Five Balls

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - Work - Family - Health - Friends - Integrity, and you're keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls -- family, health, friends and integrity are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered.

-James Patterson, Suzannes Diary for Nicholas


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone 3G[S]

Today I am Thankful for...

I've decided to write a short post about the things I am most thankful for in the days leading up to Thankgiving. I like be able to take a break to think about all the good things in my life, sometimes the days go by so fast and I'm so busy fixing problems or going through long to-do lists that I forget to focus on all the good things in my life.

So, today I am thankful for...

The people closest to me. My husband, who is always there for me 200%, who stays by my side through difficult times and always makes sure we make it through ok, who understands me better than anyone, who is the most amazing father and husband I could imagine. No matter how difficult or bad things get, I always know things will be ok because he is at my side. He sometimes gets the brunt of bad moods and we argue like any other couple, but at the end of the day I hope he knows that nothing in (or out) of this world could ever make me happier than having him by my side.

My son, who somehow overnight grew into a sensitive, loving, smart, funny, sweet child. He is always first in line to comfort someone who is sad, to make them laugh and shower them with hugs and kisses. He learns so quickly and thrives on making others laugh. I've learned so much about being happy and enjoying the simple things from him. I am so proud of him and I hope he grows up always knowing just how proud I am and how much I love him.

My mother, who is always there for me, and my family, whenever we need anything. She has dropped everything to rush over whenever I've needed her, whether it was a dinner party disaster or a terrified new mom with a sick baby kind of night. She's spent countless hours on the phone with me at night when I've needed reassurance or someone to talk to. She's babysat, lent time, money and advice, spoiled Jayson rotten, driven hours into NY in the dead of night and has been there for us every time we've ever had a need. I don't tell her often enough how much I appreciate all of it, but I hope she knows there's never a second of it that's taken for granted.

This is what I'm thankful for.

A bad day turned good

Jayson woke up today with a smile that lasted about two minutes and then morphed into a terrible two's type bad mood. I realized this would probably be an all day type mood so we skipped playdate. I don't regret missing the Oktoberfest celebration. Jayson's bad mood continued through lunch when he threw all his food on the floor and into naptime when he insisted on falling asleep in his mini armchair instead of his bed. He woke up in a bad
mood and barely touched his dinner even though I made his favorite chicken nuggets. We had to go to Target and I was relieved to find him in a better mood at the store. He convinced his daddy to buy him a movie replica woody doll from A Toy Story. He came home and watched the movie with his new woody doll. As the movie began to end I started dreading our usual nighttime fight before bed. I got him his toothbrush as the credits were rolling and let him watch to the very end, hoping to delay the kicking and screaming match a little longer. Finally, I shut off the TV. He took off into his room and I followed preparing for a chase. I finally got him onto the couch and changed his diaper while he screamed bloody murder. Once his pajamas were on I grabbed his woody doll and two books and set his twilight turtle in it's usual place. The first book was shot down immediately. It is not a dinosaur night. The next book followed a firefly as he met different types of bugs. I counted the bugs in the book. When I was done Jayson grabbed the book and counted the bugs himself. Of course they were all his favorite number, two. When the book was done I asked him to put woody to bed and to my surprise he gave woody a kiss, tucked him in and then laid down himself. I shut off the light and turned on twilight turtle, soon the ceiling was covered in constellations. Jayson leaned over and gave me a kiss, then we sang twinke twinkle little star while gazing up at the "night sky" on his celiling. He grabbed my hand and asked for a belly rub and quick as anything he was sound asleep. I couldn't believe how peacefully he went to bed. I laid next to him for a while just basking in the happiness of his sweet litte face, free of tears after not crying himself to sleep for the first time in weeks. I thought about Jay and what an amazing job he does as a husband and father. My hear overflows with love for him when I think of all he does for our family, of how he is always there for me when I need him, despite his own busy schedule. I think of how lucky I am to have him in my life, how lucky Jayson is to grow up with a loving, doting father. I think of Jayson and how sweet and thoughtful he can be. I know he will grow up to be a sensitive and loving man, even if he is a little stubborn. I think to May when the new baby is due and I am so excited for this new addition to our family. I look forward to Jay's excitement and can't wait to see him holding his second child for the first time. I look forward to Jayson becoming a big brother because I know he will be a wonderful older sibling. And I know I am blessed with so many wonderful things in my life because I have this family that is perfect in my eyes and that I love with a depth indescribable. It's nights like these that make me anxious for the morning, when I can sit between these two wonderful gentlemen and know that everything I could have ever hoped for is sitting right next to me, my amazing husband and wonderful son, my whole perfect world in one room.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone 3G[S]

Jayson's Birthday Part Two

Birthday Party (Day before his actual birthday)

We weren't going to throw a birthday party for Jayson this year, choosing to take him apple picking instead, but when Grandma mentioned that she was having all the kids over for pizza the day before his birthday opportunity struck and I could not ignore it. I told Grandma I'd like to bring a cake by that night, and that's exactly what we did. We order a cake from LaSalle Bakery and met everyone at Grandma's for pizza. Afterwards we had a cake for Jayson. The cake was exceptional... it had his favorite Disney characters on it (from the CARS movie). It was a chocolate cake with fresh strawberries and french vanilla custard inside, my favorite! Before we cut it Jayson yelled "Don't cut the car!".

By the way, Dominic at LaSalle's Bakery makes the most amazing, yummy cakes.

Then Jayson opened all of his gifts, lots of fun toys and adorable clothes. It's almost midnight and I will admit that he is still up playing with some new trucks and his new Vtech laptop. It's his birthday (kind of), so he's getting away with it. Tomorrow he'll have all day to play with his new things, plus he's still got one awesome toy from Grandpa & Grandma coming to him!

Jayson's Birthday Part One

One of the greatest joys of parenthood is the privelage of watching your children grow, learn and develop their own unique personalities and traits. In about 12 hours Jayson will officially be two years old. Two years from the very moment he came into this world, and time seems to have gone by so fast. I still remember sitting next to his incubator at the hospital, counting the days until we would be allowed to hold him - and later on counting the days until he would be able to finally come home with us. Jayson was stubborn from the very day he was born, something he's never grown out of. He's also kept his silly sense of humor (apparent by his continues insistance to wear a cupcake shaped hat everywhere for the last week) and his bright blue eyes. But there's no doubt he's growing up more quickly than I anticipated. It was clear tonight when he quickly ran over to help his fallen cousin up, and continued to do so even after she made a game of falling down and calling to him for help. He was such a little gentleman.

His birthday always makes me reflect because it's another year gone by before I can even properly document all of his milestones in my scrapbook. I remember his first steps like they were yesterday, just a few days before his 1st birthday he teetered across the living room floor on his very own. Now he runs through the living room, jumping over the coffee table, onto the couch, doing somersaults (a skill I was shocked to find out he somehow taught himself) and jumping through the air. Yet beneath all the rough and tumble of a two year old boy I can still catch glimpes of the sweet, quiet baby he once was - the times when he wraps his tiny arms around my neck and says "I love you too, Mama", or when he surprises me by running by, grabbing my face in between his hands and giving me a big kiss for no reason at all.

Well, I suppose time will always run at this speed - slowly when we are anxious for something, but two quickly when we forget to pay attention. In the meantime, I'll do my best to enjoy every moment of this year, because soon enough he will be graduating from toddler to child and I'll probably sit up late one night wondering where all those precious toddler years slipped away to...

Jayson has been sick all day. His fever was around 103 - 104 all through the day. We've been giving him pedialyte and alternating Motrin & Tylenol every three hours as per the doctor's instruction. His fever finally dropped to 100.4 a little while ago and he is sleeping now. We will probably head to the doctors first thing in the morning so that they can check his ears and lungs. I feel so lousy because he's been crying all day and there's nothing I can do to make him feel better. It took three doses of medicine to get his fever down, that's 9 hours of crying and being yucky feeling. He downed four bottles of pediatlyte so no worries about him being dehydrated. I don't know how he drinks that stuff. All the flavors kinda taste like medicine and they brun a little going down...

I am prepared for no sleep tonight because I know I'll be getting up to check on him constantly. I can't remember a time when he's ever had a fever that high for that long.

At least he is getting better at bedtime. he doesn't kick and scream anymore when we head into his room for the night, so I know he is getting used to sleeping in his bed again. I am so glad for that. He likes to put a "bonus" sticker on his chart when he wakes up in the morning for going to bed nicely the night before.

Well, I hope tomorrow is better and we're not battling a terrible fever again. I keep trying to tell myself fever is good, it's the body fighting infection and all, but it still scares me to watch him crying in pain like that and not knowing what's hurting him. Ugh. I'm gonna try to get some shut eye, but most likely will wind up camping out in the couch watching Juno so that I can fnally take it off the DVR. BTW, season premire of Supernatural was awesome. Dean rocks. =^)

Therapy on Tuesday was a nightmare. It was so bad that it gave me that little extra push I needed to put my foot down and insist on a serious schedule for Jayson. So I went to see his doctor on Wednesday and together we came up with a schedule that is fair to Jayson and will also reinforce the bahavior we want to see. He has to get up at 8:00 every morning and nap again by 12 or 12:30, so that he is refreshed for afternoon therapy. It also helps him to be tired enough to go to bed early. And he's doing all of this in his own bed!! Which is a big change from sleeping on the couch the last six months. We have a reward chart now and he gets stickers on it for meeting all of his goals, which include waking up, taking naps and going to bed nicely as well as brushing his teeth, cleaning up toys and paying attention in therapy. So far so good. The last two days he has napped and slept at night in his room. He has been in a much better mood all day long and his therapist are surprised at the change. He still gives me a little issue with sleeping in his bed, but we made it clear to him that it was no longer negotiable and he seems to be accepting it. I gave him a "Good Dreams Car", which is a gold matchbox car that he holds on to at bedtime. I told him it will send him lots of good dreams and keep all the bad ones away and it seems to be helping.

His ABA yesterday was great. He did everything he needed to and was very interactive with Sophia. Speech today was good as well. It is only a half hour session and I kind of feel like not much gets done during it. I am trying to give the therapist some time to really get into it, since she also works at a school and this is her first week back. One more week and hopefully she will have things worked out better here. I have to remind her to bring my goal calander next week...

We did get some other big news today... first, here is Jayson's reaction:

And the news

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Jayson is going to be a big brother!!!!

It is super super early and I won't even be seeing my OBGYN until Monday, but I took like four of these just to be sure. We are so excited!! We only came to our final decision about having number 2 a few weeks ago, and we kind of expected it to take a couple of months. But it didn't! So we have an appointment with our wonderful OBGYN on Monday morning. It will definetly be too early for an ultrasound but they are going to do the routine bloodwork up and everything. Since my last pregnancy was calssified High Risk from a medical condition I already know there are going to be a lot of precautions this time around. I almost didn't want to tell anyone this early, but I decided no one really reads this and I was going to explode if I didn't say it somewhere!

Anyway, everyone is asleep and I'm going to join them, so until next time, love & light..