My Truck and I....

I can't park...my truck that is! Give me a compact and I can park it anywhere (as long as I don't have to parallel park, or, in some instances, have to get out of the car).

My truck and I started our relationship in September of 2007 when we bought our fairly new Toyota Camry. I was newly pregnant with severe morning sickness, and the new car smell from the Camry made the sickness over 100% worse! Problem solved...I will drive the truck (2001 Chevrolet 1500 = no fairly new car smell). All was fantastic, with only a few pit stops (pregnant women will know what I'm talking about), while I was driving my truck. Hey...I even got whistled at when I was 9 months pregnant by a semi-cute guy (he didn't see my belly...and at 9 months pregnant, any cat call is a compliment whether they saw my belly or not)!!

Alas...Meghan is born, and, obviously the sickness is gone! Enter...the crashing of the economy and over $4.00 gas prices (I live in California...remember). Seeing how I have a 2 mile commute to work and Matt has a 15 mile commute, it made more sense for me to drive the truck (we had since traded our "Camry" for an "Altima" since Matt complained about the acceleration on the "Camry"...I thought he was FOS (full of shit) but, hello, Toyota recalls, I guess he wasn't)!!

To sum it up...my truck and I have spent about 30,000 miles together, and over 1,500 parking adventures! I suck so bad...so bad to this day like it is the first day that I have ever parked that damn truck! So bad that I make my mom (who has had double knee replacement) walk hundreds of yards to enter the store because I need the room to park and pull out. So bad that I choose a more expensive grocery store over another because their parking lot is easier to maneuver (for me that is :)). So bad that I get pissed at the black VW Jetta who parks in "my spot" at work because I have parked there for the past 8 months uninterrupted and now I need to find another! So bad that, both, some dear friends of mine, and me (because I admit I can't park that damn truck) stop our daily activities to take pictures of my parking!

My Daughters Eye's

Meghan is at the age right now when she knows that something is not right. It breaks my heart to look into her eyes when she is having a seizure. The fear and confusion in her eyes breaks my heart. If I could take away every pain and worry that she has, I would in a heartbeat. How do I help her?? How can I make life easier for my baby?? If only I could make everything better for her...isn't that what a mom is suppose to do?

A Magical Poem

A friend shared this poem with me. I'm speechless. It's speak to my heart.

Expectant mothers waiting for a newborn's arrival say they don't care what sex the baby is. They just want it to have ten fingers and ten toes.


Mothers lie.


Every mother wants so much more. She wants a perfectly healthy baby with a round head, rosebud lips, button nose, beautiful eyes and satin skin. She wants a baby so gorgeous that people will pity the Gerber baby for being flat-out ugly.


She wants a baby that will roll over, sit up and take those first steps right on schedule (according to the baby development chart on page 57, column two). Every mother wants a baby that can see, hear, run, jump and fire neurons by the billions. She wants a kid that can smack the ball out of the park and do toe points that are the envy of the entire ballet class. Call it greed if you want, but a mother wants what a mother wants. Some mothers get babies with something more.


Maybe you're one who got a baby with a condition you couldn't pronounce, a spine that didn't fuse, a missing chromosome or a palette that didn't close. The doctor's words took your breath away. It was just like the time at recess in the fourth grade when you didn't see the kick ball coming and it knocked the wind right out of you.


Some of you left the hospital with a healthy bundle, then, months, even years later, took him in for a routine visit, or scheduled her for a well check, and crashed head first into a brick wall as you bore the brunt of devastating news. It didn't seem possible. That didn't run in your family. Could this really be happening in your lifetime?


I watch the Olympics for the sheer thrill of seeing finely sculpted bodies. It's not a lust thing, it's a wondrous thing. They appear as specimens without flaw -- muscles, strength and coordination all working in perfect harmony. Then an athlete walks over to a tote bag, rustles through the contents and pulls out an inhaler.


There's no such thing as a perfect body. Everybody will bear something at some time or another. Maybe the affliction will be apparent to curious eyes, or maybe it will be unseen, quietly treated with trips to the doctor, therapy or surgery. Mothers of children with disabilities live the limitations with them.


Frankly, I don't know how you do it. Sometimes you mothers scare me. How you lift that kid in and out of the wheelchair twenty times a day. How you monitor tests, track medications, and serve as the gatekeeper to a hundred specialists yammering in your ear.


I wonder how you endure the cliches and the platitudes, the well-intentioned souls explaining how God is at work when you've occasionally questioned if God is on strike. I even wonder how you endure schmaltzy columns like this one -- saluting you, painting you as hero and saint, when you know you're ordinary. You snap, you bark, you bite. You didn't volunteer for this, you didn't jump up and down in the motherhood line yelling, "Choose me, God. Choose me! I've got what it takes."


You're a woman who doesn't have time to step back and put things in perspective, so let me do it for you. From where I sit, you're way ahead of the pack. You've developed the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil. You have a heart that melts like chocolate in a glove box in July, counter-balanced against the stubbornness of an Ozark mule.


You are the mother, advocate and protector of a child with a disability. You're a neighbor, a friend, a woman I pass at church and my sister-in-law. You're a wonder.

A Mommy After Work

So many day's a week I just want to come home from work, sit on the couch, relax, and watch TV. In my mind I hope the girls, well at least Elizabeth, are tired and want to hang out with me on the couch. More times than not I hear "Mommy, can we go outside." Quickly I search our guide on the TV for a recent showing of Icarly. Of course, during the week, they are all re-runs (darn Nickelodeon). It would be so easy to tell her, "It's too windy", "It's too cold", "It's too...whatever". I'm good...I could convince her that the "Malcolm in the Middle" on the TV is new, and she would totally settle for that!

BUT...before I know it, both E and M, will be out with their friends and/or boyfriends, and I will wish we were outside playing. So I will always treasure the moments when I'm running with the girls outside...no matter how tired I am!

Happy Easter

Easter will always be so very special to me! Meghan was born Easter 2008. After a long excruciating 54 minutes of labor and the extensive pushing for 1 minute and 45 seconds, my little bundle came out at exactly about the same time the ham did!

So, I do have easy labors, and in fact I didn't realize that I was even in labor. I managed to make my green bean caserole and while it was baking I rested on the couch. I did have cramping but nothing bad at all. So, Matt pulled the casserole out of the oven for me and asked if we wanted to go have dinner (at his parents) first, or stop by the hospital to get checked out. Well it is a darn good thing we opted for the hospital first, as Meghan would have either been born at my in-laws, or on the side of Hwy 50!

Needless to say every year I get nominated to make green bean casserole, and I can't help but relive Easter 2008! I got the best darn Easter present ever!!

Let's Meet!

Hi! I'm Kerri. I'm 34 years old living in Sacramento with my husband, also my best friend, Matt! We have two awesome daughters Elizabeth and Meghan. Elizabeth was born on October 22, 2004 and Meghan was born March 23, 2008 (Easter Sunday). Also living in my not so large house is my mom Sharyn and our 3 to 5 crazy cats (I will explain all this later).

Matt and I both work full time and cherish the time we actually get to spend together. We love summer!! Sacramento gets to be pretty hot so we take our boat out to the river (usually) to do some wakeboarding and tubing. So when the weather heats up...we are always on the water!

Elizabeth goes to Kindergarten. She loves it, I think for the sake of socializing! She is a great student and really tries hard in school. I'm so proud of her. I seriously have not met a more well mannered kid than her. I guess all the nagging I did when she was little worked out well! Elizabeth does both ballet and gymnastics. She is the stockiest ballerina I have ever seen but she loves it and I love watching her! Elizabeth also had tons of friends who are just awesome! Elizabeth started daycare when she was 5 months old and still is very good friends with those kids (even though we are all at different schools now).

Meghan, my sweet Meggers, where do I start! Meghan can light up a room when she toddles on in! She has also taught me so much about what is truly important in life. When Meghan was 6 months old, she started having seizures. All seemed good, and we plugged away at life keeping her as well as possible to avoid anymore seizures. Three months after her first seizure, she had a really bad one during the night. It was bad enough to cause damage to her left frontal lobe of the brain. She was 10 months old when this happened, and after that seizure she was developmentally set back to a 2 month old. Meghan still has seizures (Partial Complex and Generalized Clonic-Tonic) but are controlled pretty well with medication. We just try to not let her get sick. She still has some delays (especially with Speech) but she is in a Preschool daycare 3 days a week and also goes to toddler gym! She is my rock and I so admire her strength!

I plan on capturing the important, crazy, insane, fun and just down right stupid moments of our life on this blog...both past and future! I gotta say that I am pretty excited to do so. I hope that when the girls are older they can look back on this blog and enjoy it to.