Avi got a camera and a bike as well as far too many other things.

She loves rolling around in her new bike, rocking the lip gloss and passing out candy canes to “everyone”.

I hope yours was amazing an as blessed as mine was. Having Ryan home made it a million times better than last years.

Avi fell off a couch while we were playing at the hospital for Ryan’s therapy on the 29th of April. After a couple days of it still hurting her, we made an appointment last Wednesday. Three x-rays later (first one was blurry and one of the left side to compare) we discover that she has a cracked collar bone. No wonder she would whimper when it had pressure placed in the right spot. She did NOT like getting her picture taken by the x-ray machine. Two lolli pops, a nursing session and 3 stickers later, she was exhausted. We got home and slept through the whole night.

Then Friday, she went to the day care at the hospital while Ryan did his therapy and I went to get her half an hour early so we could go get her tested. Ryan has Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency which may have been the reason for his carotid artery dissections (that caused his stroke). (And if you want to get really depressed, following links from that and Google searches to all the things that can occur…)  So we had to draw blood from a 2 year old. Anyone that has had to go through this (or worse) with your child, I feel for you. The pain and fear and just overwhelming everything is heartbreaking. She yelled “scawy!” when she saw the needle. She screamed during the prep and really did not like the rubber band around her arm. The worst part for me? When they had the needle in and she just kept going “OW! OW! OW!” and looking at like I had betrayed her.

She did so good though. Got a sucker after that (thank goodness for Dum Dums!) and as we walked out, kept showing everyone her arm and the sucker. She is a trooper for sure!  They’ll be testing her for all types of the alpha-1 deficiency, so we can have a better idea of what to look for. I am trying not to think about it….

She still has a bruise on her arm, but is fine if you don’t mention it. The cracked collar bone seems to be healing well too, only have had a couple pain moments.

Saturday was busy busy! Got a call on Friday to see if I could attend a hiring seminar for Apple on Saturday, so got up early to go do that. I should hear sometime this week…would be nice to have something steady already lined up when I get “let go” from my current job. I’ve also been busy with The Photog’s Helper, meeting some AMAZING women photographers that are so talented and helping them grow their businesses. It’s been such a wonderful outlet for me. Hoping too to be able to announce my biggest news soon.

We went over to my MIL’s house for a birthday party for Ryan. A long trip but delicious BBQ chicken was had by all!  Avi had a blast too and it was nice to spend time with family, even if Ryan was exhausted at the end of the day. He was so tired that he thought about staying home instead of going to my parent’s for a Mother’s Day feast.

The next morning we all woke up lazily, stretching and snuggling in bed, listening to the rain outside. Ryan stayed in bed, playing his Pokemon game for several hours while Avi watched Aladdin and I got some work done. It was so nice to be able to work without a distraction and even took some time to play mindless Facebook games without feeling guilty.

Ryan called me into the room at one point to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day. He had forgotten until then, but remembered on his own. It was so wonderful.  We walked over to my brother’s apartment to all troop to my parent’s house. Delicious hamburgers, deviled eggs and two glasses of Oak Knoll Niagra wine equals a lovely afternoon. We hung out under the heater watching the rain fall while the burgers cooked.

So now, the week has started again. Who knows what this week has in store for us….

But instead of dwelling on that, I want to focus on the happy.

The beautiful weather we had this weekend. Including on Friday when we managed to get home right before this happened:

Snuggling with a 3 month old baby and being content with having a single child.

The AMAZING 70 degree day on Saturday and playing at the park after enjoying the Alpenrose Dairy Easter Egg hunt aftermath (we parked the car after the gun went off to start….probably about 10 minutes later it was over. If that.

Putting makeup on to celebrate Easter:

The Easter celebration I spent with family yesterday, Ryan included. It was so wonderful seeing him interacting with the conversation. Chasing Avi around with an egg. *sigh* It was very happy.

How was your Easter?

I’m having WAY too much fun!

Took a few shots from my dad’s birthday party a few weeks ago.

We had handmade sushi that was just DIVINE!

She helped him open his presents.

And  read his cards for him.

She even gave him a birthday kiss.

Granted, it was so she could get ice cream….but still.   

At WPPI, I got to attend the “Contemporary Women in Photography” panel.  It was amazing, so many wonderful and powerful and talented women: Lindsay Adler, Jules Bianchi, Joy Bianchi Brown, Jessica Claire, Kay Eskridge, Catherine Hall, Sarah Petty, Dawn Shields and Jasmine Star.

It’s important, as women, to surround ourselves with strong role-models and mentors.  To be strong in who we are as a person.  To believe in ourselves.  To love ourselves.  To know our limits.  Most important though, is to help each other.  If we are too busy back-stabbing and cat fighting each other, we can’t do what is needed.  I truly believe that if we were able to support instead of hurt, we would have had a female Supreme Court Justice before 1981, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company before 1972, admitted to the bar before 1869, the first mayor in 1887.  We can do almost everything that men can, we just have to work a little bit harder at some things.

I’m proud to be a woman.  To be the only daughter of an only daughter of an only daughter, with a daughter of my own.  I hope that when my daughter gets to be my age, the list of women’s firsts that are still to come will be much smaller.  In fact, I hope that we no longer will need to have an International Women’s Day, because it would mean that the gender differences are not needed to be remarked upon.

May you be surrounded by people and food you love.  Don’t be afraid to say I Love You!

And may you never be afraid to dance like no one is watching…

Not finding any houses with the note on our side of the apartments, so we went to explore the other side.  Her walk here just KILLS me.

The hips.  The hand.  The whole arm in fact.  Just kills me!

She LOVED being able to knock on doors.  And did really good too!  Only had to help her a couple times.

There were the perfect amount of houses to trick or treat at.  The right amount of time.  The right amount of candy.

It was so much fun!  Can’t wait for next year!  Find more Halloween (and Silence) photos at Beth’s.

I took some cute pictures with my real camera, I promise!  This will have to do for now.  My pirate daughter had a BLAST.  She loved the part where people opened doors when she knocked.  And the candy part too.  Especially when they let her take multiple handfulls.  She also really liked carrying around a basket.  Because she is my girly girl and loves purses of any kind.

Got the right amount of candy (for us, mostly) and are pleased with the evening.

How was your Halloween?

It was the day after a glorious Fourth.  We had a successful party at our place, complete with good food, good friends and family and amazing fireworks.  Cleanup was simple, and our fridge was bursting with leftovers.

Opening my eyes, I realized what woke me up.  Big beautiful brown eyes were looking at me.  As soon as she saw I was awake, she tilted her head to the side and asked, as she normally does, for a morning snack.  When I nodded and said okay, she gave me the biggest grin, giggled and started nursing.  Her giggles and excited toe taps woke daddy up who rolled over and started tickling the nursing baby.  We ended up spending almost an hour in bed together.  Tickling, playing games, planning out the day, reading.  It was glorious.

And ended up being desperately needed.

Throughout the day, as everything kept exploding left and right – from phone issues, snotty grumpy babies and traffic, I kept bringing up the memories of the morning into the forefront of my mind.  It was the only thing getting me through the day.

My daughter, the teenager at 17 months and stupid Apple reps saying that my iPhone backup didn’t work after the update because I was on a PC.

I was done.  Finished.  Trying to keep myself from crying when I finally made it home after one of the longest days in a while.

Drifting off to sleep again, though, my legs interlaced with my husband, surrounding my daughter who, as much as I didn’t like her most of the day, I love so much…..the peace that was there at the beginning of the day settled on me again.

I settled to sleep, the light breeze coming through the window to stir around the room, joining with the fan again.  The fact that I don’t have any contacts on my phone anymore didn’t matter.  The echoes of the screaming child were gone.  The raging yeast infection from the antibiotics I was taking…well, it was still painful but I could relax.

I was home and everything would be okay.