Please read about baby Christian. He is an August baby who is proof that miracles happen every day.

Christian’s Story Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 is a day that the Quintero family won’t ever forget. That afternoon, 11-month-old Christian fell in the family pool and nearly drowned. His big brother Gabe pulled him out of the pool, and his mother Shauna frantically did CPR while waiting for paramedics to arrive. Even at the hospital, they could not get a pulse, and Shauna was asked to come in and say goodbye to her little boy. During their last attempt to save Christian, Shauna touched her son’s leg, called out his name, and his heart started beating again! Amazing! Of course, this was not the end of the story, but rather the beginning of a long, hard struggle for Christian and his family as he fights every day to survive and recover.

Shauna started a blog called Christian’s Journey (http://christiansjourney-shaunaq.blogspot.com/) to keep everyone up to date with the latest happenings in Christian’s world.

Please donate anything you can to help his treatment. He has a long road ahead but every little bit helps.

Tomorrow marks an important day. Andrew will turn 38 weeks and 4 days. Why on earth is that important you ask? Well he was born at 38 weeks and 4 days so tomorrow he will have been out as long as he was in. I can no longer say I was “just pregnant”, not that I’ve been saying that anyway.

Tomorrow also marks the day that I am getting my wisdom teeth removed. I recall the dental visit before I left for college being one of the first times my dentist told me I needed my teeth taken out. “No thank you” I told him and went on my merry way. Over the last 10 years he continued to harass me until he finally gave up and didn’t even mention it the last time I was there. I had little aches in my teeth now and then but never enough to want to suffer through the removal process. Until last week. Seems that my upper left wisdom tooth has come out crooked to where every time I move my mouth I am literally biting myself in the cheek. Do this for several days with a job that requires talking for nearly 7 hours straight and it makes you kinda want to chop your head off. So I went to my dentist– the only dentist I have ever been to my entire life– and groveled appropriately essentially begging him to remove them right then and there. But of course he couldn’t because they’re so messed up they require an oral surgeon. Fun.

So tomorrow is the big day. And I know almost everyone does this and I know really it’s not that big of a deal and really I’m not even that afraid of the tooth part… it’s the IV that concerns me. I have to be knocked out. Too much work has to be done for me to stay awake and so to sleep I shall go. And this requires an IV to be placed in my arm. And incase you happen to remember, the IV was, for me, the absolute worst part of the entire birthing process. I honestly think the contractions, the pushing and the birthing were a piece of cake compared to getting that IV put in. So if I can make it past that, I think I’ll be okay. But in the mean time I can think of little else.

And I have to add… why on earth do people feel the need to tell you horror stories? ME: “Hey, I’m getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow.” MEANIE 1: “Oh really, my friend’s cousin’s nephew’s neighbor had his teeth out and he died from it” or MEANIE 2: “Oh yeah I had my teeth out and was in terrible pain for a week.” or just plain MEANIE 3: “It was horrible”

Who needs to hear that? It’s like telling a pregnant woman that labor is the worst thing in the entire world (which it’s not) when you know full well she has to go through it, there is nothing she can do to prevent it and would prefer not to worry about it until the time comes for it to happen.

I guess what I’m saying is that if you’re going to post your horror story comment, please wait until after 9am tomorrow so I won’t have to read it until after it’s all over Thank you!

There have been many things I have been unsure of in my life. Many. Rarely has anything ever been an easy decision. I like to drag things out, think them over, you know, generally annoy everyone around me for a while while I work things out. I remember the day I found out the position I now have opened at my school. I was in NJ, my mom called me to tell me one of the teachers was leaving. The thoughts started stirring in my mind at that moment. The next morning I woke up with the fully formed decision that I MUST TAKE THAT JOB. No hemming and hawing. I just knew it. It was all but a done deal the next day. I moved home. You know me you know the story.

I’ve never been so certain of anything as I was in knowing that I’m where I’m supposed to be teaching. When Andrew came into the picture I knew still that I would not leave my school. I was anxious in anticipation to return even though it means leaving the light of my life with someone else during the day.

So why, now, am I entertaining ideas of leaving this place I am so sure about?

And it’s not what you think.

It has nothing to do with Andrew. I mean it.

I’m in grad school. You know this, yes? Educational Technology, preparing students for the future of learning, for the 21st century (funny how we’ve been here for 9 years and we’re only now starting the serious conversation). I’m in my 8th class out of 12. I’ll graduate next May. Although I haven’t loved the work, I have loved all the things I’ve been learning in the courses but with each passing course I feel more and more of a sense of complete frustration and helplessness where my own school is concerned.

We’re supposed to be preparing kids for technology that is ever changing. We’re supposed to be teaching kids critical thinking and problem solving and how to be digitally literate but all I can think is that I’m failing at this task. I’m failing miserably. What makes me a good teacher? What makes parents tell me years after I’ve taught their kids that I’m the best teacher their kid has ever had. What made some parents beg me to return sooner than I’d planned after Andrew was born? If they knew what I know; if they knew what their kids needed to be successful would they still think that? Would they still think my school was so great? My school that lives in the technology dark ages?

I have one internet connected computer in my classroom but today it started flaking out and will be dead soon. I have another computer that runs Windows 98 because that’s the most powerful program it can handle. It doesn’t even have a word processor on it. I have one that only turns on when it feels like it. And yet, after successfully getting a company to build brand new computers AT COST with no charge for labor, my school turned them down. Why can’t they see how important this is? Why can’t they see how much we’re hurting our kids, not to teach them using the technology that they will need to be successful in the future?

What more am I supposed to do, besides basically handing my school a truck load of computers on a silver platter? What more am I supposed to do, besides offering my opinion any time it is asked providing research cited materials to back up my answers. What more am I supposed to do, besides passing on all the information I gather that is of true importance right on to my boss and colleagues so they see how important these changes are? Why is it that I’m the most qualified person where technology is concerned, having almost received my Masters degree in the subject and yet others who are far less qualified play a greater role in deciding what things we do and do not receive? Why are we still educating kids the same way we did 50 years ago through rote memorization and drill and practice? I know they have learning disabilities but doesn’t that make it that much more important that we do this the right way?

Times are changing. They’re changing REALLY FAST! If you want to know exactly what I mean, watch the video I’ve posted below. If you haven’t seen it, it will blow your mind. That’s what I’m up against. I have to be able to sleep at night knowing that I’ve done the best I can for my students and as of late, I can’t because I haven’t. I haven’t prepared them for what is to come because I don’t have the resources to do it and I can’t prepare them for what is to come because no one, anywhere, wants to address the needs of special needs children in the 21st century, children who need to be reminded to write their name with a capital letter and oh by the way, need to be using their critical thinking skills to solve real world problems. I’m leading a one woman army into battle against people who don’t even see that we have a problem.

And what happens if I DO leave? Do I give up because it’s gotten hard? That’s not my style. How can I not see this through until the end? I’m invested in this school. It’s not a place anyone walks away from easily. I’ve never pictured myself anywhere else. But how can I in good faith continue begging for change that isn’t coming fast enough if at all? I feel like getting up and screaming, “Please, listen to me! Our kids need to learn this stuff! Our kids need to be prepared! These are the things they need to know!”

I hope by some miracle the right person will read this and tell me what to do because the solution just isn’t coming to me. The answers just aren’t there right now. I’m out of ideas.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8&hl=en&fs=1]

If you’re looking for my introduction, scroll down to the next post.

I love it when we change the clocks forward an hour. The loss of one hour of sleep is so worth gaining an extra hour of light in the evening. It makes me feel like summer is already here!

I love it when the dishwasher is full enough that I don’t have to wash bottles by hand and I can just stick them in there and run it.

I love it when my cat Rosie jumps in bed with me and remembers not to step ON me but rather walks around me.

I love it when I get to dress Andrew in the morning.

I love it when the weather changes for the first day of a new season, like the first day it goes from being hot to being cold there is usually a rain storm and then you know it’s time to bring out the sweaters. It’s the same in the spring when you wake up in the morning and you don’t need to drag the blanket with you to stay warm.

I love it when Andrew lets me sleep past 7:30 on a Saturday.

I love it when the stores start selling school supplies in August.

I love it when I take a really good picture, the kind that you just want to keep looking at again and again. I especially love it when it’s the last picture I’ve taken, it’s like somehow I knew I just needed that one last shot.

I love it when my house is clean, the laundry is done and folded, and everything is where it’s supposed to be.

I love it when it’s football season.

I love the sound waves make when they hit the shore.

I love the sound of pure silence, something I haven’t heard since I went to the Grand Canyon last March and something I don’t expect to hear again until I go back.

I love Andrew’s smile.

I love going to bed knowing I accomplished something really important. It’s not happening tonight but I know it will soon. I love knowing that the best is yet to come.

This thing has been going around facebook for a while. Now the number is up to 25 but when I got it, it was just 16 random things about yourself. So I can’t think of anything else to write tonight so here’s an encore presentation:

Me, by the numbers

1- I lived in one house for my entire childhood. My mom still lives there. I’ve lived in 6 different places in 3 different cities since then. 2- The total number of Bs I received on all combined report cards from 1st through 8th grade. I never got any lower than a B until my Senior year when I got a D in French, probably because by then I had given up on learning the language completely. The two elementary school Bs were in PE because I was so off the charts short that I could not make a basket during the basketball unit. 3- My age when I started taking piano lessons. At my first recital I didn’t actually play a note. I got up, did my bow, sat a the piano, put my hands in the correct position, go up, bowed again and sat down. And it was supposed to be that way. 3.5- The number of years it took me to complete college. I could have finished in 3 actually but I went an extra semester so I could have one more football season and thus one more year in band. It was probably the most exciting 4 months of my life. Turns out I should have stayed a few more years. Real life is a lot less entertaining and a lot more hard work. 4- The number of children I hope to have someday. 5- The number of years I have been teaching at my school. 6- The number of camera lenses that I own. I think I’m done for a while with lense purchases but I absolutely LOVE photography and I get really excited about these things. The most recent one that I got for Christmas at the recommendation of a good friend is my favorite so far. 7- The age I was the first time I got braces. I ended up having to get them 4 separate times total. My teeth are still crooked. The orthodontist thought I wasn’t wearing my retainer so he cemented one to my teeth. My teeth moved anyway and broke the thing right off. Eventually I told him I’d just live with the crooked teeth. 8- My favorite number as a child. Seriously. I had a thing about 8s. I used to ask my parents to rock me “until the next 8″ which I had discovered bought me more time being rocked. When Andrew was born on 8/17/08 I was excited because of all the 8s in the date. 9- The age I was when I had lost all of my baby teeth. I guess this is pretty young because I was the first in my class to lose them all. In fairness I did have some of them pulled. 10- When I was in 10th grade, then President Clinton came to my school and since I was in the band, I was one of the people who got to play “Hail to the Chief” for him. 11- The number of unsuccessful attemps before getting pregnant with Andrew. 12- This September, Andy and I will have been together for 12 years (Married for 6 in June) 13- The number of shoes I have that fit now that I’ve been through the birth of a child. My feet grew about half a size making my entire closet of shoes useless. I even had to buy new ballet shoes.It was painful to get rid of so many great shoes but it was great buying new ones! 14- I really can’t think of anything for 14 so I’ll say this: I have traveled to 7 different states for the sole purpose of attending a football game. My love for Gator football knows no bounds. I bleed Orange and Blue. Oh now I have one for 14: The number of times I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire– my favorite of the series. 15- My age the first and only time I went to Europe. I went with the children’s choir I performed with for several years and while there we did an impromptu performance at Notre Dame cathedral which I still think is one of the neatest things I’ve ever done. 16- I can’t think of one for 16 either so here’s my last random thing. A few years ago when we were living in New Jersey, Andy made friends with someone on the White House Advance Team who invited us for a private tour of the West Wing. We got to see parts of the White House that most people never get to see and it was incredible!

A few years ago I started thinking about having children. They say you never really know when the time is right but I was trying to work out some things in my mind. Most of them were highly personal things but I was consumed with an issue that I could not shake. Every time the news would show another world disaster I would ask myself, “Can I really bring a child into the world as it is now?”

Well obviously, I had a child anyway but I felt it was my personal duty to ensure he could be raised in a country that was headed down the right path. I remember seeing Barack Obama on Oprah several years ago and thinking, “If this man was the president, things would be okay.”

I can’t imagine raising Andrew in the world of the last 8 years. At no point was I inspired by Bush. At no point did I feel like “everything would be okay”. At no point did I feel hopeful for our future.

But yesterday Barack Obama was sworn into office and I think about the world he has already created with that accomplishment. I hope because of his presidency, Andrew will never fully understand discrimination and racism. I hope that he will live in a world that becomes less poluted rather than more poluted. I hope that he will grow up in a time when we are at peace in the world and terrorists do not fly planes into buildings. I hope that he will grow up to look with dignity on his country. I hope that he will hope. If Mr. Obama has taught us anything it is to believe in the impossible. I can’t think of a better lesson for my baby boy.

I don’t worry anymore about raising him in this world. I know the world is his to change.

As I type this post in the last few hours of 2008, I think about all the people who would look at this year and wish it had never happened. The state of our country (and our planet for that matter) is pretty bad although we’ve elected a man to office who I believe can lead us down a better path. Even so, people have lost their jobs and their homes, their life savings and with those things, their dignity as well. But I don’t want to talk about the doom and gloom.

The year 2008 started on a gloomy day, a day when Andrew was not even yet 4 weeks of existance. His heart had barely just begun beating and only those who were told directly would have ever suspected that he was growing there inside me. And yet grow he did. I believe the first 8 months of this year were the longest 8 months of my life, going from the agonizing hope that an ultrasound would show a living baby on January 2, to wondering when the morning sickness would end, then wondering if everything was okay when it did. Then there was the anxiety and excitement of hearing the heart beat for the first time, my giddiness of seeing my belly grow even when no one else could tell, the excitement of finding out the gender and the thrill of showing enough that people started to whisper with excitement. Then there was more worry. Is he kicking frequently enough? Why am I having contractions now when it’s too early? Is he getting to big?

There were swollen feet which turned into swollen legs and arms and an extra 50+ pounds of weight on my body. My feet grew a shoe size and became so swollen that I had to cut socks just to make them fit on my feet.

And then when I thought I could stand it no longer. It was time.

Thirteen hours of labor and out came my precious baby boy. Of course at the time I didn’t know what to do with him.

But I learned.

And he has been quite an adventure.

So don’t say 2008 was all that bad. No, not everyone had something like the experience of having a child. But I’m sure we can all find something SOMETHING over the past year that was good, SOMETHING to be thankful for. Can’t we? There’s no use looking ahead to a new year if you can’t look back and be grateful for even one tiny aspect of our lives. Two thousand eight may be ending but for us it carried with it the greatest of all beginnings.

I haven’t been working for almost the last 6 months. The first two of those months I was so gigantically pregnant that I didn’t want to move. The last four of the months have quite obviously been rather hectic but I’ve still found time to watch a lot of TV– probably more TV in the last 6 months than in the last 6 years by far.

And since I really don’t like watching regular shows, I’ve watched a lot of CNN. And since CNN is a news source and news sources don’t like to report on anything good happening it’s been a pretty depressing 6 months worth of news. I watch TV for five minutes and feel like the world is about to collapse around me. The unemployment rate is up, there is war, bombings, a housing market gone bust, banks collapsing and crappy economy on the whole.

Then I go to the mall and see wall to wall people, people literally dragging bags through stores and people with their arms heaped over with stuff and I have to ask myself if things are so terrible for so many then what the heck is everyone doing shopping?

Fortunately that question is easily answered. The stores are literally giving stuff away. Yesterday at Ann Taylor Loft everything was buy one get one free and as someone desperately in need of new work clothes it was like a dream come true. After a day of mall shopping I got home with bags of stuff and thankfully not a huge tab. Nothing I purchased was more than 60% of the actual price and quite a few things were more than 75% off. I’m going to long for these prices when the economy gets back on track. I mean seriously, at this point, the idea of paying full price for anything makes me cringe.

Oh and then there are the coupons!

Stores have started sending out what are essentially gift cards for $5 or $10 off. Some require no minimum purchase at all. Of course they want you to go in there and buy more than $10 worth of stuff but I’ve gotten pretty good at “free” shopping. The other day I went to JCPenny and got $30 worth of stuff but thanks to 3 separate coupons I didn’t pay anything (ok, maybe there was some change left over– a dollar or two). It almost feels like stealing. I do nothing wrong, nothing sneaky, find no loop holes and of course do nothing illegal and I walk out with a bag of essentially free stuff and feel guilty which begs the question: How on earth are stores making money at all? Because seriously I can’t be the only one doing this!?

Careful shoppers can save so much and get so much that it’s pretty ridiculous. Seriously, Andrew has enough clothes to last him until well past his first birthday. And I had to resist the urge to do next year’s Christmas shopping now.

Everyday as I watch the news I think about how I want the economy to get better and I pray for the state of our country. It’s not like I want this to continue, not while people are losing their homes and jobs but until there can be a fix to all of this you won’t find me here. You’ll find me at the mall, buying stuff for free.

Well now that we’re moving forward I thought I’d take some time to look back. You see very personal though it may be, I feel like I should share a bit of my pregnancy journey and what better time to do it than almost exactly a year since the day cells joined to make a baby. December 6th. Probably more info than you wanted to know but you see December 6th 2007 was a long long time past the beginning of the conceiving journey and it marks a day that I thought may never happen. A day that I wasn’t sure my body was capable of. Turns out it was– with the help of fertility treatment. If you’re reading this it’s because you know me and you may have already know about my use of Clomid but if you didn’t know and you’re wondering why I would share such a personal thing I’ll say this. Since sharing my journey with others I’ve met dozens of other ladies who have shared my experience and I’ve been able to help other ladies who needed encouragement from someone who had been there. Strength that I never knew I had developed out of my experience. I’m not ashamed. And so I share.

Yes one year ago. I look at my beautiful baby boy now with utter amazement that in what really amounts to a few short months, he came into being. He has all his tiny fingers and toes, ears and eyes (head shoulders knees and toes). He smiles when I enter the room and laughs when I sing to him. One year, that’s all it takes to go from nothing to the love of my life.

I wish I had documented my experience more. I did write out the story of his birth, something I may give to him someday, but likely not. It’s too intensely personal to share. I guess the whole experience is but I wish I had a tangible written documentation of the last year. I wish I had written how I felt through the pregnancy, each strange new sensation, each fear, each joy. I wish I had words to express the depth of which my life has changed and how deeply I believe that there is nothing more exciting, nothing more amazing or joyful or terrifying than the experience of giving birth. It’s something I can’t wait to do again– just not quite yet

And so here we are one year later. My baby has good days and bad days and on a scale of 1-10 this evening rated -5. I remember the heartburn he gave me when I was pregnant and It pains me to know that he is the one who has it now. Reflux makes babies cry. A lot. But just when I think I can’t stand to hear him cry another minute he’ll pause and look up into my eyes and he’ll smile and I know my life has changed forever.

All day I’ve had this unsettled feeling like my good friend is going to the death chamber tonight and that last minute reprieve is unlikely to come. I have no idea what will happen to Harry in the last installment of the series and I’m utterly terrified of finding out from someone else who doesn’t give fair warning. No matter what though, tonight marks the end of a cultural era, one that feels like something that only comes along once in a life time. After all, whether you’re a die hard fan or have never so much as picked up the first book, you can’t deny that Harry Potter is a cultural phenomenon such that the world has never seen. Tonight, I’ll take part in history when I line up at midnight to get my copy of The Deathly Hallows. Not because I’m the first person to ever stand in line for something—football tickets, movie premiers, heck even book signings—people wait in line. But tonight people all over the world will wait in line for a book. Not an autograph or the best seat in the stadium but a book and a long one at that. Someday when I read the Harry Potter series to my children I will be able to tell them that I was a part of something big. I’ll tell them that one night I gathered with hundreds of other people so I could be one of the first to have nothing more than a single book. Something that, out of the context of Harry Potter, seems quite laughable even as I type this. Harry is special. It’s been said he has grown up with an entire generation of children and that’s true. He also taught an entire generation of children to love reading and as a teacher that’s something worth celebrating. He has taught people to think outside the realm of possibilities and believe in impossible things. For literacy, he has done more than any other book or character around. So Harry, I thank you for letting me escape the mundane into your fantastic world of fantasy, for teaching children to love reading and for making me believe that maybe, just maybe, there really is a such thing as magic.