A Milestone Birthday

On Wed, my beautiful, sweet, baby girl turned 13! I can't even believe it! Birthdays are usually emotional for me anyway - it makes me sad how quickly my babies are growing up and away from me - but 13! It takes my breath away how fast the time has flown and how very grown up she's getting. Since the kids are on Spring Break, we went out of town to my parents for a few days to visit, and on Madelyn's actual birthday, we went out to lunch, she opened a few presents, and we enjoyed cake purchased by my mom (she loves to buy cake so M's b-day was a great excuse!). Today (Sat) we're getting ready for the actual party. She likes things simple, so she invited a couple of friends to go skating and then 3 girls are going to spend the night. It's going to be fun! Here's my beautiful girl (even though when I look at her, I still see the little baby she used to be):

If I didn't have to scan it, I'd post a pic of her as a baby. I'll do that someday!

A Fun Giveaway!

One of these days, I'm gonna win one of these!

This giveaway is from Pam over at The Bird Flock, and she's giving away a FLIP video camera. Read about it here. By posting it here, I get an entry to win one. Cool, huh?! Allan hopes I win so I won't have to buy one :). Go read about it and her cutie-patootie son Rhett!

RATS! Didn't win this one either!

2 Things...

I intended to post yesterday but we had a somewhat busy morning and then I had another lovely migraine in the afternoon. It was the kind that you can feel coming on when you get up, and then it gets worse and worse all day. After taking 12 ibuprofen (not all at once!) at 10pm I noticed I didn't want to drill a hole in the back of my head anymore and by this morning I woke up feeling hung-over which means the migraine is gone for now. They don't happen very often which is why I haven't gone to the dr about them yet (and crappy insurance - I have enough dr debt, thank you very much).

But I wanted to post yesterday because it was World Down Syndrome Day! You know, because of the 3-21 abbreviation and Down Syndrome is 3 copies of the 21st chromasome. I wanted to get us all special t-shirts for the occasion, you know, like "My Kid Has More Chomasomes Than Yours" and stuff like that, but once again, it crept up on me and I didn't get them. I need to make a list of that type of stuff and maybe once a month I can buy one item at a time. Be more organized about it. Yeah, I'll get right on it.

That was the first thing. The second thing I'm sure you've all heard about already. Yes, it's the Obama gaffe. Aren't all of you who love him soooo much so very proud? Here's a link I got from my friend Heidi Marie:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5942677.ece

The words I wanted to write have come very succinctly out of my friend RK who said " when he is kicking back and chatting about something as insignificant as bowling, this is where it goes. No, it's not the end of the world. But I fear it may be a peek at something inside, possibly subconscious. I hope I'm wrong." My personal thoughts are that it was a rude, ridiculously insensitive comment. If anyone else in the world had said it, they would be unforgiven for a very long time. But all the Obama supporters are saying "oh, he didn't mean it, don't be so sensitive". Even if that's true, does that mean we can just forget it? Does that mean it's now okay to say stuff like that? This is my child he made fun of. No, I can't just "let it go".

Small Things Mean A Lot

Today was a red letter day for Jack. Nothing major happened, but a few little things did. When I got him up this morning, we sat down in the rocker in his room for a minute because he looked kinda sleepy still. He looked over and started signing "shoes". So I looked and sure enough, there sat his little shoes! Now, this is a big deal because Jack's communication skills are lacking. We know he's taking it all in, and he's been repeating signs after us, and responding with a sign if we ask him stuff, but he's not initiated any communication yet. The closest thing before this was when the dog would bark, Jack would sign "dog". Which totally counts, but she barks first, and this morning he just saw the shoes (who were sitting there quietly) and signed. Of course I was totally thrilled and we clapped and clapped!

He's also been more interested in OT type activities lately. It frustrates the PT, but I keep telling her she had her turn several months in a row when Jack wanted nothing to do with coloring, and stacking blocks, and stringing beads, and all those other fine motor type things his OT wanted to do. So now he throws a fit when the PT wants him to do stuff she wants him to do. If it was his idea, he'd be all over it! So today we spent lots of time poking stands of beads into slits cut in a plastic container and pulling them out again. I mean, lots of time!

And there's the utensil usage. Jack is more willing to use a fork the past few days. Usually, I stab the food with the fork, then give it to him to put the food in his mouth. Occasionally, he will try to stab the food himself, but it's tricky because if I give him the whole plate he might grab all the food at once and stuff it in his mouth. (We're working on that too.) And I'm more reluctant to try with the spoon because there are only so many messes I want to clean up in a day LOL. So today we had a great lunch, with Jack doing lots of hot dog bits stabbing!

I love this boy!

I went to a really cool conference!

It was a Hearts At Home conference, held every year in Normal, IL. This should have been my 7th one, but I missed one the year after Jack was born and had his open heart surgery. It's a terrific gathering of women, mostly Christian and pretty much all moms. They share parenting stories, sweet ones, and scary ones, and there are workshops to go to on MANY different topics. Parenting, marriage, spirituality. It's a time to go to dinner and not feed anyone else, go to bed without putting someone else to bed first, and take a shower and go to the bathroom ALONE!! It was wonderful.

Jack had school again today and when I got there to pick him up his teacher said he had a great day! First one without any tears and they didn't even have to get out the blankie! He's getting big :(. Not that I want him to be sad; I'm just already starting to mourn the loss of his babyhood. It goes so fast. After the other 3, I was telling someone the other day that it really is nice to have him go a little slower, so I can enjoy him a little longer before all he wants to do is run away from me. I can see it coming.

This next part is just for me. A to-do list , of stuff that needs to get done or at least started this week.
-finish those darn taxes
-make an eye appt for M
-make an eye appt for Jack, and maybe a check-up too
-clean off surfaces in the LR, then clean out the room
-start gathering up stuff to donate (shoot for 10 bags)
-gather toys Jack has outgrown, and decide what to do with them
-check on paying bills
-buy shorts for Jack

That's good for now. I think I'll keep this list and add and subtract to it as I go. Maybe I should make it it's own post. hmmmm

Yesterday was a Special Day

It was the anniversary of the day I went to live with my parents! I was 5 wks old, and weighed less than most of my kids I've given birth too! The adoption was completed almost a year and a half later. Every year, I get to celebrate my birthday, AND my adoption day! Yay for me!

I got to go to an all-day crop on Sat to benefit the place Jack goes to "school". (BTW, that's going better. He takes his little blankie and holds it when he gets a little sad. His teacher yesterday said he had a good day and didn't need the blankie as much. I still miss him, but it's not too much time and I try to go to the store or get coffee with a friend so it's okay.) It was lots of fun! I won a pretty little blue tote with stickers in it, and got several pages done. Well, done according to Julie. No journaling. I figure I can do that part at home! (yeah right)

I've been playing M's Nintendo DS lite a bunch lately. So much that I'm thinking of buying myself one! Maybe a used one since they're not cheap and I don't have a bunch of $$. When's the next gift getting occasion? Mother's Day! That's it! After 15 years of no present, that's what I want! Time to shop for games!

I'll have new pics of Jack to post after I get them from Braska's mom! Went to dinner with her last night. Her dh couldn't come, so she was in charge of herself, Braska, cute little still-new Kinlee, and still found time to take pics of Jack! It was great - we went to Golden Corral and ate lots of coconut shrimp!

More updates - Andrew started track and field practice and ended the first week with a barbeque. He came home that day and when we were discussing dinner, he said, "well I ate 5 hotdogs but I could eat" which cracked me up. 15 year old boys - who knew I'd so enjoy having one for a son?! M is getting ready for her first dance at her school. It's after school so no big deal but still. Ty still won't get a haircut but I don't really care. He will someday.

Here's a pic of Cap'n Jack in his piratey eye patch!

We went to a Trivia night!

It was to benefit Andrew's football team. They are pretty underfunded so we were glad to have fun and help out the team too! We finished about in the middle, not 1st but we didn't get the box of Ding Dongs for last place either!

What else have we done? It's been awhile since I last posted - bad blogger! But things happen and I've been trying to get some sleep lately! We had a book Fair at the elementary school so I did that all last week. Got to go visit little Miss Braska and new baby Kinlee last week too. When to the boys' Regional basketball game yesterday and watched our team win! Oh my gosh was that a good game! Tonight was a Pizza Bingo event at same elementary school as the Book Fair, and tomorrow I get to go visit a mom who has dd with ds and give her lots of neat info from our dsa! We've had a few therapies and another trivia and on Sat, I get to go to a crop (scrapbooking) to benefit the place Jack goes to school. Sometimes I just want to sit.

Jack has been up to - "school" on Mondays. This past Mon his teacher said he did much better and didn't need his blanky as much. So I guess that's good. He seems to learn more signs each day but getting him to show off doesn't always work. We've been practicing walking outside. I'm trying to let him walk from the van to wherever we're going and he has to stop and check out every new pavement he walks on - it's so funny. I so love him! He's pushing a Mickey Mouse fire engine around and he looks like he's really figuring it out. I love it! I have a hard time walking past him without grabbing him for a squeeze and kisses and it's starting to bug him! But just let me try to go to the bathroom alone and here come the little tiny fingers under the door or even funnier, he KNOCKS on the door!

My camera seems to be trying to work again so I may have new pics soon! Hopefully I'll post more updates this week-end!