Life with Ella and Emerson

This is a blog dedicated to my beautiful daughters, Ella and Emerson. Emerson was diagnosed with a rare, genetic disorder called Williams Syndrome when she was 5 months old.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Wisconsin, United States

Monday, August 27, 2007

So Long Summer!!

We had another beautiful weekend at my parent's cottage. We spent two straight days on their pontoon boat and I really felt like I was saying goodbye to summer. The weather was gorgeous, but for some reason Fall is in the air. It could be the fact that Brian is counting down the days for the start of the Wisconsin Badger Football season. Weekends are now going to be lost to football. The girls did pretty well on the water, but did get very antsy towards the end. Today I made sure to stay home all day just to get them back into their routine.

Ella starts preschool on Thursday and I am so excited for her. I know she is just going to love it. I can't believe all of the forms I have to fill out just for a 3 year old preschool program. That's my excitement for the evening.

While Ella is in preschool I thought Emerson and I would sign up for a "mommy and me" type class. It's interesting because usually I really don't give Emerson's WS too much thought. Well, that's not entirely true, of course it's there and I think about it, but I don't dwell on it. Well, then today I start thinking about a music class for us through Gymboree. One class is for kids age 10-16 months and the other is 16-22 months. Which one do I sign us up for?... Emerson will be 19 months next week. She is doing very well, but is not going to fit in her age-appropriate class. They will probably be doing marching and some following directions, and blah, blah, blah. However, I certainly don't want to sign up for the 10-16 month old class and be even more depressed and feel like I have to explain why she is so behind. So my point is that I was so excited for us to have this time together and then I shut off the computer and never signed us up. I will try again tomorrow and get over the fact again that she is not typically developing (of course!). Emerson is beautiful, snuggly, affectionate, and can melt your heart with a smile. She is absolutely learning and we have had a great burst in her receptive language in this past month. She can now point on command (most of the time)to her eyes, nose, and mouth. She can also sign or make sounds for elephant (her favorite), monkey, duckie, doggie. She is incredibly charming and this morning was trying to charm her PT out of working by engaging her in a game of peek-a-boo. She was covering her eyes and then lifting them off with such great flourish. She is who she is. I want to enjoy her and enjoy life! Okay, no more dwelling!! Sheeeeesh!

Emerson's PT brought over an old plastic fisher price grocery cart. We loaded it up to weight it down and took video of our little cutie-pie pushing it around. Notice the huge bag of coffee that we used as a weight, we do love our coffee around here. This was about our 4th attempt to capture her. We have a hyper doggie and a very engaging little 3 year old who doesn't want baby sister to have all the spotlight. Anyway, this was our best attempt. Introducing the almost-walking, EMERSON! Please remember that I said Emerson was almost crawling for about 6 months so this may be a while.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Fun Times


This past weekend was my brother's wedding. It was so much fun, but I am happy that it is over. Myself, Brian and Ella stood up in the wedding and it was incredibly stressful trying to figure out if my three year old was actually going to walk down the aisle. In the end, Ella took the job very seriously and did princess duty very well. I just had to get her a tiara and a few people told her that she looks just like Cinderella and she was set for the entire day to prance around like the little diva she is.We had a great time. Emerson joined us later on at the reception and was a big hit. Her headful of curls definitely gets a lot of attention.

On a totally different topic, this morning I had the ever dreaded annual exam. During it, my OB-GYN asked if we were going to have any more children. This is now a topic that Brian and I have started to give some thought to. Pre-Emerson we were going to have two children and that was that... Now things have changed slightly. Now it just makes sense for us, for Ella, and for Emerson to have another baby. I hold other babies and I still feel that pang. I also absolutely missed out on so much of those first months with Emerson (7 to be exact). She cried and didn't sleep. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy that time. Well, with that said, it is not happening for a bit. Emerson is still little and we have a house to build and to eventually move into. Our plate is full. However, it is in the back of my mind. Thinking and talking about it is the easy part. Having it actually happen without me going insane with worry is another. It took me 14 months to get pregnant with Ella. My cycle was about 45 days long and getting pregnant turned into my obsession. Finally, with the help of Clomid I got pregnant. With Emerson, I got pregnant when Brian and I weren't being particularly careful because we thought we had to try really hard and use Clomid to get pregnant, not the case. So you just never know what can happen. Also, the thought of being pregnant again is not particularly appealing to me. I had horrible nausea, fatigue, heart palpitations, and varicose veins in places that I didn't even know you had veins. The other part I worry about is all the prenatal testing options. In the past, we opted out of everything. Terminating a pregnancy is absolutley not an option for us, so what is the point. Now I reconsider prenatal testing because I would want that reassurance just to make it through the pregnancy without being a head case. Anyway, sorry for this rambling post.
Just had to get some thoughts down to see if anything made more sense to me. I don't think so. What I do know is that I love Ella and I love Emerson with all my heart. I love them equally and without hesitation. I know that I have enough love for as many children as we are supposed to have. Hopefully, things will become clearer in the future.