Man On the Run

Pad pad pad pad pad...pad pad...pad pad pad.....pad pad pad pad. 

That's the sound of little feet.  Usually hear them before I see them.

Pad pad pad pad pad pad.  Clunk.  Crash.  Clunk clunk crash.  There went the tupperware cabinet.

Pad pad pad pad.....pad pad...silence.  Must have hit carpet.  "MOMMMM!!! Jack's eating dirt again. " Yep, must be in the living room bonding with the house plants.

Pad pad pad pad.  Pad pad pad pad.   Slam.  Oops.  Made it to the pantry.  Better investigate.  Pretty saavy.  Already can grab bags from the snack bucket and open up the zip-loc'ed Teddy Grahams, I see.

Pad pad pad pad.....pad pad pad pad.  Zhuuuuuup.  Uh, oh.  The coupon drawer.  Paper-spreading and shredding disaster awaits.  Panic!  Investigate quickly.  Dairy Queen coupon must not be destroyed.

Pad pad pad pad pad pad pad.

Is it naptime yet?  Mine, I mean, of course. 

Just Be Free

Liv at age 4.  Spirit.  Determination.  Pure will.  Creativity.  Imagination.  Passion.

Uncaged, and with the right mix of sleep deprivation, fatigue, or barometric swings, this can be a full-fledged parenting challenge that sends me straight to the closet to put myself in time-out.  However... without it, I would not have this amazing little imaginative being that Bill and I are so priviledged to be parenting. 

Snip

Dear Little Man,

You have reached another milestone: your first haircut.  It transformed you in an instant...which is kind of cool and kind of sad...all in the same moment.  Your babyhood was snipped away with the hair clippings as you now have this grown-up, somewhat wise, and very mischievous toddler-like look about you.  Can't wait to see what the coming months bring.  But please stay out of the house plants and the china hutch.  And potty-train early and easily.

Love,

Mom

A picture is worth....

...a thousand laughs.

I wish I could get this picture larger and cripser, but I swiped it from Facebook from a tag from my niece, Nicole.

This is Livvy in her flower-girl debut at my niece Bridgette's wedding in July. She was hanging with the big girls in the wedding party in a back room before the wedding ceremony.

Good-bye, Dear Summer

Over and out, Dear Summer. Were you really here? School starts tomorrow, and though that brings along a whole new set of experiences and good times, I do have to say I loved you so much and am very sad to see you go.

Thanks for the trip to Detroit with Camille to see Dr. Trese, to a trip to Iowa City with my two girls for Camille's new eyeball. (Insert "I can't believe my crazy life laugh here). Thanks for Mr. Jack's first birthday (hoot hoot!!) and thanks for Camille's big #6. Thanks for our family weekend at NCECBVI in Nebraska City and thanks for the 4th of July in Sumner. Thanks for the amazing trip to niece Bridgette's wedding in Pennsylvania in July. Thanks for the visit from niece Brooke. Thanks for the visits to Kearney. Thanks for the fun in the sun, watching the flowers and the grass grow, and watching the grass fry in a heat index of 108. Okay, maybe we could have done without the frying grass. Thanks for the summer nights to stay up late, play play play, and fall to sleep with the smell of sunscreen filling the room....oh, and thanks for letting us be sunburn free this year.

Catch up with you next year. Sniff, sniff.

On Location

Best part of my week. Pictures back from our photographer with the mostest....Jacki.

We went on location with Jacki this summer, to the Old Market, where Jacki's style and talent led to a whole lot of fun and moments that I am now fortunate enough to have frozen in time.

These pictures are just to wet your whistle. I have over 100 to pick and choose from. When I get them uploaded, I'll send the link.

My favorite thing about Jacki is that

she always catches the kids in their element, doing what they do, looking the way they look during the moments of everyday. In our Jacki collection, we have pictures of kids crying, scowling, smiling, drooling, glacing sideways, looking in the distance, looking into our eyes. All of the emotions that we have everyday, but in the

context of carefully thought out backgrounds with interest and texture and balance that freeze these moments of time into artwork.

I'd say we're very fortunate.

Thanks, Jacki, for loving our family for all of the quirks that we have. For making my kids feeling special and important. For capturing their true essence so I will never forget the way that they have grown into who they will become.

Case in Point

News footage of a friend of mine, Maribeth, and her daughter Gabby, who made it to the National Braille Challenge in California. Go, Gabby!!

http://www.wmur.com/video/23982288/?taf=man

Kit Kats for the Birthday Girl

I endulged myself tonight.

After I returned from my walk, the clock was ticking past 10:00. Having left slightly prior to Camille's final surrender to shut-eye, I missed out on the very last of the last "good-nights". Bill told me that, when I was out in the neighborhood, my presence had been requested in the new Lily Pond Green and Hot Pink room for a second consecutive night of "Stories About the Night You Were Born."

By the time I made it to Camille's room and peeked in, prepared to see a girl still giddied up on birthday adrenaline, I realized that her little self had finally given in and I had missed the boat. She had just nodded off.

Oh, what the heck. I endulged myself tonight. I woke her up.

We told stories about holding her for the first time, about delivery rooms with 30 doctors and nurses present, about her isolette which we fondly called her spaceship, and about the people who have surrounded her with love from the beginning.

And lo and behold, we looked up and the time was 10:29. Her birth minute. At which point Dad told her that 6 years ago on the night she was born, he and Uncle P.J. went out to QT after midnight to get Kit Kats and Pop to celebrate.

You can see where this went.

Yep. Camille and Dad headed out to get Kit Kats at 10:45....an idea which came from the mind the birthday girl herself.

And oh, yes, she added, Livvy and Jack can't go because they aren't old enough yet.....maybe when they turn 6, they will be able to stay up late and go get candy bars.

They just returned. Not forgetting mom altogether, Camille holds up the Java flavored Twix bar they bought for me. And then she proceeds to tell me a secret....Dad bought her pop, too....but it was the kind without caffeine...."even though caffeine tastes really good."

So glad we woke you up, my birthday girl. This will be a night I'll never forget. Pretty ingenious to capitalize on the stories, I must say, for the sake of candy. You know where our soft spots are.

A Fresh Look

Enough said.

Humility and Life Lessons

Our entire family spent last weekend at the Nebraska Center for the Education of Children Who are Blind and Visually Impaired's family weekend. It is a yearly gig that we partake in, well worth the time in gold. As always, we get to meet up with the families that have grown near and dear to us. As always, we get to see Sally Gittiinger, the superintendent of NCECBVI, who never fails to inspire and amaze us with her love for her career. As always, we come home with more than one revelation and life lesson to tuck in our heads and our hearts. The picture here is of Bill at Orientation and Mobility Training. (With the Kleenex under his shades, kind of looks like a Freddy Krueger wanna be, don't you think?)

This year, the lesson came on Friday night via a game of Beep Ball. Parents vs. kids.

Beep ball is a game for the blind that is like a baseball of sorts. The softball beeps, for reasons which I hope are obvious. Really good players utilize a pitcher, just like baseball. We remedial players, of course, utilized a tee. There are two foam pylons placed respectively where the first and third bases for standard baseball are placed. They are both connected to a remote, held by a neutral player who stands behind the batter. When the batter hits the ball, the remote-holder randomly chooses to activate either the base at third or at first, at which point it makes a noise that is slightly different than the noise that the ball is making. The object is for the batter to reach the base before the outfielders retrieve the beeping ball. If he/she does, their team scores a point; if not, they are out. Three outs, end of inning.

Simple enough, I thought. However, to make all things equal, we parents wore blindfolds.

The kids smoked us. Flattened us. Beat us to a pulp. I don't think they really even had to try.

And within about 30 seconds of donning the blindfold, I realized that our children are darn amazing to adapt to the sighted world that we live in....and it doesn't even seem to phase them....as evidenced by the score. I realized very quickly that as sighted individuals, we are extremely quick to judge those who are blind or visually impaired. Somehow, we see people who don't see very well as less capable. We count them out. We assume they can't do things just because they cannot see like we do. We fail to realize that they are remarkable for living in a world that is made for people who do see well. It only took 30 seconds of me wearing a blindfold to realize this, because in less time than that, I was completely disoriented. I had difficulty finding the darn beeping ball, not to mention the giant beeping bases that are impossible to miss visually. I was stumbling around dragging my feet because I had no idea where I was or where I was going. And....being totally out of our element, all of the parents on our team cheated in between each batter, peeking out from under our blindfolds to figure out where we were....and it was usually about 50 feet away from where we thought we were and facing the opposite direction. Talk about humbling.

I will now take the opportunity to point out that you will never find a person who is blind and has lived and honed his or her skills even close to as disoriented and unsure of themselves as we were in those moments.

I challenge you, dare you, to put on a blindfold and walk around without peeking for 30 minutes. In the comfort of your home is one thing. I bet you can't do it in a place you've never been before.

But if you do, it will change the way you look at things.

Seeing Things Differently

There's a certain something special about looking a person in the eye and knowing that you are looking at the way they see the world. It is a beautiful thing....and an especially special thing if you are looking at the eyes of a child as they are soaking up everything that surrounds them and forming their own ideas about the workings of the universe.

This feeling has certainly been a parenthood perk. Even in raising a child with very low vision, we have cherished the way that Camille sees the world through her eyes in her very own way. However, it dawned on me this morning as I watched her fingers work their way across the beautiful simplicity of embossed braille, that I love her long, dainty fingers in that special way that I love looking at the eyes of others. Her beautiful hands provide her insight into the world in ways that ours never will.

Camille and I just got back from an incredible trip to Detroit to see her retinal specialist. As fringe benefits, we got to meet up with two families whom we've come to love long distance. (Love you, Yael, Sammy, and Noah!!) Camille got to shop at Seedlings where braille books are produced for children. We got to meet with our dear friend, Paula, at ROPARD and explore IKEA for as long as our hearts desired.

I don't know what it was, but this connection with Braille-reading friends, people who cheer for Braille readers, others who use canes, and a book of riddles written in braille, have all-of- the- sudden lighted a fire for Braille in her formerly print-lovin,braille-lesslovin-but-will-do-it-if-I-have-to heart.

As we sat in the airport for our flight back to Omaha, Camille's fingers dancing over the Braille riddles and giggles emerging from that smiling face, I acutely noticed a twenty-youngish guy with rods in his ears and an iTouch staring with this incredible smile on his face as he watched her read. He asked, "How old is she?"

I reply, "Five."

"That," he said, "is just really amazing. When I was young, I had a friend who was blind. He tried to teach me to even read Braille by sight but I could just never seem to get it." We went on to have a very heartfelt discussion.

Thank you, young cool dude, for taking the time to appreciate my girl. Thank you for noticing that not only is this amazing girl an amazing reader for her age, but she is amazing in print AND braille. Thank you for letting her happiness infect you. Thank you for believing in her instantly, instead of making her prove herself to you. Oh that the world were always this way.

Needless to say, as she was reading "Riddles and More Riddles" this morning, these happy thoughts filled my head and I saw the world through her beautiful fingers.

In an Instant....

This is what happens in an instant.

Little Jack goes from None to One.

Because it was just an instant, right?

That is what it seems like, anyway.

We spent the weekend in Kearney
celebrating a year well spent with this wonderful little man. What's not to love? He is so laid back it is...mostly...peaceful just hanging with him. He's at that age when everything---all foods, all people, all toys---are wonderful. He responds to the word "no" and still loves you for it as life in general is one big game. He's a neutral kind of guy. (See picture at left: he wears Yankee and Cubs attire at the same time and carries it off quite well). And, my favorite part of all....you can't resist those huge baby blues. I love you, Little Man. You make the world a better place.

And many thanks to all of the family that gathered around to help celebrate your life.

For the Love

Last Thursday night, Camille had an especially acute love affair with the world and everyone and everything in it.

Last Thursday was Kindergarten Celebration night at Reeder...a concoction of songs, smiles and kindergarteners strutting their stuff. Boy was our girl ever stoked afterwards.

Since she clearly somehow missed my ice cream dominant gene and instead has plain M 'n' M's incorporated into her DNA, we opted to ditch Dairy Queen and stop by Phillips 66 to pick up those little chocolate disks for a celebration of sorts.

As Bill headed inside, Camille was singing her love to the world:

"Mom, I love you sooooooo much. You are the best mom ever ever ever."

"And I love you too and you are one of the bestest daughters ever."

" And Dad is the best dad ever, too. And I love my little brother. Livvy, you are the bestest sister, too."

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

"Livvy, I said, 'I love you. You are the bestest bestest sister ever."

Livvy, head tilted to the side, bunny clutched to chest and moderately annoyed piked her head up and glared. "I know! I heard you the first time."

So I guess the love affair wasn't contagious.

The Dictionary According to Liv

I know this day will one day be gone, so for now I cherish it. The day when Livvy's four-year-old mind puts her own twist on Webster's wisdom.

Todyear-old: a child who is not yet a preschooler but is not still a baby.

As in: "Mom, Jack is not a todyear-old so he cannot walk yet. Morgan's sister, Raegan, is a todyear-old, so she can walk."

Basagne: a classic layered Italian pasta dish.

As in: "Mom! We're having basagne for supper?? That's my favorite!"

Smell-knower: A person who is particulary good at identifying the source of smells.

As in: We are riding in the van. As we come around the corner, we encounter the noxious smell of something being omitted from a truck. When asked what the smell is, I defer to the classic don't know catch-all as I am trying to concentrate on driving. Exasperated, Livvy says sadly with all of the weight of the world on her shoulders, "I sure wish Dad was here. (dramatic pause) He's such a good smell-knower."

Truncated Domes

I am determined to make a comeback to blogdom. Reflecting on life somehow makes sense of it, even when it is nonsensical.

So, here I begin again, with a tale from last week that just gave me a good old laugh.

Camille and I went on what was probably our first official girls shopping trip last Sunday afternoon--the kind where you have a mission to have fun, take time, and just pick out clothes that fit your fancy. This, I might add, is very different from the type of shopping trip she has experienced before--the last minute one jammed into a few spare minutes with a very specific mission of finding a certain item of clothing for a picture or event and it ends up that your size cannot be found anywhere and everyone on the trip ends melted down and tramautized for lack of time and luck.

This one was just plain fun. With Aunt Betty's spring wardrobe fund in hand, we headed out out Village Point, an outdoor mall here in Omaha to specifically shop for clothes she allowed to pick out. The day couldn't have been better in terms of weather or spirit. Loping along the sidewalks along the storefronts, we approached the slope of the curb that leads into the walkway that crosses the brick-paved street that runs down the main drag of the mall.

Picture it. I adorned my supermom cape. Fastened the goggles. As Camille, long white cane in hand, plodded along, she felt for the edge of the grass. The outline of a bush caught her eye and she poked the bush to make it rustle. Ah...ahead, the curb was near. I flipped back my cape in the wind. I seized the opportunity---an orientation and mobility moment---something the good mother of a legally blind child would do. I said something to the effect of, "Oop. I think we're coming up on the curb here. Let's feel ahead with your cane." I stepped behind her and guided her cane way out in front of her. We ran it over the pattern of bumps that are popped up from the cement and arranged in a rectangle. "Feel these bumps, my dear? These bumps are arranged in a rectangle. When you are walking along and you feel them under your cane in front of you, then you know you the sidewalk is going to end and you will be going past them into the street crossing."

Having very patiently endured this obviously remedial and unprofessional lesson in orientation and mobility, she paused and asked, "Mom, are ya talking about the truncated domes?"

I burst out laughing. "I guess you showed me, didn't you?" She just giggled and giggled, and off we went on our shopping adventure. My cape and goggles flew off so fast I forgot I had them on.

And I still haven't looked up the word "truncated," though her dear O&M instructor, LeAnna, tells me the terminology is correct.

Scrappin' Bliss

Short and sweet and to the point:

I spent the greater part of a weekend at a scrapbooking getaway with my good friend and neighbor, De...and four other gals we hooked up with.

It was, simply put, wonderful....despite the fact we nearly got stuck in mud and killed a battery or a fuse or something in De's car. At least this time, I didn't hit a oppossum. True story.

Now I just gotta figure out how to get the military to reconsider their decision to relocate De and her husband and son to Georgia. That may just take up the greater part of my week.

Simply put, it was also great to come home to my hubby with the mostest and my three darling little darlings.

Gotta love this guy. Green binky and all.

Jillibean Soup

It's tragic, really.


I've not blogged in so long that when I start to enter "jensli" in my browser, the entirety of my blogdress no longer shows up.


I must say, my creativity has been sparked and thus, I return.


Oh, that, and the fact that I am refining the art of procrastination as I sit down at my computer to try to get some work done from home.


Yes, back to the creativity spark. My new favorite scrapbooking line. Jillibean Soup. I love it when I look at scrapbooking supplies and words like "oooh la la" and "yummy" pop into my mind. This line is brilliant. Simply brilliant. I wish it had been my idea, but obviously it was not, so I am left to lust after someone else's brainchild.

All of the products from Jillibean Soup are named after different soup families.


For instance, you have the chicken noodle family:









Meet chicken boullion patterned paper.







You have the Old World Cabbage Stew Collection:









Meet Head of Cabbage patterned paper.

















You have bean stalks:



Mini flower ribbons and brown twine.



I could go on and on and on. You have to look at the website. Just looking at it makes you happy. Particularly if you are a paper crafter. If you are not a paper crafter, just humor me.

http://jillibean-soup.com

Oh, Easter Bunny, if you are out there, I know what you can put in my basket....