Go Me!!

You may remember back in January of 2009 that I took my GRE's because I was considering going back to school to get a Masters. Well, I have been a busy girl since I disappeared last October. I applied to UConn graduate school. Their West Hartford campus offers a one year accerated teachers program that will award me with my Masters as well as my teacher's certification in one year. You can click here if you are interested in the program details. My first summer course begins on June 1st and I am going crazy with stress.

Today, I received notice that I also was awarded a teaching grant for $15,000!!! That amount will go along way to paying off the bill for tuition. I'm so so excited. In the Fall of 2011 I will be teaching high school math baby!

Whew! I've been gone a long time

Since I am no longer working behing a computer eight hours a day, I find it hard to sit down and update my blog. Actually I have been a little busy. I took the Praxis II exam for high school math teachers and I have been finishing up my admissions essay. But more importantly, I have been settling in as a stay at home mom. I actually do house work. Imagine that!! I was so spoiled by Scott. But I need to pull my own weight and do stuff so that he wants to keep me around :)

I have Halloween pictures on my facebook account. Unfortunately, after I got the photos uploaded to facebook, but before I got around to uploading them to flicker or to my external hard drive, the device that I use to connect the memory stick to the pc broke so I have to get a new one. It is only $15 a Walmart, it is just a matter of getting over there. The card slot on my pc has been broken for a while and we lost the cord that came with the camera, it is not a typical usb cable. The cost to replace our Sony cord is $80 so I would rather get that other thing. Too bad, our little princess was great!

Penny is doing all kinds of amazing things and I have to say that I love staying home with to be a part of development. She says circle (kirkle lol) and draws a round sort of thing that closely resembles a circle. She started to say "up" on Monday and yesteday I swear she said "yeah." We do a lot of coloring and work with shapes. I sort of dabbled with color recognition, but I don't know if she is ready for that. She does get really engaged with shapes though so I am going to stick witht that.

We hit a museum once sometimes twice a week since we have free admission to practically everywhere. And I still have time set aside for her naps.

IS ANYBODY ELSE CONCERNED ABOUT THE MOON BOMBING?

I have complete faith in NASA and I am sure they know what they are doing. However, does anyone else have images from the remake of THE TIME MACHINE where the moon was in bits and pieces?

You can click on the post title to read an article about this amazing event on Friday. Also, it says that if you have a decent enough telescope, you will be able to see this occur on Friday at 7:30 am.

New Friend for Penny

On a brighter side, I think Penny met her new best friend. Up until now, Penny has met a lot of boy children with Down syndrome, and we were on the look out for a girl that is local to hang with. Well, we went and visited a family that lives about 15 minutes away. If the mom sends me her pix (again my camera was not operable) and her permission to post I will throw some pictures up soon. I know that this is a match made in heaven so to speak because her name is Helen. Both Penelope and Helen are strong Greek names that are rich in Greek mythology. In fact, the name Helen made it on my short list for that reason, but Penelope won out in the end.

Penelope was the wife of King Odysseus of Ithaca. Odysseus was pretty much forced to help the king of Sparta when his wife, Helen of Sparta was "kidnapped" by the prince of Troy. Thus began the Trojan war, ten year battle over a woman. Helen's beauty was unmatched and she was said to have had "the face that launched a thousand ships" because of all the countries involved in this fight. All the time that Odysseus was absent from home, twenty years in fact, Penelope never once took on another lover. She had many suitors since there was an empty thrown, but she turned down each one of them because Penelope believed her husband was to return. The name Penelope has two meanings; the first is "always faithful" but the name also has a more literal translation, "one who weaves." This is because it was said that during the time Penelope waited for the return of her husband, she was constantly weaving a garment to keep herself too busy for the suitors.

Remembering 4th of Julys past

So my post is a day late. . . sue me.

Seven years ago yesterday I had approached my due date with Nathaniel. It was a very hot day, not like yesterday at all. I am pretty sure the temperature had reached 100 degrees. Having stopped working only 1 week prior as a waitress at TGI Fridays, I enjoyed lounging around at my parents house for a BBQ that day. Amazing that I cannot remember the 4th 3 years ago, but that day I remember all sorts of details. A good friend of mine, Kelly, stopped by with gifts from her mother and herself for the new baby that was to arrive. I was only 22 with all sorts of expectations of what motherhood was going to be like.

I tell his birth story to Nathaniel every day on his birthday, July 7. Has it really been 7 years already???

Two years ago yesterday I woke up early to get Nathaniel ready to go to CCMC. Penny had been re-admitted five days earlier for an infection to her open heart surgical incision. She hadn't responded to oral antibiotics, and we weren't sure what we were dealing with so, she was kept on the inside for a full course of IV anceph. I was bummed for obvious reasons, but also because we would have loved to spend the holidy with Scott's mother. (Of course we didn't know this was her last 4th of July.) Scott and I were hopeful that Penny was getting freed that day and we would have the rest of the day out of that place. Scott had slept over since we never left her in the hospital by herself. Nathaniel and I made our way through the short fifteen minute drive, and then spent an unusually quick 5 minutes to find a parking space. I pulled Nathaniel in one of the wagons since I was ready to take advantage of any fun thing for Nathaniel. In the lobby in front of the main elevators they had two tables with volunteers making party hats. It was such a neat thing for Nathaniel (almost five) to do. I was so grateful for that, I mean, how nice is it that they do this for families on a holiday. We finally made it upstairs and I learned that Penny was indeed going to be discharged that afternoon!!!!

Tonight, Nathaniel is at the Manchester fireworks with Scott. I got a call at 8 pm that Nathaniel had fallen asleep at 7:30 or so. What a tired maniac!!! Poopers finally crashed at 9 pm tonight after I worked her hard at the playscape down the street. This girl can crawl up the stairs and slide head first down the short slide. What a nut!! Then we had girls night out at Friendly's. We tried out a booster seat for the first time, instead of the high chair. She was wonderful! So engaged with her meal and her momma. We conversed most of the eveing about Dada, but sometimes we talked about the light, and sometimes we discussed the baby in the booth near us.

I hope everyone esle is having a great holiday weekend.

How stressful is your morning?

I try not to wake up before 6 am, although sometimes the wailing of a 2 year old still prompts me to jump out earlier. I move into the shower first thing. I have always been a morning shower person. I hate going to bed with my hair wet. Also, my hair is so fine that if I go to bed with wet hair, it becomes so matted that my pinwheel spot looks like a gigantic bald spot. After I am done in the shower, I brush my teeth and get dressed. I jump in the car within 20 minutes of waking up. If I am really motivated, I might do makeup or hair, but since I am in dire need of a hair cut I haven't been motivated to do anything with my hair lately.

I love and hate it when the babies don't wake up. They slow me down considerably because I would have to change Penny's diaper and make sure she has enough entertainment in the crib to last her until Scottie gets up. It also makes my day when I get to rub my face on her babyish cheeks and kiss her all over. Nathaniel usually tells me first thing that he loves me if he spies me before making it to my car.

My car ride to work is usually only 20 minutes. I really don't think I could handle more of a commute then that.

I would like to get back into doing yoga in the morning. I feel so much better even after 3 or 4 days of yoga.

All in all I would have to say that my mornings are not very stressful?

How is your morning?

Is there anyone that will have us?

Everytime I come back from a trip I long for more. I had a bug in my hat for a brief time about possibly flying out to CA in October to see my family, but I decided to put a hold on that for a time. Now, I am toying with the possibility of driving my family to Chicago from CT to visit my friend that I just saw. This will only work out if I am laid off by Sept 1. Irene will be on maternity leave until about October and I will only consider this trip if I get to spend time with both her and the baby. I thought that Chicago was 11-12 hours, but I learned today that it will be 14 and one half hours! We will most likely have to stop over somewhere and break it up. So if anyone lives near I-80 (from PA to IL) and they are willing to possibly maybe give some respite to my traveling family in September let me know!!! I love road trips!

Jambo!!

I am back from Chicago and I am beat!! I am stuck here at work since my office is a 2 minute drive from the airport I just thought it would make more sense to finish out the day at work and then go home at 4pm. But it is so hard!!! 2 hours left before I can see my babies. My girlfriend Irene lives out there and she is having herself a little Tanzanian-American baby any day. She met her hubby in Tanzania in June of 2006 when she went out to do some volunteer work for six months. I finally got to meet him and I learned that he is such a perfect man for Irene.

Irene, good luck to you when the baby comes!!! I pray for a fast and pain-managable labor for you!! Give the baby lots of smooches for me.

Away I go. . . .

I really intended to have Penelope's birthday pictures as well as pictures from the Little Hearts picnic up, but I have been such a slacker lately.

I am flying out to Chicago tonight all on my lonesome to visit a very close and dear friend from High School whom with I have remained close. Strange that I am soon turning thirty and two of my closest friends are from high school and they have lived out of state pretty much since we graduated. I also connect with 2 other friends pretty regularly.

My friend Irene that lives in Chicago is having a baby at the end of the month. Please pray and hope for a smooth delivery and a healthy baby. Thank you all and I will post when I get back!!

I won another award!!

Thanks to Joanie I now have another award. I guess you get this for having a good attitude or some crap like that. You know, "When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade."

So, I would like to hand this out to a few people I know that just have a swell attitude about life, even though there have a been a few bumps in the road of life.

Melissa from Having fun at home with Master Dillon.

Lacey from Jaxson's fight.

Jessica from Raising Joey.

Cammie at The Helflin Family.

Michelle at The Zoromski Chronicles.

Erin from Adelynn's Journey.

And Rene at Life with My Special Ks.

Now the recipients can pass this on to as many or as few blogs as they want, maximum of 10! You will need to link to the other person's blog. Lacey, for the love of all that is good. We will figure this out together ok! and then you need to comment on their blog so that they know to come find this award.

Congratulations winners!!

Go Therapy Go!

Speech therapies, physical therapies, occupational therapies, big therapies, little therapies, long therapies, and short therapies!

Penelope has been receiving services through the East Hartford Birth to Three since she was was 6 weeks old. I remember those first few months, my heart and my head pulled in so many different directions with this beautiful new life. I had my 5 year old to worry about, the pumping and the trying to nurse routine (is there anything more frustrating than feeding your child?), twice weekly visiting nurse pulse-ox checks (Hi Meghan I am so glad we met!!), once a week visits to the pediatrician, and not to mention the round the clock medications she was on after her heart surgery. Somewhere we managed to squeeze in those early visits from our special ed teacher and our service coordinator, Marni from Bto3. Quickly, we added the phyisical therapy visits as well. I remember when the PT on the hospital staff stopped in to see Penny before she left the hospital for the first time and she mentioned that the average age for a child with Down syndrome to begin to walk was 2 years old. For some reason I was really blown away by that. As I looked down to the bed at that floppy little 7 lb baby, only 7 days out of surgery, I thought to myself, "Wow! How do I know if I am up to this challenge? I will have to work with her and push her so much just do accomplish something so basic as walking?" I will never really know if that physical therapist noticed the water welling up in my eyes for probably the, oh, fiftieth time in those past thirteen days, but she put her hand out and said firmly, "But she will walk." And I believed her. . .

In the past eighteen months we have seen our Birth to 3 physical therapist, Dr. Yvette, regularly about two times a month. If we really wanted to we could augment that to once a week, but as any one who knows Penny will attest, she is doing just fine with the status quo. It took Penelope a bit to learn how to sit up on her own. If someone came by and sat her up, she could stay there on her own for awhile by the time she was ten months old; the really neat trick came at about fourteen months when she was able to put her self in the sitting position. By this time she had also perfected her military crawl and would demonstrate this by transversing our downstairs floor plan on her belly in under 90 seconds time. This school year has gone by so fast it is tough to say when she finally crawled on her hands and knees full time, but I would guess that came around Halloween time. Now we are on to more challenging exercises to entice little Miss Penny pants to walk.

And through all of these incredible milestones, Dr. Yvette has been there to give support to not just Penny but the whole family. After she leaves, I sometimes wonder who benefits more from the visit, myself or Penelope. We are so blessed to have such a warm-hearted, intelligent person on our team, who truly wants to be here to support Penny and her family. We often talk about what I want out of life; and she listens to me! Dr. Yvette always gives wonderful advice on things we can do with and for Penny, but she gives it with such neutrality that it never seems dictated or scripted, but absolutely from the heart, what she knows to be right for our family. We are about half-way through our services with Bto3 and already I am looking to the time when Dr. Yvette will no longer be Penelope's instructor. Thankfully, I know that we will be able to continue a relationship with her, otherwise, I would really be dreading Penny's third Birthday. During our last visit on Friday, Dr. Yvette worked with Penny to help her walk while she was only holding onto one hand and we also worked on her climbing skills to get up and down off the big chair. And then she worked on my esteem skills to get me up and off my ass to look for something more fulfulling then to continue looking for something else within Enterprise. We talked a lot about me going back to school to get a Masters of Education. I always kind of steered toward becoming a high school mathematics teacher, and now I want to do this more than ever! If only everyone had a Dr. Yvette for their household!

Ok, I need to relax because I have been searching the Internet on what my score really means. I guess the verbal section is harder for the typical student that takes the test so a score of 570 in the verbal means I am in the 78th percentile for verbal skills and a score of 710 in the quantitative section places me in the 72th percentile for math skills. How can I be under in math!!! I feel so inadequate.

"Veni, Vidi, Vici"

Well, I am glad it is over. That is one good thing. I won't know my score on the analytical writing section for 2 weeks or so, but on the math section I scored a 710 out of 800. I am pretty happy that I got over 700. In all the practice tests my score was not so good. My verbal section was a lousy 570. I felt pretty good about some of the analogies, but the antonym section completely blew me away this time. Oh well, I have some time to take it again if 570 is not good enough. Combined score is a 1280, which is pretty much what I got on the SATs. (1260 the first time).

I CAN GO ON WITH MY LIFE!!!

Another Nathanielism

I need to preface this post with: "I love my mother."

I took the boy to Kohls yesterday to spend my Kohls cash and had settled on a pair of jeans to try on. He is still at an age where I take him into the stall with me, so when I took off my pants to try on this likely candidate, Nathaniel proclaimed, "Mommy! Your butt is as big as Grandma's!" Amongst the snickers from ther other stalls I asked him if maybe my butt is a little bit smaller than my mother's. I mean, who wants to be told they look like their mother from behind, right? Nathaniel agreed that maybe, my butt was just a little bit smaller. Ok, I guess that will have to do.

On a brighter side, I bought a very comfortable, cute looking pair of jeans for myself.

Recount of 2008

Overall a much better year than 2007! Here are some of the highlights of 2008;

January - Penelope was recovering so nicely at home, having just came home from surgery on Dec. 22 for her TOF repair (2nd surgery was on Dec. 17, 2007) and at just seven months old, her first tooth erupted. The most exciting thing of Jan. '08 must of been when I joined blogger, of course! My first ever blog post was on Jan. 12.

February - My father turned 59, Penny worked hard on sitting up on her own and with the exit of Feb. she was very close to doing it. She also was holding herself in a standing position on the coffee table. Scott and I were both back into our routine at work having found a babysitter to come to our house three days a week.

March - Penny celebrated her first Easter in March. I also hosted the annual Easter candy hunt at my mother's house. I learned that Penelope could drink through a straw. She also had her 9 month well baby check up where we learned our little monster was over 18 and a half pounds!! We were so proud of her growth. She also started to say "dada" this month.

April - One of my brothers celebrated his 19th birthday and my mother had a birthday as well. Penelope continued to grow and tried out new foods. My god baby, Shamus, was born to my best friend Jessie and her hubby, Nate.

May - Such a busy month. I went up to visit Shamus and en route to NH with Penny my car broke down. I was able to get picked up from my break down location and I rented a car to resume my trip. We ended up buying a 2008 Honda Civic before the month was over. My family was proud to celebrate Penny's 1st birthday!!! Penelope wasn't too happy because her molars erupted the weekend of her birthday party. She also had a cardiology visit that concluded her left pulmonary artery miraculously grew and everything else looked great.

June - We started out the month when we took the kids to the Little Hearts picnic. This included Tanner. I know that I had a great time and I can't wait to go back this year. Having decided that rolling around was not very effective, Penny learned to perfect her military crawl. Another brother of mine turned 27 and Nathaniel graduated from Kindergarten into first grade.

July - Nathaniel had his sixth birthday at Chuck - E - Cheese. I had my 29th birthday. We placed Nathaniel in summer vacation camp through the parks and rec department for a few weeks and on July 25, Nathaniel fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm. Penelope started putting herself into a sitting position on her own. This was huge!! We also went to the Down syndrome picnic where we met up with Melissa and Dillon. We also ran into Jessica and Joey as well. Diana, who is our current babysitter, came on board. She is absolutely wonderful!

August - WE WENT TO CAPE COD!! It had been 3 years since Scott and I went on vacation together and we had a wonderful time with the kiddies. My mother, father and brother Michael were with us for part of the week.

September - I found out that my job will be consolidated to another claim center. At the present time, we still do not know where this claims office will be. The deadline is supposed to be Aug. 1, 2009 so we were given 11 months notice and a severance option if we are still with the company by the time Aug. comes. Nathaniel started 1st grade.

October - This brought Halloween of course and lots of fun fall activities. I had my first Usborne home show with Jessica where I picked up a lot of cool books. I made two trips to Burlington, VT. Scott and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on Columbus Day weekend up there. Penny came with us, but my friend Jessie was great enough to keep her overnight. Nathaniel stayed home with my brother and sister - in - law and niece. Then my other best friend Irene flew in from Chicago and I took her to Burlington so that us girls could party. It was a crazy weekend. We finally started speech therapy for Penny, and have been continuing with the PT.

November - I was reacquainted with blogging and made a real effort to blog more than once a month. lol. Penelope began to crawl on her hands and knees more consistently. She had her check up with the cardiologist which will lead to a future MRI. Her growth is awesome!! 23 lbs in November. Unfortunately, she was sick through Thanksgiving. First she had croup, then walking pneumonia, and then an ear infection. We celebrated Thanksgiving at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA.

December - Scott's birthday, my other brother's 22 birthday, and CHRISTMAS!! Nathaniel told me Santa brought him everything he asked for, so he must have been a good boy. Penelope began to stand without holding onto anything for close to a minute. We also learned that she likes to eat the crib when we are not looking.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Happy Birthay Melissa! I hope that you have a wonderful day. I miss you and Dillon too and hopefully we can get together soon.

New day, New game

One of my other blogger friends continued on this game and it sounds like it can be funny so hear goes: Here are the top 10 things that pull up on Googl.com when I enter "Maureen needs"

1."Maureen needs a date." Kind of funny since my husband took me out to the movies tonight. Thanks Joey for watching the kiddies.

2."Maureen needs your support… “Maureen, please leave the Big Brother House now..."" scary, I didn't know I was in trouble.

3. "Maureen Needs YOU!" Well, I do.

4. "Maureen Needs to Realize Two Things" What do I need to realize?

5. "Despite not knowing a word of Latvian, Maureen needs this one." Actaully, I know several Latvian words. "Cur er vansutubs?" Pauldias. and Lebrett. I don' t know if the spelling is at all correct, but this is the phoentic spelling of these works. My best friend from my senior year in high school was 100% Latvian and she taught me a few words.

6. "Maureen needs hitting with a lump of wood wrapped in barbed wire" OUCH!!! Am I doing the hitting here or am I getting hit?

7. "Maureen needs to read something written by other than her own personal friends once in a while" Well, I am reading the "Truth about Boys" still.

8. "Maureen needs a loan in the amount of 50000 NGN" I don't know what an NGN is, but sure, I will take it!

9. "Maureen needs you to stop crying." This kind of entirely speaks for itself.

10. "Maureen needs a new pair of shoes." Well, right again! Who doesn't need a new pair of shoes.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Your Christmas is Most Like: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Each year, you really get into the spirit of Christmas. Which is much more important to you than nifty presents.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Click on the link to discover what Movie your Chritmas is like. Oh, and Renee thanks for this post and my favorite Christmas movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas.

What type of blogger are you?

ESFP - The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves. The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

I AM A SENSOR/FEELER? WHAT?!?!?!?!

Click on the title of this post to get your blog analyzed.

Notice to the right

Ok, I know I really wanted to do Tricia's 31 for 21 Getting it Down posting extravaganza, (but failed miserably) but I wasn't, you know, into my blog yet, and I feel that I have really come around and out of my shell for this month. So, here it goes, I am going to take the monthly themes as advise and see if I can't blog every day next month. It is December, how can I not have things to write about, right?