Today was a great day. Joey and I went to have lunch with Pat, then we went to the mall for a couple hours. We went to the Build A Bear store and built Joey a bear. It was so funny watching him stare at all the different bears and feel them. He reacted the most to a soft fuzzy one. He had the biggest smile on his face.

For the past couple months I've noticed that my feet have been hurting more than usual especially around my toes, well the other day, I realized that my feet grew! I'm 25 years old and my feet had a growth spurt! So I treated myself to a new pair of gym shoes today.

Then after the mall, we went to Babies R Us to look at Exersaucers,and Jumpers for Joey to play in. We happened to pass by the Halloween costumes and of course I fell in love with the little pumpkin, so I bought it in case they would be sold out by the next time I get there. Anyways, if any of you have a favorite exersaucer, jumper, etc let me know. I'm wanting to get people's opinions on which one to buy for Joey.

Wordless Wednesday

For more Wordless Wednesday's go to, http://wordlesswednesday.blogspot.com/

Super Duper Jack!

If you haven't already been to her blog, be sure to go visit Leslieann's blog about her son Jack, Super Duper Jack. What a wonderful blog!

Word Cloud

I made a Word Cloud out of words from my blog the other day and forgot to post it! It's interesting to see all the different words from your blog. Like Michelle said, it's neat to see.

Wow, it's been a busy last 2 days. Pat and I woke up two nights ago at 3:45am to Joey crying, which scared the heck out of us, it was the first time he's woken up in the middle of the night since he was two months old. So I ran into his room and picked him up and realized he was burning up. He had a 101 fever. I gave him tylenol and got him to go back to sleep in bed with us. His fever came back about 9 am so I called the doctor and took him in. Poor little guy has his first cold! The sneezing and coughing started today and his eyes are so puffy. They look awful! Dr. B said his throat was bright red (negative strep culture). I feel so bad for him! Then he woke up at 4:30 this morning crying again, but no fever. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for him (and me).

Before I had Joey, I never realized how stressful motherhood can truely be!! Gotta love being a first time mom!

Carrie and Sujeet are in the news again!

Carrie and Sujeet are in the news again!! "When Love Conquers All" was aired on ABC's 20/20 last night.

Their love for each other is so beautiful and pure. It brings goosebumps everytime I think about them. I can't wait for the day that Joey finds the love of his life.

The day I met Patrick for the first time still brings goosebumps everytime I think about it too. It was the summer before his last year of law school. We both worked at a nursing home. I was a nursing assistant and Pat was the ground's keeper. I would go outside for my breaks and saw Pat working. Word got back to me that he thought I was pretty so I decided to go talk to him. He asked me out on a date that day. I just had a gut feeling he was "the one" and that we were going to get married. Sure enough, I was right. It's kinda funny, I met my husband at a nursing home!!

Five Ingredient Friday

Berry Berry Cool Pie

Ingredients

1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup lemon juice

2 cups assorted fresh berries (raspberries, blueberries or blackberries)

1 tub (8 oz.) frozen non-dairy whipped topping, thawed

1 Keebler® Ready Crust Graham Pie Crust

Directions

1. In large bowl combine sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice.

2. Stir in berries. Fold in whipped topping. Spread in crust.

3. Freeze at least 5 hours or until firm. Let stand at room temperature for 30 to 40 minutes before cutting. Garnish as desired.

OK, onto a much better, happier entry than my last one. I had such a great week with my friend and her daughter. I usually only get to see them about once a year so I enjoyed every minute of their visit.

Our trip to the Lyman Orchards on Tuesday was a blast! Teylor fed the ducks for a while and Joey enjoyed looking at all the sights and sounds. Afterwards, we went in the store and bought lots of good food! Their apple pie is the best!

Yesterday we went to Mystic Aquarium and had a great time. Teylor loved the sea lions the most, she actully wanted to bring one home with us. Her mom had to go buy her a sea lion stuffed animal to get her mind off of bringing a real one home!! Joey loves watching the fish swim. The sting ray tank kept him occupied for about 10 minutes!

Well, I better attempt to catch up on laundry and cleaning that I haven't done since last week!

What a jerk!

I’ve been contemplating writing this entry just for the simple fact that the topic really ticks me off every time I think about it. Well, a couple weekends ago we had some friends over for a bonfire. Our friend brought one of his friends along which was fine until he started dropping the “R” word every other word.

It all started when we started talking about movies we’ve all watched recently and I said that Pat & I watched “The Ringer”, and how mush I enjoyed it and thought it was great that the actors with T-21 were given a chance to act in such a big movie. This guy blurted in saying that all the actors were “f-ing R’s” and that’s all they’ll ever be, and he just started ranting and raving about people with disabilities. I sat there biting my lip as hard as I could for long enough and I finally jumped up and ran inside to my husband.

I know this guy was drunk but that makes no difference or excuse. I knew if I would have opened my mouth and said something to him, it would of just made him rant and rave even more, and I’m not sure if I would of opened my mouth it would of stopped. And I’m not even sure if he realized that our son has Down syndrome.

After this I found out this guy really is crazy and a drunk so he is no long welcome at our home and if we go to an event that he is at, I will leave. I just had to vent somewhere to someone and the majority of the people that read this are fellow T-21 parents.

I know that I’m going to come along other people who are going to be mean and disrespect Joey and us, but that was the first for me and it still hurts. The more I think about it, I feel like I failed as an advocate for people with Down syndrome by not saying something to this guy, but I know I would of just gotten hysterical.

Does anyone have any advice on how to handle idiots like him and what to say to them when/ if this happens again?

Well, I just finished feeding Joey peas for the first time and he LOVED them. I expected him to spit them all over the place and making yucky faces, but instead I got a happy little boy smacking his lips together and smiling at me! I really wish I would have had my camera handy so I could of gotten some pictures.

My girlfriend and her daughter are here until Thursday, and we've had such a great time! Yesterday we went to Ikea (I love that store!) and today we're going to a local orchard. Tomorrow we're going to go to the Mystic Aqaurium. I'll be sure to post pictures later. On that note, here's a couple tummy time pictures to leave y'all with!

Great book!

OK, so I didn't think I would be online much, but the guys are watching a movie, so I decided to take advantage of the moment. I've actully been reading a great book the past couple days and wanted to share it with you, "Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth About the First Year of Mommyhood" by Jenny McCarthy. At first when I saw the book, I was like, "Heck no, she's been in playboy and seems so vulgar on tv", but the book is great! I gave up reading books on parenting and babies just due to the fact that to me, they are boring. This book is great. She is so truthful and funny at the same time!! This is definetly a must read!

Happy Birthday Terry!

My brother was 16 when I was born and unfortunately our father worked a lot of overtime and wasn’t home very much. Terry filled in for Dad. He has been like a second father to me. He took me to my first baseball game (Cincinnati Reds) and first concert (Melissa Etheridge). I would spend almost every Saturday night with Terry and his wife growing up. Many of my best memories have my brother in them. He also took me to about every movie I went to when I was a kid. For some reason one thing I remember more than anything is whenever we were in his car, we would listen to David Lee Roth blaring on the radio (gotta love the 80’s)!

The past year has been so hard being away from my family and friends, especially being away from Terry. You never realize how much a sibling means to you until you’re away from them for an extended period of time.

The day after I got the call from the doctor that Joey has Down syndrome and needed my family more than anything, it was Terry that I called crying wanting to go home to Ohio. He was there on the phone listing to me cry and telling me that everything was going to be all right. I could always count on him for anything, I still can.

When Patrick and I got married last year, I had a brother/ sister dance with him. The song was “Hero” by Mariah Carey. Terry is truly my hero and was who I looked up to growing up.

Today is his birthday and I wish I could be back home in Ohio to spend it with him. Happy Birthday Bubba! I miss you!!

I just wanted to give y'all a quick update. I won't be around a lot for the next couple days. One of my best friends from high school, Paco aka Ryan who is in the Navy and stationed a hour from our house, was able to get a weekend of leave so I drove to Groton yesterday and picked him up. Then Monday, another one of my best friends from high school, Chauntey and her 4 year old daughter, Teylor, who now lives in New Hampshire are coming to visit until Wednesday. It's going to be a busy, fun week!!

Joey is doing great. Still cranky and not wanting to take naps, but hopefully it will get better soon!

OK well, if you notice any weird changes in my blog in the next couple days, I just switched to blogger beta. Apparently it's easier to use it than the regular bloggler (we'll see).

It seems like the past few days Joey hasn't been doing as good of a job eating and drinking. He usually is an awesome eater, but lately he's been choking on his formula and almost gagging on his cereal. I talked to his occupational therapist about it today and she told me to call his pediatrician tomorrow and to talk to his speech therapist next week when she comes for her monthly visit. But I think I'm going to call her tomorrow too. Sometimes it seems like for every step he takes forward he takes two back.

My Grandma had her open heart surgery yesterday. The doctors had to replace the whole valve rather than repairing it. So she has part of a pigs heart in her now, it's truely amazing the things they can go with medicine now compared to even 10 years ago. But Grandma is a tough ol' bird, she was sitting up in bed this morning eating jello, so she's going to be just fine. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for Grandma.

Peak A Boo!

Article time!!

I've been slacking in the article department so I figured it was time to find a few good ones!

"Families’ joy as Down’s pair wed", by Joanna Codd. Another cute couple ties the knot!


"Disabled Teen Becomes Eagle Scout", By Matthew Pleasant. A wonderful article about a young man with T-21 who becomes an Eagle Scout.

When I started posting about Joey having down syndrome, I was writing so my family and friends back in Ohio (Hey guys!!!) could keep up to date on what was going on with us. I never imagined that I would find an online community of parents or should I say, have the community find me. I enjoy my daily routine of reading all of my fellow T-21 mom's blogs. Writing on here daily has almost become a job for me. Since I'm a stay at home mom, besides taking care of Joey, cooking and cleaning, I really have nothing else to do, but write in my blog. I've also been trying to read at least one or two new T-21 blogs a day, and look for news articles pertaining to Down syndrome. If you are a parent that I haven't met online yet that is reading this, please introduce yourself! I love meeting new parents, T-21 or not!!!

Joey's newest milestone... rolling from his back to his side. He can't roll from back to belly yet, but soon enough!!

And his new favorite activity to pass the time... sucking his thumb!

Well, I called my favorite aunt on Monday to see if it was ok to stop by and see her and my uncle. She took a huge breath and said "no, I can't be around Joey for a while". I didn't fully understand at first and she proceeded to tell me that she's been hiding something from me, cancer and that she's on chemotherapy until November and can't be around children. She has lymphoma in her mouth on the inner part of her upper gum. She didn't want to upset me until she knew how bad it was going to be and she didn't want me worrying. Luckily, it's isolated and they were able to remove the tumor. Please say a prayer for her if you could.

THEN, my Grandma has been having asthma attacks one after another for a the past week. She went to her regular doctor and she was told that it was her allergies. My aunt ended up taking her to the hospital on Thursday. During all the tests, the doctors discovered that she had 700cc of fluid around her left lung and 500cc around her right. We were told it was either cancer, a bad infection or possibly her heart. The tests were furthered and she has a severely leaking mitral valve on her heart. Needless to say, she goes in for a heart cath on Monday and open heart surgery mid to late this upcoming week. Pray for her too.

These two women are two of my favorite people in the world and who I'm the closest to out of both sides of my family.

It was so nice to be home minus a couple bad news days, but I'll get to them later. Saturday was my cousin's baby shower. Everything went great, she recieved a lot of the things off her registry. It's so exciting... she's having a little boy September 10 and her brother's girlfriend is due to have a little boy the end of October. We're all going to have little boys!!!

Saturday night I went to my friends' bar and got to see some of my old friends. It was karaoke night, I didn't sing, I usually do, but just didn't have the karaoke itch in me that night. But my friend Josh did sing a very good rendition of "Baby Got Back" that was priceless to watch :)

Sunday we went to the Dublin Irish Festival to see my father-in-laws best friend John perform. He's an incrediable musician and such a fun person. He was the MC for the festival's finale. There were so many amazing Irish musicians on the stage at once... Celtic Tenors, Gaelic Storm, 2 of the fiddle players from "Lord of the Dance", just to name a few. We also ate a lot of great food, I think I enjoyed the corned beef and cabbage the best!

(John is the accordian player in the middle)

So much happened in the past week it's going to take a couple entries for me to update everything!!

I'll go backwards though... today wasn't as crazy as I thought it was going to be at the airport. We arrived at Columbus at 2:00 for our 4:30 flight. Luckily the security checkpoint line wasn't too bad. Joey and I made it through the medal detectors but they saw something in my purse that looked funny so they took us off to the side to search my purse and of corse found NOTHING! The hardest part of today was not being able to take water with me. I had to buy water to make Joey's formula but then couldn't take the leftover water on the plane with us. Oh well... Joey did great on the plane except for the last 20 minutes. He didn't scream his head off but he was definitely not a happy little boy.

After we got back to our house, we weren't even home for 5 minutes and the power transformer blew outside of our house!! I had just turned on my computer and sat down to get online and "BOOM!!!!", it sounded like a shotgun was shot right outside our front door! So needless to say after a day of traveling with a 5 month old, all I wanted to do was come home and get on my computer and we had no electricity!! We came over to my in-laws house until our power wil hopefully be put back on soon! Luckily it's only in the 70's tonight. I just hope my computer didn't get fried in the process!!

I'll update about our trip tomorrow, computer permitting!

Joey and I are off to Ohio tomorrow until next Friday, we'll talk to you all in a week!!

We went to the Social Security office today to apply for Joey to get SSI, unfortunatly Patrick makes $300 a month too much to qualify for it, BUT... that doesn't matter now because PATRICK GOT A NEW JOB!!!!! Now he'll be making more and money won't be as tight. We can finally start saving up for a house too! We're going to move into a little bigger of an apartment this fall/ winter, then start saving!! Pat has been looking for quite some time for a job, but it's hard to find a job for an attorney who's been practing for less than 2 years. But our patience paid off in the end and the other plus to this new job, FULL BENEFITS!! We've been paying for our health insurance out of our own pockets and now we don't have to!!

I just want to say a quick Happy birthday to Michelle!!

Just thought I'd give a quick update. Between Joey's first case of diaper rash and the poor little guy being constipated it's been a long two days. I finally got him to eat some baby food prunes in with his rice ceral so hopefully that will help. Wish us luck!!!

Well we're off to Ikea and the Christmas Tree Shop to spend money!!!

Also, don't forget to keep brainstorming ideas for our buddy walk team's name!!!