"The Last Lecture"

Randy Pausch died last Friday, July 25th, 2008. ABC News with Diane Sawyer did a tribute to Randy Pausch Tuesday night. While watching the tribute, I got extremely upset emotionally. The next day, I still felt very emotional. During my lifetime there have been many people who's life stories or accomplishments have been in the media, who I have considered great people, whom I have highly respected, who have died and it had not affected me this way. Why was Randy Pausch's death different? Why was I so emotional over his death and not the others? After considering it for a while, I realized it was not his death that upset me so much.

The difference between the other great people and Randy Pausch is that we got to know Randy's family and we witnessed his love and passion for his wife and children in a very intimate way. I realized I was not sad that Randy had passed, because all of us die at some point, I was sad because the Pausch family will no longer get to experience first hand their wonderful husband and father. Even more than that, I am sad that his children were as young as they were when he died and that at this age they can not quite grasp what an incredible man he was.

I do think that his children are truly blessed with what they do have though. How many kids who have lost a parent can say that they have recordings of what that parent would have wanted them to know about their life. How many kids who have lost a parent have such intimate videos of how much their father loved their mother and how much he loved playing and spending time with them. How many children who have lost a parent can say that I know stories about my father's life because he recorded them for me before he died and therefore I know my father through his own words.

So in a way I feel his children are greatly blessed, but they have also had a great lose that no amount of recordings can replace.

In the course of a few days I have been able to work through my emotions and come to peace with Randy's death. And I did not even know him. I know from my own experience the hard days, months, years that are ahead of the Pausch family. I also know that the emotions they are feeling now, though they will lessen in intensity with time, they will never completely go away.

I pray that God will surround the Pausch family with comfort and peace.

STAIRS!!!!

Addison has discovered the stairs. This weekend Daniel found Addison climbing the stairs. So now we have to put something blocking them, so she doesn't climb them when we are not looking. We do let her climb them a few times a day, while we are right behind her. After just a few days of climbing the stairs, she has gotten very fast. We are still trying to teach her how to come down the stairs, but as of yet, she is only interested in going up them, not coming down them.



I still can't believe she will be a year old in less then a month!

ATTENTION MOMS - Babies R Us - exchanging bottles!!

If you have baby bottles that have BPA in them (and most bottles do, even the expensive ones) you can take them to Babies R Us and they will exchange them for BPA free bottles, dollar for dollar, no questions asked. We took in all of our Avent bottles and were able to get $72.50 worth of brand new, BPA free bottles. They didn't ask where we purchased them or how old they were or anything. Now, the catch is you can only exchange them for bottles, nipples or bottle accessories, but it is still a great deal!!! They are not advertising this, so I think it is just spreading word of mouth and I don't know how much longer they are going to offer this deal. You can call the Babies R Us store near you to get more details.

YEAH FOR BABIES R US!!!!!!!

Getting my attention

Addison has learned how to get my attention. I put her down for her afternoon nap today and as usual she started to cry. I was downstairs listening to her on the monitor and she was just crying and whaling. Then she suddenly stopped crying, a few seconds later she made this terrible screeching scream and then continued to scream in this horrible high pitch. It sounded like she was in terrible pain. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, of course trying to think of what could have happened and trying to anticipate what I was going to find when I got to her. My imagination runs wild sometimes, so I had these horrible pictures in my head of her bleeding or having a twisted or broken bone, etc. I burst into her room and as soon as I did, she stopped screaming, smiled and reached out her arms for me to pick her up. THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH HER. I checked her over just to make sure, but as soon as I picked her up she was all smiles. Cleaver girl! So of course I held her for a few minutes and then I put her right back down for a nap. She again proceeded to cry, but after a while she finally went to sleep. I just hope this doesn't turn into the story of the "Boy who cried wolf".

Pampers - No free diapers

When you buy Pampers products there is a code on the inside of the packaging. You can register on the Pampers website and enter these codes in. For every code you enter you earn points. You earn a different number of points depending on what product you get the code from. With these points you can purchase items from their website. Most of the items are cheap kids toys or books. But what we really wanted to save our points for was a free large box of Pampers diapers. It takes 150 points to get the diapers. It has taken us 3 months to save 52 points. So it is going to take a while to get to 150 points.

BUT. . .

Today I logged onto the Pampers' website and I noticed that they do not offer the free box of diapers anymore. I am so upset!! There is really nothing else on their website that we really want. We REALLY wanted the free box of diapers. I know that this sounds very petty, but if you have children you know how many diapers you go through and Pampers diapers are expensive. A free box of diapers would have been REALLY NICE!

But what can you do? :-P

Finally on Facebook

Okay, I finally did it. My friends have been telling me to set up a profile on Facebook and I finally did. It has taken me most of the day. First of all, it took me forever to find a picture of myself. I am always behind the camera. I couldn't even find a picture of me and Addison. There are lots of pictures of Addison with every other person you can think of, but very few pictures of me and Addison. Once I found a picture, then you have to add friends and then enter information about yourself. It is quite time consuming. And then once I had friends entered, I spent time checking out their profiles. So, needless to say, I have pretty much wasted this whole day working on my profile and looking at other people's profiles.

BUT I FINALLY HAVE A FACEBOOK PROFILE!

Addison's First Fever

Addison had her first fever on Thursday. She slept in that morning, which is very unusual for her. She usually wakes up sometime between 7:30 and 8:00. I finally decided to wake her up around 9:00. When I got her up, I could feel that she was VERY warm. I took her temperature and it was 102.3. I called and made a doctors appointment for 1:30 that afternoon. Being a new mom and this being the first time Addison has had a fever, it did not occur to me to give her Tylenol.

When she got up from her morning nap, she felt very HOT. I took her temperature again and it was 104.3. I called the nurse and she said to give her Tylenol and put her in a luke warm bath. At this point, I realize I should have given her Tylenol earlier in the morning. The funny thing is, the whole time she was awake, she was laughing and playing and acting pretty normal. She was a little less active, but she was still her happy self.

The doctor said she had a virus and since she didn't have an ear infection or anything wrong with her sinuses or throat, we just needed to wait it out, while keeping her temperature down. Today (Friday) she has not had a temperature and seems to be doing well. I guess we should consider ourselves very blessed. Addison is almost a year old and has not had any ear infections or other sickness problems. And even this virus that she had only lasted a day and didn't seem to bother her too much.

Thank you God for giving us such a resilient baby.

Gammy & Addison dancing

Mom came to visit this week. Her and Addison had a great time playing together.