sick baby

This is just especially sad to me because Kiernan has never been really sick before. Today I woke up and got Kiernan up, he had a fever of 104.4, so I took his pajamas off, and waited ten minutes to see if it was because of the pajamas, cause I felt a little warm myself. it went down to 102, we waited longer, and it was still up, and his rash was getting worse, and spreading, and the bumps were getting bigger. He also didn't sleep well at all last night, woke up about every hour, poor thing. he had a stuffy nose throughout the night, but that's gone now. He's also had some pretty bad bowel movements the past few days. So we figured it was definitely time to take him in.

Turns out, no infections, or anything. looks like a viral thing that is manifesting itself as fevers and rashes. We're to keep an eye on him, if his fever spikes back up really high again, or if he starts getting sinus issues, then we're to take him right back in to get some flu thing to help prevent it, as those things probably mean he's getting the flu.

I just feel bad cause some of his rash bumps have ever blistered :( I thought it could be chicken pox at first, but it doesn't look like it so far because 1 - he's not itching anything, 2 - nothing has scabbed over at all (he's had a minor rash the past couple of days).


This happy little dude...

From 10-11 months

From 10-11 months

is a pitiful sick little dude.

From 10-11 months

From 10-11 months

Drinking some pedialyte to restore some fluids in him.

From 10-11 months

Happy Anniversary

Today makes 4 years since Bryan and I got married. So much has happened since then that I cannot even imagine what my life was like before marrying Bryan anymore. It sure wasn't as good as it is now!

We'll get to actually celebrate our anniversary this year, but it'll have to wait until the weekend of the 17th and 18th since we are just *THAT* busy. I'm excited though, I have no idea what we're doing :) I don't even know what Bryan got me yet!

He, however, got his present early. He got a new ipod nano last week, and is loving it :)

Here's to eternity!

I can almost breathe

Well...life sure has been moving fast for me this semester. I just don't feel like I've had any time to do anything...really. I definitely have seen a decrease of time in seeing Kiernan and Bryan. I always feel like I'm going in and out of the door. I come home from something, 10 minutes later I'm out the door. Basically, my schedule for Monday, Tuesday and Thursday looks like this:

Work 8 AM-10:30AM, come home, feed Kiernan, get things for school together, eat lunch, go out the door for field experience at 11:30, stay there until 3:15, come home, feed Kiernan or pump, leave at 4:00 to go to class, get home at 7:30, feed Kiernan or pump, do homework for the rest of the night, go to bed around 10 or 11.

Wednesday, I have no class at night, so I work instead.

Friday I have no class or field experience, so I take the chance to work from 8-5.

Quite frankly, I'm doggone tired. Especially after last week and this week. Homework has just been piling on, and it's been insane. I had 15 readings to do this week, and that many reading responses. I also had a language assessment/summary report due, a cognitive assessment summary due, and I was going to have my research paper due on Thursday, but my teacher heard I was out of town this past weekend and said I can turn it in a week late with no penalty. That took a HUGE load off my shoulders. I've also had two observations done so far in my field experience, and have one more on Thursday.

I went to my orientation for my Helen Keller Fellowship over the weekend in Biloxi, Mississippi. It was incredibly fun, and a major information overload. It was well worth it though. I met some wonderful ladies there, and enjoyed being able to talk with people in my profession who understood the different things that need to happen in the special education field. The hotel was awesome, literally right across the street from the beach, and the water was the perfect temp to go walking in. the best part of it all, I had my own room and got to sleep THROUGH THE NIGHT. I obviously missed Bryan and Kiernan, but man, that sleep was just wonderful. I'm excited to pursue this opportunity and continue to work these wonderful ladies.

My field experience has been incredibly fun. I definitely miss being in the classroom and/or working directly with kids. An opportunity has come up to do that as a job while in school, but I'll wait on details for that to see if it actually pans out.

Kiernan is now just over ten months old. He's so much fun! He's got eight teeth now, loves to dance (he dances to basically any music most of the time), getting braver with standing up for long periods of time now, laughs a
lot, sleeps a lot less, eats a lot more solids, smiles a lot, and is getting more curious everyday. :) He's really a great kid. I'll end this with a picture of him doing something I wish he would do more often :)

From 10-11 months

Long week - cheering up post

My kid cheers me up, so I'm doing this.
I had major technology problems all day yesterday (I swear, everything electronic is out to get me, even my hearing aid gave up!). So I'm posting a couple (a few)pictures of Kiernan to make up for it, and to make my day a little brighter today.




Our little Mozart.

From 9-10 months

Ugliest face evAR!

From 9-10 months

"what? I'm chewing on a spoon...so?"

From 9-10 months

Tasting the O.J.

From 9-10 months

Swinging fun, the part he loves most is when I bring the swing up and let go...that's what this part is, I'm about to let go.

From 9-10 months

Kiernan update

We took Kiernan in for his 9 month check up today (he's almost 9 1/2...dumb insurance problems postponed this), and he's all around a good happy healthy boy. He's 29 inches (90th percentile for 9 months) and 25 lbs even (off the charts for 9 months percentile wise). He's our big boy :)

He now has 6 teeth, four bottom ones and two top ones. There are two more top ones that are on the verge of cutting through any day now, so soon, he'll have 8 teeth. Insane. He's also learning to bite...lovely :)

He's a great multi-tasker (yes that's his toothbrush, a cheap vibrating one that came with our waterpik, and we both already have sonics, so we use that one with him..he LOVES it).

From 9-10 months

Enjoying bath time, it usually lasts for 20-30 minutes now, he just loves splashing around.

From 9-10 months

He almost looks like a baby vampire here, lovely biting teeth...

From 9-10 months

And his new game, he usually does peek a boo doing this, but if we're in plain sight, he likes us to say "up" when he goes up. I could learn from him and do this many squats..I might lose a few pounds if I do it as often/much as he does!

From 9-10 months

Helen Keller Fellowship

Over the summer I had the opportunity to take a crash course class from Dr. Nelson about deafblindness. I loved the class, and learned so much more than I ever thought I would. It was kind of a further testament to me that I really am doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and really love the field I'm in.

Throughout this class, I had the opportunity to have some fun with the class and the teacher. The teacher announced the fellowship to the class one day...giving me the eye every single time she made an emphasis on "a MASTER'S STUDENT" This is because I was the only one in the class who would be able to do it due to what year I was in the program, being a master's student and my major. So I talked to her after class, and she explained the fellowship to me (which I will do later). After asking Bryan during break whether I should apply for it or not, I decided to do it. There is no negative reason to doing it whatsoever, and I felt it was something I could and should do. After informing my teacher that I would love to take this opportunity, she immediately informed that she would write a letter of recommendation herself, even though we'd only known each other for three days. Talk about a little boost to the self-esteem!

So I applied, and got an e-mail on Wednesday from the secretary of the fellowship program. Turns out, I got the fellowship! I'm a 2009-2010 Helen Keller Fellow! I'm really excited. The basics of the fellowship, the requirements and the reason are all below, if you don't care to read about it, you can stop here :)

Basics: we need more qualified people to work with deafblind students. The fellowship helps train individuals. 10 people are selected, 1 from each university that participates in this program, and the universities are located all over the U.S. I will be going as the candidate from the University of Utah.

Reason:
There's a huge shortage of teachers, period. Imagine what kind of shortage we have for students with disabilities, especially for those students with not so common disability, such as deafblindness. In the past, people have tried to have a hearing impairment specialist and a vision impairment specialist work together to meet the needs of a deafblind child. Unfortunately, this didn't work as being both deaf and blind presents several unique challenges. A deafblind specialist is needed in order to meet the needs of the child. The goal of this fellowship is to increase the number of qualified teachers to work with deafblind children. The emphasis on qualified.

The fellowship program will help me understand and learn how to meet the needs of a deafblind child, and learn how to be a leader in the field to help others meet the needs of a deafblind child.

Anyone who completes the program receives a 10,000 stipend, and will not have to pay it back if they complete two years of instruction in a special education field after the fellowship (any field, especially sensory impairment). I will already be working off 6 or 7 years of working in a sensory impairment field due to the grant I receive for grad school, so this works out really well, as I can do it at the same time.

Requirements (6 of them):

1. Attend the Helen Keller Fellowship orientation. It's in Michigan, Oct. 1-3.
2. Attend 5 webinars. Basically they are seminars that are on the web, and allows all 10 of the fellows to interact and learn from the professionals presenting the seminars.
3. Attend the annual conference presented by the National Consortium for DeafBlindness (location and time unknown right now).
4. Attend a three day leadership and systems thinking seminary immediately after the conference mentioned in #3.
5. 2 week internship in my home state deafblind technical assitance team that allows me to see a variety of enviornments (poverty, rural and urban) that have deafblind students.
6. Complete 2 years of special education teaching.


Sounds good to me! When I'm done I'll basically have documented proof that I'm a qualified professional to be involved in the education of deafblind students (a certificate).

That means, when I graduate I'll have my MEd, with a license for Early childhood special education, a license for early childhood hearing impairment education (0-3 years old), a license for K-12 hearing impairment education (3-21 years old), and the Helen Keller Fellowship certificate.

All this after I've already got my state of Utah Early Childhood Education teaching license, and my BS in Early Childhood Education.


I think I might be done with school after I finish in Fall 2010....

Lagoon

I finally got to have my big summer fun yesterday with Bryan and my siblings and their spouses. So basically it was Bryan, me, Hilarie, Hannah, Scott, Michael and Stacee. At least for the first 8 hours anyway :) We all got there at opening time (11 AM) and went on a bunch of rides.

We went on Wicked first to beat any long lines that might have formed. Then we went on it again right after that. Then we did Spider, then we went on the Colossus then we were going on to the Wild Mouse (stick with me here). We're in line, just talking, all of a sudden Hilarie says she doesn't feel good...and passes out. I was already behind her ready to support her if she did pass out, and Hannah was in front of her. Both of us have had passing out experiences that we could see what was going on, and was just waiting for it to happen, cause there's no stopping it once it starts. We think it was just the combination of having nothing to drink for 1 1/2 hours, being past lunch time, the heat, and riding Wicked and Colossus and Spider all together at once, since they're all really crazy rides. Fortunately she felt fine after that, that we were able to go on any other rides we wanted to do....including the Catapult. That's right Hilarie and I both went on the catapult! It was really awesome, but I don't know if I could justify spending 20 bucks to go on it again. It was definitely worth going at least once though.

Bryan and I wanted to stay until closing, all the others were too tired or just sick of rides around 7, so they went home. We stayed until 10, and I thought I was gonna have to turn into a mother for Bryan to tell him that we could not do any more last minute rides (we went from the Samaurai, to the Spider, to the White Roller coaster, to the Colossus, and finally to the musical chair spinning thing all in one hour (not counting the line to Samaurai). It was insane, but it was way fun and worth it. This was my last big hurrah before diving into the next school year as I'll be in a school at least half day everday for the next school year.

Many many many thanks to the Keate family for watching Kiernan for 12 hours. They must have had fun with him (the zoo and a softball game) because when we brought him home, he was out within 15 minute and slept for 3 hours straight (this NEVER happens).

*sigh* school..here I come.