Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. Love never ends. If you were to crack open my chest and take a look at my heart these days, you would see nicks, cuts and bruises. Battle scars. A ripped seam right down the middle, where it feels broken in two. If I try to breathe too deeply, there’s a sharp stab of grief that sends me running for privacy, to cry.

On a cool, crisp September evening in 1995 I loaded a two year old in a stoller, and the four and six year olds gripped the sides of it as we walked to open house at the elementary school.  We went inside to Allyssa's first grade classroom, where the teacher greeted us all with the words, "Welcome to the Class of 2007!"  Parent after parent chuckled at those words. After all, 2007 was so far away, and who could imagine these little people wearing caps and gowns, being awarded their high school diplomas?

On a Saturday afternoon stroll through the local home improvement store, the girls and I grew bored looking at wiring with Dad and went off in search of something more exciting to look at. We chose floor tile. A pretty girl walked by and Steph, my fiance's 7 year old daughter, told the girl that she was pretty.

From time to time I run across stories in the media about breastfeeding in public. A Taunton woman was asked to leave an Iparty store because she plopped down to nurse her baby on the floor. A woman booted from an airplane because she wouldn’t cover up while feeding her baby. Livejournal, a web site that I frequent, created a stir when they disallowed pictures of moms nursing in some areas of the site.  Babytalk magazine elicited all kinds of outrage by putting a nursing child on the cover of its publication.  

I love my teenagers, don’t get me wrong. I am fiercely proud of them, of their burgeoning independence, of the strides they are making toward adulthood.

It’s been a long time since I have blogged here, but I am bound and determined to get myself back on track. Here, and in a lot of areas of my life.