Marvelous Monday

Hello dearest Reader! I hope you had a great weekend! With Dave away on business for 10 days, it’s been rather quiet ’round here.

PSYCH!!!!

Addie and I have been jamming to motown on the record player, cleaning under the furniture, walking Carter twice a day, playing with friends and forgetting what time is… or maybe that last part is just me. Either way, we are doing OK… especially now that Father’s Day is over- THAT was a tough day!

HAPPY 14 MONTHS TO MY SWEET ADELAIDE!!!!

This week I am thankful for an early Father’s Day celebration! As a mom, I feel we are celebrated in society as the people who raise children, but I know plenty of dads that need some shout-outs, too! DAVE is one of them. Because he was not here Sunday (he left Thursday for Taipei), I made our Father’s Day celebration on Wednesday night. We had dinner from Lemongrass (YUM!) and Addie, Carter, Morgan and I gave him cards, and he loved his gift (something we’ve been saying we’d do for a while):

This is the FIRST B-Sharp poster made for the opening of the shop, more than 10 years ago. Something inside me felt like the shop would always be there, but as we get closer to its end, I realized I wanted to preserve it in some way for Addie- and Dave! Best part? The craftsmanship of the framing is impeccable and something we can pass along to our musically inclined Adelaide.

Eastern Art & Frame Company in Providence is owned and operated by Dave’s Aunt Joanne. Joanne has framed lots of things for us including our wedding invitation, engagement photo and wedding day signature frame, a wedding gift that was painted for us, and our favorite newborn photo session picture of Addie and myself. Each frame is beautiful, matted to match the style of the piece inside, as well as the frame, and perfect for the place it holds in the room in which it is hung.

This gift was meant to happen this year. To signify the ending of one chapter and beginning of another. I am thankful that I have the best husband for me and father for Addie- and felt so blessed to celebrate him on his day!

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My dwarfism “fact” on this Monday is more to the point of tubes! Addie’s first flight- a separate blog that does NOT include getting wings- was last Wednesday. We left right before she would have been going to bed, yet she was thrilled the whole time. I was unconvinced of her good nature (I worried her ears hurt her), until we landed. No. More. Milk.

Addie had [secretly] taken her milk out of the seat pocket in front (leaving the directions on what to do in an emergency to flutter to the floor) and finished it before final descent! I braced her against me, not just for wheels down, but for the shrill scream I was sure to come. As the fluid in my ears became imbalanced and my hearing akin to the underwater experience of “whhaawhaahwahwaaahhwha…” Addie clapped her hands and smiled in delight as the runway lights flew past the window. I faked a yawn to pop my brain back into place and smiled back at her.

“Tubes,” I said to myself.

So many children with achondroplasia have fluid issues, thus hearing issues. Many times (though not all), tubes placed in the ears to relieve the fluid from the Eustachian tubes are the ticket to less infections and restored hearing. This has proven true in the case of Addie- a bonus for the heartache of watching your child go under! While there are SO many different surgeries that may come up for children and adults with dwarfism, I try to find more silver linings than just the obvious (tubes=hearing)… in this case, tubes also means less pressure in the ear during take-off and landing. I spoke with a few parents who noticed this phenomenon as well. Although I have not scientifically proved my hypothesis, I am going to say: I’m glad Addie got tubes for ALL of their benefits including ease of air travel… although I dread the day when she has to get them again.

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Lastly, I wanted to share THIS blog post with you as my random of the week. Yes, the giveaway is over (if you followed me on Twitter, you would have seen it earlier!), BUT the site ModaMi is just getting started. As someone who doesn’t do well trying clothes on (does ANYTHING ever fit right?), dressing up with this site harboring thousands of items I could never dream of affording was really fun. I spent over an hour playing with different styles, drinking a glass of wine and I got totally lost.

I felt like sharing this particular site with you because a. It’s supported by someone I’ve come to admire SO much, Audrey and b. I don’t want to drag Addie all over stores to try on clothes I can’t buy because I know what it’s like to work off of commission- I don’t want to be that lady. This site makes it possible for me to play dress up, fantasize and gives me ideas of what I can do with my current closet. For those of you who know me from years back, you know that I didn’t always dress like mom. Sometimes I dressed, or under dressed, a bit too casually. At 5’8 and 117 pounds, I got away with it, and something clicked in me after having Addie: I don’t want to dress like that anymore.

There is nothing wrong with being a hipster, punk, or deviant (or whatever I was called). I’m heavily tattooed for a woman and I am built like a workhorse [and less like a stick]. Websites like ModaMi give me ideas, inspire me to try new things- styles that I would have never envisioned myself in before, and to let go of the good ‘ole days of smoking a pack of cigarettes in a night and instead embracing my inner prep. I’ve always been a bit nerdy/prep… why not let it show? Thank you to Audrey for sharing this awesome site!

 

Happy Monday, Reader!!!