Happy Birthday Ellie!

Five entire years with Ellie. Ellie has been our first glimpse of normal. Our first experience of the journey that most people go on. She has reassured us with her normalcy when everyone else tried to blames us for Lauren.

She's been to the doctor exactly one time this year, on her 4 year well check. She so boringly and wonderfully normal and we love it for it.

Ellie has learned to copy letters. She has a great joy for life. She is a leader in her class. She is compassionate to the kids in her class that have special needs, if only that could translate to our home.

She was just telling me the other day that she didn't think she ever be 5. It was taking so long to get there. She's the only one that thinks that.

Ellie became a big sister for the last time this year. She loves Ian and he just adores her.

We went to DQ for her birthday per her request and had ice cream in lieu of a cake.

Here's some pictures of my birthday girl.

Hey, I'm trying to get some sleep around here

Old versus new baby

We have a new member of our family, well our extended family. My sister had her first little girl. Karleigh made her arrival on 5/5 and weighed in at 6lbs5oz. She's a tiny little thing compared to my tanks.

We've been talking about Karleigh a lot and we had the following conversation today.

Lauren- Karleigh in our family now.

Me- yes, she was born on Wednesday

Laure- she's the new baby. Ian is the old baby. We call Ian Old Baby Ian now.

It was a good run as the youngest Ian but you've been dethroned now.

Happy Mother's Day!

We started out the day with pictures in the yard.







We went to Ian's baby dedication and we received a book that I promptly through out. It's a good think I'm pretty secure in my baby rasing style.

We went to lunch at an old inn.

And then we sat and did next to nothing. It was a great day.

Happy Birthday Bob!

Bob is 32 today. We've now celebrated many birthdays together. In fact, we celebrated his birthday ten years ago by graduating from college.

I've picked out many presents for him over the years we spent together.

Now, that we have four kids, I was able to get him exactly what he wanted.

Two and a half hours to do what exactly what he wanted which was to play video games.

I wish I had known it would have been so simple when we were in college

SBS

I went to a training confrence at work this past week. It was a series of talks and lectures with some directly relating to my job such as a discussion on the effects of obesit. There were some more indirectly related to our job such as the speech on SBS.

SBS is Shaken Baby Syndrome which is a subject dear to my heart. According to a 2003 study, over 1,300 babies a year are vicitms of SBS. Thanks to the work of advocates, you are not able to leave the hospital in my state without being given some information about SBS.

I delivered Lauren in March of 2003. My recovery room TV had very few chanels to chose from. I had two choices: coverage of the new war in Iraq and March Madness. Neither appealed to me.

I did watch a video about SBS. I remeber very few details about the movie but I do remember thinking "Well, that was a waste of time. Who would ever shake a baby?" That was back in the era when I was still a perfect parent. I was able to be a perfect parent because I had not yet left the hospital with my offspring.

Enter Lauren, enter sleepless nights and unrelenting crying that lasted for 15 hours a day. Lauren cried more in one day then many newborns cry in one day.

After that, I got it. I see how people shake babies. I see what happens. In those moments in time, all I wanted her to do was stop crying. I didn't even want her to stop crying for days, I just wanted her to stop crying for a few minutes and I would have done anything.

Sitting and listening to the speaker I was struck with a few thoughts ranging from how far I've come since 2003 and how easily Lauren could have been included in the statistics fro SBS.

For more information, www.dontshake.org

Art shows at schools

Gummy smiles

He has a very small hint of a tooth but you can't see it so it's still a gummy smile.

I'm not

Shannon was fooling around at dinner and I looked at her and said "Can't you eat like a Human Being"

Shannon: "I not a human, I not a being"

3 month bear picture