Today is your day!

Today is your day!

Today you turn three!

My baby girl, your growing so fast right in front of me. You wake up every morning to see what adventures await you. You have so much love and spunk in you, it's sometimes hard to keep up with you. You have a huge caring heart and always make sure everyone is ok, even after they sneeze! You love Moose and Kiwi, almost to the point of strangulation, but it's ok they love you back too.

Your such an innocent child. You see all the good in the world and nothing bad. You always have a smile for everyone and love saying "hi" and "goodbye" and yes the sentence would never be finished if you didn't say "see you later."

You love to play with your big brother (and fight) and your an awesome little sister to him. You share so well and you can share your goldfish crackers, even if you don't have that many left.

Your beautiful inside and out. Your smile is contagious. And I'm pretty sure that the Frozen dvd is thoroughly worn out!

Today is your day and I hope that you realize on this day how special and unique you are and see all the love that surrounds you everyday.

Happy Third Birthday Brynleigh!

(This is an old post I forgot to publish)



My Hopes

I was out and about at some of the stores today and everyone was busy rushing around getting everything they needed to bring in the New Year. The grocery store was packed as was the wine store attached. My reason for being there was to get a couple of more things for our belated Christmas dinner tomorrow.

I know there will be lots of people out tonight and over at friends houses celebrating. And I felt a little sad knowing that I will be sitting at home by myself and alone after I put the kids to bed. But I traded in those party times for quiet nights like this six years ago, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I have two wonderful children that fill my life with so much love and energy. They keep me learning everyday and show me how strong I can be. Some days are easier then others. Some have fewer meltdowns then most, but it's a package deal.

This past year, we were able to successfully take a big step forward with Logan's school and it felt so good. I try to advocate as best as I can for him, and sometimes I need to push a little harder for him. I know we keep moving in the right direction for him, but it isn't always easy and I had shed a few tears along the way. Even though we have to go through all these steps and it isn't easy, I still wouldn't trade him for anything. My hope in the New Year for him is that he is able to add a new food to his small list that he eats now. I know it seems small and to many they can't understand why it is such a struggle, but it would be a huge feat for him to be able to do that.

Brynleigh turns four in April and will be starting school in September with Logan, which I know she is really excited about doing. My hope for her in the New Year is that she is continues to be her unique self. Keep smiling everyday girl, it puts a smile on everyone else's face too!

This coming New Year, my hope for myself is to have more patience. More patience with the kids, my husband, my sister and work. Sometimes I get too stressed out and take on too much and I need to be able to make sometime for myself. Without children around. No matter what age they are it can still be overwhelming sometimes.

I'm excited to become an Aunt this coming year and be able to be there for my sister and support her and answer her questions for her. I know she is going to make a great Mom!

My hopes for the New Year are not big and grand in anyway, but they are just right for us.

We wish you and your family a happy New Year!

Six Years

Can I Carry You?

I guess that I can hold you

one more time before you grow.

And tell you that I love you

so that you will always know.

Please let me tie your shoe again.

One day you'll tie your own.

And when you think back to this time

I hope it's love I've shown.

Can I help you put your coat on?

Can I please cut up your meat?

Can I pull you in the wagon?

Can I pick you out a treat?

One day you might just care for me,

so let me care for you.

I want to be a part

of every little thing you do.

Tonight could I please wash your hair?

Can I put toys in the bath?

Can I help you count your small ten toes

before I teach you math?

Before you join a baseball team

can I pitch you one more ball?

And one more time can I stand near

to make sure you don't fall?

Let's take another space-ship ride

Up to the Planet Zoor.

Before our Cardboard Rocket

doesn't fit us anymore.

Please let me help you up the hill.

while you're still too small to climb.

And let me read you stories

while you're young and have the time.

I know the day will come

when you will do these things alone.

Will you recall the shoulder rides

and all the balls we've thrown?

I want you to grow stronger

than your Mom could ever be.

And when you find success

there will be no soul more proud than me.

So will you let me carry you?

One day you'll walk alone.

I cannot bear to miss one day

from now until you've grown.

~Author Unknown~

Happy 6th Birthday to one amazing little man!

Love you more then you can ever imagine! 

Two Dimes

Two coins.

That's it. They changed our relaxing evening in a second. We were all sitting there watching t.v when Logan started choking. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what he was choking on, as he was playing games on his tablet. His face turned all red and he was drooling so much. The look on his face was panic and fear. A lot of fear. I am currently CPR trained and certified as it is a requirement as part of my job, but do you think I actually put any of that into action?

No.

I was the terrified mother not able to make my brain work properly. He was eventually able to breath and he was so scared. He was crying and saying it hurt and I was trying to figure out what he had swallowed. He finally told us he had swallowed two dimes that he was holding in his mouth. And he said they were still in his throat.

I wasn't sure if it was just the residual pain of them going down or if they were actually still stuck there. There was also the unknown if they actually went into his tummy or his lungs.

I knew at that point a trip to the hospital was going to happen.

Amazingly I was surprised at how quickly we got in and out of the hospital. Two hours from triage to walking out the door.

I know now that we can joke about this and laugh about it, but at the time it was a very scary situation.

We were asked to return in seven days to make sure they had passed. We went back today to get the repeat x-ray done and thankfully they were no longer in his tummy. The doctor had asked if I wanted to see the picture and I thought, well Logan would probably get a kick out of seeing them. So he was able to see the two x-rays, the one you could clearly see the two dimes sitting there and then the second was just his tummy. He thought it was so neat!

On our drive home Logan started singing along with the song on the radio, so I turned it up. We belted it out to the song "Best day of my life." I thought it was a bit ironic, seeing how he must have thought this was the best day of his life knowing that he no longer had two dimes in his tummy.

He now knows that money goes straight in the piggy bank and not in his mouth.

We made a trip out to Oshawa to see Great Grandma and Great Grandpa this past week and his Great Grandpa gave him some dimes, and I am happy to report that they all made it into the piggy bank!

Onward and Upward to Grade One!

I remember his first day of junior kindergarten. I was so unsure how he was going to do. I didn't know if he was going to make friends or be the shy child. It was a big transition for him, and one that took him a couple of weeks to adjust and realize that when you go home from school at the end of the day, you will come back the next day.

Now, as soon as we get to the school he runs off to find his buddies. It's difficult for me to get my goodbye hug in sometimes because he is just so excited to see his friends. My heart swells knowing that he is such a likable kid.

 Yesterday was his senior kindergarten graduation. Yes they do actually have them and I am so glad they do! I couldn't believe that two years had come and gone already! We packed into the gym with the other parents and grandparents. We sat through two songs, which they sang to their hearts content. I was trying to listen with difficulty to the words they were singing, but gave up and watch the gestures that went along with the sings.

And then one by one they walked up to the stage some excited and some shy to be in front of such a big crowd. Then came Logan. I walked up front and center to get that picture. I wanted to have memories of this moment forever.

Before we knew it, the ceremony was over, I was a little glad to be getting out of the now too stuffy gym. And we walked out of the gym and they had posters on the wall of what the kids wanted to be when they grow up. And sitting there was Logan's. And of all the things in the world to be he has made big dreams to one day be a fire breathing dragon. Yes you read that right a fire breathing dragon! My first thought was my child is awesome! I loved how original he was. How amazing it is that he can think outside the box. Keep dreaming big buddy, I can't wait to see at your grade eight graduation what you want to be when you grow up!



I chased him around the yard outside after all the kids were treated to ice cream from the local ice cream truck just to snap some pictures of him with some of his friends. He has a lot more friends then I knew about, and I hope they last for years to come.


We are coming up to the last day of school and it will end with excitement and lots of hugs and possibly a few tears. I sometimes feel like kindergarten is a special safe place, so now naturally I have new concerns and fears for him. But like always he will prove to me that I have nothing to worry about and he will be just fine.

 

Grade one here we come!

Band on the run

I have lost track of the amount of weeks we had been training for. All I knew was that the day was quickly approaching.

When I first started running I didn't think it was possible for me to run 5k. I had seen my Mom run many races going all the way up to  marathon and I never thought it would be possible for me to run a race with her. But I did. And it felt so great!

I took this challenge on not only for myself, but for my children as well. And I am so glad that my son was able to see that hard work does pay off and if you set a goal you can achieve it.

The day of the race I was so nervous. My daughter was so nice that morning that she woke me up at 5:45am, giving me a few hours to get my nerves running high. At 8:00am we made our way down to the race. We turned the corner and the crowd, oh my goodness the crowd! There were over a thousand people there and my nerves shot into overdrive!

Stay calm, I told myself and don't compare. We were running the 5k, but there was also a 10k and half marathon being run, so there was some super athletes there and I had to keep telling myself that everyone started somewhere and this is my start.

We watched as the half marathoners and the 10k runners took off and it was finally our time to start. We walked down to the start line and stood in the huge crowd of runners shoulder to shoulder ready to go. Nervous energy surrounded me. And the feeling of being in that crowd and getting ready to run is unexplainable and different for each person, but it was a great feeling. I made sure I was on the one side so I could high five my son as we went by.

And then we were off.

We were met with a giant hill right off the start, but just remember hills are your friends! We turned the corner and saw a glorious sight, downhill! But it wouldn't last long as the whole first half of the race was up hill. We reached the top of the last hill and saw the water station and I knew that we were halfway done. And I was feeling ok. Then we heard someone say, it's all downhill from here! Just what I needed to hear to keep me going. We reached kilometer 4 and my Mom asked "do you want to take your walk", I said "no lets run the last kilometer." She asked "are you sure" and I said "yes." We finally reached the bridge and I could see the finish was coming up. We turned the final corner and I looked at my Mom and asked "are you ready?" She said "go for it" and I ran it straight in to the finish and it felt amazing.

We didn't finish first and we didn't finish last, the point is that we finished. And to be exact we finished in 469th and 470th place out of 572 runners in the 5k race. The course was a lot more challenging then I was expecting. We didn't do a lot of hill training, but we still came out alive!

After the race my Mother asked me "are you going to keep running?"

I replied "of course!"

I was already thinking of our next race to do.



What a rush!

There I was this morning sitting in the drive thru line up, which was much longer then normal this morning probably due to the frigid cold outside!

I look in my review mirror and for some reason I make the decision. There was no particular reason why it just felt like the right kind of morning to do it. I pull up and order my usual coffee, no chocolate cookie this morning as Brynleigh is at home with Daddy this morning while I dropped Logan off at school.

I pull up to the window to pay for my order and I say it. "I would like to pay for the order behind me as well please."

I have no idea how much the woman behind me ordered and it didn't matter to me. I just wanted to make someone's day, a Friday especially a little bit better. I wanted them to be reminded just like I was that yes, there is still good in the world.

I got such a high from it. I felt like I was doing something super top secret. I bet if everyone knew how it made them feel afterwards more people would be paying it forward. It not only made her day better, but mine as well. I know it was nothing big, but it was just enough for today.

And as I sat at the red light after pulling out, she drives by me and honks and waves.

I want to encourage you to pay it forward. Trust me the feeling you get from it is amazing, and I bet you the person will never forget it, whether it's big or small.

Pay It Forward!



Touchy Subjects

Vaccinations

It is such a hot button topic right now, what with all the measles outbreaks that is happening. Closest one to us right now is about a 30min drive away.

But I want to say one thing. Vaccines do not cause autism!

I will say this again VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM!

There is no research out there to my knowledge that has found the root of what causes autism, and so therefore parents that have children with autism need to find blame somewhere. They need to be able to pin point the root of the cause of it. But they can't. You can't. I can't. And the person to blame for all this misinformation is a doctor. Well he is no longer a doctor, but was. Andrew Wakefield. Thanks buddy!

My children both of them are fully vaccinated up to their age. And my five year old son has autism.

He was born with it. Diagnosed at the age of 3, shortly before he was to start school. Being a first time mom I really didn't know anything about autism. And therefore was not looking for any of the indicators of it. Until it was very noticeable with his speech and his eating.

Do I blame anyone or anything for his autism? Nope. And to a stranger you would have no idea that he has autism. He is high functioning and has great social skills, and after starting school his speech took off! He still struggles with his eating and in other areas, but you would never think autism.

I hate that this doctor made this false connection with vaccines, because it is one of the go to pieces of information that some anti-vaxxers use and it just plainly pisses me off. It says to me that me as a mother chose to vaccinate my child and therefore I am the one to blame for his autism.

I am the one to blame? No I am the mother that is giving my child a vaccine for a preventable illness. A vaccine that some other children are not able to get because they are too young, immune compromised or simply an allergy. I am choosing to protect my child and those others that are unable to get the vaccine.

I love my son just the way he is. He has a neurological difference that makes him unique. My child was going to have autism whether I  vaccinated him or not. And it just makes me cringe every single time I hear this excuse of autism and vaccines.

I will not blame medicine for the fact that my son is autistic. I will sit here and say thanks to modern medicine we are able to protect our children better.

The year gone by

January 1st 2015, wow 2015!

There were days this past year where I thought I would never make it to 2015. There were many ups and downs and lots of wonderful memories made.

There was birthdays and lots of trips to the park. We even enjoyed a few wonderful days camping (with a severe thunderstorm thrown in there as well!) We visited friends and family and enjoyed endless summer days outside.

We survived meltdowns and temper tantrums. The good days and the bad. Sleepless nights and early mornings. Lots of sickness and bumps and bruises.

Logan moved from junior kindergarten to senior kindergarten. Brynleigh turned two and Logan turned five. He enjoyed his first birthday with friends from school and had a blast!

There was easy days and tough days. Days filled with tears and days filled with laughter. We trudged through rain on Halloween to collect some candy. We came together on Thanksgiving to spend time as a family. We counted down to Santa's arrival and tore open gifts on Christmas morning.

We gave to the less fortunate and learned to share. Made about 100 candy cane reindeer for school and work!

2014 is behind us and we have so many great memories to take forward with us in 2015. And this year is waiting for us to fill with memories and more great times. There might be some tears along the way, a few bruises and maybe some scrapes, but the fun memories and adventures ahead will keep us moving forward.

This year I am determined that we are not only going to just exist and just try to get from day to day, but to really live our lives. To take each day as a gift to be together with one another. We only live once so we need to start seizing the days and take advantage of every minute, every second we have with one another.

From our family to yours, all the best in 2015!