This is the day that I often refer to as my daughter’s adjusted birthday. Today was her due date. Unfortunately, she decided to arrive in December.

She was in the hospital for 35 days while she grew from just over two pounds to just over four. Believe it or not, I look back at her days in the NICU as a beautiful time. She had amazing care and the nurses encouraged our bonding. She rested, she ate, she snuggled against my bare chest and we became a family.

Best of all, we had primary care nurses, also known as having, “continuity of care”. That means that we had the same two or three nurses all the time. The hospital ensured that there would be a solid relationship built between the caregivers and the patients. Those nurses knew us, they knew our daughter and they became part of our family.

When my son was born seven weeks early, he was too sick to stay in the NICU at the hospital where he was delivered. He was immediately swept away, across town, to Children’s Hospital…just in case he needed emergency heart surgery.

In that NICU, they had recently done away with the use of primary care nurses. Apparently, the bonding that was going on between the patients and the nurses became too hard if the sick, little babies would pass away. I can understand that. I have watched a baby die. It is unbearably painful.

But, there is stark contrast between the memories of my daughter’s infancy and my son’s. I couldn’t help but feel that there were complete strangers caring for him. Because there were. Every single time I walked in, there was someone new. They didn’t know me, they didn’t know my baby, they didn’t build any kind of relationship with him whatsoever.

There was no bonding. We were not a family.

And I hated it.

During that painful time, I could have never anticipated where we would be nearly eight years later. My tiny daughter has grown into a typical eleven year old and my medically fragile son has come farther that we ever thought possible.

Because, in addition to a lot of work at home and in therapy sessions, there has been something even more meaningful to their development.

There has been continuity of care.

My children attend a very small school. There is one class per grade and every teacher knows every student. The vast majority of parents know each other and I would venture to say that just about everyone who enters that building knows my son.

I am working at the school so that I can be there for my boy if he should need me, but I am certainly not the only one looking after him. Day in and day out, there are many parents, teachers, aides and even students, who watch out for him as well. That stability and the formation of these strong relationships have helped my kids excel.

There are more bonds than I can count. We are a family.

And I love it.

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I am not going to lie; I like nice things. However, I pride myself on being a bargain shopper through e-bay, Craigslist and various discount stores. I have bought a room-sized area rug for $200.00, Pottery Barn lamps for $2.50 each (from Pottery Barn) and have no qualms about buying designer clothes at thrift stores. I like nice things, but I like to be cheap about it.

Unfortunately, when my husband and I bought our house in 1998 it was in sore need of rehab. There were yellow plastic tiles on all sides of the kitchen, including the ceiling. All of the bathrooms had linoleum, the foundation needed jacked up and there were trees growing through the patio cement.

We were both working full-time at good jobs and were plugging along on the renovations slowly, when I found out I was pregnant. Suddenly, we were rushed…and decidedly less wealthy…because I would soon be staying home with a new baby. We didn’t even have the money for discount items. We had to buy clearance discount. It wasn’t pretty, people.

I made many, many decisions on the fly as well. I picked out wallpaper because it was in stock, not because I liked it. I bought carpeting off of a 5″ x 5″ sample at a bargain outlet. I made a lot of mistakes. Times one thousand.

This may just be the worst of them. This is the boob light that hangs on my bedroom ceiling.

We have other boob lights in the house, but I see this one every morning when I wake. It stares at me whenever I lie in bed and despite searching e-bay and Craigslist and every other site I can for a chandelier to hang in its place, I have not yet been successful. In 12 years.

I hate this light. From the bottom of my bosom.

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My daughter turned eleven in December. A couple of weeks ago, in the midst of cleaning her room, she told me that she had a bundle of clothes to hand down to her cousin. Then, as if she was uttering something completely meaningless she said, “Oh, and I don’t really play with my Barbies anymore.” Like a knife to the heart, I tell you.

For as long as I can remember, she has had a large, Barbie storage bag hanging in her room. Nearly the length of the door on which it hangs, it has individual compartments for putting dolls or clothes. It is so full and heavy that I have had to replace the hooks for it twice.

Under her bed there is an entire box full of wedding dresses, night-club outfits, tea-party skirts and mismatched flip-flops. There is a school teacher’s chalkboard, a purple convertible and a red, VW Beetle. Not to mention the full Cinderella carriage, complete with horses. All of it, done for.

My daughter is moving on. We have gone from baby dolls to shopping malls. Now she wants her own e-mail account and a cell phone. She was thrilled when I recently bought her a full-length mirror for her room so she can make sure she looks okay before school.

She brushes her hair without being asked (most of the time) and she’s wearing deodorant. Sometimes we pass right by the kid’s shoe section and head straight for the women’s, because she can fit in those now too.

She is growing up. And, that? Scares me to death.

Getting her through childhood was hard enough. Soon there will be peer pressure and boys and really important decisions with which she’ll be faced. Hard decisions that need to be made in an instant and need to be made correctly the first time, because sometimes there isn’t a second chance.

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching her grow and excel and morph into this amazing person.

But, I would do just about anything to go back in time to see her playing with those Barbies again.

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1. If, over the holidays, you ate your weight in peanut butter blossoms and chocolate nut clusters, you may want to consider that it’s time for a diet.

2. If you decide on a low-carb diet then, by all means, make sure you work in a place where homemade apple crisp is made so that you can test your willpower when you smell it.

3. And you see it.

4. And you watch 200 kids eating it.

5. If your low-carb diet allows you to eat certain carbs, like Grape Nuts and Shredded Wheat, they will taste like the best treat you’ve ever had.

6. Then you may find yourself going through a lot of Grape Nuts.

7. And toilet paper.

8. You may think that bread baked without flour is the worst thing you’ve ever tasted.

9. Until you try milled flax seed and soy hot cereal.

10. Even if you add a lot of cinnamon.

11. And Splenda.

12. If you are at the grocery store you might find yourself standing in the frozen food section seriously considering the purchase of low-carb ice cream.

13. But, then the rational part of you will realize that you’ll end up eating nothing but ice cream.

14. Then you may find yourself going home and being thankful that your pants feel just a little more loose.

15. And you’ll celebrate.

16. With a bowl of Grape Nuts.

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