In Which We Take It Easy

Today Jeremy and I celebrated our ninth anniversary.  It seems like only yesterday we were exchanging our vows!  We've visited some weird and wonderful places during our lives in those nine years, and while I haven't always enjoyed where we've been, at least the company has been lovely.  We'll see where the next nine years takes us!  I'm missing him a lot today.  We didn't really do anything this year, but we decided that next year we'll try and take a little trip together or something for our tenth anniversary, when Jer will hopefully be back home.

Today was the last day for some of our relatives to be in town, and we took things a bit easier so we could really focus on enjoying that time with them.  We're sad to see them go; we had a lovely time with them!  There was another reason for us to slow down a bit today too; Connor had three seizures.  I'm pretty convinced he's getting that cold, and it's throwing his system all out of whack. 

So we didn't cram in a whole lot today.  After we went to church we ate lunch at our favorite Thai restaurant, and then we took a trip down to the huge bead store in the area to check out their many, many wares.  I swear if that place was any bigger you'd need a compass to find your way out. 

After browsing for a while we returned to the house and spent the rest of the day relaxing.  I chatted with Jer while I watched the world's fattest squirrel stuff itself full of seeds fallen from the bird feeder.  It's actually too fat to make its way up the pole to the feeder now, which is pretty impressive.  I suspect the squirrel might be a she and pregnant-- it's about that season here.  I'm fine with her scavenging on the ground around the feeder, as long as she doesn't try and steal the eggs out of the chestnut-backed chickadee nest nearby.  I'm really looking forward to seeing some chickadee babies in a few weeks.

Looks like spring is finally really here!

~Jess

In Which We're Still Busy

Yesterday was another extremely busy day for us.  We started off the morning with a swim meet for Eden.  It was a small meet with just one other team, but even so there were quite a few kids there so it took a while to get started.  Eden swam very well.  Connor, however, did not have such a nice morning; he had a seizure on the way there, and then overheated a bit at the swim meet and ended up having another one.  So he spent a good portion of the meet stripped down to just his shorts and lying between the bleachers on the seat cushions I'd brought.  He perked up about two thirds of the way into things though, so that was good.

After the meet we went out to lunch, and then we headed down to Northwest Trek (one of our local wildlife parks) to check out all of the animals.  When we took the tram ride through the free range area of the park it was drizzling a bit-- which is just the type of weather the animals around here really like-- so we were able to see a lot of activity. 

Probably the coolest thing we saw was a baby buffalo that was about six hours old; he was really unsteady on his feet and didn't seem to know what to make of the tram, but he was also huge for only being six hours old.  I have new respect for buffalo mothers.

So we got back to the house in the late afternoon.  Connor, probably due to all of the napping he did today, proceeded to stay up until one in the morning, which was not particularly fun for me, but otherwise the evening was uneventful.  We'll see what kind of adventures we get up to today!

~Jess

In Which We Get A Move On

Well that was a busy day yesterday! 

We all got the chance to sleep in a little bit because instead of heading to school, we were going to Connor's Special Sports Day.  Over 300 kids with special needs from around his school district participated.  Connor did the softball toss, the 50 meter race and the 100 meter race (which was more like 60 meters, but that's okay-- who's counting?).  Eden came along as Connor's racing partner, and she pushed his chair in the races and helped him throw the softballs.  It was pretty awesome, and the kids both had a blast.  Here's a photo of the two of them together after their first race-- Eden's face is obscured enough by her hair that I can post it.  My kids are adorable.

So Connor came home with some ribbons, which he was extremely proud of.  We ate some lunch, and then it was time for Eden to meet some of her extended family for the first time; they're up here visiting us for the weekend and exploring the area.  It's always great to have relatives in town!  So we got the chance to visit for a while, and then it was time for Eden's swim practice.  So we all drove down for that and watched the little miss practice for her upcoming swim meet. 

After that we came home, ate some dinner, put a very tired Connor to bed and then visited for just a bit with the other set of relatives that are in town this weekend.  And then Eden worked on her homework for a while on the computer before bed. 

 So basically we were on the move all day!

~Jess

In Which The Children Are Thrown Off Their Groove

We had a bit of a rough day today.  Connor has a sports field day tomorrow that he'll be traveling to another school for, and Eden is going to help out with it so she'll be missing some school as well.  In addition to that, we've got relatives coming into town tomorrow.  So because the kids are anticipating the change in their routine, they both kind of freaked out today.

I've noticed a pretty specific pattern with Eden in particular-- whenever we've got a new event, change in routine or are meeting a new person, she ends up having a really tough day the day before the event and, in the case of people, usually the day after as well.  That's pretty typical behavior for children adopted at an older age so it's certainly not unexpected, though it can be exhausting for all parties involved.

However, I think living as a hermit is going to be a bad habit to get into as well, so we'll keep working at it!

~Jess

In Which We Have A Quiet Day

Today Connor had his first seizure since that whopper over spring break.  It was only about a minute and a half long, but it makes me wonder if maybe he's catching the cold I'm still getting over.  I've passed it along to Eden for sure; she's just really starting to sound hoarse.  We'll see what Connor sounds like tomorrow, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's coming down with it too.

Connor didn't have physical therapy today because we did it yesterday, so things ended up being fairly quiet around here.  He took a pretty good actual nap (another sign that he's probably getting sick) and I took the opportunity to catch up on a bit of housework and do some writing.

I'm really struggling at finding a good time and place to write at the moment.   I've always much preferred writing in the evenings out at a coffee shop or somewhere away from the house, and that's just not feasible right now since we don't have respite care at the moment.  Finding time and a place that works for me during the day while the kids are in school is difficult; I always feel like I should be doing something else, like unloading the dishwasher or something.

Oh well-- I'll keep plugging away at it and I'm sure that eventually I'll form new habits and things will get easier!

~Jess

In Which Connor Bowls And Eden Has A Fitting

Connor's physical therapist caught us while we were on the way out the door from Eden's PT session today; she had an opening and thought we might want to go ahead and do his session early.  Normally he has physical therapy tomorrow.  I jumped all over it-- it's always nice not to have to make another trip up to the hospital!  Connor was a bit perturbed by the schedule change, but he perked up a bit when he got the chance to go bowling with a new friend.  Really-- they have a switch-activated bowling set.  It's awesome.  Connor refused to push any of the buttons with his hands, but he did hit the switch very deliberately with his head.  Hey, we'll take what we can get!

We might have to try bowling down at the local place with the kids sometime.  Connor seemed to get a kick out of it, Eden would probably enjoy it too and I'm pretty sure that they have a modified bowling set down there. 

Eden's physical therapy session was a bit unusual today as well; she spent a good portion of it choosing a model and getting fitted for a wheelchair.  Long distances are very difficult for her to walk, and having the chair is going to open up a lot of opportunities for her to participate in more activities.  She used a chair occasionally in Thailand, but it was far too large for her.  This will be the first one fitted specifically for her.

It will be a fairly lightweight, bare-bones model.  I'm not exactly sure what particular one was settled on in the end, but I believe it's in the TiLite series.  We don't want this to be a lounging chair or something that becomes her primary mode of transportation-- we only want her to use it when walking just isn't going to work.  So we got it without arm rests or push bars.  Right now she's making huge gains in terms of balance and leg function, and we want to make sure she continues to push herself while still having that support when she needs it.  She'll probably always need the chair for longer distances, but as far as we're concerned the more upright mobility she has, the better.

Eden was less concerned about the chair's functionality and more concerned with whether or not she could get it entirely in black.  Because she's a teenager, and that sort of stuff is important. Also, believe it or not, they may actually have an option that involves skulls, and the only thing this kid likes better than black is skulls.  So she's pretty gung ho about the chair.  If we don't end up with a skull option I may have to find her a skull pin to put on the back or something. 

It will probably be a few weeks before we're actually ordering the chair though as we've got to wait for the authorization to go through, so we've got some time before we're going to be picking out that sort of nitty-gritty detail!

~Jess  

In Which We Have A Slow Day And Think About The Future

Today I spent a good portion of my alone time while the kids were in school napping.  I never used to be able to nap, but it has now become one of my favorite activities.  This is probably a sign that I'm firmly out of young adulthood and trundling on towards middle age.  Either that or I'm turning into a cat. 

Hey.  It could happen.

Anyway, Connor spent a good portion of the day napping as well-- he kept nodding off in his wheelchair, though apparently he lasted through school all right.  Thankfully he crashed as soon as I put him down for bed tonight, so hopefully by tomorrow he'll have mostly caught up on sleep and will be back to his usual cheery self.  He was a bit grumpy today.  Staying up for forty-four hours straight tends to have that effect on people.

Once I managed to get up and moving, I went down to Target to pick up Connor's medication and to find myself a new notebook.  I've been trying to get more involved in my serious writing projects recently, and whenever I start a new writing project I have to buy a new notebook.  This is completely regardless of the fact that I already have about forty half-filled notebooks stashed away in various corners of the house.  I really pity whoever has to go through my stuff after I die, because since I plan to live to at least a hundred and twenty they are probably going to have a lot of recycling to do. 

I'm starting to try and write more for a couple of reasons.  The first is that I really love writing and it's a hobby I can do indoors with the kids, which is where I'm going to be spending a lot of my summer.  The second reason is that in another five or six years, when Jeremy is out of school and is allowed vacation time and the kids are a bit older, I'd like to find a low residency program and go back to college an earn either an M.A. or an M.F.A. in creative writing. 

However, in order to do that I'd need to actually have a body of work-- preferably published work-- to show in my application.  Also Eden will be pretty close to college by that point, and paying for one college education will be bad enough without tacking on one I would be doing less for career opportunities and more for personal gratification.  This means I will likely have to manage to land a scholarship to be able to attend, and most of the ones connected with writing are merit based. 

So you know, actually writing something once in a while that isn't a blog I cobbled together in fifteen minutes might be a good idea, right?

~Jess