Things I want to remember from this week...

My son is a toughy. He rolled a 4 wheeler and by the 7th day, all his scabs have come off and he looks normal again. Let's not do that again honey.

Josh has been taking "trips". He says goodbye to everyone then rides off in his wiggle car or tricycle. He may or may not "call" you to talk to you while he is gone. Then he rides back over and insists on everyone cheering for his arrival. Hugs and kisses for everyone. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I am pretty sure I caught Josh arguing with his shadow. He was leaning over, looking at his shadow, yelling and shaking his head "no". He would also shake his finger in a "no, no, no" fashion. Very Peter Pan.

We went to the movie at the park with Abby. They were playing Tangled. Josh was so excited to see the Disney castle at the beginning. When he sees that he knows it is a movie for him. He clapped and yelled his approval all the way to the beginning of the movie. He had me hold him the whole time. I had one of those moments where you try to suck in every detail, every sensation so you can appreciate it and hopefully remember how wonderful it was. How he smells, how his hair feels on my cheek, the way he giggles when someone is hit by a frying pan. He still fits so well on my lap. I will cry the day he outgrows it.

We went to our city celebration thingy and saw "The Flying Ninjas" (a gymnastics, acrobatic, group, some dressed like ninjas with a VERY loose story line). So much fun. Josh loves ninjas so he watched with such intensity that I don't think anything could break his focus. I tried to get him to go give one a high five afterward but he was too shy. In between performances, all Josh wanted to do was play the instruments at one of the vendors. He would play the drums until someone else came along and wanted to play, then he would play a keyboard. The moment their butt left the seat he was back over at the drums ready to play again.

Josh pooped in the potty today! He felt that he was going and asked to be put on the potty. He still hasn't peed in the potty but I feel that this is a big step. We will see how the next few days go.

Olivia Kate was born today. She is so sweet and beautiful. And Chantelle didn't look like she had even broken a sweat! Neither of them was red or mottled, not even a hair out of place! I can't wait to see them again.

It has been a great week. I hope I can remember it.

VEGAS BABY!

Our second annual Wuste trip was this last weekend. For those of you who do not know, Wuste is a European car show in Vegas. Tons of people from all over (mostly the Western US) come to show off their modded VWs, BMWs, Audi's, Porsche's, Ferrari's, etc. This year there were 1,300 cars and something like 4,000 people. We had the entire Boulder Station Hotel/Casino booked out just for Wuste people. Everyone from northern Utah gets together to drive in caravan to Vegas. This year we probably had about 25 cars. We stop for gas together and give the In 'N Out in St. George record sales.

So here is a run down of our trip, from beginning to end.

Overheard in gas station bathroom: 3 yr old talking "Mom? What's that on your panties?" Ack!!! Some days I am so glad my son can't talk.

People hanging out of cars getting driving shots of other cars. Not too much drama until Nico breaks the lip on his bumper (not that it matters, he still won first place in Audi class).

Get to the hotel. Walk to our room to find Greg is our across the hall neighbor. Greg lives in Seattle and is the owner of Podi, who sponsors my husband. They have known each other for years but have never met. All of us and the people in his room become instant friends. Greg keeps calling Tyler a "scene celebrity" over and over to everyone he meets. It is so strange because he seems mildly star struck and yet he is the one with the company sponsoring Tyler. We make fun of him for this, but as the days go on, I begin to see what he means. Tyler came up and gave me a kiss. After he walked away, the person I had been talking to turned to me with wide eyes and asked, "Was that Tyler?" "Yeah...He's my husband. Do you know him?" "Not in person, I recognized him from pictures on his thread." Weird. Things like this kept happening. I guess my husband's a scene celebrity after all.

That first night, in the hall on our floor, some kid came up to us trying to sell us pills "Xanex, Oxy, whatever". Uh, no thank you. This same kid sat outside the elevator on our floor trying to sell pills literally the entire time (well, not in the morning but he was probably to messed up to get out of bed). By the end of the second night, Tyler asks him if he has had any luck. The kid says, "No man. People want to buy it but they are like, 'I don't do that stuff'"....wouldn't that mean that they don't actually want it? Tyler looks at him completely straight faced and says, "Maybe you should try selling something people actually want to buy." "Like what?" "Pancakes." (Kid looks like he is thinking WAY too hard for his little brain)...."What are pancakes?" We just laughed and walked away. I wish I could say he got a clue but every time we saw him he tried to ask us what pancakes were. Brain cells people, you need them.

Car show was awesome. Sadly, many of the cars I fell in love with last year didn't make it. Still, if you are interested in seeing some highlights, the pics are on Tyler's facebook page.

We went to Mesa Grill for lunch. Bobby Flay's restaurant in Ceasar's Palace (possibly my favorite casino because it is so darn beautiful). It was AMAZING. I got the spicy chicken and sweet potato hash with poached eggs on top, smothered with hollandase and some sort of chile creamy stuff. Amazing. And at only $16-$18ish a person (during the day), it was the same price as many other not as good restaurants. And the service was spectacular. I highly recommend it.

We also went to the pawn shop that Pawn Stars is filmed in. Pretty cool. You have to wait in line to get in it is so big now. None of the guys on the show were working (I imagine it would be hard because people would always be in their faces wanting pictures and what not). But it was cool to see some of the items that I recognized from the show.

Gabe had our one true tragedy. Totalled his car on Fremont street. : (

That night we walked the strip until our feet fell off (cool thing: bunch of guys were holding up signs 0-10 and yelling out which # went to which girl. They gave me a 10 : ) ), went to bed way too late, got up way too early for the awards ceremony. Actually, quite a few people that we know got awards so that was pretty cool. Tyler even picked up the award for "best vendor" for Integrated Engineering (he is their designer) and Joe got "farthest traveled" and they didn't even bring cars!

Drive home took forever but all in all it was so much fun. Can't wait to go again next year. Oh, and 4 of us drove in Jesse's Jetta TDI. We got about 38 miles to the gallon and only had to fill up twice the entire trip. I am thinking TDI is the way to go....

Funny Videos

For those of you who do not get on facebook, here are Josh's recent videos. He is my son, but I think he is hilarious.

The first video is of his magic trick. We were sitting at Melissa's table eating grapes when he suddenly did this trick for me. At first I was confused what he was doing but when he pulled his hand out and gasped I just about died laughing. I don't know where he got it but I love it. I love it when he comes up with things like this. It helps me remember that he is still as creative as other kids.

The second one he did get some help learning. We watched Allan and Stacy's for about a week awhile ago. Pax and Wyatt had a good time chasing the kids around like zombies. Next thing I know, Josh has his own zombie impression. The great thing is that he has no real idea of what happens when a zombie catches you. Normally once he catches someone he suddenly turns into a ninja and tries to karate chop them. So, as you see in the movie, he has no idea that zombies are scary.

So this is my son. Funny, creative, expressive. I just love the faces he pulls. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Hurts so good

Chantelle waxed my arms, face, and arm pits today so I can be ready for Vegas this weekend. Arms and face, no big deal. It doesn't hurt really and I love the results. Arm pits? Those are a different story. Usually I try to not have Josh with me so he doesn't hear my gasps of pain as my nerves scream at me for being so cruel. If you have never gotten your arm pits waxed you wouldn't understand. The first time went a little like this: Chantelle rips off the strip with a huge tearing sound. I say, "It wasn't that....ARGH!!!" My nerve endings literally could not believe what I had just done to them. They sat there like, "Did she just?...No...Holy crap, she did, quick tell the brain." Then horrifying pain.

But today there was no getting around it. Josh was going to witness the joyous event. He got bored with the arms and the face but somehow he sensed a change in the air when I was getting ready to do my pits. He wants to watch, no, not watch, he wants to soak in every terrifying detail. He had his face so close to my arm pit I thought he was going to get his cheek stuck on the wax. Finally we convinced him he needed to be on the other side to hold my hand.

He held my hand, patting my arm and whispering in a soft calming tone. I was looking at him and the second Chantelle ripped my face must have given away the spectacular things going on on the other side of the table because in one moment he was whispering sweet nothings and the next he was on the other side of the table, eyes wide looking like he just saw the worst and best thing in his life. He was sweet enough to sign "Stop" to Chantelle but his hands said stop and his face said, "That was awesome, again!"

Luckily, this time I didn't bleed too much. Josh think: horrific pain?= okay, tiny scratch with blood? = death. He continued to be fascinated with what Chantelle was doing and in between whispering "ow" he insisted that she stop "cutting" me with tweezers while she plucked the stragglers.

Ah, adventures of the summer are beginning already.

Left to Tell

This last week I read an amazing book that I have not been able to shake from my mind. It is called "Left to Tell" by Immaculee Ilibagiza. It is the true story of a woman who lives through the Rwandan Holocaust and finds it in her heart to forgive the people who slaughtered her people and brutally murdered her family. http://www.lefttotell.com/

This book made me ugly cry...a lot. I tried to compose myself but I couldn't uncrumple my face or slow my gasping sobs. I cried for her, I cried for her family, for the Tutsis, for the lost childhoods on both sides, for the hatred that grew so easily, for humankind and how easily everyday people can become monsters. I would like to say I have stopped crying (since it has been 4 days since I read the end of the book) but I haven't.

Who am I? Am I the kind of person who could kill my neighbor given such circumstances? Am I the person who would survive but have hatred in my heart? Could I, like Immaculee, forgive after I knew the horror of my family's last breaths? Would I die, facing my attackers with courage and even poise while facing a horrific death?

I don't know if I could forgive. I wish I could say that I could.

Since going to college, in many of my classes we have touched on the subject of everyday people becoming monsters when the right situation arose. College students who continued to press the button that they believed shocked a person in a neighboring room even though they heard shrieks of pain, cries for mercy, and eventually silence because an authority figure told them to. Studies with college students who were made "prison officers" of other college students who were playing the part of "prisoners" that had to be cut short because it began to have scary similarities to Guantanamo Bay after 2 weeks. And so many more. And now this book where people kill their neighbors and friends...why?, because they are of a different tribe, because they are scared, because their government told them to, because they listened to enough evil that they began to become evil themselves?

I said it in class and I say it now. I will not be a follower who blindly does what I am told. I have a brain and it is a pretty good one. I will use it. I will find courage to stand up for what I believe even when it is an unpopular belief. I may not be as strong as Immaculee, I may not be able to forgive the way she did, but I can remember what following blindly can do and I can find the courage to know when to go against what I am told.

Holla' Holland!

Welcome to Holland

by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

For years I have known my plane landed in Holland. For four years Josh has done so well (for Josh) that I have been able to pretend that maybe at some point, someone would tap me on the shoulder and say, "Hey, what are you doing here? You are supposed to be in Italy." and hand me my ticket. Maybe if I worked hard enough while in Holland, maybe if I did everything right, maybe.....

There were even times that, in a Don Quixote moment, I saw windmills and thought they might be the leaning tower of Pisa.

But alas, I have been disillusioned. My son will never speak. I am never leaving Holland. And that is okay. It can be rather beautiful.

Whoo-hoo!!

I have spent the last 2 or 3 weeks convincing myself that I will be fine if I don't get into the OT program at U of U this year. I would give extra attention to Josh and his therapy and I would get a job. Things would be great. Then I got an e-mail....THE email. U of U wants me to interview!!! Now this doesn't mean that I am definitely in but it means I am 1/2 way there.

The interview is an all day event on March 4. I am super excited and kind of freaking out but it is going to be awesome!