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)

1st Glimpse of Our New Home

I should have been sleeping too, but I just couldn't. Despite the extra air mattress and pac-n-play (A.K.A. baby jail), this is how we ended up each night last week in our hotel as we began our search for a new home. Too much had happened in too little time. Too much is left to do. My mind was a buzz and numb at the same time. I relished this rare moment of silence for myself.


In four days, we met Mark's colleagues and shared meals with them. I can see why he is so happy with this placement. They are all wonderful people, opening themselves up to help us relocate, have our kids mess up their living room over dinner, and find us the very best school district for Sophie. These people are genuinely excited that Mark is joining their ranks. I heard from more than one person that the competition was especially fierce this year and that Mark stood above the crowd. I witnessed his posture change and a smile I haven't seen in a while return. Why did we have to wait so many years to land? Because THIS job is the one. THIS place is where we are meant to be and we just had to wait for it to become available. Yet another lesson in patience.

In four whirl wind days, we toured the area with a wonderful realtor and saw 25-30 homes. We learned what we qualify for in terms of financing and what houses go for (choke*gasp*cry*). How to explain our new city? Well, it's a big area. It's a big, compact, confusing, hilly area. For example, you can be in the city of X, in the township of Y and the county of Z...until you cross the street (and even the streets sometimes have 2 names). If you cross the street you may still be in city X, but you are no longer in township/borough Y or county Z. What's the house address? Well, technically you can list 3 different addresses and it will get to you. When we had dinner at Mark's colleague's home it was in the neighborhood of Garret Hill, in Bryn Mawr city, in Radnor Township, and the community of Rosemont, county of Delaware. Confused? So are they and they LIVE there. People who have lived there their whole lives are confused.

Why does it matter? Well, taxes can vary drastically depending on your address. Special education services vary but thankfully all the typical public schools in the area are excellent.

After day 2 of house hunting we met our old friends from Madison for dinner. (Father) Adam and Melissa now live in Media, which is not far from Mark's new job at all. Despite completing the same polisci program as Mark, Adam is now an Episcopalian priest at Christ Church. The last time we saw them they had one son but are now expecting number 3 very soon. We walked through the down town to a pizza joint and on the way back stopped for ice cream. Sophie and Mark danced outside of the pub next door that had a band featuring old rock tunes and we all recharged our batteries.

I know it was dark, but the church entrance is a thing of beauty, as is Soph.

Yada yada yada, once we had been in our umpteenth home and were physically and mentally unable to see one more, we finally headed into the city. Our van-o-love whirred by Independence Hall and we drove around a bit, just to get a sense of the city. The destination, however, was in south Philly at an infamous place called Geno's. Why? One must not visit the city of brotherly love and not get an authentic philly cheese steak sandwich.

Although it was only 4:30, the line wrapped around both sides of the triangular shaped iconic restaurant. Mark spotted rock star parking and stayed in the van while I braved the line. My camera and unabashed picture snapping alerted the locals that I was a tourist, but at least I knew how to order like a local, or so I thought.

(you really must click the above pic to get a better look at the staff t-shirts)

You order wit or witout (meaning with or without onions) and choose your cheese. Authentic S. Philly steaks come with cheese wiz. Yes, wiz. You can get other cheeses, such as provolone or American, but why would you do that? When it was my turn I made the rookie mistake of ordering freedom fries in the wrong window. d'oh! You order the steak first then fries later.

(even the ceilings are decorated)

One steak wit and wiz, one steak witout and wiz.

(the infamous sign on their ordering in English-only)

Mouth watering deliciousness I tell ya!

I'm hungry all over again.

So, now we are home. Drained and wit-out housing in 3 months, yet. Still, in 4 days (not including 2 days of driving) we learned a tremendous amount about the area and the people. As I look around our current home all I can think about is purging the place of all unnecessary items and packing for our next adventure.

Golden Ticket

Your first kiss. Graduation. Your wedding day. The birth of your children. Buying your first house. All events of enormous significance. Milestones that mark the journey of your life. We have been waiting for a sign that the next chapter in our lives was about to begin.

Three weeks ago Mark received a call to interview for a job 755 miles away.

The interview process is serious. It begins with a breakfast meeting and goes through the evening, for two days. Each morning in his hotel room Mark would psych himself up with a little Eminem. You know you can picture this!

He fell in love with the campus and made instant connections with the faculty. He knew he had found his DREAM job. Then the waiting began. We waited and fretted and stewed for 3 weeks.

On my way out to run errands last Friday, I reminded Mark to turn his phone on in case I needed to call from the store. 90 minutes later he pulled his phone out of his pocket to check to see if it was on and it began to ring in his hand. The search committee had met and they had chosen him for the job. It would need to pass through the Dean's office before the official offer could be made. A formality. The job was his but we would wait nearly another week to announce it until we had the official offer.

Being a fan of thrift stores and Goodwill in particular, I made a stop in our new store (last Friday). On the wall in large letters they have painted, "We employ people with special needs to empower them through work." Love that! I was already choked up when Mark called me. He couldn't wait for me to get home which meant I was a big cry baby in public.

Barely up the steps to our front porch, Mark came running out and picked me up, twirling me around a la the end scene in An Officer and a Gentleman. I discovered he already had Soph in school gear. We called the immediate family and let Alexander make the announcement, "Hi Papa. We're moving to Philadelphia!"

click to enlarge

It is a private Catholic university located in a suburb just north west of Philadelphia. This small campus has received top rankings for two decades, though most people have heard of them because of their basketball program. The list is long as to why this is meant to be for our family. Mark's new position is as a professor of Russian political science, which is exactly what he's passionate about and trained for. The annual Special Olympics Fall Festival is the largest and most successful student-run Special Olympics in the world. So you see, it's about already having a sense of community, a place where we belong.

We will be making the 12+ hour drive in the next couple of weeks to being our search for housing. I'm already in touch with the Philly DS group, the T21Club (love that name), and Mark's colleagues are passing out the advice as well.

Most of what I know about Philadelphia comes from history books or Hollywood with movies such as Rocky, Philadelphia (Tom Hanks), and National Treasure. Then there are the sports teams, the proximity to NYC and the Jersey Shore that have us excited.

So much needs to be done as we will be moving at the end of June. Packing, cleaning, finding housing, MOVING in 3 months will be a chore. It is a huge area and we won't be moving to Philadelphia proper, but somewhere in the burbs. (it is a big area to choose from). The timing is excellent for the kids. Alexander will finish preschool this Spring and Sophie is aging out of Early Intervention July 1st. Finding a good location for kindergarten and transitioning her to early education is our top priority.

Too much needs to be done to have time to be sad to say good bye to this community we've called home for 3 years, though I know it will happen. Fortunately with the internet, it's not really a good bye. So now the real important question, Geno's or Pat's? (long standing rivalry for who originated the philly cheese steak).

If you have any advice or connections to the Philly area, please let me know.

Pastel Love

I was on a mission. Objective 1: Locate the dining room table. Once Upon a Time I know we used to have one. Objective 2: tv off, internet off, family time. Objective 3: Create something that would bring me joy and appease my inner artist.

More proof that she may be a south paw

9 month old body with a 2 year old mind set

Don't YOU decorate for Easter with a St. Patty's Day Bowler (type of hat)?

This kid threw eggs at my door! He says it will tell the Easter bunny we are waiting for him.

I love having our doors open to the fresh air, smelling the earth come back to life and listening to the sound of birds chirping. It breathes hope into my soul.

Spring. Proof that life goes on. Pastels. Rebirth. Soft fuzzy animal babies. Eating jelly beans and chocolate by the pound.

My inner artist envisioned creating an Easter wreath. So I did, left handed, with wire and ribbon. (cast comes off my right arm tomorrow, then 2nd round of x-rays/possible MRI). These are my supplies (some purchased, some I've had for years)

Tulips aren't just the quintessential symbol of Spring, but have been adopted by the DS community (and special needs community at-large) because of Emily Perl Kingsley's poem, Welcome to Holland.

Maybe you think it looks like Easter threw up, but I quite like the end result. In fact, I think I may remove the eggs and bow after Easter and keep it for the rest of Spring.

Tonight we ate dinner together around the dinner table. I can't remember the last time we did this. Usually we eat in the living room, the kids at their little tables, the tv and computers on. It was the most lovely meal and I plan to make this the norm.

Mission, Accomplished.