Just being me……..

Its been a hectic past few weeks at home, work seems to be busy and I like that because the days seems to fly past, nothing worse than a dragging work day. The other thing I have realized is that we are way past the half mark of the year!!!! Wow pretty soon it will be time to dust off the old Christmas trimmings!!!

Leah has been doing really well over the past few weeks its been a good winter with not much colds to deal with and her physical development is just phenomenal. She has become our little miss chatterbox, with some new personality traits. I have noticed that she loves being the center of attention!!!!! And she love to socialize with the older age group, now when I say older Im not talking 4 or 5 lets jump ahead to 17-21. How all of this came about is quite funny, usually Leah goes into quiet mode when we are not around familiar faces, but recently she just came out of her shell and is now the party queen.

Recently my niece Cleo celebrated her17^th birthday and besides having all the family over to celebrate… it was all the young friends who joined in the celebration well. We had four age groups dominating the get-together, we had the adults , teenagers, 6 –13 years and our little toddlers which would be Leah’s category. She however decided other wise and joined the teenagers who welcomed her with open arms. She chatted, sang Beyonce’ songs… (Leah loves Beyonce) danced and shook her little behind, posed for pictures like a celebrity and dished out hugs to just about all the young guys, yes my little Leah worked the room, and now she is the cell phone screen saver of most of the party girls and boys because to them she is just the cutest, free spirited little girl they have ever come across… There is a twist to this whole story Leah in turn got all the sweets and cakes and soda she could possibly eat from her adoring fans this uncontrolled eating frenzy lead to her being on the best sugar trip ever!!! She has formed a new fan base of friends because they (the teenage party crew) have asked her to visit soon because they miss her so much.

Best of all, they got to learn so much about dwarfism and we made them understand that the “M” word was a NO-NO. I’m sure they took every word to heart and realized that even though she looks different she was just the same as every other little 2 year old, and as the day moved on I could see that her dwarfism didn’t really matter in the end they were just enjoying Leah.

The rest of the family just sat back and wondered were did our quiet little mouse go!!!! I guess she decided its time to break out!!! Well we just had a good laughed because she really was the light of the party and I hope that when she is older she won’t allow anything to get her down, she is such a happy child and she somehow manages to make everyone around her love her for who she is. I’m sure she is going to be the life and soul of many more parties to come.

So I leave you with Leahs new photo look…..

Sleeping in Heaven

Death is never an easy topic to deal with and some tend to shy away from it completely. Danielle’s passing has had a profound effect on our family. I will always remember the first time we met her and her family, we were so excited and Leah had found her first little friend who lived not to far from home.

I have been doing some thinking over the past few days and I realize that sometimes we tend to take life for granted and we forget just how fragile we are. Sometimes we live our lives so energetically  we often  miss out on the little things because we are to busy to see those special moments, like the feel of the wind on your skin or the cute sound a baby makes when they stretch after a long nap. Sometimes we let our thoughts  become consumed with all the things that go wrong in our lives, when in actual fact we should try to reflect on the good and simple things then only do you realize how luck you actually are.

The loss of a child has to be the most devastating situation a family has to deal with, how do you fill the emptiness? I don’t think you ever do, but I do believe in time it will fill with happy tears and soft smiles, because they somehow live on in our memories.

Heather (Danielle’s mom) said something to me the Sunday after Danielle passed away “How does someone you love so much get ripped out of your life so suddenly” I don’t think we will ever get the answer to that question, but I do know that in everything there is a greater plan, and even though we only got to enjoy Danielle for 1 year…. it was a perfect year that God had planned for her life. Leah has a little ritual that we have to go through every evening before she goes to bed, she will name every person she can think of and ask if they are sleeping… and when we get to Danielle she smiles and says “Danielle’s sleeping in heaven” and you know what my little tot!!! You are so right… that is where Danielle and all our other little friends who have passed on are…. safe in heaven and always in your heart.