Core & Rind: Miss Core comments here pretty frequently, and she’s only a few weeks ahead of me for her due date, so I love heading to her blog and comparing belly sizes as well as keeping up on how the baby, and her body, are developing.

Existere:  Oddly, I just realized this wasn’t actually on my Google Reader (it is now!), yet I visit frequently.  Existere & her wife are embarking on the road to conception via IVF, so a lot of the posts right now are about all the tests and heartache involved in that.  But everything’s looking good, and hopefully we’ll be hearing about their success soon!  She’s wickedly intelligent and eloquent.

Growing a Life:  First, the header graphic here is just adorable.  Second, her What I’d Wear Wednesday feature is so utterly satisfying to view that I just may end up meme’ing it here.  Third, she’s just started a list of pregnant bloggers that I will be watching eagerly to learn about and chat with other moms who can’t hold their babies yet!

Humps and Baby Bump: A fellow GTA’r expecting her first child.  She’s still in her first trimester, and reading her post about hearing her baby’s heartbeat for the first time made me feel all melty and emotional inside — no two pregnancies are alike, but I love that I can identify with a lot of the things she is experiencing.

Not Your Typical Mama:  I linked her on one of my (now abandoned?) Tuesday’s Blog lists, so it makes sense that she shows up again here.  She’s truly NOT “typical” — she is still breastfeeding and co-sleeping with her 18 month old daughter — and the deep connection that their relationship is forging between them is visible in every post.  I really love reading this blog.

Tiptoeing Through the Tulips: Absolutely my fave blog out there right now.  Cristin’s sense of humour is wicked sharp, her kids are adorable, and she has changed my perceptions of “handicapped” with her honest, open writing about her son Graham.  Plus, she tosses up vids and pictures all the time!  A must-read.

Wiser Mom: Over 35, in her first pregnancy (twins!), happy, and healthy.  What really drew me into her blog was her blunt description of the emotional turmoil she went through when she found out that her IVF resulted in four viable embryos.  Reading her blog is like listening to a friend telling a story, and I love that.

When I add more blogs, I’ll recap them here for everyone as well :]  But for now, these are my top seven!

So today, I’m going to focus on one blog in particular that has really touched me and made me consider how I, and my baby, will interact politely and supportively with special needs children, rather than being afraid of someone different from my standards of normalcy.  That blog is Tiptoeing Through The Tulips, where Cristin chats about her two children: her youngest, Dottie, and her eldest, Graham, an amazing little man who has persevered through CDH at birth and more medical procedures than any child should have to bear — one of which resulted in him being deaf.

I have to admit, reading her blog is not always easy, and neither is commenting, because I am worried of saying something unintentionally offensive or sounding insincere.  But I do feel strongly that it’s more important for me to show my support and fondness for her & her family than to sit at my computer being held back by worry.

So if you would, drop by Tiptoeing Through The Tulips and meet them :]