkey so he can groom us and eat the lice," he suggested. I'm seriously considering it.

My friend called back one last time. "How are you doing?" she asked. "We're done," I said. "Did you get it out?" she asked. "No, we're just done." In the background, I could hear her poor ailing husband: "Does she hate us?" No, I don't hate them.

Unless I get lice.

When not hanging out here on Chicago Moms Blog, Susan tries to figure things out at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.

Photo credit: "I Say, Damn Boy, You Eat Up With The Lice !!" by bamakve via flickr.com.

A Question of Recession — CMB Post

Originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

News agencies around the world reported Monday that the U.S. economy is officially in recession. Actually, they reported that the National Bureau of Economic Research finally admitted that we've been in recession since December 2007. Duh. Why on earth it took a year to reach this dazzling conclusion is beyond me.

When I say "we've" been in recession for a year, I mean the country at large. My personal "we" — our family — has been in a downward-spiraling recession for years. As small business owners, we've been slammed with everything you've been reading about in the news: outrageous healthcare premiums, ever-climbing energy costs (and all that implies), and a contracting credit market that feels more like a noose than a belt tightening.

Rumor has it that I've used up my complaining quotient, so I'm not complaining — really I'm not. Like everyone else, I'm just trying to figure things out. If we and other families have felt under the financial gun for years, what does "official" recession mean for our immediate and long-term futures?

Here's what I know:

It took a long time to get our family and our country into this financial mess and it's going to take a long time to get us out of it — one step at a time.

We're going to have to make some tough decisions — decisions we no doubt should have made sooner.

Some things are my fault and some things aren't. Woulda, could, shoulda. Who cares? The real question is: now what?

It is not my responsibility to spend our country out of recession. If my incredibly short American memory serves, that's one of the things that got us into this mess in the first place.

Every year we say we are going to watch our spending over the holidays. This year I mean it — it's going to be lean.

I want better for my kids — not better as in more, but better in terms of making better decisions, paying better attention, being better stewards.

Here's what I don't know:

I don't know how to be concerned, vigilant and proactive without worrying myself into a coma.

I don't know how to turn off the worry so I can sleep at night, so I can make good decisions and take productive steps during the day.

I don't know how to teach my children to be grateful for what we have, while understanding what we can't have.

I don't know how to keep them informed and teach them financial responsibility and independence without transferring the weight of my stress and worry onto their slender shoulders.

I don't know how to make them feel safe and confident about the future, while keeping them grounded in the reality of the present.

I know I'm lucky. I'm healthy, educated and able-bodied. I have a strong support system. And I have hope, if not confidence, that the new administration will ask these and other important questions so we can begin to find the answers together.

When Susan isn't feeling queasy about credit card debt, she can be found worrying about other topics at Two Kinds of People and marketing the family business at The Animal Store Blog.

Diversity in America

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who ignore our differences and those who embrace them. 

Today, on the Moms Blog Group, bloggers from all over the country are tackling the topic of diversity head on. It's a conversation long overdue. Click here for my post on Children and Religious Diversity. Then spend some time reading the other posts on the topic by clicking on the listings on the left side bar. 

Please share your comments by clicking here.

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Photo courtesy of Jeanne Levy via flickr.com; the chalk art was done by Liza White and Kary Taylor at the Forest Grove Chalk Festival.

Golden Birthday — CMB Post

Originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

"They look like space aliens," said my 12-year-old stepson. And they did. Born at 24 and 3/7ths weeks gestation, my twins spent five months on the neonatal intensive care unit, with tubes and wires attached to every part of their little bodies. The ventilators huffed and the monitors blinked and bleated day and night. Nurses shaved their plum-sized heads in a quest to find viable IV sites, and their little toes glowed red from the pulse oximeter that measured their blood oxygen levels, just the way ET's finger glowed.

On their birth day, my son weighed in at 1 lb. 8.5 oz. and my daughter was 1 lb. 10 oz. They were not the earliest preemies ever born, nor the smallest — world records I'm happy we do not hold. Chances are they won't make it through the night, we were told. Chances are they will be blind. Chances are they will be deaf or profoundly hearing impaired. Chances are they will have cerebral palsy, severe learning disabilities, asthma, allergies and chronic lung problems. Chances are they will have to be hospitalized on a regular basis.

But chances were with us and this week we celebrate their "golden" or "star" birthday, when they turn 17 on the 17th, in perfect health as juniors in high school. It was a long haul. They spent nearly a year on oxygen and reached every milestone months (in some cases years) after their peers, but they did reach them. In honor of their birthday, I would like to share 17 of the many gifts they have given to me:

1. Good things come in small packages. These babies were literally gifts, their conception the result of a fertility treatment called gamete intrafallopian transfer (or GIFT).

2. Live in the moment. Until I was hospitalized 11 days before their birth, I wished my life away, always hungry for the next thing: growing up, going away to college, moving to a new city, getting married, buying a house, getting pregnant. Because we didn't know what the next minute would bring as we tried to stave off their premature birth, I saw for the first time the value of living in the now.

3. Be grateful for the simple things. Breathing is beautiful and not to be taken for granted. So is peeing, which I learned as we prayed for my baby boy to urinate as proof that his kidneys were not shutting down.

4. Never wake a sleeping baby (thanks mom). When my daughter came home on March 10th, nearly five months after she was born, she weighed four pounds. I was told she would act like a newborn, waking every two hours to eat. She didn't. That first night home, I watched her sleep. When she didn't wake at the two-hour mark, I put a mirror by her mouth to make sure she was still breathing, even though she was on oxygen and electronic monitors. I stared at her for two and a half more hours before she finally woke. She was tired; people had been poking and prodding her for months. From that night on, she slept six hours at a stretch, just like a real baby.

5. Everyone is different. These twins who shared so much were completely different right from the start. I learned that comparing them to each other or anyone else was pointless. I also learned to stop comparing myself to others.

6. We all learn at our own pace. The best piece of advice I got when they were born was to ditch my copy of the baby bible What to Expect the First Year. Everything that happened that year was unexpected. Everything that has happened since has been unexpected. As long as we are making progress, it's all good.

7. Boys and girls are different. It's not nurture, it's nature. I did not have the time or energy to give these boy/girl twins different toys or different kinds of attention. Girls mature faster, boys are noisier and more physical. Are these generalizations? Sure, but they're generally true.

8. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. My son has struggled mightily in many ways, but you would never know it to meet him. He has a short-term memory deficit, which makes learning by rote very difficult, as well as finding things, like your homework or your socks. On the other hand, each day is a brand new adventure, and he never suffers from emotional hangovers. We could all use a little more of that.

9. You are what you think you are. My son was diagnosed as small for gestational age for most of his life. Until he was 14 and had been on growth hormone for four years, he never even reached the lowest percentile on the growth charts. He was always the smallest kid in the class, but when you asked him how big he was compared to his classmates, he would say "Oh, about in the middle."

10. Trust yourself. We have had the benefit of hundreds of talented, dedicated professionals who have helped bring these children to where they are today. But I am their mom, and I know them better than anyone. To become an effective advocate for them, I had to learn to trust myself.

11. Ask for help. As the saying goes, it takes a village. A neighbor of mine took me to a Mothers of Multiples support group meeting even before the babies came home from the hospital. Those women saved my life. I also found therapists when we needed them, as well as a great pediatrician, not to mention all the times I leaned on my parents, other family and friends.

12. This too shall pass — and faster than you think. When they were little, it seemed that we'd be mired in diapers forever; we weren't. My son was finally potty trained at four and a half. It seemed like they would never talk; they did — at four. The problem with "this too shall pass" is that it applies to the sweet times, as well as the sour ones, so pay attention or you might miss something good.

13. Read aloud together. They are 17 and we still read together — not every night, but often enough. I have loved this time together (except the Go, Dog. Go! phase).

14. Never give up. These tiny, frail, vulnerable babies (fetuses, really) are the strongest people I have ever met. They survived more challenges in their first year of life than most of us do in a lifetime: ventilators, lung damage, jaundice, retinopathy of prematurity, heart surgery, and invasive infections, just to name a few. They fought hard to be here.

15. Don't listen to the naysayers. I can't tell you how many people told us it would have been better if they had never been born. I was terrified at first, sad that I had not carried them to term and that their lives were going to be harder (at least in the beginning) than it should have been. But we are so lucky they were born at a time and in a place where they had a real chance to survive and, given that chance, they have thrived.

16. Celebrate. Many loving, well-meaning people had no idea how to react when they were born. We received no gifts or cards or flowers until they came home. People were afraid they were going to die. My mother handled most of the phone calls, conveying to everyone that we were celebrating. Whether they lived 90 hours or 90 years, this was the only life they would ever have. We're still celebrating.

17. It goes by fast. These children were babies for a long time, much longer than most, and yet here we are, on the edge of 17, that dividing line between childhood and adulthood. How did this happen? I swear I was paying attention.

So, my babies, Happy Birthday! And thank you.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan is not sobbing over baby pictures, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and The Animal Store Blog.