Bear Rattle Slippers

We are lucky enough to be the hand-me-down recipients of my cousin Wendy. She has 3 boys and her youngest is turning 2. We have thankfully received bags and bags of cute boy clothes for Cruz. I found these slippers on Cruz's shelf tonight and decided to put them on his feet. It has been so hot here that the thought of something hot on his feet sounds a bit sweaty, but I thought he would get a kick out of the rattles that are inside the bears heads. He was so funny in them. He would walk around the house with his little hands behind his back and then he would stop every once in a while to look down at them. I couldn't stop laughing at him.

He is also getting so smart. We were over at my parents this afternoon. My parents have a white board in their bedroom with markers on the ledge. Cruz likes to take the markers off of the ledge and put them other places. He was caring the markers around today and I asked him to put the markers back and he went right for the white board and put them on the ledge. Also, the other day I said lets put your shoes on, and he reached down for his feet. It still totally amazes me what these little brains can pick up in just 14 months.

Today I have had the opportunity to email with a woman who is going through this horrible ordeal with her husband Dave. It is strangely bizarre how similar our stories are. Shawn was doing some field work with a woman who works out of HDR's Boise office. He mentioned his father-in-law is suffering with CJD. She then said she knows 2 people in Boise that have died of CJD and another friend who is going through it right now. His family set up a caring bridge site for him as well. Shawn gave his coworker our site and she gave us this families. What is crazy about the whole situation is that both men were diagnosed on practically the same day at the end of May and both of them are basically at the same place in the disease. It has been nice to exchange a couple of emails with his wife to just see how they are handling some issues that are so particular to this disease. It is such a fast moving horrible disease a lot of health care professionals don't even know how to adequately care for patients and be ahead of the curve with this one. They seem like a very nice family and my heart goes out to them.