an introduction, part 1: i'm so proud of him

here he is, the hubs.  my honey.  my best friend.  sooo cute, right?

so let me introduce you to him:

1.  he hates chocolate (result: that empty bag of oreos was eaten entirely by me)

2.  he was a division 1 swimmer for butler university

3.  his favorite chick flick is "sweet home alabama"

4.  he has house clothes- a soft shirt and either basketball shorts or sweats that he dives into the minute he gets home.  it's a bad day when the house clothes don't get worn at least once

5.  watches every minute of the tour de france every summer

6.  the first baby he held was our daughter

7.  is an extremely gifted teacher, especially with sports

8. he doesn't like to talk about hypothetical situations, but he does like to day dream

9.  he likes to go unnoticed

10.  has competed in one full, one olympic distance and two half ironman triathlons.

and this last point is why i'm so proud of him.  a week and a half ago he finished his second half ironman triathlon.  after a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike, a 13.1 mile run, a flat tire, a broken derailer (apparently this is a very important bike piece?), and a torrential downpour, he finished in 5 hours and 29 minutes.  not quite the time he was hoping for.  and while he is disappointed, i couldn't be prouder.  this race showed who my husband is: he is dedicated to what he loves, he fights to finish no matter what the obstacles, he strives for excellence in all he does and is not satisfied with anything less.  he's my ironman (gotta throw some sort of cheesy line in here, right?)

at the start of the race... if you can't tell, that's nervousness and annoyance written on his face :)

shameless bribing

the following is a video of B and i doing a puzzle.  oh the puzzles.  when she first started receiving OT services one of our assignments was to work on puzzles to help her develop her fine motor skills.  then when she started working with a speech therapist she suggested we use puzzles to help B develop her speech- offer choices and require her to tell us what she wants.  puzzles, the magical toy.  and for the majority of the past 10 months i have thought of them as "those d*** puzzles."  B had little to no interest in puzzles, and there are only so many times in an hour i can say which piece do you want, the yellow or the red?  the cow or the horse?  the circle or the square?  shoot me now or later?  ok, not as bad as all that, but seriously not my favorite activity.  until the m&m's.  oh the gloriousness of the m&m.  all you haters out there don't go judging me for the sugar... or the ingredient "coloring blue 2 lake"... or the bribing.  it worked and i will forever be indebted to the m&m.  plus they are peanut m&m's, so the nutritional value is definitely there.  somewhere.  anyways, here's the video of us puzzling.  and fine motor skilling.  and offering choices.  and being awesome.

educational sidenotes:

in this video you can see B working on both her fine motor skills and her speech.  for the fine motor skills she is working on turning a piece to appropriately fit it's hole, plus she is recognizing where the piece belongs and learning to turn the piece without prompting.  for speech, we offer her choices: do you want the red or the blue.  majority of the time she will repeat whatever was offered last.  at this point she doesn't care which one i give her, but i'm told that eventually she will care which piece she receives and through offering her choices she will learn that words have meaning and are how she communicates what she truly wants.  we are also working on distinguishing colors (although not our primary focus) and her chewing skills (the size of the peanut m&m prevents her from just swallowing her candy).

your forgiveness is requested...

hi, my name is erika and i am an unfaithful blogger.  oh how noble my intentions.  oh how pathetic the results.  all i can say is i think that i just found my head and am in the process of reattaching it to my body.  pending a successful reattachment i think that i'm back.  i hope.  so here i am, asking for your forgiveness for my long absence.

moving on: just because i haven't been posting does not mean that i haven't been thinking about the many different things i want to share with ya'll.  so, just to lure you into the all-too-fascinating world of "the grimmer life" here are a couple titles of posts to come:

*  an introduction- i believe that a proper introduction is necessary of all the babies and hubbies (let me clarify, there is only one hubbie to introduce) that i ramble on and on about
* the buttons on the fridge- a short story of how the frustrations have become blessings
* where you at- an update on B, her development, her seizures, etc.
* shameless bribing- somewhat self descriptive

hope that encourages you to come back... and holds me accountable to actually posting those in a timely manner.

so, i will leave you with pictures of what occupied the remainder of our summer- a trip up to illinois to visit the hubby's side of the family.  fun times had at birthday parties, in the pool and at the playground. love visiting family!

did NOT like the fountains and the splashing water and the sheer scariness of baby pools...

ok, maybe i'm ok if GG is here...

um, thinking about it, and...

yeah, i love it

b, on the other hand, loved every minute of splashing glory

backyard photo-op

really mom?  another picture?

so maybe i was going for the whole peek-around-the-tree-senior-picture-pose.  maybe.

i cannot, for the life of me, get a great picture of the two of them

uncle steve & aunt paige

grandpa g and grandma g (gg)