Whoa, what was that?

Last night my "cold" turned into a full blown nastiness, complete with a mild fever, major sinus pain, all over weakness and more mucous. It was gross. I could barely lay on the cough & watch "Celebrity Poker Showdown" with Jeff without wincing in pain everytime someone spoke loudly near my head. It felt as if someone was banging a gong right near my ear, it resonated in my head like an echo.
Jeff finally told me to just go to bed around 8:30pm. As I was trying to go to sleep, I heard Emma upstairs coughing. I then decided that she would be staying home from school tomorrow. I didn't want her to get all the other kids sick. Plus, that way I didn't have to get up and drive Jeff to work, and we could all sleep in. I had thought Jeff was going to call in sick today, but I guess he decided not to. Poor guy, he's got so much going on right now. I feel really bad for him. I've been trying to help as much as I can, but I was pretty much useless yesterday. I do feel better this morning, though. Fever's gone, as is the weakness. Still have a little bit of the sinus pain and of course, the mucous, always the mucous. It's never ending. My friend also has an online blog & apparently she was really sick last week. I think something she said can sum up how I feel. "Why is it that my nose is so stuffed up and congested that I am certain I am going to suffocate and die, no air whatsoever can pass through my nostrils because they are swollen completly shut, and yet, copious amounts of liquid are able to pour out of my nose with abandon. No problem for the liquid to get out, only the air to get in." Yes, that's exactly how it is. I don't understand the logic of it. Whenever I have a cold and can't breathe through my nose, I also have this nightmare of being taken hostage and being bound and gagged, where someone puts tape or something over my mouth, which would force me to breathe through my nose, which of course, being sick, I can't do, and I die. How sad is that? I must have something seriously wrong with me that my brain thinks up this crazy stuff.
Anyways, Emma just came in & wants me to play "Go Fish" with her Disney Princess cards so I must be off. She's had two Krispy Kreme donuts this morning & she has glaze flakes in her hair & on her eyelash. Too funny.

Why is it always me?

I woke up yesterday morning with a monstrously nasty cold. It came on like a thief in the night, out of nowhere. I'd had a little sniffles the past few days, but nothing that would prepare me for the onslaught of mucous that I would wake up to. It seems to be worse in the morning, but since a lot of things happen in the morning, that doesn't help. I could barely get out of bed this morning to take Jeff to work/school.
We all went to see "SharkTale" last night. We took Sarah with us and since it was a late evening show, we figured there wouldn't be many people there to bother in case she decided to be difficult. There were only 2 other people in the theater with us. The movie was pretty good. There were a few moments when I just burst out laughing and one in particular where it took me about 2 minutes to stop. This girl fish, named Angie, voiced by Renee Zellweger, is really mad at this guy fish, Oscar, voiced by Will Smith. She says to him,"Sometimes, I just want to take your stupid head and...." and she does this motion where she's punching her fist into the palm of her other hand really fast. I suppose you kinda had to be there, but it was funny. Mostly because I've been there with Jeff. I love him but sometimes I want to strangle him. I think everyone's been there at least once in their life.

P.S.

I think I broke my toe.

First sniffles

Well, it's official. Sarah has her first cold. She's been congested since yesterday, and her breathing's been a little weird. Nothing to worry about. All she's pretty much wanted to do it eat & sleep today. Which is fine with me. I know she needs her rest. She's got a little bit of the watery eyes and boogers. It's actually kinda cute at how docile she is. Even more than usual. It's allowed me to work on "helping" Jeff with his English paper. "Helping" is a technical term for "Honey, can you DO this for me?" In his defense, he did start it. He gave me about a page a half, most of which was his name and all his class information, and said,"Here, make this 5 pages." Thank goodness I'd actually read the story he/we're doing this paper on. In fact, I read it first. I read about 4 short stories, helping him decide which ones to do. I suppose it could be worse, he could be asking me to "help" with his math. Yuck.
Emma is having her class pictures done today at preschool. She looked so cute when I dropped her off. She's wearing her black dress (which is about a size too big for her, but she wears it all the time at home), tights & her black Mary Jane's. Her hair is up a little & I curled her bangs and the ends of her hair. These class pictures are getting expensive. It was $36 for one of the smallest packages. But hopefully they'll turn out ok & we'll be able to send them in about a month.
I think we've decided that Emma's going to be getting her Speech Therapy at the preschool, like the other kids there. I didn't like that idea at first, because I didn't want her to be taken out of class to do it. But it's just not working out well with the group setting. And it's becoming unfair to the other kids, who aren't able to get their individual time with the teacher. And when it comes right down to it, the individual time she'll get at school equals the amount of individual time she got in the group. They try not to make a big deal of it when they take the kids out of school. In fact, they usually just do the speech right there in the classroom, away from the other kids. So, hopefully she won't notice too big of a change.
Jeff's going politiking tonight. He was asked by the local MoveOn.org people to go around and see who random people are voting for. It's basically a Pro-Kerry organization, but without being blatant about it. You don't even say anything about Kerry unless they say they are most likely going to vote for him, or something like that. My biggest concern was getting yelled at by people and having a shotgun shoved in my face and being told to "get off my property". So, I'll be staying in the car with the kids and Jeff and a friend will be knocking on the doors. On second thought, maybe Jeff should take a kid with him. Makes the chances of being threatened a little lower.

Another trip...

We just can't seem to stay home on the weekends. This last Saturday we drove down to Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, OH to meet some friends from the Navy. Chris & Katie just got married last month & are on their honeymoon. Another friend, Eric, lives in Wisconsin and drove down with his girlfriend. It was fun. Freezing cold, since we were directly on Lake Erie, but fun. It was a little rainy, and windy, but we still went on a bunch of rides. Emma had a blast in the kiddie area. Cedar Point is pretty much known as the roller coaster capital of the US. They have 16 roller coasters, including the tallest one in the world right now, the Top Thrill Dragster (which unfortunately was closed that day, along with a few others). But the next biggest one is Millennium Force, which goes up 310 ft. and them plummets down at an 80 degree angle. It was awesome. It goes about 90 MPH, and with the intense winds that we had that day, felt a lot faster.
It was a fun trip, albeit short. We came home on Sunday afternoon. Just enough time for Jeff to finish his homework (with me helping) and go to bed. Maybe this weekend we'll be able to stay home.

We went to see a play at the college last week. It was "I Hate Hamlet". It was really good. Andrew Rally is a TV actor who's popular show has just been cancelled, and he's gone to New York to be in some plays to beef up his resume while waiting for his next big break. He's asked to play Hamlet in Shakespeare in the Park. But he despises Hamlet and doesn't want to do it. All the while, he's renting John Barrymore's old apartment and his ghost comes back to help Nadrew prepare for the role. It's pretty funny.
The girls stayed at home with a couple friends of ours from the college, Andrea & Gary. Andrea watched Emma last February when Jeff & I went to a concert. They got married in May. I was able to get Sarah to eat out of a bottle for a little while so they could feed her while we were gone, just in case. She did pretty well & Emma loved having someone new to play with. Maybe now we'll be able to go out every once in a while.

We're back...

from Orlando. It was a quick trip for the girls & I. We left Thursday morning & were back home by very early Sunday morning. It was a whirlwind but it was fun.
We were able to see Jon & Jenn Parker on Thursday evening. Jeff hadn't seen them since their wedding almost 7 years ago. Emma & their daughter Jordan had a blast together. They saw each other last year, but I don't know if either of them remembered it. We had dinner at the hotel, the Disney Swan where Jeff was staying. It included a couple appearances by Disney characters Goofy & Pluto. The restaurant wasn't all that busy, so they were able to stay with each table for quite awhile. Pluto came back twice, as did Goofy. The girls posed for a picture with Pluto (on the website), one on each side of him, with his arms around them. After I took the picture, he stood up, picking up the girls under his arms and started to walk off with them. It was cute. Even though Jon & Jenn were only able to stay for a few hours, it was nice to see them again.
The next day we went to Disneyworld. Emma decided she wanted to wear her Snow White outfit the whole day. I mistakenly thought she might be one of only a few kids to be wearing costumes before the Halloween thing that night. I was wrong. I saw no less than 50-100 kids wearing a myriad of costumes, mostly Disney Princess ones. There were even a few adults dressed up.
We had fun. Emma was adamant about going on the Dumbo ride and the carousel. We didn't get on Dumbo until late in the evening, as it was one of the most popular rides in the park with the longest line. Emma ended up not liking half of the "kiddie rides", i.e. Peter Pan's Flight & Snow White's Adeventure. She did like the Winnie the Pooh one, though. I'm not sure why she wasn't thrilled about the other ones. They have a new one for Buzz Lightyear. It's pretty cool. You're on a car, like the other ones, but you have a stick shift & are able to turn the car around on a 360 degree access and shoot at targets with 2 onboard laser guns. It keeps a tally of how many you hit & gives you a score at the end of the ride. It's pretty neat.
They also have a new 3-D show called "Disney's Philharmonic". It was Jeff's favorite. We went twice. I think even Sarah liked it, although I felt bad that she had to see it blurry, as she didn't have any 3-D glasses.
Emma was a little upset when we stood in line for 45 minutes to get a picture with Cinderella (her favorite) only to have Cinderella leave when there were only 3 people in front of us. I think she had a show to do, and Disney has a policy that 2 people playing the same character aren't allowed out in public at the same time. We went and saw her show and before it started, some of the villains came out to give autographs & pose for pictures. The Evil Queen from Snow White was there & as she was passing Emma (we were in the front row), she just stared at her & gave her the evil eye. I'm assuming it was because she was dressed as Snow White. It was pretty funny. Emma didn't think so, though and got scared. It was kinda cool, there were adults dressed up as Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty), Cruella DeVil, and the Evil Queen. They each went to their respective villain & posed for a picture. I thought that was kinda neat.
We had a blast and can't wait to go back. It's definitely different than Disneyland.

On our own

Well, Jeff's in Florida for 6 days. So the girls & I are alone for a few days, until we fly out there to meet him on Thursday. So far, his conference has been "fun". They have the schedule pretty booked with technical and propaganda meetings. He's gotten a few free t-shirts out of the deal, so I guess it's not a total loss. He's mostly looking forward to the final night party at Universal Studios tomorrow evening.
We're going to meet up with Jon & Jenn Parker on Thursday night. They're driving down from Jacksonville to have dinner with us. It'll be nice to see them. Jeff hasn't seen them since their wedding, I believe. That was almost 7 years ago. Emma & I saw them last year in Sacramento. Jordan & Emma got along pretty well. We got a picture of them hugging & it looks like Jordan's strangling Emma, but it was cute.
So far, we really haven't done much with Jeff not being here. It was nice to sleep in (well, 7:30am when Emma woke Sarah & I up), and not have to take Jeff to work. I stayed up until 1:30am playing my video game. Haven't done that in awhile. Jeff did the same thing while the girls & I were CA. But he did that for a month. I have 3 days. I have to make the most of it. Hehe
Emma & I are going to make cookies sometime today. I'm going to bribe my next door neighbor into getting my mail & bringing in my trash bins while I'm gone.
I think Fall has officially "fell" here. Last Friday, the temp was about 70 degrees. On Saturday, it dropped to about 55. I was totally unprepared for it. We went to the Buddy Walk on Saturday in Lansing & we freezed our butts off. Emma, Sarah & I were lucky. I had brought blankets & (light) jackets for us. But Jeff hadn't brought anything, nor did I think to bring anything for him. Needless to say, we didn't stay long after the walk. But we had a fun time, even though it was cold. There are pics on the website.
So, it'll be nice to go to Florida for a few days & be sweaty rather than chilly. Jeff says it's really humid. Oh fun. I told him before he left that I wouldn't mind living in Florida. He said he didn't like the idea of huge bugs. Or the hurricanes. I said I'd take the bugs over the snow. Hurricanes you can evacuate from & there's always bug spray for the humungous insects. Snow is just there, all the time.
Our wonderful neighbor next door (the one we share a wall with) was kind enough to mow our lawn the other day. He was using a riding lawn mower & was doing a great job. Only one problem-he ran over a huge rock, and the mower hurled it at our lower floor window, putting a huge hole in one of the panes. That was fun & interesting. Scared me to death when I heard it. Thank goodness it didn't go through both panes & right into our living room, where the kids were playing. Sarah's swing was in front of the window & it would have hit that. So we called our landlord & he came right over. He said they'd try to get it fixed before we leave. Never a dull moment around here.

Paging Martha Stewart...

I am slowly transforming into one of those moms who does everything from scratch. Well, kinda. Yesterday I went & bought all the stuff needed to make Emma's halloween costume. She had decided a couple weeks ago that she wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake. Seeing as how the only exposure she's ever had to Strawberry Shortcake is a little plush doll that my grandmother gave her last Christmas, I was surprised she picked that. I was thinking she'd do something more along the lines of a Disney princess (i.e. Cinderella, since that is her favorite). But I was not opposed to the Shortcake chick. I loved her as a young child and since all things old are new again lately (Carebears, Rainbow Brite, even Transformers & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), I figured, what the heck? I was preparing myself for weeks of making a dress with pantaloons and a pinafore, along with some funky look hat. But, I was pleasantly surprised upon finding the pattern at the fabric store that the modern Strawberry Shortcake has scaled down her wardrobe and is now in a pink, red, green & white striped shirt, with blue pants and her trademark hat. I'm thinking, I can do this. So, I bought some of the stuff yesterday & proceeded to curse at my dull scissors & realize that I really don't know how to sew very well. Case in point, in looking at the pattern for all the little brickabrack I needed for this costume it said "single fold bias tape, hook and eye". I asked the lady what that meant. I had found the bias tape, but I had no idea what kind of bias tape "hook and eye" was. She informed me that it was two separate things, bias tape AND a hook and eye closure. I felt like a dope. Reason #50 why I don't sew, I don't know the lingo.
But things went pretty well considering. I finished the pants this morning, after wrestling with a French cuff (the instructions just did NOT make sense). And Emma's now wearing the pants I just made. I haven't found any material for the shirt, and I still need to get some polyester fiberfill & batting for the hat. But I'm on my way, sort of.
Then this morning, I decided to make pancakes. From scratch. I've done this before but in combination with the costume thing, it looks a little suspicious.
Emma's preschool class is going on a field trip today. They're walking over to the big gym on campus & going on the climbing wall. I'm not exactly sure how this is going to go with 4 year olds, but it should be interesting to watch. I'll take my camera.

More hospital fun

Sarah had her EKG this morning. I'd never seen one done before, so I didn't know what to expect. But they put a few little nodes on her chest & belly and then used an ultrasound machine to look at her heart and take some pictures. Sarah did remarkably well, although she didn't like the cold jelly on her chest & being naked. And of course, Emma couldn't stand to not have all the attention on her, so she wanted to be right in the middle of the action. Thankfully it didn't take too long. But we have to wait until the end of this week or the beginning of next week before we get any results back. Apparently they have to send the info to Children's Hospital in Lansing & have their pediatric cardiologist look at it. I personally don't think she has anything wrong with her heart, but we wanted to completely rule it out and not just assume. Especially since while we were in the waiting area, I started reading thos article about a little girl who went into congestive heart failure at about 5 months old. Her mom said the only symptoms she had were being congested a lot & being clammy and sweaty after eating, both of which I've noticed about Sarah. But, with the DS, she's got a small nose, which could account for the constant boogers, and my MIL said she noticed that babies get really sweaty when they're about to fall asleep, which Sarah tends to do while she's eating, so I don't know.
Hopefully this will be the last trip to any hospital for us in a long time. I think the next we have to go is in early November for Emma's yearly physical. I'm thinking she needs shots then, yay.

Well so much for that plan...

I had been planning on all of us going to the Grand Rapids Buddy Walk this morning. But, it's 10:30 am and we're still at home. It's all my fault. I had the biggest headache last night & didn't get very much sleep. I would have been pretty much a wash this morning trying to get everyone out the door. So, I feel horrible that I asked everyone to donate money to the Buddy Walk when I'm not going to the one I asked for donations for! Thank goodness there's another one next week in Lansing, which is closer. I still feel like I let everyone down, especially Sarah, even though she had no clue what we were going to do today. But I have ALL intentions of going next week & hopefully my health will allow me to.

Can I just relax for a minute?

Ok, today has been pretty busy & it's not even 2 pm yet. For starters, Jeff woke up 40 minutes late this morning & we were rushing to get out of the house to get him to work. I know both Emma & Sarah had someplace to be at 9am, so I was in a hurry to get everyone clean, dressed & out the door by 8:45am. Emma had speech therapy from 9-11:30am, while Sarah had a team meeting for Early On. They decided that Sarah is doing so well developmentally that she doesn't need any therapies right now, although they did give me some suggestions to help her alone before our next meeting in November. Then they had the Early On playgroup at 10:30. It was in the school's gym, and they had all these toys & balls for the kids to play with. There was a little boy, about 11 months old, who has Down syndrome, as well. I'd heard about him from the Early On coordinator & had been trying to get in contact with him mom, but she works full-time and is getting her Master's degree, so time is a precious commodity. He was there with his sitter. I gave her my number to give to Joseph's mom to have her call me when she gets the time. No rush. I think Sarah had fun. Since she couldn't run around like the majority of the kids there, she just sat with me & played with little toys. She really liked this rubber square that squeaked. It was big, about 4 inches cubed so it was easy for her to hold on to. I'm thinking this will have to be a toy that we buy for her.
Meanwhile, Emma was still in speech, so she missed out on the big playgroup, but she had fun where she was. She might end up going to one-on-one therapy at the school, like they had originally wanted, but we'll see how she does next week.
Then we came home, only to have Jeff call & see if we were coming to the college to eat lunch with him. He had promised Emma she could do that. So off we went again. By the time lunch was over, it was time for Emma to go to preschool. I had anticipated that, and she didn't seem to might the fact that we'd been home less that an hour since 8am this morning. Sarah & I came home and you'd think we would be able to rest, but no. Now I have to sit around & wait for the satellite guy to come & install our DirecTv. All so Jeff can get his Sunday Ticket & watch every football game every week. Not that I might, I've been itching to see a 49ers game since last September. Even though they're not that great, hey, they're our team.
So, Sarah is asleep & I get to relax just a minute, until the satellite guy knocks on my door.

Four year olds & gum...

Not a good combination. Emma has had gum numerous times without incident. But, today we had the token "gum in the hair" moment. Fun fun. Good thing this didn't happen 15 minutes before we were due to leave for school, otherwise I might have screamed & cut her hair off. But, I was calm, relatively, and put peanut butter in her hair to try & get it out. Don't ask me where I got that tidbit of old wive's tale/homemade remedy. I think I vaguely remember hearing something about it helping with gum in the hair. To tell you the truth, I don't know if it really helped. Emma had fun with the idea that I put food in her hair to get food OUT of her hair. So, it took about 30 minutes, but I got 99% of it out. She then took a bath & her hair was fine. Chalk it up to one of those childhood moments. Thank goodness Sarah slept through the whole thing. If she'd been up & cranky, Emma might not have long hair anymore.
Speaking of Sarah, the poor little girl had to get 4 shots today. She had her 4 month check-up (yes, I know she's 5 months old now, we're a month behind) and that included shots. But she also got weighed & measured. She's 24 1/4 inches long & 13 lbs. 14 ounces. She was being such a good girl, not being fussy or anything. She was just looking up at me & smiling & then all of a sudden, BAM! Some evil woman in a white nurses outfit sticks her poor thighs with a needle. It actually took her until after the 2nd shot to realize what was happening to her. And then she just looked up at me, and her little face crumpled. I just had to laugh, it was so cute! But once I picked her up & soothed her, she stopped crying. I had to stay 20 minutes after the shots, to see if she had any immediate adverse reaction to them. I fed her & she fell asleep. Poor little thing.
Needless to say, by the time Emma went to preschool, I was beat.

Working for the weekend

It's been a busy week, and both Jeff & I are glad that the weekend is finally here. We can sleep in, well, ONE of us can, and we don't have to worry about work or school.
Emma started speech therapy again this week. She goes once a week, on Thursdays, from 9-11:30am. It's a group of kids, about 5 of them, that go all at once. That makes it a long day for her, because she's got preschool from 1-3:30pm that same day. But she didn't seem to mind it, and she didn't seem to be overly tired or cranky. The teacher, in fact, called us yesterday to ask if she had had any problems with the busy day. I tol her Emma kinda thrives on being busy. She loves school & pretty much just loves being around other kids, so having a lot of things to do don't really bother her too much.
We're going to a fall festival this afternoon. It's being put on by the preschool, so hopefully we should be able to meet some of the other families & maybe Emma will find a new friend!
I'm also looking into getting Emma in beginning ballet. It's not gymnastics, but maybe she'll enjoy it. My philosophy is, let the kids try out new & different things, and let them decide what they like & don't like. My dad & step-mom did that with my sister & brothers. They were in a LOT of sports & activities when they were Emma's age, and after a few years, they figured out which ones they wanted to focus on. I want to give Emma the same opportunity. She's got so much energy, that I know she'll love sports, especially soccer, but she's not old enough to do it just yet. She missed the cutoff date by 9 days, which is typical when your child has a December birthday. Jeff had to deal with the same thing when he was growing up.
Next Saturday is the Buddy Walk in Grand Rapids. It should be fun. I'm looking forward to meeting other parents who have children with Down syndrome. There's one other family in town, who has a little boy who's 10 1/2 months old. I haven't gotten in touch with them yet, but maybe this weekend.
Well, Sarah has officially discovered her feet. She's constantly grabbing at them & using them to move the toys that are hanging above her on her playgym. She's not to the point of putting she in her mouth yet, but I'm sure that'll be soon.
I'm putting some new pictures on the website today, so check 'em out!

Who needs sleep?

Little Sarah has become a night owl. Or, in the case of last night, a night HOWL. She decided, at midnight, that she was going to be up & about, regardless if Jeff & I wanted to sleep. She did the same thing the previous night, where I got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Last night, she woke up about 2:45am, after only being asleep for about an hour, screaming her head off. She wouldn't eat & she wouldn't be consoled for about 30 minutes. Even then it took me about another 30 minutes before she fell asleep again. Jeff thinks she must have had a nightmare. It definitely seems like that's what happened. So, again, I got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep. Coffee is the only reason I'm even still functioning. That and the lady who's coming to my house in about an hour. She's from the University of Michigan & is going to be conducting the study Sarah's involved in. I have to be conscious for her to be here.
Well we bought our tickets to Orlando, FL. Jeff's going there in a couple weeks for a conference and the girls & I are going to join him the last few days so we can go to DisneyWorld. It should be a fun trip. Jeff will fly out there on the 4th of October, with us meeting him there on the 7th, and then we'll all fly home together on the 9th. Short, but fun. Hopefully we'll be able to see our friends Jon & Jennifer while we're there.
Ok, this is written a few hours later:
The girls from the University of Michigan just left. They were here for about an hour, measuring Sarah, taking video of her movements & giving us toys & other paraphernalia to work with. Sarah's wearing an "Actiwatch" on her ankle & tummy that will measure her movements for the next 24 hours. I have to keep a log as to what she's doing during that time so they can accurately determine how much she's moving on her own. The toy is pretty cool. She can either lay on her tummy or back & reach for these stuffed animal looking things that make music. It also has a mirror on it, so Sarah should be getting to know her reflection pretty well. I was right, they had a "baby" treadmill. It was the cutest thing. She didn't really walk on it, but she moved her feet a little bit. They also took her height & weight. She's 23 3/4 in long & 13 lbs. 9 oz.
Emma isn't going to be able to do gymnastics this fall. Poo. I wasn't sent any information about it & by the time I called them to get her in, they were completely full in both the classes. Oh well, we're looking to get her into dance or soccer, so she can do something besides speech therapy & preschool.

Sarah Wilson-test subject

We got something in the mail the other day, inviting us to be a part of a research study with DS kids. It said that someone would com eout to our house & give us either a Kick & Play gym or a Tummy Time gym for Sarah to play with. We are to have her on it for a minimum specified amount of time per week and they would be coming back once a month for 4 months to see how she's. It's pretty cool! They also want to see how these toys affect Sarah's ability to walk (assisted) on a treadmill (I'm assuming they have a baby sized one & aren't using a full size one). So it should be interesting. Maybe we'll even be able to keep the toy!

Homegrown goodness

While Emma was at preschool today, Sarah & I went to the Farmer's Market. It was nice to go around all the displays & see things that were grown within about a 20 mile radius of here. They had huge zucchini & tomatos, and lots of corn. They've had it every Thursday since the beginning of June, but this is the first time we've been able to go. Truth be told, this is the first time I've remembered to go. I had all these plans to go every week, but it never happened. Like going to the breastfeeding support group once a month, hasn't happened yet either. But now that school has started up again, & we're planning on having Emma do gymnastics, I'm sure there will be plenty of other things that I forget to go to.
Emma is starting Speech Therapy again. It's taken a year & a half to get her back into it. It's going to be in a playgroup setting, with a group of kids, and it's 2 1/2 hours long, ince a week. Thursday's look like they're going to be our busy day, because the speech is in the morning & then she has school for 2 1/2 hours in the afternoon. They had said that Emma wouldn't be able to go to the therapy outside her preschool, since they had a therapist go to the school twice a week. But I argued for her, saying I didn't want her to be taken out of school just for therapy. She loves it too much & I didn't think it was fair. So, they agreed with me.

What was the point of that?

I drove all the way to Lansing, forcing Emma to miss school, all so we could be told things I already knew. You'd think that, since we had to make this appointment 4 months in advance, they'd have something new & interesting to tell me. All they did was give me information I already had & told me things that were obvious. I suppose it was nice to have a "expert" tell me that Sarah looks really good & doesn't have very many outward signs of Down syndrome, which I already knew. But they did set up a referral to have an EKG done on her, just to rule out any heart defects completely. They also set up a schedule to have other diagnostic tests done on her over the next year. Thyroid, vision, hearing, ect.
A word to the wise: young children & coffee tables don't mix. Jeff & Emma were rough-housing last night & Emma's nose came into abrupt contact with the side of the coffee table. She hit just below the bridge of her nose. We were freaking out, because I thought she had broken it. It was bleeding a little bit, not enough to get worried, but it started swelling up immediately. She has a little abrasion on it & it's going to be bruised, but I think she'll be ok. I don't see any signs of a black eye, but I'm sure it's coming. Poor kid. She was milking the attention though, got a big bowl of popcorn out of the ordeal.

Lansing, here we come

Today is Sarah's genetics counseling appointment at MSU. I'm not exacly sure what they're going to do at this appointment. Hopefully they'll be able to tell us what kind od Down syndrome Sarah has. We made this appointment back in May, so I don't know what to expect.
Poor Emma has to miss school in order for us to go to the appt. It's in Lansing, which is an hour away, and we need to leave here by 1:30pm. And since school is from 1-3:30pm, she can't go. I feel bad, but I think she'll get over it. Jeff can't go with us, since he has school, so I'm making this trek alone.
I started exercizing again today. Well, doing my Bodyflex tapes again, if that can be called exercize. I figure it's better than nothing & I need to lose some weight. It worked before, so I figure it can work again. I never seem to be able to do anything else. I'm also going to start walking with Sarah in the stroller while Emma's at school. I haven't done it so far, so we'll see.
I think we've changed our plans for going to Orlando, FL with Jeff next month. Because going to CA at Christmas is a little more important, we're going to instead probably visit our friends in Tennessee. They just had a baby, Justin, so it should be fun with 2 little ones. I wish we could see our friends in FL as well but sometimes things happen.

Yay for my techie husband!

We finally got our new hard drive on Monday & Jeff has spent the past two evenings, after a full day's work & school, getting our computer back up & running. We bought a program that automatically backs up the computer once a week if anything new has happened. So hopefully we won't have this problem again. We found out what the problem was, though. A faulty surge protector. Oh fun. Our video card also went kaput, so that's another thing we have to get. We have an older one that we're using now. I realize now why some people don't like computers & don't want to deal with them. They're expensive & are constantly needing to be tweeked, otherwise they throw a hissy fit & die on you, taking all of your digital pictures with it.
But the most important thing is now we have Final Fantasy XI back up & running. Yay! I played last night for the first time in almost a week & got myself killed 4 times in an hour. Two of them were my fault, two of them weren't. I wasn't happy.
Emma started school on Monday. She' s so excited! She loves it. In fact, she cried when her teacher told her it was time to go home the first day. They have playtime outside everyday the last half hour before school ends, and she about peed herself when she saw that they had swings. It was all she could talk about after Sarah & I picked her up that first day. And she keeps getting surprised every time I tell her that she goes to school everyday, rather than every other day. The only bad thing is they don't have a show & tell day for the kids, and Emma's upset about that. Things run a little differently at the school. They don't have a mandatory art time or a routine when it's time to go home, like they did at her other preschool. I especially think the routine they had, when they all lined up & sang the "goodbye" song helped Emma with her "transitional issues", where she has difficulty going from one thing to another without adequate time to adjust.
Jeff found out that he's on the Dean's list for the summer semesters! He got 3 A's and very high B+. I'm so proud of him! School started again for him on Monday & it looks like it's going to be a rough next couple of months. 13 units, including Pre-calc, so it should be fun! Looks like I'll be helping him with homework.

Memories

I've been going through all our 8mm video tapes to figure out what's on them all so we can transfer them to DVD. I realize that I am a spastic video camera user. Of the 9 or so tapes that we have, only about 1-2 of them go from beginning to end in line with real time. Meaning, that the content goes from one month to another, with the calendar. On the other 6 or so, there will be some from December 2000 & then it will jump to March of 2002, and then go back to September of 2001 or something. I've probably taped over some memorable moments in our family history with this haphazard way of taping but hopefully we'll be able to keep this from happening again now that we're able to record everything over to DVD.
I know this probably sounds biased, but Emma was the cutest little toddler. I'm watching all of these tapes & seeing her that young again is making me so nostalgic. It was so funny back when she couldn't talk & she had lots of blonde hair with little curls! And I feel much better about myself because I see now that I DID get a lot of Emma's firsts on tape. Most of the time I think I missed everything & was feeling like a bad mother (like I do now with Sarah, cause I haven't been taping anything of her yet). But that was the whole point of me getting all these tapes out & trying to get all the content off the 8mm & onto DVD. It's going to take awhile though, because I have to go through all the tapes & record everything in order. So maybe by Christmas I'll have everything finished.
On top of the video tapes to record, I also have to start painting Sarah's crib & put that together. She's getting almost too big for her bassinette. Emma slept in it until she was 5 1/2 months old, but we didn't have a crib for her until then. But with Sarah still waking up sometimes 2 times a night (yay) I don't relish the idea of having to go upstairs to feed her at 4am. I'm hoping she's just going through a growth spurt & it will end soon. I'm also going to feed her some rice cereal once a day, mostly before bedtime so maybe that will help.