• At last! The Big Top taxes are done and ready to send. I would say let’s celebrate but I don’t have the $ to throw a party. The government does.
• The project for work is also complete and sent on it’s merry way as well. Yes, I will celebrate that one
• More donations for our WalkAmerica TeamDaniel effort are coming in. You guys are so generous and really rock. Thanks mucho! You can still join us, it’s not too late.
• So much already has been said about the tragic events in Virginia yesterday. I feel kind of detached from it all because I was sleeping Monday (after working Sunday night) as the events unfolded on tv. Perhaps that is a blessing as it seems when senseless things like this take place it becomes the only thing one can watch. I know because I found myself unable to look away before. Still, I am horrified and my heart is breaking for the family and friends of the victims. I am so sorry and I am praying.
• No word yet from my doctor on that lovely lady lump of mine. I could say that no news is good news but the lump is still there in the mammogram pictures that were taken on April 4th and six months prior.
• Today I find myself doing something that I could not imagine happening…registering Daniel for kindergarten! It seems so surreal to reach this milestone when it seems like just a blink of and eye ago that Daniel was this small when he was a little over 2 months old…and even smaller and fighting just survive. We did not speak of kindergarten registration then much less anything else in the future. There is no future for a micro-preemie while in the NICU. There is only day to day survival and a lot of waiting for time to decide the ultimate fate of babies the size of a can of soda.
  

After a lot of stressing on my part, praying, discussion with Bill, Daniel’s teachers, his pediatrician and other respected experts, I have accepted that kindergarten is the next step for our amazing little man. He will be attending Special Day Class Kindergarten (another way to say special ed). The challenge now is to find the right fit for Daniel. As always, the little guy is in the gray area when it comes to disability and impairment. In other words he is too good and too smart for his own good. He is not quite ready for mainstream but he is when he is tested he also is not quite impaired enough. Thankfully, his education team is on his side and ready to fight to help us get what he needs to continue to be, in the words of Dr. Eddie Alderette, a successful micro-preemie. One option just opened up and I am really keeping my fingers crossed and praying for this one. A new SDC kindergarten program is starting at the school Abby and Jodie go to. It is focused strictly on kindergarten rather than K-3 grades as other programs in the district are, which means Daniel would be with kids his own age and level. It also means that the short bus won’t be stopping at our house next year. I would so love to be able to have Jodie and Daniel at the same school. The only road block to this option is it seems that my boy is just a little too verbal, a little too smart on paper and in class. Ultimately it depends on how he performs when he is tested in the next couple of weeks. Until then I am registering my youngest child for kindergarten today.
WOW!
I’m definitely celebrating this one.

My wish is for more tiny babies like Daniel to have this day come for them. Support the March of Dimes’ WalkAmerica and TeamDaniel.