My wife, an excellent web designer, has revamped the site and I hope everyone loves the new digs.  The goal was to design a page a little more masculine.  She did such a great job on the first design, but it was time for a new look.  I love the vibrant orange colors and the pictures of the Tornado over the last 2 years.  Please visit my wife’s professional page at designs.kristinabrooke.org to see more samples of her superior work.

As the Tornado’s 2nd birthday looms I think the terrible part is coming early. Not sure what happened today, but she went for her nap and was the normal, pleasant, and lovable Tornado.  When she woke up, I was introduced to the wailing Typhoon.  She was a terror.

It all begin when I was changing her diaper.  As I was putting her shorts on she kept kicking me and laughing.  And when I say kicking I mean full force kicks. Lets just say she obviously does not want any brothers or sisters.  Then she would just start to have screaming fits out of the blue.  Figuring she was just hungry I made lunch and all was well. Until she was full then spaghetti went every where and when I went to clean it up she just screamed.  It doesn’t stop there, I put here in the living room to watch Miss Spider.  Not big fan of her watching television, but I needed to finish cleaning the kitchen.  When I came out I was dodging blocks and crayons.  She was tossing them all around with the wickedest laugh I have ever heard.  I even felt her magna doodle whiz by my feet.

Completely fed up I gave the Tornado a timeout.  She didn’t like it so much evidenced from the crying and screaming, but thankfully after about 10 minutes the demon left her body.  If this is any indication to what is to come in the next year we are in for a harsh time.  Can you say boarding school?  :) 

Well the Tornado is wrecking havoc at a greater rate. My darling wife had the very unfortunate pleasure to experience the Tornado’s first attempt at climbing out of her crib. My wife called me at work in tears describing how she heard her screaming and walked in to see her dangling from the outside of the crib by her foot. Luckily, no significant damage just a little scratch, small bump, and a real good scare. Time for the toddler bed, though my darling wife has thought so for a long while now. Slow down, daddy is not ready for this.

The Tornado is starting to talk in sentences and coherent sentences to boot. She is coloring and drawing shapes. The worst was the other morning as we were all getting ready to leave my wife commended me on the Tornado’s outfit noting the use of a cute pink poncho that matched the outfit perfectly. First, my wife rarely approves of my fashion sense when it comes to the not so little one. Second, I didn’t put a poncho on the Tornado. Not only did she find the poncho, put it on (correctly I might add), but she was able to match her clothes, something I can never seem to grasp.

Next up, the wife wants to start to potty train. What ever happened to the little girl I once knew.

In Loving Memory of

Samantha Michelle

Born to Soon

February 22, 2003

Please join us in our candle lighting tribute to our daughter tomorrow (Feb. 22). Feel free to use the candle image above to do so. Just use the Link below to insert the candle image into your blog and leave a comment here to let me know that you did so.

(Candle Link)
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b300/leaderladyk/Siggys/smallcandleani.gif

Samantha’s Story

My wife and I were engaged and about to begin to plan for our wedding, which was to be the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend in 2003 when we found out that we were expecting an new addition to our family. After it was confirmed that my darling fiancee was in fact pregnant, we decided to plan on getting married sooner rather than later in a very small ceremony and have a large party after the baby was born to celebrate our wedding and new arrival.

The plan was to fly to Las Vegas (guess who pushed for this locale) and just invite the immediate family and various close friends and family members. As we planned our new quickie marriage, we consulted our healthcare “professionals” (never get pregnant in Oneonta, NY as the healthcare up there is very sketchy), and were advised that flying at 19.5 weeks pregnant would be fine despite the fact that my wife had been feeling “weird” for a while.

We boarded our non-stop flight on February 21 from Kennedy Airport(JFK) in the early morning and fly almost 6 hours in never ending turbulance to McCarren International Airport(LAS) arriving there in the early afternoon. My blushing fiancee felt a little light headed and we stopped to eat at our hotel and were planning to catch a quick nap in the room before we begin the various errands we needed to accomplish before our wedding  on February 22. As we were walking back to the room our world changed forever. My beloved’s water broke and Samantha Michele  was about to be born at 19.5 weeks. She was rushed to the hospital, the last place to go in an emergency in Vegas. Though bleeding from her womb, the crack staff at Sunrise Hospital felt it was more important to help a man with a sprained wrist and countless others first, mind you we arrived in an ambulance. I was almost arrested as after hours and hours of my future wife laying on a gurney in the hallway in front of the admitting counter as a receptionist told me to smile, “it’s not that bad.” I completely lost it and was insisting that they get a doctor to treat my wife. “Sir please calm down we are simply waiting for a room.” Yet, I again see people getting service with runny noses and rashes whom arrived after we us.

After about 6 hours a doctor finally comes to check her out and when we ask if there was any chance that Samantha was alive and would be able to survive, he replied that it all would be fine and we would need an ultrasound to evaluate the situation. After another hour or so she had an ultrasound and the technician refused to give us the slightest hint to what she saw, other than to tell us the baby is in fact a girl. She was taken upstairs to Labor and Delivery and then after another hour or two wait and a new doctor walks in and bluntly procedes to discuss with us the procedures that she needs, such as D&C and other fancy acronyms. At this point I lose it and start screaming at the doctor and cursing and she jumps back in fear telling me to stop talking to her with that language. “F— THAT!”

It is now the early hours of February 22 and we have been at the hospital for over 16 hours and have no idea what is going on and this doctor comes in here and is completely cold and start talking over our heads. She mumbles something about “Fetal Demise” and we simultaneously scream,  “SHE IS DEAD!” doctor. Her reply was simply, “you didn’t know? There was no chance of survival.” Another eruption from us, ” WE WERE TOLD THERE WAS A CHANCE, THAT SHE WOULD BE OK.” To make a long story short Samantha Michele had no chance of survival- a fact that everyone from the EMS workers to the various nurses, technicians, and doctors prior to finally advising us 12 hours later knew. We suffered through this ordeal trying to hold onto the smallest glimmers of hope only to find out that we were lied to the whole way. This poor doctor had no idea what she was walking into when she walked into our room.

The rest of the night was filled with waiting and procedures until it was finally over and around noon my closest friend was moved up to a room to begin to recover physically. It will be months and even years before she would recover mentally. What was supposed to be one of the best days of our life quickly became the worst day we could ever imagine. Thankfully, we today are married and about to celebrate our 5th anniversary together with the Tornado about to celebrate her 2nd birthday. Though, we may seem to be completely recovered from this ordeal, we will never be completely recovered. We will never forget Samantha Michele and she will forever be a member of our family.