February

Those of you who don't get to hang out with Sammy on a regular basis are really missing out! She is hilarious!! She is so very determined. She knows just what she wants and will do whatever it takes to get it. Usually, what she wants is for you to hold her or to sit up on the counter to help you cook. (see below!) When she's really sure of something, she'll get her hands going and her head nodding and just talk and talk. It's so cute! She will make you melt with her smile, even when she's acting up! It's impossible not to love her to pieces!

Monday morning on the way to drop the kids off, Will was getting insightful again. First he asked how you get into Heaven. I explained, then he asked a few more questions about what he'll be like there, who he'll see there, etc. He's just so curious! What came next was the very best. He said "Well Mom, if you're really, really, really sick, just fall on Jesus." As my eyes welled up, I just said, "Yeah, Will, that's right."

Welcome to Holland

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.
But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland. Written by Emily Perl Kingsley

My favorite teacher shared this poem with us tonight at the close of class. It is about the feeling of receiving and living with the special needs diagnosis of your child. Some of us have been through that with our own babies, some of us are blessed to be related to these angels, and some of us work with people/kids with disabilities. We have to remember to be cognizant of the fact that these parents (all parents) enter parenthood with the expectation of having a happy, healthy child who will thrive and succeed. Then we have to support them when those expectations aren't attainable.

deep thoughts

Wasn't it Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy that used to be on Saturday Night Live? Well I think we have a new deep thinker... William Petzold.

Where do I begin? This morning he had barely woken up and he came in to lay in our bed while I finished getting ready. He first asked why the clouds moved, then said Jesus was up in the clouds. Then he said "Well, if the sky was like water he could just walk on it because He walked on water." I just nodded my head, amazed at his statement. Then he said, "He's pretty magical."

As if that wasn't enough, this morning after I dropped the kids off he was really talking a lot with my dad. They were all together having breakfast and he told my mom that he had to tell her something about "her daughter" (me). He said "Papa, you shouldn't listen to this. Then he told my mom that her daughter had lost her wallet the day before. He was totally telling on me!! And he didn't want my dad to know or hear.

Sticker fun

My kids love when they get to reap the benefits of having a teacher for a mother. They get their pick of stamps, markers, paper, and various other teacher supplies. Most importantly, though, they LOVE the stickers! Yesterday, they thought it would be fun and exciting to adhere the entire page of happy face stickers to their faces. Will, of course, said he was some form of "transformer" (notice his fierce glare). Sam was just attempting to cover every square inch of her face. It was pretty funny!

BFF's

"I get by with a little help from my friends."- John Lennon

I really wish I had a picture for this post, but I don't. All I know is that when I found yet more mold in my basement, my two very best friends in the whole wide world came over to scrub my basement with bleach. One came with home made chocolate chip cookies, played with my daughter, french braided her hair, and made her a fabulous "rock star", the other came with her three babies, after being in a fender-bender, with cupcakes, beer, and lysol. I love these girls. You help me get by~!

BUBBLES

TAKE A LOOK AT THESE SWEET BUBBLE BABIES! THEY HAD A BALL TONIGHT IN A HUGE BUBBLE BATH! WE ARE STILL LOVING BEING HOME, GETTING MOVED BACK IN, ENJOYING THE WARMER WEATHER, AND HOPING FOR IT TO CONTINUE. WE'RE FACING PRESCHOOL ENROLLMENT IN THE NEXT WEEK OR SO, AND IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT THEY WILL BOTH BE IN SCHOOL NEXT YEAR! WILL IS ENTERING A BIG YEAR OF PRE-KINDERGARTEN (NOT PRESCHOOL!!!!!) AND SAM IS GOING TO BE IN TWO DAYS OF PRESCHOOL. I'M NOT SURE HOW I'M GOING TO HANDLE BOTH OF MY BABIES IN SCHOOL~

FRESH AIR

How gorgeous has this weather been? We had such a good time yesterday walking to the school park and playing. It was so nice not to have to bundle up before we went outside. The kids are loving being home. Yesterday marked one week that we'd been home. There's still stuff to do, but we're loving being home. My favorite? The new kitchen. It's just so nice to have a functional workspace now. I love it! Along with the beautiful floor and backsplash!

Although things are winding down a bit with the house, I'm just gearing up when it comes to school. If I wanted to (or could) I would spend every moment doing school work. This is my last semester, and I have a boatload of projects to do. I'm just going to take it one day (or project) at a time, and hope for the best. Maybe the weather will keep getting warmer. That definitely helps with the general mood around here!