Proud Mommy moment!

Last friday was the AG Bell Speech Fair at Lexie's school. It was basically like a recital for all the speaking Deaf kids in the area, from Lexie's age up to Highschool. It was really fun to get to see the kids progress as they got older, and it was really amazing to see how talented a lot of the older kids were. Everyone was speaking, and there were a TON of musical performances. It's great to see other kids who started out where Lexie is doing so many things involving sound. Lexie's preschool theme this year is T.E.A.M (Together Everyone Achieves More), so they did a sport's theme for the fair. Her class did a cheer, which was "2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate? Mom, Dad, They are Great! Yay!" It was totally cute, and Lexie actually said her parts! Her teacher Lori Ruth (who is just the best teacher on the whole planet) warned me that a lot of kids clam up on stage, and Lexie definately gets stage fright when I try to get her to show people what she can say, but not on that night! That was sort of amazing considering there were like 100 people in the audience. And the best part was, I got it on camera! The kids in her class on the video, from left to right, are Seth, Lexie, Leah (Lexie's best friend at school), and Benson. They are the cutest little things. Lexie is the second youngest in her class, and Benson (the youngest) started out the year already talking some, so you'll notice the other kids are a little more advanced in their talking than she is. Her teacher, Lori, is holding the microphone, and Nichole, the teacher's aide, is in the back. So enjoy, our little Lexie ACTUALLY TALKING!! Woot woot!

I wish it was just Salt Water Taffy!

As many have heard, Lexie received the results of her allergy testing and it is not good news. She is allergic to everything. We are starting on Monday to no longer give her the foods she loves. We need some ideas on what to feed her. Check our her allergies and see what you can come up with? There is now a link on the left hand side...

Dolphin Bubbles

I saw this video and was thoroughly impressed by these dolphins who blow rings of bubbles from their blow holes under water. Crazy!

http://news.aol.com/article/dolphin-bubble-rings/386019

"NO!" and Holland

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

byEmily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

I read this story before I ever had kids. My mom is a special ed teacher and had shared this story with me because she thought it was so beautifully written. When I first heard it, I agreed with her. Then, years later, we had a daughter and even later we learned she was deaf. The whole process of having her diagnosed was like a strange episode of the Twilight Zone, and to be honest, I can't exactly remember everything. I think it's called post-traumatic stress syndrome or something, I don't know.

But I do know when she was diagnosed, we were given a booklet on having a disabled child and where to turn for services. I'm sure it had a very nice title, but I just remember calling it the "You Have A Disabled Kid 101" binder. I hated that binder. And in the very front of that binder was the Welcome to Holland story. I can recall clearly opening the front cover and seeing that horrible, stupid, enter-an-expletive-here story and suddenly hating it. Because it was painfully accurate. I was in Holland. And at that point, I was pissed. I hated the stupid piece of paper that seemed to be mocking me, knowing how I felt without knowing me, and telling me that at some point I was going to be ok with what was happening.

Now, I can look back at this story, and I love. It is perfectly written. It's exactly how I feel. Yes, it still hurts that I didn't get my perfect, "normal" little girl like everyone else got. I still get bitter pangs of jealousy when my friends recount the funny things their children say, when my child is barely putting two words together after years of hard work on my part. But I'm starting to see a lot of good things, too.

Lexie has started saying "no". I know that's a normal 'first word', and most people wouldn't be that excited about it, but every time she says "no", I love it!! It's not just a label, she's not just repeating back a phrase she's been taught like a trained animal. When she says "no", she's actually expressing a feeling, telling me a desire. When I ask her if she wants something and she says "no", it's an actual conversation!!! That's the biggest thing; I can't tell you how many times I've cried over not being about to have a two-way conversation with my child. I know that her "no" is just the beginning of this. The first time I heard her say "no", I almost cried, except we were in Lexie's classroom with her teacher and that would have been embarrassing.

I guess I just wanted to share this amazing story. For anyone who has ever wondered what it's like to have this experience, that's it. It's nice for me to be able to look back and see that I'm coming around to living in Holland.

The Photos Time Forgot - Christmas 2008

My dad took pictures of the kids Christmas morning, so I'll have to get those pics from him someday and post them here for posterity's sake. But for now, here is the TOO CUTE picture I took of Sethers with his awesome new Christmas Hat from Aunt Thumbs-Up. I love taking him with it on, it's a total chick magnet. The scene-girls really dig his emo vibe.

The Photos Time Forgot - Snow 2008

Here's just a few pics of Lexie in the show. Note: She does NOT like the snow. She wants to like the snow, but she does NOT like the snow. She can't walk in it, and ends up sitting dejectedly and freezing her tiny butt off.

The Photos Time Forgot - Fall 2008

Here were just some random pictures from the fall that I thought were cute. I have no idea when exactly when they were taken, but I think Seth's around 6 months... I just remember taking pics of Seth's red eyes from not sleeping, some cute thing I did with Lexie's hair (I'm horrible at hair!) and Seth just being cute:

The Photos Time Forgot - Polar Express

In December, Lexie's school went to the Polar Express in Lindon, and I came with her. Here are some cute pictures from our little adventure:
*Lexie loved watching the Movie while waiting for our turn on the train
*She did NOT like Santa. She sat on his lap as stiff as possible and refused to look at him. But she didn't cry!
*She LOVED her Secret Santa present (too bad we don't own a VHS player so she never got to watch it).
*The last picture is of her showing her new present to her best friend from school Leah. The two were just babbling away at each.... who knows what they were trying to say, but it was cute as heck!

Seth Climber

About a week and a half ago, Seth figured out how to climb the stairs! This is sort of amazing to us, because Lexie still had trouble crawling up stairs when she was two. Of course, she had balance issues and only got to practice on stairs when we would visit Grandma, but still... it's weird to have this tiny little thing doing something so dangerous! The first time he did it, we didn't think to grab the camera until he was 3/4 of the way up, but at least we got the end of his climb. Sorry, the picture is grainy because Lexie was already in bed so we couldn't turn on the hall light upstairs or it would wake her up (yes, she's that sensitive to light). Hopefully you'll enjoy it anyway (we do!), and yes, Seth is laughing as he falls. Too cute!

From Seth_Stairs