Sammy, training for the 7-mile Miles for Miracles walk
As you likely know, our son Samson was born with a congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. We knew at 20 weeks pregnant that he would need three open heart surgeries, the first when he was a tiny four days old. Little did we realize how blessed we were to live so close to Children’s Hospital Boston, one of the best hospitals in the country for children’s cardiac care.
Sammy spent a month of his first year of life at CHB – a total of 29 days for surgeries and another 3 for dehydration and an upper respiratory virus. He spent 14 in the CICU after his first surgery, the Norwood procedure, and 5 on the “step down” floor. Then, at five months old, he spent 10 days at CHB after the second surgery, the Glenn procedure. Each person worked as a team that moved seemingly effortlessly to give Sammy the very best care possible. We can’t find enough ways to thank them for giving Sammy such a fighting chance. Helping to raise money so that CHB can continue their research, support their doctors, nurses and staff and take care of our children in the best ways possible – that’s a cause we could get behind!
It is for Sammy, and for many other reasons, that we are walking Miles for Miracles this June.
Many of you know our close friends Susannah and Reilly. At 20 weeks in-utero, little Jack was diagnosed with an endocardial cushion defect, a heart defect that will require open-heart surgery at CHB. We knew that Jack and Sammy would be lifelong buddies, but we would never have imagined that they would share this as well. Jack is due in July and we know he is in fantastic hands at CHB.
Last year we walked as Team Sammy with some of our amazing family and friends. This year, we’re joining with Su, Reilly and little Jack-to-be, as well as our good friends Alicen, Chris and their little girl Ellie and Amy, Lou and their son Jack. We met Alicen & Chris before Ellie was born and spent many a night together as Sammy and Ellie recovered from their Norwood surgeries together. We met Amy, Lou and little Jack when we were in for Sammy’s Glenn. Jack was just a newborn, in for his Norwood. It’s amazing the bonds you form as heart families!
So, more appropriately this year, our new team name is Together in Heart!
If you’re local, please consider joining our team! You have the option of doing the 2-mile walk or the 7-mile walk, both along the beautiful Charles River. If you can’t join us, if you’ve been touched in some way by Sammy’s story and life, please consider donating. We don’t have enough ways to thank CHB – we’d like to make this one really count!
Thanks!

You all have pulled through in an amazing way in the past when I put out prayer/hope/thought requests.
Please, please, please send any and all positive energy, love, prayer, thought – anything you’ve got – to Riley Norton and his family. He is post-Fontan (the third surgery). They recently went into the hospital for PLE (a potential post-Fontan complication) and ended up facing a much more difficult situation. The big fear is Fontan take-down (where they reverse the Fontan) and/or transplant.
For those of you familiar with the lingo: He is in the OR right now for a cath- his fenestration was blocked by a clot and wasn’t responding to medication. From his site: Since the surgical fenestration was a failure, they would like to attempt a fenestration in the cath lab using a cloth-covered stent. This would be a shorter, straighter connection but it still runs the risk of clotting over. They would give Riley more aggressive anti-coagulation medication immediately after the procedure. Despite the possibility of failure, the doctors agree it is worth taking the chance. If there’s a problem with the cath, there is the potential that he will be rushed into another open-heart. He’s already had one this hospital stay and has been trying to recover.
Please, please, please – this is hard enough for me, as a mom facing the her child’s Fontan next year, to simply even just think about. I cannot imagine what Suzanne and Ken are going through.
Thanks so much.

If you love the Lane Bryant: Lane Bryant has a 50% off entire purchase coupon valid through April 7. Use code 000509336. Must pay shipping, which begins at $4.95.
And remember, the Ann Taylor Loft coupon works through April 15th. $25 off orders of $50 or more. Use code 60660001. Shipping is back to normal shipping prices, but still – an awesome deal!
Have fun shopping!

1. Why is it that my son has started sleeping through the night again, yet I haven’t?
2. Sammy is CHOWING DOWN on a butter-soaked english muffin with melted cheese. This dairy thing ROCKS. Oh, the calories! The fat!
Happy friday.

First things first – Sammy’s GI appointment. We’ve made it through the soy trial with mostly flying colors, and we got the thumbs up to try dairy. His GI doctor mentioned that toddlers get about 40% of their calories and fat from dairy – no WONDER this kid can’t gain weight! He exists on a diet of fruits and vegetables with the occasional tofu/chicken/turkey thrown in. Even with adding olive oil to pretty much everything, we’ve been stuck at the 19lb mark for a while. Hopefully he’ll do well with the dairy – I’m having visions of raviolis, grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurt, cottage cheese, ice cream… cross your fingers that he tolerates it and doesn’t have a true milk allergy. Because that? That would suck.
While we were waiting in the office, he let go of the sand table and walked about four steps to the couch. This is fantastic, considering his walking is generally a result of one of us holding him and letting go, with him being goaded on by a strategically placed remote, cellphone, camera – anything he really wants. But he decided on his own that he wanted to be at the couch, and so to the couch he went.
On our way to the GI, in the hopes that he would finally nap in the car, I stopped at the Loft to return a few things – and walked away with several pair of pants that finally fit (can I hear an AMEN from you post-pregnancy gals who realize that your pre-pregnancy stuff will never fit you quite the same again?). Yeah. Plus I’ve got a good $70 in store credit and there’s a cute little sweater I’ve been eyeing. Whoo hoo!
(BTW, for those of you following the Loft addiction, that adorable eyelet dress? Not so much. I’m done with looking pregnant, and my god, I looked like I was nursing twins with triplets on the way. Seriously. The nursing twins part I could handle, maybe, but the triplets part? Yeah. Can we say, Refund!)
I’m makin’ a big ol’ pile of the things hanging in my closet that don’t fit but are there in the hopes that they’ll one day fit again, which really – I had birthin’ hips BEFORE the birthin’, but now I’ve REALLY got birthin’ hips, and there’s no way those cute little 8s are really ever going to fit me again.
I’m okay with that. I recognize that this weight might just be part of who I am now, and I should stop lamenting over it and just be healthy and wear things that look good and make me feel good and do things that make me feel good, like getting out for a walk – though chasing after a toddler all day is exercise enough. I just want to be able to open my closet and not go, “But I have all these clothes… why don’t I have anything to wear?” and then proceed to have a nervous breakdown in front of the mirror. Again – too much energy wasted on that crap.
Now I need some new shoes to go with my new outfits…

So how many times do you think Sammy needs to hide the remote on me before I stop letting him play with it?
I’ve now spent a good quarter of his naptime looking for the damned thing. All I want to do is have a cup of tea, watch some cheesy morning TV and make up the grocery list like a good SAHM, and I’ll be damned if I actually change the channel manually!

I’ve had a quote rattling around in my head for a few days now. Christine posted it and it really resonated with me:

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain

One thing I’m really learning as I get older – we truly are responsible for our own happiness. I’m learning that only I can decide what to keep in my life – relationships, possessions, thoughts, goals – and that if something isn’t working towards happiness and contentment, that it’s okay to let it go.
Not that it’s necessarily easy, but it’s definitely an exercise in defining what’s most important. I can look at my friends and recognize that they truly do lift me up, encourage me, trust that I can become great. I need to work at being there for them in such capacity as well. I’ve realized on a very conscious level that I don’t need people who bring me down, find passive-aggressive ways to undermine me and my choices and otherwise bring stress and negative energy into my life. I’ve learned that I don’t need to read this blog or email that person – I make a conscious decision to allow it into my life or not, and honestly, I have too much else going on to focus my energy on toxic people and toxic relationships. I’d rather spend that energy celebrating and enjoying the positive people in my life.
This, by no means, means I am a perfect person or that my choices are perfect. But the understanding that I have some control over who I am is helping me to become the person I’d like to be. It’s a long road, but I find lately that I’m more at peace with things (besides Sammy’s heart, but I’m working on that!) than I ever have been. It may not always seem that way on the outside, but I’m getting there. And that’s what’s important, right?

Seriously. Someone PLEASE block my access to the Ann Taylor Loft site.
Usually I don’t even set foot in anything Ann Taylor related because it’s just too pricey – and here it is, on crazy sale, and then an additional $25 off of $50. (Let’s not discuss how much time I’ve spent plotting my purchases so each one adds up to as close to $50 as possible. Or how many individual packages my mailman will be delivering from Loft.) Even better? I went to the store to exchange a pair of pants that didn’t quite fit right and ended up needing a size smaller. A pair of $79 pants that I got for $22. Gorgeous, lined, beautiful pants. In a size smaller! (Though I think the sizes run large, it was so, so nice to fit into a 10 again! And the clothes are so nice and fit so well, I don’t feel so frumpy-mama!)
I love Ann Taylor. Forever and ever and ever.

I am addicted to Mrs. Meyers cleaning stuff – well, at least the lemon & verbena. Anything that makes me look forward to cleaning, right?
I’m itching to have a garage sale. Hell, I’m itchin’ to put everything at the curb with a big ol’ “FREE! PLEASE TAKE IT ALL FAR, FAR AWAY!” sign, but at least with a garage sale, we might walk away with some extra cash. Any of you locals up for joining us one spring weekend?
Seriously. I’ve been weeding through the rooms, stacking up bebe clothes to hand down to friends. I’ve got piles of things we’ve accumulated that I’m eyeing for ebay – as much work as it might be, I need to feed my recently discovered Ann Taylor Loft addiction. My paypal balance is very quickly dwindling away to nothing. (But hello! I got this dress for like, $25! Now I need to invent a reason to wear it…)
We’ve also got a basement full of stuff. Stuff! I can’t even tell you what’s in all those boxes! Clearly, we don’t need it. I read once that (I think it’s a feng shui thing) clutter in your basement or under the bed creates a sense of disorder in your “foundation” – and it’s hard to clear and focus and center and ground and all those things I’m trying to do when your foundation is a mess… especially a mess that includes boxes of scattered paper and other things we threw into boxes because we didn’t know where else to put them. Stuff! In my foundation! (It sounds like a polite way of describing an STD, doesn’t it? I can assure you, I am simply talking about boxes in my basement. I swear.)
Anyway, back to the Mrs. Meyers. I’m attempting to make everything under the sink at least somewhat poison-free. I’ve got one hell of a daring explorer these days, one who just keeps getting smarter and smarter and surprising us with just how capable he is. He opened up a drawer in the kitchen yesterday, managed to take the tray off his swing (you know, the one that keeps him from crawling out?), has all but figured out doorknobs, loves climbing on anything and everything -
Anyone else find it ironic that he not only reached (shouldn’t it be raught? Like teach -> taught? I digress) – anyway – reached up on tippie-toes to the magnets and started gnawing away on the Poison Control one?

As much as I love the clothes, I don’t normally shop Ann Taylor – things are just too pricey for me. Recently, though, I’ve hit this “no more Old Navy crap!” stage where, oh I don’t know, I want my clothes to fit well AND last. Crazy, I know.
So then I stumbled on this code for Ann Taylor Loft: 60660001.
Save $25 on a $50 purchase. $5 flat rate shipping.
And you can use it over and over and over until April 15th. Trust me, I know this as fact. We’re not going to discuss how much I’ve spent there in the past three days, mmmm ‘kay? And Paypal’s new “we’ll generate a credit card number for you so you can spend allllll your paypal money anywhere you want” deal isn’t helping matters at all.
(BTW – if you do any shopping online, you really should check out Retail Me Not for any promo codes. I swear, this isn’t a paid advertisement – though if someone wants to pay me for the money I’m saving them, it would definitely help to defray the current Ann Taylor tab I’ve got running. )