Mr. Troy

That is Mr. Troy Aikman to you!  That's right.  THE-MR. TROY AIKMAN was dining just tables away from us at Chuy's in Dallas!  Hard to believe, I know.  Couple that with my fearless 6 year old Olivia and this is what you get:

 So we explained who this legend was.  And she watches football occasionally.  And we kept asking her "Are you sure you know who we are talking about?"  I just kept visioning her going up to a nobody stranger and getting embarrassed.  So as to make no confusion, she drew the following picture of him to make sure we were all on the same page.

So she marched right up to the man and said "Excuse me Mr. Troy but I am a really big fan of you!  I wanted to give you some cards of my sister. (yes purple cards!)  Then after a few seconds of awkward silence we asked for the picture.

Roger on the other hand is not that brave, and decided to just let him photo-bomb.

So thank you Mr. Troy for being so kind to one of your youngest fans.  She later decided he was kind of cute!

Perspective

So, I'm not complaining, but sometimes our life gets a little rough.  Sometimes a little sticky.  Mostly it revolves around my own guilt.  Guilt about not being able to clone myself and do all the things that I do for Juliana, for Olivia.  I know, it sounds stupid.  I do those things for Juliana simply because she can't.  And I know that Olivia is fully capable of doing all those things like dressing herself, brushing her own teeth, putting herself to bed, feed herself but to a 6 year old, it's not always clear.  Sometimes she cries and says, "Mommy, why can't you get me dressed?" or "Mommy why can't you rock me to bed, Juliana is older than me!  I'm littler than her, so why can't you rock me?"  And of course I could if I could (a) clone myself or (b)have all the time in the world, but in our crazy busy life I don't have either of those luxuries.  And yes, I know that I should teach her that fair doesn't mean the same.  And that Juliana NEEDS us to do those things and she can do them herself, yada yada yada.  But the truth is that it breaks my heart and I go to bed often crying about it, wondering if she is going to end up in therapy over this childhood of hers, or grow up resenting me or Juliana.  In other words sometimes obsessing over it.

But this past weekend a very wise friend came to visit (thank you Penelope) and as we were talking late into the night this topic came up.  I explained all of the above to her and how horrible it felt when she said those things, and you know what she said?  She said "That's awesome!"  And I said, "Excuse me?  I just poured out my guts and you say That's awesome?  What is awesome about my little girl feeling second all the time?"  And her response, "That's awesome that Olivia sees her and Juliana as equals.  She doesn't feel sorry for her or treat her differently.  She sees her sister as the same as her and therefore wants the same treatment as her.  If she felt sorry for her or looked at her like less, she would understand and say, "Yes mommy, go to Juliana, she needs you more than I do" but because she sees her as a strong little girl, just like herself, she expects the same treatment."  Wow!  That was mind-blowing.  I never thought of it that way, but it's so true.  Thank God! and Thanks Penelope for helping me see that.

CUPCAKE ATM

Possibly one of the greatest inventions in my lifetime.

Full Circle

 So funny story.  A long, long time ago, in a far away land (Rhode Island), I worked for one of my favorite bosses to date.  I was working as an H.R. Assistant and Ed Burke was my boss.  (I learned so much and laughed so hard during my time there).  So occasionally I would babysit for his adorable two daughters and son.  They must have all been under four years of age at the time and Robin and I would watch them do River dance while we watched them.

So fast forward about 20 years.  That little River Dancing little girl Kaylen moves to Dallas and we have the privilege of meeting her for dinner.  We hit it off great.  The girls loved her and now she is helping us out with Golf for a Cure!  Kaylen you rock! and we are so glad we got to meet you!  Here's to many more dates in the near future (Liv is still going to hold you to coming over!)

Happy Birthday Linds

Happy Birthday Friend!  So glad to have you in our lives.

Spring Break 2014

Well although this wasn't what you would think of as a typical "Spring Break Trip", it was quite an adventure, thanks to my creative adventurous girls.  So without even leaving the metroplex we managed to attend a daycare reunion, lost a tooth, got a visit from the tooth fairy, traveled to Egypt to explore ancient tombs, work at a grocery store as a cashier, broke records on a swing set, rode bikes, rode scooters, made a school bus (out of  a cardboard box), made treasure maps, used treasure maps to successfully find treasures, and even had a few "netflix" days.  All in all an amazing week and probably the best spring break the girls have ever had.

"Essential" Changes

So when all else fails, you keep trying something new.  So as many of you know we have certain chronic issues that we struggle with with Juliana.  Namely keeping her awake and alert and some anxiety.  Keeping in mind the amount of medication she takes, it's no real mystery why she's always tired, or has no endurance.  We have tried stimulants with her to try and combat the lethargy, but that was terrible.  It turned her into a nervous jittery wreck.  As crazy as it sounds we give her some coffee in the morning and it did seem to help some.  Then we started giving her fish oil and I did see definite improvement in focus, but it's just never enough to keep her awake and alert all day at school.  So I have been talking to a lot of people that swear by essential oils, and I thought, why not.  We've tried everything else, things with much worse side effects, why not try something natural like oils.

And so last week we started this journey in essential oils.  I became a little obsessed because once you start scratching the surface, you realize THERE ARE OILS FOR EVERYTHING!  Like seriously you could literally replace your entire medicine cabinet with oils.  Oils for mood, oils for head aches, oils to calm you down, oils to bring you up, oils for aches and pains, oils to help regenerate damaged cells!!!!  Like seriously why haven't I heard of this sooner!  So we started with some oils during the day to bring her mood and energy up and one for focus and alertness.  Then we have one at night to help calm her down and get her ready for bed.  After one week of using the oils I'm pretty impressed.  I'm not going to lie and say she all this energy we don't know what to do with it.  The fact of the matter is she takes quite a bit of seizure meds and she has to work so hard for every little movement that she wares out quickly.  But what I will say is that I see her much more focused and much more present.  I will definitely continue to use them if simply for this benefit.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but let me tell you, it's huge for us.

Let me give you an example.  Today we went to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and Nature.  A typical day, b.o. (before oils) would have included a nervous scratching and pinching fit about 30-40 minutes after we arrived, once she had had enough and was overstimulated and that leading into a coma nap in order to escape it all.  This was typical.  Don't get me wrong, it was not that bad and eventually we knew she would fall asleep which made things pretty easy, but it always hurt my heart that she was missing out on life.  Today, we arrived at a crazy packed museum the week of spring break.  Kids everywhere.  She was awake and calm and actually enjoyed the whole museum.  We did a lot of the activities together and then, we actually went and saw an IMAX movie on Mummies.  Now this was probably not the best parenting choice because it was way over their heads and slightly graphic and visual when talking about the mummification process.  Now old Juliana would have either a. Fallen asleep for the entire showing leaving wondering why I even paid for a ticket for her or b. cried and screamed until someone left the theater with her.  Today, guess what, she stayed awake and watched the entire one hour presentation one mummies.

Then we left the museum and went for lunch to Chuy's where she actually ate a great lunch - another struggle we have from time to time is her eating.  All in all a great day!

Here are some pics from our amazing day:
Kaleidoscope Faces!

 Doing a little shopping

 Look at her eyes!

 And her smile!  She loved being the cashier.

 Look at the face.  She is with it!

 Standing on her own!

So who knows.  Maybe it's a placebo effect, because I did tell Juliana that these were magic oils that were going to help her.  You know what, I don't care.  I will take it!  So if you are interested, I am also selling these magic oils.  Check out the website at http://www.mydoterra.com/kristybrooks1/
But if you are interested - contact me and I can get you free shipping!

Another Tooth Bites the Dust!

Guess who lost her second tooth! Juliana did! I can't take credit for this one though. After working it for weeks I just couldn't get it out. Truth be known I hate teeth. And I just could pull myself to pull this tooth! So today we visited Mrs. West and she did the honors. She is a pro. She used dental floss and with her secret method got it out with no tears and very little blood. I couldn't tell you what her secret metho is because I was hiding behind Juliana with my eyes shut and ears covered (yes people the noises are unbareable). The next thing I knew - tooth was out! Of course I did loosen it up for her. Hahaha.

This is a pic I took after massage only because she was fast asleep and I knew I could finally get a pic of the hole!

Six Flags Over Texas

Had a great time at 6 Flags! Great weather and we rode 6 rides in two hours thanks to 6 Flags wonderful special needs policy. They were all so kind and very accommodating. The favorites of the day were Pandemonium and the Shock Wave!

Open House

Tonight was open house at the elementary school. Not gonna lie, Juliana was less than thrilled to be back at school at night. She fake fell asleep for most of it. Then we went to Liv's room. She was so excited to show us everything, and I mean EVERYTHING! Like from back in September. But I was so so proud, honored and humbled when I read her most recent journal entries. 

Translation: My mom went to Florida. She ran in a race. 

And then:

My mommy was running for Rett Syndrome GP2C.org but she is back. I missed her. 

I love this girl so much. 

Sacrifice

Talking to Liv and Juj about lent and about being a better person.  And that lent is 40 days and we should try to sacrifice something for those 40 days.  So typically people choose to "give something up" for 40 days. It could be something like desserts or being sassy.  So what are you "giving up" Liv? Ummmm, shoes. Okay, so no shoes for 40 days. Glad we had this talk.

Happy Birthday Liv

Even though there is no February 29th this year, we decided to celebrate Olivia's birthday on March 1st.

We got to see her friend Jackson.  Jackson and Liv used to go to CDC for two years and they were inseparable.  So it was really nice to see Jackson after almost a whole year apart.

 And then it was the Minute to Win It Competition.  First game up was Dice Stack.

 Next the Can Stack:

 Pasta Pick-Up

 Next the Gum Sort

 And finally the Floatin' Feather

 Then a little Just Dance Kids