Two reasons why I'm so Happy

I just love these two little girls and everyday they make me so happy.

The book that changed my life and opened my eyes

Rarely do I read a book that changes my life and affects me in such a way that I'll never forget. I recently read (actually listened) to "The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards. I was a little apprehensive to check out the book on cd, but I figured I was getting it for Jethro and probably wouldn't listen to it anyway. I read the back of he case at the library and thought Jethro might enjoy it. The longer it sat on our desk at home the more I wanted to listen to it. So began the journey that would change my life.




It is 1964 in Lexington, Kentucky, and a rare and sudden winter storm has blanketed the area with snow. The roads are dangerous, yet Dr. David Henry is determined to get his wife, Norah, to the hospital in time to deliver their first child. But despite David’s methodical and careful driving, it soon becomes clear that the roads are too treacherous, and he decides to stop at his medical clinic instead. There, with the help of his nurse, Caroline, he is able safely to deliver their son, Paul. But unexpectedly, Norah delivers a second child, a girl, Phoebe, in whom David immediately recognizes the signs of Down syndrome.

David is a decent but secretive man—he has shared his difficult past with no one, not even his wife. It is a past that includes growing up in a poor, uneducated family and the death of a beloved sister whose heart defect claimed her at the age of twelve. The painful memories of the past and the difficult circumstances of the present intersect to create a crisis, one in which his overriding concern is to spare his beloved Norah what he sees as a life of grief. He hands the baby girl over to Caroline, along with the address of a home to which he wants her taken, not imagining beyond the moment, or anticipating how his actions will serve to destroy the very things he wishes to protect. Then he turns to Norah, telling her, “Our little daughter died as she was born.”

From that moment forward, two families begin their new, and separate, lives. Caroline takes Phoebe to the institution but cannot bear to leave her there. Thirty-one, unmarried, and secretly in love with David, Caroline has been always been a dreamer, waiting for her real life to begin. Now, when she makes her own split-second decision to keep and raise Phoebe as her own, she feels as if it finally has.

As Paul grows to adulthood, Norah and David grow more and more distant from each other. Norah, always haunted by the daughter she lost, takes a job that becomes an all-consuming career, and seeks the intimacy that eludes her with her own husband through a series of affairs. Feeling as if he’s a disappointment to his father, Paul is angry and finds his only release through music. David, tormented by his secret, looks for solace through the lens of his camera, the “Memory Keeper,” trying to make sense of his life through the images he captures.

But as The Memory Keeper’s Daughter so eloquently shows, life is a moving image, unfolding and changing beyond our control. Despite our desire to freeze a moment or to go back into the past and alter events, time presses us forward. With her heart-wrenching yet ultimately hopeful novel, Kim Edwards explores the elusive mysteries of grief and love, and the power of the truth both to shatter and to heal. (You can read more about the book and an interview with Kim Edwards here.)

When Katya was born, our lives changed, not only because she was our first child, but because she has down syndrome. I'd heard of down syndrome, but didn't know much about it or really thought much about it. After Katya was diagnosed, a million thoughts and emotions ran through my head. There was disbelief and fear, but more than that, there was peace. I knew that even though things might be different and hard at times, Katya was my daughter and I love her and things wouldn't be more than I could handle. It may take some time to discover her struggles and strengths, but everyday will be an adventure. As she has grown , we have learned so much about her and her disability.

Some days are harder and more frustrating than others, but those days are few. Katya brings so much joy into our lives that I wouldn't trade her, disability and all, for anything. With Katya's Early Intervention and physical therapy, we learn more of what we can do to help her reach her full potential. I know that Katya may do things a little slower and take a little longer to learn things than other kids, but I know that she can accomplish so much and we can help. My views on that were reinforced after listening to this book.

I was so distraught when David, the father, immediately wanted Phoebe institutionalized. I do realize that that was a common practice back then and peoples' views on the disabled were so different, but I couldn't imagine sending the child that I had grown to love over 10 months away never to be seen again. I can see why Caroline, the nurse, refuses to put Phoebe in the institution after she sees the condition of those forgotten children and adults. As a mother, I would have a hard time putting away and forgetting about your child and the hopes and dreams you have for them. It makes me so sad to see David lie to his wife and tell her that Phoebe died and hold onto that lie for his whole life. I can see why Norah was so upset and their relationship struggled as she sought for the love she never received in other places. I am not condoning her having an affair, but I have sympathy for her and her desire for closure and to be held tightly and comforted in the loving embrace of one who loves her. It is sad to see David and Norah grow apart with the lies and mistrust creating a bigger rift every day. Even though the circumstances of Phoebe drove the love from David and Norah, it brought love into other lives.

Caroline had so much love for Phoebe and others in turn loved Phoebe and changed. There was the older female professor whose father Caroline took care of and boarded with who found love. Caroline, who had never been truly loved back, even found love. So many people fell in love with Phoebe and changed their thoughts and opinions about the disabled. When faced with a trial and experience like this, one can either choose to accept it and love all that happens or reject it and accept the sadness and loss of love that comes from that rejection. I am constantly hearing from people how they know a child with down syndrome and how they are so happy and bring so much love. I'd have to agree with them. It seems that everyone who comes around Katya just falls in love with her and there is just so much joy. It's amazing to see. At first I didn't believe it, but everyday I see it happening over and over again. Whenever we go to the store, people look at her and they smile. They don't ever hesitate, they just start smiling. The love that abounds from a child like Phoebe or Katya is just amazing and you can truly see the innocence and love of children. I love waking up every morning and seeing the love that she has and brings. It is hard to comprehend sometimes.

An aspect of the book that I really appreciated was Caroline's fight to get Phoebe in public schools and to be given the opportunity to do all things normal kids can do. I am so appreciative of those early advocates and parents that fought for the rights of their disabled children. Because of them, Katya can go to public school and do anything that she wants. There are still barriers that need to be broken down, but there are so many opportunities for her.

Every part of this book had a different effect on me. Parts made me laugh. Parts made me cry. Parts got me really frustrated. The overall effect of this book was happiness and gratitude. I am grateful to have Katya in our family. I am grateful for all the opportunities Katya has to become the person she wants to be. I am grateful that attitudes and opinions on the disabled have changed over the years. I am grateful for family and friends that accept Katya and don't judge her or us because she is disabled. I am grateful for a wonderful husband who loves his daughter and would never think of giving her away. I am also grateful that my husband loves me so much that he would love and support me every day. I am happy that we were blessed to have Katya in our family. I am happy to see how happy Katya makes me and everyone she comes in contact with.

I am lucky. I am lucky to have Katya. She has changed my life. Reading this book changed my life. I have more understanding and more love for the disabled and for disability advocates. I feel more blessed than ever to have the opportunity to raise Katya and feel more motivated to help her achieve all of her dreams. I want her to have access to everything and I will fight to give that to her. My eyes are opened to the amount of love these people have and how truly lucky I am. I'll never take it for granted or feel sorry for myself, because I truly am one of the lucky ones.

The Things I do for My Students

Check out my education blog for details.

Free Rice Marathon

First of all, thanks to all of you who told me how much rice you donated on your own yesterday. At school, we had students down in the computer lab all day in 15-minute shifts. There were 37 computers going full steam all day. We raised just over 750,000 grains of rice for freerice.com. We had a great time and we thank everyone who participated. There was almost 50,000 donated by people not at our school. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

Make a Difference Wednesday!

I mentioned this website earlier and wanted to mention it again. My class has gone to great lengths to set the day aside to help raise rice for the United Nations. They wrote a proposal to the administration, they planned out a schedule, made permission slips to teachers, and passes back from the library. I am so proud of how hard they worked. So, a lot of students will be filtering into the library to go to Freerice.com and see how much rice we can to donate to the United Nations. The totals for the past few days are in the image below.


If you have a chance, please spend a couple minutes there and pad our stats. ;)

My students would really appreciate your help.

In other news. The SWAT team wiki is up and running. It looks great. The students have done almost all of that all by themselves. They are doing a remarkable job! Stay posted for the website for gratitude if we can ever figure out how to get the form to work.

Staci is a wonderful wife

The other day, I was at work and I saw that I got an email. All it said was,

"I love you Daddy! Love, Cali"

It also had a little picture. Cali is a genius, but she can't doesn't quite have the fine (or gross, for that matter) motor skills to shoot a picture off in an email, so thanks, Staci. You are a great wife and mother.

For Staci

This is for Staci since she loves Christmas music so much. Also, updates on the 25 days to make a difference here.

Amazing. I love it!!!

There are a lot of great things about the internet. I really love it. This little girl is trying to make a difference. "I can make a difference by..." is the theme for this year's Refections contest, which is put on by PTA's throughout the nation (apparently). She is trying to make a difference by doing small things, but it turning out to be much larger. Check out her blogroll of people that are helping or at least talking about it. This kind of stuff is fascinating. I will have to brainstorm with my kids tomorrow to see what we can do to win this really neat prize.

They match

I think that it is so much fun to have my two little girls in matching outfits. It is fun and they look so cute. Both of these outfits are courtesy of my mom and dad. What can I say, they are my parents only grandchildren.




Katya sure loves having a little sister and is really good at giving kisses.

She's Home!

Yesterday we brought Cali home and it was great. We are so happy to be out of the hospital and home. Cali is so different than Katya and so it's like having our first child all over again. She is so cute and so much fun to have around. Last night was kind of a rough night. She was up for most of it fussy and crying, but I guess that's normal. As Jethro put it this morning, "We now know what it's like to have a normal child." Even though she was so fussy and it was hard to stay awake with her, she is totally worth it. I love looking at her beautiful face and seeing her open her beautiful eyes. She is just so precious and I wouldn't trade her for anything.

Her are some pictures from yesterday.

Getting ready to come home.

Now we know who she's cheering for.

Nya was so excited to see baby Cali that she just couldn't
wait to see and hold her. Her excitement was so cute!

Sleeping angel.

One Happy Family

Katya has been acting strange the last couple days, not eating her bottle, sleeping a lot, and being kind of fussy with Staci's mom taking care of her. We are pretty sure she knows what is going on, or at least that something is going on, and today she got to see her new sister. Katya loves Cali:

Cali's Bath

Cali also takes Katya's lead in loving her baths. She didn't like it when I pulled and stretched her arms and legs, but she sure loved having the water fall all over here. She would sit there with a content look on her cute little face and she was lovin' it. Want more pictures? Click here.

Cali

It seems that Cali is a lot like her sister. Here it is 5:40 am and she still hasn't eaten anything, 12 hours after her birth. She has been too busy sleeping. We tried twice in the middle of the night to feed her, but after an hour of coaxing and tickling her, she still would not wake up. What a silly little girl. We have had to change her diaper twice already so she should be hungry. The picture I posted in the previous post is the last time her eyes have been open. She has been asleep since then, and not even been stirring. What a stinker! It will be nice if she sleeps through the night when we take her home, but in the hospital, they make you feed them every three hours. Here is a picture of her sleeping, since that is all she has been doing.

Cali Beverly Jones has arrived

She weighs 8 lbs, 2 oz, 20 in. long and she is wicked cute! We can't believe she is so big! She was born at 5:33 pm. UPDATE: Pictures are below or here:

39 weeks and ready

I am so ready for this baby to be born. Things have been so different with her than with Katya. At 39 weeks when Katya was born, I felt like I could be pregnant for another month and be just fine. Today I am really feeling this baby and am ore than ready for her to come, especially since the football game is over and done with. Just in the last month I feel like have grown quite a bit. I know I am much larger now than I was with Katya. Here are a few pictures for comparison.

At 39 weeks with Katya

At 39 weeks now

I am wearing the same skirt and shirt and I couldn't zip the skirt when I took the picture today. I know it's not quite as pregnant looking as some people get, but I sure can tell the difference. Wish me luck that she comes soon.

BYU vs. Utah

My biggest fear going into this game was not that BYU would lose, but that I wouldn't make it to the game because I would be having the baby instead. Luckily, I made it and I was so glad I did. We had such a fun time and I couldn't stand to leave the stands once during the entire game (and anyone who has ever been pregnant knows how hard it is to hold it for that long). I was so afraid that the minute I would leave something monumental would happen. It was such an intense game that I kept praying I wouldn't go into labor. I loved every minute of the game and am so glad that we went and are so proud of BYU. Go Cougars!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we went to Bountiful to Jethro's cousin Kirsten's house. There was tons of yummy food and Katya sure enjoyed her first real Thanksgiving meal. She especially loved the turkey and the stuffing. In true Katya fashion, she screamed and cried when we were eating pie and she wasn't getting enough pie fast enough. It was a nice relaxing Thanksgiving and a special thanks to Steve and Kirsten for having us over.

Needless to say, my excitement was well founded

Although the score was low, it was a very exciting game. The third quarter flew by and the excitement really started with only two minutes left. Great game! Go COUGARS!!!

Needless to say, I am excited

Go Cougs!!!

How big will the baby be?

With my due date fast approaching, Jethro thought it would be fun to see everyone's guesses on how much our baby will weigh, her length, and when exactly she would come. My due date is Dec. 1 so keep that in mind. The person who ends up the closest will get a prize, determined by Jethro. It'll be fun to see all your guesses so guess away.

36 weeks

That's right, I'm 36 weeks and our little girl will be here in just 4 short weeks. It's crazy to think that we will then be a family of 4. Wow, time sure does fly. I'm excited, but a little nervous. Everyone says that having 2 kids is pretty easy, I just hope that that is he case. I feel bad for our little girl because I haven't taken as many pregnant pictures of me as I did with Katya. I decided to take on yesterday to document. After Jethro took the picture, I looked at it and thought that I was huge! Alright, I know to many of you I may not seem that big, but I was not this big with Katya. I guess it's true what they say- you get bigger with every kid. I decided to pull up a picture of e with Katya around the same time to do a little comparison.

Pregnant with Katya about 35 weeks

Now at 36 weeks

I definitely think that this little girl is going to be bigger than the 6 pounds that Katya was, unless she's just packing a whole ton of water. She is definitely more of a mover and seems like she'll be playing soccer or some other rough sport once she gets older. I am so excited for her to come so that I can see her cute little face and see her personality. I just hope that she waits to come 'till after the BYU vs. Utah football game on Nov. 24- I don't want to miss it!

100

Wow, I can't believe that this is my 100th post. I wasn't paying attention so good thing Jethro was and reminded me about it. We started this blog in January so I think we are doing pretty good- better than writing in our journals. I wasn't sure how much I'd really enjoy blogging, but I have grown to love it. The best part of it is being able to share pictures with family and friends and also to catch up on friends lives. As we get older and our friends move on to different places, it's nice to be able to check their blog and feel like we are still staying in touch. It's pretty nice. I wish more of our friends would join the blogging world and maybe they will someday. I just love that in a time of being so busy with life we can use the internet to our benefit and keep good old relationships going and stay in touch with family far away. I look forward to blogging for many more years and hope that others also see the benefits in doing so and continue or start their own blogs.

Friends

Staci and I had such a good night last night. We went to visit the Ware's. While there, the Bishops and Hunters came to visit. They are all from my mission. We used to get together with the Nelsons and the Wares during the football season last year, but haven't yet this year, until last night. I just want to say how much fun it was and thank the Wares for their hospitality and letting us stay so late. When I first got back from the mission, I would only talk about "the good ol' days" with mission friends, and it was kind of boring sometimes because there was never any moving forward. (Don't get me wrong, I love the mission and I would love to be able to talk about that all day long, but you know what I mean.) Anyway, now that the kids are almost as numerous as the adults in this group, and we are all growing up, it was really fun to talk and learn about how everybody is living and where we all will end up, and so on and so forth. We are REALLY grateful for our friends. Thank you so much for the great get-together Wares, Bishops, and Hunters!

Another First!!!

Okay, I know PK is only 18 months old, but she has done something purely amazing. On Monday, a physical therapist came over to help evaluate whether Katya would need her services. It turns out she does, but Katya is a fast learner. The physical therapist taught us how to help her sit up, and since Monday, Staci and I have helped her sit up 2 or 3 times each. Well, last night, at our friends' house, she sat up all by herself. Then today at church, she sat up twice during sacrament meeting, and then again during her first day at nursery. Then, when Staci bribed her with a piece of a cookie, she sat up so we could record it on video. So cute. I just uploaded it, so if it doesn't work for a little bit, give it some time (Megan!).

How cute!

We took Katya to the BYU vs. CSU game yesterday. She was happy up until the last 10 minutes and was getting bored. It was a little cold at the start of the game and she was bundled up. She looked adorable!

Katya's First Day at Nursery

Today was Katya's First Official Day in Nursery. It was a good day to take her. None of the bullies were there so she wasn't picked on too much or shoved down. It was kind of nice. She was tired so she cried a couple of times, but for the most part she did quite well. She sure does love watching the kids. Too bad she's not big enough to grab the toys that the other kids take from her. She also loves singing time and today she really liked the chocolate animal cookies at snack time. I'm glad she enjoyed it for the most part.

The Great Pumpkin Saga

The pumpkin that Katya rode in for Halloween was in fact real. We even grew it in our garden. I never knew that it was going to be that big, but it ended up just perfect. Even though I was excited for the pumpkin, I wasn't too excited about carving it into Katya's pumpkin carriage. I figured that it was going to be pretty hard to cut, clean, and decorate. It ended up being a lot easier than I thought. Here is the journey of Katya's pumpkin in pictures.

The pumpkin after cutting the hole for Katya.

This thing is pretty large. It probably had about 10 pounds of guts
and flesh cleaned out and still weighed about 30-40 pounds.

Almost finished.

All done and ready for trick-or-treating.

It was pretty fun to carve and decorate such a large pumpkin, even though it was a lot of work. It was worth it to have Katya enjoy it so much. We'll see what next year will bring with hopefully another big pumpkin.

Happy Halloween!

We took Katya trick-or-treating for the first time tonight. The best part of it all was the dressing up. I think she looked so cute as Cinderella at midnight. We had to do something with our giant pumpkin. She didn't last long out there though. By the time we finally got going, she was tired, hungry, and cold. She sure looked cute though.




Staci didn't put up a picture that shows her costume very well and it was cute, so I will put one up here:




Katya in her super cute Halloween pajamas from Grandma Jones. I just love them.

Is she too big for her crib?

With a picture like this, one might wonder if Katya is too big for her crib and needs to go to a toddler bed.


In all actuality, she is barely long enough to fit the width of her crib. I think she just likes airing out her feet.

Boo at the Zoo

Today we went to Boo at the Zoo. It was fun, but way crowded. We lucked out and got a good parking spot. We went with Rebekah and Nya, which was a lot of fun. There were so many people there. There were companies handing out candy, but we didn't want to wait in line for 10 minutes to get one piece of candy. We found a few lines that were really short so we got the candy there. It was fun to see the animals. The monkeys were really active and the baby orangutan was swinging around everywhere. I really like going to the zoo and seeing the animals, but Katya's favorite part is looking at all the people. She was so good and the only noise she made was laughter. I'm glad she is so easy to please.






Sometimes it's so hard to get a picture where they are both smiling and have cute faces. Too bad I can't pull them out of seperate pictures and create a new one.