Marvelous Monday!

So, Monday… you’re back. Thankfully, my Friday this past week was pretty awesome as I spent it with my bestie and her baby girl, and NOT getting rear ended on 95 (BONUS!). I hope everyone had a beautiful weekend, car accident free, as well!

This week I am thankful for finishing. I guess this really means I’m thankful for trying, but really… getting to the end was triumphant! Last week, I ran a 5k the day after we were in an accident. It was a bad choice. I cried. My ankle hurt and I had a headache that didn’t go away until Wednesday of this week. But I did it. It was a terrible time (nettime of 34:12) on a course I’d trained for weeks… my hopes of a sub-28 minute 5k were dashed with one “just for a second” glance away from the road.

But, I finished. And I am thankful for that. I am thankful I have “it” in me to keep going.

As someone recently pointed out to me after commenting on Addie being small, well she doesn’t look that different. Maybe they made a mistake. I’m not quite sure who they are, but the blood work from Johns Hopkins was conclusive- Addie has Achondroplasia. This week, my dwarfism fact is that Addie isn’t that different! It seems like I preach weekly about my baby girl being able to do anything she wants and that she is just like everyone else… and finally someone agrees- no matter how inappropriate they make their agreement sound. There are people with forms of dwarfism that just make them short, yet proportionate. Others, like Achondroplasia are disproportionate with short limbs and a larger head, others have short torsos and average limbs, some are still being discovered!

When Addie is next to her peers, sitting on the floor, they are almost the same height. Addie’s torso is [almost] average to her age- she wears a 6 month top. However, when she stands next to most kids in the 11-14 month rage, she is a few inches shorter. There are other differences people have noticed- and seem totally unabashed about telling me about: her neck is short, she has lots of rolls in her skin, her sunglasses don’t stay on (the bridge of her nose is flat), she’s still crawling like that (yep!), she looks like Buddha, her head is huge (so is your mouth!)… it goes on, but please know, these are just features of the type of dwarfism that Addie has.

Truthfully, she might never grow out of some of these things, and others she may. The best part of the whole parenting game? Growing and learning [with your child] everyday! Most things people say, they mean with the same innocuous connotation as “the sky is blue”, so I try to just laugh it off. Most of the time, it’s not worth explaining more to people who misspeak. Addie is beautiful, smart, funny hysterical, loving and, like her mama, flirtatious. Sure, some things are different about her… then again, some things are different about all of us. Thank you to the people who look past everything else, into those blue eyes and see what we, as her parents see: Adelaide.

And my random of the week… sometimes you just have to let go! A friend of mine came up from DC- which she does so rarely- and I was all too excited to meet her out for lunch. Dave, thankfully, was able to come, too. We never get out and I was super happy he came!

We were seated outside at Harbourside Lobstermania, and enjoyed the afternoon on the water. The service was great, the weather was perfect and the food was pretty reasonable- although I totally should have gotten some seafood and not the South Western Salad (it was good… but I totally drooled over Dave’s fish & chips!). We didn’t sit and talk about the piled up paper in envelopes (they go by the name Billzzzz), or the unrelenting issues in Rhode Island… we talked about Dave’s upcoming business trip to Taiwan (WHAT?!?!), the LPA conference in DC where we will go out to eat at a college friend’s new place (Beuchert’s Saloon), and love, babies, vacations.

For one afternoon… we just let it all go. And man, did we need to!

Sure, Dave came home and worked all night in the basement to make up for the fact that we went out, but he was happy to. He was happy to treat his ladies to a nice afternoon and to hang out and enjoy a beer. Thank you to Alex for her awesome photo skills:

Happy Monday to you, Reader!!!