Mother's Day 2011

What a lovely Mother's Day!

Rose painted me a watercolor card. Talent, the girl's got talent!
(I Photoshopped out her signature & JoyDad's for anonymity's sake, but Joy's signature manages to be pretty anonymous with no help from me.)

JoyDad got me a box of chocolates. The good stuff. I tried to share a piece with Joy, who nibbled a corner but then pushed it away. (Aw, shucks, had to eat it myself.) She was thrilled to be given the chocolate-brown ribbon from around the box to paly with, though.

Then we had home-made waffle-breakfast with Rose's friend Elizabeth and family, complete with maple-syrup and the last of the frozen strawberries from 2010. Spring came late this year, but the first strawberry blossoms did open this weekend.

Then we got out the bouncy castle for the first time this season. Joy was delighted. She bounced and bounced, both on her own and in the middle of a boisterous ball game between Rose & Elizabeth. I had to remember how tentative Joy was about her new castle when we first bought it almost three years ago. Some gifts she just has to get used to, maybe grow into. (Maybe if I plied her with high-end chocolates at regular intervals, she'd learn to appreciate them? The world may never know...)

And if all that weren't enough, the whole family went downtown to the Capitol Square for an activist Mother's Day picnic event and Solidarity Singalong. I made a new ALEC sign:

This one is protesting yet another piece of ALEC legislation that is fast-tracking its way through the Wisconsin legislature: AB110, the "Special Needs Scholarship Program Act." (They say "scholarship," I say "voucher.") Parents whose child has a public-school IEP would be able to take that child's share of public-ed tax dollars and spend it to send him or her to private school -- losing all their IDEA rights in the process, with no guarantee of any special-ed services at the private school. Though some families would surely benefit (most likely middle-to-upper income families, because the family pays the difference between the voucher & private school tuition), the big winners are those with corporate and religious interests in pushing private schools, and our public schools would be the big losers. (Here's a document of myths and facts about the bill.) So many things to protest, happening so fast!

But that's mother-commitment in Wisconsin, these days.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! I'll close with a salute in the form of a Facebook status-post that was making the rounds on Sunday:

For all the moms out there who had to wait longer (or still wait) to hear a first word, who spent more time in doctor's offices with their child than on playdates, who find joy in the uniqueness of their child even when others don't get it....For the moms who promote the ABILITIES and gifts of their child everyday, we salute you.

More Things To Say

It is hard to believe that it's been three weeks since my Some Things to Say post.

It is hard to believe that it's ONLY been three weeks since my Some Things to Say post.

In a nutshell: it wasn't all just-for-that-day.

Joy's speech and all-around developmental burst has continued at an awesome pace. There is literally something new every single day. To put this into perspective, we've had stretches where if there were even one of these new things in two weeks' time, we'd have been over the moon with delight.

Joy is now vocalizing regularly with her signs (more, open, all-done).

She is chiming in at the end of each line of familiar songs if we pause and leave off the last word, including a long-awaited return of the bed-time lullaby chime-ins.

She is waving and speaking both for greeting ("hi!") and farewell ("buh-bye!")

She is imitating familiar words, particularly when prompted.

"Joy, can you say 'coffee'?" (We have a tradition in the grocery that she gets to smell the open bag of bulk coffee beans.)
"FEE-fee!"

"Joy, tell me 'gold-fish'!" (Goldfish crackers at snack).
"Fee-fsh!"

"Want some music?" (Baby Einstein soundtrack on CD).
"muh-ick!"

Besides the songs she chimed in on, here are -- surely just some -- of the words she attempted yesterday, either in imitation (often prompted) or initiation.

Coffee, goldfish, music, candy, kiss, pear, chip, go, open, bye-bye, ball, more, drink, juice, lion, cracker.

Happy, happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day, And A Special 5K

As I type, Rose and JoyDad are upstairs whipping up a breakfast for me that involves bacon and eggs, an unusual treat! I've heard Joy trying out several of her babbly-sounds, and one of them was the long-absent "ma-ma-ma"... now granted, it had rather an air of complaint about it, and was obviously not directed at me because I'm not even in the room. Still, it's in there. And a good day for me to hear it!

Another very cool Mother's Day tribute came from an unexpected source -- my sister-in-law Auntie Running-at-the-Mouth, who picked up a "running mom" meme and added some leisure-studies research findings and turned it into a lovely salute, both to her mother and to me. Thanks so much, RatM!

She mentions that I've got another 5K race coming up... I'd like to tell you about it, if I may.

On May 30, I'm going to be running in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. As you probably know from the amazing pink-ribbon movement, this is a fund-raiser for breast-cancer research. I know all too many people who have had to battle breast cancer themselves, some of them mom-related figures in my life but also friends, other in-laws, a college roommate, way too many. The latest astonishing figure is that the lifetime breast cancer risk is one in eight women.

I'd like to give my readers the chance to help this race count for as much as possible toward funds for breast cancer research and support...

Please consider a visit to my fundraising page for this race and making a donation. [Update: event is over, link removed. Thanks, all!] There's no such thing as "too small" and the page doesn't display who gave how much, only a lovely total. Making every step count for as much as possible!

All good thoughts and prayers happily accepted too. And even though my own mother's journey involved a different form of cancer (renal cell carcinoma), maybe this can be for her too in a way.

In other news, I'm told that I've won a special Mother of the Year award. You have to see this to believe it. (Thanks, Rhemashope!)

P.S. I broke the 10-minute mile barrier on my 5K run yesterday, first time ever. Hoping to do even better at the Race for the Cure!