This is the article that is written up on the MEN’s website. It relates to my husband’s firing.

As much as I appreciate the thoughts and prayers for my family, there is another family who could use them more.

Sheba Marithe, born Novemebr 13, 2007, passed away July 23, 2008 from Severe Hypoxia. Sheba was born with Achondroplasia and her name means “Gift”.

Please keep Sheba’s family in your prayers!

The Board of Directors fired my husband today! Right on the heels of receiving the Lead Risk Assessment. You know, the Risk Assessment that is saying it should cost about $30,000 to fix what the city screwed up.

I have said all along that this would be the straw to break the camels back.

They wanted Will to meet with the “Board” (only three members) yes, the same members who have wanted to find a reason to fire him. Well back in April, when they were having bi-weekly meetings to discuss how to “improve” the relationship between Will and the board and Will told them what happened with the house, ya, the meetings stopped. Wonder why?

Amazing!

Thinking out loud here, I have too:

Contact Social Security to get Knoah’s SSI upped.

Contact DHS to apply for food stamps and medicaid for the kids.

Contact our mortgage company and auto loan and let them know.

We are already getting WIC because we fell below the income limit to begin with. No raise in 4 years does that.

Find other housing because without being able to pay the mortgage, we are going to lose it anyways.

I need to go out and find a job.

Will needs to go out and find a job.

Cancel all of Knoah’s up coming medical appointments until I find out what his medicaid will cover.

I wish I could say we had a rainy day fund, but we didn’t. Not from lack of wanting one, but we were living check to check as it was.

Anything else?

Do you think that because the risk assessment came in, that Will being fired would eventually lead to us losing the house, meaning the City isn’t responsible for the abatement as set forth by HUD? I mean, they won’t have to abate if we no longer own the house.

People can say what they want, but the timing of this is suspicious. What would the City have to do with my husband’s firing? Well since his “previous” employer receives funds from the City and the Executive Board was comprised of the City’s Attorney, a City Councilman (the one I ran against) and a man who also was previously fired from his job a few months back, it leaves a bad stench in the air.

Oh, I know people are thinking, this blog was the down fall of her husband..blah,blah,blah. No it wasn’t. The downfall of my husband occurred the day he took a job he thought he could do brilliantly, which he did.

There was no warning, no evaluation, nothing. Talk was that they did his evaluation, but when asked if he could see it or get it in writing, he was told no. Whenever he asked the board to give him anything in writing, he was told no. It is easier when you think there is no paper trail.

Sad, very sad!

I swear I could not make this crap up. Every turn in our lives have been met with some type of struggle or fight.

Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Reality doesn’t work that way I guess.

Yes, there comes a time in everyone’s life when you need a little entertainment.

I thought I’d give you some of our fun!

I’ll explain “how’s” later!

Okay, it’s later…

Knoah is able to spin around like this because of his brace. With him being in bracing therapy and this new brace, it limited his mobility a lot in the beginning. So, one day, he was laying on the floor and turned around. In doing so, he realized he could spin. Well, the spinning was born and when he gets going, he lifts his lower body off the ground and can get going quite fast. He loves doing it and when he has an audience, he starts to “break dance”!

*Ignore my annoying voice* LOL and my singing….

Wow! 3 posts in one day!!

Last week, I was contacted by our local paper, the Monroe Evening News and they wanted to do a story about “What is Normal?”! I agreed and you can find the link here!

Enjoy and while your here, please add yourself to our guestbook!!

We took the kids to Cedar Point with my family on Sunday. I thought, how much fun will the kids have!

I can finally get Jacob to ride some of the large roller costers, Hannah can ride her Himalaya and Knoah can finally ride some of the kiddie rides!

Wrong! We took Knoah to one of the kiddie rides, a little whirling bucket of fun. They didn’t let us on because Knoah had to be able to climb into the ride himself and he had to sit in the seat on his own. He could of sat in the seat, but climbing into the ride, wasn’t happening.

“No hand-held infants!”

The comment!

Needless to say, the evidence of his Achondroplasia, striking when the minimum height requirement was getting into the ride himself disqualified him from riding anything.

I was upset! My dad said “Tonya Michele, you better get use to it, this isn’t the last time your going to hear that!” I said, “He’s not a hand-held infant, he’s almost 2!” I know he’s right, but still!

Most rides require children to be 36 inches! 36 inches! When will Knoah be 36 inches? When he’s 5 maybe! Even that is projecting!

Just another reminder that our super sized world was not built with people of short stature in mind. Luckily, we didn’t have to pay for him to get into the park, which makes me have inappropriate thoughts.

Needless to say, this was one example where Knoah’s stature was thrown in my face un-intentionally.

The only ride he rode was the carousel. He enjoyed, I know he would, but I wanted him to ride some of the kiddie rides. The only thing I can think is, when will he be tall enough to ride the bigger rides? I have never raised a dwarf child before. I have never taken a short statured teenager to an amusement park. How am I going to handle it when he gets rejected from entering a ride when all his friend’s are going on them?

“Sorry kid, your too short!” Do we avoid the amusement parks all together once he gets of age to avoid the disappointment? What about when he is adult and he wants to ride (God forbid) Top Thrill Dragster? He may not even make it to 52 inches. He may not even make it to 48 inches. 11 year olds will be passing him by in the line! What, is he going to ride the carousel at 18?

“It’s fun Knoah, you ride this while your brother and sister ride the roller coaster!” Agh!

This is one way we parent’s come to terms with our child’s short stature. Average things average people do, short stature people will be restricted from participating.

Yes, I am still upset. Not angry upset, but sad, upset. Wanting Knoah to have a regular life like other people will always be faced with some type of barrier as to why he has to adjust.

Mandy and her family were here today! We had lunch and sat around and talked. Something about “consistency” comes to mind.

Mandy is great! She has an awesome sense of humor. We shared birth stories, family stories and the kids ran around and played.

Andrea, I have to add is SO CUTE!! She even gave me kisses and several hugs! We tried, in vain to get pictures of Knoah and Andrea together, you know the kind where they were both looking at the camera, but when you have a 4 year old and 1 year old, they both are always on the move!

I know Andrea got some good pictures with her mom’s camera!

They are going to be coming through again very soon, so hopefully the kids will be in a more picture taking mood!

Mandy and Knoah

Andrea playing on the floor.

Mandy, Andrea and I. Knoah is absent from the picture, he had demanded earlier to go “Nigh, Nigh” with his “Bub, Buba”.

Well, I just spent three hours in he**!

At 9:00 pm tonight, I get a phone call from the doctor’s saying that Knoah’s blood work came back abnormal and he would call me back after he has more information.

Okay.

9:25 pm, the phone rings and he says that Knoah’s blood platelet count is really low. I ask, how low. He says 28,000. I ask, What is Normal (pretty good huh?) He says 150,000 to 300,000! He says to get him over to the Emergency room and have them run the CBC again and if his platelets are still low, they may transfer him to U of M for a blood transfusion!

WHAT?

So, long story short, they screwed up! HUGE! His platelet count is 312,000.

I of coarse ran through all the possible senarios for what could cause it with “being wrong” on the top of my list.

Praise God! I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when he said it was a mistake!

Amazing! So, at 12:52 am, I sit at home with three kids, happy Knoah isn’t in the hospital. Now all we have to do is wait for their Lead levels to come back.

I am so excited!! Mandy and her family are going to swinging by here on Saturday for a visit!

This is actually a funny story….picture it….

Way back in 2002/2003 my husband was the coordinator for a fatherhood program for dad’s who wanted to become even better dad’s to their children. So, as the coordinator, he befriended some of the men. Bill, who is Mandy’s husband was a part of the group.

They had to go out to Texas for a seminar one year and I heard all kind’s of good things from the week-long trip.

Soon after returning home, Bill and Mandy moved to Pennsylvania. I have never actually met Mandy but knew Bill.

We had Knoah and as I was posting on Parent’s of Little People (POLP) I get an email from this women asking me if Will was my husband. I wrote back he was and find out Bill and Mandy had gotten married and had a little girl who had an undiagnoised skeletal dysplasia! How small is the world?

Mandy and I have emailed and talked on the phone several times since connecting and she mentioned in one of her comments that they were coming to Michigan this weekend!

We talked and they are stopping by here for a visit!!

I am so excited to meet them and Andrea!

Andrea’s previous physical therapist is currently Knoah’s physical therapist! Then a few weeks ago, I had the chance to meet Bill’s cousin. Bill’s cousin works with Will on several projects and she, I suspect also has a skeletal dysplaisa. If it’s not, then she is short statured.

How cool is this?

I will get lots of pictures to post on the blog!!

But for now, I will leave you with the stars of the show!

We took the kids to Cedar Point on Sunday and they had an awesome time, well except for “that” comment, which I will post about another time!

Knoah and the Goat!

The kids sitting on Snoopy!

No, Knoah is not up there by himself, I am standing behind him!!

There have been several new blogs created over the last few weeks!!

First is Emily. Emily contacted me during her pregnancy and I help direct her to all the info she would need for her little one’s diagnosis. Well, God is amazing and Bennett was born. After a few weeks, they determined that Bennett who was suspected to have a lethal dysplasia, not have a dysplasia at all!! Bennett was born a healthy and happy! Check them out and say Hi!

http://thilgesfamilyfun.blogspot.com/

Alex gave birth to Anais June 6th, 2008. Anais was diagnosied with Achondroplasia right after birth. She is the latest addition to our LP family!

http://loveisallyouneed-4.blogspot.com

If you would like to be added to our blogroll or if you find information not correct, even if I have corrected it a thousand times before….Amanda….I really have corrected it…please send me a “shout out”!!