Giveaway

I think it's safe to say I went on a slight Down syndrome research bender when Leo was born. Well I'm attempting to do some organizing around here and I'm ready to pass these books on.

These are the books I have that are up for grabs (there will probably be more coming soon):

Gross Motor Skills in Children With Down syndrome (A Guide for Parents and Professionals)

Early Communication Skills for Children with Down syndrome (A Guide for Parents and Professionals)

Fine Motor Skills in Children With Down syndrome (A Guide for Parents and Professionals)

The Down syndrome Nutrition Handbook (A Guide to Promoting Healthy Lifestyles)

Simply leave me a comment (your big chance to delurk!) or just email me and let me know where you'd like the book sent. First come, first served.

Favorite Books, Bedtime Battles, Steam Cleaners, Star Sightings and For All That Is Good Please No Centipedes

In the spirit of feeling overwhelmed, I give you bullets from the week.

-Monday night when I was reading David Gets in Trouble which Leo adores, I made a “burp” sound, as the book called for. Leo burst into giggles and leaned over and kissed me. I love that I know just how to make him laugh (actually it was a surprise that this would delight him so much but it was duly noted for future need!).

-We’ve been having Pat Benatar “Bedtime is a Battlefield” nights lately with Leo. He’s not crying, just refusing to go to sleep. He was up until 10 p.m. reading on Tuesday night. Reading! I have to say it’s pretty cute to open the door to check on him to find him sitting on his bed, quietly flipping though the pages of Clifford’s Christmas Presents. I finally caved and gave him Tylenol last night, thinking maybe the congestion was making him uncomfortable (though that is much better, thanks Zyrtec). At one point I asked him if someone had given him a latte in the afternoon but received no response from him. After reading, he moved on to more exciting endeavors, specifically dissecting the extra bed in his room, stripping the sheets and pillowcase, I just couldn’t get over how much energy he had. At 10 p.m. I’m not sure if it’s the time change, or what.

-Speaking of books, Ellie is obsessed with this book. She actively seeks it out and can sit and “talk” about all the pictures. The last few nights she has breezed through dinner so that she can go get this book and sit with it on my lap. She seems to know all the pictures by sight (i.e. if I say “where’s the car?” she can show me. It’s just amazing to see her language develop at what feels like warp speed. She has also mastered most of her animals sounds. Seriously, is there anything cuter than a 20-month old meowing like a cat? Except Ellie's "cat" is more like a screech. Even better, really.

-Leo loves that book too. He is so competitive with Ellie and it’s quite sweet. He is so eager, he’s the kid who raises his hand before he knows the answer. I say “where is the boat?” and Leo busts up with a raised hand and says “Mine!” thinks a moment and then points to the boat with a huge grin.

-I had a wonderful birthday last weekend. First of all, it was 70 degrees. Seventy! Degrees! I got to sleep in and then Erin and the kids brought me coffee and a homemade card. It makes all the aggravation worth it when I see those happy little faces greet me in the morning, scamper into the bedroom and jump on top of me. Erin told me I could do whatever I wanted and for me that involved going to Macy’s and buying this:



And no it's not a Swiffer though it kind of looks like one. Oh it is so much more. I had seen an infomercial (I know, I know, sue me, the TV had been left on HGTV the night before and when I turned it on at 6 a.m. it was showing a riveting piece on the Haan steam cleaner). Well it intrigued me and so I did some digging/research and learned that most people seem to think the Haan is (surprise!) a piece of crap but that the Shark seems to be quite popular and effective. The concept is pretty awesome. It steams your floors with water that reaches over 200 degrees farenheit and you wash and reuse the cloth pads that come with it (it supposedly even "sanitizes" your floor, though I don't think we'll be having dinner on the kitchen floors anytime soon). No chemicals and no waste and safe to use on wood floors (which comprise our entire house). I have to say so far so good. I mean, it's not a miracle or anything (a miracle would be someone else cleaning the entire house). Then again any sort of cleaning is better than none which had been my floor cleaning technique as of late. And yes, I spent part of my birthday steam cleaning the floors. I am that big of a nerd.

-Saturday night went to the opening of an amazing new restaurant in the city. Not to name drop (Oh what the hell, here goes) but we saw Caroline Kennedy, Diane Sawyer and her husband Mike Nichols and actor Ralph Fiennes. And oh yes, the food was unbelieveable. We don’t go out much but when we go out, we do it right.

-In Little Girl As Vampire news, we’ve had two straight days of no biting. I hope I’m not jinxing it by talking about it here. We’re just taking it one day at a time.

-The birthday party invites are beginning to roll in for Leo. I’m like Amy, I love a good kid party! These are both kids from Leo’s school where nearly everyone has Down syndrome so there is the added benefit that I won’t feel pressure for Leo to “act” a certain way at the party. Plus I will get to see some of the moms that I rarely get to see. Saturday’s party is here. I think Leo’s head might explode from excitement. These parties just get bigger and bigger. I told Erin we are the holdout hillbillys who still have parties in our backyard. What can I say? We are simple people. Anyway, I am just hoping Leo doesn’t want to hold a centipede at this party (it’s one of the “insect options”). I'm totally down with spiders (thanks Charlotte's Web and Buddhist Dad). But after living in a centipede-filled "garden" (fancy word for basement) apartment in Brooklyn I became a little too well acquainted with centipedes. And if Leo wants to hold one I think my head might explode.

Random thoughts on a Rainy Friday.

It’s Friday (yay!)

It’s raining (boo!)

I am wearing a non-maternity shirt that looks maternity and therefore makes me look pregnant. (why!)

I’ve grown to feel that my Danskos are clunky (though I still like them) and insisted on wearing ballet flats (so not rain-proof). My jeans are wet up to the calf from the puddles on the way from train to building and my shoes, well they are just wet. Oh well.

I am loving and devouring The Book of Dahlia. So disturbing and sad and funny and moving. I feel myself bounding through it too see how it will end (well I think the girl with the brain tumor is going to die, duh) but I also find myself stalling. It’s the book that I don’t want to end. When I really enjoy a book and it’s over, it’s almost like a loss. The people, the characters in that book are so real that I am sad to see them go. And I love how it makes the commute fly.

But the real news is that Ellie slept from 9:15 to 7:15 last night. Not. A. Peep in between. But of course, because life is like this, guess who has decided to have nightmares two nights in a row? Yes that would be Leo. Poor guy. He goes right back to sleep after a few minutes of comforting, but the fact that I have yet to sleep blissfully through the night, well I guess if it wasn’t so ridiculous it would be sad. I know I know, we should all have such problems. In the grand scheme it’s not that big of a deal and it is so much better than it was even just a few weeks ago. I am just so excited about Ellie sleeping that a little Leo wake-up seems negligible.

I still can’t get used to the whole both-kids-in-bed-I-have-the-night-stretched-out-before me-thing.

Well to be fair it’s hardly “the night.” By the time I have showered, unloaded/loaded the dishwasher, gotten bottles ready for the next day, sorted the laundry and picked up the toys it’s practically time for bed. I won’t even tell you how much DVRed stuff there is to watch. I remain at least a week behind on Top Chef and I still haven’t watched last week’s America’s Next Top Model(never mind that they announced the Wednesday night—ssshh don’t tell me!). I vote for the Big Girl but I doubt she got it.

It’s hard for me to settle down and relax; for fear that someone (um, Ellie) will start to cry. And sometimes when she goes down I think I should just go straight to bed, to seize that sleep time. But if she is serious about making a habit of sleeping through the night, then I might have to rethink that urge. I might have to actually consider Doing Stuff at night. Last night was my favorite night of the week: Grey’s Anatomy. I actually watched it live (ok it was a bit delayed as I watched it late so I was still able to fast forward through the ads). I am loving the Hahn/Torres Sapphic thing. I just hope they don’t make it into some big joke. Ha ha they’re not really lesbians. I mean I don’t care if they’re really not but I just don’t want it to be a joke—something that will just get laughed about. I give the writers a bit more credit than that though.

On tap for the weekend: a lot depends on how this weather turns out. Right now it is looking suspiciously like my hometownout there and that does not bode well for the outdoor activities. Still no fence and still no word from fence guy which is a little troubling.

And where oh where is my tax refund?

I leave you with cute Ellie news. I had been talking with a work colleague about Cute Things Our Kids Do and realized I am so busy with having two that I don’t pay attention to the minutiae the way I did with one. Maybe it’s because I was constantly analyzing and assessing Leo and with Ellie I am more relaxed. But I realized I didn’t know if Ellie could give hugs or kisses, heck I found out she could wave by complete accident. So this morning I asked her to give me a kiss and guess who leaned over and planted her wet little mouth on my cheek. Well to be fair it was more like she planted her whole face on my cheek, but I think she gets the idea! The kissing!

I could not be more proud. The sleeping. The kissing. What more could a mother ask for?

Pictured above (since I haven't taken any good pictures lately this one will have to do) is Leo at the park on a weekend a few months ago when the weather was much nicer than it appears that it will be this weekend. It was only a few months ago but he looks so much younger there. Maybe because of the bowl hair cut?

Cribs and Books and Big Plans for the Food Processor

I’m a little late on notes from the weekend it being Wednesday already. Really, where does the time go? Here are some bullets:

-We moved the crib into the guest room which is now I guess heretofore “Ellie’s room.” I am afraid to even put this in writing for fear I will jinx things but each night she was in there, things got better. And last night, drumroll please…she slept from 9:30pm to 5:45 am. Straight through. Yes it’s true. Of course I woke up multiple times because I have been doing this since I was six months pregnant, but that should pass soon, right? Oh happy day! Keep up the good work Ellie! This morning when I went to get her she was awake in her crib, sitting up and smiling and yes, reading a book. It was freaking adorable. Monday morning, the morning after the first night that she slept so well I went into her room singing Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independance." I don't know what came over me but it just seemed appropriate.

-This may be too much information but I am really struggling with the pumping (OK this is not really a weekend subject but it’s on my mind). It’s not that I want to wean Ellie—I don’t mind nursing at all since I am pretty much only doing it twice a day now (once in the morning and once before bed). It’s that when I pump I get hardly anything. I went from being able to produce almost three bottles to two and now I’m lucky if I get one. Her one year birthday is two months away. I tell myself it doesn’t matter what I get as long as it’s something—a little breast milk is better than no breast milk (I can still hear Leo’s NICU nurses with their sage advice). OK, I will press on and not worry how much I get. Plus I’m afraid if I stop pumping altogether I won’t be able to nurse and then how the heck will I get Ellie to sleep?

-Books. I finished Road Map to Holland in like three days which is good for me (since I am a slow reader and also only get to read during the commute to work.) Next up is The Book of Dahlia which I heard about when the author was interviewed on Fresh Air. Wow. The first chapter blew me away. It’s about a slacker who finds out she has brain cancer. One of the reviews summed it up nicely: “Should we mourn a wasted life?” Quite a departure from the Holland book. I’m really enjoying reading books again. I feel like this new found thing called sleep is helping me return to the person I was once was. With interests! I have even been daydreaming about all the things I want to cook and bake. That is not so unusual except I’m hoping that not being so exhausted will allow me to actually make some of them (lemon bars, pumpkin bread and pesto, gazpacho, salsa). Can you tell that someone has a new food processor?

-In Leo and Ellie notes, Leo has moved on from telling the dog to go “Away” to now telling Ellie to go “Away!” He does it a lot in the car and he can get pretty loud and mean sounding. He’s caused her to burst into tears several times. I hate yelling at him, but I also hate seeing Ellie cry. I know that he has some hostility towards her (understandably) but it’s also my responsibility to make her feel safe. I am probably over thinking this.

Meanwhile, Ellie is cruising everywhere. I find it ironic to think about how all I wanted was for Leo to walk and with Ellie I am just appreciating each day that she doesn’t walk. She loves to have her hands held while you walk with her. She finds it hilarious and grins the biggest smile you’ve ever seen. She has taken to looking up at me and grinning when I walk with her, which makes it difficult for her to walk.

-The Bouncy Chair and Infant swing have been retired (and as mentioned earlier, the crib is now out of our bedroom). It is bittersweet to see my little baby growing up, to see this end of infancy. I know, I know. She hasn’t gotten her own apartment. Yet.

Pictured above, Leo and Ellie test drive the new locale of the crib. Please don't call Child Services on us. We think Leo got that mark on his chest from some sort of unfortunate encounter with the carpet at daycare.

Almost Unreadable. But That's a Compliment.

I'm on page 37 of Road Map to Holland by Jennifer Graf Groneberg. I'm sure my fellow bus mates were wondering who that crazy lady was sobbing in the back of the bus this morning. I'm at the part where she just received her son's diagnosis and it's the early days in the NICU. Hmm, sounds familiar. Life revolving around pumping, split into three hour increments. Memories that are bittersweet because you know that when the happened it was "before" you knew about the Down syndrome. Having to make that terrible phone call, the one to tell about a birth that should ostensibly be good news, only to have to make a different, crushing kind of phone call. Feeling like you let everyone down. Mourning the baby you thought you were going to have. Looking at the baby you did have like he is a stranger. A monster. And yes, the feeling that you've been kicked in the stomach and you can't breath.

Wow. Why am I subjecting myself to this? I don't know, but I am so bummed it's Monday and I have to work. The only saving grace is that because it's Monday I have time to read--I will be counting the hours until my commute home where book time is my time.