When the depressed lunatic comes out in me (she always comes out to play after a visit to southern indiana), I find myself wondering why we aren't all much more happy with the life we lead. I find myself on a downward spiral, and something much worse happens to someone else.....

For example, when Erin and Griffin were still in the hospital, Erin had many infections. At one point, she had a really nasty yeast infection in her blood, and they thought that she had spinal meningitis. This was the lowest I ever felt in the NICU. Erin, my little baby girl, lay in an isolette, on a ventilator, with many many tubes hanging out of her. She was fighting for her life.....and then they toss on top of it the fact that they suspect that she has fungal spots on her brain and that she might have meningitis. I remember sobbing on the phone with a colleague, then visiting Aaron at work (yeah...while he was teaching...ROFL), and pulling him out of his classroom so that he could comfort me. I really didn't feel as though I could do it anymore at this point.

Around this same time, another couple had a set of twins in the same NICU unit....a set of identical twin boys, born early due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Three days later, one of them passes away. This is the other lowest point in my entire NICU experience. The combination of these experiences has changed my life forever. If I think about my friends' experience too much, I cling to my own children more tightly, so thankful that they're still with me. I still wonder why my friends weren't granted the same miracle. So happy that they have one son to love and cherish, but so sad because they have only memories of three short days on earth of the other son.

Again, more recently, things had been getting stressful for me and my little family. A much lesser scale, though, we started to worry more about our finances. Less daycare kids means less stress for me. But it also means less income. Less income means fewer Christmas presents for my children and the rest of my family. And while I was able to eke out enough presents (you really thought I was enjoying making all those gifts?!), and I really think that they were enjoyed, I really wish I could buy all the fun presents for my family, making life a little more fun and easier for them.

Then, right after Christmas, people I don't really know and am not likely to ever have a connection with were hit with the tsunami. Again, I am knocked out of my pity party (even though it was small) to realize just how fortunate I am. I cling to my children, reveling in the reality that it is not them nor I that is lost or dead. We have eachother, and that is what matters. Nothing else.