Country Twang

WARNING: Cheese and whine post below...

Do you ever feel like you're living in a country song? I think we have some bad mojo hanging over our house. I'm considering doing an exorcism or smudging ceremony to shoo away the bad energy.

My computer's on the fritz as is Mark's, the kitchen sink is leaking, the front and back door handles are broken. Mark sprained his knee. I pulled out my back lifting Sophie and can't stand up straight. We have no home in less than 60 days. My cell phone is broken. Sophie hit me in the face with a baseball (but it was a GREAT throw) and bent my glasses. Both girls are teething. Instead of cleaning/packing/purging I'm on my butt with a heating pad. Mark has writer's block. Early Intervention in Montgomery County, PA won't talk to me as Sophie will be aging out of EI but the intermediate unit (preschool/early education) won't talk to me either until we move there and she turns 3. grr!

But so what? Seriously. It's a bad patch, but we're all ok and everything will work out. We were this close (imagine me holding my thumb and pointer finger very close together) to buying a house. Then the sellers sent us estimates for the repairs which were more than 4 times more expensive than they originally thought, so they wanted more money. We had to let it go.

My BFF Darcy has been scouring the internet for a rental and we are now very close to having a GREAT house in the right school district. Mark's future colleague and her husband toured it and met the landlord. They took 79 pictures so that we could get a good look at it. It would be ideal in many ways. It's a landlord's market as there are very few houses for rent and a lot of people who need housing. Fortunately for us, he really seems to like us and is doing the background checks this week. It would be a huge relief to know we will have a roof over our heads in less than 2 months as I have been consumed by this search.

Anywho, (said with a Fargo accent) maybe I can get caught up on my blog reading while I sit on my butt (over 300 unread posts in my Google reader, uggh). I'm so very far behind on reading about my bloggy friend's lives and I miss you all. I also need to get back to working on our safety conference set for June 19th (have I mentioned we're moving June 22nd)? Maybe I'll pop over to facebook and waste some time. Nope, I think I hear one of the girls getting up from their nap.

For the George Family

Down syndrome has made our world much smaller, beautiful, compassionate, and wonderful. Through the common link of loving someone with DS, I have met many amazing families from all over the world. Sometimes we even refer to our DS connection as being in a club.

Recently a family in the club suffered a terrible tragedy when their 8 year old daughter Carly passed away unexpectedly. Carly had already overcome heart surgeries and had beaten the dreaded leukemia in her short life. But last week she was not sick and there were no warning signs. They don't have any answers yet. She began turning blue, she may have suffered a seizure, and within a few short hours had passed away in her parents arms in the hospital.

This isn't supposed to happen. Yet for those of us in the DS club or who have a loved one with other special needs, we are often on guard waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for signs of a new and more frightening medical diagnosis. When these things happen we want answers. We want to know WHY this happened. What is the purpose? We wail and sob. Some of us question God in anger and others find comfort in their faith (or do both).

The George family is enduring an unbelievable loss as they prepare to lay their sweet girl to rest. Though I did not know this family, I feel deep pain for them. Many in the DS community want to do something. That's the other thing that happens when tragedy occurs. The need to DO something about it when it seems impossible for anything to be done. Michelle at Big Blueberry Eyes has a great idea. Head over and read how you can contribute and feel free to grab the Praying for the George family button while you're there.

To Joany, Paul, Ashleigh, Brad, and your extended family and friends, I am deeply sorry and I pray for a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Alexander's Special Day

My boy and I love baking cookies together. It's a special time for the two of us where we can escape the rest of the family and have some quality mommy/son time together. The best part? Why licking the beaters, of course!

At Alexander's preschool, each child gets a "Special Day." The staff goes all out to incorporate whatever "thing" the child deems 'special.' Some kids have picked Star Wars, or letters, or firefighting as their special thing. Alexander picked ships. His teachers did such a great job in finding activities with a ship theme, and he was a smiley, happy boy.

One of the activities of the day was Shuffle Board, a game typically played on cruise ships of course.

Ships and boats of every shape and size were all over the room!

Pirate Ships represented!

and the project for the day? Making a captain's spy glass was the task at hand. Later, he had the ship's special, including a peanut butter sandwich cut into the shape of a ship (complete with smoke stacks and red crosses) making it a replica of the Britannic. The kid was in Heaven!

Easter 2010

(RSS & Google Reader friends, Easter montage in original post)