In Which We Do A Lot Of Stuff And Things

I'm afraid I may have to turn on that darn "weed out the spambots" button-- the spam is getting kind of ridiculous now and I have quite a bit less time to spend deleting it all, dang it.

We had an extremely busy week around here!  Connor went almost ten days without seizures, which was pretty exciting.  He had about a twenty second one yesterday and a fifteen second one today, so that trend may be over.  We'll see what tomorrow brings.

The little guy had a progress report done in physical therapy yesterday.  He's now able to straighten his legs about twenty more degrees than he could a few months ago, so that's some movement in the right direction!  Connor's hamstrings are still somewhat constricted-- he can extend his legs to a 150 degree angle rather than a 180 degrees-- but any improvement in his flexibility is fantastic.  With kids who sit in a wheelchair most of the time like Connor does, hamstring shortening tend to be inevitable and if they get bad enough children can need surgery to be comfortable.  So I'm glad we're keeping him as limber as we can!

Ellen had her second swim meet this past weekend; it was a two-day affair and she swam eight events total.  She did a fantastic job, and we're pretty proud of her!  She's told us that in Thailand she didn't get to swim in very many competitions each year and they were all against other children with disabilities, so she's not quite used to this swim-meet-with-typical-kids-every-couple-of-weeks thing yet.  She had a really good time, though she was pretty tired by the end of the weekend!  She's starting to open up more to the other kids and seems to be making some friends; it was pretty neat to see all the other kids cheering for her as she raced.

I had a meeting with her teachers today; I hadn't met most of them yet and this was a good time for a check-in.  We also wanted to get the ball rolling on a 504 plan for her, and talk a little bit with her teachers about how Ellen's education might be affected by cultural differences between Thailand and the USA, her cerebral palsy, long number of years in institutionalized care, and her adoption.  All of her teachers seemed very nice and they all had wonderful things to say about her-- she's is a very eager student.  She really seems to love school and is pretty enthusiastic about learning.

Tomorrow morning she and I have an appointment up at the rescue center to pick up a pair of guinea pigs!  Unfortunately the rescue is not wheelchair accessible, so Connor has to stay home.  But I'm sure the whole family will spend quite a bit of time staring into the guinea pigs' ridiculously huge cage (no seriously, this thing is HUGE) once we get them home.  Ellen and I set the cage up today, and so it's all ready for its new occupants.  She's decided that she wants a pair of boy guinea pigs, though she may change her mind once we get there and she has to choose.  We've been talking a lot about how the guinea pigs might be "feeling" after leaving all the other guinea pigs and coming to a new, strange family.  I think the guinea pigs are going to be a rather important tool for expressing emotions around here for a while!

~Jess