Conquer Chiari Walk

On October 2009, my mom underwent decompression surgery after being diagnosed with Chiari Malformation. She had suffered from SEVERE headaches for over a year and was told she was having migraines. Turned out, that was NOT the case. 

Chiari is "a serious neurological disorder where the bottom part of the brain, the cerebellum, descends out of the skull and crowds the spinal cord, putting pressure on both the brain and spine and causing many symptoms."

http://www.conquerchiari.org/index.html

I found out there was going to be the first Conquer Chiari Walk in Bakersfield. It's an annual walk held around the nation and the closest was in Fresno or Irvine for us to go. I let my mom know back in June about it and we were signed up ready to walk. As I have learned more about this disorder we have realized how lucky my mom is. Some people suffer from severe complications from the surgery, a little boy passed away after his autopsy revealed he had Chiari and had lost oxygen to his brain, some people suffer paralysis and some people have had to have multiple surgeries to help relieve the symptoms. There is no cure for this disorder and being misdiagnosed is a huge issue. 

"They" call this the zipperhead! 

Our group consisted of my Mom, Dad, Mitchell, Crissy, Aedan, Thomas, Nicole, Bobby, Mike and I and the kids, my BFF Misty & Eric, Crissy's sister Nikki and baby Zylah and my friend Andrea. It was so great so see all the support my mom had and see all the people Chiari had affected in their lives. 

There was raffle tickets and my mom and dad won a ton of stuff! It was a great way to celebrate the woman we all love so much in our family!! 

Here's the link to the news clip of the walk:

http://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/walk-across-america-for-chiari-malformation-awareness

Clara's 1st Day of Pre-School

My baby started pre-school on September 5, 2012 at 9am! We found out through some friends of ours about Peanut Butter N' Jelly Pre-School. It's taught by Sister Ricks and Michael grew up knowing her through church. She doesn't live far at all, which is quite convenient & I feel at ease that she is with her. 

At first when I started telling her about school she would cry and say, "I stay home mommy, I no go school". And it would break my heart and I worried she was going to have some sort of weird separation anxiety. So I got on fb and showed her Sister Rick's pictures of school. Then she got so excited, it was ALL she talked about for weeks. I don't know why I didn't show pictures to start with. The night before, we picked out her outfit and she was going to wear her Gabba dress that I made her. But sure enough the morning of, she refused to put it on, and picked out the dress she's wearing and it wasn't ironed and was completely wrinkled. Lesson learned: have a few outfits ready for an indecisive child (just like her mother). She was so excited, she jumped out of bed ready to go that morning. 

 When we first got there, she was on stimulation overload! She was so excited about all the kids, and all the toys and new things that she wasn't paying any attention to what was going on around her. I left rather nervous because I could tell she wasn't listening at all and was in her own little world. Sister Rick's gave me some pointers on getting her to listen with "Listening Eyes", so I think it's been working lol. She's going on her 3rd week and I'm so impressed already with the things she saying, singing and doing. She goes right to where her name card is a picks it out. I told Mike it's because she recognizes her name and he said it's because it's in the same spot and she just remembers where it's at. LOL, who knows but it's pretty cool! 

This is what boogie and I did while sister was at school, we snuggled and ate. I'm still battling morning sickness pretty bad and the early mornings are the worst. I'm usually exhausted from puking by the time I drop her off at school. Hopefully that will pass soon!