Angie (left) and her older sister, Kim

If you’re not related to me, I expect there is a slight chance you have not heard much about a disease called cystic fibrosis–a genetic condition that creates enormous problems for those who suffer from it, most notably in terms of lung function and health. At this point, despite some treatments that extend and promote general quality of life, there is no cure. Sadly, because of a lack of a cure most of those affected by the disease pass away before they reach 30. 

I lost my cousin, Angela this past year to this awful disease. She had a fighting, feisty spirit and made everyone laugh, even when she was having a difficult time as her lung function decreased. Her sister Kim, who is older than she is (almost exactly my age) is living with the disease and at the time I am writing this, is waiting for a lung transplant. 

The girls have another sister, Michelle, who is not affected by CF directly. This has been a difficult time for her parents as well. When I think about it, I see how we are all–everyone who knows the Badertscher family–affected by the disease. It has made us all painfully aware of the fragility of life and at this point, more importantly, the critical nature of clinical research to help find a cure.

I am collecting funds to place as a direct donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Angela Badertscher’s name. To read more about the event behind this drive and to read about Kim and Angie and the awful disease that requires more research and effort to cure, click this link where there are some great pictures of Kim and Angie and a full description of their battles:   http://www-new.onu.edu/system/files/2009_Run_for_the_Roses_Registration_and_Information.pdf

The run for the roses is going on the first weekend in May and I plan on taking part. Since we live so far away from many of our friends and family members, I decided that the best way to collect donations would be to do something on this site where folks can securely donate using the following method. I have used it on several of my websites and have never had problems. If you’re not comfortable with that kind of thing (ahem…mom) let me know.

UPDATE – Donation window is closed. Thank you so much to everyone who donated and helped raise $250.

Thank you all.

On Sunday morning before we left for home, Bee was playing in tissue paper from her Grandma Sue’s brithday present, wrapping it around her waist like a little skirt. Always one with an eye for style, Grandma Sue immediately got the idea and within a few moments, fashioned The Bee the most marvelous paper wedding dress–complete with a little flower top for her veil. Bee walked around the house like a little princess and stopped to stare at herself several times and was delighted with her makeover. I really could not stop taking pictures and couldn’t choose which ones to put up here so I just put them all here for now. 

The fitting

Putting on the finishing touches

Feeling pretty

Something to complete the outfit

Ready to flaunt it

Ruling from on high at the top of the stairs

Growing weary of looking beautiful

It’s been a busy week and I am only just getting around to going through and posting pictures from last weekend. We went to Cowtown to Grandma Sue’s with the intention of seeing Bee’s cousin’s Connor and August. Unfortunately, Connor had strep throat and had to stay home but Bee got some quality time with August and the two had a great time. Aunt Danielle stopped out at the house and hung out with us for the evening, which was great. Here are just a few pictures of playtime… 

Cousin August and her sleepy dad playing with the horses

Aunt Danielle! They had such a good time...

These are mostly the same events as seen in my previous post below and whatnot, but I ran out of room on my camera rather quickly and the ones on my first holiday post were taken with my Berry. The ones right here below are of higher quality and there are some great ones. It’s hard to believe the holidays are over now and that it’s already 2009; where did the time go?

All ready for the Christmas party with Jessica (with Ming Ming in tow)

Hanging out with Grandma and gearing up for presents

Christmas morning at her grandparents with a full stocking

One of her favorite gifts from Grandma; and one that has already seen some use (see below)

Another Christmas is underway as we went to Grandma Sue's for Christmas Eve

Bee and Louie had a great time playing (can you believe these two are only a few months apart?)

In her seat at the bar at Grandma Sue's

Bee and her other grandparents at around midnight. Since we were driving to North Carolina at night, we kept her up as long as possible. She's barely making it here...

One great reason to time your travels so you hit the mountains right at dawn

Bee met her great grandparents on Christmas Day

Playing ball in the hall with her greatgrandmother (talk about spry!)

My babies swimmin'

We had a wonderful Christmas this year; actually, we had several of them, all in different places. Because we traveled around, Bee got to open presents 4 times, which doesn’t count opening her gift from her cousins when we stopped by at the end of our journey. What fun! She had a great time as you can probably imagine–all of us did.

We are back home wondering what on earth to do with all the toys she received. My dad made her a wood toybox that serves as a bench, which also converts into an art desk when turned on its end. For anyone handy out there looking for a gift for an entire family, this is it. We love it and it’s helping to control the post-Christmas toy extravaganza that is our home. I’m actually sitting on it now as I type since it’s placed in the sun in Bee’s playroom. Hopefully my giant butt isn’t too much for it…

The Sunday before the big day we went to my family Christmas party in Ohio and did Christmas morning with my parents and sisters, which was great fun. We then went on back to Cowtown to be with Ryan’s side of the family for Christmas Eve and enjoy some of Grandpa Jim’s traditional fish stew, which was surprisingly delicious–even Bee gobbled it up. Bee played with Avery who is 4 and the two had a marvellous time. She loves being around older girls and luckily, Avery seemed delighted to have a little shadow. 

We took off on Christmas Eve at around 1:30 a.m. bound for North Carolina where Ryan’s grandparents live so Bee could meet her great grandparents for the first time. I never realized how amazing the mountains were down in North Carolina. As Ryan slept I drove along with the sun coming up over the hills, both of my lovies sleeping soundly. I wanted to wake them up so they could see the fog sitting in the bowls of the valleys we passed through, but didn’t have the heart to. Instead, I tried to take some pictures on my BlackBerry, which was awkward and did not do the scenery any justice. It was gorgeous. It was also about 20 degrees warmer, which was quite a bonus.

We arrived at Ryan’s great grandparents’ house at around 9 a.m. and heard Don call out excitedly, “they’re here!!” … They came out and greeted us and stared at Bee happily. They couldn’t get enough of her and she was well behaved, although was a bit obsessed with all of the glass knicknacks and other untouchables. We had Christmas “dinner” (lunch) and took a walk with Ryan’s Uncle Gary up the steep hill and back down, which knocked Bee out. She took a long nap on my lap and we headed back to the hotel to rest after the long drive.

We stayed at a Holiday Inn near Asheville with a pool and Ryan and Bee did some swimming, which is one of her favorite things to do. I got some great pictures of them in the pool. The great part about a 2-year old swimming is that she is guaranteed to sleep at night; she crashed out that night and was snoring.

The following are some pictures I took during the week on my BlackBerry. The quality isn’t that great, but I thought they would be fun to post. I will upload more from our actual camera in the coming day or two as they include other moments from Christmas, including our time at my parents’ house.

Wrapped up in her duckie towel

She crashed. Completely. And snored.

We went back to Cowtown before heading back home. She's fishing off the stairs with Grandma Sue before heading out to see her cousins.

Playing the harmonica with Connor and August

I love this picture of the three of them; they're coloring with highlighters.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

What a great holiday! I will be posting more pictures soon. I ran out of room on the camera as the trip went on so most of the pics from my family’s Christmas are on there and haven’t been uploaded yet. I wish the Berry took better pictures, but you get the idea…. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

And this is not really birthday but I didn’t have a Halloween post so here we go… 

It’s amazing how quickly this summer has flown by and it wasn’t until today, with the leaves crunching under my feet as I took Bee out to car for another day or daycare, that I realized it was going to be freezing again soon and summer was officially gone.

The last month has been something of a whirlwind with Ryan back in full swing, teaching a class and coming home with plans to draw out for new sets for shows coming up this fall and me taking care of Bee, working at any free moment, and for the greater part of the past month, being quite ill with pneumonia. It started out as a weird summer death cold that I thought came from Bee’s daycare germ extravaganza and developed into something much worse. I really thought I was going to die for a few days and that is no exaggeration. Each time I took a breath it felt a bit like I was drowning. Scary stuff, but luckily, I was the one of us to get something so serious and now that it’s gone, I’m thankful and trying like crazy to get my energy levels back up to where they were before it. Every winter I get something awful but this took the cake; hopefully this is all I will have to deal with before the buds come in spring although something tells me that’s not likely—for any of us.

Bee started daycare about a month and a half ago and it’s brought about a few noteworthy changes in her personality and our lives in general. I’ve been able to get more work done and have a break, thus no longer feel like 100% of my life is consumed by baby (something I’ve had a love and hate relationship with from day one anyway) but on the other hand, I feel like I am missing something when she’s not here and feel guilty (I know, I shouldn’t and people think I’m crazy when I say it) that I dropped her off somewhere, even if it’s a pretty decent place and she’s getting exposure to kids her age. Instead of her, it seems it’s me that is suffering from an abandonment complex in some weird subverted way. I suppose it’s this that the ladies at her daycare picked up on when they said for her whole first week, “it’s okay, clearly this is your first child”…

The first day I took her she screamed and cried and I left in tears. In fact, the first day I went to tour the place and saw all of the art on the walls and evidence of projects done by tiny hands I felt inexplicably sad and my stupid nose got all runny. I seriously thought I was going to break down in front of the director. I knew that Bee was going to be doing fun things, but they would be fun things without me and she would be learning each day; but nothing she learned would be things I taught her. People close to me have remarked on this “control freak” aspect of my personality with her but I can’t help it. I want her to grow up with a balanced perspective but have trouble letting go enough for her gain one. Lately, as the concept of daycare is becoming more familiar to both of us and I see how happy she is when she sees her friends and teachers on most days (some she still has a meltdown) I’m cool with it and come home, make coffee, and am able to, guilt free, sit down on the porch and take a few minutes of me time before I start working.

She will be 2 in November and therefore, we can expect even more of a manifestation of the notorious “terrible twos” people keep insinuating will happen, even to our sweet girl. We’re beginning to see traces of this emerge and she’s picked up some rather nasty little habits at daycare including, but not limited to the following:

• Picking her nose. Often.
• Picking her nose, being told to stop it, and then glaring at me before commencing to picking her nose anyway.
• The addition to her vocabulary “It’s mine!” which is often applied to things that are not, in fact hers, usually my cell phone, any glass she manages to pull off the counter, and Ryan’s glasses that she whips off of his face in a delighted flash.
• Tantrums that include a scream with a pitch approximately that of a dog whistle.
• The refusal to eat anything, for the most part, outside of cheese and pasta.
• A daily demand, at least once per day, of “ice cream with Daddy” which is her favorite pastime and that does not cease when she knows Daddy is busy and the freezer is depleted of its ice cream supply.
• Being done with what little food she will eat, she dumps her plate or bowl on the floor as she pushes it away, and then stands up in her high chair and refuses to bend her legs as we try to make her sit down again.

There are others, of course, but these are by far the most prevalent, this week anyway. Who knows what next week will bring. Still, she is learning many positive things and her vocabulary has improved even more and she’s added new songs to her repertoire, including ones I’ve never heard. She’ll start singing them and look a little pissed at me for not knowing them. With these things in mind, I thought I’d post a picture of her with a devlish look on her face in a shirt her Aunt Lisa (thank you!) got for her

I’ve been rather bad at updating lately but hopefully I can stick with it now that I have a bit more time to do so with her being gone a few days of the week. It’s just been a busy summer with being between here and Columbus and then getting settled back in. Being sick was rather unpleasant and we also had to confront the loss of my dear cousin Angie who lost her battle with cystic fibrosis in August. I wish Bee could have grown up knowing her and having her sharp wit to giggle at and her great personality to admire. She will be missed by all of us but I am glad she is no longer in any pain.

If anyone who reads my blog regularly would like to contribute to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, it’s a wonderful organization and has helped fund research that extended Angie’s life expectancy from her teens well into her twenties. They have some non-traditional and excellent donation options and if you don’t know anything about the disease, it’s a good place to learn.

Here is a link… http://www.cff.org/Gifts/