Merry Chirstmas and Happy New Year!

Well, here is a late Merry Christmas to everyone but also Happy New Year! It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone. I am sad that the Christmas season is coming to a close, especially since it took me until December 24th to really get in the Christmas spirit. I don't know what my next adventure will be, but whatever it is, I am not doing something that makes me become a Grinch over the holidays and makes me count down the days for the wrong reasons.

Yes, I have quit UPS. My last day was December 23rd. It wasn't until I gave my two weeks that I started receiving massive amounts of compliments about how hard of a worker I was and how good I did my job. All the supervisors kept trying to butter me up so that I would stay and told me that I had a job if I ever needed one. One supervisor told me to make sure I tell my husband how hard I work and that not many people make it in this job. Apparently they have had grown men come in to do this and they quit a break because it's so hard. The guy that works next to me just laughed when the supervisor said this and he said, "tell you husband whatever you want but make sure to tell him it's not worth it." Not that it would have made me stay, but it would have been nice to hear compliments throughout my working period there and not just in the last two weeks. Oh, well, time to move on. I did a little calculation and by the 23rd we were running 36 trucks, each truck had an average of 234 packages daily, so our little center was doing almost 8,500 packages a day! I can't imagine working in a bigger hub.

Tony is now done at Sears and soccer season is in full swing. A few nights before Christmas, Tony had an interesting experience, there was a man arrested at Sears for shop lifting, the sad part is though, he had his four year old son with him! Tony said the boy was sobbing when his dad was arrested and that when Tony left at 11:30 no one had still come to get the little boy. That made me so sad to hear that and so mad at how stupid people are or desperate, maybe a combination of the two. We did learn recently, that this Sears store will not be closing, so it Tony's goes back, it will still be there. He has enjoyed his long break and will be going back on Monday, not too excited about that. Sadie won't like it either, she's been pretty spoiled having both of us around. She has really missed her daddy and I do believe she enjoyed seeing Tony more over the break.

Sadie had a doctor's visit on Tuesday, she is 23.5 lbs and 31.5 inches long. She has dropped from the 90th percentile to the 75th. The doctor wasn't worried though and each time we go in he comments about how good Sadie's eyes look, so we continue to head in the right direction. She had a lot of doctor anxiety though so that made the visit more pleasant. She screamed the whole time, even before we got to the shots! Of course she stopped as soon as she got a sucker.

Sadie's new trick is the act of taking of her clothes, she prefers to be naked and now runs from me when I try to dress her and after I finally do, she loves to take her clothes off. Several times I have gone to get her from a nap, and there is little Sadie, naked with a big smile! She hates clothes so much that she has even figured out how to get out of her fully zipped and footed pajamas without unzipping them! She just crawls out the neck. She definitely keeps us busy. She is turning into a good helper though, now when she empties out drawers or cupboards, she puts the stuff back, not always neatly but at least she is learning. One of her favorite books in the Llama Llama books, Llama Llama misses mama, Llama Llama holiday drama etc, except she can't say her l's so she calls them her mama mama books. It's funny and cute.

Since it was so beautiful today, we took Sadie to the park and for the first 10 minutes she just stood there and watched everyone, she wouldn't move. She was afraid to walk but after she got warmed up, she was all over the place! Putting dirt in her mouth, throwing in on the slide, I guess we know who she didn't take after.

I forgot to mention this in the last blog and it happened a while ago, but we got a possible diagnosis for why Sadie looks so much like me and where the Nystagmus may have come from. The geneticist we have been seeing diagnosed both Sadie and I with Robinow Syndrome. There is a serious kind and not so serious kind, we have the not so serious kind. But this what gives both Sadie and I our wide features, like the nose and forehead and also why the ends of our mouths point up instead of down like most people's. This also accounts for our short toes and fingers. The geneticist also said that she thinks I had a case of Nystagmus when I was little which is where Sadie probably got it since she inherited the Robinow Syndrome from me. She said that Sadie should be perfectly fine since I am sitting here today perfectly fine. So now the mystery is solved as to why Sadie looks like me and why all our children have a 50% chance of looking exactly like me. It is an odd feeling to go 24 years and not know you have a syndrome and then get told you have something you can pass to your kids. Wasn't expecting that that day. The geneticist did try and reassure me though that there is no cause for concern, she said you never would have known there was anything different unless you had come in for the Nystagmus. The only thing we need to watch for is Sadie may be short in stature. Which we don't want so she can play sports!!! :-)

We hope this new year will bring some fun, good, and exciting things for us! We are really hoping to be in a house this year, that is our main goal. We have quickly outgrown the space we are in and we are both exhausted of apartment living and throwing away money on renting. Not to mention the 3 flights of stairs!! Other than that we don't know what this year has in store, but when we get a house you are all welcome to come and visit! We are taking volunteers to come help us move! :-)
We hope you all have a very happy and prosperous new year!