eSpecially Ben

Whew! Hello my people, Let's talk about this thing called marriage. Well, I was married for 3 years and divorced before Ben turned 1 year old. It was tough but I got through it. The toughest part was going through the legalities of it all. Surprisingly, Ben was the easy part during that time. He kept me busy and my mind was constantly on him. He was very sick his first two years before I knew what the culprit was. Lesson learned about marriage and having a special needs child was that, not everyone is equipped for special needs. Because of that, I had to make some tough choices to keep my life and my son's life on the move in a positive way. The one thing that I realized early on was that if I wasn't doing well, Ben knew it and I transferred that negative energy to him. For example, I may have been too drained to take him to the park, or to the pool. Or, I simply may not have felt like interacting with him by doing something like reading a book, and he loves books.

Having no editorial board for this blog, I often read my posts to Logan before I put them out there permanently. He will tell me if they are "good" or "bad". Of course he enjoys the ones that are about him the most. Several months a go, I wrote a post about when I accidentally did not lock Ben's walker in place and he fell and hurt his face badly. Logan's response was, "Mom, that is bad. Why would you want to tell anyone about that?" Well here's another bad one. But it is funny too and speaks to Ben's independence, curiosity and abilities. And it serves as a warning to other parents who may underestimate their child's cleverness. Two weeks ago we spent the week in NY with family. We stayed at my Dad's house and slept upstairs. Last year, I wrote about how Ben climbed on top of two bins to get out of his room there. So this year, I reminded my Dad a few days before our visit that we had to come up with something to keep Ben in

My sister has three kids too - two boys and one girl. Our kids are all basically the same age, ranging from 7 to 3. We both make an effort to get the cousins together as often as we can throughout the year. With a 12 hour drive or expensive plane tickets keeping us apart, it is hard to do, but we manage it about three times a year. It is worth the money, time and extra work - these kids love spending time together. It is like the months since they last saw each other disappear. They play, play and play. We really have to do little to intervene - they include everyone and share the toys most of the time. And it helps that they all enjoy boxing, wrestling and Star Wars!

13 years ago.

Mark and I have been together for 7 years and married for 4 years. He proposed to me in Central Park during an overnight stay in New York on our way to vacation in Aruba. Of course I said yes and the next day we flew to Aruba. While sitting on the beach, we spontaneously decided to get married while we were there! I found the perfect dress at a small boutique just minutes before the store closed. It was the only white dress and it happened to be my size. Our wedding planner at our hotel set up a beautiful beach ceremony at sunset. It was on the last night of our trip, which happened to be our 3-year (dating) anniversary. It was amazing, spontaneous and better than we could have ever imagined. Several months later Mark and I decided to get pregnant. We found out that I was pregnant very early. I was only two weeks when the test came back positive. We were very excited. I wanted to do everything right. I was very healthy throughout my pregnancy. Mark went to every doctor's ap

Once upon a time there was an American girl who fell in love with an English boy, moved to England and got married. The couple enjoyed every minute they spent together, as the English boy worked long hours. The American girl taught herself to cook and spent most of each day researching new recipes and shopping for ingredients to make a wonderful meal for her husband to come home to. On weekends the couple slept in, woke leisurely and headed off to the movies or a long drive through the countryside, or shopping in the city. The couple was blissfully happy together but knew something was missing. They desperately wanted to have children. After a year of trying, the couple was doubly blessed with news that they were expecting twins! Yes, I am that American girl and my husband is that English boy. We have been happily married for 7 years. For the first 3 years of the children's lives my husband worked 12 hour days away from the home 5 days a week. The year the kids turned 2 wa

Marriage and having kids is hard work to begin with but when you throw in a baby with a life threatening disease and developmental delays that is the true test! I’m not going to say our marriage is perfect or horrible because I believe we are somewhere in the middle. Some days I want to hit him over the head with a frying pan but then other days I adore him but I think that is normal even for couples that do not have the struggles we face. I think the key to marriage, whatever hurdles are faced, requires both parties to work harder than anything else in life. Rich is a wonderful father and Ethan idolizes him. They often play “cars and trucks” together. When Ethan isn’t feeling well he cries constantly, wants to be held all day and night and we are stuck in the house for days or weeks. So I can go a little stir crazy. Rich understands that on certain days if I don’t get out of the house by myself that I will turn into a monster! He participates in feeding, bathing and putting Etha