Grandparents, Gardens, Target and Trees

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday =Target, Target, Target.  I don't know how it happened it just did.  Shhh - don't tell Tom because I'll get the lecture on what a waste of money in gas it is AND that I shouldn't complain about not having enough time to do something (like cleaning the house.  Although he never says it because he knows it's bad for his health, but it's implied) if I can make 3 trips to Target in 3 days.  But it's not like the kids don't enjoy our Target outings - they actually do!  And I know I'm not alone because there are too many jokes about it on Pinterest and just the other day a friend told me her son saw the flag of Japan and asked her if it was the Target flag.  I, honestly, am still giggling out loud at that one!  I tell you the people in the marketing department at Target have magical qualities.  I can't exactly put my finger on where they put the drug and what it is, but they have managed to make the store addictive. 
But we've done other things the past few days too. Tom's parents came to visit this weekend. It was a relaxing time and it wasn't too crazy hot out, so we could eat dinner outside on the patio and stayed there until well after it turned dark.

Sunday was a low key day and the biggest event was Tom put Casey and Emily in charge of husking the ears of corn before dinner. I love this age where charging them with a task like this makes them feel important and they beg to do it. I have many a childhood memory of myself considering such work to be surely a form of torture imposed on to us by my mom. My parents had a very (very) large garden from which we had to weed, harvest, clean, snap and shuck beans, peas, corn, tomatoes, melons, potatoes, radishes, onions and the other things I can't remember. In addition to the grape vines, raspberry and cranberry bushes and apple trees. As an adult, I look back and am glad to have had the experience and fondly remember these times shared with cousins canning peaches, making homemade applesauce, picking strawberries from fields, and watching grandma pinch the edges of pie dough around a pie pan. And I have a couple of grandma's old aprons that when i put on my girls these memories almost make me want to break out the mason jars and make some homemade jams. Almost. I am a sentimental sucker for sure, but clearly know what me and my patience can handle. Let's not get too far off the reality train here. I'm sure my mom has some cherished memories of milking cows from her childhood, but she was wise enough not to put that on me and my sisters. So my girls will grow up believing that Mr. Smuckers, Mrs. Motts and the Green Giant are the only people capable of producing the fruits and veggies that we don't get in the produce aisle or farmer's market. Off topic again. Where was I?

Oh yeah.  The present.  Friends joined us at the pool on Monday and we finally checked one of Casey's big summer to-do things off the list: we ordered a pizza and had it delivered to the pool and ate between swims.  She was so pleased we did this.  I guess it was the novelty of the experience that she was looking forward to so much and hanging with friends was a bonus. 

I am fully aware that the little things mean so much to the girls at this stage in their lives.  Eating pizza down the street as opposed to at our kitchen table and being given the responsibility to husk the corn for dinner really do help fill up the little buckets of need inside themselves.  I am also fully aware that in a relatively short time they will be requesting sums of money to go shopping with friends.  And one day a cell phone, computer or a car will be the things they beg for.  Good things we're setting expectations low now.  Maybe we'll get to postpone those big things a little longer.  (Not so fully aware now, am I?)

Tuesday we hung out with more friends before which Emily told me, "Mommy, I be nice to Will" as she was telling me which way to turn on our way to their house.   While we were there, I focused on chatting with Mandy and tried less to worry about Emily on the stairs.  I'm telling you, we are getting so close to checking this BIG one off our list of goals.  I tried very hard not to hover and just let her navigate the steps on her own and she did fine.  More than fine.  Emily is so tall and she has such a hard time maintaining balance over her body.  Stairs are a huge obstacle for her.  So my feet start to itch in anticipation of the happy dance we'll be doing soon when this one is checked off our list.

Wednesday a neighbor gave us tickets to see the MadCap Puppets at the library.  Casey loved the show.  Emily hated the show.  Casey sat all by herself in the center of the floor in order to get the best view.  Emily sat curled up on my lap off to the side with her face buried in my chest.  The one performer was quite loud and a couple of the puppets were kind of scary looking so I totally got why Emily didn't care for them, but Casey was wrapped up in stories of the fisherman and his wife. 

Some of the puppets were kind of scary looking

That morning Emily asked for her tree.  It's just a piece of foam core I painted a tree on and attached some velcro so we can work on some speech therapy at home.  I've made and collected flash cards and have found that Emily is so much more engaged when she is an active participant instead of just watching me put cards on a table.  So I made this board and she thinks it's a big game but we're really working on letter and number identification and in prior years we've worked on labeling pictures of things and verbs.  Casey offered to sit down and "do the tree" with her and I thought it was so sweet.  Emily can identify probably 70% of the letters of the alphabet and I'm thrilled.  Casey, however well she understands that Emily has a special syndrome and learns differently, was getting frustrated with her and I caught her telling Emily to pay attention and to use her head.  Ahh, some words come back to bite you don't they?  It was cute and of course we chatted about how we can help her learn and she will in her own time but that was pretty funny.

Yesterday we met up with some friends and swam at their pool and last night while I went and got a pedicure with a couple of friends, Tom took the girls out to dinner.  I was told they had a fun time at dinner with daddy and from the chocolate smeared smiles, I'm guessing ice cream was included.

Today mom and dad come down to watch the girls while Tom and I head to Indianapolis for a couple days sans kids.  I will miss my girls but it's that time in the summer when the girls and I could use a little distance.  The whining, fighting, and attitudes are in full swing, so our weekend away is good timing :)  I am looking forward to hanging out with Tom, taking in a concert, and going to a good old-fashioned bar - not the ones that are in a restaurant and include a section for kids on the menu.

We've got another nail biter

Who's Counting Anyway?

There are 34 days left of summer vacation.  Yikes!  This summer is flying by way too fast!!  I have loved hanging out with my girls so far this summer and the thought of not having them here each day makes me panic a bit.  But not enough, to like, not send them to school :)

Casey and I are similar in many ways (as scary as that is for me to admit) and one of those similarities is that we are both breakfast people.  Casey wakes up and is ready to eat within minutes.  I can wait for a little while, but my day always begins with breakfast.  Tom seems to drink his breakfast from a coffee mug most days and Emily, well, Emily is pretty finicky when it comes to breakfast.  I guess maybe she's like Tom in that she would drink her breakfast as well (milk, though) if I left her alone, but I just really believe in eating a good breakfast to start the day off right.  So for the past 4 years, I've struggled through breakfast time with Emily.  We've tried just about everything to appeal to her taste - oatmeal, yogurt, cereal, eggs, bacon, english muffins, pancakes, fruit bars, granola bars - she wants none of it for very long.  We've enjoyed some short runs of cereal and bars, but I'm sure she's really just trying to make me happy.  We've recently discovered the yummy goodness of Nutella on toast as a side to her cup of milk and that seems to have caught her attention.  It's a bit of a mess, though.  I took some pictures as proof of what I will endure to clean up in order to assure she gets a good breakfast :) 

Today I cut the toast into 4 pieces, hoping to minimize the mess.  But before she dug in I asked her how many pieces of toast she had.  I was testing her to see if the counting practices we've been doing have clicked.  She very precisely extended her index finger and pointed while she counted 1, 2, 3, 4.  Sister's got some counting skills going on!!!  I immediately praised her and of course she began clapping and saying 'yeah!' to join in my excitement.  Once again, I am overwhelmed with these small successes and so grateful they keep coming.  When I told Tom, he didn't seem all that surprised.  I expect greatness of her like Tom, but I, being the emotional mom, always find myself basking in the journey we took to get here.  Damned, I'm going to jump up and down in the kitchen at 7:30 in the morning over some counting, because she couldn't do it before.  And now she can.  And we're on our way to checking some more off our list.  Time to bring out the big guns - the M&M's.  We're going to be counting to 10 and beyond before summer is over.  We've got 34 days to get busy.

We've not done much this week because I've been busy doing some consulting work, but that doesn't mean we haven't had some fun in small ways here.  Playing Barbies, dressing up, coloring, and reading have been pretty routine.  I've tried to take some pictures of the the girls doing random things and I am amazed that so many pictures (too many to count or share here) are of the girls looking anywhere but at the camera. It's not like I have a fantastic camera (yet - I really am hoping to get a SLR camera this year) but pictures are taken for memory's sake and I treasure these snapshots in time.  I look at our little photos and then look at those kids in The Gap ads and realize neither of my kids could do the model gig.  They just cannot look at the camera.

And if they, do I get a real charmer like this one.

Did you see the sticker on her shirt?  It was only after I saw this picture, I noticed the irony of the sticker :)

No worries, though, on our boring week this week.  We'll be sure to hit some parks, pools and ice cream joints next week.  Casey and I decided we want to sample as many different ice cream shops and stands as we can the rest of the summer.  We'll be keeping count and declaring a winner among us.  And we've saved our family vacation to Hilton Head for the end of summer this year and I've most definitely begun counting down the days until we go. 

Freaking Out :)

I'm not a big fan (actually I'm a HUGE scaredy cat) of horror movies, so I don't get too freaked out about the whole Friday the 13th bit because I've never seen the movies, but felt it was worth mentioning today's date because most people find it to be noteworthy.  I am superstitious, though.  In high school, I ate the same thing before my first event at every track meet I ran in (Reece's PB cups and an apple).  I remember walking in downtown Chicago and having to cross the street about 40 times to avoid scaffolding as I perceive them to be too much like walking under a ladder.  Thankfully, I've never been attached to any lucky underwear or broken a mirror and Friday the 13th just hasn't got me.  Yet :)

I won't continue to dwell  I will try to not continue to dwell on my interactions with the lady at the pool who has yet again shared her thoughts about Emily with me.  But yesterday after another kid tripped and fell, she turned to me and told me she saw Emily bump into something the day before and she "just assumed maybe she was prone to that kind of thing."  (See the quotation marks?  That's another direct quote from her!!!)  I didn't even speak to her; I just turned my back.  Emily was sitting right there - how dare she assume Emily didn't understand what she was saying!  I can't believe I am letting this lady get under my skin.  The two friends I've shared Monday's entire conversation with have given me a little pep talk and think it's time for some tough love, but I'm still wavering on social politeness and, for now, am just avoiding her.  But I've got some words on the tip of my tongue for her if there is a next time.  Okay, trying not to dwell....

Emily and I have had some pretty grueling games of Memory this week. 

My pairs are in the foreground of the picture.  Her pairs are in front of her.  Guess who got her butt kicked?  And if you're wondering if I let her win, let's just say Casey gets her competitiveness honestly from her mother and special chromosomes or not, you don't just get a free pass to beat mom.

For now, some Casey-isms:

Casey asked me this morning if I could promise never to send her off to the military mid-way between the Gatorade aisle and the deli counter at Kroger.  I told her it was something daddy and I would have to discuss, because nothing's off the table if she was going to continue to ask me for everything we see in the grocery.  But I did ask why she didn't want to be shipped off to the military, and she told me it is because they make you wear ugly green clothes that have grey in them and you have to sleep on white beds, not colorful ones.  Duly noted Casey, but we're keeping our options open :)

The other day a lady came over to me snickering and said she had to tell me what she heard Casey say to some other kids.  I instantly became a little nervous and held my breath as she told me that Casey was telling another kid she better behave because her mommy might get strict.  The younger child asked Casey what strict meant and she told her "it's when your mommy freaks out on you."  Later, Casey and I had a talk about what strict actually means and I suggested maybe she didn't tell other people that mommy actually freaks out on her even though I've been known to tell my girls that I am going to freak out on them if they don't stop fighting and whining.  She looked at me and asked if she should lie then.  Umm.  Yes.  Glad we had this talk, Casey.

What a turkey

Casey has this Oodles of Doodles book and I caught it lying open the other day to this page. 

I thought it was pretty cute.  She noticed my appraisal and pointed out the baby conga line she drew.  I get such a kick out of this girl.

The other evening she was jumping rope while running slowly in the driveway.  She shouted as loud as she could for me to watch The World Champion Jump Roper.  And after 3 strides, she completely wiped out.  Okay, typing this doesn't seem as funny as when it happened, but for a second I promise it would have made a great America's Funniest Home Video clip - right before she realized she had scraped her knees and elbow up.  After she stopped crying and we tended to her wounds, she managed to tell me maybe she was just going to have to be a famous pop star instead.  Good save, Case.

Casey has found the love of a good book now.  I do a little happy dance every time she finishes one.  And she is blowing through them this week!  I loved reading as a kid and still do now - getting lost in the story of a good book is my idea of relaxing!  She was introduced to the Rainbow Fairies series of books on Tuesday and she and her imagination have loved curling up on the couch to read for an hour at a time, a couple times a day.  I have kept all my old Nancy Drew books I read when I was a kid and look forward to sharing them with her one day.  (I am blindlessly convinced she will love them as much as I did but if she doesn't, I vow to be okay with it.  Okay, maybe a little crushed  :)

Casey reading on the porch one morning

Yesterday we met with Emily's urologist at Children's to follow up on her kidney and bladder function 8 months post surgery.  He was pleased with how well her kidneys look and is hopeful her bladder will remain stable.  I was greedily hoping that he would tell us she is out of the woods for future potential problems, but I can live with being closely monitored for a while.  After taking antibiotics to prevent infection every day for over 4 years, he said now is the time to stop and see how she does without the antibiotics.  So we're crossing our fingers that she doesn't get a kidney infection and continues to cooperate with potty training.  Wish us luck.

First time ever she sat still while getting her blood pressure taken.  She's getting to be such a big girl

Passing time coloring on the table paper waiting for the doctor

Last night I randomly informed/hinted to Tom that the Zac Brown Band will be in concert in Columbus 2 days before our anniversary.  He walked away, pretty much ignoring me and then came back and handed me an envelope and said Happy Anniversary.  I was a bit confused mostly because our anniversary isn't until Sept. 30, but he told me to go ahead and open it.  I did as instructed and was surprised to see he had given me 2 tickets to the Kenny Chesney/Tim McGraw concert in Indianapolis in addition to 2 nights there without kids!!  I am beyond excited and can't think of a better anniversary gift than a couple of days/nights to ourselves!!!  Great concert bonus!!   Seriously?  I'm ridiculously excited for this!!  With no family in town here it isn't often we go out to dinner or even Home Depot by ourselves.  As Emily is currently lying on the floor throwing a fit because I told her she can't eat the brownie mix from the box in the pantry, I am getting even more excited about our little trip to Indy.  Maybe even freaking out a little bit.  Out of excitement.  Not, you know, because I'm all strict.

I wish I could have gotten this picture to rotate like I wanted it to.  Sister kickin' some butt - action shot style

Hot and Fired Up

Don't say it.  I'm a slacker.  I got it.  I've been busy burying my nose in a book when I can, avoiding the  1000  100+  degree temps and trying to feel a little more up than down.  But nothing makes me pull out my keyboard faster than someone at the pool telling ME that my daughter has issues.  Not just issues but "obviously a lot of issues."  Lady at the pool got my attention back to the soapbox that sits in my head waiting to be jumped on...

Here's how the past week went:  My back still hurts, we had a big hailstorm, Casey had swimming lessons every day through which Emily and I melted while we sat and watched, we went swimming most days after lessons, it was the 4th of July, we visited friends in Columbus and lady at the pool has me all stirred up.

We were all set to eat dinner outside on the patio last Sunday, but Mother Nature said, 'Oh Hail No' and we were forced to run inside to take cover from the storm.  The girls had a lot of fun collecting the hail and Emily observed it was cold.  They both giggled as they picked up the ice and we were amazed that it took over an hour or so to melt despite the heat.  There was probably some great science lesson we could have discussed with the girls, but we chose to sit back with our beers and watch them just enjoy themselves.













Our neighborhood has a kiddie bike parade every July 4th, so we decorated the girls' bikes and wilted walked behind them and the fire trucks to the end of a cul-de-sac where water and snacks and the fire hoses waited for everyone to enjoy.  I will admit openly and honestly that we tried to talk the girls out of this tradition this year.  It was just too hot.  We even bribed them.  But they really wanted to participate and so we will now hold this parental sacrifice over their heads for the next 15 years.  I would have taken a picture of my shirt as testament to just how drenched with sweat we were, but that would have been plain gross.  I would have happily danced in a hail storm that day for relief from the heat.

After the parade, we went to the pool.  Stat.  Tom left early to make a Kroger run and then stopped back to pick up Emily for a nap.  Casey and I hung out for a couple of hours longer with several hundred of our neighbors.  It was a packed pool for sure - nothing else to do on such a hot day!  Remember the scene from the movie Caddyshack when the caddies are in the pool and someone shouts, 'doodie!!' and the pool clears?  Well there was a similar incident that afternoon and the pool cleared real fast.  Yuck.  Happy 4th of July, folks.  We didn't go watch live fireworks because my kids are scared of them, so we curled up in the family room and watched them on TV.  Katy Perry performed on one of the live shows so it was actually better to watch them on TV according to Casey.

Friday we packed up to go see our friends Ted and Melissa who live in Columbus.  We don't get to see them enough for sure and when we do we always have such a good time.  They are the ultimate hosts to us and Tom and Ted are hilarious together.  We (finally) got to meet their new baby (who was born in February) and see little Teddy.  The kids all played so nice together which allowed for the adults to catch up and enjoy some adult beverages.  Emily struggled a bit in the sleeping department, but it will only take her a few days to catch up.  We've been to San Francisco/Pebble Beach and Hilton Head with these friends and are looking forward to more vacations with them in the future!!

3 kids in a cupboard

Emily helping feed baby Aubrey

Today Casey started her second session of swim lessons today and friends met us at the pool afterwards.  But as Emily and I were hanging out during lessons, I began to chat with another mom.  We started to innocently talk about kids and we discovered our youngest kids go to the same pre-school.  The conversation turned to how the school district is struggling with some budget cuts and how the school and services provided might be affected.  She then quickly noted that even though all 4 of her kids have been on IEP's, how I must be concerned because of how my daughter "had issues.  And not just, ya' know, issues.  She has obviously a lot of issues."  I will not dictate the entire conversation but she so keenly noted that it didn't look like my daughter had "Downs" (and I swear to you she whispered the word).  She then asked me if Emily could talk and when I said Yes! She said she hadn't heard her talk at the pool and then said something to the effect that maybe it's one of those things where only I can understand her.   I don't think she was trying to be abrasive, I just don't think she could articulate her curiosity. At all. With a dictionary, thesaurus and speech therapist to help. 

I will interject here to let the world know that Emily very clearly told Tom to stay out of her room and to not shut the door tonight.   Then for good measure she pointed to the imaginary line at the threshold of her room and told him "don't cross that line daddy."

I kept this conversation lighthearted and told her how blessed we were to have Emily in our lives and how well she is doing; trying to deflect this lady's observations. But I tell you inside I was starting to boil. Maybe I have been spoiled by people I know giving such encouraging words so graciously and noting Emily's progress so generously to us. I like our circle of people that tell us we're doing okay and that Emily is doing so well. I need these people in our lives but today was a reminder that we don't live in the bubble our friends and family surround us in. I walked away from the conversation (literally walked away) feeling all mixed up. I never have a problem with someone asking me what Emily' diagnosis is and how that will affect her life. I am as happy to discuss what Emily is doing these days as I am about what Casey is up to.  But I am learning to tiptoe round others' rudeness towards my special daughter. I don't want to go all defensive mama bear on people when no harm is intended. Yet I also don't want to listen to someone tell ME they are so glad their kids can learn normally when we are discussing my daughter's disadvantages to learn.   Trust me, I know better than anyone how lucky parents of typical kids should feel!!  I've got a typical kid, too.  And as much as it makes me thankful God made Casey a typical kid, it makes my heart hurt more that He didn't the same for Emily.  I can't control how anyone acts towards me or my family.  I can only control how I react.  But you know, if you can't say anything nice....   It's kind of like when I didn't tell her how glad I was that I wasn't the one wearing the ugly sunglasses she had on.   (It's my blog - I can be spiteful if I want to :) 

Emily, 2010