For the love of pouches- The Infantino Squeeze Station

I have seen many posts shared among my mommy friends about the Infantino Squeeze Station.  My baby food making posts will be a tad out of order as I am starting this when my first is a toddler and my second isn’t yet on solids.  But that’s ok!  Because I had planned on writing a post about it, I decided this was a great time to do so!  Let me start by saying, WE LOVE IT!

As soon as we started Grace on solids (a little after 5 months), I made a promise to myself that I would make everything that went into her body.  Perhaps my fervor for this came from not being about to breastfeed.  I wanted something to be natural and unprocessed for her!  So far today, she has NEVER had store bought baby food, aside from the prune pouch emergency!  I also wanted to make the most of our budget with me as a stay at home mom.

Once she became bored with the everyday “mom feeding me puree with a spoon bit,” we decided to give the squeeze station a try.  My initial thought was to use them to make yogurt pouches.  Grace was and still is obsessed with yogurt, and man is whole milk baby yogurt expensive!

I started by making the yogurt pouches.  They were perfect!  In using my baby food processor ( I will talk about this in another post!),  I was able to use large containers of whole milk yogurt and mix it with her favorite fruits!  Such a win win!  I made many pouches and froze them all in the Infantino Freezer Container.  (This container also works wonderfully to store breastmilk bags!)  Each night, I would bring down a couple pouches for her to eat the next day.  That way, you never have to worry about them going bad before using them.

Although we started using them with yogurt, you can order the Infantino attachable spoon and start using it right away (after your baby’s gone through the initial slow tasting and allergy testing period).  These pouches would be wonderful for any puree (recipes to follow in many subsequent posts).  I would just add a little more breastmilk, formula, or water to each puree so there aren’t any issues while squeezing it through the pouch.

Lately, Grace has loved both homemade applesauce and smoothies in her pouches.  And, aside from an occasional splatter, she’s gotten pretty good at using them!

For the applesauce, I stick to a very simple recipe.  Apples and cinnamon.  It has been the same since starting solids (aside from waiting to add in the cinnamon until we made sure she wasn’t allergic to apples).  We steam the apples and then puree them.  Afterward, the cinnamon is added.

The smoothies are very simple as well!  Although fresh fruits and veggies are always best, that is often hard to come by.  Frozen fruits and veggies are also amazing.  They are picked and frozen at peak freshness so you don’t have to worry about that hidden mushy mess at the bottom of your berries! I steam those for a short amount of time to soften them and then puree them.  Then, I add in yogurt.  Any type works, although be careful of the sugar content.  Some may also say zero sugar.  BE CAREFUL to make sure they’re not full of artificial sugar.  Even worse for you!

I am so excited for you to try these products!  We parents need to make our lives easier in an way we can! Please share with me your recipes once you try it out.

Here are the links for the products on Amazon.  Good luck!

Squeeze Station: https://www.amazon.com/Infantino-208-101-Squeeze-Station/dp/B009IVKY7Q/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1485711275&sr=8-1&keywords=infantino+squeeze+station

Squeeze Pouches: https://www.amazon.com/Infantino-Squeeze-Pouches-4-Fl-Oz/dp/B009IWNPXK/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1485711332&sr=1-1&keywords=infantino%2Bsqueeze%2Bpouches&th=1

Attachable Spoon: https://www.amazon.com/Infantino-208-106-Couple-a-Spoons/dp/B00B9ZHQ5W/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1485711410&sr=1-1&keywords=infantino+squeeze+station+spoon

Freezer Storage Container: https://www.amazon.com/Infantino-208-110-Freezer-Sleeve/dp/B009IX0J06/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1485711467&sr=1-1&keywords=infantino+squeeze+freezer+storage

The Least of These

It has been said that by accident of birth we receive our lot in life.  By this “accident”, we grow and flourish in a nation with clean water and shelter or at least the choices that provide those amenities, or conversely, we grow up in a land of political terror and violence, poisonous water and no choice otherwise. The plight of the poor around the world is caused by humanities worst instincts; those instincts to oppress others, and also humanities best instincts; those instincts to help others.  In the most personal of terms, the world’s poor represent a similar fear in every human: that could be me; that is, if we allow that fear to present itself.  Often times, we see a picture of a child in need and change the channel, or we consider a donation to a fund such as Food for the Poor.  But this is where our involvement ends; as a consideration, a fleeting tug on our hearts.  After all, those flies are not in our eyes…those tears are not on our faces.  The dilemma of the poor has become not just a human crisis, but also a matter of basic dignity and justice.  They are the representation of the turmoil and uncertainty that we confront in this century, a century with promises of continued violence and increased human desolation.  These members of our global community have become invisible; a nameless, faceless group known as “the poor.”  Yet, they have also become the most credible of storytellers.

The previous paragraph was written by the political scientist in me.  But there is a much more crucial voice to take on this dilemma, a dilemma that I believe to be the one God commands us to combat.  I must now speak on behave of The Least of These.  In one of the more recognized verses of the Bible, Matthew 23:40 states, “Truly I tell you, whatsoever you did to the least of these, that you did unto me (NIV).”  This is a very literal verse.  In fact, he begins it with “truly I tell you.”  Therefore, that which you do not do for the least of these, you do not do for Him.  If you allow them to go hungry, so too does Jesus.  If you change the channel so as not to see their faces, you are turning away from a picture of the face of Christ.

At a small village hospital in Soddo, Ethiopia, I sat in on the treatment of a middle aged man.  He had one hope left of survival: another surgery. (I will spare you the gruesome details of the illness).  The doctors approached his family to inform them of the prognosis.  Immediately, they shook their heads and said they could not afford another surgery.  The doctors, after seeing the desperation on their faces, offered to proceed with the surgery free of any charge.  They warned the family once again of the severity of the illness and the danger of the surgery and left them to make their decision.  After a few minutes, the family returned.  They decided not to proceed with the surgery.  In the event that the man did not survive the procedure, they would have to pay for the transport of the body home.  Thus, they took him home that day to die.

At a massive slum in Nairobi, Kenya, I walked through the dirt pathways, smattered with garbage of all natures.  The children, majority orphans, clung to my arms kissing them and smiling innocently.  Their clothes were tattered, their feet bare, their bodies filthy and filled with sores and their eyes covered in insects.  I kissed each one, feeling their sores rub against my face.  And, as I hugged them, I knew I was hugging Jesus himself.  I am still unsure if I clung to them or they clung to me.  Maybe it was a little bit of both.  A little boy, around 5 years of age, stubbed his toe on a rock in the road.  It began to bleed, and he just looked at it and hung his head.  Pain, I realized, meant something much different to those who suffer often.  As I held him, the doctor I was traveling with bandaged his foot with a sock offered by a member of our group.  He never cried, just gently ran his fingers over the cross necklace that hung from my neck.  On the ride to our compound that day, the doctor told us he would most likely not live through the night because of a tetanus infection.

The Least of These continue to suffer.  Jesus continues to suffer.  He is the man who was taken home to die for lack of a few simple dollars, a Number 1 at McDonalds.  He is the child who most likely died from an infection a simple vaccination could have prevented.  One must see the flies on the children’s eyes as they look at you pleading for help.  One must smell the urine mixed with the water that they drink.  One must feel the burns on the children’s hands.  One must hear them beg for you to take them home.  Certainly, we cannot all take a month off of work and leave our jobs and families for Africa.  However, God imparted in us each individual talents.  In using those talents, we can realize that we were not placed in this world by “accident of birth.”  We were placed on this earth to contribute to making the invisible storytellers of the world visible.  We were placed on this earth to love The Least of These.

My Cup of Tea

When we have lost someone we loved, someone who truly shaped our lives, we cling to all of our memories with that person.  The memories are countless with my mother, but they seem to filter through my brain like an old picture reel.  Today, the reel stopped at the King and I.  For those unfamiliar with musicals, this is one of the very best! Rodgers and Hammerstein never failed in my mind.

My mother lit that love for musicals in us by singing all of our favorite songs. And now, as I write this, I am back again at 10 years old, dancing around our kitchen with my mom and sister.  My mom’s voice is the main color of that painting.  And, 0h how bright and beautiful it is!  I want to invite you into that memory with me:

This was one of the songs she sang most.  Its words are so relevant because each day as parents, for the entirety of the time we are blessed to be such, we are getting to know the magical humans God blessed us with on earth.  Yes, we as parents shape our children, but if you are not already a parent, you will know when you become one, these precious gifts come with their very own personality.  It is our job to help it shine!

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.
Getting to like you, getting to hope you like me.
Getting to know you, putting it my way,
But nicely,
You are precisely,
My cup of tea.

Getting to know you,
Getting to feel free and easy
When I am with you,
Getting to know what to say
Haven’t you noticed
Suddenly I’m bright and breezy
Because of all the beautiful and new
Things I’m learning about you
Day by day.

Sharing your spirit,
Sharing your tears and your laughter
Hoping it goes on,
Hoping it lasts endlessly
Getting to know you, putting it my way,
But sweetly,
You are completely,
My friend you see.

Telling you my dreams,
Getting to feel that you’re with me
Making our own fun,
Knowing we know how to play
Now that I’ve met you
Suddenly I’m mostly happy
I’ve found a new pal, beautiful and true
Yes I’m talking about you
Friends Today

I am a tumbleweed of emotions, joy and sadness abounding.  I have the loveliest of memories of my mom, but I am so angry those memories ended.  I will never get to know my mother as adulthood friends.  I will never see her kiss and dance with and sing to my babies as she did with us.  I will never see her age gracefully and get that “short a-line cut” she had always wanted.  But I can promise to give my babies that same love.  To strive to get to know them and their wonder every second.  Bright and breezy because of all of the beautiful and new things I am learning about them day by day.

Many many tears of happiness and a deep sadness in my heart pour into these words.  I pray that today, you get to know your kids a little better.  Each day with them is beautiful and new.

I think I will go dance to the King and I will my cups of tea now!

Oh, Baby, Baby, It’s a Wild World

Yesterday, I sat next to my daughter as she played with the new learning globe she got for Christmas this year.  She watched it spin round and round, a dance of colors.  Purple for Europe.  Red for Asia.  Yellow for Africa and so on.  As I watched her eyes trace those shapes and colors, I thought about all of the footprints I had placed on the world thus far and how those footprints would be the ones forever marked on the soles of my shoes.

For me, the spark had been lit by my mother, a literature teacher, who had me read Anne Frank every year beginning in 4^th grade.  She taught it in her classes as well.  Anne Frank lived on in me as my life took on a very clear purpose.  To live my life for others.

At the age of 16, I traveled throughout Europe as a People to People Student Ambassador.  People to People was formed in response to President Eisenhower’s belief that “peaceful relations between nations requires understanding and mutual respect between individuals (https://www.ptpi.org/About-Us/Our-Mission).”

My feet walked the ground of France, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy.  The Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triumph, The Louvre, the Palace of Versailles, Piza, the streets of Zurich.  I bobsledded in the hills of Switzerland.  I ate true apfelstrudel and wienerschnitzel. I attended an opera in Vienna. I indulged in gelato and pasta galore.  I cruised the waterways of Venice in a gondola (and yes, they do have men on them singing!).  I witnessed the visions of painters spill from their hands through a mixture of colors onto canvas.  I jumped into the Adriatic Sea in Jeselo, Italy as the sun bid goodnight to the day. I gazed in awe at the expanse of the Colosseum.  I cried many tears as I walked through the concentration camp, Mauthausen.  I walked into the gas chambers where countless lives had been diminished to dust and, unlike those innocent souls, walked out again.

As a graduate student of Comparative Politics, I traveled with my favorite professor and Thesis mentor (a former Black Panther!) to Kenya and Ethiopia. He was the driving force of cross party friendship for this Republican. We were part of a group that was head by his brilliant brother, a doctor and missionary who’d served in Kenya most of his life.  We drove through the countryside of Ethiopia, the cities of Kenya.  I walked through Addis Ababa, and by the culmination of that walk, I blew black dust out of my nose and watched my spit turn black as well.  We walked through many village hospitals.  Witnessed the birth of babies, many who were born without full limbs due to inadequate nutrition.  Sterling, my professor, and I gathered data from each hospital (what little was available) in an attempt to garner more funding.

At one of the smallest hospitals near the end of our time in Ethiopia, we observed a case in which a man needed a surgery in order to survive.  His family could not afford the surgery.  After speaking, the doctors offered to do the surgery for free.  To our shock, the family said no.  It was apparently cheaper to transport a dead body home than it was a living person.  I cried for many hours that night.

My daughter is still sitting next to me playing with her globe.  As a parent, I have many hopes.  One of the hopes most important to me and to my children’s future is that they understand the world.  They travel its streets.  They experience the beauty and happiness it holds, as well as its sadness and cruelty.

We have all heard the question, “What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

For my children, I hope it is a lot.  I hope they know the possibilities are endless in this wild world.  And I hope, like Anne Frank, they know that none of us need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.  Not one.

 

To the person with a broken heart

Last night when I couldn’t sleep, I thought about the course of my life thus far and the people who have faded in and out of it.  So many faces.  People I have loved.  People I have lost.  It is with a content heart, my wonderful husband sleeping next to me and our beautiful babies asleep in their cribs, that I can now think about those people as a part my bigger picture.  And feel such gratitude.

It is difficult to see outside of our broken heart when it is wholly swallowing us alive.  And that is ok.  It makes us good humans to love and care and be devastated when a love does not go as we had planned.  My first experience with a broken heart was that of my best friend’s.  We were fourteen and on our way back from an away football game.  As cheerleaders, we rode the bus with the players.  And on that bus load full of so many people, she and I sat in the far back.  I held her as she cried from her first broken heart, and I cried too.  It was the first taste of that brokenness, that sadness, but it was far from our last.  We cried with each other so many times after that.  Today, after many years of broken hearts, we are preparing for her upcoming marriage.

When driving around last weekend, my husband told me about the first girl he loved, what had happened between them, and how at that time, their breakup so deeply affected his life.  I am thankful for that girl and any others and the way they shaped his heart to be perfect for mine.

I am already preparing myself for when my children have their first broken heart.  When they do, I will tell them what I have learned, and that it is alright to feel exactly how they feel.  If you feel like your world is going to end, that’s ok.  But don’t worry, it’s not. If you still have moments when you think of that person, that’s ok.  They were an integral part of what makes you YOU.  When you hear a song and it reminds you of a past love, that’s ok.  They have helped mature your heart for where you were headed and where you ended up.  In a way, they teach us how to love.  The same is true for someone healing from a broken heart at a much older age.

So, to the person with a broken heart, take heart in knowing we have all felt that sadness. Someday, you will look back on this time and be thankful for it.  Whether married to the love of your life, in your dream career, or just loving yourself for the moment while staring at a beautiful sunset, this very moment is building your bigger picture.  And darling, it is magnificent.

Fingerprints: Memories from my first mission trip to Kenya and Ethiopia

There is so much more color in Africa.  Nature takes on different shapes and sounds, yet it all blends together in one entire sense of being.  As we drive through small towns outside of Nairobi, many stop to stare at me.  I am, as you may imagine, utterly out of place.  Yet, at the same exact time, I am completely content.  Merchants line the roads, their tables each display colors…colors in fruits, colors in jewelry, and colors in clothing.  Everyone has a purpose, a reason to be.  The dust is almost like a fog there, and it settles on everything, covers each object and person, almost protectively.  The roads are full of potholes, and our van bounces constantly, like it is a piece of the beating heart I am now a part of.

Many do not understand why I have such a fervor for Africa.  Maybe I will never fully explain my love for it and its love for me.  It called to me.  At a very young age, it called to me.  And now, I am the one who has been blessed by answering.

I remember the first slum I visited on my very first trip to Africa.  My eyes panned the infinite display of metal and cardboard constructed into boxes they called homes.  Each rooftop was a slightly different color, pale from the sun, and entirely too tired to care.  The children ran to me, grabbing desperately at my hands and arms, anything they could run their fingers across.  I embodied life outside, a life that wasn’t based on surviving one day at a time.  I felt the mud crusted to their hands fall over me.  And, when I stooped to hug them, it was then that I knew they owned me.  I was their’s to love, and I was certain I already loved them…with every bit of myself.

I walked through the pathways of mud, a crowd gathering quickly behind me, following me, as if I would lead them out, away from all that they knew.

We stopped on a hill made of garbage and plastic, and I watched as the children slid down it.  I sat there, stuck somewhere between anger and sadness and happiness all at the same time.  They surrounded me, kissing me.  I felt their sores scrape my face, and my soul danced.  I was a part of something that was much larger than myself, caught up in a rapidly paced tornado.  You know, the little ones that form from dust and disappear in an instant?

As we pulled away, they shouted and waved.  But I wasn’t looking at them.  I was looking at the tiny fingerprints that painted my arms.  I realized that they had taken shape there but had planted their seeds on my heart.

Cracks

Elizabeth Gilbert once said, “There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets through.”  Sometimes, life seems to be on a never ending carousel, all of us waiting to jump on or off.  We often say we cannot wait for our lives to start.  With each new year, we hope for something better than the year before.  In especially difficult times, we wish away the time in which we feel suffering.  Grief is such an enormous burden to bear. Many of us abide in times of much grief.  Some of us experience small moments of grief in our lifetime.  Each of us has been given a gift when surfacing from those times of hardship. Our cracks.

A crack is time’s etching of survival on you.  Some may view cracks as weakness.  I see them as strength, strength as purely as it comes.  Cracks are a mark of perseverance against that which tried to break us.  Cracks spread over we humans, as well as the very earth we live on.  History is covered in cracks.  Following Pearl Harbor, the United States entered a time of war.  But when we ask Americans when our country was at its most formidable, most unified, most will say it was during this period.  We bore a mighty crack, and it solidified our resolve.  We overcame, and “The Greatest Generation” was given its name.

I often like to people watch.  I think about that person’s life.  I know nothing about them.  I do know they have a crack (or cracks).  They have lost a loved one.  They have suffered a divorce.  A miscarriage.  Depression.  Illness. None of us are immune from sadness. Cracks. We need only to remember we are not alone.  We are all cracked.  

“Turn your face toward the sun, and the shadows will fall behind you.”  May we embrace our cracks.  May we become formidable and unified in this resolve.  May we persevere.  And just like the cracks that have shaped history itself, may we allow our light to shine through those cracks…shine toward one another.

The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.

~Tupac Shakur~

Fun Learning! (Instilling a joy for learning in our kids)

It was just yesterday or….maybe more like 20+ years ago.  My mother, a teacher by profession, had just purchased a Hooked on Phonics kit for us to work with.  She instilled in us at a very young age the importance and fun of learning.  “You should learn something new every day of your life.”  To some, that may sound daunting, but she made it something exciting and miraculous!  There was all of this knowledge out there just waiting to be gobbled up.  She also taught us her belief that although school is a place we go to learn, the greater part of one’s learning should be at home.  So my sister and I dove in.  We loved playing school and taking turns as teacher and student.  My sister has a much better memory than I do all around, so she may say I pulled the big sister card and was the teacher most of the time!  She combined baking and math lessons often as well.

I was reminiscing with my Grandma the other day about my memories of playing school.  She sighed, and I heard her smile through the phone (the way you can with people you know well).  She told me about how my mom and aunt would do the same.  She remembers so vividly standing in the kitchen and hearing giggles erupt from their bedroom.  Upon peeking in, she saw my mom, holding a stick in her hand, tapping on Amy’s play desk telling her she best pay attention.  Maybe that was the beginning of my mom’s love of learning and teaching.

It was her fervor for reading and learning that planted a seed within me, one that sparked into that same excitement for learning and making certain my children love it as well.

The same rings true for healthy eating; we, as parents, are responsible for planting those beginning seeds.  If we consistently share our excitement for knowledge with our children, they too will be excited!  Luckily for Grace and Huck, they got stuck with two nerds for parents who would probably be happy as lifetime students earning various college degrees.  But that does not have to be the case!  Anyone, even if you fake it, can light a joy for learning within their children!  And, because every child learns differently, it is a learn as you go goal.

I do want to share what has worked for us with you all, in hopes it may help you find something too!

1) Read, Read, Read!

I have shared in previous posts about my love for reading, and my mother’s hand in imparting that love. One of the most exciting things about preparing for motherhood for me was to start my never ending collection of children’s books!  For my shower, we did a fun books instead of cards request, and that started my kids off with an amazing collection.  Since then, I have continued to find new books and favorite authors.  I have to put in a little dig for Nancy Tillman.  Her books are fabulous! https://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Tillman/e/B001H6TY4E/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1484675795&sr=8-2-ent. Some may say we have too many books…I personally don’t think that could ever be possible!

I started reading to Grace right away.  From the day we brought her home from the hospital to now, we read many books a day.  She now brings her favorites to me, always giddy to dive in!

A little known, yet wonderful possibility is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.  A new book arrives at your door every month FOR FREE!  We love when our new book arrives each month.  Visit https://imaginationlibrary.com/ to find out if they serve your area!

2) Teach My Kits

When I was still pregnant with Grace, I thought about my mother’s use of Hooked on Phonics as a learning tool for us.  Maybe there was something nowadays that served the same purpose!  I was thrilled to find the Teach My learning kits!  They have 3 kits.  Teach My Baby, Teach My Toddler, and Teach my Preschooler.  http://www.teachmy.com/.  Let me tell you, for the 30 dollars you spend, you get many, many months worth of learning!  These kits come with several topics, and the materials are extremely fun and interactive.  Gracie begs to play with hers.  Perhaps that is another part of the equation that worked for us.  We never pushed it.  We made it a fun treat to play and learn, and truly tried not to make it a chore.

3) Flash Cards

Flash cards take me back to every year of my many years of school.  My mom constantly had us make flash cards for many subjects; vocabulary, math, history, science, etc.  In both undergrad and graduate school, I used them frequently even if for nothing more than to keep my mind sharp.

The beginning of our flash card use actually came in the Teach My learning kit.  Once Grace flew through the cards from the kit, I sought out more!  Amazon (I am obsessed with Amazon Prime!) quickly provided my answer!  For $2.99 (no, that’s not a typo), large packs of flash cards for kids were available!  https://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Flash-Cards-Brighter-Child/dp/0769646794/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1484674962&sr=8-3&keywords=flash+cards.  We started with the first words, alphabet, and letters and shapes packs, but can add more quickly when we need to.  It is such a joy to watch Gracie’s excitement when she plays with her cards and hears us clap and cheer!

4) Bathtub Letters and Numbers

If your child is anything like mine, he or she LOVES taking a bath!  They make such cute bath toys nowadays too!  Gracie’s new favorite is her bath letters and numbers (other than the fact that she bites them).  Despite the teeth marks, they have allowed us to make learning fun while splashing in water and bubbles too!  Last night for instance, we spelled her name, and practiced putting the numbers 1-10 in order.  They have helped with her enunciation of letters and numbers too.  Now, when we say the number one, Grace excitedly shouts, “two, three!!!” https://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Letters-Numbers-Bath-Count/dp/B000V98HCI/ref=sr_1_1_s_it?s=baby-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1484677437&sr=1-1&keywords=bathtub%2Bletters&th=1

5) Singing

For many of us, I included, singing is a very effective (and fun) was to memorize.  Growing up, my mom would play our Bible song tapes for us every day at breakfast.  To this day, I can say all of the books of the Bible in under a minute.  When we hear and sing things repetitively, our mind latches on to those words!  Now, I sing a lot of things to Gracie.  After each round of the A,B,C’s Grace yells, “more!”  I thought there were only so many times I could sing that song…well I thought wrong!

Each new day represents a new chance to learn.  Finding what works for each individual child can take time, but when we find what works, it is amazing to see their minds come alive and become hungry to learn more!

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”   ~Anthony J. D’Angelo

James Taylor

When I hear James Taylor, I think of my mom.  I see her fingers slowly tapping the steering wheel as she drove, her blonde hair up in its usual big clip.  A smile overtook her face with each word, as if she didn’t even have a choice.  She gently rocked to the soft lull of James Taylor’s masterful fingers plucking his guitar in that extraordinary way.

Mom always believed in the power and beauty of music, its ability to transport you to a place of peace, if only for that 2 minutes and 45 seconds. She was constantly singing, a trait I picked up.  Whether singing to my babies, in the kitchen lovingly making food to serve, or walking down the aisle at Walmart, I sing.  She did as well.  Her sweet soprano voice was an instant volt of happiness.  Because she, even in her saddest days, was a supremely joyful person.  Hers was an attitude to emulate.

As a teacher, she strived to teach to the particular need of each of her students.  Perhaps what made her truly exceptional were her lessons not only in the classroom but in life.  It was also in her classroom, adorned with music lyrics and quotes of inspiration, that music bore its place.  The most difficult day for us after she left for Heaven was the day we cleaned out her classroom, her lifetime of wisdom and work packed into boxes.  On top of the old cd player next to her desk was James Taylor, not even returned to its case yet.  As we packed that day, we listened to those familiar songs.  We smiled as we opened her vast collection of literature and read the notes in the margins, their well-worn pages once held by her beloved fingers.

At her viewing, James Taylor’s sweet voice carried us through those hours.  We stood stiffly at the doors of the church, a display of my mother’s life in pictures surrounding us like a garden of flowers.

Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose.  Won’t you let me go down in my dreams? 

Those words carried with them her spirit, the many flowers she’d planted and left behind for us on earth.  Her everlasting gift.  Just as the chords and lyrics of music make their impression in time, so had her life.

This morning, as we made cranberry orange scones, my sweet Grace and I, covered in flour, danced in the kitchen to James Taylor.  We danced the same dance my mom had in her 45 years of life, and, in those moments, she was there dancing with us.  Timeless, in an endless spring of her flowers.

What Cancer Took From Me

You see her at the store.  She, like everyone else, is just picking up her weekly groceries, but on her, your eyes linger a little longer.  Her head is covered in a telltale scarf, and where hair would normally be peeking through, there is none.  You feel pity for her, thinking she must be so sad about her hair.  As a cancer survivor, I can tell you her hair is the last thing she is thinking about.  Because while it takes so many of the physical parts of a person, its deeper blow strikes the very core of that person.

All cancer is evil.  It takes and takes and takes until we feel as though it has taken most of who we were.  For women, breast cancer attacks what makes us a woman.  It can be especially painful.

Every time I take a shower or get dressed, I have to face cancer all over again.  Its knife marks permanently imbedded into my flesh.

Each time, I flash back to the ringing in my ears when the radiologist told me, at 24, that I had breast cancer. 

Each time, I feel as if I am falling to my knees, just as I had during that phone call. 

Each time I put the bottle to my baby’s mouths, I watch the needle inject dye into my nipple before surgery.  I screamed from the pain.  But inside, I was screaming much louder.  Those nipples would never feed my babies.  When I woke up, they would be gone.  I would never see them again.

When I woke up, my thought was not of my breasts.  My thought was that they had cut that evil thing out of me.  My thought was that I would fight it until the day I died.  I beat it, but I will be fighting it until the day that I die.  Because what cancer took from me was much more than physical.

Cancer took the bond that I will never have with my babies.  Their need for only me to feed them.  To physically feel them eating the milk I created, even just once the moment they were born.

Cancer took my ability to wear a shirt with any kind of low neck without people staring at my scars when I pass them.

Cancer took my ability to ever live a day of my life without being scared to death I won’t make it until my kids would remember me.

Cancer took from me everything…

Except for what it gave to me.  It gave me a formidable will to fight.  It gave me an even deeper appreciation of life.  Every breath.  It gave me the ability to understand what is really important in life and also what isn’t.  And it gave me the ability to help people through the same battle.  Because the word survivor doesn’t mean not dying.  Survivor means that until your last breath, you never let it take your soul.  In that way, we are all survivors.