And on his farm he had a pig thyroid...

I saw my endocrinologist this afternoon. My symptoms are getting worse and I'm getting desperate for someone to help me feel like myself again. Usually I don't put much faith in these appointments, each time I go it is the same: My legs don't work. I'm exhausted. Please fix me. counteracted with the doctor's Let's take some thyroid panels. Change your dose of Synthroid. Come back in two months. I can't expect my doctor to heal me in one visit, but there has been no improvement over the last year.



I explained to my doctor that I can barely stand up without needing to rest these days, that I feel as if my body is running a marathon even when I'm lying down, that the muscle fatigue is getting so bad that I have to pull up a chair to the stove when I make macaroni and cheese because I can't stand long enough without assistance. My mind is cloudy and I'm forgetting basic things like where a stamp goes on an envelope or my zip code. And what did I do yesterday? I've got no idea. I can't remember simple short-term details. Did I take my meds three minutes ago? I have to check which day of the week is empty in my pill case. My legs are covered in bruises, my skin is sandpaper dry, I'm freezing. I'm so nauseated that I'm taking medicine to make me not throw up, I'm so anxious that I'm taking more medicine to soothe my nerves, and I've got no desire to eat. My emotions are all over the place and I'm crying at the drop of a hat, filled with anger instantly, and sad that I'm stuck on the couch for seven hours or more a day. But the worst of it is the fatigue. I just can't move.

I dragged myself to the appointment. I typed up my list of medicine and symptoms and waited for the doctor to say Let's change your dose and I'll see you in two months. But he didn't. He looked back in my charts and noticed the pattern: fatigue, inability to walk, brain fog. He said that I'm exhibiting both hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism symptoms and he has no idea why. While filling out an evaluation, he listed my condition as severe. I cried. I'm exhausted.

So we decided to take a different route. Instead of taking man-made synthetic hormone pills I will be switching to natural desiccated thyroid tomorrow morning. It is the grossest concept to me--crushed up pig and cow hormone--but at this point I will do anything to feel better. Anything.

Here's an awesome article about Armour and its history.

So I'm not going to give up hope. I will get better. I will get through the next few months of tests and body scans and low iodine diets and pig thyroid. Frankly I don't have much of a choice. But I'd rather look on the bright side of this than wallow in the reality that today I was a gray-faced, 102-pound mess, crying my eyes out, begging for someone to make me better.

And how could I be sad with my husband here at home to make me smile? At dinner he said, "Do you realize how excited I'll be if my Love starts smelling like bacon!?!"

The end of football season!

I always think of my adorable niece and nephew on Groundhog's Day. They were about three and four-years-old and we were watching the Super Bowl together that night. This is their groundhog song.



I feel bad for Sean every year at Super Bowl time. This is his Christmas, his Holy Grail, and for me it signifies the glorious end of having to watch a torturously boring sport every Sunday for months. We took the kids to the park and for a hike at around noon and Sean joked that he was sacrificing the pregame show. I guess I don't understand football. There's a six-hour show before the game even starts? Anyway, we had a nice time at the park even if it was raining.




Today was the first day since Thursday that I'm feeling half alive again. I must've had the flu because I ran every symptom across the flu spectrum from fevers to chills to vomiting to coughing. This morning I coughed up blood--an effect of coughing so hard over the last four days--and I instantly felt better. It was as if I had coughed out my infection. I'm still coughing but nothing like I was before and I have enough strength to walk around and my appetite is back in time for all of this football junkfood. When we saw the kids' doctor last week he mentioned that they either had a touch of RSV or a lesser version of the flu since they both had their flu shots. I always get my flu shot. Every year. Well guess who didn't get her flu shot this year and came down with the flu? This girl. And not only did I get the flu but I got double pink eye. My eyes were sealed shut and my ears were clogged. Helluva few days. But I'm feeling fantastic in comparison now.

So the Super Bowl. Sean predicts 23-17 Seattle and I've got 17-14 Broncos although he knows what he's talking about and I'm just shooting in the dark. Our house is a Giants household so we've got nothing invested in this game. I asked Sean the other day if we were going to even bother watching it. He looked at me and said, "Are you kidding? When I was seventeen I decided that I was going to live as long as I could so that I can see as many Super Bowls as possible in my lifetime." Man, I wish I understood why people love football so much. I'm happy for Sean on his big game day and his happiness is all that matters.

I raided the closets and found orange "football" clothes for the kids so tonight they are rooting for the Broncos. They liked dressing up and will get to see about an hour of the game before bedtime. Although I'm not sure Dylan quite understands football either. He asked me when we were going in the "super ball". Close enough.






So for all of you football fans out there, I hope you enjoy your big day. May your bellies be full, your rides home be safe, and your teams win.

My hero

I started to get a sore throat last night before bed and by the middle of the night I was full-on flu bug. We were out of cold medicine and I had a terrible migraine. I crawled downstairs to the couch and flopped around in pain and fevery chills until Sean came downstairs at 6:30AM. By seven, he was on his way to the pharmacy to pick me up some DayQuil. He is at his busiest at work during the last few days of the month so I knew he couldn't stay home with me and so there I was, unable to move and having to tend to two little cuties all day. I barely got off the couch today and the kids were absolutely perfect. They played together and watched movies together and I drifted in and out of sleep.



I was counting the hours until Sean came home from work. And then he came home three hours early bringing me Reece's peanut butter cups and ginger ale. In my delirious state I thought maybe he was just home for lunch, but no. He was home for the day. Early. To take care of me. I could've cried I was so happy to see him. I so love that man.

And I think I'll sleep well with that conscience

Sean was right. This morning before he left for work I told him that my new computer was scheduled to be delivered today and he jokingly said to Dylan, "Oh! Say goodbye to your mama because she's getting a new computer and she's going to be glued to it all day." And I've been sitting in front of this darn thing for nearly two hours, just as he predicted. It takes forever to rebuild the system I had with my older MacBook--reinstalling Photoshop and Picasa and Xee and Garageband and Firefox and all of those bookmarks and preferences.

At least I did a lot this morning so I don't feel so guilty for sitting on my butt for hours. Kate slept in until 9:30 so Dylan and I did a bunch of laundry and cleaned up some of the kids' old toys to sell back to the secondhand store. We washed and dried Dylan's old exersaucer from his baby days in the bathtub with the sprayer and Dylan said it was like working at a car wash. And for an added bonus I let him dry it with the blow dryer. I was surprised at how much fun we had getting rid of stuff we no longer use and making money as we freed up some space.

Dylan woke up thrilled because IT. WAS. SNOWING!!!! He was ready to get dressed and build a snowman and go sledding and shovel the driveway and, and, and...! Here's how much snow we had:



I kept explaining to Dylan why we could not sled in that little snow accumulation but he was convinced that we sure could sled in any amount. By the time we picked up Gramma to spend the day the snow had completely disappeared and since she had slept in she had missed it entirely: "The weathermen said it was supposed to snow today."

We started watching Orange is the New Black last night. It's good! Not as good as Breaking Bad, but still good. Lots of sex and nudity but still a good plot line. We also signed up for Hulu Plus on top of our Amazon Prime and Netflix subscriptions. This whole no cable thing is a breeze, we don't even miss out on much and we save $100 a month, which pays for more than half of Dylan's preschool tuition. We're going to buy a new car soon and the extra cash and--more importantly--extra time spent not watching mindless shows comes in handy.

In awesome news, I called town hall today about the dog hoarding problem next door. I've been thinking about whether or not I should bite the bullet and report our neighbors for months now and as soon as I decide that I can handle the vicious little barky rat dogs they add another dog. I counted six at once today and I've seen as many as eight. So. As much as I'd like to be friendly with my neighbors and as much as I think I can tolerate all of the barking because, hey, I've got three dogs, too, and I understand that dogs bark, eight--six even--dogs is too many. When I spoke to the town clerk's office they asked for the address and when I gave it to them the woman said, "Hmm. They don't have any dogs at [insert address]." and I'm pretty sure I laughed aloud and said, "They have at least six." None of them are registered. I felt better calling after I spoke to the first lady, and then the second. These dogs aren't living, they are existing. Their owners are never home and they never get walked and all of them are aggressive. Dog hoarding at its best.

I then called my other neighbor who is pretty much the best neighbor ever and the two of us did a little over-the-phone party dancing. And if I had the phone number of the neighbor on the other side of the dog hoarder's fence we probably could've conference called a conga line. We're all tired of the unending barking.

So now that I've spent entirely too much time on the computer, I'm going to shut it off and bathe the kids and put them to sleep and then cuddle up with my handsome husband. And maybe watch some Orange is the New Black.

Reliving childhood through the eyes of my child

We bought Dylan a new version of the lovable robot Alphie. This toy was the cream of the crop back in the 80s and Dylan is pretty into the newer Alphie, too.


Image source

He especially loves the Alphie cards with the cars, trucks, buses, and trains on them. He yells out the answers because he thinks Alphie can hear him and I don't correct him when he calls Alphie "Raffi" because I think it's pretty adorable. We love Raffi's music, too.

I love hanging out with Dylan. I'm sure I'm biased because he is my kid, but I think I would want to hang out with him even if he wasn't. We pretty much spend our days playing with all of the things I loved to play with as a kid and I get to watch him love these old toys as much as I did.

We were in the car today listening to Dolly Parton's I Am Ready and after Dolly sang, "I am ready, oh my children, when Jesus knocks at my door" Dylan yelled from the backseat: "JESUS CHRIST!" He said it just like my grandfather would've and I laughed so, so, so hard.



I also bought him an adorable little crocheted teddy bear and asked him what he'd like to name him. Dylan thought about it for a minute and then said, "I want to name him Mouse Soup, like the book."



So tonight after beating me in a game of Candyland, Dylan tucked himself in next to Mouse Soup. I seriously love that boy.

Hooray, Today!

Last night left much to be desired in the sleeping department. I crept into Dylan's bed at ten when he started to whimper from a bad dream, woke up to Kate crying for her bottle at 10:30, snuck back into Dylan's bed when he had yet another bad dream, woke up alone in Dylan's bed to the sound of Kate crying for her morning bottle at the ungodly hour of half-past-five, and since both Sean and Dylan were in our bed which is next to Kate's crib all four of us were wide awake at 5:30AM. I'm pretty sure I was fumbling around trying to find the reset button for today.

But...

Today is turning out to be lovely. I'm exhausted, absolutely, but today is the first day in over a month that I don't feel sick (yet) to my stomach! I bought some lovely fiber mix that you stir into your drinks and I have not puked or crapped myself today. Hooray for small victories. I also have been abstaining from taking my thyroid drugs because my suspicion is that I am overly medicated which is causing these debilitating side effects. I am supposed to have very low TSH numbers for a few years so that my cancer cells don't grow back, but this low is too low. So a few days off of my meds, still taking all supplements, adding fiber, has given me this one very relaxing day in which to relax my stomach.

And since we barely slept at all last night both kids are doing this...



...I was even able to sneak in a short nap.

*

Yesterday was the father/son breakfast at Dylan's school. He was so excited for his daddy to come to school with him and was all like later, Ma! as they were heading out the door.



The kids sang songs for the dads and did crafts with them. Dylan absolutely froze on stage for all of the songs and seemed to have an extreme case of stage fright until the Chicken Dance came on and he let loose.



(He's the one in orange)

He obviously has inherited my dancing talents. Here's to dancing boys and good health!

The shell of a woman

Friday was the one year anniversary of my thyroidectomy and as much as I felt accomplished and glad that I no longer have a giant tumor in my neck, I was defeated. I've been feeling so sick lately that I broke down in tears this morning when someone asked me how I'm doing. I feel as if I'm inhabiting a lifeless body and I cannot find the right balance of medications to make it better.



It sucks. Cancer sucks. Living without a thyroid is hard. But I'm so tired of hearing myself talk about not feeling well that I don't even want to write about it. Most likely the recent cause for my lack of blogging.

Sean is going to a father/son breakfast with Dylan at school tomorrow morning and I am so glad that I'll have two hours with Kate in our pajamas where we can just eat oatmeal in front of the boob tube and not have to leave the house.

Sickly or not, I'm always thankful that I've got these little ones to remind me to lighten up when life gets a little tough.



Sometimes it's impossible not to smile.

When life gets too progressive

I'm pretty sure things are going to shit and I'm not referring to the government shutdown.

I'm trying to burn a disc of photos of our field trip to the farm for Dylan's teachers. They asked me if I could make them a CD and I'd be glad to if I could figure out how the heck to burn photos to a disc. I know I just threw away a bunch of blank CDs because I hadn't used them in so many years that Dylan has since scratched and scattered them all over the house. I tossed them thinking that I'd never burn a CD again. I went to the store this morning and bought a bunch of DVD+Rs. I asked the guy in the photo department if there is a difference between DVD+R and DVD-R. He said that there was a difference like ten years ago but that most computers use both these days.

So I went to burn the disc and nothing happened. The computer didn't even register that there was a blank disc in there. Hmph. I figure maybe I'm Mac illiterate, so I try with my Windows laptop. Nothing. And now I'm trying to upload these 75 photos to Walmart.com and maybe I'll be able to print out a disc for 1-hour pickup. I don't know. I guess I'll have to find a different kind of blank disc if this doesn't work.

Technology is dumbing me. Yesterday I was sitting outside trying to figure out what concoction I could muster up to kill the weeds in Dylan's bricked play area where he likes to ride his bike. I thought about boiling hot water. I thought about pouring vinegar on the weeds. And then I kind of shook my head at myself and started doing something Earth-shattering. I WEEDED. Like, pulled that grass up just like back in the olden days.

And TV remotes? What are those? We use our phones for everything now. If I'm trying to sleep in and Dylan wants to watch his truck documentaries downstairs I can actually put them on for him without leaving my bed. That's pure laziness.

Even turning on the lights is no longer an issue. All of our lights are on switches or timers. No more walking across the room to turn on a light, no sir! Need to get from Walmart to Target? Switch on Google Maps and let it talk me through my route. Do real paper maps even exist anymore?

Oh, there was a power outage? We wouldn't have noticed except that our stove has a clock that DOESN'T SET ITSELF. Can you believe that? We actually have to set that clock like back in the dark ages.

When I was a kid we didn't have state of the art technology. I owned a tape deck which could only record songs off of the radio, so when I wanted to record a tape of myself singing and playing the piano for my grandmother I rigged up a recording studio. We had an old rotary phone and we had a cordless phone. I discovered that I could pick up our cordless phone conversations over a radio signal. I would call over to my mother's apartment and have her put her phone down and then I would use the rotary phone as a microphone to mic my voice and the cordless phone would pick up the piano and all of it would play through the radio where I would then record my song. Nowadays all I have to do is turn on my camera or hit record in Garageband and voila! a music video or MP3.

I'm finding myself wishing that life wasn't so technologically easy these days. I want to go back to a candy bar style cellphone that barely texts and keeps a charge for two weeks. I want to have to look online at Mapquest when I need directions, or hell, at a real map! I want a world without Facebook. But I'm addicted to my iPhone, and navigation that assures me I will never be lost, and posting constant statuses about what I'm thinking or doing and then checking back to see what my friends have commented on my status about what I'm thinking or doing.

It's an addiction.

I photograph my baby girl everyday, just as I did my son. I never made a conscious decision to photograph him everyday, it just sort of happened and by the time I got to day 8 my friends told me that I HAD to keep going now since I had made it that far. I blog everyday, too, even when I have nothing to say. But I've got a few family members who live far away--particularly my sisters and my aunt--who enjoy reading about our day, so I blog. I love doing it: writing, photographing, sharing.

I also envy Sean, who doesn't know how to write a Facebook status and told no one except our accountant that we were expecting when I was pregnant with Dylan. What's it like to not share every little aspect of your life with four hundred other people?

Sometimes I think I'd love to live in the cabin in the woods of Vermont. No cell service, no computer, no answering machine, no need for clocks and watches. But then I know that I'd be out in that gorgeous scenery snapping a thousand photos a day and I would never get to share them with anyone. I'd miss that interaction online. And although I'm sure I'd get a lot of soul searching done, I'd probably get lost too often while driving.

Taking a break

Sean could tell I needed a break today.  I don't really do that whole take time for myself thing, I don't think about it much.  The kids are just an extension of me; I consider tuning them out for a few minutes and answering with a mindless "uh huh" taking a break.

So he did something extremely dangerous: he handed me the Target card and said to go out for a while, go shopping, get whatever I wanted.

I almost said, "What?  Are you nuts?" but thought better of it and was already skipping out the door.

The windows were open as I drove and I had my favorite Pink Floyd song on repeat and at full volume and I didn't even turn it down when they sang the f word.  Ah, a car ride sans little ears!



So then I shopped. I didn't go crazy but I did spend kind of a lot, mostly on groceries.  Who does that?  Gets to go shopping alone and buys groceries.  I ordered my favorite coffee at Starbucks. I drove home with those windows down and that song with the f word audible and a warm fall drink in one hand. And it. was. awesome.

Hellooo, autumn.

I do this to myself

The last time I found myself turning to Google to diagnose myself I swore that I had throat cancer. I texted my close friends and my sister and sister-in-law who are nurses and sent them a picture of the lump protruding from my neck; Do you think I could have cancer? I Googled some more. I stood on my bathroom vanity with a flashlight and obsessively looked down my throat, feeling the lump near my collarbone over and over and over. Photographing it. Googling more. I thought maybe I was just being a hypochondriac and almost didn't even get that lump examined.

After several ultrasounds and biopsies and one doctor telling me that in all of the fine needle aspirations he's done only about 3% of the nodules he sees turn out to be cancerous, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Last night after two episodes of Breaking Bad, one containing a pretty graphic scene of Walt's tumor removal, I sat up in bed feeling terrified. Something clicked in me and I started feeling the gaps between my ribs, tracing my ribs. I have had a dull ache in my ribs since I was pregnant with Dylan three years ago. That rib pain was severe for both of my pregnancies and it's remained a constant ache. My PCP said, "It's just pregnancy" and so I've kind of learned to ignore the pain over the years. I only feel sore when I sit a certain way or if I rub my ribs too much or if one of the kids sits on my stomach.



That's where it hurts. I've been staring in the mirror and can see that it is a bit larger than my right rib but I couldn't get a very clear picture of the size difference. (Ps. This is a photo of me sticking out my ribs as far as possible. I'm bony but not that bony)

The Internet is no place to go when you have cancer already and you think maybe you might have something else wrong with you because you might stumble upon gems like this:

"Each year, about 100,000 Americans with cancer find out that the cancer has spread to their bones. This is called bone metastasis, or "bone mets," and it's different from cancer that starts in the bone. Cancer that leads to bone metastasis may have started in your breast, your prostate, your lungs, or other parts of your body. Odds are, bone pain brought this metastasis to your attention. You may wonder how this could have happened, especially if you received early, aggressive treatment for your cancer and any "renegade" cancer cells. And you may wonder what's on the horizon for you. Cancer that has metastasized to the bone is incurable but treatable." (source)

Holy shit. Do I have bone mets? That means that my cancerous thyroid cells travel through the bloodstream to the bone and form a new tumor. But wouldn't that show up on my whole body scan? A WBS picks up a tracer dose of radiation and detects the uptake of my thyroid cells so wouldn't that show a bone metastasis? Google Goole Goole. Apparently Google says "nope", I'd need a bone density scan.

And then I think, well maybe I have osteosarcoma. A dear friend of mine died from bone cancer just a few weeks ago. She discovered her tumor after feeling hip pain post pregnancy. Today I was sitting on the couch feeling my ribs and thinking to myself, "You're just freaking out about nothing. It's a muscle strain or a fractured rib, not cancer" but instead of allowing myself to brush this fear aside I called the doctor and scheduled an appointment for Monday. Something that Scarlett wrote to me before she died is going to stick with me for the rest of my life: "I'm so happy you're doing so well post treatment. Just make sure to keep an eye on things and if you feel like something's not right don't be afraid to see your doc or at least talk to his nurse."

We've already spent so damn much on medical bills that any treatment I receive from now until the end of the year is at a greatly reduced cost so there is absolutely no reason for me to wait here, terrified, thinking that I've got an incurable cancer. This could turn out to be something as simple as a strained muscle or a fractured rib. My surgeon said something to me that gets me through moments like this. Back when I met with him to remove the stitches from my neck, about a week after my thyroidectomy, he said, "Your margins are clear. I think you are going to live a long and healthy life." And he is a total thryoid cancer expert and is chairman of surgery with every qualification under the sun, so I'm going to trust my surgeon and the results of a new body scan and not rely on Dr. Google.

It's probably nothing. 

Revisiting Hallelujah

On an evening last winter, while I was pregnant with Kate, I cuddled up on the couch with my laptop and recorded this song. I wasn't at a great place mentally. We had been invited to spend the evening with family and friends and I had sent Sean and Dylan without me because I wasn't feeling well and didn't have the energy to sit through two hour-long car trips. I was struggling through my cancer journey and dealing with the harsh reality that once my little baby was born I was going to have to leave her for treatment, and my heart was heavy.

Leonard Cohen's Hallejuah has always been one of my most favorite songs. It's just so....grabbing. And raw. So I belted out this song and recorded it on Garageband and it quickly became this symbolic memory for me.

In keeping up with Katie's daily music time, I randomly started singing this song to her today and thought why not make a music video of how far we've come. Silly, really. So I sat her down, flipped on the camera and hit play on iTunes. I sang along with my old track and suddenly I felt this relief. Look at us! She's no longer in my belly and I am here with her, less one tumor, feeling like myself again. I don't have to leave her for treatment any time soon--my worries about whether or not she would have a great life without co-sleeping and breastfeeding have dissipated--and she is thriving.



Two of the dogs--Jasmine and Avery--wanted to star in this makeshift music video. They expect payment in the form of belly scratches. And Kate? Well she just loves music. Oh how I wish that I could rewind life and tell myself sitting there pregnant and weary on the couch that look! everything turns out just fine and this little healthy baby girl doesn't feel neglected because I was too sick to be the mother I was with her brother. Our bond is unbreakable and our love, infinite,

And I still have all ten toes!

I'm thinking I should play the lottery today.

I've been showering in our upstairs shower since Dylan was 7 months old because our bathtub in our downstairs bathroom was a nightmare. It had all of these little tiny tiles that we would caulk and they would collapse in on themselves and the caulk would crack and water would get behind the tub. So I never showered downstairs, it was too much of a pain to have to keep caulking it. Last weekend I decided to take a new approach and remove all of those tiny 2" tiles that lined the tub and recaulk the tub without them. It doesn't look as fancy as before but now it actually does its job and I'm no longer afraid to shower in there for fear that the water might seep through the caulking.

This morning I was thinking that now that we can shower in our downstairs tub again, we should get a bigger cabinet behind our toilet which holds towels and has more storage. I thought, "I wish we didn't have that cabinet already so I can get a new one."

So we went to the park this morning. The kids lived in the dirt while we were there, Dylan poured it on Kate's head and Kate ate handfuls. They had a blast.






When we came home, Grandpa came over and played with them in the backyard where they had even more fun in the dirt.

And so a bath was very much needed, which brings me to the reason I need to play the lottery.

I bathed Kate and dressed her and put her in the other room and then it was Dylan's turn for a bath. I went looking for a new washcloth in the cabinet above the toilet and, while barely touching it, the cabinet fell off the wall and landed half on me and half on the toilet. It sliced three of my toes and my shin but luckily none of the glass broke and the toilet didn't crack from the weight.

I was shocked. Dylan was screaming. My foot was bleeding. And all I could say over and over was Are you kidding me?! What are the odds that I had wished that I could replace the cabinet over the toilet on the same day that it fell off of the wall after being there for as long as we've owned this house!

*

I'll tell you a secret: I was awake at 1:11 this morning with a sick Dylan who was still pulling a 101.7 fever for the sixth night in a row and I wished that his fever would go down today. I know you're supposed to wish on 11:11 or something for superstition so I figured 1:11 couldn't hurt, too. His fever was down to 98-99ish today which is a welcome change from the 100° + that he's been struggling with all week. So I'd like to think my wishes are coming true; a healthy boy and a new bathroom cabinet.

Through the years: Turning thirty

8:04AM. Thirty years ago. I was born.



I like to joke that I was trying to take pictures even in my newborn photos. See my pretend camera?

I absolutely love looking back at baby photos. My baby photos, Sean's baby photos, Dylan and Kate's baby photos, I pretty much love everyone's baby photos. I once had a few of the people who read my blog--most of them people I had never met--send me their baby photos and I posted them in a big baby photo blog post. I even loved those baby photos and I didn't know what some of the people looked like as adults. So my birthday is a great excuse to post some old photos. See if you can find me in some of these.

As a tiny baby:









As a toddler:







Preschool and grade school:








Middle school and high school:













I'm having fun. Shall I keep going?

College:








And then I met Sean, we bought a house, adopted dogs, had three kids. My twenties--with my little family--have been the best years of life. Except for 29. My 29th year will of course always be special to me because I gave birth to my little Kathleen, but it will always be the worst because of my thyroid cancer diagnosis. I've felt so sick this year. So I've got my fingers crossed that 30 will be just as great love-wise and much better in health.

Today I turned thirty with my Love and little Loves. I woke up to a handmade card from Dylan, my first ever Dylan-made card, he had drawn a picture of me. I knew it was coming. He woke me up on Friday morning and said,

"Mom! I made you a big present with Daddy last night while you were at the store. Wanna see it?...Yeah, it's a surprise. Do you wanna see it?...For your birthday. Oh God, Mom, you are incredible!"



I think it looks just like me.

We had a routine day around here, went grocery shopping, played a bunch, cuddled. The usual.



This afternoon I blew up some balloons and both kids were ecstatic.








I'll admit, I was pretty ecstatic about the balloons, too.



Thirty feels absolutely no different to me. I didn't have a pre mid-life crisis or anything. I'm just so happy for 29 to end. I told a family member that I feel eighty and look fifteen. It's also easier to turn thirty when your husband is turning forty in three weeks. ;) So thank you for all of the wonderful, wonderful birthday messages. Here's to sixty more years of happiness!