In Which Connor Has An Extremely Lousy Day

Connor had twenty-one seizures today, which was not at all the kind of day I'd hoped we be having.  He didn't stop breathing, but we had to use oxygen on pretty much all of them, and some of them lasted a pretty long time-- the longest was just under five minutes.  Though I haven't checked my records to be sure, I think this might be the most major seizures he's ever had in one day.  Woo hoo.

Despite being stripped down to a diaper, having a couple of sponge baths and alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen, the little guy still had a low-grade fever all day, which is why the seizures just kept coming.  We talked to his doctor, and if Connor continues to have seizures and a fever by tomorrow night we'll be heading in to the emergency room for the first time since December. 

Connor and I spent most of the day on the couch; where he huddled in a miserable lump, clutching my hand in between seizures while I let him watch more DVDs than he usually sees in a month.  Towards the very end of the day he perked up just a little bit, so I'm hoping that maybe the worst is over and his fever will break during the night.  Today was so utterly miserable for him, and he hasn't had a day this bad in a long, long time.  The last thing he needs is a repeat of today.  In fact, I would be perfectly happy if we never had a repeat of today.  Another day like this one, and I may accidentally find out what a chocolate overdose looks like.  That is, if I can find any in the house that I didn't eat today.  I've gotten spoiled by Connor having so many good days, and I'd forgotten just how nerve-wracking and exhausting this kind of thing is. 

I'm so glad this day is over.

~Jess

In Which Connor Has A Bajillion Seizures

Well today did not go particularly well.

It started off just fine; Connor and I drove down to his new school and got a chance to check out the classroom and meet some of his teachers and his future classmates.  It's a fantastic room, and it looks like he'll probably fit right in.  We were there for about twenty minutes before Connor had a seizure-- one of the stay-conscious-but-turn-sort-of-blue variety.  So while I guess it's good that they've seen one of his seizures now and know what to look out for, it's not exactly how I wanted to end our school tour.  When I felt him after the seizure he seemed pretty warm, and sure enough it turned out he was running a low-grade fever.

That was the first of eight seizures today, most of which he needed oxygen for.  He spent the vast majority of the day sleeping across my chest and melting down completely if I wasn't within touching distance, so I know he wasn't feeling good at all.  We kept him dosed up on Tylenol, but he was still running a low-grade fever even with it and also he had some issues keeping his food down, so I think he's probably getting some sort of bug.  It was not the best of days, to say the least.  His little eyes are all bloodshot right now from the oxygen deprivation and he just seemed miserable.

I hope this will be a short bug and he'll be back to feeling good soon, because I'd hate for him to have another day like this one. 

~Jess

In Which Connor Has An Off Day And I Start Planning For Next Year

Connor had a rough day today; he had a seizure that was about a minute long, and we had to use his oxygen.  There wasn't any one particular thing that triggered it; I think this was just his once-every-couple-of-weeks seizure.  But he did a lot of sleeping today, and so now he's wide awake and showing no signs of going down any time soon. 

I hope he doesn't stay up too late, because we're going to go tour his school tomorrow morning and if he doesn't get any sleep tonight he won't be in the best of moods for the trip.  I'm excited to meet some of the school personnel who will be working with the little guy, and to get the chance to see Connor's classroom before the start of next year.  It will also give me the chance to see how long it will take me to get to his school in the morning; I should hopefully be shuttling two kids to and from school next year so I need to start figuring out what time we'll have to leave the house!  The kids get out of school fifteen minutes apart, but their schools are twenty minutes apart.  Luckily Ellen's school is less than a block from our house. 

The real craziness will start if she decides to participate in the swim team, which starts in ninth grade.  The team practices at yet another school, and there's no possible way that I could drive across town and pick Connor up, drive back towards our place and pick Ellen up, and then drive the opposite direction across town to her swim practice and make it on time.  I don't think the school buses the kids over for swim practice, so we might have to start looking at a carpool at that point!  It's not like having Connor ride the bus would help; he's not really cut out to be a latch-key kid.  Oh well; I'm sure we'll figure something out if it comes up.

No word on when Ellen will be coming home yet, though.  We hope it will be soon!

~Jess

In Which We Take A Holiday

Thanks to all of you who sent Jer and I well wishes about Memorial Day; we appreciate it!

We spent most of the day quietly at home enjoying some family togetherness, though since Jer had a holiday I did take advantage of that and asked him to hold a ladder while I replaced a couple of the spikes and ferrules on one of our gutters.  That and a bit of laundry was about all the work that happened today though, which was nice.  I took some time today to reflect a bit on just how blessed I really am.

Of course I did spend some time tromping around barefoot in the grass, which was enough to set off my allergies again.  I've really got to start remembering that I can't do that sort of thing right now.  It's annoying for me because I don't generally have allergies, so I'm not very good at remembering yet.  I'm sure after a few more glorious cases of hives my memory will quickly improve.

Connor discovered a new way to play with his ball today; he decided that banging on it with his hand wasn't fun anymore so he started banging on it with his foot.  He didn't kick the ball or anything; he grabbed his foot and used it like a hammer to hit the top of his ball (which is partially deflated to make it easier for him to grab).  It was a creative use of his foot, to say the least.  Then he demanded wild praise, and clapped for himself when he didn't think I was giving him enough.  I think he's got me pretty well trained.

Oh well.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Lovely Day

We had another lovely day today; Connor broke his record in the stander stayed in it for almost two hours, we did a little work out in the yard, and we went out for a picnic with some friends.  So overall it was a great day.
 
Jeremy's off of work tomorrow and Connor has no school, so I'm sure we'll spend some quality family time together then too.  We're enjoying the lovely weather!

I seem to have had a little too much contact with the grass today though, because my hives are back in force.  So I've got a lot of Benedryl on board right now and I'm pretty sleepy.  At some point if this keeps up I should probably go in for some sort of formal allergy testing.  It's driving me nuts!

~Jess

In Which Gardening Stuff Goes On And Not Much Else

I took my weekly trip to the local farmer's market today to pick up a few groceries and take a look at the Japanese maples to see if they might have the variety I wanted.  Lo and behold, I found a lovely specimen of exactly the tree I was looking for (Olson's Frosted Strawberry-- it's gorgeous) at a price seventy dollars below what the nursery wanted for it.  I snatched it up, and then bought another one too (a Garnet, in case you were wondering) because hey, I really like Japanese maples.  I'll have five of various heights and colors in my yard once I get these two planted.

I also got some lovely henna done, went shopping and bought a couple of new summer outfits, and took a long bubble bath.  So it was a pretty great day.  How could a day that involved a long bubble bath not be fantastic?

Jer worked on the patio area for a while, but it was pretty hot out there today so we decided to hold off and finish up tomorrow.  That way I can get started on shoveling a ridiculous amount of rock next week.  Oh boy!

~Jess

In Which We Have An Unexpected Visitor

Connor was feeling much, much better today-- we think he probably overheated due to all the exercise he did and that's why his temperature was up.  He woke up in a fantastic mood and though his muscle tone was a bit off due to yesterday's seizures and the Diastat, he did very well.  So hopefully that means we won't see any more seizures for a while.

Today was a day for wildlife!  Loki has been gluing his nose to the sliding door and going nuts at random times during the past few nights, and I think we now know why.  He started growling and puffing up in the window on the side of our house today, and when I looked outside I saw the neighbors cat standing on our ramp harassing a very small possum, who was trundling down the ramp and doing his very best to ignore the cat completely .  I threw open the sliding door and ran outside to rescue the little guy.  The cat took off as soon as he heard the door bang open.

The possum continued waddling his slow way down the ramp, none the worse for wear.  He slipped under our fence and I could hear him making his very noisy way across the leaf mold in our neighbor's yard.  The little guy was just barely big enough to be out on his own; his body was probably about seven inches long and he was still in the ridiculously adorable phase, which doesn't last very long for possums as they are not exactly the world's most attractive creatures.  I suspect this one has taken up residence underneath our deck, which explains why I actually have hostas that are not completely full of holes this year.  Possums absolutely love to eat slugs and snails.  They usually only stick around in one place for a few days before moving on, so we probably won't see the little guy again-- especially since that darn cat discovered his hiding place.  I wouldn't mind if he stuck around; my plants have never looked so good.

Then later today I saw a ruffed grouse sitting on a wall across the street from one of the local heavily wooded parks.  I was really surprised because they aren't common around here-- usually they avoid urban areas-- and also they're pretty big birds.  So I guess it was just a day for unusual wildlife!

We finished one small project today; Jer dug out the small pathway off the deck stairs and I shoveled, leveled and tamped down paving sand, laid down some old brick, planted the spaces in between with some creeping thyme, put down a top coat of mulch and finished off with a river rock border.  Right now the pathway ends in a giant hole, but that should change soon.  Hopefully we'll have the rest of the patio hole dug out this weekend, and then I can order a couple of cubic yards of crushed stone to start the next stage of the project. 

We're slowly getting there!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is A Sickykin

Connor had a not-so-hot day today, though it started off pretty well.  He went to school, came home and had his quiet time, and then spent some time in his stander watching a couple of episodes of season one from The Muppet Show.  It was only after he was completely done with his stander time and I was setting him up to work with his iPad that the day started going downhill.  He had a seizure that lasted twenty seconds or so.  Then five minutes later he had another one.  At that point I checked his temperature and discovered he was running at about 100.5.  I gave him some Tylenol and made him up a little bed on the couch.

Within twenty minutes he'd had four more seizures and it was obvious that he was going into status; he'd have a seizure, fall asleep afterwards, wake up for twenty seconds or so and then have another seizure.  So during the fourth seizure I gave him a dose of Diastat, which we haven't had to use for months.  He actually perked up shortly after the Diastat (which isn't exactly how Diastat is supposed to work and tells you just how lethargic he was) and it stopped the seizure cycle until the Tylenol had a chance to kick in and bring his temperature down. 

So he snoozed for most of the afternoon, perked up a bit in the evening and then conked out right at bedtime.  I'm hoping that this will be a quick bug and he'll be over it soon; he sounds a little stuffy but other than the fever doesn't seem to have too much else going on.  We'll take it super easy tomorrow and see how he feels.

Bleagh.

~Jess

In Which I Don't Write A Blog And Just Post Ridiculously Cute Pictures Of My Kid Instead

I'm too lazy to write a blog tonight.  So I'm copping out with cute pictures of my kid.

So today I was at Target shopping for some new shoes and a swimsuit for Connor (in the boys section for the first time instead of the infant section-- sob) and they had a display of children's fedoras right next to the sunglasses. 

I bought both. Prepare for cuteness overload.

But I thought it still needed a little something (other than a pinstriped suit of course, which I will find for him in my quest to turn him into either the world's smallest Blues Brother or the universe's cutest spy) and then I remembered I still had a big stash of mustache stickers. 

Ta da!

And here's one more gratuitous shot of my boys for posterity. 

We're just two guys and we're having a good time.

This concludes your Epic Cuteness Picture Overload of the day.  You're welcome.

I need to put finding a matching fedora and sunglasses for Jeremy on my shopping list.  Because that would be amazing.  Also I really, really want to send Connor off for his first day of school in September in a fedora, pinstriped suit and sunglasses.  Does that make me an evil mom? 

Possibly, but I think he could totally pull it off.

~Jess



In Which Connor Gears Up For Next Year And I'm On The Mend

I can hear Connor singing his little whale song over the monitor right now; it looks like he might be up a while.  He sounds a lot like Dory out of Finding Nemo, only without the actual words part.  It's very cute-- and I can appreciate just how cute it is way more now that somebody else is staying up listening to it at two in the morning. 

The little guy had his IEP this afternoon to talk about the rest of this school year as well as next school year.  He's going to be in a self-contained classroom at a school that's a bit farther away, but the teacher-to-student ratio is amazing and I think the class is going to be fantastic for him.  I've heard nothing but wonderful things about his new teacher-- who we got the chance to meet today-- and he seems like he'll be a great fit for the little guy.  We haven't toured the classroom yet, but already it sounds like they're doing some really, really neat things in there, like a twice-a-week music session, which the little guy will no doubt absolutely love. 

They also have a peer interaction program where typical fifth graders visit the classroom once a week, and since the little guy is the cutest kid in the universe (in my completely unbiased opinion) he'll probably be mobbed by the girls.  I'm predicting he'll have the entire female population of the fifth grade wrapped around his little finger by the end of the first month. 

This will probably be Connor's class until he's in the sixth grade, so I'm excited that it's such a stellar program and I can't wait to see how he'll grow!  We're going to plunge right in and send him full-time, and if that doesn't work out we'll scale back.  I'm always amazed at just how much the little guy can do, so I don't want to make the mistake of underestimating him. 

In other news, after sticking to a super-strict regime of icing, elevating and anti-inflammatories today my knee is looking pretty good.  The swelling has almost completely disappeared and, while it's still tender (especially right around the kneecap) I've got complete range of motion, I'm moving around pretty well and I think once the deep bruising goes down in a few days it will be right as rain.  The icing has done all the good it will at this point and it's not really swollen any more, so tomorrow I'll be switching over to taking long soaking baths to loosen things up.  Like I need an excuse to take long soaking baths.

I'm going to talk with my doctor just to get the all-clear and to look into getting a knee brace since I don't particularly want this to happen again (and apparently it's more likely to reoccur now if I did in fact pop the knee cap out) but I'm optimistic I'll be back on skates soon!

~Jess




   

In Which I Fall Down Some More And Connor Feels Under The Weather

I'm lying here with my knee elevated and on ice at the moment.  I think I might have popped my kneecap out and back into place at practice tonight-- I fell and it ended up in an awkward position with weight on top of it.  At any rate, the inside of my knee is turning all sorts of pretty colors already, so we'll see what this looks like over the next few days.  Thankfully I'm not in agonizing pain and I'm not feeling any clicking or restriction when I move it or anything-- the knee is just swollen and tender.  So I don't think it's serious.  I'll baby it for a few days and see how it feels.

That's what happens when you play roller derby!

Connor had a small seizure today and he was having some trouble keeping his food down, so I'm wondering if he might have picked up a little stomach bug somewhere.  We'll keep a close eye on him and take his temperature often to make sure that he isn't starting to run a fever, which is the main problem when he gets sick since it sends the number of seizures he has skyrocketing.  He still seems to be in pretty good spirits other than the whole nausea thing though, so depending on how he feels in the morning we'll still send him to school. 

Hopefully it was just a fluke and he'll feel great tomorrow!

~Jess

In Which We Have A Quiet Day

The rain decided to come back today, so we spent most of the day indoors.  Connor needed a quiet day, since yesterday was chock full of adventure!  It was perfect timing for some rainy weather anyway, since it meant that all of my new plants were thoroughly watered in without me having to lift a finger.

Not a whole lot else happened today; I spent a little bit of time out in the yard cutting up turf (it's much easier in the rain when the ground is soft) and did a bit of shopping, but otherwise we spent the day quietly.  Every once in a while we need a day or two like that!

Connor should be having his IEP meeting this week, which I feel pretty excited about because we'll be talking about his full-time school program for next year.  He'll be spending six hours a day in school instead of just over two and a half, and while I'm sad that he's leaving the fantastic teacher and staff who have been working with him the past three years, I think he's ready to take on the challenge and I can't wait to see what he'll be doing by the end of next school year. 

Watch out, first grade-- here comes Connor!

~Jess

In Which Jer And I Celebrate Eight Years By Visiting The Stumpery, Because The Stumpery Is Awesome

Today was Jer and my eighth wedding anniversary!  It seems like just yesterday we were exchanging our vows, and here we are coming up on year eight already. 

In honor of the occasion, we went out as a family to the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden, where they were having their blue poppy festival.  We strolled around the gardens and enjoyed spending time together as a family.  Gardening is much more my thing than Jer's, but he indulges me because he's a great husband and loves to see me happy. 



The boys in the poppy field.



And this time I remembered to bring my camera, so you can see some pictures of the gardens.  The blue poppies look like they've been artificially dyed, they are such an intense color, and they were interspersed with a giant lily that apparently grows up to twelve feet tall.  Connor seemed kind of apathetic about the poppies, but he was very interested in all of the brightly colored azaleas, and also in the stumpery, which is no surprise.  I mean, how could you not be interested in the stumpery? 



The stumpery!

As much as I'd love to turn my yard into a stumpery for Connor's enjoyment, I don't think that would be terribly practical.  However, there's one particular rhododendron at the garden that I am determined to eventually have a specimen of at home-- it's the most gorgeous shade of coral.  Nothing else in my yard is coral and I have no idea where I'd put it, but I don't really care because I love it and I will make room for it.  They didn't have any for sale right now though, so I'll just have to keep checking back.  Like I need an excuse to go look at plants.



Someday it will be mine!





Starting to actually sort of look like a garden.



Of course even though they didn't have the rhodie I wanted I still had to buy a few things, because it's physically impossible for me to pass up a plant sale.  I picked up a fern that loves living in the boughs of trees, a gorgeous Japanese jack-in-the-pulpit and a couple of other finds.  I planted the fern on top of a stump I moved into the ramp shade garden, which is slowly starting to take shape. 

There are a few more things I know I want to put in there, like a dwarf Japanese maple (it will go in a pot where that open spot towards the front of the picture), some more ground cover and another hosta or two, but the plants are slowly getting bigger and I can start to see what the garden will look like when everything fills out.  I think it will be lovely.  This garden is the one I'm closest to completing-- not that I'll ever really "complete" a garden.  I'm sure I'll continue to fiddle with it forever.  But I have the rest of the yard to keep me busy too-- I've got a lot of empty space to fill!

So overall it was a lovely day with my lovely family, and a great anniversary.  I can't wait to see where the next eight years will take us!

~Jess

In Which We Play Around

Connor and I went out dress shopping today.  Well, I went dress shopping and Connor was forced to come along against his will, though at least I didn't make him try on any dresses.  The little guy is kind of hard on my clothes as a general rule and I don't buy things for myself very often, so my wardrobe was looking a little ragged.  I found two dresses, a skirt and a cardigan.  I still need to find myself some jeans as I don't think I own a single pair at this point that isn't either ripped, stained or both, but it was still a productive shopping trip. 

I also got a haircut; my hair was getting way, way too long and unruly.  I have very little patience with my hair; the less I have to do to it, the better.  So I had them chop it back to shoulder length, which is a little bit more manageable for me.  We'll see how this haircut works; if it's still getting in the way I'll go back and chop it the rest of the way off.  Hey, it's hair-- it grows back.

Once Jer got home, we decided to take load the little guy up and go out for a night on the town.  We drove up to Kent and walked around in a nice shopping district we hadn't browsed before, and then stopped in a chowder house for dinner.  Connor did extremely well, especially considering that I'd dragged him all over the mall earlier in the day.

He also managed to figure out how to get his poncho off this morning, to many, many giggles.  That was pretty exciting, because it's a new skill for him!  Of course, then he refused to keep it on.  Then when I tried putting it on him this afternoon to see if he'd take it off again, he completely refused to cooperate.  So we'll see if he figures out how to do it again.

I also did some work out in the garden today; I figured that even if I couldn't pick up and move the turf out there I could still break it up and then Jer could move it for me this weekend.  Hopefully as long as I wasn't touching it I wouldn't have a major reaction.  It seemed to work out okay, though I hit a snag when I discovered a couple of sprinkler lines (complete with heads buried three inches down and completely grown over with grass) that I'll need to cut out.  Our sprinkler system was in such terrible shape when we moved in that we went ahead and removed the backflow assembly, disconnecting the whole mess from our water supply.  If we ever decide that we need sprinklers in our yard we'd end up needing to put a new system in anyway since we're changing the shape of most of the flower beds anyway. 

We don't really need a sprinkler system here, though, so I don't know if we'll ever put it back in.  It sort of rains a lot.

~Jess

In Which Connor Goes To The Neurologist

Connor and I drove up to Seattle today for his quarterly neurologist appointment.  It was actually a great appointment, and I don't say that often about neurology appointments.  That's because usually we go up and tell the neurologist that Connor's seizures have been getting worse.

But for the first time in a long, long time, we could give him a good report!

Since we found out that Connor has anhidrosis (a.k.a. he doesn't sweat) and have started taking precautions to make sure that he doesn't overheat, we've seen a dramatic downturn in the number and severity of his seizures.  Now other than periods in which he's sick and running a fever-- in which case we've just learned to expect tons of seizures-- he's averaging one about every three weeks, which is better than we've seen in well over a year!  As a consequence, not only is Connor feeling much better, but he's been communicating much more and regaining skills we haven't seen in a long time. 

Also the progression of the neurological damage Connor's seizures inflict on his body, like the tremors, has slowed way, way down.  Of course the damage already done probably won't reverse, so the clonus and hyperactive reflexes he already has are probably here to stay.  But he's still young and the human brain is remarkably resilient, so if we can keep his seizures down to this sort of manageable level and do our best to keep him from getting sick, there's no telling what kind of strides he could make in the next few years!

After Connor's appointment we headed straight over to the lab, where Connor got his blood drawn to check his medication levels and also to see what the protein and creatinine levels-- indicators of his kidney function-- are looking like.   

Luckily the blood draw didn't take long and was pretty much painless for Connor, since we were lucky enough to come in when Hector The Wonder Phlebotomist was working.  I swear that man is magic-- Connor doesn't even flinch when he puts the needle in, and he gets it right dang near the first time every try.  We should find the creatinine and protein level results out some time in the next couple of weeks; keep your fingers crossed that those levels will have gone down, which would be an indicator that his kidney is doing its job and isn't in trouble.

So after that we walked around the shopping center down the street from the hospital, picked up a reward book at the in-resident toy store, grabbed a bite to eat, stopped in the chocolate shop for some goodies and then headed home. 

We'll see the neurologist again in September, unless we have something important come up before then.  I hope that appointment goes as well as this one did!

~Jess

In Which We Go Play In The Stumpery

Today it cooled off enough that we could venture outdoors, so Connor and I went for an adventure!  I've wanted to go visit the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden and the adjacent bonsai garden in Federal Way since I heard about them several years ago, but this is the first time I've actually managed to venture out.  It's about a twenty acre park, and while most of the rhododendrons were finished blooming for the year we got there at the perfect time to see the blue poppy meadow blooming.  I didn't even know such a thing as a blue poppy existed, but they are gorgeous!  I think we'll go again next week, and take the camera this time so if they're still open I can get a few good shots for you.  The garden was full of gravel paths and not terribly accessible, I'm sad to say, but I was able to maneuver the little guy's wheelchair pretty much everywhere except the alpine garden, where the paths were just too steep.

The azalea garden was also gorgeous, and there were plenty of other really neat plants to look at-- including all of the ferns in the Victorian Stumpery, which has to be the best name for a giant pile of stumps and ferns ever.  I have a couple of stumps in my yard and I think I'm going to call them a stumpery just so I can say that word all of the time.  Stumpery stumpery stumpery!  Whee!

Anyway, so we had a great time walking around the garden and looking at the stumpery and whatnot, and of course I had to pick up a couple of plants at the attached nursery because it's physically impossible for me to visit some place selling plants without picking up at least one.  Then we drove back towards the house, stopping off at the cheese shop and the bakery and the library on the way. 

I think the little guy will sleep pretty well tonight!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Cooped Up

It's been a week of late nights for me; last night I didn't get home from derby practice until almost 11:30pm, and tomorrow I have a scrimmage that will put me getting home at around 12:30.  Even with that schedule I'm still getting way, way more sleep than I've gotten used to.  It's amazing what a difference it makes!

So I spent today getting some of Connor's medical paperwork squared away, catching up on laundry and, of course, gardening.  I tried digging out some more of the patio area but only got another foot into it before I started sneezing and itching again, so I switched gears and worked on planting out some of the pots on my deck.  It looks like it's probably going to be a bad idea for me to keep handling the grass since the hives are coming on much faster, so Jer is going to finish out the patio for me this weekend, because he is awesome like that.

Connor was in a bit of a mood today; he actually ended up taking two naps today-- the second one after he had a massive meltdown.  I think it's a combination of the heat outside and his teeth that's making him crabby.  We're being really careful to make sure he doesn't spend a lot of time outside, and so far he hasn't had any seizures, so that's good.  I think he's tired of being cooped up, though.  Thankfully it's supposed to be much cooler tomorrow and we'll be back to our glorious 60 degree weather by Friday, so it will be comfortable again for him and he'll be able to spend some time outdoors.

I think he's ready to get back outside and play!

~Jess

In Which Connor Has A Gap In His Grin And It's Hot Around Here

Connor lost another tooth today!

This is his third lost tooth, and it hung on forever-- it's been loose for about five months.  It's one of the bottom lateral incisors, so you can't really see it unless he opens hims mouth really wide.  He's been sticking his fingers in there all day to feel the gap, though; I don't think he quite knows what to make of it!

He spent the day indoors today because it was too hot outside for him; temperatures got up to 80 degrees.  We don't have an air conditioner installed in the house yet (believe me it's on the list) but we've got a temperature gauge in Connor's room that alarms if it gets warmer than 75 degrees in there, and we're setting up a fan in his room tonight.  If this weather continues he and I are going to be spending some long hours at the mall; we're not supposed to get any rain for another week and a half.  Evidently Washington decided to skip spring entirely and plunge headlong into summer. 

The cats have been enjoying the weather because it means that all of the windows and the sliding door are open, and they can sit six inches away from them and pretend they can actually reach all those squirrels and birds on the other side of the screen, but are choosing to let them go because they are too lofty and dignified for that sort of thing.  Or at least that's what Cricket it doing.  I suspect that one of these days Loki is going to get a little too fired up and we'll be replacing one of our screens. 

I did a little planting outside while Connor was at school, but I didn't work on the patio because mowing the lawn gave me a glorious case of hives and I figured I probably shouldn't push it.  If this keeps up I may have to make Jer finish out the yard.  It's getting kind of ridiculous.

~Jess

In Which I Have A Lovely, Lumpy Mother's Day

Forgive me if this is a little disjointed tonight, but I'm on a pretty good dose of Benedryl right now so I'm a little wonky.  Turns out that I'm allergic to grass, which is a fantastic thing to discover when you are digging up a 225 square foot area of lawn. 

I'd actually forgotten that I was allergic to grass because it's been so long since I've had a reaction to it.  I used to have major problems with it when I was in high school and running cross country, but then I quit running ten mile races through freshly mown fields and the problem resolved itself; I figured I'd just outgrown the issue.  However, judging by the glorious crop of hives I've been sporting across my arms and torso today I seem to have resensitized myself to it over the past few days.  So it looks like I'll be digging out the last 60 feet of sod in full length gloves and long sleeves.  Hooray!

This is yet one more reason for me to get rid of all the grass in my yard.  Obviously the grass has it in for me.

Oh, and happy Mother's Day to all of you!  That's right-- it is Mother's Day, isn't it?  I probably should have talked about that first.  I'm telling you, Benedryl does a real number on me.  Anyway, Jeremy and Connor brought me breakfast, and Jer planted three rose bushes and a fatsia plant for me in the garden, which was exactly what I asked for.  Connor made me a beautiful butterfly picture at school-- his painted footprints are the wings.  It's going in a place of honor on the built-in shelves by my bed.  Oh, and I got out of the house for a little while, wandered around yet another plant nursery, and later sat and read a book while nursing a Thai iced tea.  Bliss!

So it was a great Mother's Day, other than the whole breaking-out-in-hives thing.  I hope you all had a lovely one too!

~Jess

In Which I Pick Up A Bathtub And Work Outside Some More

It's a bathtub.  It's pink.  What more can I say?

The patio is about halfway finished now; I didn't get as much done today as I was expecting because I got lost going to Renton to pick up a pink bathtub.  Oh, and also a sink, though that was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.  I'm using them for a later garden project that I'll tell you more about later, because I like being all mysterious and stuff and also because if it doesn't work out I can just pretend that the whole bathtub thing never happened. 

Oh, and also it got really hot outside, so I didn't want to work outside in the afternoon.  And by really hot, I mean 77 degrees.  I'll wait until you all you people in Texas stop laughing before I continue.

Anyway, so I mostly worked on the yard in the evening, because before the whole getting-lost-while-finding-a-bathtub thing I went to the farmer's market with Jer and Connor.  Because of the sunny weather the market was extremely busy, but we still managed to putter around and find what we needed.  Jeremy was pretty excited to discover a new microroaster had set up shop at the market who was willing to sell him unroasted coffee beans.  He's always looking for new coffee bean sources. 

I had fun looking at all the lovely plants, though I don't want to get anything until I'm done with the patio, because I have enough to do out in the yard right now as it is!  Connor enjoyed looking at the flowers too, and he also really seemed to enjoy listening to the street musicians and watching the many, many dogs that were out and about.

So tomorrow I'm getting up bright and early because I'd like to get as far as possible on the patio this weekend!  Except it's supposed to get to 80 degrees tomorrow, so I'll probably take a nice long break in the middle of the day.  It's going to be a scorcher!

~Jess

In Which I Dig A Whole Lot And Connor Is A Big Boy

I've had a ton more energy since I've actually had the chance to start sleeping this week.  Instead of doing something productive, like cleaning the house, I'm using it to dig a huge hole in the middle of my backyard.

Yes, it's the season for the Gardening Bug, which hits me every year right around this time.  Right now I'm digging the hole for what will eventually be our new patio.  I thought it was going to take me most of the summer to get this thing done, but it's going much, much faster than expected. 

I think I was basing this on how long it took us to get the deck done, but I'd forgotten that we had to dig the deck down as far as three feet or more in places to make it level, and I'm only digging down about four to six inches, depending on which part of the yard I'm in.  Also half the deck was in an area only about ten feet away from a couple of the neighbors' maple trees, and so was nothing but a giant web of tree roots.  The patio is in the middle of the yard and is blissfully tree root free. 

So in the past three days I've managed to dig out a little less than a third of the patio, mostly by working on it while Connor is in school because for some reason the little guy doesn't find watching me shovel a whole bunch of dirt to be particularly entertaining.  He gets this very concerned look on his face as he watches me work; I think he's wondering whether or not I've completely lost it and if maybe I should go lie down or something.

The birds also seem to think I'm insane, but they also seem to find it highly entertaining, as they've started congregating in ever-increasing numbers on the tree a few feet away from where I'm working.  Every time I take a wheelbarrow of turf over to the area where I'm piling it up (more on that project later) they fly down to see what kind of tasty bugs have been exposed in the area I just dug.  There's one chickadee who doesn't even bother waiting for me to move; he flies down and starts picking things straight out of the wheelbarrow.  Today he narrowly avoided being crushed on a couple of occasions because he didn't want to move out of the way for the next load.  Cheeky little thing.

So besides the hour or so I've worked on it while Connor was in school today and yesterday, I also spent some time out there this afternoon since Jer got off of work a little early.  That way Connor could hang out with him inside and do infinitely cooler things than watching me dig a giant hole-- like watching YouTube videos of people falling down in funny ways and He-Man lip synching terrible songs from the 1970s.  There he is applauding He-Man's performance.  Jeremy is ruining Connor's musical tastes. 

I swear Connor looks more like his daddy every year.  I mean, they have the exact same ears.  I totally didn't realize that until I looked at this picture.  Also that kid is getting way, way too big.  I'm going to have to tie a brick to his head or something.  He's cutting his six-year molars right now and I'm pretty sure next month he's going to be driving the car. 

Slow down, kid!

~Jess

In Which I Talk About Bruises And Go For A Ride

So last night in derby I somehow managed to fall down on my left knee somewhere around eight thousand times. 

Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration, but it was a whole lot of times.  I know this because not only was my knee feeling not so great by the end of the scrimmage, but today I have a glorious six inch long (I measured it with my tape measure for historical accuracy) strip of bruises that run all down the inside of my knee.  I'm so talented in my falling that I apparently managed to hit the ground in a such a way that all of the small bruises overlap together into one giant colorful mess.  It looks like I got attacked by a toddler with a bingo dauber.

So I tried taking a picture for you all so that you can see the bruises in all of their glory, but as it turns out it is impossible for me to take a flattering picture of my knee, even if it wasn't covered in bruises and sort of swollen and stuff.  Knees are not a terribly attractive part of the body, and the angle necessary to capture the bruises totally makes my leg look fat.  Also it would probably help if I'd shaved some time in the last week.

But I took a picture (a still sort-of-fuzzy picture, because I'm not a photographer, okay?) and posted it here anyway because I love all of you so much that I would even post unflattering pictures of my weird looking knee on the Internet for you.  Okay, so also I want to show off my bruises.  I don't bruise very easily at all and most of the time they only last a day or two, so then when I talk about them it sounds like one of those The Fish That Got Away stories (no really, guys-- it was this big!) and then I just feel like a hypochondriac.  But I can't post pictures of most of my bruises as proof because I have a tendency to fall back instead of forward so I land on an area with more, um, natural padding, and as much as I love all of you I draw the line at posting pictures of my butt on the Internet.  Even if it has a really, really awesome bruise on it. 

Oh, and as an aside, Jeremy wandered in while I was taking eight thousand pictures of my knee while holding my camera over my head (it's really, really hard to get an unfuzzy close-up picture of your knee without having to hold the camera over your head) and he didn't even ask me what I was doing.  Because around here, apparently that sort of thing is totally normal.  I suspect he's kind of jaded after the time he walked in and I was standing on a kitchen chair with a camera in one hand and a broom in the other, trying to take an in-focus picture of one of the Christmas stockings I'd made while fending off Loki, who was determined to eat it.  The man has a lot of patience with me.

Anyway, the bruises look bad but I'm 99% sure there's no structural damage to my knee, and I heal really quickly so it should be fine in a couple of days.  However, I figured that since I couldn't get my knee pad on it would probably be in my best interest not to go to derby practice tonight.  Instead, I went to the YMCA to do a cardio workout.  They put in these new bike machines a while ago that I had yet to try, so I figured I'd give one of them a shot.

These are the bike machines that have a giant monitor and what looks like a biking video game running, and you can race other little biker people through various landscapes.  There's a pacer, who looks like exactly all the other bikers except he's in a yellow jacket and you're supposed to match his speed.  I decided, because I have questionable judgement, that a nice 8.33 mile course through hilly terrain would be just the thing.  I based this upon the fact that they had a picture of a castle on the course description, and I like castles.  In case you were wondering, this is probably not a good way to choose an exercise regime.

So things didn't start out very well for me because I had the pedals set too low in the beginning and I had to stop and adjust them up, and the pacer totally didn't stop and wait for me or anything, probably because he's a jerk.  Also I swear he cheated and started the race before me.  I have a competitive streak a mile wide, and so even though he was about three minutes ahead of me and also isn't actually a real person I was determined to catch up.  So basically I started out my eight mile ride at a sprint. 

Eventually I had to slow down when the machine started beeping at me, because apparently for some reason it doesn't like it when your heart rate goes over 200 beats per minute.  To make it shut up I settled into a nice pace where I was slowly gaining on that jerk pacer, who I could barely see in front of me on the road.  About halfway through the race I was only ten seconds behind him, but for some reason the pedals were getting harder and harder to push.  I couldn't figure out what the heck was wrong with me because it wasn't simulating a hill or anything, so I thought that maybe it just wasn't going to let me catch up to the pacer or something. 

That's when I realized that I kept accidentally hitting the gear shift with my thumb and so I kept shifting up until I was trying to ride the bike at maximum resistance, which would explain why I was practically having to stand on the pedals to get them to go down.  Whoops.

So when I passed the pacer I may or may not have let out a small victory whoop, which probably wouldn't have been noticed at all if there hadn't been people trying to bike on either side of me who for some unknown reason kept giving me sidelong glances.  I got the sense that if they could have made their stationary bikes edge away slowly without having to physically pick them up off the floor, they would have been doing that.  I mean yeah, I was beet red, covered in bruises, standing on the bike pedals, had sweat pouring off of me and was mumbling under my breath about how I was going to "totally own that jerk pacer," but that's no reason to stare or anything. 

Oh, and did I mention that thanks to derby the places that I sweat most are where my pads normally sit, so any time I work out I have sweat pouring off my scalp, hands, elbows and knees?  It's really attractive.  I didn't even know your elbows could sweat until I joined derby.  It's just one of the many wonderful things this sport has taught me.

So anyway, by the end of the race I was not only completely exhausted and disappointed by the lackluster castles, which you couldn't even ride through and didn't have a single nice trebuchet or guillotine or anything to make up for it, but I also had managed to convince the people on either side of me that I might possibly be a sweaty, deranged lunatic.  Also in retrospect when you're trying to go easy on your knee, doing four miles out of an eight mile bike ride at maximum, stand-up-on-the-pedals resistance is probably not the best way to go about it.  Ow.

But I beat that pacer by a minute and fifty seconds, dang it.  So there.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Welcome Visitor

Today was another crazy busy day!  It included a trip to the hospital to drop off one of Connor's hearing aids for repairs, lunch with a couple of friends, yet another trip to the nursery and a whole lot of digging. 

Connor not only slept through the night, but he even slept in a bit this morning!  So I think he's getting used to having somebody in the room with him.  I'm wondering if he'll have some issues this weekend when all of the sudden somebody isn't in there; we'll just have to see how he weathers the transition.

Of course the little guy just started yelling at the top of his lungs, so maybe I spoke too soon.

While I was working out in the garden this afternoon I discovered to my delight a little green tree frog sunning himself right next to my frog statue in the herb garden.  This is the first tree frog I've seen at this house, and spotting the little guy made me really happy because it means that the garden is starting to be able to support wildlife. 

When we first moved in the backyard was practically deserted-- probably because the only vegetation was some overgrown bushes and a couple of trees, there weren't really any flowers, water sources or sheltered places for hiding, and it was obvious by the number of chemicals we found in the garage that the folks who lived here before us favored the "kill everything" strategy of weed and pest control. 

So that adorable little green peeper is a great sign that the garden is starting to support a healthy ecosystem again.  I've also seen at least three times the number of bees in the garden than I did last year, our bird population is booming and the butterflies are making regular visits.  Our mason bees have been busy filling up the nesting tubes, and quite a few of them are sporting little mud plugs at the ends now.  I think next year I'll probably expand to a bigger bee house! 

~Jess

In Which I Start Another Crazy Garden Project

The white noise machine worked like a charm!  I was out within twenty minutes.  Clearly what works on more than 90% of crying babies also works on me. 

Today was yet another gorgeous day in the run of gorgeous days we've been having; looks like spring finally decided to go ahead and show up.  It's about time!  I took advantage of the weather and spent the time Connor was in school prepping for and getting started on my latest project out in the garden: our paver patio.  This will be a 15'x15' area that will attach to the main ramp and stairway coming off the deck into our backyard.  I'm going to take a chance and try out a brand new product that I think might work really, really well for both Jeremy and Ellen's legs and Connor's wheelchair: recycled rubber pavers. 

I'm really, really excited about these-- I'd looked into the possibility of using rubber surfacing before, but this is the first product I've seen that lends itself to a DIY project.  They mimic the look of terracotta tile, but they should give us the same sort of forgiving, wheelchair-friendly surface they use in inclusive playgrounds like our beloved Bradley Lake Park. 

They're a little bit pricey, but there are a couple of mitigating factors that bring them down to my budget.  I don't have to buy as much gravel or sand as I would with typical pavers, we're using the fill dirt elsewhere in the garden for another project, and I'm doing all the work myself.  So in the end they should work out to about the same price as regular cement pavers would be to install if we had to pay someone to haul the dirt away (which we would, if we were excavating seven inches down instead of four since there's a limit to the number of hills I can make in my yard without screwing up the grade and ruining my foundation) and had to buy a lot more sand and gravel.  Also having a surface that the whole family can enjoy without trouble will go a long, long way towards justifying the cost.

It will probably take me most of the summer to excavate the area since I'm doing it by hand, so this will be another one of those slow projects like our deck.  Hopefully in a year or two, though, we'll have a great looking patio!

~Jess

In Which I Have Night Nursing And It Is Awesome, Even If It Did Not Go Exactly As I Had Planned

Hooray for night nursing!

My first night of blissful sleep didn't go quite how I anticipated it would, though.  I had a bit of an altercation going on between my the rational part of my brain and the irrational part-- you know, the one that takes over riiiiiiiiiiight before you go to sleep.  Here's how the basic dialogue played out:

Rational Brain: Whoo hoo!  Time to get some shut eye.  Good night!
Irrational Brain: Okay!
      Five minutes go by and I'm almost asleep.
Irrational Brain: Hmm.  Something's missing.  Connor seems to be really, really quiet.  A little too quiet.  I can't hear his monitor at all.  Oh no-- I must have forgotten to turn it on!  And because I forgot to turn it on, maybe he had a seizure and I didn't hear him and now he's dead or something OMG CONNOR IS PROBABLY DEAD RED ALERT AAAHHHHHH!!!!!
      Cue huge adrenaline rush. 
Rational Brain: AHHHH-- wait, what?  No, we have a night nurse now, remember?  She's got the apnea monitor in the other room, so that's why you can't hear it.  Quit freaking out and go to bed.
Irrational Brain: Oh yeah.  Whoops.
      Repeat five hundred times or until three in the morning-- whichever comes first.

So that was pretty much how my night went, though my brain did throw in the occasional "Holy Crap There's Someone In The House And It's Probably A Burgler Who Will Try And Kill Us All" for variety.  Obviously six years of sleeping with one ear listening out for Connor's apnea alarm aren't going to be instantly erased.  What sleep I did get was pretty darn refreshing though, so I'm hoping to get more of it tonight! 

With that thought in mind, I went out today and bought myself a white noise machine.  The only place I could find one without having to wait for it to be shipped was in the infant section in Target, and there I discovered a number of choices, including a teddy bear and a turtle that lit up the ceiling with constellations.  I settled on a contraption called "Sounds For Silence" that claims it has "more than a 90% success rate at calming crying babies."  While this sounds very impressive and it will be an added bonus if we ever decide to collect crying babies for some reason, the real reason it won me over was because it had the excellent feature of being a bland white disk instead of being teddy bear or turtle shaped. 

I'll let you know how it works out.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Night Nurse And I Play In The Garden

The latest spur-of-the-moment purchase: I shall call him Fred.

Tonight will be the first time we have our night nursing!!  You just have to picture that every time the phrase "night nursing" is said, it's in a crazy opera voice with jazz hands and an accompaining happy dance to emphasize just how awesome it is.  Also perhaps there should be fireworks and/or a choir of angels.  You get the picture.

Anyway, because of the night nursing today was going to be awesome regardless of what I did, but it turns out it was a pretty great day anyway.  The sun came out and it was one of those perfect spring days where it's just warm enough to feel good but not too hot to be outside for long periods of time.  While the boys hung out together I took a trip to the nursery and bought a couple of things I was actually looking for and a few spur of the moment things.  I am not exactly a meticulous planner when it comes to gardening-- my gardens always end up crammed full of spur-of-the-moment purchases. 

Once I got home, I took Connor's floor positioner out onto the deck and he hung out there in the shade and serenaded the neighborhood with a mixing bowl and wooden spoon while I played in the dirt for a while.  It was a very satisfying afternoon for both of us.

So I started filling in a few more beds, and very very slowly the garden is started to look less neglected and more like somebody actually has done some work out there.  It will still be a couple more years at the earliest before the beds that are close to finished really fill out and look mature, and I've got a ton of space I haven't even started playing with yet, but it's coming!  Luckily we're probably going to stay in this house forever, so I have plenty of time to make the outside look good. 

Anyway I'd better wrap this up, because even though Connor is still awake and very, very screamy, the night nurse just got here so it's time for sweet, blissful sleep! 

~Jess

In Which I Have A Bout And A Busy Day

Connor got to come to his first bout of the season this year; we didn't have respite care for the bout this time and since he's been doing so much better with loud noises we thought we'd try it again.  Last season we tried taking him to a couple of bouts, but after the first twenty minutes or so he completely freaked out and we had to take him home.  This time he made it through not only my bout, but the bout afterwards too!  Of course we left his hearing aids out, because that would have been way, way too much stimulation and he wouldn't have been able to hear anything in there anyway.  But it ended up working out well, and I think he had a good time. 

That's my big boy.

So we won, and I didn't break my arms or legs or anything, so that was pretty great.  And the little guy is actually asleep right now, so that's an added bonus.  Maybe we'll take him to the next one too!

Other things I did today included stopping by the farmer's market (I didn't realize it had started up again this year until I drove past it-- I just thought the traffic was really bad), attending a baby shower and spending quite a bit of time sprucing up the garden out back.  I'm very, very slowly filling in the flower beds foot by foot.  In about fifteen years or so, maybe I'll be done!

~Jess

In Which I Get Some Sleep And Things Are Looking Up

I'm feeling much, much better today.  It's amazing what a full night's sleep can do to improve your higher brain function.  Oh, and also once Jer got home today I took a three hour nap, and he's staying up with the little guy tonight.  Because he's awesome.

We got an apnea monitor for Connor with a video display in preparation for our night nursing starting up this weekend; that way she doesn't have to sit in a dark room with him for eight hours a night.  This thing does everything except wash our dishes; it has a thermostat (with an alarm if the temperature in his room gets too cold or hot), a night light, night vision, and a two-way communication button so we can talk to him from the living room.  The night vision on the monitor is pretty creepy, though-- Connor's eyeballs reflect the light in really weird ways-- they end up black jet with silver pupils.  Jer immediately started calling him our "demon child."  It's pretty crazy looking.

Jer seems to be feeling better, which is great, and somehow so far I've managed to miss this bug entirely.  That's a very good thing because I have a roller derby bout tomorrow and I need to be in top form.  Good thing I'm getting some sleep tonight!

~Jess

In Which Connor Pulls An All-Nighter And My Brain Is Fried

Forgive me if this is a little disjointed.  I'm having a bit of a problem with things like spelling and higher brain function right now.

Connor decided to pull an all-nighter last night.  Not only that, but this was the super happy, screamy hyper type of all-nighter in which he emits ear-piercing shrieks every five minutes.  I took the monitor out into the living room so that Jeremy could get some sleep, and spent the night sitting on the couch watching bad romantic comedies on DVD, drinking obscene amounts of tea and fantasizing about how great it's going to be to have a night nurse. 

Finally about six in the morning I went in and woke up Jer so I could get an hour or two of sleep before he had to go in to work.  Connor continued to be his screamy, chipper self.  Obviously this was not going to be a good day for me to operate any heavy machinery or make big life decisions.  Luckily Jeremy ended up coming back home so I was able to go back to bed and nap for a while, so at least I wasn't going to be a danger to myself and the little guy.  I've learned to function (sort of) on two or three hours of sleep a night, but all-nighters are a little extreme for me; especially after a couple of days of Connor being sick.

Unbelievably, he's still awake right now, which means that he's now gone about thirty-eight hours straight without sleep.  At least he didn't have any seizures today.

I stayed home from derby practice, because driving thirty-five minutes away at night in a rain storm on less than two hours of sleep is probably a really bad idea-- not to mention the fact that I'd probably be a hazard on skates. 

Thankfully these complete insomnia sorts of days are few and far between.  Once we've got a nurse I'll have a lot of catching up on sleep to do. 

~Jess

In Which Both Of The Boys Are Feeling Under The Weather

So now both of my guys are sick; Jeremy started feeling under the weather at work today and ended up coming home early.  Connor had seven seizures today and spent most of his time curled up on my chest while Jer snoozed in our bedroom.  I feel fine, though I haven't left the house in two days and have run dangerously low on chocolate.

Connor perked up later in the evening; his fever had disappeared by bedtime and now that he's supposed to be sleeping he's depressingly loud and chipper.  I have the feeling that tonight will be a late night for me.  Luckily we've got our home nursing starting up soon! 

~Jess

In Which Connor Is Still Sick And We Have A Nurse

When I checked Connor's temperature this morning it was at 100.2, which wouldn't count as a fever in any other kid but of course for him means tons of seizures.  So he stayed home sick today from school and we dosed him with Tylenol every four hours.

He had eight seizures today, which was slightly better than yesterday but still not great.  Other than the fever he doesn't seem to have any congestion, which makes me wonder if he's got the same bug that I had a little while ago.  I had a fever, sore throat and a bad headache, though it turned out that it was a virus and not strep throat.  The little was really, really quiet today and he spent a lot of time sleeping.  Luckily most of the seizures seemed to be pretty quick and mild today; we hardly had to use his oxygen.  If he's going to be having a ton of seizures I'd much prefer them to be quick ones. 

Hopefully all that sleep will help him mend quickly and he can get back to feeling better. 

The nursing company was here during three of those seizures; they came to do our intake paperwork this afternoon.  We've been assigned a nurse, and we'll meet her on Friday.  We'll have our first night nursing on Sunday!  It's going to be a little strange having someone else in the house overnight, but I'm sure we'll adjust quickly.  Connor, who usually freaks out a bit about having strangers in the house, didn't seem to care one way or the other today.  He was obviously feeling under the weather. 

We'll be doing a few things to prepare for the nurse, such as moving Connor's medications out of our bedroom, putting a chair in his room for her to sit in and purchasing a video sensor monitor so that she doesn't have to constantly sit in his room in the dark.  Connor will have to do a little adjusting too; he's not used to having someone sitting in his room during the night, as I usually stay out in the living room when he's awake.  I've learned what a seizure sounds like over his apnea monitor, so I'm able to run in if need be.  Of course the nurse isn't going to know that right off the bat, so that's where the video monitor will come in handy. 

So Sunday will hopefully be the start of five nights a week of glorious sleep for me!  Provided, of course, that I can fall asleep without the monitor in the background.  I'm pretty used to the noise now.

I'm sure I'll manage.

~Jess