An outpouring of grief and support threaded its way through her parents’
Facebook walls, their friends’ walls, and the walls of  friends of their
friends – a tsunami of love from a community that held its breath as
Emilia gave life her best shot. 

News of her passing (on Valentine's Day - during Congenital
Heart Defect Awareness Week) hit  hard.  She’d taught us what
beautiful is.  She’d shown us what time means.  She’d inspired us to value
the breaths that we take, the heartbeats, the music,  the sunsets...
 

Read full blog at:

 http://www.emmacatherinegrey.blogspot.com/

Emma's February 20th, 2012 post is featured at LSRC with loving prayers for all mothers and fathers whose babies precede them in the great transition.

Ryan: He was not constipated.  He died of doing too much drugs.
 Wow that “Just say NO” campaign they start in Kindergarten has left my
7yr old speaking as if she knows of what she speaks.  
Thanks for that.
 Jake:  He did not.
 Ryan: Did too.
 Jake:  He died on the toilet.
 Ryan: Ok maybe he died in the bathroom, but it was drugs not constipation! 
What was he like, urgh urgh, grunt… oops, I’m dead?
 Jake:  Or wait, did he die in a bathtub?… No that was Jim Morrison.
 My kids don’t know shit about current affairs but somehow this stuff
sticks with them.
 Jake:  Yeah, Jim Morrison did too many drugs.
 Ryan:  Maybe he was constipated.
 I wonder where she got that sarcasm from?

Jenny From The Blog
http://www.thesuburbanjungle.com

Her specialty was stuffed cabbage. Since it required preparation, my sufferings began in the morning while my four sisters and I ate breakfast.  "Oh Mom, not stuffed cabbage!" we would cry in vain as she took the items out of the fridge.  For the rest of the school day, every time I thought about coming home and having dinner, I simply wanted to hurl. Permit me to educate you - in case you have yet to experience this personally - but far worse than eating warm stuffed cabbage is choking down cold stuffed cabbage you spent an hour staring at in hopes Glinda the Good Witch would materialize in your dining room and magically transform into pumpkin pie.

One day, when dining at a friend's house, her mother served brussels sprouts - something I had never tried previously. (My mother later explained she hated them.) The moment I placed the darling little green bon bon into my mouth all memories of prior food sufferings ceased.  Somehow, nature had miraculously packed all the bitter distaste of a cabbage into a one inch round morsel.  My friend's mother, clearly much more devious and insensitive than my own, gleefully served up not one but seven on my plate.  

Thank goodness our minds do not permit us to remember the worst parts of our lives because my memory of the seven brussels sprouts - one in my mouth, six remaining on the plate - ends there. The next time I recall even seeing brussels sprouts again was while grocery shopping with my own two daughters, ages two and five, walking in front of me.  "Oh look Mommy," my oldest daughter proclaimed, "Aren't these the cutest vegetables ever?" "Yes darling," I acknowledged with sympathy, remembering myself equally young and impressionable. "They are cute but trust me, that is the worst tasting vegetable ever - all the nastiness of a cabbage in one little bite.  Fear not, however, I will never ask you to eat one." The man shopping behind me let out a gasp which could be heard clear to the butcher counter, "How sad!" he cried out in a shocked tone, momentarily causing me to question my superior parenting methods.

So you can imagine my shock when I visited my (now college aged) daughter and she ordered brussels sprouts at her favorite restaurant. "Are you trying to torture me?" I asked?  "Payback for some unknown sin?" "Mommy, they are delicious I promise, you have to try them," she replied.  Logical while it had seemed years previously to educate my growing daughters that taste buds often change over time, and that they should at least try things before passing them up entirely, I now regretted it immensely.  "Ok," I agreed, "but only a small bite!" 

Much to my shock, she was right, they were delicious. "How on earth do they prepare these?" I asked incredulously "Is Glinda the Good Witch their chef?  "I told you!" she simply replied with considerable satisfaction.  "They bake them first, then saute them with sliced Fuji apples, bacon, and white wine."  Not only did she know the recipe, she also managed to perfect it.  So this Thanksgiving the impossible occurred, brussels sprouts replaced green beans on our dining room table and I was indeed grateful for the fact.  I can't wait to serve them to Mom when she visits again.


Mama Marlaine
http://www.LifeSkillsReportCard.com

This was just the other day. So I threw my wife, who seemed unfazed by it, a questioning look. "Oh, she's been doing that all week," she said. "It's perfectly normal." "Is it?" I said, and proceeded to call the city to make sure our house wasn't built on some sacred Indian burial ground. Is it normal for a child (barely old enough to string two words together) to pull a name out of thin air and use it to converse with a friend she conjured up out of nothing? Of course it is. Kids do it every day. But at 14-months of age? I looked it up on-line and had a hard time finding reference of children with imaginary friends under the age of 18 months. In fact, most of the research I read suggested imaginary friends most often appear between two and four years of age. So my initial reaction stands: am I dealing with an imaginary friend, or something else entirely?

According to experts, imaginary friends are perfectly normal amongst first born children and early talkers. In fact, in most instances, if your kid has an imaginary friend, he's bright (i.e. he's smart enough to have created a scapegoat for whenever he does something wrong). And, it's true that my daughter is both a first born child and an early talker, but she's not old enough to need a back up plan??? So until somebody tells me differently, I'm either going to call her Sybil (click name for pop culture reference) or assume that she's talking to a relative of Casper the Ghost that I can't see. I've asked my mother, my wife, my daughter's daycare provider, almost everybody she's ever come in contact with if they've ever tried to teach my daughter a name that even remotely resembles "Rory," and the answer is a resounding no. Hell, even the women at daycare thought it could be a ghost! MY DAUGHTER SEES DEAD PEOPLE! Great...

So I'm gonna keep researching this, but the first time she utters "RED RUM" on the change table, we're moving. I've got enough mouths to feed.

Papa Adam
Fodder 4 Fathers
http://theevilthatyouknow.blogspot.com/2011/05/just-my-imagination-fine-line-between.html

There's no legs or thighs in your bucket of chicken- you're a breast man all the way. And there is nothing you enjoyed more than the 'big reveal' of seeing your wife's breasts for the first time... except for seeing your buddy's wife's breasts every time she whips them out to feed her baby!

We're men ladies. We're not mature adults. From the day you started dating our buddy we've been wondering what you've been hiding under your sweater. It's what we were designed to do. Funny thing is you made him wait three weeks to catch a glimpse of your marvelous mounds of well-formed flesh. All I had to do was bring a gift to the hospital. It's shocking! "Here's your gift" BAM! Free peep show. And I'm talking full breast and 90 % areola (once you get a good angle around that bald baby's head). I don't even think you get to see that much exposed skin at some U.S. strip joints (not that I've ever been).

When do women make this 'switch?' One day you're making your future husband work for a mere glimpse of your mammary glands, then you have a kid and suddenly you're giving free admission to any guy in the food court at the local mall. Oh, you think no one's watching when you whip out that five pound jug of milk, or 'breast' if you prefer, and softly suction (or 'latch') your baby's mouth to it, but you're wrong- dead wrong. Not only is every guy in the room staring at you, but each is having one of only two possible reactions: he's either turned on by it or equally as turned off by it. There's no happy medium. One guy's watching you like he just unscrambled the playboy channel, while the next guy is watching you like you're some African Gorilla on the Nature Channel feeding your baby and flinging green sh@# at the camera. But they're watching. And you're poor husband, "the Protector" in nature, is watching them and their peering eyes, knowing that he got the raw end of the deal.

Hey. I'm not against breast-feeding. To the contrary, I'm all for it. I like how it takes even the most modest of modern feminists and turns them into Zulu Warrior women from the pages of National Geographic. If you want to sit in a restaurant with a baby hanging from your breast, I've got no problem with it, as long as you're not my wife, and you don't mind the old-guy sitting next to me, and every other guy in the restaurant, leering at you. We can't help it! Your breasts were designed to feed babies. Our eyes were designed to find breasts that can feed babies. In our modern society, with our laws (both spoken and unspoken), the two kind of work against each other. But, you'll never hear me complaining about it.

Frankly, I'm upset that more women aren't able to breast feed, or for that matter don't want to. No, not so I can stare, but so my wife won't be the only one in the restaurant being leered at. And dude, don't tell me you're "just admiring what a cute baby I have;" I used that on some other dude's wife last week. You're admiring the gi-normousness (not a word) of my wife's breasts, and all I can say is, thank god they won't be recognizable to me, or you, in a year from now. It was just a dream. A large, double-breasted, milk filled dream that had to end (until the birth of my next child at least).

Anyway, whichever way you 'look' at it, breast-feeding is a wonderful thing. Every woman should look into giving it a try. Both the Breast Feeding Committee of Canada, The Infant Feeding Action Coalition, and myself (possibly for different reasons though) agree - breast-feeding is the way to go. Take my word for it - it's fun for the whole family.

Disclaimer: Although I have made light of the topic above, breast-feeding is a serious topic parents need to discuss before the birth of a child. Consult your doctor for more information or check out these links and decide if breast-feeding appeals to you... as a couple.

Adam Dolgin
Fodder For Fathers

Chris and I looked very young for our age back then ( I swear, once you have kids, you begin to age in dog years) So when we would take our babies out in public, many times we would get the “angry eyes” stares, the all too common “tisk, tisk, tisk” as we pushed our baby stroller through the mall. Occassionally we would even hear groups of people (mostly women) express their innappropriate judgements outloud for all to hear. “Babies having babies! That’s the problem with the world today! And OUR taxes are paying for it!”  Keep in mind…I was 28!  Certainly no baby! 

What made it even harder for me was the obvious lack of support due to my assumed age.  Heaven forbid I would leave my baby cry for 2 minutes while I looked for a place to sit down and feed him while pushing a stroller, searching a diaperbag for a blanket and juggling the bags of stuff I had bought.   And don’t even THINK about asking someone for help!  One woman literally told me “You should have realized how hard this would be before you got knocked up!” 

And that’s where I began to realize, The Village doesn’t exist anymore.

Still, my dream of support and a “sisterhood of mothers’ wouldn’t die completely, yet.  It continued throughout my boys toddler and preschool years. I would join mom’s clubs only to find that “play date” would have been more appropriately titled “bitch session” and trips to the playground were more like WWF competitions where everyone was picking on each other and fighting for control over the sandbox…and I’m not talking about the kids!

I guess I had an unrealistic vision of what this was all supposed to look like…I believed that things were like they used to be when I was little. If my mom had to use the restroom, or change a siblings diaper, or wash sand out of someone’s eyes…the other mothers were right there to lend a hand. They would just step in and take over…it was seemless and it was acceptable…and it worked!   So when did everyone become so against it?

Once my boys reached school age, I thought things would have to get better, right? If nothing else, there’s always school spirit and a sense of community within a school district. At least that’s how it was on TV and in the movies…so I just felt it, THAT is where I would find my Village.

So I joined the PTA! That’s where the REAL motherhood congregates…in my dreams we would plan dances and book sales, we would have Sunday brunches where we would plan field trips and count box tops. We would offer each other unconditional support and advice and it would be everything I dreamed of through those lonely pre-school years. Yeah…..no. Enough said.

That was the last straw…My dreams were officially dashed. I decided then and there that someone had nuked any villages that existed when I was a kid and there was no chance of rebuilding because the foundation was destroyed. So I holed myself up in my own little world and became “cordial mom”. You know who I am. I’m the one who will do what you need me to do if it makes things better for the kids, I spend the whole time interacting with the kids…and then I go home.

It’s not that I’m being rude, I just don’t have time for anything else. I don’t have time for girl chat at the playground because I’m too busy driving to stuff since no one car pools anymore. I don’t have time to stay and help clean up after the assembly because I have to be home for my kindergardener to get off the bus because there are no block parents anymore. I won’t be coming to your moms club meetings because I’m too tired of chasing my kids around making sure they don’t do anything “wrong” and I have better things to do than judge the parenting of every other mom who’s not there.

But more importantly, I’m really busy with recontruction right now…

I’ve decided to rebuild The Village.  I’ve taken a stand for the sisterhood…

So if your kid falls off his chair, and your hands are full…I’ll help him up, sister.

If your baby drops his bottle and your on the phone and don’t notice…oops! I’ll get that for you sister.

If you need someone to sit by the pool and watch your child while you go change another one’s blow-out diaper…take your time! I’m not going anywhere sister!

I’m here to offer a hand when you’re struggling, suggestions without jugement when you ask and support when you need it.  ‘cuz that’s how sisters roll in My “Village”.

Tara Kennedy-Kline
Author "Stop Raising Einstein"
http://www.tarakenndeykline.com

     One minute she’s just standing there, the next she’s ripped her toe to shreds on a speck of gravel – through a hole in her old shoe (which she had to wear because, as usual, she left her good shoes in her locker). I thought it would never stop bleeding.  We had to throw the shoe in the bin, and the sock (but kept the other sock – they didn't seem to be a pair anyway).  Using the presence of mind that I’ve developed over twelve years of parental emergencies, I applied a disposable nappy to the wound.  It might not prevent leakage overnight, causing us to have had precisely zero full night’s sleep in months, but it works quite well on a gaping foot.
     Bundling the baby, the pram, the nappy bag, the netballer, the wounded tween and the chairs, blankets, coats and assorted jumpers, plus the grandparents, back into the car – we went to buy a Band-Aid.  (Yes, there is a First Aid officer at netball, thanks for asking, but I forgot about that, and anyway, it was cold, and she only had one shoe). I locked her in the car at Riverside Plaza and got out the pram, baby, nappy bag and netballer, to go in search of First Aid supplies.  
    It’s moments like this that it’s a curse to be Libran.  The child was bleeding profusely in the car park and I was standing, paralysed, in front of a wall of Band-Aid products in Priceline.  Waterproof strips, strips with wings, plastic strips, fabric strips, square, oblong, round, assorted strips, 10-in-a-pack, 50-in-a-pack, 100-in-a-pack… it was like a pharmaceutical Dr Seuss novel and the choice was crippling.
     Eventually I chose a pack of 50 plastic strips with an improved contoured shape.   Knowing she’d need more than a Band-Aid, if indeed she hadn’t bled to death by now, I then edged up the aisle towards a torrent of bandages. 
Finally, when we’d fought our way through Saturday morning shoppers, located the grandparents (wandering aimlessly without their mobile) and pushed the pram back to the car, Hannah reminded me that we have a First-Aid kit in the glove box. 

Great!  

    We trussed her up and went back into the shops in search of a pair of slippers, since her toe was now twice its normal size with all the products we’d applied, and she’d wrapped the bandage around the digit at least five hundred times before we remembered there was a pair of scissors in the First Aid kit we’d forgotten about.
    In Target, we found a pair of slippers, then the three of us (all Librans) set about choosing a present for the party Hannah was going to that night, while Sophie pestered ‘I’ll be late for my game’ (because, yes, she was yet to play and, alas, we had to go back to netball and start all over again!!)
Hannah found a fluffy pink hot-water-bottle cover.  Perfect! 
‘We can get her a nice, pink, hot-water bottle to go with it!’ I suggested Enid Blyton-ishly.
    ‘That would be stupid!’ Hannah replied.  ‘I’m not getting her a hot-water bottle as a present.  I’m getting her a hot-water bottle cover.’ Right. ‘And a manicure set’. What would I know, really?  I've might have thirty seven years to her twelve but, on Mother's Day, she'd looked at me intently, leaned in and said, 'Dude - you need a makeover. Seriously.'
    ‘Let’s just pop into Coles while we’re here and get sleepover supplies,’ I said (because I had stupidly invited three of Hannah’s friends back here as a reward for her not creating a fake Facebook account behind my back and because she is ‘socially disadvantaged’ as a result, according to a formal email she wrote to me, apologising for a dramatic outburst over tailor's chalk and other bits and pieces required for her textiles assignment earlier in the week, but that's another story).
    ‘I’ll be late! I’ll be late!!’ Sophie chanted, like the middle child that she is fast becoming, poor kid. Lugging the pram and our basket full of groceries through the self-help checkout, it was only then that Hannah saw fit to produce an enormous tub of ice-cream.
    ‘What’s this?’ I exclaimed.  ‘We’re about to go to netball for two hours!  How do you propose to keep it frozen?  Put it back!’ I had the baby, you see, and the self-serve checkout was nagging me about unexpected items in the baggage area, and I was nagging Hannah about unexpected items in the basket, and Sophie will never leave my side in shops for fear of being kidnapped, and I'd established the grandparents at Michel's for a MUCH-NEEDED coffee, so there was nothing for it: Hannah had to push her way back through the sighing queue and hop back to the frozen food section with the ice cream, one shoe and an enormous, pulsating toe.  
    Driving off, I asked her where the nappy was that she’d been using to stem the blood flow.  It had last been seen on the car roof, apparently.  Well, that’s just charming…Back at netball, we unpacked the pram, baby, nappy bag, blankets, chairs and jumpers etc and sat in the biting wind, to watch Sophie's best game ever.  At least, I did.  
    Hannah, who is terribly socially disadvantaged without Facebook, was swallowed up by her tribe as usual, and they were last seen guffawing good-naturedly over her toe injury and admiring her new slippers.
We got home just in time to re-pack the nappy bag for ballet performance group.  Then, when we got there, Sophie started crying and said, ‘I just don’t feel like being here…’
    What is she now?  Psychic?  She'd totally read my mind...

Emma Grey
http://emmacatherinegrey.blogspot.com

Doubly tortuous is remembering Sims as a baby: sweet, innocent, full of promise and potential. Although, truth be told, I did not want him.  I know mothers are not supposed to say such things but while I am being honest is there seriously any point in lying?  I even dressed him up gorgeously his first few weeks and begged others to adopt him. Despite everyone at the doctor's office - where they see hundreds of babies yearly - ooohing and aahhing and nicknaming him “Handsome,” he remained mine.

So today I will do what the majority of mothers do when their child appears to be turning out “different” than they intended …..and blame his behavior on my husband. Not all that difficult because the fact is, while I have been attempting to raise an honorable, loving offspring, my husband (Billy) has been privately sneaking him out of his bed at night, feeding him fourth meals and….worst of all ...wrastling.

Yes I know, Word Perfect wants to correct the word wrastling also and call it wrestling but it is not…it is wrastling. Wrastling is like wrestling but with biting and scratching  permitted.   Fun though it is for the two of them, my husband protected by hands of leather, when Sims attempts to wrastle with others it is quite simply attacking not sporting. The singular benefit is that the activity does provide exercise, which Sims now desperately needs due to those fourth meals.  As my youngest daughter none too delicately informed me when last she visited from college for Mother's Day, “Sims is getting fat.”

And yes truth be told, the thing that makes all of this so intensely disturbing is that I am the Founder/Admin of the top ranked global parenting group on LinkedIn, Parenting 2.0, where our stated mission is proactive education of Life Skills – Life Skills which include diet, exercise and cooperation with others.   To be simultaneously raising an obese terrorist - even if he is a cat - is consequently just plain unbearable.  Thank you for understanding while I return now to prayer.

 Hugs! Mama Marlaine
http://www.lifeskillsreportcard.org