John is a computer engineer, which means he can design the chips and components used in computers. He enjoys reading and writing science fiction and fantasy novels, and he plays hockey whenever he can.
Shannon gave up a full-time desk job for full-time momhood. She loves aerobics, watching I Love Lucy and BBC's Pride and Prejudice, and listening to great chick lit books on CD. She's a certified group fitness and Zumba instructor. Want to know when and where Shannon teaches Zumba? Go to zumba.com and click on "Find an Instructor."
Wesley joined the family on September 12, 2007. We learned shortly after his birth that Wes has Down syndrome.
John and Shannon have been married since July 2002, enjoy life together, and still feel like newlyweds.
The red velvet cupcake at The Sweet Tooth Fairy won because of its super moist, spongy cake and cream cheese frosting that was flavored with almond. This set it apart from every other red velvet cupcake we tried.
The coconut cupcake at Cupcake Chic was amazing. I think it’s mostly because of the vanilla cupcake that the coconut is mounted on. We 100% did NOT like the Cupcake Chic’s Neapolitan cupcake, but the strawberry frosting on it was divine. So if you like strawberry, go for their vanilla cupcake with strawberry frosting. It was also amazing.
The Chocolate and The Cocoa Bean Cafe were more grouped in the middle. The Cocoa Bean Cafe won the appearance based on their double frosting (an icing covered with a mound of frosting). Their cupcakes were also by far the widest and heaviest. BUT their taste came in the middle.
For me, Dippidees was the worst. By far. Their filling did not redeem them.
Smith’s was the big surprise; their cupcakes didn’t score high, but they weren’t the worst either. Their red velvet cake was moist.
So if you live around here and are needing a cupcake fix. this is what our very scientific research found: The Sweet Tooth Fairy or the Cupcake Chic can hook you up with something delicious. But be prepared to spend a little change; the cupcakes average about $2.25-2.50 apiece.
My favorite video of my two kids together so far. This was taken mid-December when Carissa was 4 months old. I was taking photos of them together on the couch and paused to snatch a video of them.
We had a pleasant and low-key Christmas, involving just the four of us and a Papa Murphey’s take-and-bake pizza.
For Christmas, my mom gave Carissa a dress that I wore when I was a baby. When my mom lived in Utah for college she worked at a clothing company called Mini World. She was a garment inspector, and this dress came from there. She also sent us a picture of me wearing the dress in 1981 or so. Now I really do have a mini-me.
I was blown away by the generosity of gift-giving to our family. Too many wonderful things to even mention. A few:
My mom-in-law gave me a Flip HD video camera, which means I’m pretty much taking videos of my kids all day long.
John gave me a grain mill that hooks up to my Kitchen Aid mixer. Now I can grind wheat and other grains. I’ve already bought an assortment of grains from Good Earth for a terrific healthy cookie recipe I’ve tasted before and loved, but haven’t been able to make because you have to grind the grains into flour first. Now I can!
He also gave me Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which makes me think he might have his hopes set too high for my cooking skills, but I told him I’d try.
My sister and her family showered us with wonderful gifts that we use every day, which makes us think of them with gratitude every day. Perhaps the greatest gift to the environment is the reusable water bottle she gave me. I went through a lot of plastic water bottles before! This is a much better idea.
My mom gave Wes my little brother’s old Thomas the Tank Engine books, which he reads every day. (By “read” I mean “flips through and looks at the pictures”.) He loves books, and I hope he’ll be a happy reader someday.
Wes started Sunbeams at the start of January. This is the class at church for three-year-olds. It’s kind of a big step up from Nursery, which is for kids ages eighteen months to three years. Instead of playing for an hour, plus a short lesson, ten-minute singing time, and a snack time, he sits through opening exercises with all the kids ages three to twelve. Then he has a longer singing time and lesson time. His teachers still bring snacks though, which is very smart. I worried a little about how he’d do with more structure, but he is doing fine. On his first day, his teachers said he fell asleep during lesson time. But the following week he was at least awake the whole time, and he had a dirty mouth which meant he ate the snack. So, progress.
Another big step for Wes is that this week he started going to preschool four days a week instead of two. His teacher felt he would only benefit from the added time, and I think she’s right. Wes loves school, but lately he has been reluctant to get on the bus when it comes. Our neighborhood is fairly quiet, but you know when Wesley is getting on the bus because you can hear the word “NOOOO!” echoing among the rooftops. His bus driver and aide tell me that once he’s buckled in and they’re on their way, he’s fine.
He likes his lunchbox a lot. Whenever he’s hungry he’ll go find his lunchbox in his school bag and bring it to me. Then together we’ll head to the pantry and pull out snacks (pudding, fruit, string cheese, cookies, crackers) and put some inside his lunchbox with a spoon and napkin, as if he were going to school. Then he’ll carry the lunchbox to the table and ask me to help him unzip it. When he opens it and sees what’s inside he always exclaims in delight, like “Wow! Look what’s in here!” Then he methodically unpacks each item and decides what to eat first. (I know from doing this that at school he always eats his cookies first.)
Wes loves numbers, the alphabet, shapes, and colors. He knows “circle,” “square,” and “triangle.” He can say and identify and sign all the colors.
Here he is counting.
Today I caught him pulling out tissues from a box in Carissa’s room. I don’t like it when he does that because then all the tissues end up stuffed back in the box and hard to pull out one-at-a-time. But I had him stuff them back anyway. I sat down to feed Carissa, and the stinker started pulling the tissues out again. But he was counting each one so well as he pulled them out that I didn’t want to stop him. Counting is good.
Wesley knows the signs for all the letters. If you go through the alphabet slowly with him, he can sign and say each letter. When we sing the song (like in the video here) he just catches a few of the signs, and chimes in on the key letters, like “P!” He also likes when we write letters and words for him to “read.”
Wes likes to watch football with Dad. He gets very emotionally involved. He will be a great coach someday.
Wesley’s hair was getting long…
and starting to resemble a famous pop icon…
So we had to step in and do something. Trimming Wesley’s hair is a two-person job and isn’t fun for anyone. His hair cuts aren’t ever remotely even (in fact, one day at church the day after I cut his hair, a lady looked at him an said, “Someone found the scissors!” Like it was such a bad cut that Wes had done it himself). But at least it’s shorter. Phew. Now we can wait a couple more months before undergoing such torture again.
His “before” picture is from this little scene here:
I was on the phone around the corner in another room, and I heard him eating dinner at the table. But when I came back, he had moved on from dinner to the pans of cooling red velvet cupcakes on the counter.
I made cupcakes specifically so I could play with my fantastic new toy (that I bought for myself)–a Wilton decorating tool. It’s not the traditional plastic bag you fill with icing, but a plastic cylinder that’s washable. I love it. I could use one tip to fill the cupcakes and another to swirl the top with homemade cream cheese frosting.
Aren’t cupcakes so much more fun to eat when they look like this??
Every now and again I crave something creative, and this does it for me. I would like to take a cake decorating class someday.
As for Carissa, she is five months old today. She is growing at a normal, steady rate, which makes her growing up so much faster than I remember Wes. He was a baby for a long time. Carissa is about 12 pounds and in 3-6 month clothing. She still has a lot of dark hair (slightly lighter than at birth), with a bald spot on the back, and her eyes are blue so far.
I can’t get over sometimes how bright and alert she is. Her hands always want to be busy touching and exploring and discovering. She watches her surroundings carefully. She recognizes the bottle and is visibly excited to see it. She is a little ticklish. She loves watching Wes play. He is her favorite entertainment, I think. And he loves it when she smiles and laughs. If we tickle her, he mimics and tries to get her to laugh, too.
Some giggle moments:
As John says, Carissa is definitely a girl. Which, I think, refers to her sometimes melodramatic attitudes and extensive vocalization. Wes is pretty mellow. Carissa is a good baby, but next to Wes she comes across a little more fussy. She is also loud and squeals a lot. I have often been thankful for the quiet car rides with Wes in back, because he doesn’t make much noise. Carissa is always testing her vocal chords (they work). She can be a squealer. I hope this is temporary.
She loves her binkie. She sleeps through the night (I don’t feed her), but often we’ll have to get up and replace her binkie or re-swaddle her (her left arm always wriggles loose). I am getting closer to the point of letting her cry it out instead, but am steeling myself up for it. She can cry a looooooooong time. In any case, I am sleeping better now than I did a few months ago.
I could go on longer…about how Wes still only likes his milk warm and will hand it back if it’s too cold for his liking….about how I tried cooking thai food tonight and it turned out moderately OK…about how when Wes is hungry for real food he always asks for candy…or about how when I asked Wes to go to the pantry he ran the opposite way to the Christmas tree instead (panTREE…)…but I’ll leave it for now. Until another time.
Last week there was a lot of snow. Over 20 inches of it. Wes wanted to go out. So we did.
He wanted to play in the sandbox, but I wouldn’t let him. Instead, he dug in the snow a bit. This was when the snow was in the early stages of coming down.
This month we took Wes to the annual Christmas activity for families of kids with special needs in our county. There are a lot of kids with Down syndrome around here.
I remember first attending this event when Wesley was just three months old. We were adjusted to the fact that our son has Down syndrome by then, but I wasn’t ready to consider what Wes would be like when he’s older. It was hard for me to hold my tiny infant son in my arms and look around at the older kids and young adults with DS and see my son becoming them. It was scary to me. A little uncomfortable. I couldn’t process it yet.
Now Wes is three. This year when we attended the party, where there were more kids with Down syndrome in the same room than I’ve ever seen before, I was relieved to realize that I wasn’t uncomfortable or scared anymore. I guess some things take a little time.
Here’s Wes through the years with Santa at the party.
Dec. 2007: 3 months old
Not aware and doesn’t care.
Dec. 2008: 1 year old
A little more aware and willing to care.
We missed the 2009 party.
Dec. 2010: 3 years old
Well aware and doesn’t care.
But he liked the coloring table and spent about 30 minutes there.
Lately I have found myself feeling wistful for days past. This week I was in the company of several young college students at a CPR course. I was the only college grad among them, probably about ten years their senior. As we waited for the instructor to begin, one girl looked around, bright-eyed, and cheerfully asked what we were all going into. I hadn’t heard that phrase, “going into,” for a long time. Ten years ago it was one of those things I’d hear a lot: “What’s your major?” “What’re you going into?” This time I had to laugh to myself because I’m not going into anything anymore. I’m there. I’m in it.
All these young people around me were on the brink of their adulthood. What an exciting time! What kind of life will you mold for yourself? What do you want to be when you grow up? That’s when you start to figure things out.
I looked at these girls and thought about what it was like to be where they are, living life a little more carefree than I do now. Life was less about others and more about me, then. I took care of myself and myself alone. My focus was school, my part-time job, being social, having fun when I wasn’t studying or in class or taking a test. I may have felt like I was overwhelmed with responsibility, but, looking back, I wasn’t. I was so free and didn’t know it. In some ways, I miss that time.
But as I kept looking at these students, I noticed I was the only one married. The ring on my finger has been there nine years. I remember being where these girls are and wanting so badly to meet The One I Would Marry, whoever he would be. I knew college was important, but I also knew I wanted a companion. I wanted to marry. I wanted a home and a family.
I have that now. I’m in a stable, married, eternal relationship and am building upon that sure foundation with children. I am loved like I never thought I could be loved. I love like I never thought I could love.
With these blessings comes a lot of heavy, adult responsibility. Sometimes I look at myself–with a husband, two kids, a mortgage, insurance payments, medical bills, grocery lists, laundry lists, dirty dishes, dirty toilets, dirty diapers, and all–and I say, “Am I really old enough for all this? When I did I become an adult?”
You’re hardly ever alone anymore, with kids. When you’re single, you don’t want to be alone forever. And then, once you’re not alone, you’re really not alone. You can’t even use the bathroom alone. If you try to, either the toddler sits outside whining and banging on the door, or he’s in the other room pulling books off the shelves or pushing toys under the stove or taking DVDs out of their cases.
Shopping used to be fun, when I could go to unwind and look at pretty things. Now it’s more of a strategic event, involving careful timing between naps and packing sufficient snacks, drinks, diapers, formula, bottles, backup bottles, toys, etc. And then it becomes an athletic event as you lug not only the kid supplies but the kids themselves through a store in a cart, stroller, baby carrier, or gripping them by the hand or balancing them on a hip–or maybe some combination of these. I don’t go anywhere with both kids unless the store offers carts, and I don’t buy food anywhere that doesn’t have a drive-through.
I used to have time to exercise, uninterrupted. Now I sometimes put my workout clothes on first thing in the morning and stay in them all day long, trying to grab a 20-60 minute period where both kids don’t need anything long enough for me to get something done. I guess it’s good news that the ACSM has found that 10-minute bursts of physical exercise is good enough if you can get several of those in a day. But it is frustrating, trying all day long to get that done and often failing.
I miss not being tired. I miss waking up because my body is ready to wake up, and not because the baby is crying or the toddler is awake next door and banging his bottle against the wall and jumping on the bed.
And, yes, the body isn’t the same after it has carried and borne new life. My feet are bigger. My tummy softer. My legs bumpier with varicose veins and more painful. My back is chronically sore from my last pregnancy, and I don’t fit into the clothes I wore a year ago.
And yet…
How can I say I’m not happy? How can I say I’m not the luckiest, most blessed gal on Earth, with what I have? Even while typing this I paused about eight times for the kids. I played with toys with Wesley. I fed Carissa. I changed both their diapers. I helped Wes brush his teeth. We said prayers together. I asked him for a big hug before bed, and he gave it to me.
When your three-year-old is burying his head in your neck and wrapping his arms around you for a long snuggle, or when your angelic twelve-pound baby is lying relaxed and warm and content in your lap just after a feeding, how can you not be grateful?
I may not feel like I’m old enough, wise enough, ready enough for all that adulthood and parenthood are, but I’m doing it. Sometimes I do miss what life was like before, the simplicity. But I am a life-giver and a life-keeper now. That, I suppose, is good enough.
Have I ever mentioned how I’m scared of heights? Actually, it’s more like a fear of falling. Even watching actors in movies come perilously close to a cliff edge makes me nervous. And flying in airplanes? Well, I’m becoming braver the older I get, but I still get butterflies.
So last weekend John and I went with friends to an indoor rock climbing place. It was our first time. We rented harnesses and got a lesson in belaying. This was a new concept to me. You work in a team of two. One person knots the rope to their harness. This rope goes all the way up to the top of the climbing wall, loops around a metal bar, and falls back down and is hooked to a special pulley on the other person’s harness. So you’re both attached to the same rope. As the climber climbs, the other person belays. This means he controls the amount of slack in the rope and acts as an anchor. If the climber lets go, he won’t fall far. The belayer ensures the safety of the climber.
But the climber has to trust the belayer. We started on the easy walls, where the grips are large and easy to grip. But the higher I got the more I found myself calling down to John, “You still got me?”
And he always did. I enjoyed the physical challenge of climbing. But I couldn’t stop myself from feeling afraid the higher I went. My friend Alicia gave some good advice after her first climb of the night (she’s also a little afraid of heights). She said, “I was as scared as heck, but I just kept going. I knew if I didn’t push through it, I would never make it.”
So that’s what I did. Pushed through the fear. And it was awesome to hit the high metal bar and realize I made it all the way. And once you reach the top you can sit back in your harness and let your partner release the rope and guide you back down to the ground. It’s like you’re flying.
The other nifty thing we did that night was try a new restaurant. We were going to Olive Garden, but it was packed with a 45-minute wait, and we only had 45 minutes to eat. So we walked across the parking lot to a Japanese place that we’d never tried. The hostess asked us if we were there for sushi or hibachi, which made me realize how uncultured we are, as I had no idea what hibachi was, but I knew I didn’t want sushi. So we said, “That other one.” And we were seated right away in front of a big steel grill.
Turns out that you order your food and the chef prepares it right in front of you, fresh. Call me nerdy, but I thought it was really fun. He did a little performing for us, setting things on fire and such, and tossing shrimp pieces into my mouth (I caught at least 50% of them). And the food! So good. John had NY steak and chicken, and I had filet mignon and chicken, and that it was so tender and flavorful. And did I mention fresh?
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