I'm A Brand New Reader!

Ari is reading. We are shocked. A couple of months ago she had started reading some of her baby books like the Sandra Boynton ones. You know... the kind of books that have opposites on them like "dinosaurs happy, dinosaurs sad, dinosaurs good, and dinosaurs bad." We figured she was just memorizing the books she had read a lot of times, but memorization is the first step to reading, so we should get her more of a challenge. I found these books at the book store called Brand New Readers. There are multiple sets and they include 10 very short story books appropriate for someone learning to read. They also include 10 stickers (1 for each book) and a page that you can place the stickers on as you successfully read each book. Our first set was the red one, which I got about a month ago. We completed that one and got the Orange set about a week and a half ago. We have since completed that one and are on to set three. Set three we got with her there and before we could even leave the book store, Ari yells, "I want to read a book! Earn a sticker!" John decides, sure, why not... there is no way she is going to get this on the first try anyway. No harm. I give him a look like, yeah right! Can you guess what happens next? There we are in the middle of a book store taking apart something we haven't paid for yet. She, of course, earned her first sticker. Great! This one didn't even make it home. We've decided that we can't afford our daughters speedy reading abilities and so are going to have to start a charity, "Ari's reading fund. Donations welcome!" :) Here is a picture of her first two sticker collections proudly displayed on the back of her door so she can see them when she is in her room.
For those that don't know us... have I mentioned she is 2 1/2 years old? We estimate that she can now read at least 40 books on her own. Some of the other books I get her are individual beginning reader books from a stand that has them with numbers at the top of the book indicating the difficulty rating. We went through 3 number one books in the last weeks and a half as well. While at the book store attempting to get stickers, we got her a number two book to see how she would do with it. Definitely a challenge, but she can still read through most of it. Am I getting Shakespeare next?

I actually have a funny story to tell about this. So... I took Ari up to her nap one day and we went through our normal nap-time routine. We read a book, laid down, I sang her a song, and kisses, love you, and sleep well. This was a day that she was not going to go down easy. Anyway... After a couple of initial visits up there, I decided that if all she is doing is playing or talking, she can do that on her own. I here her up there just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. After a long while, my curiosity and my desire for her to get some sleep get the best of me. I go up, silently open her door, and see her sitting in her rocking chair with a book open across her legs as she is reading herself another story (because evil mommy wouldn't read us another story). I sneak back out knowing that walking in their laughing with a big grin across my face would not be conducive to getting her to sleep. When she finally does call me up again, I calmly get her back into sleep mode, all the while thinking, "GOOD JOB, BABY! YOU READ YOURSELF A BED TIME STORY!" I can't possibly say that right then, but boy was I the proud mama bear.

Now I'm the proud mama bear with a direct line from my wallet to the book store. Hehe...

There are worse things to spend money on. We couldn't be happier! Our little girl is a brand new reader!

Another Ari update to follow soon!

Why Don't We Talk About This More?

I was originally concerned to bring this up thinking, I've already talked about our sad day and maybe this will be a big downer for people to read so I should just wait until I am ready to write about something else. I am talking about my miscarriage. I'm guessing that the reason we don't talk about it more is because we don't want it to be true or real in our own lives so no body really brings it up too much until you have one yourself. It turns out, that many people in and around my life have experienced one and I have found out that the type I have had is a very common one, yet, I didn't know they were so very common before. I didn't know so many people have them, before. I didn't know to prepare myself for the possibility, because they happen all the time. That's because we don't talk about them.

So... while I hesitated discussing my own more, I decided that the point of this BLOG was to help other parents (and share the joy of my daughter with family and friends). If I can't discuss everything to do with parenting, which includes the disappointments, what good is this?

I have opted to pursue a natural miscarriage. This is one of three options and my doctor, though others may not agree, said the best option unless complications arise or it doesn't happen by the 12th week of the pregnancy. The other two options are a D&C, "Dilation (dilatation) and curettage literally refers to the dilation(opening) of the cervix and surgical removal of the contents of the uterus. It is a therapeutic gynecological procedure as well as a rarely used method of first trimester abortion." from Wikipedia, and a pill called misoprostol, "Physicians have begun prescribing misoprostol to women who have experienced a miscarriage early in pregnancy." from WebMD.

Every day is a day that I question letting it happen naturally, but I don't think I will change my mind unless complications arise. It is just a really weird thing to have your mind look forward to the future wanting to move on, but have your body still feel and act like you are pregnant. You tell your body every day that you are ready to stop being pregnant and wait for those signals to arrive in the right places to make things move along and when nothing happens you think, come on body... I need you to work with me, I'm ready to move on.

Regardless, I am keeping my mind as firmly set into the future as I can, because there is nothing I can do to rewrite the past. I just wish I had known how common this was so I would have had some amount of expectation for its possibility. "Studies reveal that anywhere from 10-25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies will end in miscarriage." from American Pregnancy Association. I think that if we are given so much early information with home testing kits being so accurate, that we should also have this information to counter-balance just how excited we get. It's good to know what the chance of success is.

Again, I am not wanting to be a downer, I just want to be someone who talked about it in case it helps someone else with their own situation. I'll post an Ari update soon, I promise.

A Sad Day

I had my first doctor visit today and it turns out that we have miscarried. Not in the official sense yet, but they can see there is no baby. I have so many feelings running through me right now. Sadness is the main one though. There is just no point in anger for me and I have no one or nothing to resent, so I'll just feel the sadness, let it be there with me until the actual miscarriage event takes place and then look forward to our next try at expanding our family. Thank you for sharing in my joy of this and my sadness within such a short time. It helps just writing about it because it solidifies the reality of it within me and that makes it easier to move forward.

I'll be back to blogging about other things soon.

UPDATE: I'm not sure if anyone else is interested, but this is the type of miscarriage we are experiencing and is apparently extremely common. My doctor was kind enough to share with us that he and his wife had 2 of these on there way to creating their family.
"
An empty sac is a condition where the gestational sac develops normally, while the embryonic part of the pregnancy is either absent or stops growing very early. Other terms for this condition are blighted ovum and anembryonic pregnancy." From Wikipedia

Something Special to Me

I was forwarded this by my Mom and thought it was worth sharing. I think that often Israel gets a bad rap and that it is nice to sometimes remember the things that are good about it that the world at large may not know. Here are some examples though there are many others. :)

http://www.ads4israel.com/

Thanks for checking it out!

Sorry for my absence...

We had a really busy weekend planned, which I knew would make it a challenge to post, but in truth the thing that got in the way was that I have not been feeling too good the last few days. Before you start to worry, for those that don't know, I am about 8 weeks pregnant. YAY! Except I am horribly tired and can't bring myself to do anything half the time. The other half, I was trying to keep up with our busy weekend. So... I'll get back to posting hopefully tomorrow or the following day, but bare with my erratic posts for a little while longer.

We have our first doc appointment tomorrow and can't wait. Hopefully, this malaise won't last too long. As difficult as it is to deal with, I'm counting my lucky stars because it could be morning sickness instead of fatigue and I'll take tired over throwing up any day. :)

I hope everyone is doing well! More soon.

Also... I should say... next to some of my friends and the things they are going through in their lives, I really need to stop whining. So... keeping my thoughts with Jenny and Tonya.

Random

It's already late, so this will be a short, random Ari update. The first picture is Ari on the train at the UTC mall. They say you have to be 3 to ride alone, but they don't really uphold that and Ari loves riding in the engine which she has to ride alone, so here she is braving the tracks like a big girl in the lead car!The next picture is from Ari's soccer class. Last week we had the last day of class and on the last day, they gave them a medal for doing so well in class. You see it flying around her neck. She was so happy and proud of herself. It was really cute!

Other than that...

Has anyone else been watching DISCH L? It is now called Planet Green. I am learning so much about what we do that is not good and what we can do that can help. It is really affecting me. I always felt that I at least knew most of the things we are doing wrong (not recycling enough, too many plastic bottles, etc.) but there is so much more! I am hooked and changing a lot of things slowly but surely that I am doing to make our lives a little less environmentally unfriendly.

Now... don't think that I am becoming some crazy tree hugger nor do I even really consider myself an environmentalist. I'm not doing this because I am worried about the planet. I am doing this because I am worried about my daughter and my grandchildren's future. So.. I'm a people-ist. The planet will be here no matter what happens to it and it doesn't care in what state it exists. We on the other hand can't live on just any version of this planet. We need it to stay as close to the same as possible. That means that while I believe that the earth will eventually become unlivable just like it once was, we should do our best not to speed things along because we haven't figured out how to live somewhere else yet.

I also do believe that a lot of our decisions in the past to make life easier, have turned out to be poisoning us and I want support business that are creating products that are not full of harmful chemicals for us and for our landfills. What we have done to our food supply and to our soaps and moisturizers, etc. is amazing when you start reading about it.

Again, I am working towards a healthier life one step at a time, even if they are very little steps, they are something. One example of a baby step that someone pointed out to me, which is a good example, is that we have a real problem with how many plastic bottles we use in our society. Even though they can be recycled, there just aren't enough things made from recycled plastics that we are willing to buy to make sure we use up all the bottles being thrown away. One place to save on this is of course to get a water service instead of buying bottled water. It is really price equivalent, for the most part, is delivered right to your door, and you just need to get some bottles that you can use to refill. Another place though, which is the great baby step suggestion I mentioned above, is to buy only bar soap instead of pump soap. It just never occurred to me, but bar soaps are surrounded in paper which does have a high rate of recycle ability versus the pump. There really is no reason to have the pump. Another one that I would love to see is bulk shampoo. Why should I buy a new bottle of the same shampoo I get every time when I could just as easily bring my bottle to the store and refill it instead. If only this were available. *Sigh* Come on companies! Lets start figuring this whole thing out. Change is in the air. :)

Okay... Like I said in the beginning. It is late and time to go to sleep. Goodnight all!

6 Word Memoir

I was tagged by my friend Dana at Tutu Monkey

This originated over an idea that was prompted by the book written by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. It's a compilation based on the story that Hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. His words were- For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Here are the rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4 .Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Are we ready? Ok. Let's GO!

Not very sentimental, I know but we are trying to describe our lives in 6 words and that about sums mine up. I have always been one to stay active. I don't stay still for long. I'll give you a few examples.

1. When I first graduated from high school, I just didn't want to go to college yet (to the sadness of my parents for sure). I decided instead that I was going to go to Israel and live on a kibbutz for a year. That didn't last as long as I hoped because I got very sick with my Crohn's while I was there and medical attention was near to nothing on the kibbutz where they didn't know exactly what Crohn's was or what to do about it. Anyway, a couple months later, I was back in the states and working a full time job in an office. At the end of the intended year off, I planned to go to college, but not the normal way. I went to a study abroad program through the Missouri State University in Kirksville (now known as Truman State). I studied in Seville, Spain even though I had never had even 1 Spanish class before and had an amazing time for my first semester in college. When I got back, I went for my next semester to the university in Kirksville, but decided that I wanted to study anthropology. They didn't have an anthropology department there, so for the following semester I went to University of Missouri, Warrensburg. Unfortunately, by the time I was in Warrensburg, I had decided that I had a change of heart and really wanted to pursue another love of mine, fashion design. They didn't have a fashion design department, but they did have fashion merchandising so I did course work in that. While I was there, my Crohn's flared up really badly and I ended up having to come back to St. Louis and get hospitalized for a while. When I got back, at first, I planned on staying in Warrensburg, but after having already moved my stuff into my new dorm room and everything, we decided that it would be best that I come and live at home while I am getting better so that my mom could watch over me. An agreement was struck between my parents and myself that I would pursue my love of fashion design (which may not be practical) and also pursue a degree in computers (the earn a living degree that I wasn't passionate about but was good at). So... I went to Forest Park Community College where I attended figure drawing and other art classes AND Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis where I was attending programming classes. For those keeping track, I went to 5 different educational settings located in 4 different locales in 2 years.

2. When I was working on a degree in Business Information Systems (read programmer) in Denver, CO, (if you are curious about how I got from number 1 to number 2, I guess you'll just have to stay tuned in :) ) I got a job working in my field so I could earn a living. I went to school full time (15 credit hours) and worked full time (45 hours/week). I also would go out with my girlfriends clubbing all the time. Sleep is for sissies after all!

3. Ari and I attended music, dance, gymnastics, and soccer classes together. We also go to the park by ourselves a lot, run errands, attend playgroup meetings, and spend time with Safta.

Did I mention that I'm not one for standing still too long? I love to travel and I love to experience new things and places. The world is an adventure so lets explore it to the fullest! You can't explore if you aren't on the move... so... Are we ready? OK. Let's GO!

Amusingly, my parents had a different 6 word biography that they would say suited me since I was a little girl... "Don't tell me what to do!" LOL There is an old song that goes "You don't own me. I'm not just one of your little toys. You don't own me. (don't remember this line) So... Don't tell me what to do! Don't tell me what to say! And please when I go out with you, don't put me on display!" I use to think of it as my anthem. Hehe...

As far as tagging anyone else... I haven't been blogging long enough to tag other people, so I'll take a note from my friend Sonya who also got tagged by Dana and just not tag anyone. Sorry for being lame. :)