Paul and Emily dot com

Steph Carson’s pictures arrived today! I know everyone’s dying to see them, so I’ll just stop typing and attach them 🙂

Click the picture below to see the rest.

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While i did not let Emily edit them yet, i knew people were waiting for them. Emily has a couple of videos to edit and upload as well. Click the pic below to go to the 13 Month gallery with the pics!

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Over the weekend, my mom volunteered to watch Sean so Emily and I could go out to the movies – we haven’t done that since New Years. We tried to go all out and site in the fancy-pants seating at the new theatre in Florence, KY but it was sold out. We opted for Slumdog Millionaire. I heard it was a good movie, but didn’t know what to expect. Both Emily and I really enjoyed the movie. I’ll probably rent it when it comes out on video and watch it again.
According to Wikipedia, the movie cost around $15 million to produce. As of yesterday, it grossed $189 million worldwide. Thats great news right? It is until I found out today that the kids from the movie – after having a huge Oscar premiere and trip to Disneyland – are now back in the slums from which they were discovered.
The youngest boy who played Salim has taken ill and was was caught on film being beaten by his father. Rubiana who played the young Latika is still starry eyed in the slums – still wearing the light blue dress she wore to the Oscars.
The article says the kids were paid, but it is in a trust fund that they can’t touch until they are 18. I’m guessing they probably weren’t compensated as a child actor from the west.
I hope, with the ~$174million the production has grossed, they will make something right about this.

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Sean has enjoyed walking in and out of one of our gates for a long time, but we have a new game that makes it even more fun! Sean cracks up laughing as he tries to shut me out of the gate. I crawl to his same side and pretend to chase him, and he runs to the other side and slams the gate shut.

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Ok ok ok Uncle Sean!!! 🙂

I finally got some time to edit pictures and videos of Sean from December and a little bit of this month so far. Here are three videos:

First, Christmas with Sean. Kind of a boring video, but may be nice for those who couldn’t be with the little one on Christmas day. Notice the cute red PJ’s from Stephen and Allison!

Next, his new fascination with blowing bubbles with his spit…didn’t learn this one from me…

And of course, his attempts at walking. Here are 4 attempts. I’m sure he’ll be running around the house within a few weeks. Our boy is getting way too big. Better turn down the volume or you’ll hear my “ecstatic mommy screams of encouragement” hehe.

Then, our Christmas pictures that we had taken at a local photographer. If you got a Christmas card (sorry if we missed you…I had a 3 year old address list…) you’ll recognize two of the pictures. When I was trying to order some of the pictures for family, Paul surprised me with pictures that he secretly had taken in November by Steph Carson (did Sean’s 1 month pictures and tons for Brian and Ashley). They are amazing and of course, I bawled my eyes out.

First Light:

Steph Carson:

And here are some pictures of Sean and Opa doing manly things in the yard:

And a couple from January (in the 11th month folder):

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We can’t believe that 10 months ago today we met our little boy for the first time! He’s growing up so fast and is looking more and more like a little boy every day, instead of a baby. He’s really close to walking; he actually took 2 steps the other day toward the cat. He’ll do 1 step and then fall forward going from person to person as well. He’s also really into doing “so big,” waving, saying “bye bye” clapping his hands, and playing with his toys. Santa was really wonderful to him this year, he got some awesome toys and very cute clothes 🙂

Sean is having a great time with his Oma, Opa and Aunt Cate here in New York. It’s funny, he slept really horribly the first few nights that we were here, and my Dad and Colleen offered to take him in his room for the night to let us get some sleep. He ended up sleeping perfectly. He slept in their room again last night and slept perfectly again. I guess he’s just tired of his mommy and daddy and wants to be with Oma and Opa! They just love it 🙂

Here are some pictures of Sean from our vacation so far, along with Christmas pictures. Notice his Christmas outfit with his name embroidered on it from Stephen and Ally (Thank you!). What a cute gift. We got it for a baby shower gift and it fit him absolutly perfectly on Christmas morning. He wore it all day 🙂

Here are some more pictures of our time here, mostly of the birds and snow. We havae about 3 feet right now, although it’s packed down on itself some over the past few days. Still…a lot more than we get in KY and it made for a wonderful white Christmas.

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Since Sean has had 4 ear infections since August, the subject of tubes has come up. I am pretty hesitant to put tubes in his ears so I did a lot of reading, and found a lot of research about chiropractic and it’s benefits for babies/kids with ear infections / sinus problems. I figured it was worth a try; I’ve found chiropractic very helpful in the past, and it’s a much better option than surgery in my mind!

Sean had his first appointment today with Dr. Heather. She was very nice and Sean was, of course, a big flirt with her. It was really cool to see how she adjusted Sean’s neck, back and hips. She held him and used his own body and body weight to apply pressure to adjust him. For instance, when she adjusted the area around his shoulder blades, she put her fingers on his spine, then leaned him back (like we do – which he loves) and said “weeee!” It entertained him, as well as adjusted him. Cool stuff. She did the same kind of thing side to side to do his neck. I was wondering how they’d do babies, since my only experience is to lay on the table, let our all your breath, then CRACK as they push into your back. Not so condusive to babies. 🙂

So, we’ll go a couple more times and see if there’s been any improvement. Hopefully, it’ll be the miracle cure we need!

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Sean and I were playing a new game today. I got laughing so hard with him, that I had to get the video camera and record some of it. Unfortunately he’s been sick lately, and he got laughing so hard playing our game that he got himself into several coughing fits. Still….if this video doesn’t make you fall over laughing like it did him (literally), then you’ve got something wrong with you!

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We had a really fun weekend. My mom came down from St. Louis on Saturday and stayed until Monday. On Sunday, we went to the Conservatory and the Art Museum. The conservatory was really pretty – alot of cool plants. I would have taken more photos, but our main lens for the Nikon D80 is on the fritz so I was using my backup Olympus 750UZ. We didn’t get much time in the Art Museum, but we were able to visit a number of the wings and exhibits. Will have to go back there soon. Sunday night we had dinner at Teak for Emily’s birthday. Its a thai place. Brian tried to order his food with a spice level of 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10), but luckily he let us talk him out of it and ordered a 5 🙂
Monday, mom got to spend the day with Sean while we were at work. We are going to visit her this weekend too, so that will be nice quiet weekend away from Cinci.

Sean likes bath time!

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Paul got on me because I haven’t written about my new job yet; so here goes.
I started my new job at Campbell County High School on 8/7/08. The position is a Transition Coordinator. It’s a grant position under Title 1 Part D. I’m working with students that are currently in Campbell Lodge or Holly Hill (residential facilities) or those that are transitioning back to the high school from the alternative school. Typically, these kids would come to the school, get enrolled, be handed a schedule and basically told “good luck!” There wasn’t anyone to make sure that the kids didn’t fall through the cracks…they had guidance counselors, but they are really busy and don’t have the time or resources to monitor these kids as closely as they need to be monitored. Thus, my position was created.
My overall goal for the program is to make sure that these kids graduate. This grant was created to reduce recidivism and dropout rates. I have spent the past 1.5 weeks developing the position from scratch. It’s been difficult because A) no one knows exactly what I’m suppose to be doing B) I don’t have a direct supervisor or team to ask questions to in my building C) I have a HUGE learning curve with learning the school system, the programs that these kids are coming from, and all of the in-school supports / programs / testing that is available for them.
Basically it looks like I’ll be spending my time helping the pre-transition process like getting their transcripts put into the computer, making a schedule for them, notifying the teachers of the child’s situation, and getting to know the kids before they even come to the high school. Once they are ready to transition, I”ll be showing them around and monitoring them weekly (via face to face visits, emails updates from teachers, phone calls home or to their residential facility) to ensure that they are holding up ok, fitting in, and being successful. There’s a TON more stuff that I have to do including holding ARC meetings, making a graduation plan, career planning, teaching organizational skills, social skills, self-esteem, etc etc etc. I already have about 40 kids on my caseload, and it will just go up from there. I assume that I’ll keep the kids until they graduate so my list will eventually be really huge.
It looks like it’s going to be an exciting job; all the teachers and staff at the high school and alternative schools are really excited for the prospect of the program and what it can do for the kids. I’ll update more in about a month to let you know how it’s going!

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