Cue up the spy music! It’s been two weeks since the 7th annual gala for SJ’s school (the theme was 007) and although I was the photographer, I didn’t have any pictures that I was in. Now that I got a hold of a some I am ready to blog away!

The hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and food was all wonderful. 

The speakers were great, and there was a fantastic James Bond parody video that was done by one of the school’s alumni who is now in High School. He was witty, charming, and so well rounded. What an encouragement to see a deaf student from the same place SJ is in who is now thriving as a young man. The school hasn’t been around that long, so he is one of the earliest students. The video was probably my favorite part.

Second to that though would have to be the band. The Naked Karate Girls (don’t let the name fool you, they are none of those things) are the ultimate party band. So fun, so entertaining. They keep the crowd engaged and there is NEVER a dull moment with these guys.

The perfect Pinterest mom! That is what they call me. They really do, and all I can do is laugh, because I know how far from perfect or Pinteresty I really am. I love being creative and throwing parties, but this last party threw me (for a loop that is).

First was the ice storm that hijacked our original date at the last minute, and honestly, that messed everything up. Although, weather related issues are not the most irritating thing to me because I know they are out of my control. There are other things that I could say “if only I was more organized” Or “If only I had more money”, but Martha Stewart and Oprah combined can’t change the weather, and so I can rest assured that it is in God’s hands and I just need to go with it.

Then there was SJ’s hair, which is another thing that only God can control. Normally I don’t fuss with it AT ALL, but this was her big day and I thought rag curls would be cute.

We did a practice run the day before and they were soft, delicate, curls that smoothly hung around her youthful skin like a porcelain doll.

 Then the day of the party they were a little different, but not necessarily bad.

 By the end of the day she looked more like when Claire went crazy on Lost.

It’s all good though, she is still a cutie pie.

The hair and the weather weren’t the only things that didn’t go as planned. I forgot to add mint leaves to the punch and the matching table cloth that I bought was left at home. The slideshow of SJ that I planned to have on loop ended up showing my computer screen saver most of the time. None of that really mattered, but when the balloon that I purchased on the internet and decorated by hand flew into the galaxy (which was Z’s description) that is when I thought I was going to loose my cool.

It looked so cute and easy on Pinterest.

The directions were simple. Buy some donut shaped latex balloons from your local party store, paint them, and decorate with paper sprinkles. Easier said than done, let me tell ya. In all fairness I did a practice run and it turned out fine, but it was without helium, which apparently makes a big difference.

The first problem I encountered was that I could not find these balloons at my “local party store”. I couldn’t even find them at a far away party store in Kentucky. I tried. So by the time I realized that I needed to special order them I had to choose expedited shipping. The day of the party when I had them inflated, one of the balloons looked more like a defective heart than a donut. It’s okay. Don’t be a party Nazi I told myself. I thanked the employee and took my 4 balloons out to the car. When I got in the apartment I only counted three balloons and one of them was the wonky one. I guess I lost one somewhere along the way. Oh well, keep moving forward. The fourth problem was that when I painted the balloon it sank. It sank and landed flat on the painted side! Everything I envisioned for the party decorations was turning into a real flop! Not to be detoured I did a light coat of paint on the final balloon and used a small portion of the MANY sprinkles I had tediously cut out (and end up throwing away). It was decent. I could handle the idea of one lonely donut balloon floating next to the birthday girl as she blew out candles on her donut cake. It was all going to be okay.

That was until, I got in the car to leave and low and behold the balloon that could barely hold it’s own weight in my apartment had suddenly found it’s true calling and turned into the lightest, free flowing balloon in the world. It was out the door and up, up, and away before anyone had a chance to do anything about it. I am the grown up here and my six year old was  consoling me saying “It’s okay mom. It’s just a balloon.” and I was like “wahhhhhhh!” J asked me if I at least had a picture knowing that I always take pictures on my phone of every. little. thing. But not this time. I was in too much of a hurry.

However, this wasn’t my party so I couldn’t cry if I wanted to. This was SJ’s party and what a  party it was. I will reveal all the glorious details of it later, but when you see it you will know that it didn’t happen without any hiccups. Every time I throw one of these parties I learn something. I learned that sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and when your balloon idea isn’t working you may just have to let go.

This year SJ was invited to her first birthday party! She’s been to many parties with us as a family, but this was HER friend from school so her brothers and dad stayed behind. It was a ballerina theme at a dance studio and SJ’s first time to be a part of dance class. She loved it. Most of the girls there go to her school. They all looked adorable and proved that deaf girls CAN dance!

Stretching (way to go SJ, reach those toes)

Dancing to the Frozen sound track of course. 

Later that day I made her cake and she said “birthday” it was the first time I had her say it and it was all on her own. She has been very excited about her special day. Unfortunately the party that was originally scheduled for Sunday ended up postponed. I was really reluctant, but we didn’t have a choice. There was hail and ice followed by snow. The roads were just too treacherous. School was even cancelled the next day and it wasn’t nearly as bad. I know even Texas gets a wee bit of snow or ice on occasion in March (they did this week I believe, someone correct me if I am wrong), but when we lived in Texas I would joke that SJ’s birthday made the flowers come out because we would see the first blossoms of spring right around her birthday. In Ohio the flowers are not so kind. I always know I am taking a gamble with the weather when I throw an outdoor party, but I thought I was safe having an indoor party in March! Oh well, the good news is we did celebrate last night and I will elaborate on all the donuty mayhem fun that took place once I get some photos to show off. I am also waiting on a photo that was taken at the gala so that I can tell you all about that too. The messy mom has a lot to catch up on. Now that the donut party is out of the way I should have a chance to get to it.

For those that haven’t already seen my rant about the latest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue you can read it here.

I received a very prompt response from Target after emailing my complaint to them. I was pleased with how genuine their reply was because it appeared that someone actual read my message. Unfortunately I was disappointed that they chose to dismiss my complaints by hiding behind the guise of diversity. Here was the response

“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been offended by the sports Illustrated Swimsuit magazine featured at Target®.

I am so anxious to share what a great time Z and I had on our first “date” that I am blogging about it the night of. I always figured J would do the cute little daddy daughter dance and all that business, but the thought of anything comparable with my boys never crossed my mind. That was until I was chowing down on waffle fries and literally saw a knight in shining armor. Well, it wasn’t a real knight, but it was a life size suit of armor inviting mother’s to make reservations for a medieval themed evening with their sons at Chic Fil A.

He has been talking about this outing since I first brought it up a couple weeks ago. Last night when I tucked him in he said “I love you mom” and I said “I love you son” and then he replied in his little Charlie Brown voice “speaking of son, tomorrow is mother son date night!” It was sweet.

I have been keeping a little bit of a secret from my blog. I didn’t want to complain all month long, but now that I am feeling better it’s not really complaining, it’s more like documenting. Basically, we started the winter strong and our family was healthy. I was giving kids vitamins and making them drink orange juice. I even bragged about escaping the flu when so many others had it over the holidays, but I must have jinxed it because at least one of us has been sick ever since! It has been RIDICULOUS.

First Z, then SJ, then me. We were dropping like flies. One after the other week after week. Everyone hates to see their children sick and I’ve noticed many comments online that say things like “I wish I could be sick and not them, it just breaks my heart”.  I said the same thing, only I realized two things about that statement.

1. Kids are much more resilient and what was a 5 day minor bug for them was a 3 week desolation period for me.

2. When your kids are sick you can take care of them. When you are sick they don’t take care of you. In fact they still need you to take care of them. So everyone looses.

It’s a nice sentiment, but as long as we are “wishing” for things, I think I will just “wish”, or better yet pray for everyone to be well.

Now for those wondering what in the world attacked my body and had me down for 3 weeks plus, I will torture you with all the gorey details. The first week was flu like symptoms, and just when my fever broke and I thought I was on the mend, I started coughing my head off. So after a week of this I got Google and social media to get remedies.

I tried everything from honey and cinnamon, to lemon ginger tea, to gargling salt water, and yes I did resort to plain old over the counter medications. On one of the many sleepless nights of relentless coughing I had a fever and I ended up throwing up from all the drainage, so I decided I had better get my butt into an urgent care. They immediately put me on a breathing treatment and conducted an X-ray. It turned out to be a really bad case of bronchitis. They gave me 4 different prescriptions including a steroid, cough syrup, an antibiotic, and an inhaler.

About three days later I still felt like garbage and I couldn’t ignore the painful stitch in my side. Overnight it felt like it wrapped around my chest and became very difficult to breath and coughing was even worse. The pressure and pain was almost unbearable. I called the Doctor and although it was extremely inconvenient I was advised to come in again. I ended up having (and I am still at the tail end of) PLEURISY. Not fun. I know one other person that has ever experienced this and they commiserated with me. Pleurisy is an inflammation of the lining of the lungs. If you look up “sharp stabbing pain in the chest” you will find Pleurisy. Literally.

When I saw a picture of a knife on one of these medical websites, I almost laughed at how perfectly the description fit, but laughing would hurt so I just smirked. I also smirked about this description from wikipedia

“The defining symptom of pleurisy is a sudden sharp, stabbing, burning or dull pain in the right or left side of the chest during breathing, especially when one inhales and exhales” 

Don’t worry, it’s mostly just painful when YOU BREATH! Do you see why that might be a bit debilitating? Anyway, it’s caused by an infection, and to treat the pleurisy you have to treat the underlying cause of the infection, which I had already been doing. The Doctor gave me another prescription (long story short I ended up not filling it). I took pain medicine to get through the worst of it, and as my coughing and other symptoms subsided I became a functioning contributing citizen again.

I like to take a natural approach to treatment whenever I can and I embarrassed, but grateful for all the ways the pharmaceutical companies have helped me this year, but I really hope I don’t have to go down that road again. I can’t take any more sickness. I quit. I am done. We have been dealing with all of this since 2014 began and I am just going to declare in faith that the worst is absolutely behind us! I hope you all are well. If not, you can gripe to me. I will feel your pain, and potentially a sharp stabbing sensation in my side.

There are a lot of big events coming up for our family, which means we are entering into one of those crazy fun seasons. You know, the kind where you are overwhelmed, but at least it’s all for the right reasons? I can sum up most of our calendar with pictures of invitations

For starters. I just finished designing SJ’s Donut Party invitation and I am so excited to be in party planning mode.

That is not what the invite says. I censored the details.  

Greetings Island also has so many adorable birthday invitations to check out!

I already gave a disclaimer to my family, but this will be the only big theme party this year because it is SJ’s “golden birthday”. She is turning 4 on the 4th. When Z turned 4 on the 4th we threw a whopper of a Veggie Tales party and it was the bomb diggity (or insert more current trendy word that describes a really fun party).

People are still going crazy over this party on Pinterest, which makes me smile almost as much as a silly song with Larry.

In other SJ news, her school has an annual Gala, where philanthropists from all corners of the metroplex get gussied up in order to raise donations and awareness for her school.

It’s quite the occasion, one I didn’t plan on ever participating in until we reached a much, much different place in our lives. However, the opportunity has presented itself for me to be the photographer which would allow J and I to attend at no cost. Not only that, but J gets a free tux rental which he will is getting fitted for TODAY. Boy oh boy, I can’t wait to see that guy in his black tie ensemble. And I am looking forward to get my glam on as well. Obviously photos will follow, but we still have 10 more days before they roll out the red carpet.

Almost as exciting, but not quite as extravagant is the mother son date “knight’ at Chic Fil A.

I was at our local CFA a couple days ago and saw the invite for mom’s to take out their boys for a special medieval evening and Z was thrilled with the idea. When I went to RSVP the spots were all sold out, but I hated to disappoint my little man because he was so looking forward to the one on one time. As it turns out I could book a reservation for one that is a little further out. My plan is to pick him up from school the day of and go straight there. J and Z have gone out to ball games, restaurants, and nature walks as father and son before, but I have never had any intentional alone time with Z, so I think this will be really special and long overdue.

The final invitation is for the valentine’s party at Z’s school.

This is the first year for any of my kiddos to exchange Valentine’s. Z has worked hard at filling his name and 22 classmates names on each individual Valentine.

I am hoping his “cards” are well received. They are McDonald’s Valentine’s. To be honest, I am not a McDonald’s lover at all, but we usually go there  once a week because it’s the closest play land and with the weather being the way it is it’s our best chance for exercise. The valentines are actually coupons for free items (i.e. apples, juice or milk, ice cream).

They were 12 for a dollar and that leaves two extra coupons that we can use when we go in for our weekly exercise and therefor the pack of valentine’s ends up paying for itself. It’s a frugal kind of love.

I can’t believe February is already half over, and the rest of the month will fly by even faster no doubt. Do you have any plans for this short, but LOVABLE month? Did you purchase or make valentines this year?  I want to hear about it.

We’ve had a little bit of a lull as far as dialogue with princess SJ lately. It’s not that big of a deal. After a year of the cochlear implant thing I have learned about the natural fluctuation of the process.

I usually meet with SJ’s teachers every other week for a parent education meeting to discuss where she is and get some insight about what I can be doing with her at home. I have mentioned before about the team of people that it takes to help SJ learn to listen and talk. Her preschool teacher and speech therapist coordinate with each other and then the school exchanges information with me. Communication amongst the team is critical to ensure that we are all on the same page.

At this last meeting I mentioned that I have not noticed a lot of change in the past month. We agreed that between the snow days and the illnesses there have been some minor set backs. Plateaus are to be expected, so we are just going to sit on the same vocabulary for an extra week before they begin introducing more. When I look at SJ’s progress I feel like it has come in waves.

In October we had the biggest vocabulary breakthrough that I’ve seen up to this point. She went from mostly imitating words to suddenly saying a ton of words on her own, including our names. Then in  December we took another big step forward and I noticed a lot more two word combinations and saw her go from just labeling things to using her words more frequently to vocalize her needs and make requests.

The next month is looking pretty busy between holidays, doctor appointments, and a big fundraiser coming up at her school. I am wondering though, if maybe, after her birthday at the beginning of March we will see another increase in her interest and understanding of language.

I make it all sound very calculated and structured, and the efforts that go on behind the scenes often are, but in my world, as the mom, the one in which I live every day, she/we are just conducting fairly normal lives.

She loves yogurt and Super V apple juice. She loves McDonald’s or Chic Fil A play land. She loves gathering all the blankets together and building forts or making a bed for her stuffed animals. She loves bubble baths and she adores her family. On a different note she is still very opinionated and strong willed about a lot of things, but especially her shoes and what she wears. Lately she has had me pulling my hair out at night just trying to get her to sleep! Then there is the constant bickering amongst the siblings. A lot of her latest words and phrases all go hand in hand with the sibling rivalry. “Z hit” “Z push, fall down” “Baby share” “My Turn!” “NO””That’s mine”. I don’t take it for granted though. Even when she screams MOMMY 40 times because she can’t reach a puzzle and I am too busy to get it right then. I still do not take it for granted.

From speech, to play and everything in-between that’s life with our little SJ. She keeps us on our toes.

Last night was a lot of fun. We took the kids to a special Frozen party at my sister in law’s office in Cincinnati. On the way in traffic was bad, the roads were bad, and people were, er… um… cranky? I admit to not being the best driver. I make mistakes and I usually sign sorry in ASL to the other drivers, but then realize hardly anyone knows what that means. People probably yell at me and potentially do select gestures, but if so, I am completely oblivious. Between watching the road and my kids I certainly do not have time to engage in that kind of nonsense. So I have never seen anyone give me the finger, however, I was not the one driving last night. J was, and he is a good driver. Not perfect though, and he did cut off a shiny black Escalade. I really didn’t think anything of it until a few minute later when the guy comes charging up behind us waving his middle finger. Luckily all three kids were asleep in the back (this is rare, and thank you Jesus that they were protected because it got worse).

Then the car comes ripping up right next to us with the window rolled down and the driver’s gracious middle aged wife is hanging out the window in the freezing cold, speeding down the HIGHWAY, waving her middle fingers at us and shouting obscenities that fortunately we couldn’t hear. All I could do in that moment was give her an SJ face and mutter that’s not nice.

However, seconds later I started signing that she should learn some real ASL (and I did sign dummy, which was not appropriate). I told J next time that’s what I would do.

 The “road rager” would probably just be confused, but there is a slight chance that it could diffuse their anger and they are the smarty pants that initiated the conversation with their hands. For me signing is a very natural response to bad behavior, because I sign “no no no, not nice, stop that...” all day long when I am correcting my children. So if someone wants to say bad words with their hands, bring it on. The messy mom is ready. In all seriousness though, we all have ways we vent our emotions. For some of us it’s blogging about our experience the next day, for others it’s cursing at a beat up car carrying young children to see a free Disney movie. Which I still think is not very nice.

Hopefully, I won’t have anymore encounters like this again, but if so, I’ll be ready.

For those wondering, I did mess up my signs a little bit in the video above, but it’s better than the interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s funeral I can tell you that! Here is what I said-
“You need to be careful! I have my kids in the car with me. Stop. Stop it now. That’s bad. You are a very bad lady. What’s wrong with you!?”