clap your hands!

A quick shout out to the writers of Damages and their pro breastfeeding scene from Season 3. Yay!

I think I've officially decided that this trend of skinny jeans, is only for people who do not sit down or bend their legs. I give up. No skinny jeans for me, and I'm okay with that.

A miracle occurred in our house yesterday. Isaac slept long enough that I could spend an hour and fifteen minutes working out, eat lunch, and take a shower. The shower is totally a bonus because that's usually the first thing to get knocked off of the agenda...I take that back, washing my hair is definitely the least important thing throughout the whole week. When I was in college I held a competition to see how long I could go without washing my hair. Yeah, okay, I was the only competitor, which meant I totally won because I went at least eight days without washing my hair. Kind of amazing, right? If you want your husband to notice you, don't wash your hair for a really long time, and then randomly wash it and make it look really nice...trust me, he'll be like, "whoa, did you take a shower, you look kinda hot today." Works every time. Try it. Unless you have greasy hair, and if that's the case, I feel bad for you.

When Isabella was about six months old, I started a playgroup. Mainly because I needed friends, so I invited them to my house and made them be my friends. And here we are, almost four years later, a tight-knit group of women. We love each other's children, we take meals to those who need them, we text each other and say, "hey, we really need to escape our house...library? park?", it's the best. Each of us is unique, and to me, they're like family.

I find myself with my friend's kids saying things like, "Wow! Good standing!", "Good signing!" "You rolled over! That's amazing!" All of these things I praise other kids for, when really, it just comes naturally, but with Isaac, he needs the verbal cues, we've found that is what really motivates him. So it's funny to me when I catch myself saying things like that. It's hard though, I realize how behind Isaac actually is. So in an attempt to surround myself with less typically developing kids, we went to the special needs story time at one our local libraries. We were the only people there. That's the second time this has happened. We made the most of it, and Isaac had a blast because he thinks people who sing and read books in really high pitched (annoying) voices are really funny.

Now get out there and do something useful! 

Isaac and I have a new clapping game we play. He thinks it's absolutely hilarious...

Isaac! Where's your foot?!

Isaac! Where's your nose!?

Isaac! Where's your mouth!?

"Daddy, do you want a salad tonight? I'll make a salad for you."
Me: "Oh no you won't. If daddy wants a salad he can make his own salad. Boys need to learn to do things on their own."

Playgroup...

When Isaac gets really excited, he looks like he's conducting an orchestra. You never know, maybe one day he will.

Stomp your feet!

75. playing "what time is it, mr. fox" in our living room
76. Isaac laughing when we hide from Isabella during hide and seek
77. making time to play Sequence Letters...Walter and I both agree, something is wrong with that game--it's so dang hard, AND I KNOW MY LETTERS!

I'll share more next time. Isaac is on my lap and very unhappy with blogging. 

a head ripped off (and some pictures)...

The last few days have been depressing. We're facing some challenges with insurance coverage related to Isaac's therapies. At this point, it looks like it will all work out and that we will receive money from a fund at the hospital to pay for his therapy. But that doesn't change the fact that there is an overwhelming movement of discrimination against children with special needs. I talked with Isaac's case manager who helped us during his first surgery, and she asked, "Is Isaac walking, talking, and feeding himself like a typically developing twenty-one month old?" Obviously, the answer is no, because he has a genetic condition, and his brain and body don't work that way at the moment. Guess what? The insurance doesn't care what condition he has because anyone with mental retardation or any need for physical therapy, speech therapy etc. that is not related to rehabilitation of a skill previously had, goes directly under the umbrella of developmental delays and doesn't get any therapy covered. I read the policy. It's right there, in black and white. They don't care if my son ever walks, talks, or feeds himself. But guess what...I CARE.

If you're experiencing the same thing. You need to appeal to you insurance company. Chances are, it will take two appeals before you can appeal to an outside entity and then they make the final say. In addition to that, you or your spouse, whomever carries the health coverage, needs to contact HR at their company and complain. And they need to do that over and over again, until the company (hopefully, but probably won't, realizes what they are doing wrong and makes a change).

Moving on...

Wednesday evening I went to a photography networking event. I mentioned to Isabella that I might wear a dress, she told me that if I wore the dress, then I would be beautiful. Thank you.

Walter has decided to use peer pressure to keep me from doing P90X this week. One night it didn't work, and I did yoga without him, but I must admit, he lured me in with Damages and I haven't worked out for a few days.

Interesting things always happening when I'm trying to blog. Isabella and Isaac were having a puppet show and Isaac has a serious crush on ballerinas, Isabella wasn't sharing the ballerina barbie, so the argument resulted in barbie losing her head. What a shame.


I happen to love punching invisible people, not sure what that says about me, but today I'm going to do Kenpo X (kick boxing) and pretend people from Aetna are in front of me. Maybe someone will lose a head...what a shame.

Walking around the tool table

Waving at Isabella

Only cool people have pink tiles in their bathroom.

Meltdown...

For Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law gave me a backdrop stand and cloth. I decided to try it out today, which led me to believe that people should not take pictures of their own children. The only thing that comes out of it, is liking your children less.

Isabella cried when I took pictures of Isaac and not her, and Isaac refused to give up his remote control for his fire truck.

Stella was much more cooperative and took posing very seriously...

"Stella, I really need to touch your nose..." Isaac is finally starting to identify body parts and he really likes to practice on Stella.

Gotta run, Isaac's unhappy.