Two families you've got to meet

Now more than ever, I appreciate what it means to take a good, honest look at your family. And then, for whatever it is in its glory and challenges and smiles and jaws gritted in frustration, making a commitment to be the very best family you can be. I especially appreciate when that best family has room for all of the personalities and problems and possibilities of each person within it.

Maybe it is some of our hardest and most important work to look at the families we are in and commit to rising to the challenges together. The more families I meet through my work and play and neighborhoods and blogs and church and randomly while plying small children with overwhelmingly frosted seasonal cookies at Starbucks, the more I see that it doesn't matter at all who makes up that family or how they all landed together, but rather, how they choose to be and love together.

Perhaps the best of these lessons comes from the people I have the privilege of meeting on CarePages. I profile their journeys into -- and often, through -- life-changing illness and injury.  As a part of the profiles, I read their family websites, page through pictures and interview them. Inevitably, I hit send on my stories filled with inspiration and insights into how to live my own life a little more authentically, with a little more gratitude.

I'd love to introduce you to two families who have been through a lot in the last year -- the Greenbergs and the Knolls.

Both families faced medical crises suddenly and both relied on the strengths and gifts unique to their individual personalities and who they are together to stay focused, positive, hopeful and move every single day toward collective healing. They are amazingly articulate, funny, resourceful, humble, clever, centered and full of so much spirit.

Are these kinds of characteristics the cure for startling, serious illness? Of course not. But what I've also seen is that these characteristics seem to propel the person who is diagnosed forward while pulling their circle of loved ones in close. Thank God, for whatever reason, these families are thriving.

Today, Annie Greenberg, diagnosed this fall with sepsis following pneumonia, and Greg Knoll, diagnosed a year ago with a rare and unexpected cancer, are not just surviving but living well.

Families are not perfect or infallible -- we all know that. We all know that very well. But in the critical moments, when the change slams down or creeps upon us, I really believe that who we are impacts how we get through.

I hope you will take a moment to get to know the Greenbergs and the Knolls, even if you just peek in on the photos that radiate all kinds of good stuff I imagine we all want to incorporate or emphasize or encourage in the families we have, the families we are and the families we so want to be.

Things happen. And often, more quickly than we could ever be prepared for or anticipate. Maybe the gift that the Greenbergs and Knolls offer, the one that stands next to seeing exactly what it is we can survive, is that we have opportunities right here and right now to look closely at our own families. While we can be quiet, while the year is new, while we are healthy and have the chance, maybe now is the best time ever to take the honest look and redefine or redesign our families to get through the big stuff and the everydays.

It is hard work. Believe me, I know. But Annie's smile and the way Greg looks at his wife and daughters tells me it is all so worth it.

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Etsy goodness: Baby gifts that put the Boppy to shame

Making my way slowly and deliriously through Etsy makes me shudder with delight and begin outlining plans to spend any little bit of income built up in the old 401K on chunky beaded necklaces and the sweetest little fabric creations you've ever seen. I know I am not the first to discover this holy land of handmade nor am I the only one to spend work time and screen space retailing my way through the shops and my own random searches. But I do feel compelled to share with you the Etsy bits that make me smile. Or even those that make my ovaries flip.

Oh yes, flipping ovaries. Luckily for my checking account, I'm not planning a pregnancy anytime soon. But beware of your own funds because the baby goods on Etsy will have you putting on the Sade CD and burning the sandalwood candles quicker than your hubs will know what hit him.  I will just limit myself to all the baby gifts I will be buying this year as playgroup hits the second sibling generation and so many other mamas I know venture into family expansion.

I can be very happy sipping gimlets to quiet the sound of my own screaming uterus at baby showers where I wrap up the perfect pair of hand-knit booties or a hand-appliqued onesie that is even more fun to give in my opinion than the now-expected Boob Man gear. We can -- and all have -- spent a gajillion dollars and too much time in a Babies R Us looking for new baby gifts. Why not spend less than $30 on loveliness such as this?

Three little caps for precious little heads.

Three soft sweets for tender, chubby feet.

Three happy rattles for curious fingers and drooly mouths.

Three bloomers and fancy pants for eco-happy parents and cushy baby bootays.

Three cloth diapers and covers for eco-happy parents and even cushier baby bootays.

Three crazy tees that are way cool and oh-so un-I'm the Big Bro/Sis for the first-love older sibs.

Ahhh, now doesn't that feel better? No lead, no lines, no Diaper Genie refills. And if a little ordering up makes you itchy to put the crib back together, well then...let me know.

Photo credit: Piddies boutique on Etsy.

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Oh dear Jesus, what's to come?

My dad often reminds me that a kid's behavior when they are three is mirrored in their behavior when they are thirteen. I know, I know. Scary, right?

If it means we will still be getting fire safety lectures from Lil E's "Firefighter Phil" alter-ego ("Kids! Do not put blankets over candles or lamps! Do not go back into da house to get your kitty cats! Let the firefighters do their jobs! Here! Try on my hat and look at my cool boots! You can sit in the fire engine and touch the steering wheel but do not turn on the siren! That's my job!..." you get the picture) or that we spend hours upon hours dissecting the character motivation behind Lightening McQueen, Mack and Mater in Cars, then I have some definite concerns.

If it means that at thirteen, my boy will insist I tell stories from my own childhood while he spends a half-hour pretending to go potty, then we have a few things to work on.

If it means at that point that he requires eleven stuffed animals, four blankets, two pillows, a night light, a prayer to God to have "dreams about cool things like construction and Firefighter Phil" rather than bad dreams about being chased by the fox from the gingerbread man story and a "fresh sippy cup of water, pleeeeease," then professional help may need to be pulled in for consult.

If it means that Caillou and SuperWhy are still considered beloved members of the family and that his diet rests contentedly on the pink yogurt Cheerios and mac 'n cheese, then I have a lot of books to buy immediately.

And of course, if it means that my teenage boy doles out hugs and plays along to Pretend You're Gina on American Idol with me and still pronounces animals as "amohmohs," well then...I will be just fine. My mama happiness won't center on that chance but if those parts of three are still apparent in ten years, that wouldn't be bad at all. No matter what Dr. Phil or Dr. Sears or the pediatrician might say.

What I really fear is what I heard the other night, perched next to Lil E as he went potty one last time before bed.

It takes a lot to convince this kid to go at all. Somehow, he's avoided the peanut bladder gene that his dad and I both are afflicted with and he can do what we've called "camel it out" all day long since day one of potty training (Handy at Target? Sure! Handy for daycare? Not so much).  Getting him to go when all he wants to do is have a few last minutes with Lightening McQueen or get to the books and snuggles is even more difficult.  That night, we sat and sat and sat while he talked and talked and talked. And that's it. I reverted to pleading, asking him to please please please just go so we could get out of the bathroom already.

He looked at me squarely and said, "I can be done now, but I am going to tell you I have to go just before you put me in my bed."

He was so honest in his strategy to avoid bedtime that it startled me. I needed to clarify.

"To avoid bed?" I asked bluntly. "Are you going to tell me you have to go just to put off going ni-ni?"

To that, without any shame whatsoever, he nodded.

Then, just as he said he would, as soon as I began lowering him from my onslaught of mommy snuggles and smooches into his bed, he looked up at me with his big brown eyes even bigger and browner than they were the moment before and said, "Mommy, I need to go potty."

How can I say no? He's still learning and maybe, despite his pint-sized manipulations over his clearly-bigger bladder, he does have to go. What then?

So I pulled him up and carried into the bathroom, where he (yes, you guessed it) sat and sat and sat and talked and talked and talked. And nothing else. Until I pulled him off the potty, pulled up his pajamas and took him back to bed, for real this time.

It was then that I could really see this Clifford the Big Red Dog-toting preschooler toddling toward teendom. And it both scared and entertained me.

I imagined his honesty and independence working together in his own little ways:

Mommy, I could see him informing me in a monotone, no nonsense way green light of rebellion, I'm going to come home stoned off my ass and plow through the pantry until I find a bag of Cheetos to inhale as well.

Mommy, I am going to totally pretend like I don't hear you when you lecture me on safe sex, drug use, cigarette nastiness and the dangers of motorcycles and any music featured on MTV, then roll my eyes and laugh about it with my friends while I run up a texting bill that far exceeds my allowance or crappy high school job earnings.

Mommy, I am going to act like I am walking into school when you drop me off but then am going to duck out as soon as you drive away and hang out in Wendy's all day with my punk ass friends.

Perhaps I'm envisioning too much or expecting too little. Who knows? But I laughed to hear him make a plan to outwit me and then tell me about it and then to still outwit me.

Oh, baby. And to think I was concerned with five or eleven or seventeen. I guess I didn't realize that when folks say time with kids speeds by, they mean it just all gets churned over and over, just with higher stakes and more massive consumption of snacks.

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