Good-bye

Everyone in the O'Neill house was "off" today.

I actually wanted to steam clean the dining room carpet. And then felt adaze the rest of the day.

Bill was somber.

Livvy was whiny. Really whiny. Can't-stand-to-be-with-her-in-the-same-room-for-too-long whiny. Cried -for- five- minutes- when -I-accidently -flushed-the-potty-for-her-instead-of letting-her-do-it-whiny.

Camille was just naughty. Usually, she is not a naughty girl. But she was today. She had four---count them, 1-2-3-4, full-blown tantrums. Screaming at us. Flailing. Turning red the in the face. The kind where, as parents, all you can do is laugh because it is just so bizarre.

The reality is, we all felt the undercurrent.

Beth came to say good-bye today.

And all I felt was a hurt in my heart. We've known for two months that she is off to Wisconsin. I've already cried tears. But the thing is, today is different. Today, it's really real. If I call her Omaha home, no one will answer. If I email her, she will no longer have an mpsomaha.org address. And worst of all, when I go to school to see Camille, Beth won't be the Teacher of the Visually Impaired who is with her.

And now, seven hours after she came to say good-bye, the tears are starting to flow. And they won't stop. It is real. And we miss her already.

Beth gave Camille the best going away present that Camille could have ever hoped for. They read "Green Eggs and Ham" together.

It was the only time all day that Camille was her usual, giddy, happy-go-lucky self.

And so we wish our Beth well. And we secretly--selfishly--wish she were ours to keep. But, life is life, and she is not ours to have.

So, I cry myself to sleep because we will miss her so.

Everyday is Mother's Day....

...for now. On the actual Mother's Day this year, you know, May 11, Bill taught Livvy how to say, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy." She was so darn proud of herself. She told me, "Happy Mother's Day" several times that day. Of coure, I melted. All day long. Like ice on the summer sidewalk. No, like butter in a pan. No.....like Edy's Moose Tracks Ice cream in your mouth. When you're really hungry.

Anyway, since Mother's Day, the wishes haven't stopped. Nearly every day since May 11 (and that's seventeen days....eighteen days in about 10 mintues), Livvy walks up to me and proudly announes, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy." Sometimes she even throws in "Happy Birthday!" Don't ask me where that came from. My birthday is in November. Actually, on second thought, do ask. She says that because on Mother's Day, we also celebrated Grammie's birthday, so she was full of wishes that day. Either that or she is really trying to sweet-talk me and negate any chances of going to time-out for the day.

At any rate, my thoughts: Some day, she will be wiser and realize that every day is not Mother's Day and the wishes will stop coming from her sweet little lips. And that day will be a bit sad, because although she will be wiser in that she will understand the logistics of a calendar, I will miss those impromptu wishes that remind me why mommy-hood is 110% worth it.

Perhaps we should all learn to stay young in some ways.

Quiet Contentment

I have just come home from three hours of bliss. The house is quiet. Everyone is sleeping. I have time to just soak in the moment. To be content. To think. To feel blessed. I am in introvert heaven.

My three hours of bliss is directly related to my 2nd-ever post, "Sometimes you know how good you have it..." As you all have probably heard, as I'm quite vocal about it, our family friend and Camille's teacher of the visually impaired, Beth, is moving on Saturday. Far far away. To Sheboygan, Wisconsin (That is phonetic spelling. I am resisting the temptation to google it in the name of perfection as to risk ruining my train of thought, and thus, the moment.) I had the complete pleasure of spending the last three hours at "The Tasting Room: A Wine and Appetizer Experience" with Beth, just talking, talking, talking. About life. About Camille. About the gift of her life. About the future. About the knowns and unknowns.

And I feel sad. And I feel content. And I feel joy. And I feel touched. And I know that Camille is loved and she has learned and we have hit the jackpot in terms of all of Camille's teachers--including but not limited to Beth.

So, my heart is full of so many things.

But mostly, I am content.

Tonight, I am not worried about Camille. I simply feel blessed that she is who she is because if she were not, I would not have been blessed with knowing so very many amazing people.

And I am the better person for it.

Remembering

Memorial Day. Okay, it's a given. The tears are apt to flow for anyone who has lost someone near and dear to their heart. So, no pretending. My babes have been on my mind all weekend.


Some may think it morbid that I am putting pictures of their resting place on my blog. But, here is my reasoning. Many of you will never be able to make it out to St. Patrick's Cemetery in Eddyville, NE personally, so I want to give you a virtual visit. Many of you have traveled the journey of Hannah and Sammy's lives with us and you deserve the visit. You deserve to feel the joy that I feel when I visit their little place. I want you to see the headstones that Bill and I designed for them as it is an ever-present reminder that though Sam and Hannah are not with us as we thought they would be, they are with us as our spirited little angels. And I feel they are especially with their triplet sissy, Camille. Their lives may have been short, but their legacy is long.

These pictures are actually not from today. They are from Memorial Day 2005. I wasn't able to make it back to Sumner due to "the incident" described in "A First Time for Everything." Camille and I bachelor-etted it in Omaha to be on the safe side and left the visiting out west to Daddy and Livvy.

Still, I didn't need a visit to think about my babes. After Camille went to bed last night, I worked on some of Sam and Hannah's scrapbook pages, actually the page from Sam's funeral. ceremony. Again, some may think it morbid, but it is as an important of a day for our family as has been any birthday or Christmas. And it was a beautiful celebration.

Today was a beautiful day, so Camille and I went for a long, long walk. She donned her headphones to listen to an audio version of "Green Eggs and Ham," and I donned mine to listen to some of my favorite tunes.

The lyrics of one song particularly struck me, as the printed paper I was using for Sam's pages last night said, "You'll always be a part of me." I had never considered Mariah Carey's song, "Always Be My Baby" anything other than a love song about people dating, but today, the words struck me as a love song about my babies. Of course, I wasn't listening to the Mariah Carey verson, I was listening to the David Cook version. Kudos, Mariah, for writing the song but double kudos to David Cook who sings it in a way that actually reaches the heart.The words that struck me so are:

You'll always be a part of me.

I'm part of you indefinitely.

Ooooh don't you know you can't escape me.

Oooh darling, cause you'll always be my baby.

We will linger on.

Time can't erase a feeling this strong.

No way, you're never gonna shake me

Oooh darling, cause you'll always be my baby.

So Sam and Hannah, here's to you. You'll always be a part of me.

`

Take a listen

A First Time for Everything

There's a saying that goes "There's a first time for everything." It seems to be amazingly true in our life. And I don't mean things like: 'We just got back from our first trip to Italy,' or 'I just finished my first scuba diving lesson off the coast of the white sand beaches,' or 'I won a really large amount of money playing Nebraska Lottery for the first time.' Okay, okay, I'll give you that one. I'd have to buy a lottery ticket in order to win.

At any rate, we seem to have odd "very first time" things in our house. For instance: "We had our first visit to our very premature 1#13 oz triplets in the NICU today. It looks like we'll be here for awhile. Or "Hi, mom. Camille's prosthetic eye fell out for the first time today while she was riding in the school fan and the sweet retired guy who drives her had to fish it out from under the car seat and bring it back home to us." Or "This morning in church, Livvy decided for the first time to pull up her dress and pull down her panties." Or, as happened Tuesday of this week: "Hi Bill, it's Jen. You need to leave work and meet me out at Camille's school. They called the squad and I'm going to meet with her to ride the ambulance to Children's Hospital."

Yep, our first ambulance ride. (I will disclaim here. The picture above is not the actual ambulance we rode in. I downloaded it for visual effect. If I had been in my wrong mind, I may have acutally grabbed the camera, seeing it as a sick opportunity for a blogging moment or a scrapbook page. Alas, I was actually a well-prioritized mother that day and just ran out the door with Liv for Camille's school. Hence, the borrowed picture.)

We still don't know what happened. Camille's teacher called me at home and said they thought Camille might have seized and fell and hit her head. Or fell and hit her head and seized. Or fell and hit her head got knocked out. At any rate, she freaked the teachers out. So, on the ambulance we went.

I got to the school before the squad, and by the time I got there, she was asking to read "Dr. Seuss's ABC's." I took it as a good sign that she "read" Barnyard Dance to the paramedic...and sang him the Baby Bumblebee Song....and sang Six Little Ducks....and recited the entire book "Dr Seuss's ABC's from memory.

We don't know what happened. Hopefully we never will because we will never have to have an epsidose again. Hopefully it will be one of the first times that is also a last time.

What I do know that her teachers are phenomenal. They love her and acted so quickly when they felt that something wasn't right. I have a feeling that their hearts suffered a lot more than mine did that day as I never saw her acting any differently than my singing, reading Camille. We are so fortunate that they are in Camille's life....for so many reasons.

So my question is, "When do I get to go scuba diving....or at least just sit on the beach?" :)

Humbled

Visual Impairment. It's a cause that is near and dear to my heart. Very near and dear to my heart. Four years ago, I never would have imagined myself saying that. Three-and-a-half years ago, I am ashamed to say that I hated the word because I feared it.

And since, I've be so blessed to meet some amazing people. People who have changed my thinking. People who have empowered me to empower Camille. People who have inspired me and showed me the truth about life AND the truth about visual impairment.

And because of them, my life is forever changed.

A good number of these people who have inspired me have been from two organizations related to visual impairments: NAPVI (National Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairments) and AFB (American Foundation for the Blind). We had the humbling opportunity last summer to work with them on a project related to the creation of a new website called FamilyConnect.org (See it in my list of faves at the bottom of my little blog? Yep. Right there. More to come on that later as we launch a family project).

Any-wooo-zit, I was tinkering around on it tonight as I often do, and was delighted to find that Susan LaVenture, the Executive Director of NAPVI and a guru in the field, referenced my little blogspot.

www.familyconnect.org/blog.asp?blogID=1

My heart skipped a beat. I was surprised as I had no idea my blog address was out there in the vision world, but I am so humbled that for once, I am finally to the point where I can say something halfway meaningful....even to someone who is so known in the field. (Please do note that of course I wouldn't have had anything useful to say at all had it not been for lessons learned from an 11-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, both who happen to be visually impaired.)

Anyway, thanks to Susan for making my day. And for reading for my humble little words. And for being a leader for us and for our children.

And thanks to Caitlin. I have a feeling you were the leak. :) We love you.

I admit it...

I am a junkie. A full-fledged American Idol junkie. I voted several (yes, several) times last night. I watched nearly every episode this season. I got mildly (okay, okay....moderately to severely) irritated with the DVR malfunctioned and failed to record Idol Gives Back. I picked my favorites and saw them through to the very end. I downloaded their songs from ITunes. I was as excited as anyone to see America finally get it right--a David -David final. Two people that were both really, really likeable and really, really talented. I love them both as amazing musicians....

....but the best one won! The most original artist. The most gutsy musician. Go David Cook!!

And though it is sad to see the season end, it is a good good-bye, my dear Idol. The plants need watering. The house needs perking up. There is certainly room for dusting around here. The outside evenings call me as the days get longer. I could use some sleep.

Goodbye for now. See you next year, though Season 7 will be hard to beat. And David and David (and Brooke White)......

I'll see you on my IPod.

On Garage Doors and Tax Refunds

Here I sit in my favorite dusk green swivel chair. The breeze is lapping through the window at my toes. Liv is napping. Camille is at a big girl birthday party with Daddy for her friend, Kendall. I would normally say this is quiet bliss.....

but it is not quite quiet. The sound and vibration of unidentifiable power tools is stinking up my silence....and worse yet, it is coming from my garage. And worse yet, it is $821.00 worth of noise. $821.00 from our tax refund that we had planned on using for things more exciting than a new garage door.

However, we had a mishap. No one person can be the scapegoat as it was a two-part flub-up. Two weeks ago, Camille and I went to Lowe's to buy some plants for the yard. Upon coming home, I left the end of the van hanging out so I could easily whisk the flowers out of the back. Well, I didn't pull it back in, and Bill didn't look before closing the garage door. The sensor kicked into high gear and didn't bash the van. Instead, the garage door started opening back up with fervor, the trouble being that the cheap garage door that come with Hearthstone homes don't do fervor. So, it totally buckled in on itself at the top.

Which brings us to our $821.00 worth of noise and the man-with-no-personality that is currently installing it. They say it is such a better door, fully inusulated. Double-sided. Smoother ride. But to tell you the truth, from the outside, it looks exactly the same, which is so unexciting. Paying money to replace an item with something that looks exactly same. Kinda like buying a truckload of toilet paper.

Oh, well. At least we had the tax refund. I would have really had to hate sacrificing scrapbooking.

Trying to Stop Time

Okay. So I have this incredibly scrumptious video of Livvy performing "Ring around the Rosy." Theoretically, I am supposed to be able to upload video onto my blog, but do you think I can get the video camera to communicate with the computer in any way, shape or form so that my computer can communicate the video to my blog? The only thing that has been communicated in the last 45 minutes is obscene thoughts to every piece of technological equipment within 17 feet.

Abbie would tell me to go blow bubbles...

Okay, I'm back. I feel better.

At any rate, if I ever figure out how to make this video thing work, perhaps you'll see the video. Until then, a description will have to suffice.

Livvy is in that oh-so-memorable phase where what she says gets discombobulated and comes out a bit diffently than intended. Example: Livvy gets her haircut by Rock-n-san (translation: Roxane). When Liv potty-trained, her reward was "squwittles" (translation: skittles). I LOVE this stage. Her words are my laughter everyday. Yet, I know it won't last; her language growth is inevitable, but don't think I won't long to hear those nuances once they are gone.

So...today, I made a point to capture some of my favorites on film. The film you are currently not seeing because technology and I had a knock-down-drag-out and I didn't win. But I have it on video. Liv's rendition of "Ring Around the Rosy":

"Wing awound the Wrosy
Pocket pull o Wrosy
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall dowwwwn! "

(You aren't supposed to be able to drag out consanants...only vowels..but kids are exempt from this natural law.)

The picture above (the still life one---obviously not the video---did I mention that didn't work out?) is the exclamation point to her performance. She walked up to the camera, stuck her face right in, flashed an ornery little grin, and said, "Cheeeeeeese."

I can't stop time. Next week, she'll sing "Ring Around the Rosy" correctly and I'll be proud but oddly sighing as it marks the passage of time. And though I can't stop that process, thanks to technology (yes, I am actually sucking it up and saying that) I'll be able to relish in that moment from time to time.

But you won't. Unless you come to my house. Because I still can't get my video camera to communicate with my computer.

I better go blow some more bubbles.

Nest-cam

Okay, so I had to go peek last evening. My sister-in-law, Carol, after reading my "On Bird Nests" blog asked, "So are there any eggs in it yet?" Duh. There is a greater purpose that simply amusing the tree-owners. So, last night, I went out to take a peek. Yep. Three beautifully tiny and amazingly blue robin eggs.

I knew not to get too close. Mama Robins aren't fond of dumb humans that leave bad scents near their flats. And sure enough, though the nest was absent a mama, I suddenly heard very put-out, obnoxious chirping from the top of the backyard fence. Suddenly having flashbacks from the horrific novel "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier (and later the movie by Alfred Hitchcock), I ran back in behind the safety of the screen door, which, if you remember the book at all, is really no obstacle at all to the birds who multiply in number and yes, a bit ironically, try to peck the eyes out of the human house-dwellers.

Nevertheless, I went back outside to mow. Mama bird must have decided that I was fairly harmless while traipsing behind a grass-cutting device as she settled in quite contently atop her eggs. I took great care to mow a wide circle around the tree-which-bears-some-sort-of-fruity-stuff. Though the novel is fiction, I was taking no chances.

Alas, the scrapper and pseudo-photographer today could not take it anymore. Today, I had to get a picture, and I really wanted one of the protective madre, but every time I stepped outside, she flew right out to her post on the fence and squawked up a bloody storm. And she attracted friends. With "The Birds" still fresh in my oh-too-warped imagination, I finally ran up near the tree, held up my camera an arms-length above my head, aimed for the general area, and stole a shot. What WOULD we do without autofocus?

So, my profound thought on this: The mama Robin flew away every time I got close and cursed me from afar. Is this selfishness or selflessness? Was she fleeing to save herself or was she fleeing to gain the altitude necessary to dive-bomb me (or at least poo on my head) should I touch her precious gems?

Only she knows. Or some know-it-all orinthologist (I'm really not smart....I googled that for dramatic effect). Hmmm.....

On Crickets

Every Wednesday night at the O'Neill Omaha house, a ritual takes place. I like to refer to it as "Jen's Sanity Hour." (Even though it is really an hour and a half. From 6:30pm to 8:00pm to be exact. CST to be even more exact.) It is a beautiful thing, and everyone in the household recognizes this at some level, be it a 2-year-old level, a 3-year-old level, or a 30-s0mething-year-old level. Remember the phrase "If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?" No further explanation required.


The ritual that takes place has been happening for over six months now. Every Wednesday, I hop up onto my bed, settle in with the phone, plug in my little earpiece, call a magical 1-877 number, and join 8-10 other mom's across the nation along with a faciliator for the Jewish Guild for the Blind's Retinpathy of Prematurity parent teleconference. Our kids range in age from 2-11, our geographical location ranges from California to Pennsylvania, but our commonality is the simple yet ever so complicated fact that we all gave birth to micropreemies and survived the world of the NICU-- only to have Retinopathy of Prematurity and some level of blindness as the exclamation point to the whole experience. So....once weekly, we get on the phone and laugh, trade child-rearing recipes, ventilate, celebrate, and together, share stories of how our children teach us everyday how very smart we really are not.

One of these stories came several weeks ago from one of our moms, Marisa, whose son, Sol, is eleven years old---and happens to be completely blind. It has been close to my heart ever since. She shared the story as we were having a discussion on the pathology we all share: wondering exactly how much vision our children do have...and secretly hope it is a lot more like ours than different...even though we all really believe our daily mantra that vison does not determine a person's ability to lead an extremely full and independent life.

Anyway, the story. Marisa and Sol were out late one evening. As Sol stepped outside, he said, "Boy it is really dark outside." Marisa admits that her heart skipped a beat of delight---could it be? He was able to see enough to tell the difference between light and darkness! However, as every "good" mother of a visually impaired child does, she refrained from showing too much excitement, not wanting to make him feel like his worthiness was dependent on his vision. Casually, she said, "Tell me what you mean, Sol." "Well mom, you KNOW that more crickets come out and their chirping gets louder and louder as the night gets darker."

My ponderings on this: Slap in the face. Hello. Wake up. We sighted folks think that vision is the key to understanding and existing in our world. We think that we need to see things in order to make sense of what is happening. How many times have you been asked, "if you had to lose your hearing or your sight.....?" Guilty. I used to choose 'take my hearing I'll keep my sight thank you very much.' The reality is, we fear. We are so dependent on our vision that we are extremely fearul of how we would function if we lost it. We are so dependent on our vision that we fail to see that people can and do function completely independently because they get information that we cannot as our vision limits our ability to think outside the box.

Thankfully, we have the Sol's and the Camille's of the world to remind us that life is not about what we can and cannot see. It is about how we find our way. Thankfully, we have the Sol's and Camille's of the world to prod us to think outside the box. Thankfully, we have crickets.

On Birds' Nests

So, here it is, a beautiful SPRING day. The girls are napping (I think). I just looked out my window and had a simply delightful surprise. Our cherry tree (or is it a crabapple? A horticulturist I am not, though I like to pretend.) is in full bloom, with bright fushia blossoms. So of course, I had to go out and take a big whiff (that is so not a delicate word). Anyway, another surprise (that makes two in less than a minute if you're counting). A bird's nest. Right smack dab in the middle of our some-sort-of-small-fruity-like-thing tree. Just below my eye level. In perfect view. So of course, I had to get the camera and snap a few shots.

I was so amazed at the intricacy and resourcefulness that these birds used to build this nest. There was grass and mud and even this little plastic netting stuff that came under our sod that surfaced when I was mulching on Sunday. And then there is the precision with which it was built...perfectly woven together in a pattern that no blueprint could replicate. And the knack for color and design...would you LOOK at that! In your face, feng shui!

So my profound thoughts on this are as follows. We as humans are supposed to be set apart as the superior race, for one because of this thumb-finger oppositional thing we have going. But, I happen to know for a fact that I couldn't build a bird's nest like this, and I especially could not build a house that is suitable for me to live in. Having said that, I hopefully do have a bigger brain and more complex thought process than the average bird. And I am able to extract a huge amount of joy from watching Livvy look out the patio door this morning and squeal, "Eoooh! Is's a birrrdie," as she points feverishly at the robin perched on the back fence. I wonder if a bird can do that with their young? Scientists would say no. Children's books would say yes.

Regardless, the whole ability to make a nest thing is pretty amazing.

Grandma Dear

Yesterday was Grandma Irene's birthday. Though she's been gone from us for over a year now, I thought about her so many times throughout the day, and it just didn't seem quite right that I had to resist the temptation to call a number that we all still know by heart. I think for me, it is easy to go along thinking that she is still in Loup City, rocking in the chair, watching "The Price is Right" or packing a thimble and her good needles to go to quilting on Wednesday afternoon. Those times are so vivid in my memory and through grade school, high school, college, and my early married life, I could return to that peaceful place on a whim and loved to when I could, mostly self-invited but always welcome. So....she's still there, she's going to be there stepping out onto the porch with that famous smile as I drive into the driveway, right?? Okay, reality check, maybe not. But I can see it in my mind as clearly as if it were real.

As a young girl, a teenager, a college student, and finally, a wife and mother, I always considered her house a sort of sanctuary...for different reasons as I grew and changed. As a young girl, it was just plain fun. As a high school student, it was a place to go and just be myself...no strings attached. As a college student, I had a true appreciation for who Grandma and Grandpa were and what they could teach me in my path to finding my way. But, never more important were those moments that I had with Grandma as I faced adversity as a young wife and mother.

The rumor mill sometimes had it that Grandma didn't handle bad news very well or tended to brush over it and concentrate on the happier things of life. She proved the rumor mill wrong as she became a huge source of strength and quiet understanding for me in the last 2+ years of her life. I will never forget the first time I saw her after Sam and Hannah died. I walked into her house 16 days after we had lost Sam and 2 days after we had lost Hannah. I was back in town for my cousin, Amy's, wedding, and Camille was still fighting in the NICU. I hadn't talked to her on the phone. I walked into the living room in Loup City and she and Grandpa were there waiting. She took my face in her hands and looked me in the eyes for the longest time and we both cried silent tears and then she hugged me like there was no tomorrow. She could talk to me without words, and it was so healing.

As time went by and Camille began losing her vision, having surgeries, and continuing to grow, Grandma remained a source of solid strength. She knew things were hard, but when she told me everything was going to be okay, I somehow felt so much better. She was not afraid to have the hard conversations with me, which made it all the more comforting when she would tell me that Camille's purpose in life is something really special, just waiting to unfold. And she was right. Camille touches lives everyday, just as Grandma said she would.

There are days when I long to hear those words come from her mouth again. When long to see that spunky little smile and see her little strut. Until then, I imagine that she is probably looking down on us all, rocking Sam and Hannah and singing "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?" And playing BINGO or Rummie.

And, until the day when I hopefully will see her again, I have a living reminder of her in Livvy. Something about Livvy's short little hairdo, short little legs, spunky little smile, and little strut remind me of Grandma. My little Irene.

Sometimes you know how good you have it...

...and then it goes away anyway. I was fully prepared to write my first blog on either my experiene at the optometrist's office this morning or my completely wonderful 2 hours of scrapping downstairs listening to "Evita," knowing the girls were sleeping beautifully upstairs...then I came upstairs, settled down under the down comforter, reared up the computer, and got this completely amazing email from Beth, Camille's Teacher of the Visually Impaird (TVI). Here' a snippet:


Hi Jen!
I ran out of time on Friday to write to you. We had a great day on Friday, even though she had the yuckys in her nose and chest! We did several activities in class - she was coloring a project and said to me, "Beth, will you please draw me a little triangle?" I almost fell off my chair! Jessie's mouth dropped open - it was great! I know you get to hear her talk like that at home, but that was a first for me! LOVED IT!!

Then, she and I went out in the hall for mobility and worked with the cane. I wished for you so much! She did so great!! First we walked down the hall, me holding her hand and she holding the cane. We "found" things with the cane...the tile floor, a box, the carpet, the stairs. She'd tap it with her cane, we'd talk about what it sounded like, then we'd touch it and talk about what it felt like - she was really into it! On the way back to the class room (we walked all the way down to the far end of the hall) I had her trail the wall on the left and hold the cane in her right. She stopped more, but did wonderfully! She looked tremendous walking on her own with the cane down the hall. You HAVE to come see!! Sandy came out and watched her for awhile - "amazing" was what she said! She also told me you were planning on coming in the next couple of weeks anyway, so just make sure to let me know so that I will be there with her cane.

Just had to let you know - it was exciting! Such a good start!

There are so many amazing things about this email. My baby girl has her first white cane. (And you must see it. It may possibly be THE cutest inanimate object you ever did see.) She is strong enough to use it now! She is interested in it! She is a walking, talking, former 25-week preemie. You go, girl!

However, the thing that is touching my heart tonight is that Beth, her TVI, emailed me this update at 5:00 pm on a Saturday. Read her email again because you can feel the love jumping right off of the screen. What more could you ask for as a parent than for a teacher to love her student ad believe in her enough to take chances? Camille is little. She's had a lot of setbacks. She has had a hard time getting up on her feet. Most people would have thought I was crazy when I asked to put a cane in her hand. But not Beth. She researched and believed. She put the cane in Camille's little hand. A child and a teacher and a family trusting each other and working with each other for the sake of the child--it is such a wonderful, beautiful thing. We know how good we have it and sensed that since Beth took over as Camille's TVI when she was 19 months old.

And now Beth's moving. And I'm a mess. I've met Carrie, Camille's new teacher, and she is wonderful. I have no doubt she'll do a great job with Camille...if she's able to tolerate me! But somehow, it doesn't make it any easier that in less than 30 days, our Beth will be on her way to Wisconsin.

At least she was the one to give Camille her first white cane.

A New Beginning

Well, here it goes. I am launching a blog. I was inspired last weekend by new friend that I made at a 12-hour crop at my favorite scrapbook store. (Thanks, Abbie). She is an avid blogger. We connected on very many levels. 1) Of course, the reason for our crop-a-thon: scrapbooking. 2) We both had to have the new set of bird stamps from Inkadinkadoo 3) We both prefer to send blank cards to people instead of ones with a message inside because we'd rather fill up the card with our own wordy-ness, not someone else's which leads to 4) we both enjoy writing and 5) we both spent exactly $19.84 by buying different products. It was a friendship meant to be.

Anyway, people are always wondering about the girls and how things go in our family, so I thought it would be fun to make our life's happenings readily available. And also feed my love for writing until I can write that best-selling book someday! Tee-hee. As a side bonus, you have the privilege (that is one of those words I will never be able to spell correctly without stopping to think about it, and not even then) of brutally exposing yourself to my thoughts and musings about life in general and life at the O'Neill house. Happy reading. With any luck, I'll keep the pictures flowing as well.