Birthdays and News

We have a question we ask each other: bad news or good news first? Usually its bad news first. So first to the bad news. Kaitlynn's results came back from the retinal scan and she indeed has night blindness. What she has is rod/cone dystrophy, and not the other syndrome that eventually degenerates to complete blindness. What it does mean is that she cannot see in the dark. Additionally, her daytime vision is affected also but not nearly as bad as night time but it is mitigated by her glasses. There is nothing we can do either except track it and monitor the degeneration over time. Her doctor expects that it won't completely degenerate, but it has to be watched. I am quite zen about it, as I suspected for a while that something was just not right. DH has found it hard, but he is coming around (he figures her boyfriends can drive her around at night, when she wants to go out.). So I am getting in touch with the Montreal Institute for the Blind, to figure out if she needs to go to specialized school, looking into the waiting list for a Mira dog if it comes to that... see, all zen. She will be fine and she is a happy kid and that in the end is all that matters. Its up to us to keep her active and healthy - she is in a gym class and she is taking figure skating lessons and doing very well! - so see for yourselves... she is just fine.

Now onto birthdays!

DH turns 24!

Zach turns 6!

School is great and I am learning lots. Work is crazy - now we have the possibility of 2 more astronauts coming on board our mission so in scientific speak we may have an N of 9! Very exciting... but craziness, as these two late additions may mean "Going back to the USSR... you don't know lucky you are... back in.. back in..." sorry got carried away there.

Also, you will say I am crazy (don't you know that by now?), but I am also on the Conseil d'etablissement (PTA) for the boys school. I am also the parent rep at the school board. And I have just won a volunteer position on the Committee for the Family in our municipality - I was appointed officially just this week during the city's Council meeting. I know, I know, I know... but I guess my cocooning period is done and I am coming out and spreading my wings, and letting the wind take me where ever it seems fit to land.

I have other surprises up my sleeve (or should I say pant leg), so stay posted...even though I am only posting once a month now!

This isn't how it's really meant to be...

Some of you know that January 12th looms large for me. It is the day that Jacob was born, and the day that I lost so much, including the "old me". The first year since that fateful day was marked with recovery and trying to stand up again. The second year was marked with the chase for Kaitlynn. Now, in a week, it will have been three years since the day I almost lost my life and while I am standing, I am still grieving for what was meant to be. It has tainted every breath I have taken since that fateful day.

January 5th is the day, three years ago, when things came to a head... and I was rushed to the hospital, dreading, hoping, praying. We started today in 2008 with a loving beginning, to falter only a couple of times. I finally let Greg put the baby bottles away from the cabinet, that holds the children's dishes. I thought I was ready, but still the grief and the tears came. We put the bottles downstairs with the other baby stuff, Greg reassuring me all along that we weren't throwing them out or making any other plans for them, but just moving them downstairs with the other baby stuff. The crib that we set up for Kaitlynn won't be coming down soon, I guess.

There are so many things that we were meant to be, at least that is what I believed. Now, I still don't know what I was meant to be... and what I am meant to be, and what I will be. Grief still has me.. and I am left to carry on and wonder why.

If butterflies are free to fly
Why do they fly away
Leaving me to carry on and wonder why...

Our 1 year anniversary!

Well, its official we are into our 2nd year of married life!

We went out to dinner to Vago's in Westmount - when we first started dating, Greg wanted to take me out to dinner at Vago's but we didn't have a reservation and so we went elsewhere. So we decided that we should try again but with a reservation this time. It was very good - lovely butternut squash soup with apple, buffalo mozzarella cheese with tomatoes in olive oil/balsamic, chicken in tomato/garlic/chive sauce (so-so), tiramisu with a cappuccino/biscotte at the end! We returned home on a cloud of romance, to be told that Greg's dad had called... we got a bit worried, until Greg called and found out that his Dad and Mom were calling to wish us the best!
The after-phone call fireworks were lovely too

Only 49 more years to go to celebrate 50!