My mother doesn’t like my header. “too much of this stuff, in here” as she motions toward her chest. “Besides, someone is going to think that’s an implant… too round.”
“MOTHER!”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged beach, children, family photos, Hilton Head, Hilton Head Island, photos | No Comments »
The Following is Extracted from West Urbana
“On any given day in West Urbana, its not unusual to see scores of students walking to school while their parents walk or bike to work. The neighborhoods walkways, narrow streets, and picturesque shade trees and landscaping make it desirable for foot traffic and contribute to the sense of place found here.
Located between two dynamic areas — the University of Illinois and downtown Urbana — West Urbana has maintained its unique neighborhood identity for more than a century, refusing to succumb to the pressures of high-density development or issues surrounding absentee landlords. Many historic properties remain today, the result of an active citizenry and sustained planning efforts.
The American Planning Association has selected West Urbana as one of 10 Great Neighborhoods in America for 2007 in recognition of the neighborhoods sustainable design; commuters who walk, bike, or ride transit at higher-than-average rates; inviting neighborhood spaces; and community focus on enhancing quality of life.
A traditional residential neighborhood, West Urbana is best experienced on bike or foot. Nearly a quarter of commuters here dont use a car — about triple the national average. Children walk in groups to the local elementary school, an Art Deco-designed building from the 1930s federal Work Projects Administration WPA. The high school and middle school also are within walking distance.
The neighborhoods design encourages foot travel. A discontinuous grid pattern with T-intersections in key places to discourage cut-through vehicle traffic provides connectivity and easy navigability. Mature trees form a canopy over narrow streets while some streets and sidewalks feature restored brick. Historic, globe-style streetlamps and front porches combine to create an inviting streetscape for walkers, who often stop to chat with neighbors…..”
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Urbana Illinois, West Urbana, Urbana, hometown | No Comments »
This pack of preschoolers roams the neighborhood, invading freezers in search of Popsicles, trampling through sprinklers, drag racing tricycles, and leaving in their wake trails of 
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged children, families, family photos, photos, summertime | 3 Comments »
Does two weeks of 1 hour physical therapy, 3 x per week count as a workout? it’s all weights….
oh, yeah, so where have i been? not working out much. at all. I have been experiencing some problems with my shoulders… the story goes like this: When I was a teenager, I had occasional pain in my shoulders during swim training. I didn’t make a fuss about it, cause i was 17 and that’s simply the way I am. No fuss. Well, at the end of May after about 1 month of solid training for the triathlon the pain in my left shoulder came back. It’s a weird pain. Not sharp, not acute, more dull and annoying than anything else. I could tell that it was not muscular. I said to myself, “oh no, not my swimming shoulder, hopefully it’ll be okay through the race.” So, I went on about my business. Then I got in that darned car accident. I didn’t notice anything funny at the scene of the accident, except the typical whip lash, and I figured that would go away. Well, later that night and for the next few evenings the pain in my shoulders returned and was worse. I think the shock from the impact exasperated the problem I was already experiencing. Well, then like a dummy I swam that following Saturday afternoon. A long workout too. And guess what! I could barely sleep that night! Argh, it hurt to just pull the covers over my body. I took one of my dad’s celebrex the next day, and that barely cut the pain. So, I took myself to a sports med. doctor. He did an x-ray of my shoulder (left) and said that I have a minor tear in the cartilage and that I have multi-directional instability/laxity, and prescribed 4 weeks of PT, 2-3x per week.
The PT said no swimming. Wah! Oh, wait let me back up. The weekend prior to my first PT, I did a workout. Ugh! Wouldn’t you know, that suddenly the pain was in my right shoulder. Now get this, while the pain in the left has subdued, the pain in my right has sustained since that Sunday. (um, June 29th).
We’ve been doing resistance training with bands, some little free-weight exercises, simple push-ups… ha ha! my favorite is the “punching” exercise! Using the resistance band, of course.
Anyway, today I told her that the pain in my right is still there, and has NOT curbed. So, she applied some pain/anti-inflammatory medication using an iontophoresis patch. Crazy! That was weird.
It’s an oblong patch, with a plastic gadget in the middle that contains two watch-sized batteries, then she connected some contraption, that looked like a blood-sugar tester, for about 4 minutes. Then I had to leave the patch on for 2 hours. Honestly, I don’t notice a difference.
Can I get some relief!?!
After PT, I went to the park and ran. Oh, and ate lunch with Argo. 
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged iontophoresis, multi-directional instability, physical therapy, triathlon training | 1 Comment »
Jackson was absent this afternoon, Josephine was napping and so Olivia and I sat in my room for about an hour “talking”. She sat in front of me on the bed and stared into my eyes, and I talked. I practiced some of the speech techniques that I learned from her instructors… modified slightly by mom, of course. One was getting her to clap her hands on demand, I would sit there and say “yay!”, and clap my hands. She finally started putting her hands together. Mind you, she CAN clap, it’s just getting her to do it on command that is the objective here. I think she is used to having her instructor help her with the clapping, and so that explains why she stuck both hands out toward me and then together. Then she sat in front of me and just stared into my eyes! And I started repeating “Mama”, and she mumbled a few things… oh, but she kept staring at me, and trying so hard to utter a sound. I SWEAR the gears were turning in that sweet little head of hers. But oh, what a peaceful moment to sit there with her. Just her. To have her look me in the eyes, and without words I could feel the love from her. She does not need to say “I love you Mommy”. To sit there with her gaze fixed on my eyes, and her smile so big and bright…. wow. So, I moved to trying to identify body parts, which she used to be able to do. She used to be very proud of being able to find her belly, and I was hoping to draw it out of her today, but she really was more interested in looking at my face. So, I thought that it was such a wonderful moment, I grabbed my camera, but alas the battery was dead. So, I whipped out the laptop and turned on photobooth, placed the laptop on a pillow, and all of a sudden!! Olivia couldn’t take her eyes off of the screen! She was so giddy, giggling, bouncing up and down, and waving her hands…. I can never get her to interact with the mirror in the bathroom… so what was it about photobooth/the laptop that had her so mesmerized? I think I’ll try it again, maybe it could be a breakthrough to trying to get her to utter and imitate speech sounds! I guess I’ll be taking the laptop with me when I take her to school tomorrow morning so that I may show her instructors!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged autism, children, developmental disabilities, families, family photos, photos | 4 Comments »
On Wednesday, Olivia had her long awaited visit to The Marcus Institute in Atlanta. It is a clinic solely devoted to treating, evaluating, diagnosing, servicing children with developmental disabilities. To our family, it is was a trip to find the “Holy Grail” of answers for Olivia.
We sat with the developmental specialist for 2.5 hours, during which she observed Olivia, and got a thorough history from me. She said that Olivia possesses all the characteristics to call her Autistic, but that she (the Dr) believes there is definitely some genetic cause behind it. Olivia has previously been tested for Angelman Syndrome, Retts Syndrome, and she also had a comparative genomic hybridization test which i believe tested for subtelomeric rearrangements. The Dr. said that there is an extremely thorough genetic test that she’d like to have run. It goes through all the little nucleotides, or whatever they’re called, on the chain and identifies anomalies. Coincidentally the statistics of genetic causes for autism are rising. There was a new article in the paper on Friday addressing this very topic. Ummm… let’s see if I can google the article…. Here it is
Also, good news, the Dr. said that ABA therapy is exactly what Olivia needs right now. In fact, I just remembered that the neurologist at the Medical College of Georgia had also suggested ABA, which validates the fact that we went ahead and started her at her new school where she will be getting ABA.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged autism, autistic spectrum disorders, children, family | 4 Comments »
Well, I think we’re about birthday-ed out around here. Olivia’s was the 2nd, mine was the 3rd, and Josephine was the 8th. For Olivia’s birthday, we went out to eat for lunch… me, the kids, grandma and grandpa, and Sara Georgiadis. (Athena’s mommy). Then we went back to mom and dad’s to have strawberry shortcake and coffee, and sing “Happy Birthday” to Olivia.
For Josephine’s birthday, we had a little Cupcake party here at the house. I literally pulled this off in 24hrs…. I had no plans, and then finally on Monday I thought to myself that it would be fun to have cupcakes, but what are you going to do with cupcakes and no one to eat them? I invited a couple of the neighborhood moms over, my parents, Sara, and another girlfriend of mine. It really came together very nicely! It felt really nice to have some people over. I haven’t entertained anyone here at the house since the separation. And entertaining is something that I really enjoy doing, so it felt SO GOOD at the end of the day to have had a successful little party. Everyone enjoyed themselves, there was great conversation, and all the kids had fun too.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged babies, children, family, family photos, photos | No Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged babies, children, family, family photos, Forsyth Park, photography, photos, savannah, Savannah GA | No Comments »
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