It’s been a busy year in our household! Here are a few of the highlights:

January: I had just graduated from graduate school and was enjoying doing nothing but being pregnant. About halfway through the month I learned my delivery plans were going to change pretty drastically. My grandfather passed away after a long battle with cancer; his funeral happened while I prepped for my c-section.

February: At the beginning of the month we welcomed Menininho. It was a complicated post-delivery, one that I hope to never repeat. We moved to California and I made my first silly new mom mistake.

March: I learned of the losses of two Marfan friends. Menininho was blessed and formally given a name. Our family came to visit. Mark was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

April: A pretty boring month, but I did blog about some of my baby “must haves”.

May: We started using cloth diapers and won’t go back! Mark officially graduated with his MS. I also had the stress test that started a chain of events.

June: Mark and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. I also started a series of posts about my life with Marfan.

July: My Life With Marfan posts continued and I prepared for the annual National Marfan Foundation conference.

August: Menininho and I flew solo to visit my mom and sister. I finished up the Marfan series and went to my 4th conference, where besides working with the teens I was also one of the closing speakers.

September: My cardiologist discovered a problem with my heart and I decided to wean Menininho early in order to start a new medication. A few weeks later Mark was diagnosed with Celiac disease.

October: We had a mishap at the pumpkin patch, and then better success. I moved my blog from Blogger to WordPress.

November: I relived some childhood memories with MamaKat’s Writers’ Workshop and we got to spend Thanksgiving in Ohio, seeing all of my and Mark’s extended families.

December: The inner breastfeeding advocate in me wrote a post about a woman’s right to breastfeed and the inner patient advocate in me wrote a post about being an empowered patient. We bought a tree, spent too much time in the ER and had a failed Christmas tradition.

I want to thank all of you who read my blog, who give me feedback. I am humbled that you take time from your day to read what I have to write. I look forward to getting to know more of you and your writings in 2010!

~ Maya

Off and on during this month I’ll be doing posts themed by “Best of Blogs 09.” The author lists a different ‘best” for each day of December.

Today’s “best of” is Best Book of 2009. I’ve had significantly less time to read now that Menininho is here, and consequently most of the excellent books are from last fall. My runner-up for Best Book of 2009 is In the Time of Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez. It’s a read that will pull you in immediately. In the Time of Butterflies tells a somewhat fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabel sisters, who played a key role in eventually overthrowing their country’s (the Dominican Republic) dictator, Trujillo.

However, I’ve decided to go with a children’s book for my ultimate selection: Whoever You Are by Mem Fox. I’m biracial (Latina & White) and have struggled sometimes with my identity. I think it’s very important that my son know his roots (Brasilian on my side and Italian on his father’s) and I’ve been looking for children’s books with strong multicultural characters. I’ve had a really difficult time finding any!

Then, while shopping on Black Friday, I came across Whoever You Are. Mem Fox is my favorite children’s author and this book did not disappoint. It’s not told from a White perspective, or a Brown perspective, or a Blue perspective…it’s universal. Its message is that no matter who we are or where we live, we are all people and therefore have a lot in common. Leslie Staub does the illustrations and they’re gorgeous.

I bought the book in paperback, then found out the next day that my mother had seen the same book and purchased it for Menininho as a board book. Her version had English on one page, Spanish on the other.

I haven’t bought this book for anyone yet, but I’m sure that I will. And if you have any books featuring Latino characters to suggest, please do!!!

Also, don’t forget today is the LAST day to enter the Little Ones giveaway. You’ve got till 11 pm PST (2 am EST). I’ll post the winner on Saturday!

I am very excited to announce a giveaway from Little Ones, LLC! My friend Abbey started Little Ones, and it’s been fun to watch her business quickly expand. Every item is handmade and custom orders are welcome. For instance, I received a nursing cover when Menininho was born with extra length added to it, because I am so tall.

I think my favorite product is the hair bow, which now comes in 4 different bands and various styles. I told Mark that next time around we need to have a girl so I can buy the “hair bow of the month” package for her. For now, I just buy bows for all of my friends’ daughters. Menininho also loves to use the burp cloths as chew toys.

One lucky reader will win a $20 gift card to Little Ones! And, as a bonus, EVERY reader automatically gets 15% off their next order with the coupon code MARFMOM! The contest and coupon run through this Friday, Dec. 4th, 11 pm PST. I will announce the winner on Saturday the 5th.

You get an entry for doing each of the following, but you MUST leave a separate comment for each entry:
1) Visit Little Ones, then leave a comment here telling me your favorite item.
2) Follow Little Ones on Twitter (@littleonesllc).
3) Follow me on Twitter (@MarfGirl).
4) Tweet or blog about this giveaway (leave a direct link).

Please also make sure I have an easy way to contact you should you win. If I can’t easily find your email address via here, Twitter, or your blog, I’ll choose another winner.

Good luck!

* I was not compensated for this review beyond the item to be given away.