Why We Walk

Once again it is March for Babies time. Each year we walk to raise money to help save babies; we walk with hope that one day all babies will be born healthy.

Please consider helping us this year with a donation or even better yet, walk with us!!! You can do that by clicking HERE or on the link to the right of the page. Your donation will help the March of Dimes continue to develop more life saving research. Without treatments and medication developed my the March of Dimes Elizabeth would not have survived; there are still many babies who don't. Prematurity is the leading cause of infant death in the US.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy 6th Birthday Ava!

Where does the time go? I think that may be the question asked of every mother on every birthday. Ava has grown from a squishy baby to a beautiful young lady. She is an amazing little girl. We are so lucky to have her as our daughter.

Christmas Fun

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, and hope you did too. We traveled for the first time since Elizabeth was born and it was both great and the other end of it was all the packing and driving. We were able to see almost all of our family on both sides over the course of the holiday season.

Elizabeth was in her very first Christmas program where she "starred" as a little lamb. She later was a little piggy in the church program. Ava was an angle for the church program and also had a school program.

Here to a healthy and happy 2011!!

New Post Soon?

Life here has been CRAZY! In a good way. We have been able to stay clear of any major illnesses. Elizabeth had her first non asthma trip to the ER- 6 stitches in her forehead. She was a champ. We then returned a month later to have that same spot glued back together after she took a screen door directly to the forehead.

Elizabeth has statred and loves preschool, Ava is in kindergarten loves it, and is doing almost all 1st grade work right now- we are starting to feel nervous at what will be a head for this little smartie. We also made it to San Juan, Puerto Rico in November, we loved the break from the icky November weather here.

While I find time to actually blog, here are a few pictures

6 stiches

Cinderella and Jasmin on Halloween

Old San Juan

Watch tower at one of the forts in San Juan

New Look

As you can tell I have changed the blog background. Elizabeth LOVES red. In her opinion, if it is red, it is better. The previous background was giving me problems, so I thought I would change things around to better reflect Elizabeth's style- RED and GLITTERY (please disregard the fruit).

You might also note I am in the slow (very very slow) process of copying my CarePage postings over to the blog- so April-July 2007 are in along with some pictures.

Here are a few pictures of a recent zoo trip, notice Elizabeth in red.

Chocolate ice cream cone + do it your self face painting = We are pretty sure she was the filthiest kid in the whole zoo (the dress came clean after 7 washes)

Ava's Dance Recital

Oops! When checking my blog the other day I noticed that first this original post was published instead of saved and second wasn't saved so I am starting over!

A few weeks ago Ava had her first dance recital. She loved it! Ava was such a little star. She spent hours practicing, on her own without encouragement (ok a little, but not much). Wow did it show! Ava was the leader on stage and all the little girls looked to her to know the next move. I am pretty sure she was bitten by the stage bug; she is already talking about next year.

Defending Preemie Moms Everywhere

The ignorance of people is always amazing to me. I once had a lady at a green house ask me how I carried Elizabeth around when she was only one pound (why I brought up her birth weight (Elizabeth's not the nosy lady) is beyond me now). I firmly told this women that Elizabeth was VERY sick and required lots of medical attention and I couldn't hold for for weeks; she was shocked.

A few weeks ago Elizabeth and I were shopping at a craft store. We were getting things for her birthday party, some beads to make jewelry (my new hobby), and t-shirts for the March of Dimes walk. They store didn't carry the correct color and my conversation with the check out women went like this:
I told her why we were walking; she was very excited to tell me "oh! I have a friend who had a baby at 23 weeks or something like that!"

I looked at her for minute then quietly asked if the baby survived.

women- "oh sure (obviously she has no idea that many don't),he was in the hospital for a while (no kidding!!)"

me- "that's great! How is he doing?"

women- "oh fine he is still on oxygen, but I don't think he needs it any more. I think his mom is just over protective and worries to much, I think he has CP too"

me- (eye brows raised to my hair line, inside I am screaming WHAT!!!) "Well, doctors are really the ones who make those calls. They are pretty careful about not keeping kids on oxygen any longer than they need to be. Too much can cause problems. If he is still on oxygen that it is the doctors call and he really does need it" (I was not going to let slide, we preemie moms need to stick together!)

women - "oh"

me - "what is his name?" (you know because I know ALL of the local mirco preemies!)

women- "his name is Hunter"

me- "Hunter! I know Hunter! His mom and I are friends and involved in the same NICU group for our hospital."
After our little exchange I felt so much better. I not only did I defended a wrongly judge mom, but a friend too.

If you haven't seen your baby hooked to machines and tubes, been told your child might not survive the week, if you don't live in fear that the next cold could put them in the hospital, then please don't judge. Yes we buy purell in bulk, avoid crowds, miss family functions to keep our kids away from germs, and drive ourselves CRAZY trying to feed our kids. Sure some people might think that we overreact, are over protective, or just plain crazy; but we have earned that right. Bring on the purell!!