Dakinisms

In the last 6 months or so, Dakin has REALLY caught up on his speech.  He is more or less exactly where he should be now, and it is so fun to hear him articulate his thoughts.  Here are some of the gems of late:

(Playing with rubber bands, he had them stretched and said they were swimming.)  I said, "It's swimming?"  He said, "Rubber bands don't swim!"

(With his nurse, watching videos on the iPad.  One of them doesn't want to load) J: "I don't think it's loading, baby." Dakin, pointing to circular thing on the iPad that runs when it's thinking, "See that thing?  That thing means it's LOADING." (evidently said in a tone that made Jane feel stupid...he has quite a bit of attitude).

Me, checking diaper: "I think you're wet." Dakin: "I think I'm don't."

Dakin: "Don't tickle me.  I like kisses better."

And the best one: "Mommy, I love you a lot." Me: "I love you a lot too." D: "I love you one more."

He has also recently threatened to put me in time out for saying the word crazy, and on December 26, he said "I love you" spontaneously to me for the first time...it was awesome.  Now I get to hear it all the time!

Trash for a Cure Fundraiser!

HI!  It's been a while, I know...but one of my New Year's Resolutions is to be better with blogging.  And so here is the first attempt at keeping that promise.  So....without further ado...

TRASH FOR A CURE.

What is this, you ask?  Only the easiest and most perfect fundraiser EVER.  See, there is an awesome company called TerraCycle that will take hard-to-recyclables and upcycle or recycle them: things like Malt-O-Meal cereal bags, etc.  And they will GIVE YOU MONEY for said items.  .01-.02 cents per item to the charity of your choice.  They even pay the shipping so you can get the items to them.  This is a win-win all around!  Money for charity, they get stuff for their products, and the earth doesn't have to take a bag that will NEVER.EVER.ROT.

This project makes my heart sing!

SO: Trash for a Cure.  We are going to gather hard-to-recycle items to send to TerraCycle to raise money for SMARD research at the Jackson Laboratory.  Now, 2 cents may not seem like much, but if we can make this big, it can make a real difference in finding a cure for Dakin. 

Anyone can help, anywhere in the country!  Are you interested?  Here's how!

1.  You can choose an item group to gather (talk to friends, host a drive through a church or scout or any kind of other group), get a bunch of it, and send it in to TerraCycle through our group account (again, TerraCycle pays shipping, so this is free!!)

2.  If you are local to the East Texas area, you can choose to gather or host a drive for all of these items and give them to me and I will ship them!

If you are interested in organizing a drive, I will have flyers available early next week--just let me know!

SO WHAT KIND OF ITEMS CAN WE GATHER?

You can choose any one or more of the following, or all of them if you are local to the East Texas area!

1.  Candy wrappers: individual candy wrappers, large candy bags, and multi-pack candy bags.

2.  Cereal bags: Malt-O-Meal, Three Sisters, Bear River Valley, Isabel's Way, Sally's brand cereal bags, and any other bagged cereal.

3.  Oral care items:  toothpaste tubes, toothpaste caps, tooth brushes, floss containers.

4.  Drink pouches: aluminum drink pouches, plastic drink pouches.

5.  Personal care and beauty items: lipstick cases, mascara tubes, eye shadow cases, shampoo bottles, conditioner bottles, bronzer cases, foundation packaging, body wash containers, soap tubes, soap dispensers, lotion dispensers, saving foam tubes, powder cases, lotion bottles, chapstick tubes, lotion tubes, face soap dispensers, face soap tubes, face lotion bottles, face lotion jars, eyeliner cases, eyeliner pencils, eyeshadow tubes, concealer tubes, concealer sticks, lipliner pencils, hand lotion tubes, hair gel tubes, hair paste jars.

So, as you can see, there is a TON of stuff from which you can choose to collect if you are out of town, or all of them in the East Texas area.  And remember, all the proceeds from this fundraiser will go to SMARD research at the Jackson Laboratory.  Trash for a Cure is an easy, eco-friendly and fun way to cure SMARD!  I hope you will join us as we help collect Trash for a Cure!

Any questions:  email poundoutsma@gmail.com

Jingle Bell

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Tree Farm

Again...so behind.  Oh well.  I am attempting to catch up before the end of the year!  So we dug out our trusty old fake Christmas tree on Black Friday--the day we usually set it up--only to find it was missing two legs.  Uh, no.  So we decided to head out to a tree farm and get the real deal. 

This little tree farm was absolutely perfect.  It was cold that day, but sunny and beautiful, and Dakin (kind of) enjoyed getting a tree.  Here is Dakin with Mommy and Nana.

 I wanted a nice pic of Dakin in front of the trees, but he just wouldn't smile.  I only got this half-smile when I told him that Santa doesn't come to boys who don't smile.  (TERRIBLE.  I KNOW).

 Dakin's favorite part was watching me saw down the tree.  See how cute and little ours is??  Since Nana is here and occupying the part of the living room where we would ordinarily put it, we got this little guy to go on the table. 

This was such a neat experience.  The people at the farm were lovely, the day was beautiful, and Dakin got to see where Christmas trees come from, grown on a local farm.  Loved it!!  And we will definitely be making this a tradition from now on!

Strolling for SMARD Sponsors

So, Strolling for SMARD was, like, 2.5 months ago. Yeah.  I am a HUGE slacker.  I have been incredibly busy with the Disney trip and all the holidays, but that doesn't excuse me from talking about the amazing sponsors that helped us raise FIVE THOUSAND dollars for SMARD research.  Here are the others I didn't mention before.  I hope they know how very, very grateful I am to them. 


Camille's Sweet Treats (AMAZING pies, custom cakes and yummy stuff!): (903) 653-1078
Elegant Tan & Boutique (Spray tans, tanning beds and boutique with SUPER cute stuff!): (903) 653-1501
Top Nails: (903) 295-7488
Tire Barn: (903) 297-1890
5S Rentals (Party and event rental--they provided all our tables and chairs for free!): (903) 295-6666
Papacita's Mexican Restaurant: (903) 663-1700
El Rincon Mexican Restaurant: (903) 295-0506
Brookshires White Oak: (903)-297-9896
Kindred Kreations (custom, handmade jewelry!): Facebook Page
271 Wreckers/Auto Salvage (If they don't have what you need, they will find it!): (903) 845-4265
Velvet Moon (Boutique with amazing home decor and clothing!): (903) 297-9580
Shipp's Marine (Maritime supply store): (903) 845-3246
The Cutting Edge (Hair salon): 903-295-0735

Disney 2011--Days 8 and 9

Our final day at Disney had--until we discovered Dakin's fear of characters--one final breakfast with Mickey.  So not going to happen.  We cancelled it and headed to EPCOT instead.  

EPCOT was lovely.  We got to see a real cranberry bog, complete with man in hipwaders--thank you, Ocean Spray.  We also got to visit France (and I got to speak French with a REAL French person for the first time in I don't know how long--FYI I majored in French, so I miss it) and some other countries.  They were having the International Food Festival, so we more or less ate our way around the world.  We did, however, skip the other section of EPCOT, as the small one was getting tired and, despite having promised to go on a ride, flatly refused to do so once we got to the park.  Oh well...we had fun walking around the world!

We came home in the early afternoon only to discover that our hotel had been taken over by TREKKIES.  I kid you not.  We couldn't even park in the handicap section--it was all full of Trekkie mobiles.  ANYWAY. 

For our final night at Disney, we decided to go down to the Benihana that was in our hotel, and ended up seated next to two people dressed in Star Trek regalia.  Interesting dinner conversation...thankfully Daddy and I are both pretty big Sci-Fi nerds (though not so much with Star Trek) that we could carry on a decent dinner conversation.  Dakin oscillated between thinking the guy cooking our food in front of us was really cool to trying to hide from him. To the sweet chef's credit, he made a Mickey head out of fried rice for him and a zucchini and onion train. 

Leaving the trekkies behind, we headed one last time over to Downtown Disney for a few last minute purchases.  It was crowded as heck, so we didn't stay long, but it was a nice way to end the night. 

Next morning up bright and early to the airport, where we were greeted by our very own TSA team to help us (I had called and chatted with the TSA Director at MCO).  Say what you will about the TSA, but we were treated very nicely in all our interactions with them...this team helped us through check-in, security, and stayed with us all the way to the gate.  Unfortunately, our experience with American Airlines was more or less the polar opposite of what we had experienced on the way out, so I have nothing good to say about them. 

The only cool thing on the flight home was that we flew parallel to the coast--Dakin (sitting on my lap again) and I got to see the Gulf Coast all the way from Florida to Texas.  It was amazing!

Of course, once we landed all heck broke loose.  WALKING OUT OF THE PLANE--I mean, two steps outside of the plane door--Dakin's circuit fell off and broke.  Oh yay.  So we had to bag him all the way to the luggage claim, which was fun for him but not for us, and the spare we had in the luggage didn't work great either.  So I worried all the way home until we could get a new one on.

And that, folks, is almost all of our trip!  I do have one more entry I want to make--about some very special friends we got to see while in Florida.  

Disney 2011--Day 7--Sea World and the BEST DAY EVER

Friday of our trip dawned foggy and wet...which would have been a serious bummer if we hadn't been going somewhere wet anyhow--Sea World!!  We headed over, bought some way overpriced ponchos and set about exploring the park.  We had the opportunity to have something really special that day--we had a VIP tour with our own personal tour guide and access to everything.  It was amazing!!  So here we go!

After a slight hiccup getting Nana to the park, we headed off to feed the sea lions.  Which I thought Dakin was really going to dig, but he spotted the GIANT birds waiting around to snatch fish from the sea lions.  Not good--as I have mentioned before, Dakin HATES birds.  So there was much and many assorted fussing about that, and I was worried it was a portend for the rest of the day.  

 But I was so wrong.  Our next stop was a personal visit with a penguin!!  Dakin LOVED meeting Penny and getting to pat her and watch her for a bit.

 Just. Loved. Penny.  On our way out he was saying she was going to find something to eat.  So we let her go get lunch and we checked out her buddies in the exhibit.  They said they like to put different things in the exhibit for the penguins to investigate, and as it was Halloween, well...

 Dakin didn't want to leave the penguins, but we had something equally amazing coming up: feeding the dolphins. 

This was magic.  Absolute magic.  We leaned him over the pool and they came right up to him.  He got to touch them as we fed them.  Magic.  There was another little hiccup when the trainer called the dolphin up on the side so Dakin could touch him better, but since his head was so far over the side the dolphin's fin smacked him in the head.  He didn't care for that at all, and wanted a quick break back in his chair, but got right back up.  (He said later that the dolphin told him 'boo.'  I have no idea where he got that but it was a pretty apt description of what happened!).  He didn't get to touch them as much as I would have liked, but little arms are short and he didn't want the dolphin saying boo again.  

 After that bit of amazingness, we headed to the fancy shmancy restaurant for lunch.  One whole wall of the room is underwater with the sharks from the shark exhibit swimming by.  It was awesome!  Dakin loved watching the sharks and was very interested in the sawtooth sharks ('funny nose shark' in Dakinspeak).  The food was great and the ambience just perfect.  And the girl at the host stand was just in love with Dakin and made him this hat...

 So after that we headed over to another part of our special tour-touching a shark.  Well, Dakin was far more interested in the aquarium in that section, so we more or less skipped it and made our way into the shark tube. 

 We had a bit of time to kill before the One World show we were headed to, so we walked along the promenade where they had all the Halloween stuff set up.  Dakin was thrilled, as you can see.

 We had perfect seats for the show, and Dakin loved almost every minute of it...he really enjoyed watching the whales splashing everyone but didn't like the cheering.  Oh well. 

 Here too I kept trying to capture his face.  He was just enchanted.  Perfect.

 On our way over to the last part of our day, we decided to ride the Manta roller coaster--Daddy and Mommy taking turns, of course.  (VIP tour gets you front of the line...so no waiting! Yay!).  While we took turns, our sweet tour guide suggested we check out this special aquarium right underneath the ride.  It had stingrays in it--check out this picture.  It's awesome!

 There were dragon fish and rays...and the setup was so neat--underwater cave-like.  Dakin sat entranced in front of the rays for a good 20 min while we rode the coaster (which was AWESOME.  Best ride ever!!!!).  Another place he would have stayed all day if we let him...but we had bigger fish to feed. 

And then the most magical moment of the entire day: the stingrays.  We sat Dakin up on the edge of the pool and let him splash his feet in it while we spent way too much money feeding them.  Look at his face.  Just look.

I hate to repeat, but the only word I have is magical.  He just loved the stingrays.  We got soaked, but he loved it.  See?  Best day ever. 

We had the opportunity to do the dolphin show, but Dakin was getting to the end of his strength, so we decided to head home, but not before we hit the gift shop and pretty much bought everything in sight.  We got him a killer whale and a dolphin to go with the stingray he has at home, and upon asking him what he wanted to name them, he replied, "Stingray" both times.  Which was pretty funny, but also told me how much he loved it.

Aren't you glad you stuck around for that?  It was the perfect way to start closing up our trip.  His smile was almost nonstop that day, and I am so glad we had the chance to give him the opportunity to interact with all the animals in a way he could.  BEST DAY EVER.