A Friend's Loss

On Sunday, my friend's daugther died. She was only 8 years old. This is a friend who lives here, her name is Tricia, she's in the MOMs Club I'm in and someone I see on a regular, who I really like. Her daughter, Carman, had something called Aicardi Syndrome, its a rare genetic disorder that only occurs in girls (boys die in utero). Some common symptoms of the disorder include regular siezures, impaired sight and brain defects. Most of these children do not live into their teens, so Tricia knew she would be surviving her daughter, but of course that doesn't make it any easier. Carman was blind, she had siezures often and went to a special school. She had been pretty healthy, but this past weekend took a turn for the worse, very fast. They brought her into the hospital thinking she had the flu, but was having back to back seizures and at the hospital ended up having a stroke. It's all very sad. The Moms club was told on Sunday she was at the hospital and in critical condition and then on Monday morning we found out she had passed. Tonight they are having a viewing for her, so I'm going to that. And on Saturday is the memorial service for her. I had planned to go to it, but they asked for volunteers to help watch their children, since they aren't bringing them to the memorial. Tricia has 2 other children who are younger and her sister Gina who is also in our group who I'm friends with, has 3 children. So instead of going to the memorial I volunteered to help watch the kids, plus 4 dogs and help with food at the reception afterwards.

You know, I consider myself a pretty strong person, been through a lot and feel I can handle what comes my way (for the most part), but if I had to deal with losing Ripley I think I might just crack. I feel horrible for Tricia and her family. And going to the viewing tonight is going to be tough, going to anything like this is hard, but when it's for a child and now I'm a Mom, ugh. Just wanted to share with you what's going on and to remind us all to be happy for our health and our children's health, etc...xoxo

Ripley Update

Ripley will be 2 years old in April, I can't believe it! She is no longer a baby and becoming a little girl practically. GASP! She has a ton of energy, still loves people, is very happy and loves to smile. Oh yeah, and she loves music and likes to dance! If a song stops, she will say "more, more!". She loves to watch music videos or anyone dancing on TV. She says "bye" to everything these days. This morning, I was in bed with my laptop and Matt brought her in, she told us she was hungry and said bye and waved to my laptop. It made us laugh. Her 2 favorite games: 1) chase the dog and take his bed away from him (poor Amingo!) and 2) go to one of the only unlocked cabinets in the kitchen (which has all our cannned goods) and take them out one by one and line them up on the edge of the kitchen table or any table for that matter. She gets so excited to do this, it seems so strange, but hey, if it will keep her entertained for more than 2 minutes, I'm all for it!

Right now we're not involved in any classes at the moment, but we did join a gym (a perk of matt's job), so I've been going to work out and am able to take Ripley with me, since they have childcare. The best part is - she LOVES going! The first time I dropped her off, I wasn't sure how she would react, she definitely tried to leave at first and call for me, but then that was it. I left and when I picked her up, she came running towards me. They said she did really well - no crying. Then the next time I went to pick her up, she was standing around this play kitchen with 2 other little girls, who were all playing with the plastic fake food, it was so cute. She looked up and saw me and all she did was wave and continued to play. She had friends and already wanted nothing to do with Mommy, no fair! Now everytime we pull into the parking lot, she gets excited. It's been such a great thing, for us both. I get a break from Mommy duties and do something good for myself and she gets a break from me and gets to be around other kids in a fun environment. It's a win -win.

We are still very much involved in the MOMS Club in my area. Now that its not warm enough to play outside, we've doing more playdates in each other's homes, trips to the library, breakfast at Panera, etc...everyday there is something schedule on the calendar. Of couse, we don't attend everything, but depending on the time and day, we try and go to 2-3 activities a week. It's been really nice to get to know the Moms in the group and their children. Staying at home, its a must you have a support group and for me, these Ladies are it!Below are some recent pictures taken of Ripley, she's getting so big! She is tall for her age, in the 90 percentile. She obviously gets that from Matt. So now she has his height, eyelashes & feet : ) A few pictures below...this was after it snowed, she was looking out her bedroom window taking it all in.

A Long Overdue Update

So it seems I have been slacking on updating my blog, huh? It's February and my last blog post was in November! My only excuse is that I joined Facebook and now I use that to keep in touch with many of you. I also update my pics there too, but I realize that's not the same, so I will do my best to keep it updated. Afterall, I don't want to let my fans down : )

So things with the Demaray household are going well. Despite the horrible economy and many lay offs in the game industry (and every industry for that matter), thankfully Matt still has a job he loves. His company hasn't been affected so far and are still hiring, so that's a good sign. Keep your fingers crossed for him!

As most of you know by now, we did some traveling over the holidays. We went to Arizona to visit with Matt's family for Christmas through New Year's. The flight was long (6 hrs) and it was a little more difficult this time around, with Ripley being older and so much more active. I decided to hit up the dollar store before our trip to get some toys to keep her occupied on the flight, stuff she's never seen before, etc...on the way there, she did great. Didn't even have to break out my entire bag of tricks! But on the way home, it was a different story.

During the trip, she ended up getting bad ear infections in each ear, so we got her on antibiotics before our trip home, but it still ended up effecting her (or is it affecting? I always get those 2 mixed up). Our flight had an hour connection in between on the way home and unfortunately the only time she slept during the return trip was in the airport between the 2 flights! Yay, for us! Or should I say Yay for me! Since she wasn't feeling that great, she decided that Mommy's lap was the only lap she wanted to be on for the ENTIRE trip. That was rough, especially since she would get so close to falling asleep and then boom, she decided taking a nap just wasn't for her. Oh and did I mention the puking episode? Yeah, well with the long flight and all (& no real food served on the flights) we had to resort to tons of snacks and McDonald's chicken nuggets to feed her. Well, apparently she had WAY too much and needed to get rid of it. Don't forget, she is on my lap! Oh, so fun, but guess what? I caught some of it, so no worries! Haha. So not pretty. Oh and if you remember one of our previous trips I blogged about - the one where I was fully prepared with an "emergancy outfit", but didn't need to use it and then on the way home I happen to forgot to pack the emergancy outfit and definitely needed it? Well, I did the exact same thing this time too! I don't know what's with that return flight that I decide not to bring the extra outift, I should know better by now! So this time, thankfully we had hoodie with us, so we stripped her from her shirt and zipped up the hoodie and it worked out, since she didn't end up getting much on her pants. As for me, I was lucky to only have it on my hands and such, so that was that.

After we finally arrived in Baltimore, we had to deal with baggage taking forever, them changing the claim number on us and then us taking the shuttle to get our car (at night and in 20 degree weather) to realize we forgot to write down what letter & number of aisle we were in!! Thankfully, there was another person on the shuttle who arrived the same day as us and it helped us figure out which lot we were in and after some riding around in the bus, finally found it. About 5 minutes after us pulling out of the parking lot, Ripley was OUT. Poor little lady, she was a trooper!

So after all that being said, the trials & tribulations of travel was well worth to spend the holidays with Family. We got to meet our new nephew, Jax, for the first time and Ripley got to have fun playing with her cousin, Ava (who is 4). Seeing the 2 of time together, running around holding hands, was priceless! Also, besides getting to see Matt's sis, brother in law and Matt's Dad and Pam (who all live in AZ), we also got to spend time with Matt's Mom, who lives in Naperville, IL. She came out for the trip too, so that was an extra bonus, having us all together. The only people who weren't there from Matt's family, was his brother Jake and his wife Kelly. They were both greatly missed! Below are some pic's from our visit (after returning from our trip, I realized most pictures were taken of the kids and not adults. me and my sis in law didn't get even ONE pic together and me, matt and ripley didn't get a family pic either. bummer):