Roaches, FOXG1, celebrity look-a-likes, a mugging and backwards clothing

As usual, we've had a lot going on these past few weeks. Here are some highlights:

(just a reminder - click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Madeline has been decreed as a Suri Cruise look-a-like. We've had at least 5 random people stop us at the park and on walks to tell us that she looks like a famous baby. I think Suri is about a year older than Maddie but they do look kind of similar. Maybe we should take advantage of this and turn her into a celebrity baby impersonator. Judge for yourself. (Too bad I don't look like Katie Holmes!)

Madeline "Suri" Layton

Suri Cruise (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' daughter)

Claire's new hairstyle really suits her! It took a tag team of stylists (Grandma and Auntie Natalie) to sort through the dreadlocks but Claire looks so much cuter and it's so much easier to manage.

Here's our first attempt at a double bath. Madeline got kicked a few good times by Claire and Claire got buckets of water dumped on her - but I think they both had fun!

Madeline enjoying Claire's collection of stuffed animals....and her soother. I know I should be getting rid of it soon, but I don't have the emotional fortitude to put us all through that stress right now!

Ah....chocolate pudding snacks.

Daddy and Claire playing on the floor. Claire is really holding herself up well on the floor and is even lifting her bum up every once and awhile. First steps to crawling!


Our biggest disaster of the month was that our building got cockroaches! You heard me right. The tenants directly above us two floors up brought a sample of the bugs down so we could call the fumigator and they were cockroaches. So since we're below them and they waited for so long to tell us about it, we saw a couple in our suite and so it had to get sprayed. Luckily my family helped us out by having the girls at their place for nearly a week while we dealt with moving all our furniture and taking everything out of our closets and then having to clean and replace everything. It was SO stressful but they didn't find any more bugs in our suite besides the two we originally saw, so they don't have to spray here a second time. Phew. Here are some pictures of our packed up house.



Ryan built a retaining wall flower bed for my parents with the help of Melanie's muscles, Robbie's tamping abilities and my and the girls' supervisory techniques. It looks awesome!

Cheese supreme.

Claire really enjoyed her time at Grandma and Grandpa's - I don't think she wanted to come back home!

Madeline has recently discovered that she loves playing the piano. I'm just waiting for the day when I leave her for a minute and then come back to find her standing on top of the piano.
In other news...

In a hurry and late for a big Relief Society activity, I wore my shirt backwards for the entire night without noticing. It wasn't horrible - it was just the black shirt I wore under my patterned shirt for layering purposes but boy I felt stupid when I got home and realized. Curse you tagless t-shirts! It made me realize that I should actually look in the mirror before leaving the house. Lesson learned.

Ryan ran to Mac's late at night to buy some pop and almost got robbed by three guys. When they asked for change to distract him, they tried to knock his wallet out of his hands but then gave up when it didn't work. One more reason why we should maybe take some kung-fu lessons if we are going to live here for much longer.

We finally got Claire's mini Lite Box in the mail. We ordered it a long time ago but it took awhile to work out the ordering red tape. A Lite Box is a visual enhancement tool that's basically a tracing table with a bright light. The accessories are the most important part - there are coloured shapes, spin patterns, coloured backgrounds, etc. She responds so well to it that I think it will be a great teaching tool for her.

Another very important piece of information was that we have a diagnosis for Claire. Dr. Bolduc at the Glenrose and U of A hospitals came here to specialize in diagnosing kids who had no diagnosis and Claire was on his list. They did a gene karyotype and found a deletion on her 14th chromosome. Within that deletion is a missing gene named FOXG1. We are in the process of doing tests on Ryan and I to see if we are carriers of the missing gene or if it happened after conception. It's kind of a scary time but it's good to have some answers finally. The only information he could find on this diagnosis were very recent and very limited. That means we don't have a lot of information on what might come later on but it isn't a regressive disease - it won't get worse over time. It's just something she will always have to deal with. It's a little scary reading the papers he gave us because the outlook seems quite bleak based on the two Italian kids they are writing about. Their situation is different because the two kids have the gene but it is mutated. I guess that can be worse than it being missing because the mutated genes can then affect surrounding genes. I really need to go take a genetic research class so I can understand this all better. Claire is teaching us a lot!

We're also really enjoying Claire's programming everyday. Claire's already worn out one developmental specialist (she has knee problems and has been having troubles lifting Claire) so we're doing a switcheroo and getting a new lady. It's frustrating to have to go through all the introductions and instructions again with a second person, but I think it will be best for Claire.

What a blabbermouth I am. I had better stop for now.

A whole month has come and gone!

I've been a very lazy blogger lately. It's been almost a month since my last post. Even now I am doing this entry too late but I couldn't let it go another day!

Since I last posted:
-Ryan has prepared for and begun his new school year (Again, as the only adult male in the whole school and teaching grade 5 French immersion)
-We've prayed and fasted for Grandma and Grandpa and are sending our prayers and love long distance
-Claire has had a week of her PUF programming in the GRIT program and it's been a great start (Cheryl works with Claire 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. We have lots of outings, play groups, library groups, etc. and lots of goals to work on at home. It's going to get Claire whipped into shape for when we do preschool next year!)
-I've had my first adventure at the cannery in Sherwood Park (I love that place! What nice people and a great program.)
-We've had an apartment flood (it happened above Greg and Stephanie's suite! They have been so patient during the repairs. They're almost done!)
-I've kept up my exercising at Curves three times a week (It's a great boost for energy and strength. Next step - nutrition goals. 1. No eating after 7:30pm. 2. Portion control.)
-I've started teaching piano lessons for the first time (It's great! My little student is very energetic and easy to teach.)
-We had a great long weekend at Wetaskiwin and various other day activities while trying to maximize Ryan's last days of freedom before school!
-We had great fun at Christopher Dick's 2nd birthday party!
-We've come a step closer to finding a diagnosis for Claire's disabilities. (Her neurologist at the Glenrose, Dr. Bolduc, discovered a deletion on her 14th chromosome. He has only found 2 papers published on the subject and they were just written this summer. It's a fairly new entity. We meet with him this Tuesday to get more information.)
-We also got some informal family pictures taken by Val Brandham and her awesome camera. Out of about 300 pictures we managed to squeak out a few good ones where we look relatively normal! Here are some of our favourite ones:













Here's the gang enjoying the fall weather at Lion's Park in St. Albert for the birthday party.

Here's one of our Scrabble boards. Ryan and I like to challenge each other and also like to take pictures of each finished board. This round we used everything except the "Z."

Hopefully I will be able to keep up more diligently in order to record the comings and goings of our lives.