In Which Connor Has A Rough Day And We Have A Cheeky Visitor

We took it easy today; Connor had a pretty good sized seizure about five minutes into his stander time and spent most of the rest of the day dozing.  I think that other than the ones he has on the highway, seizures in his stander are my least favorite because I have to race to get his straps undone so I can lay him on his side before he has major aspiration issues.  Luckily he doesn't have them in the stander very often.

So I spent the day in the house, piddling around the kitchen and the living room while the kid snoozed away on the living room couch.  I made a big batch of papaya salad and ate almost all of it immediately because that stuff is delicious.  It's Ellen's favorite food, so once she's home I'll have to make a couple of batches at a time or between the two of us we'll go through it too quickly.  Unless she doesn't like the recipe I use, in which case, well, more for me. 

We probably won't be sharing with Jer because he mostly cooks his own food so he can track his caloric intake.  He's into powerlifting in a major way now, and in order to be able to lift more weight but still be able to pass the army physical fitness test he goes through bulking and cutting cycles.  This lets him build more muscle but not put on a lot of extra fat.  He's got it down to a science, so I've learned to let him do his own thing-- as hard as it is to turn my Feed People gene off. 

Since Connor gets most of his nutrition through his g-tube I usually end up cooking just for me, and I find that a lot harder to do, for whatever reason.  So it will be nice to have someone to make meals for! 

I was worried that with all the sleeping he did today Connor would be up until the wee hours of the morning, but he actually crashed shortly after I put him down and (knock on wood) it looks like he'll probably sleep through the night.  Since he was completely out, I took the monitor outside with me and sat on the porch for a little bit with a cup of tea.  It's light outside until past nine in the evening this time of year, so it was still a couple of hours before sunset.

I sat out there long enough for the wildlife to forget about me, and I was delighted to see my first chipmunk in the garden!  He spent quite a bit of time at my profusely blooming rose bush, and it didn't take long to figure out why.  He would stand up on his hind legs and reach as high as he could to snag buds, delicately nip them off at the stem and then sit back to nibble them down to nothing but the golden centers.  I didn't begrudge him a few as the plant was loaded with more than he could possibly eat, and it didn't hurt that he was so ridiculously cute to watch.  After he'd eaten his fill he scampered off, holding his tail straight up in the air behind him like a bushy exclamation point.

I hope I see him again as he was very fun to watch, but my house is a favorite hangout for our local barred owl (I heard him out in our big tree at dusk) so that chipmunk is living dangerously if he decides to spend very much time over in my neck of the woods!

~Jess