Wow - my little peanut is 10 months old. She is now an expert crawler, pulls up on everything, and is beginning to cruise the furniture. In the last week she has started to master getting to a sitting position from crawling. She is really a ton of fun to be around! Carl and I decided that at 10 months old she has already tried more fruits and veggies then Brenden has in nearly 6 years. Newest to her list - strawberries - and she liked them! I haven't had my camera out in the past few days - so sorry no new pictures for this post - some to come tomorrow or the next day for sure. So Brenden is officially out of school for the summer -
Im not sure how I will be able to keep this kid busy and out of my hair for the whole summer. He's already bugging me to go to the beach - that should be interesting since Avery is getting around so much more than she was in April when we went. So I think we are going to give that a try for a few days this week - while we leave daddy and all the dogs at home - ( that in itself is a vacation - a fur holiday!) Tomorrow is fathers day - (secretly, - - - or not so secretly, glad it's not mothers day) so - I know it could be a tough day for Carl - although he admittedly does better than me.
On Friday night Carl and I were invited to see a screening of a film that was entered in the
silverspring film festival
www.21Belowfilm.com this is a film about the diverse and challenging dynamics that affect one family and young mother when her family is in disarray and her young baby girl Maya was diagnosed with
Tay-Sachs. Carl and I attended the screening - and overall it was a pretty powerful film and story. It essentially is not really a film about
Tay-Sachs, but an intimate look at a very complicated family who happens to have a child with
Tay-Sachs. It brought back a lot of memories I sorta wish it hadn't - not really about Conner and the disease (although that was some of it) but the struggles within the family dynamics. But, most of all after seeing some of Maya's story - I am thankful that Conner was surrounded by so much love - and two parents that would've moved the earth for him. We were fortunate enough to have given him the very best. This young, unemployed,
un wed mother of 3, Karen (at the time of Maya's disease) is involved with a ex-gang member who is dealing drugs - while she is raising one child, caring for Maya, and pregnant with another. While all this is going on, she and her family struggle to get along - with
obvious disapproval of Karen's new love interest and lifestyle choices. There were parts of the film where I just wanted to reach out and grab Maya right through the movie screen and just hold her and save her from the desperate situation her family was in. It was very eye opening and I am glad that we were able to attend the screening this film. In true reflection, I want to just say how fortunate I really believe we were while caring for Conner. Thanks to Jenny
Maguire, producer of 21 Below and Kim from
NTSAD for thinking of us and arranging the details!
