[tri-med] little update

Hey all,
First off, happy holiday to you! 
Be it Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas or any of the other celebrations: may it be 
a merry one. 
And wishing you all a healthy, happy and prosperous new year. 

A little Alex update. 
He has a new job, working for the school district in the latch key program. His 
title is 'activities coordinator'. He and another young man travel to 2 of the 
local elementaries in the afternoons and organize 
basketball/football/crafts/card or board games etc for the kids. The director 
of the program wanted more males around for the young boys. 

It was crazy how long it took for this to happen. Alex was fingerprinted, had a 
back ground check, they called all his references........the schools are a 
tough gig to get! 

The reason he was looking is that the daycare job dried up. They lost too many 
kids when school started again and didn't have enough work for everyone. And as 
low man on the totem pole Alex wasn't getting any hours. 

Alex really enjoys the job and is hopeful he can start getting more hours soon. 
He's only working approx 12 per week at the moment. But it's a start! 

On another strange and exciting front: Alex just had his first date this 
week!!!!!!!!!!!
 A girl who graduated a year ahead of him, so they're the same age. I believe I 
know who she is from chaperoning  a high school field trip, if this is the 
girls who sat next to me on the bus. If it is who I am thinking of, she has 
some 'challenges' in life too. 

Alex is very excited and we are for him as well. 
It's a new world and the only problem is his finger may fall off from all the 
texting back and forth they're doing! 

Molly's rounding out her senior year of high school and has been accepted to 
the university of her choice. We've already put the housing down payment in as 
they don't have enough housing for all incoming freshman,  it's first 
come/first serve. 
She continues to carry a heavy academic load, work part-time as a life guard, 
participate in volunteer activities, just finished her final varsity swim 
season (awarded the 'most dedicated trophy for the 2nd year in a row) and is 
super busy as an editor on the school newspaper. 
Add in filling out scholarship applications and she doesn't have much spare 
time on her hands.  :-) 

Jim and I have begun talking about what we're going to do when Molly's 
gone.....we'll have a LOAD more time on our hands. Jim's getting back into 
photography, something he did a lot of years ago. His Cmas gift is a digital 
camera, of the much better type than the one I have! 
Next up, lenses. lol 

The part-time job that I began in April, after a 12 year Mommy hiatus, has 
settled into a routine. At my 3 month evaluation they wanted me to take on more 
hours but until Molly is out of school I'm not willing to do that. I absolutely 
refuse to miss a lot of things in this final year of school and wish to keep up 
my school volunteerism. I mean, I got this far and don't want to blow it now! 
Also, for me to work more meant that somebody else would work less or be let go 
(don't need more than 1 x-ray tech per day there; there are 3 of us filling 5 
days). That made me feel weird and uncomfortable knowing that this would be a 
result of me getting more hours. 

Also, with Jim's Mom still housebound (laid up since the end of Sept) it takes 
a LOT of time from us to keep things running. Grocery shopping for us alone is 
a job I had and it's been multiplied by 2. But thankfully she has various 
groups for friends who help out with some tasks and it helps take some of the 
load off of us while keeping her company. Imagine being stuck in your house for 
months on end with the only outing is to the orthopedic surgeon. 

Nothing much else to report. I'd love to hear what's going on in everyone 
else's neck of the woods!

Michelle mom to Alex (21, partial trisomy 14 mosaic) and Molly (18)
MichiganUSA
                  Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows
                       www.trisomyonline.org
                  Families Helping Families On-line

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