...And in the air, the fireflies, our only light in paradise. We'll show the world that they were wrong, and teach them all to sing along; singing Amen I, I'm alive. Amen I, I'm alive...

- Nickelback, If Everyone Cared

For All The Right Reasons Album



And I'm singing Aaa-ayyy-men, I'm alive!







William Leonidas November 12th, 2009
My only regret is that I cried so many tears while I waited for you.


"...I'll try ~ but it's so hard to believe. I'll try ~ but I can't see what you see. I'll try and try to understand the distance between the love I feel ~ the thing I fear ~ and every single dream. I can finally see it. Now I have to believe all those precious stories. All the world is made of faith ~ and trust ~ and pixie dust. So I'll try ~ because I finally believe. I'll try ~ because I can see what you see. I'll try, I'll try ~ to fly..."

Jonatha Brooke "I'll try"


Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Isaiah 41:10




Lilypie Second Birthday tickers
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you..." Jeremiah 1:4-5




For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to Thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. Psalms 139:13-14



Monday March 5th, 2010

So Why Stinkerie?



It's simple, really. It's the first thing I whispered against my newborn little Dumpling's temple as I held him alone for that very first time. "There's my Little Stinkerie." And all was right with the world as I brushed my lips across his delicate dewy soft newborn-pink skin and sniffed at his sparse smattering of downy soft hair. Corny and sappy, huh? I can't help it when describing my new Little Puppy. But don't get used to it - I have been told I am "irreverent."



Anyway, it just came out and he's been Stinkerie ever since. As well as Stink Pie, Stink Pot, Stinkey Pete, Little Stinks, Stinks, Puppy, Ducky, Baby, Baby Head, Baby Head Jenkins, Jack, Jack-Jack, Jackie Boy, Jax, Snork, Snorkis, Snorkle, Billy Boy, Billy Bob, Bobby Sue, Billy-Joe-Jim-Bob, Will, Willie, Willister, and the name given by my mentor turned friend Beth - Snake. When I write to her I call him either The Snakester or Slither! And of course, Dumpling, because he is my Little Dumpling - warm and soft and comforting. It's alright to combine comfort food with baby names, right? Have you ever watched the movie Where the Heart Is? If you have, you'll know why I mention this in my defense!



Long story short, you're likely to encounter any one or more of these names in a single post. Because I can. It's my blog!





Something to Consider

Bad decisions make good stories.

Something to Think About

With any pregnancy, there are concerns. With any child, there are worries. When you have a diagnosis of Down syndrome, you know what to worry about. You know what to look for. You have a plan of action. With your typical child, there is no limit to the things that can 'go wrong' or 'happen.' There's no place to focus your worry and concerns. 'IT' will always be out there, waiting. You'll always be on guard. Even when the child is 55 and has grandchildren. With Down syndrome we have a battle plan. With Down syndrome, there is a finite number of things that can go awry. With a typical child, there's isn't. It's a crap shoot. I'm sticking with the Ds and taking the other two back to the hospital for a refund.

Head Above Water


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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Where The Good Life Leads To...

In case you missed it, I saw this plastered all over the back of a Metro bus on the way home from the interview that landed me my new job. It pissed me off then and it still pisses me off today. The city I'm complaining of is high and mighty and full of itself, but I wasn't going to write about that, so I'll get on to what I'm really after...

First of all, in this town where the good life leads to! my office shares a communal bathroom with all the other offices on that floor. And in that bathroom there are typically four rolls of bathroom tissue all lined up on little spindles for your convenient use. Two of those rolls are good quality, absorbent multi-ply toity tissue. Two of those rolls are, at the bare minimum, ten-ply. Yep. You read right. I haven't actually taken it apart to count the layers, but they're THICK! As in you could take an entire bath with one square. Do your dishes. Wash your car. Scrub out your sinks. This got me to thinking. While I am not a tree hugger, I have to wonder, do these elite people even care about our planet? Huh? Do they? While I do not believe we should kill an entire industry to save an owl, I also do not hold with abusing the planet. We live here. Let's keep it clean. Let's do it sensibly, but let's keep it clean.

Being that the communal bathroom we share is also shared with Baby Steps, and being that there is a baby changing station there complete with a Diaper Genie, sometimes our communal bathroom smells like...well the stuff that comes out of babies' butts. I was a baby, I've been around babies, I've had my own babies and do, in fact, have a baby now. This is not a good smell. So, one day this week I trekked up to the third floor communal bathroom. The first floor doesn't have a bathroom. I guess they go in the potted plants. The third floor bathroom was an adventure into rest rooming properly. They had music. They had plants. They had real flowers in a vase on the counter top. They had six rolls of toity paper in each stall and all of them were the ten-ply variety. My next shock was the caliber of hand soap. Not the pleasant enough but clearly industrial grade crap I'd been using in the second floor bathroom. No, this stuff was in a pretty burgundy pump right out on the counter top, next to the flowers, with olive oil and infusion of cranberry. What the heck? And the paper towels? Soft, bi-fold two ply, not the crappy sandpaper tri-fold single-ply rough and chap your hands crap you get out of the towel holders on the second floor. Oh well. What can I say. God never intended this planet to last forever.

And another thing. What's up with the names on the streets? They don't have avenues. They have Avenidas. And nothing is abbreviated. Nope. You'll only see Boulevard spelled out like Avenida and Street and Court, as well as Place and Lane. No abbreviations, please. I've seen lots and lots of personal names for streets. First and last names, please. And then there's the regular b.s. named streets like Melody Lane. Yes, that's a real name. I thought it only existed in Clark W Griswold's world. I was wrong. Rainbow Glen. Sugar Frost Court. Mountain Mist Orchard Road. Ocean Fog Way. Really? Yes, really. Right smack dab in the middle of the desert that is California, a good 80 miles or more from the ocean, they have the delusions adequate enough to name a street Ocean Fog Way. Go figure. There's also Sea Spray Lane and Avenida Lighthouse.

When I drive through Jack in the Box in my up until now decent neighborhood, which is, I've come to see from driving the streets of Where the good life leads to! is really sub-par, mediocre at best, all of my order gets stuffed into one bag. Doesn't matter if I've ordered one meal for myself or four plus meals for the family. It all gets shoved into one bag. Not here. Not in this city. Every item gets it's own bag. My extreme sausage sandwich got it's own bag. Likewise for the order of hash brown sticks that comes with the combo meal. And the mini-waffle cake? Got it's own bag. They guy asked if I wanted salt or catsup, (okay Holly...yes I was alive in 1967, but I'll say KETCHUP just for you babe!) and I said no because I was afraid it would come in it's own bag. Dang. I have a hard enough time keeping my van clean without fast food joints where the good life leads to! junking it all up!

One good thing I've noticed, despite the congestion because every one who is anyone wants to live, or at least work in this city, is that when I put on my blinker to change lanes, people let me. They get out of the way to let me in. It might be the way I drive. It might be that they don't want their shiny Lexus or Beemer to get dented and scratched. It might be both. Or it might just be that life is all sunshine and rainbows in the city where the good life leads to! I don't know. I don't live there. Have I gone on about this enough yet? Cuz I've got more. Lots more. I'm just sayin'...

1 comment:

Holly said...

out of everything you wrote the one thing that stood out was the word catsup...
really? catsup? are we in 1967? because I'm pretty sure the majority of peeps use ketchup nowadays...
and you know what? I'm a hard working mom and I deserve only the best toilet paper when I wipe my ass...