Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Of all the darn places to meet a friend...

Miscarriage and pregnancy loss is a life changing event. We have had the "event" 8 times now and it is a terrible, heartbreaking thing to go through. In the beginning I often wondered why we were made to suffer so much. I had so many people during those times say that things happen for a reason. While it still sucks... I think I found the reason.

Through our miscarriages I made friends I never would have met. We found each other on the internet over 5 years ago. We had all had multiple pregnancy losses and all stuck together and got each other through additional losses. In addition to those losses I can also say that as a group, in just over 5 years, at last count, we have celebrated the births of well over 25 healthy babies!

C's birth lead me to more new places with new friends who I had something in common with... nothing better then someone going through what you are to be able to understand like nobody else ever can!

While I would never wish our sadness on anyone, imagine the joy of walking into a house and hearing "surprise" from your internet friends who came from all over the country to throw you a surprise baby shower! Yep, they flew in just to shower little C with love and gifts. (see some pics below)

Tonight I was lucky enough to meet one of my local mom friends for dinner. We are trying to meet every month but will have to take a month or so off because she is expecting her 2nd baby after 3 losses.

I have found some amazing people on the internet and while yes, we all know there are some creepy people out there, I have learned from all of my friends from many different areas that there are more amazing people out there then you can even imagine!

Thank you to all of my internet friends for being there!

Monday, May 21, 2007

You say that like it's a bad thing...


I hear it all the time. C is stubborn just like me. The other word used is manipulative. Many people see those as bad words. For me, as the parent of a child with special needs, I consider those words to be good words! You say it like it's a bad thing.


Yes, C is stubborn. That stubborness has served her very well. It's what made her so mad and determined to sit up, pull to standing and walk. Stubborness makes her the determined little strong willed girl that she is and personally, I don't think it's a bad thing.


Yes, she is also very manipulative. I guess I was selling her short. I am still amazed at the way she manipulates people (myself included) and many others in her everyday life. She is cute, she knows it and she uses it. I have to say, when I figured out that she was really thinking to manipulate a situation to what she wanted... I was so happy. I didn't see it the way many parents do. I saw it as a real cognitive skill on her part to access the situation and then take advantage and spin it into what she wanted.


They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Yes, she is stubborn and manipulative but what can I say... that's my girl!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

An Update on Gabe

Gabe is home and doing amazingly!!! 4 days following open heart surgery and he is home and looks like his perfect, beautiful self!

http://gabrielsheart.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Cheerios everywhere!


What ever happened to my car. Yes, I was one of THOSE people. I had a nice neat car. Everything was in it's place. Compartments held what they were meant to hold. I had this cute little docorative $5 packet of keenex that where pink with high heeled shoes on them. There was room to fit 3-4 other people comfortably and neatly. (Well, maybe a dog hair here or there)

Now, there are Cherrios and Apple Jacks all over my car. The seats have water stains on them from those fabulous "no leak" straw cups that manage to leak out their entire contents between our house and the end of the driveway. My cute design kleenex have been replaced by a full size box of lotion kleenex and a plastic bag to try and keep all the used ones in one place. I now have 2 strollers in back, a basket full of toys seatbelted into the backseat and a bag of goldfish crackers are the snack du jour.

C has changed ever single part of my life and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world... and don't even get me started on the mess in the house!

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Some Mothers Get Babies With Something More

I have always loved this piece. With Mother's Day approaching, all I can say is I am so very lucky that I got the "Something More"!

Some Mothers Get Babies With Something More
Lori Borgman - Columnist and Speaker


My friend is expecting her first child. People keep asking what she wants. She smiles demurely, shakes her head and gives the answer mothers have given throughout the pages of time. She says it doesn't matter whether it's a boy or a girl. She just wants it to have ten fingers and ten toes.

Of course, that's what she says. That's what mothers have always said.

Mothers lie.

Truth be told, every mother wants a whole lot more. Every mother wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin. Every mother wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.

Every mother wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on page 57, column two). Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions. She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class. Call it greed if you want, but we mothers want what we want.

Some mothers get babies with something more.

Some mothers get babies with conditions they can't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palette that didn't close. Most of those mothers can remember the time, the place, the shoes they were wearing and the color of the walls in the small, suffocating room where the doctor uttered the words that took their breath away. It felt like recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming and it knocked the wind clean out of you.

Some mothers leave the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, take him in for a routine visit, or schedule her for a well check, and crash head first into a brick wall as they bear the brunt of devastating news. It can't be possible! That doesn't run in our family. Can this really be happening in our lifetime?

I am a woman who watches the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted bodies. It's not a lust thing; it's a wondrous thing. The athletes appear as specimens without flaw - rippling muscles with nary an ounce of flab or fat, virtual powerhouses of strength with lungs and limbs working in perfect harmony. Then the athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents and pulls out an inhaler.

As I've told my own kids, be it on the way to physical therapy after a third knee surgery, or on a trip home from an echocardiogram, there's no such thing as a perfect body. Every body will bear something at some time or another. Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, medication or surgery. The health problems our children have experienced have been minimal and manageable, so I watch with keen interest and great admiration the mothers of children with serious disabilities, and wonder how they do it.

Frankly, sometimes you mothers scare me. How you lift that child in and out of a wheelchair 20 times a day. How you monitor tests, track medications, regulate diet and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear.

I wonder how you endure the clichés and the platitudes, well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike. I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy pieces like this one -- saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary. You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for this, you didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling, "Choose me, God. Choose me! I've got what it takes."

You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so, please, let me do it for you. From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack. You've developed the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil. You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, carefully counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule. You can be warm and tender one minute, and when circumstances require, intense and aggressive the next.

You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You're a neighbor, a friend, a stranger I pass at the mall. You're the woman I sit next to at church, my cousin and my sister-in-law. You're a woman who wanted ten fingers and ten toes, and got something more. You're a wonder.

Happy Mother's Day.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

A Moment for Gabe

Please do whatever you do, prayer, sending strong healing vibes... whatever to help Gabe and his family be strong and make it though his next heart surgery. Feel free to follow the link, read his story, see what a beautiful boy he is, what a beautiful family he has (including Miss E.J. who is blessed like my Miss C) and add the link to your blog as well.

Feeling the Love across Cyberspace

Sunday, May 6, 2007

A monster has been created!

Well, it's done. The camera is purchased (although I did go with the D40 instead of the D40x) and well, I need to walk away from the camera.


C and I headed to the mall at 9:30. Got there, walked into the store, asked about the D40 vs. D40x and opted for the D40. Said I needed the memory card, any additional hardware, camera bag, shoulder strap and of course the camera. The sales guy was looking at me like I was a crazed shopped. I assured I am not some irrational compulsive shopper who would be returning it soon. I had done my research and was on a mission. We left the mall by 10:30 and headed home. Home by about 11:30 and the frenzy began. From 11:30, minus C's nap, the cable guy being there and a trip to the market, I still managed to fire off 274, YES!!! that's 274 pictures!

Today was a better day as far as my new addiction, only 126 images today.

Here are a few of my favorites and you can check out the Flickr box to the right to see more. Don't worry, the entire 400 images are not all there!


Friday, May 4, 2007

Tomorrow is my new camera day...

Yet another non exciting post. (well, to you maybe)





I am so spoiled. Tomorrow I get to go and get my new camera! My new DSLR!!! I am so excited. I got a lot of gifts to put towards it for my birthday and the rest is from my hubby.

Of course, I on the other hand am a spectacular wife... look what he gets to get!


Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Aw man!

Tonight I joined a friend for dinner. In my 42 years (remember, I turned 42 yesterday), ok, only 26 of that with a drivers license, I have never had a parking ticket. Yes, I have had my share of speeding tickets, but never parking! Well, tonight my streak ended. I came out to find that little slip of paper on my 5 minute expired car.

Aw man!

Tic, tic, tic!

Tried to post this last night but the computer was not cooperating...


Well, my 42nd birthday is almost over. It was a very normal day. Traffic and a typical work day. At home we just did carry out and played outside with Cfor a while. Then 3 loads of laundry. A shower and now I am online. Nothing glamorous. Not quite how I had envisioned my birthdays a while back.

This is not where I expected to be in my life at the age of 42. I thought I would be happily married, a happily working mom in a graphics job I loved. 2 or 3 kids who would all be about 7 to 10ish and enough money to be comfortable.

Well, we are fine on the money part but other parts, not so much. I have zits on my face like a 13 year old this week. I am pretty happily married but very unhappy at my job. I have one living child and 8 angels in heaven.

The big kicker is never in my image of the future did I see myself as a parent of a child with "special needs". Nope, that was NOT in the picture. Of course, I did indeed luck out. The picture is more perfect then I had imagined. I have many wonderful friends, I have wonderful family I have a pretty ok husband some days and I have a beautiful daughter that I could not imagine being any more perfect.

It may not be the future I was dreaming of but it is as it was meant to be and I am one lucky 42 year old.