Shearers In Texas

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

A little bit of work, FIFA, and a lot of Sadie!

It's been a while since our last post but things have been busy as we have all been adjusting to a new schedule. I've been working at UPS now for over a month and it is going pretty well. I am getting very strong and not suffering too much from early mornings. We are very understaffed so that makes the job even more exhausting and less desirable to go to every morning but it is a good job to have for our situation so I can't complain.....too much. :-)

Tony has been working at sears and doing well there. If you ever get in a conversation with him he might and try and sell you something so choose your topics wisely!! His most exciting event would be the women's FIFA World Cup match against Brazil. If you didn't watch it, you sure missed out. I don't particulary care to watch soccer but even I'll admit, that was a good game to watch.

Although it was never officially said, we are pretty certain Tony's job is safe for next year. He was in a training session for school and the principal came in a made a comment about the classes he would be teaching next year. We are so happy and grateful. We have 3 jobs among our family in this recession when many don't have even one. So even though I complain about the job, I can't deny it is a huge blessing.

Since we last updated, many of you know we took a vacation to Ocean City, New Jersey. Sadie did a wonderful job traveling again and we all had a lot of fun. We wish that we could be closer to family so there wasn't so much time in between visits, but alas, we are not and probably won't be anytime soon.

Texas is very very hot right now. We have been over 100 everyday for the last week or so and are back in a very bad drought. I know many of you are probably thinking that it is in the 90s where you are so it's not that different, however, 100 degrees in Texas is much warmer than anywhere else I have been. We don't go outside very often and when we do, it is for very short increments. I really miss the summers in Eastern Oregon and Washington, mainly the dry heat!!! When I am at work in the morning it is 85 degrees and 70% percent humidity, in a building that is not air conditioned. Joyous times are had by all. :-)

As for Sadie, a couple of weeks ago she went to the doctor for her 9 month well check up. She is 29 inches long and 21.15 lbs, still in the 90th percentile! The doctor said she is the happiest 9 month old he has ever seen and would take her home if he could. He also said that if he had a sticker for good patient of the day, he would put it on her forehead. Next time we go, will be her 12 month check!! 12 months, 1 year old! I can't believe it. It has gone so fast. Which by the way, we will be having a party and you are all invited!! :-)

Sadie is crawling all over the place now. She follows me from room to room. She gets quite the workout though, when she finally gets into the room I am in, I am done and leave. So once she gets there, she has to turn around and head the other direction. She also insists to eat when I am eating regardless if she just finished a meal. So yesterday I shared my spaghetti with her. She has also tried watermelon, which she likes so we can take her to Hermiston!! (my hometown famous for watermelons for those who don't know.) But she is starting to eat table food, slowing getting the hang of feeding herself.

Speaking of eating, Sadie, hates her bibs. Yesterday during lunch she kept taking it off, I would tell her no, put it back on and she would cry. This continued all through lunch. She is such a character. She tries to crawl through spaces that are too small and constantly gets stuck. She cries and I just laugh, I don't think she appreciates that. She is pulling herself up now and ever so cautiously sits back down. We really enjoy her and she is our entertainment.

Monday, May 23, 2011

The Working Girl

Well, as many of you know I have started working again. I am a package handler at UPS from 4:30 am to 9:00 am. Is it my dream job? No. But this decision wasn't made over night and as much as I would love to get a job in my field or to even go back to school, now is not the time for that. Tony and I both feel strongly that I need to be with Sadie right now and working 40+ hours won't provide that. This job lets me be with Sadie so that is a blessing. Since I go in so early, I would ask that unless it is an emergency or the weekend, don't text or call me past 8:00. I will be in bed and ignore you!! haha

There are some pros and cons to this job. My working day ends at 9:00 which I suppose can be both a pro and con! lol. I don't have to look nice for work, I wear tennis shoes and workout clothes and have no need to apply makeup, so I get to roll out of bed and go! I will develop some strong muscles and hopefully lose a few extra pounds before our beach vacation. We don't have to spend a lot of money on child care. The best pro is that I get to spend the day with Sadie which is the most important thing right now. It's only been a week but the job has been good so far. It is a nice change from my last job. I'm not really being mentally stimulated all that much, but I am physically active and not sitting at a desk for 8 hours. So that is a very nice change.

This morning on my way to work I saw a little bunny and a possum. The possums I usually find dead along the road but this one was still alive. I may have run over his tail but he is still alive! I'm hoping to see an armadillo one of these mornings. Those are usually found dead along the road as well. If I see an armadillo in the road though, he may not make it since armadillos jump in the air when they get scared and jump right into the car. Otherwise you could just drive right over the top of them!

Tony will be starting at Sears hopefully soon. Because of his shady background the background check is taking forever!! haha School is almost out and we are both glad for that. Still not sure what will happen next year though.

Sadie is still growing so fast. On Friday I took her to the geneticist and thanks to Maegan, I had the perfect onsie to put her in!! The geneticist loved it and asked where she could find one for future baby shower gifts. We had good news at the geneticist, she said that she doesn't feel like she needs to do any testing right now. Sadie's development is on track and her eyes seem to be getting better and not worse. We will go back around Sadie's first birthday for a followup checkup. Sadie goes to the Opthamalogist on Thursday. I had to resechedule due to my new schedule.

Sadie is still working with ECI. They show my how to help her get into new positions to learn to sit up on her own, get out of the sitting position and to learn how to crawl. All of these are coming along. Sadie gets into the crawl position and you can tell she is thinking really hard about how she is going to move her body. Right now she has moved a little bit. She moves her hands but can't figure out how to coordinate her hands and legs. She is almost there though. She will be glad to crawl though and get to explore more. I think she is starting to get a little bored with the toys she has been playing with for the that 8 months, she is ready for something new!!

Our trip to Idaho was fun. Sadie was really good on the plane and I just hope she will be that good again when we fly in a few weeks. She is also sleeping night through the regularly now which was kinda perfect timing. We are all happy and doing well here, working hard! Enjoy the new pictures of Sadie!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

It was Only a Matter of Time

Well, Sadie learned to do something new. It resulted in a very wet mother, floor and countertops. Take a look!

Friday, April 22, 2011

ECI and Other News

A few weeks ago ECI came out and evaluated Sadie. As far as her development is concerned, everything is on track and she is doing fine. However, they said that she is a very content baby, meaning she is happy with whatever toy we give her, happy to be on the floor playing on her back for long periods of time, and doesn't fuss a whole lot. Apparently for a 6 month old baby this isn't normal, so this qualifies her for ECI service. If she had been a little bit older, then Sadie wouldn't have qualified, being content is an older trait I guess. They will come back out on the 28th and we will outline a plan and come up with goals that we want Sadie to reach. They will still work on her development and push her to do new things like roll over more than she does, crawl, scoot, stand, etc. As we work with ECI we will have to watch to see if any of her development is affected by her eye sight, for instance, when she starts to crawl, does she run into things more than usual, and when she can eat finger foods, does she pick it up with her fingers and how is her accuracy? I am pretty optimistic at this point, Sadie shows some very good signs that her vision is still good. In the nighttime she is able to find her pacifier in the dark and put it in her mouth, she is accurate right now when reaching for toys. So right now, the vision specialist with ECI isn't too concerned but she told me to look out for certain things and to notify her if anything comes up. The therapy won't start for a few more weeks so we'll keep you updated as that progresses.

Sadie is doing well though, still growing. She has been on solid food for about a month now. She has tried pretty much everything, well, in stage one, and her favorites include, squash, oatmeal, and pears. But she prefers the squash. We are really not sure where she gets that from since we don't really do the squash thing. Oh well, it's a very healthy choice so I won't complain!! Her teeth are almost completely all the way through. She is also saying, "da,da,da" and "ba,ba,ba." I told Tony it's hardly fair that dad's get two consonants, d and p that could mean dad, "da and pa" and we mothers only have "m" and it's very hard to say! When I try to get her to do the m she just stares at me and sometimes will mimic my mouth movements.

Sometimes Sadie will try and hold her own bottle now but her favorite thing to do is to hold my thumb (away from the bottle) and she also tries to grab my other fingers on occasion. This makes it particular difficult to feed her sometimes. But the thumb is an every time thing and when she loses it she gets a little frantic until she finds it again. It probably won't be long before she is holding her bottle though.... :-(

I forgot to relate a story in the last blog post about one of our trips to the doctor. Sadie and I were in the neurologists office and she was sitting on my lap, the neurologist and I were looking at a paper with his notes on it and he was explaining things to me and Sadie kept looking at the paper and then at me with the look that said, "What is going on mom?" It was very cute and also kinda sad that she just didn't understand what was going on. She is such a trooper though!

We are finally getting some much needed rain. The fires have been all around us, so we have missed them, thank goodness!

As for news with Tony and I. I know some of you know that Tony had to become certified to be a composite teacher. He took that test last Saturday. We don't know the results yet. We also still don't know about cuts but they did say that they will be adding another period next year. I guess this will cut costs somehow. So Tony will be picking up another class probably. As for me, many of you know that I have been looking for a part time job. I have experienced a rainbow of emotions over this, excitement, anger, resentment, sadness etc. But it's just the way it is and sometimes you gotta do what you have to do even if you don't like it. On a different less depressing note, Tony and I will be singing at church on Sunday. Well, at first Tony was asked to sing in a men's quartet, but they couldn't find a fourth guy so I am singing alto with 3 men. We are singing This is the Christ. Other news is, after 7 months I have finally received a church calling again. I haven't been sustained yet so you will all have to sit on pins and needles for a little while. You can take some guesses at what you think it might be!! Well Sadie is helping me type this and as you can imagine she isn't much help and right now she is trying to pull everything off of the desk so this post is going to end here! The picture is of her eating her favorite food and the video is her eating her favorite toy, enjoy!

Love,

Rachel

Friday, March 25, 2011

News

It's been while since I've posted. Things got a little busy. I was running Sadie down to Dallas to doctor's appointments what seemed like everyday. But we are done with that for a little while now thank goodness.

So that brings to update everyone on the latest that I haven't talked to recently. Sadie had an MRI done to check her brain and it was normal, so for that we are grateful. It was very sad having to take Sadie to get an MRI. I am to hold her while they sedated her, wasn't so much fun. When they brought her out it was so sad too, she was starving and so cold her lips were blue! Glad that is over. Sadie also saw a neurologist and was diagnosed with Congenital Nystagmus. Unfortunately we don't know a definite prognosis but all the doctors have pretty much told me to accept that she will probably have this the rest of her life. The pediatrician said "I know no mom wants to heat that their child is a special needs child, and she won't have any mental problems, but she will have special needs when it comes to her vision." He is right no mom wants to hear that. He then begged me to not start crying there in his office. I was sick at the time and was on some cold medicine so apparently my eyes looks a little glossy. :-)

We still haven't seen the geneticist. They are waiting to get records from the ophthalmologist and the neurologist. So I am just waiting to hear back from them. The pediatrician also told me to have Sadie examined by ECI which is Early Child Intervention. They work with kids with disabilities and check their development to make sure it is all on track and if it isn't they work with the child to develop the necessary skills they need. They will come into our home and evaluate her within the next couple of weeks. This is a free service which is a blessing!

Tony and I are doing okay. Trying to take everything in stride and hoping and praying that the small chance of Sadie out growing this is on our side. It seems over the last couple of weeks she has been fixating on things pretty well and has even looked at me without moving her eyes at all! So I am hoping that is something significant.

Other than all this Sadie is doing great. I am pretty sure she is teething now. I felt her gums yesterday and felt something sharp poking through. Our little baby is growing so fast!! She goes for her 6 month well on Tuesday so we'll know her new weight and length.

Well, now what's new with Tony and I, soccer is finally over!!! This makes me happy because it means I can have my husband back. Spring is here in Texas, we've been enjoying beautiful weather and people have been out at the pool for several weeks now. This is when I wish Sadie were a little bit older so I could be at the pool enjoying the sun! We really need rain though, unfortunately we are in a drought. No rain in the forecast though for quite sometime, so until then I'll try and find the time to work on my tan! A couple of weeks ago, Tony's parents came to visit and we had a lot of fun. It's always nice to have people come visit, especially when we are so far from family and friends. We are unsure of what will happen with education in Texas. Like everywhere else they will be cutting and Sherman has to submit cuts for certain percentage cuts. The unfortunate thing is that 85% percent of the budget is in personnel, so we are sure what will be happening. It seems we are playing that waiting game with a lot of things.

I think that is all the updates. Now that things have slowed down a little, maybe the blog will be updated more! The pictures I put in this time, are Sadie sleeping a funny position that we found her in yesterday and of her playing with her new favorite toy. Hope all is well you guys!

Love,
Rachel

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Once Upon a Time.....

Sadie really wanted to tell everyone a story. Hope you enjoy it! The picture I attached we entitled, Sadie the Destroyer.

I know everyone was real worried about our cold weather, but don't worry, it's been in the 70s all week. I even had to turn on the a.c. a couple of times to cool it down.

We go to the pediatrician again on Monday to decide whether or not we need to do something for Sadie's eyes. I will keep you posted!

The video I really wanted to upload was too large so here is another one, it isn't as good, but we'll work on getting another video of her talking.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Winter Storm

I know most of you have been very jealous of the weather we've been having. 70 degree weather just ins't fair in January. Well, don't worry, winter finally caught up with us and Tony has been on a snow day for the last two days.

We finally got Sadie to start sleeping, however, the pounding of ice against our windows kept us up all night anyway! We received about 3 inches of snow and ice and we live in a place where it doesn't get cleaned off very quickly. We have had chilly temperatures as well and winds that take us below zero. So Texas isn't a happy place to be right now.

The pictures below are pictures of ice inside, yes, inside of our windows! Our apartment isn't insulated very well so we are all quite cold. The manager of the complex will most likely receive a complaint. Thank goodness it's supposed to be in the 50s by Sunday, so just a few more days of this bitter cold!