Mouse races

Last night it was out on the town for me. I was invited to go to a mouse race fundraiser by Adrienne. She's the leader of our local DS group in St. Charles County and I knew of her on DownSyn actually even before we moved here. So last night I met her for the first time, and then met her four friends who also came to the event. And all these fine ladies have kids with DS. Handy, eh? And I was the youngest....that's a new position for me, for sure.

This is Carolyn, Becky, Allison, Adrienne, and Jane. (Not sure of spellings...sorry if I got any wrong!) Pardon the grainy pics, Motorola Q--not the best camera, but not a bad PDA phone.


The event was to benefit a family, specifically two young boys whose very young dad died suddenly two days after the youngest was born. This is that one...Anthony, named after his dad. He has DS too! He's 8 months old and A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E.


The fundraiser was to benefit the education fund for these two boys. There were appetizers, drinks, a silent auction for sports memorabilia, and raffles for a variety of prize baskets. I really hooped it up, and got a PITCHER of Diet Coke. Yep, that's right. Watch out world.


And here's the mouse race part.... (I'd never heard of such a thing prior to this. But apparently it's a "thing" around here. Must be like toasted ravioli.) There's a guy in some goofy get-up that's kind of being the mouse DJ or something for the night. There's a mouse roulette wheel on one side, no pic of that, where the mouse runs around and where he stops, that person wins. Yeah, I didn't go for that one. But the main event was the 6-round mouse races. The mice start down on the left by the numbers, then they turn the gate and some run and some just sit. It's pretty silly.


They run 6 races, then the winners of the 6 run the 7th for the big winner. People bet on the mice, who of course have names of all varieties. In the 5th race, I chose Speedy. That's him #1. And that's the mouse DJ guy striking a pose.


And there he goes, Speedy wins!


This was my proof of my bet. I had Speedy in lane 1 for race 5. I ended up winning 5 out of the 5 races I bet on. Pretty silly. Unfortunately they marked my slip wrong on race 6, but oh well. I don't know how much money I won, since I just let it all go to the fund.


It was an interesting evening. Not the most fun ever, but it was nice to get out. I still can't quite understand how this kind of an event can be such a big deal around here, though.

Liquid baby

If Braska continues with the eye watering and nose running and rattling wet cough, she's gonna just soak into the floor and disappear I think. That girl's gooey. Now, granted, she doesn't drool, even now, and that's good. Drool gets to me for some reason.

The good news is that she slept better last night thanks to our pals ibuprofen and benadryl. All night. We all slept all night. How spoiled we've been!! Let's hope it continues, though.

We saw her new pediatrician yesterday for a quick meeting. I like her, and I think she'll be willing to do whatever we need for Braska, so that's what's important. We actually go in tomorrow for a before-the-weekend check on Braska's cough, but we'll see her associate since she's out.

BTW... Stay tuned for the return of Random Questions next week... are you ready?

A few winks

Last night Braska had some trouble initially, but M was nice enough to take her so that I could go to sleep, and he returned to bed sometime a little later after she was snoozing in her bed. She slept from about 11 to 4:30am, which normally would be a bad night for her, but after the last few, that's pretty good. I brought her in to our bed at 4:30am hoping she would snuggle up and go back to sleep, even if I couldn't. She was so restless, but she slept for bits here and there. She just thrashes around with her eyes closed like she just can't get comfortable. For her, that's especially weird, because when it's time for bed, she's like a stone. She zonks out in the position she lands in and doesn't move much at all.

She has had two short naps this morning, one that I got to snooze during as well. The other was on my lap, so I just managed to get some work-work done with one hand since the laptop was next to me on the couch, so as not to disturb her. We're headed to have a consult with a possible new pediatrician today (thanks Julie!) in about 45 mins to meet her and discuss Braska's history and see if we feel comfortable with the match. The really good part is that her office is less than 1/4 mile from our apartment, super handy, so that would be a nice switch, for sure.

Thanks for all the tips on things to try with Braska for some comfort. I have had her on Tylenol regularly, but no Benadryl. Don't know why I didn't think of it. Oh wait, she's not been sick in 18 months...that might be why! We're getting some today, though.

OH! And the other news... she has 5...count them...5 teeth coming in right now!!! That could be the problem. I only knew of 2 til I did some forceful checking this morning. Ouch!

Sleep, I miss you

Braska's been running a fever the last few days, on and off, but getting up to 100.4, which is way more than she's ever run for teething. She seems to be ok for the most part, a little snotty, but just a tad, and sometimes clingy, but also minimal. The problem lies in the sleeping, or lack of, that she's doing.

Generally, she's a peach in the sleeping department. When it's time, we say our "night nights" or thank you prayers for our blessings and ask for good things for those around us and far away, then when I say "Amen," she dives for the bed. This is the routine at naps and night. But the last few nights, she's been not wanting to go to bed, fussing (in a pathetic hoarse voice) and waking up numerous times just screaming. Last night she ended up in our bed, which is a big no-no in my book, largely because I can't sleep a stitch if she's in there. And that was the case. When we tried to put her back to bed after she fell asleep, it never lasted.

Today she did nap for a while, and I snuck one too during that time, but tonight's not looking to be any better. Big bummer. I'm not feeling great myself...scratchy throat and such. I just want to sleep all night. It's not gonna happen, I can feel it.

And, as if on cue, she just woke up crying again... and it begins.

I think HE can dance...and more!

I'm a big fan of So You Think You Can Dance on Fox. Last night we were watching it on the DVR and when this young man appeared, I stopped and said, "No way!" Both M and I stopped what we were doing and watched...here's what we saw.



After it was over, we we grinning, talking about how great his speech was and all kinds of what I call "geeky" DS stuff (therapies, diagnoses, characteristics, etc). Then we both said that the blogs would go wild in no time. This is just the kind of thing that we like to see, so why not post it?!?

This morning, there are entries on a few forums I watch, and Meredith is the first blog on my reader to post on it. I'm sure more will follow. But all blogging silliness aside, this guy is really neat. He is a neat guy, DS or not, but I personally believe that at least part of it is because he IS who is IS and has learned to be more than ok with that. That's all we want really. Go Brett!!

The Reason

Moving is no fun. Packing and unpacking is not enjoyable work. Leaving a life and a place we loved for a place we don't really know is scary. Missing friends and coworkers we liked so much is painful. Giving up something I'd dreamed about and never thought I'd actually have in my backyard is really hard. (I love this pic, just had to share...so clear and blue.)

Why did we do it? Why would we up-end our whole life? What could possibly cause us to do such a thing?

Nuff said.

Heading south

It's big news time--We're moving to St. Louis. Well, actually St. Charles, just NW of St. Louis. It's where I lived before we got married 7 1/2 years ago and I moved to Champaign. It's where M got a new job, just finalized yesterday after a whirlwind process that only began late last week.

It's a bittersweet time, as we will miss Champaign a whole lot. This is the longest I've lived anywhere in my life, and that's something. It's been very good to us, and sometimes it's been a little cruel to us, but that's life in this world. All in all, I will think on my time here very fondly.

We are excited about being close to family, close to friends in that area, close to Braska's doctors, eliminating the trips down for appointments and such, trading a 3 hour drive for about 30 minutes to downtown. The new job is very good, and it seems like it will be an easy transition for M to slide right into. He starts in 2 weeks, so the chaos will be overwhelming for a while, but in the end, I really believe life will be much simpler and that's a BIG deal to me.

Big kudos to my husband for making this move. He is not a fan of change, to say the least, but he is putting his family--specifically Braska's best interest--first, and for that I'm immeasurably grateful.

More details will come as we know them. It's all so very fresh still. So far things have been miraculously smooth, so we know this is the right path to take.

(While I blabber on, here's how M announced it.)