Last week was a very big event — my son received communion! Three years ago, my daughter received and it was so important to me as my faith has always been a big part of what makes me me. I brought Sofia to mass as a little baby and then when her brother was born, I brought the two of them to mass all of the time — and it was NOT easy. Waking up early as a mom of 2 kids, I would dress them and drag them to mass for 8am. They would often resist and / or complain. I did it anyway — even chasing my son up and down the aisles.

On Saturday May 5, it was the day. I kept thinking each week, “Ok, I have to get through these next few days…” — it seems every week, there was something else to do, some other event to handle between sports, homework, activities — having young kids and a new 501(c)(3) is fun and challenging as I keep trying to balance my need to write, my need to do more with my very much needed life at home.

A balanced woman is hard to be — it seems the kids school days are getting shorter and shorter and between working out and trying to eventually see my girlfriends and spend time with my husband and extended family, it is hard to balance.

Today is Mother’s Day and it is fitting that I am getting myself more on the “balance” train and trying to manage the many things I want to do and how.

We took photos together at communion and I have just a few of them. I guess if nothing else, we can all agree that I look hella different from 2015 and 2018 (see above).

To think, my daughter’s communion was exactly 1 year and 6 months before my diagnosis of breast cancer at 39 years old. And then, to also think that last year, I was still undergoing chemotherapy until May 1st. I was lucky that my chemo was a year ago and that I was able to kind of have gone through this “metamorphosis” for my son’s communion but really I am just happy to be here, to have been able to sit at his communion with my own hair and my one boob and just be ME.

It crossed my mind only once during the ceremony — the dreaded, “What if?” and I just pushed it away right quick to live and enjoy the moment and not worry about what cancer might do — if it does God forbid spread or come back or otherwise make my life be in danger. Instead, it was with a deep breathe, that I sat in that church and watched my son receive the body of Christ that I exhaled and said, “No what it’s, just TODAY.”

I am lucky and focused on trying to do the balance — it is hard. I do know that time goes quickly — well, in a “the days are long but the years are short kind of thing.”

So I try to balance and take care of me and the many goals I want to accomplish with my 501(c)(3) along with enjoying the moments, the moments that continue to fly by and change me from a mom of two babies to a mom of two young kids to someday, God willing, a mom of teens and beyond…

Fitting for Mother’s Day to share that…

This is what I do in the time between…