2008...BRING IT ON!

2007 will undoubtedly go down as the most AMAZING year of my life. I am like reborn. Most importantly, my family was healthy this year, kids included, and as we learn through the years, health is the MOST important factor in regulating our lives. Sofia is growing up to be an independent, vain princess with a wicked sense of humor, today she is 5 years old and is currently downstairs jamming her new pink Barbie guitar. Jordan has made a relatively smooth transition to Middle School and is finally learning to roll with whatever life throws you, no easy task given his ego-centric and sensitive character. This year rewarded him with new experiences like hitting a game winning triple in the bottom of the ninth, having a girl say yes to him when he asked her to the cinema (only then to never go - but he did receive a yes), signing RALLY CAPS books for children and adults like the star he is, winning CLASS REPRESENTATIVE in school and singing in the Duomo of Grosseto.
My dream in life has always been to write a book, without my dad's consistent encouragement, that would never have happened at this point in my life. The book was published on April 16th and ever since that day, incredible people and experiences have been coming in and out of my life. We've had national television and magazine exposure in Italy and local media coverage in Baltimore...people popped out of-I don't even know where- to give us a hand, really bizarre series of coincidences that lead me to believe that fate has a part in all we do and that I need to sit my ass down and start writing another one:) A couple of days ago, Val from Alabama :)emailed me that RALLY CAPS was officially in her Public Library and ready to be checked out by any kid interested. How powerful is that? A hearing child will meet a deaf child with a cochlear implant through literature...or even better, a deaf child with a cochlear implant will find himself on the shelf.
I've been so busy interacting with and trying to become involved with helping other people that I've neglected my own family(Mom, Step-father, Grammy, Niki, Julie), but after eight years of living in a tunnel with a very faint light up ahead that suddenly became brilliant after the cochlear implant came into our lives, I feel myself coming back to life and I'm keeping that for myself. I need to be selfish just a little longer to return to the person I was before I moved to Italy and threw a wall up that blocked any emotion with regard to the fact that my parents weren't seeing my kids grow up every single day and I was communicating with my own son in a language not my own. Jordan's deafness never scared me, I reacted on the offensive instead of the defensive by throwing myself into identifying HIS needs. That's what we do as parents - put our kids first, especially in a situation like that one. I can't count the number of times I heard these words, "When is he going to learn English?" as I was struggling to teach him how to say a three word sentence in Italian, that's a lot of pain to work through and the yahoo support groups are healing me, as is our book and every single person I have met in this period.
I feel truly fortunate to be loved by the man I met 19 years ago and to love. 2007 will remain one of the most important years of my life and I must say 2008 intrigues me, so...BRING IT ON!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL... THANKS FOR BEING A PART OF ALL OF THIS...Jodi