Description on the bottle: The name Destinea comes from the old flat bottomed boats which were used to ship goods, and especially wine, along the river Loire in the past. Sauvingnon Blanc is the classic white grape of the Loire Valley, producing crisp, fresh fruity wines. Joseph Mellot has chosen to vinify this wine as a Vin de Pays, free of the constaints of "appletion controlee", in order to maximise this grape's natural characteristics and its delicious aromas of gooseberries and blackcurrant leaves.
Sarah says: I'm not sure what all that means, but I like the wine. It's got the light and fruity taste, with an odd kick at the end. The kick threw me off the first sip, but after drinking a bit more, I think I like it. It keeps me wanting more. I can't really explain it... I like the initial flavor, but the kick at the end washes that flavor away, so I keep drinking more and more to keep that initial taste back. Tricky little thing.
Overall rating: Thumbs up!
Sarah says: Destiny... do you believe in it? I don't. I'm not sure what got me thinking about this today, but I was thinking about my little Mary and the troubles we had her first year or so of life. For that first year she was my problem child and brought me the greatest amount of stress. Oh, how things have changed, Liam is my stressful one now. But, her destiny was to be a itty bitty non-functioning thing... at least, that's what the doctors would have predicted. Turns out - she's absolutely fine and we worried and stressed and freaked out over nothing.
Here's the back story for those of you who don't know it. When I was pregnant with my little girl, we had the standard 20 week ultrasound. All we cared about was finding out the sex; which was really stressful by the way - all that "we just want it to be healthy" talk... is crap - we knew we wanted a girl (because we already had a boy, and our "dream family" consisted of one of each), and I wasn't sure how we'd react if it didn't work out that way. We even took crazy measures to try to get a girl (but that's a saga for another blog) Anyways... turns out, while we were busy freaking out about the sex, the doctors were looking at all sorts of other things. One of the items that worried them was her size. She was smaller than they expected her to be at that time. That began a nightmare of weekly doctor visits for weight checks, measurements, and ultrasounds - all of which concluded one thing... she was too small and might not be developing properly.
Much to everyone's surprise, teeny tiny Mary was born at a perfectly normal 7 lbs 6 oz! But her saga doesn't end there - she immediately began to loose weight, which is normal, but she lost too much too fast. Within 36 hours, Mary was down to 5 lbs, and refused to latch on!! I should have known right then and there that she'd be a picky eater. I specifically remember my sister coming for a visit and asking if she was shrinking, not knowing that she was, and I sadly shook my head yes. See, my sister and I are used to big babies, Liam; 9 lbs 13 oz. My nieces were 9 and 10 lbs... 5 pound Mary was hard to handle. They refused to let us leave the hospital until we reached 5 lbs 8 oz, and encouraged me to give her a bottle to help that along. I held strong, worked with some very patient nurses, and got that girl eating the natural way. They kept us at the hospital a little longer than expected, but my Mary was alive and well.
After going home we were immediately sent to the eye doc because of Mary's eye birth defect - which isn't important to this story - other than to note that her eye clearly didn't develop normally (we've been monitoring her vision since 4 weeks, patching started at 6 months, and glasses at 12 months). We attended all the standard doctor visits - I don't really remember them any more - maybe 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months? Either way, we were always told, she's tiny, in the 1 percentile (I didn't know that even existed!) but she was growing. At the 6 month appointment the story changed a bit - her weight and height were showing growth, but her head wasn't. The head not growing leads to a concern that the brain isn't developing properly. This concern was magnified by the fact that she has the eye problem - so clearly something didn't develop up in that area, what if it impacted her brain as well?!
So, they shipped us off to get an MRI to review her brain activity. 6 months old, MRI, not cool.
All tests came back normal.
So, they shipped us off for some blood work and genetics testing. The results - there seems to be no explanation for her eye defect or her small size (although I like to point out that Mommy is pretty small, and both Mommy and Daddy wear glasses, but no one seems impressed with that logic). They suggested some more in depth testing, more blood work, and more advanced doctors, all of which equaled one thing to me, more money. We choose not to continue with the testing. My whole reason for that was this: it all started because the doctors were concerned that her brain wasn't developing. That was never once a concern of mine. She has met every single milestone. By this time, she was 12 months old - sure she was a little small, and wearing glasses wasn't all that common, but she was crawling, walking, babbling, laughing, making eye contact, eating finger foods, drinking from a sippy cup.... basically doing everything a one year old should be done. Brain development wasn't a concern for me, it wasn't even a second thought... why put her through more testing to determine what I already know - that's she perfectly perfect. We halted all testing at that point, and I've never once regretted that decision.
Now that Mary's 4 - I look back at the ridiculousness - her destiny wasn't to be an itty bitty non-functioning thing. BLAH - her destiny is whatever she decides it's going to be! She's a four year old, who likes Hello Kitty, Dora the Explorer, her big brother, coloring, singing, dancing, candy, making new friends, play dough, and telling jokes. She's is perfect and beautiful. She is extremely social, but can be incredibly shy in new situations. She loves her glasses and says they help her see, but whines everyday when it's time to put on a patch. She prefers to pick out her own clothes, which usually doesn't match at all, and almost always ends with boots. She dislikes having her curly hair brushed, but likes it put up in two pigtails. She likes to play dress up, and put on makeup. She pretty much does everything 4 year old girls like to do.
The life lessons I've learned from this experience: Don't believe everything you hear, you are beautiful, life is what you make of it, and you make your own destiny.
Mary has proved herself to be way more than anyone expected, what have you done lately?
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