SMA

Tonight SMA got some Prime Time on NBC through a show Dateline did about a woman with breast cancer and twin 12-year-old children with SMA (looked like fairly strong Type 2s) whose community came together to renovate their home into something wheelchair accessible even though the community itself was hit very hard economically. It was a great story, inspiring, and we even got a little sidebar info out there on SMA.

While I'm watching it, they keep doing these tearjerker side bar stories about the family, about the people volunteering their time to build the house, stories of people who are going through some very hard things of their own but put it aside to help someone else, stories about a woman whose son died and a kid with Cerebral Palsy who is helping and just all sorts of really neat, but tearjerking, stories. So Steve starts tapping me on the nose, which he knows I can't stand. His point? To distract me from the emotional stuff so I don't get all sad. It didn't quite work because I knew what he was doing, but it did kind of work too, because it breaks the 'spell' a little bit. If I'm thinking about yanking off his finger, it's hard to be completely immersed in the emotion of the story, too. ;) But watching the kids' physical characteristics, holding up their head with their hand sometimes when they get tired, seeing and hearing SMA on television, it always kind of throws me a little.

I came out of the restroom tonight to find a piece of chocolate cake with two candles in it and Steve & Kaylee singing "Happy Birthday" to me. See, they hadn't had a party at home for my birthday, and Kaylee has been harassing Steve ever since to do a "surprise" birthday thing for me-she felt bad that she hadn't done much for my birthday this year. She'd asked for a piece of cake tonight and I said no. So I got a surprise birthday song, and we all got a piece of chocolate cake. Devious little bugger, isn't she?? ;)