Design Contest

{this may not be much of a "contest" if no one is interested, but i thought i'd give it a shot anyway}



Ok, so the American Heart Association's Heart Walk is fast approaching (hard to believe!). Last year, Sarah's talented friend Judy created there logo and t-shirt design. BUT...she just had a new baby and she's a wee bit swamped with the whole new-baby-craziness and I doubt she'd want to complicate life even more by taking on a design project.

So... anyone interested in putting their design skills to work for a great cause? My friend/co-captain Sarah and I thought we'd put feelers out to everyone "artsy" we know, get a pool of designs to choose from, and {walah!}--a beautiful logo to print on shirts for the walk!

And what do YOU get out of it (besides fabulous karma)?? A prime real estate spot on the back of our shirts! Yeah, that may not be much, but a picture's worth a thousand words right? Tons of people are bound to see your business logo at the walk. I mean, we've already got nearly 20 people on our team who will be wearing the shirts, plus ALL the people who attend the walk (like 40,000 or something?!). (And if that's still not enough, if you're local and want a fantastic golf eval, let me know--I'll throw that in courtesy of R--hey, it's a $175-value!)So if this sounds like something you'd want to help us out with, here are the deets:

• Team name: Big Steps for Baby Strokes


• T-shirt color: Purple with yellow lettering (to match the kidshavestrokes.org wristbands)


• Dimensions: Doesn't really matter; but we just need one main logo/design that would go on the front of the shirt (logos of local businesses who support us will go on the back)


• Special note: We will also need a different, yet similar design for the pediatric stroke survivors (last year the shirts said, "I AM a pediatric stroke survivor.")
  

Thanks in advance to anyone (anyone??? Bueller??) who wants to donate their talents for a great cause!

{if you want pics of last year's shirts for inspiration, just let me know}

Floating by

Floating by.... time and my life that is. I feel Sean is growing up so fast. I can not believe he will be 2.5 years old tomorrow. Where has the time gone. He has changed so much over the last 2.5 years it is amazing.

Vacation was awesome we got to stop and relax. We went swimming quite a bit and now Sean is a fishy in the water. He loves it now. He even goes under water with me of course and laughs when we come up. He goes under mushrooms and gets soaking wet too.

All of this coming from a little boy with some sensory processing issues is AWESOME. He is much more comfortable in the water now too. He loves to kick and blow bubbles (try too that is) and jump into the water to me too. I am one proud mommy. It is hard to be back into the swing of things and get back into the groove at work. I am still tired from vacation. Hopefully I will be able to catch up this weekend.

We also got a puppy. Yep we got a puppy we got a chocolate lab who is 2 months old today. His name is Vitus named after St. Vitus. St Vitus was celebrated on my husbands bday, and St. Vitus is considered the patron saint of actors, comedians, dancers, and epileptics. He is also said to protect against lightning strikes, animal attacks, and oversleeping. My husband found his name. He looks bigger than he is in the picture. He is only 5lbs right now.

HE FINALLY JUMPED and more GOOD NEWS

So we have great news all around for the most part to report.

The pedi hemo. said that his levels of Protein C are still low but a little bit higher than they were a few months ago. We tested for a lot of other more common blood clotting disorders and some were negative and some were positive but the ones that were positive turned out later to be negative when they did other tests within those tests. (Sorry if I am confusing any one)

The second new is that Sean finally got air he JUMPED. It was only a little bit off the ground but he did it and both feet were off the ground at the same time.

He had is 6 month review with his PT and he is still around 21-22 months level for locomotion skills, and ball skills. He has come a long way and she is very proud of him as well.

He will have his OT reviews and Speech reviews over the next few weeks.

And lastly I have been having emotional thoughts of telling everyone or certain family and friends about Sean. I too as some of you have felt the guilt and curious of our little ones will resent us later for telling people. But I am honestly going to go with my mommy gut and instinct and just tell as many people as I can and get as much awareness out that anyone and everyone can have a stroke.

The more I think about it, the more I think maybe Sean will be proud that I can help make a difference in another ones lives and families and get the word out and TELL everyone so will stop happening or how to get an earlier diagnosis.

Anyone can have a stroke, children, adults and unborn babies can HAVE STROKES.

Sean was on people.com............

Sean was on people magazine.com and I didn't even know it. I wish I found out sooner but I remember submitting his picture a while back and this was posted in November of 2007.

My manager at work was searching for birthday cake pictures and she found him on People Magazine. Wow. I am shocked and excited. This just made my day.

Here is the link if you are interested in seeing his picture!

http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20146975_20161849_3,00.html

Happy a safe and Happy 4th of July

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy and safe 4th of July! We are potty training this weekend starting today! Big boy underwear all weekend except naps and bedtime!

Pediatric Hematologist AT LAST

Pediatric Hematologist AT LAST is finally this week. We are finally going on Thursday less than 48 hours away.

I know we will not get any more results than what we know already but they will be doing some additional blood tests to try and figure out why Sean's protein levels are low and they said probably some additional testing that we have not done yet.

There are so many I just don't know where they will start. It could be several gene mutations and or it can mean nothing. Having this on my mind for that last couple of months has been very stressful.

Finding out all of this is such a short period of time is very stressful. We found out he suffered an in-utero stroke, closed lip schiz. (where his brain is not connected), told that he has right sided hemiplegia cerebral palsy, told that he has epilepsy and is having complex partial seizures, that he has low protein levels, and oh by the way he will always have to be on the seizure medication.

I know I hope and hope to get answers with each visit we go to but hearing from this doctor for some reason I will feel better. We will see how I feel AFTER we go.

Itchy red bumps

Itchy red bumps, sounds fun right. Our poor little guy has them all over the place. They started on Saturday morning on his little bottom. It started with three and then they multiplied through out the day. They then went to his legs, thighs, hands, arms, mouth, tongue, hips, chin, ears, waist, and genitals.

They are the worst on his bottom and the biggest. I of course did not take pictures of his bottom but here are a few. They don't seem to hurt when we touch them, but he has had a fever 102 or less and has no appetite. We are going to the doc tonight they didn't want us there during busy hours and we have to be seen outside the office all together.

So hopefully we will know what these itchy red bumps are. I think they may be the chicken pox's but I have no clue. Will update later after the doc tonight.

It is impetigo~ and we are now on antibiotics!