Lots to post about, not lots of time.....

Jack's birthday was awhile ago. I'll post about that soon. Before that was Dasha's sleep study. That was fun. My beautiful daughter decided to try out for her school's dance and drill team and made it. And of course Thanksgiving and Tyler's birthday were next so they will need posts. But first I have some random thoughts that have to come out of my head before I explode. I miss my mom. My lack of desire to have Christmas this year is, conversely, making me more efficient. Lots of my shopping is done. I've been cleaning and sorting and organizing. 99% of the decorating is done. I'm working on the planning for teacher gifts. Those people that I can count as true friends are few and far between. I miss you guys too. And I realized the other day that the people that I know I can count on I met 20 or more years ago. Weird. One person that I did truly count on let me so far down I only recently began to recover and it's been over 2 1/2 years. I want a bigger house. I love this house. It is our home. We've been here 20+ years. All of our children have come home to this house. We've celebrated holidays, birthdays, baptisms, confirmations, and so far, one graduation here. But we have outgrown it. We have 2 children who may potentially live with us for many many more years. We have (possibly) 5 children who might have spouses &/or children and will visit here. This house won't work for that. So someday, I hope to find another home, that will work. Everyday I am thankful for my kids. We don't always agree and someday we all may live apart. But I am confident that they will always be in my life. And that is important. I am tired. And everyday is a big fat act to appear "okay". When I am alone and have no distractions, things are not okay. I cry a lot. This includes driving, doing the dishes, and cleaning. I think I could sleep for a week at a time. Not sure what to do about any of that. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Halloween!

Our 2 littlest kiddos really enjoyed Halloween this year.  I think they both “got it” – wear a weird outfit and people will give you candy – woo hoo!!

Since every year we try to have a “Jack” theme, this year we did this:

(Jack looks thrilled, right?!)

I think the costumes turned out really cute.  I decided on the card theme but was hasn’t sure about how to do it.  Dasha’s teacher gave everyone in her class a paper grocery bag to decorate to wear in class and voila!  It was the perfect shape and size, and cheap too!  I bought spray paint for the bags, sparkly paper for D’s crown, a foam sheet for Jack’s hat, and a paint pen.  Andrew helped me print out the card fronts and backs and we called it done!  Here’s the backs:

Dasha had a fun party in her class:

And a few days later Jack had his class party.  Since D was out of school Jack’s teacher said she was welcome to come to his party:

Then last night we went trick-or-treating:

Enjoy guys, in a couple of days the pumpkins will be empty!

21 Things About Jack – 2012

1. He’s cute!

2. His favorite thing is still his blue blanket :).

3. He sleeps in his own twin bed, every night, all night.

4. He likes to be silly, and make us all laugh.

5. He still lets me use the pirate theme for lots of his clothes.

6. Jack has adjusted beautifully to kindergarten.  He likes to go, he likes his teacher(s), he likes his classmates.

7. He is finally learning to count and identify letters (upper and lowercase!).  Whew!

8. Still has NO interest in potty training :(.

9. I could look at his face all day long if he ever would sit still long enough.

10. He likes VeggieTales, SpongeBob, Toy Story, and other Disney movies, in that order.

11. He likes to read stories, and will sometimes sit and practice letter-writing with me (ie do homework).

12. He eats great – likes some veggies (that’s better than none), loves to drink milk and eats a variety of foods.

13. He knows how to open all the doors in our house that go outside.  So now we have to use door knob covers and come up with more ideas to keep him from letting himself and his sister out!

14. He still has a tendency to run when out.  He has to be holding my hand or within grabbing range at all times.  It is exhausting.

15. I love Jack’s eyes – they are a beautiful clear blue and have gorgeous lashes.

16. He’s very tenderhearted.  Jack identifies when someone is sad or hurt and wants to make it better.  So sweet.

17. Either everyone at his school wants to play it up for me, or they really do love him.  When we walk down the hall every grown-up says hi to him (by name).  When I get to talk to any of them, they tell me how cute he is, or how much they want to squeeze him.  It really warms my heart.

18. He loves his siblings and now even looks for Dasha to play with.  It cracks me up how he says “Dashlyn”.

19. Jack loves music.  We listen to the same songs on our way to his school every day and if I forget he’s quick to remind me - “Mom, music!”.  And he’s starting to sing independently.  It’s hard to tell unless you know, but he keeps singing the Happy Birthday song.  So cute.

20. Jack is a busy guy.  He likes to go downstairs with TyTy and Andrew, or go outside, or play in his room.  He still pushes matching things around sometimes, but he’s starting to use his imagination too.

21. Our whole family is so grateful he is here!  We’re all better people because of him.  We make it a point to enjoy the small things.  We take the future more seriously.  We take the present very seriously.  And we laugh waaaaay more than we would without him!

Well, my post for "later today" was a complete fail. I went back to find the next part of Jack's story and was trying to delete a couple of sentences that didn't need to be in the copied post. And I deleted it. The original. The whole damn thing. All gone. As though I needed one more thing to be depressed about. I sent a message to blogger asking if I could get it back and still have no reply. So I will need to recreate it. But easier said than done. I haven't done nearly enough for the month - Down syndrome Awareness month and the month of Jack's birth. But I have a few posts for the next few days, especially about Jack's birthday.

I will post the second part of Jack's story later today. Just have to find it. I feel like I need to apologize for my complete lack of enthusiasm for Down syndrome Awareness month this year. I'm tired. I don't care about, well, anything. I can't seem to make anyone happy and when I try, someone else gets pissed off or has their feelings hurt. I'm at the point where the effort to try is mostly too hard. I have decided to be okay with being basically alone. Friends are too hard right now. I am however, working to make myself more enthusiastic about this month; I used to care a great deal about it and Jack's birthday is at the end of the month. His celebration is going to be very low key but I'll do my best to make sure he knows he's loved and gets to do something fun. I love all my kids so much; but the little 2 are the only reason I get up in the morning. What a crappy post. Sorry online friends.

This has GOT to be a record....

Usually, I make it through several days before I start missing posts. This year I missed the first 3 days of 31 for 21 posting! (If there is anyone reading that doesn't know what 31 for 21 is, please leave a comment and I'll explain. Otherwise, I'm going to assume we're all on the same page.) I usually start off celebrating Down syndrome Awareness month with revisiting Jack's story. I told it in more than one parts - here's the first part: At about 12 weeks pregnant (right after we found out we were pregnant), I decided to do that nuchal fold test, where they measure the back of the baby's neck (via ultrasound). There's some magic number that is a marker for ds. With every pregnancy, I took pretty much all the tests because I like to be prepared. This sounded like an easy one, so I took it. They couldn't get our little one to be in the exact right position, so it didn't work. That was on a Fri. We tried again on Mon., still with no results. I don't really remember what made me decide to have the amnio; I just remember having the appointment and my friend Sherry telling me she would come with me because she didn't want me to go alone. This was really a big deal 'cause she lived a couple of hours away. We found out Jack was a boy while getting prepped, and the actual amnio really wasn't bad. That was on a Wed. On Fri., while I was home, my ob called. "I really hate to tell you this, but your test shows Down Syndrome." I know he said more stuff but I sure don't know what it was. I called my husband at work and told him to come home. He did, and we cried together. We had plans that week-end but cancelled everything. We didn't tell anyone for almost 2 months. I just needed that time to be okay. It was really hard. People kept calling to ask if we heard anything yet and I lied. I said "no news must be good news, ha ha" knowing the whole time I would have to tell them at some point. It's an emotional thing. I honestly wasn't worried that anyone would be mean or anything, I just needed to get to the point where I was emotionally okay telling people because I knew I would be the one reassuring others. I thought no way can I start talking to people about this if I'm breaking down every time. Even my closest friends and our parents. For some reason, I needed to be strong. My dr. was great. He said, at the first visit after we found out, that we wouldn't dwell on the ds unless I had questions or concerns. He wanted me to feel like this was a regular, fun, miraculous pregnancy, just like it was. We finally told our other kids. They decided at once no one would ever make fun of their baby brother and were protective right away. They made me cry in a good way. We then told my parents; I kind of chickened out and told them when I was literally on my way out the door to go 3 hrs. home from a visit with them. After a quick hug, I ran away quick so they could be upset and cry. Then I wrote a big long e-mail to all the friends and family I had an e-mail address for and even asked them to forward it to others. The response was really positive. Sounds anti-climactic, but that was it. I have one friend that I'm really close to and everyone was saying to her "wow, you sure kept that quiet" and she has to say "yeah, cause she didn't tell me" which I feel a little bad about but I just couldn't yet. The rest of the pregnancy was okay; I had gestational diabetes (special diet, blood checks, and even shots in my tummy!) and lots of ultrasounds and non-stress tests and an echocardiogram for Jack and everything came back great. Everyone acted very excited to see our new guy. We had the BEST baby shower. (That'll be another story!) (If anyone knows why my paragraphs aren't showing up, please let me know!) And I'll leave you with a peek of new Jack cuteness:

My mom’s birthday……

was last Sat.  I should have been worrying about the card that I would send late (I have good intentions but crappy follow through) and calling to tell her “Happy Birthday!  Where did you go to dinner??”.  Less than 2 years ago she was staying with my kids while Allan and I and then Madelyn and I went to Ukraine to complete Dashlyn’s adoption.  Last Christmas she sat in her usual spot and watched my kids open their Christmas presents that she shopped and bought for them.  In March I was bummed because she and my dad didn’t come for M&D’s birthday party.  It was okay though – she was going to have back surgery and feel much better soon and then she would come visit without Dad.  Those visits were fun because she would stay at our house (instead of a hotel when Dad came with her) and we would shop and eat at IHOP and get cherry Cokes from Steak N Shake (mine were diet).  And I would get annoyed because her little Lifesavers wrappers would get left on my end tables and all her stuff would take up space in the bathroom and then I would start to miss her when she pulled out of the driveway to go home.

She would be getting such a kick out of how much Jack is talking now and what a big boy he is going to kindergarten.  We would be planning for Madelyn’s senior year, and Andrew going away to college next year.  I have plans for things I want to do to the house and I was looking forward to her input.  There are so many things I was looking forward to sharing with her, so many things she’ll not be with us for, so many conversations we won’t have, so many days I’ll cry over every dumb little thing.

I miss my mom.