Did you really just write that?

I know, I didn't blog yesterday.  Day 3 and I already couldn't do it...  BUT... I have a good reason. It was Sunday.  Sunday is football, kids, hanging out, relaxing and cramming all the homework, laundry, house cleaning I didn't get done on Saturday - day.. Let me tell you, I have a lot of procrastinating I have to make up for on Sundays.

Just when I thought I wouldn't have a single thing to say in my blog, I get a comment on my facebook wall about my blog that inspires me to post.  I love comments, usually they are uplifting or thought provoking.  This one? It was - very uncalled for -.

Without posting the entire rambling wall post, I can tell you it said that my blog was "such a sad story" and that if I researched vitamins and minerals a little more, I could be like a mom on You Tube who "began making a shake type mix every morning with all of the Vitamins/minerals she had researched and fed it to her child" and that "Within 9 months it was truly amazing how the child's entire face looked so different (more normal of course)."

Umm, excuse me, did you just post on Facebook that I could give my child a shake to make her face look more normal? More normal? Does that seem appropriate?  No, sure doesn't. 

First thought that went through my head - This person must have no children.  No human being on earth who has children would ever tell another parent how to make their child's face more normal looking.   Most people without children wouldn't say it either, but if your child is your pet cat, I am assuming you have more leeway when talking to other cat moms about how your cat kids look..  You don't have that same leeway with mothers of human children.  We don't take kindly to advice on how to make their faces more normal.  Down syndrome or no syndrome, us parents tend to think our kids faces are normal and if we don't think they are, the last thing we want is some facebook friend schilling out advice on a miracle shake to fix their odd looking heads.

My second thought after her post - Ella would be so mad if she could read...

Ella's mad face

Third thought - F- you and your normal looking cat children.

Fourth thought - She must be drunk (the post was pretty rambling and she didn't even realize the blog was about me and my family)

Fifth thought - I should really respond to her and let her know that the post wasn't cool.  We don't say those things about kids (or adults) because it isn't necessary. If you want to peddle your holistic medicine beliefs, go ahead but leave out the rude assumptions that I would be doing it to change the way my daughter looks.

So, I did respond and guess what, she immediately removed the post.  I personally would have preferred the post stayed as I would of loved all of our mutual friends to see what a crazy, insensitive post it was, but in Facebook world we have the option of undoing our doings, so... It is gone. Gone from Facebook is one thing, gone from my mind, that's another.

Let's see if she ever gets through the doors of my office again.....

On another note, today my assistant gave his 2 week notice.  I am happy for him, he is going off to pursue his dream career in music and ministry.  I am now though back in the one place I don't like to be, interviewing.  If you or anyone you know is looking to work for 2 very smart chicks let me know. :)

k - have to go. Tomorrow I want to post a link I found to a really cool Ballet studio in Boston and another link about a young man with Down syndrome holding down a pretty awesome job. 

Till tomorrow friends, till tomorrow.

Welcome back ear infections!

I had a blissful 9 months without you. No runny noses, no eyes full of puss, no hearing issues, no fevers, no sleepless nights.  You just couldn't stay away though, could you? You figured since Reed finally got tubes in his ears and Ryan was too old to bother with, you would plant yourself in my little girl's ears and not go away.  I don't like you and this time, I will rid ourselves of you much quicker!

Do I sound mean? I hope so! Poor Ella is now under the spell of the ear infection bug that bit Reed and wouldn't go away until we got tubes in his ears. I think we are heading down the same path with her. This time though I will not wait 3 years (not my idea to wait, his doctor didn't think he needed tubes, we switched doctors and he recommended tubes ASAP) I will do it the minute her doctor tells us we need it. I don't want to sacrifice one minute of her hearing because of ear infections.  I have seen what waiting has done to Reed's speech and I don't want to put Ella through that. So, tubes may be in our immediate future for her.

For now though we have one sick little girl.  Double ear infection and just overall not a happy camper.  Normally when a kid is sick, it isn't a huge deal, they lay on the couch, sleep a lot and get better in a few days.  The problem with Ella is that she gets so sick that we have a week of miserable Ella. That means she won't cooperate with her therapy (she has mastered the pouty lip and sad face to get out of therapy), she won't eat, she throws up (I would like to give a big shout out to myself for catching an entire stomach full of throw up in one bib, not a drop anywhere else, I am a master thank you very much) she is just so pitiful you want to cry for her!

The other annoying thing about ear infections.  They show themselves at midnight on a Friday. Yep. We can't wait till Monday to see her normal dr. so here I am schlepping Ella to the Urgent Care first thing Saturday AM (and missing Reed's football game - it's always a trade off isn't it) to get more antibiotics.  Then, I get to go home and wrestle Princess Determined to get her to take the antibiotic. I love the weekends! Did I mention the Urgent Care took 2 hours? Did I mention that Ella decided to take that 2 hour time frame to excercise her vocal cords the entire time? Did I mention that I hate ear infections?

Ms. Ella is now napping, Reed is reliving his football game for me and I swear I smell Fall in the air. I must go enjoy the moment!

For day one..

I told Ella that today was the start of Down syndrome Awareness Month. She didn't seem to care.

Just kept sleeping away.

Since I am going to be blogging for 31 days, I am going to go all boring on you guys and make this one an update. We have to start somewhere and I figured that since I have been missing for a few weeks, we should get all caught up. Here it goes:
Ella – Well, Ella isn’t laughing. She gets really close to laughing, she smiles, sucks in her stomach like a giant laugh is going to come out and then – nothing - . I know that she will laugh in her own time, but I want her to laugh now! I want to hear her cute little belly laugh and hear her make little squeals to go along with how excited she gets at things. She is also really mobile. She rolls all over the place, reaching for toys, pivoting to change directions, she is only happy if she has free reign of the floor. She has no interest in sitting up though, none at all. I think since she is such a mobile baby (she is already getting in a crawling stance) she sees no reason to practice sitting up. Her PT and I are diligently working at getting her core muscles stronger so sitting will happen one day, but for now, she is happy with getting from point A to B by rolling.
She is also an eating machine. She loves her baby food. 3 times a day and she eats an entire 3.5 ounce package each time. We are feeding her Ella’s Kitchen Organic baby food. It started out as something cute because it had the same name as her and now it is all she will eat. Good that it is organic, bad because organic baby food is expensive. I think we spend more on her food and formula each week than the two boys put together!

We found a new occupational therapist and all is going well so far. She is nice and knowledgeable and Ella seemed to smile at her, so that is good. Her PT and Speech Therapist are also doing great. I love the team Ella has helping her. I do sometimes dream of a day where we don’t have anyone coming into the house and I can just relax and not vacuum and not be out of bed by 5:00 AM, I can dream, right?
Other than our little girl not wanting to give up any laughs, she is doing great. I stay far away from milestone charts. Ella has a wonderful team helping her achieve her milestones and when she does them isn’t important. She will do them.
Reed – Oh Reed… We learned over the last week that Reed isn’t the friendliest kid in his class. This was a little shocking as he is by far the most outgoing of all of us. He likes to make friends and play with others, or so we thought. His teacher was wondering why he was always alone and the kids would leave the table he was at. She decided to kneel behind him during play time and heard him whispering “Go away”, “don’t touch that”, etc. under his breath if a kid walked up to play with him. Awesome. Not only is our kid being mean, but he found a super creepy way to do it! We talked with him and while I hope we got through to him, I am not so sure. His reasons for doing it? He just wants to be friends with Ryan so there is no reason to talk to the kids in his class and he didn’t want to be loud about it so he whispers.

Ryan – I didn’t have much to post about Ryan until I received an email from his teacher this afternoon. To paraphrase her email –“Ryan got in a food fight at lunch. The cafeteria workers were not happy at all.” I can’t wait to hear about this when I get home tonight. This is not like Ryan at all! I am not happy with him, but a little part of me is glad he knows how to break out of his grown up shell sometimes and be a kid (don't tell him I said that though!)

So… That catches you up on the kids. See you all tomorrow!