In Which We Have A Good Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all you awesome dads out there! 

Jer had a nice, quiet Father's Day, which is what he asked for.  He slept in, I brought him some breakfast and coffee, and then most of the day was spent lounging around.  This was good, because I was seriously sore after last night's bout.  I swear I managed to bounce every part of my body off the floor at least once-- at least that's what it feels like!  So it was nice that Jer wanted to have a quiet day anyway.  Connor thoroughly enjoyed his daddy time-- I'm lucky to have married such a great guy. 

Connor had one seizure today; he's been a bit congested so we're wondering if he's starting to get sick.  We'll keep a close eye on him and see how he's feeling tomorrow.  I'd hate for him to miss his last day of school, so hopefully he'll be doing better in the morning.  He's been grinding his teeth like crazy, so Jer picked him up a small mouth guard today.  It took Connor all of two minutes to figure out how to get that thing out of his mouth, so I don't know that it will do us a whole lot of good.  So I'll probably be calling up the little guy's dentist next week and we'll see about going in and getting something that's custom fit for him.  Oh boy!

~Jess 

In Which Connor Catches A Bug And I Fret About Leaving

I'm feeling a little bit better today, which is great.  Connor, however, is not.  We started out the morning running errands, but I had to cut them short and take him home because he started looking more and more droopy.  I figured this was because he stayed up until three in the morning, but then he started having a bunch of seizures and spiked a fever.  He had nine today and at one point was running a 102 degree fever while on Tylenol.  So I guess I shared whatever crud I had with him, and considering how hard it hit me this is not a good thing.  He spent literally the entire day either having a seizure or sleeping with his covers pulled up half over his eyes and a death grip on his favorite stuffed animal.  Poor little guy.

I'm leaving for Montana tomorrow night, so Jer will be nursing him through this one.  He's a great dad and knows just how to take care of the little guy, so I'll only freak out and call him once an hour or so to see how they're doing.  I've never been that far away before when Connor is sick, so I'll probably be a nervous wreck and worrying about him every second even though I know Jer has things covered.  That's part of being a mom, I guess.

I hope he's feeling well enough by Friday to venture outside and watch his annual Personal Parade-- the high school marching band always practices on our street the day before the Daffodil Parade in town, and Connor believes that they are performing especially for him.  They usually stop and play in front of our house, and he applauds wildly for all of them.  I'm sure he'd hate to miss them, so hopefully he'll be up for the event! 

Since it happens on a Friday, he's never gotten the chance to share the parade with his daddy.  I think they'd have a pretty good time together, especially since Jer was in the marching band in high school and college.  He played tuba.  I sort of wish he still had a tuba, because I think Connor would find listening to his daddy play to be tremendous amounts of fun.

Of course, I have no idea where we'd keep the thing.  Tubas are not exactly something you can stick on a shelf in your closet.  So perhaps it's for the best!

~Jess

In Which I Bout Banked And Loki Has An Adventure Of His Own

I survived the banked track!  And I didn't break anything!  And also it was a ton of fun!

So the bout ended up being pretty close-- the final score was Killer Bs 184, Dockyard 150.  I'm not entirely sure how many lead changes there were, but we seesawed back and forth quite a bit, so it was probably a pretty exciting bout to watch.  It certainly was exciting to play!  I'll have some new bruises, but didn't end up with any major trauma. 

Jer wasn't able to make it to this bout because we didn't have respite care for the little guy and the bout was over an hour away, making it a pretty long trip for Connor.  So he took advantage of the lovely day and drove down to a local park for a long walk, just the two of them.  They weren't the only ones who wanted to enjoy a day outdoors, though-- Loki ran outside as Jer was bringing the wheelchair back into the house, and Jeremy was preoccupied with maneuvering the chair over the threshold and didn't notice.

So I got home around 11:00pm from the bout and was in the kitchen eating dinner when I started hearing this really pathetic meow.  It sounded like Loki was stuck somewhere, which happens pretty often as he likes to dart into closets right before the door closes and manages to trap himself inside our Lazy Susan at least once a week.  I started wandering around the house looking for him and finally realized that the sound was coming from outside our front door.  I opened it up and there on the porch was a thoroughly miserable and very cold cat.  He'd apparently spent about seven hours out there, doing who knows what.  Given the sheer destructive tendencies he exhibits we're probably lucky there wasn't an international incident or something.  This is the Cat That Could Topple Nations, which is one of the reasons we don't let him outside. 

At any rate, Loki is now running around the house on a complete tear, making sure that every single thing in the entire house is in the exact same place where he left it.  Cricket, who is convinced that Loki disappeared and was replaced by a Stranger Cat, is slinking around after him, hissing whenever he gets within three feet of her and trying to prevent him from, I don't know, making off with the silver or something.  After venturing outdoors he is obviously a cat who is Not To Be Trusted. 

So all sorts of new adventures happened in this house today! 

Crazy cat.

~Jess

In Which We Have Father's Day And Jer Is Awesome

So today was Father's Day, of course, and Jeremy spent it being his usual amazing super-dad self.  I woke up feeling marginally better than yesterday but still pretty under the weather, so Jeremy declared it to be a Connor And Daddy Day and took off with the little guy so I could go back to bed. 

Yes, that's right-- it was Father's Day but I'm the one who got to sleep in.  Do I have a great husband or what?

Apparently they went to the park and played for a while, and then did a little shopping, ate lunch, and hung out at the bookstore and coffee shop.  Then they came home and Jeremy did some chores around the house and made a run to the landfill, thereby firmly cementing his Best Husband In The Universe title.  I mostly lazed around the house, but I started feeling a little better in the afternoon and did a little light housework and some gardening.  I'm going to take Jeremy out for a Father's Day dinner on Thursday when we have respite care to make up for being so under the weather today.

I see a whole lot of outdoorsy yard work in our future now that it's staying light outside past when Jeremy gets home from work.  I finished the arbor I was making a while ago and it's been leaning up against the side of the house waiting for post holes to be dug so we can cement it into place.  We've also got plans to put the second coat of stain on the deck and fence, resod the front lawn, weed and mulch all the beds. . . the list goes on.  We're getting someone to come in and finally take care of The Ivy That Ate Manhattan, which is still completely refusing to die no matter what I do to it and its buddies The Bindweed Of Jekyll Island and  Blackberry 9 From Outer Space.  I briefly considered renting a herd of goats to take care of it (yes, they actually do that up here) but I figured that we have a little too much ivy for goats to stomach.  So we'll have a crew come it and do it for us.  Eventually we'll get our wild yard tamed!

Other than a bit of a stuffy nose Connor is completely over being sick and hasn't had any seizures for a few days, which is really nice.  Jer is also feeling pretty much back to normal.  Now if only I can get over this bug we'll be good to go!

~Jess

In Which I Go To Canada

So tomorrow I'm headed up to Canada!  I'm having an overwhelming impulse to write "eh" at the end of all my sentences right now.  I'll try to restrain myself.

I've got a roller derby bout in Vancouver, BC so I'll be carpooling up there with some gals bright and early tomorrow morning.  I'm sad to say that even though we've been in Washington state for over four and a half years now, Jer and I have yet to explore anything north of the border in this area.  We've been up to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia a time or two, but that's literally on the other side of the continent.  So it was about time for a road trip!

Jer will have to wait another day to make his trip up because Connor is a a little young for an enhanced driver's license and doesn't have a passport yet.  So Jeremy and Connor will have a couple of Daddy Days while I'm off galavanting about with the ladies.  I wouldn't leave if the little guy was still being Seizy McSeizykin, but his medication change seems to have helped; he only had one today and seemed to be in much better spirits.  It would be just for my peace of mind if I did stay home anyway; Jeremy is an extremely competent parent and is just as effective at dealing with all of Connor's glorious medical emergencies as I am. 

Still, at some point we'll have to get Connor a passport and then we can all go up together and find some fun things to do, such as explore the Canadian health care system.  There are a whole bunch of emergency rooms we haven't toured yet up there! 

Oh, and we could go to the zoo and museums and whatnot too.  That would also be fun.

I'll be taking my trusty laptop with me but I'm not sure what kind of Internet I'll be able to find, so you may or may not see a blog here tomorrow depending on my access.  I'll be back by Sunday evening, so (if it was interrupted) your regularly scheduled programming will resume at that time.  I'm really excited about this trip-- I think it's going to be a blast. 

Wish me luck, eh?

~Jess

In Which Connor Has A Great Time With His Daddy

So apparently the boys had a nice, relaxing time while I was gone.  I don't think they even left the house except for a quick grocery run-- pretty sure they spent a good portion of the weekend with Connor snuggled up to Jer while he played World of Warcraft.  I'm not entirely sure Connor even noticed I was missing because he was so thrilled with all the time he got to spend with his daddy.  Guess who the favorite parent is around here?  I'll give you a hint-- it's not me.  I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that it's always Mommy who takes him to all of those appointments where they give him shots and draw blood and whatnot.  Mommies are bad about that kind of thing.

Connor did have a seizure Sunday and then another one today, so he's back on the Ativan.  I'm hoping we'll hear from the neurologist tomorrow about what exactly the game plan is going to be.  The little guy was in pretty good spirits today, but it was obvious the seizures are starting to take their toll on his body and he got exhausted in play pretty quickly.  I don't like the fact that these waves of seizures seem to be getting closer and closer together.  Obviously something needs to change.

Jeremy had the day off today so we got the chance to spend some quality time together, which was lovely.  Between his work schedule and my roller derby practices we're not seeing a whole lot of each other right now, so it was pretty nice to have a good chunk of quality time to spend with him.  And of course I had to spend some time making sure that Connor hadn't completely forgotten about me or anything, so he and I spent a few quality hours playing all sorts of fun games, like Superman and that one where you lift your kid way up over your head.  I'm pretty sure every parent plays that game.  It was one heck of an arm workout for me, but Connor loved it and we played it for quite a while.  Then he asked to go back to his daddy.

Figures.

~Jess

In Which Connor Is A Finger Painting Godzilla

Today I had a number of creative projects to work on, so that meant it was finger painting time for Connor! 

I usually like to try and break things down that way so we're doing the same sorts of activities.  If I'm cleaning, then I make sure he "helps" me fold laundry and put small things away in his toy bins.  If I'm cooking, then he's got a pot and a spoon to bang on it with or his wooden vegetables.  If I'm drawing, painting or sewing like today, then he's finger painting or staring at the playdough I insist on putting on his tray like it is a live snake and it will kill him. 

Usually I give him a choice between the two.  Guess which one he always picks?

Watching Connor finger painting is like observing a reenaction of Godzilla stomping through Tokyo.  He doesn't want to initially touch the paint so you have to put his hand down in it first, but once it's already on his fingers it's a whole different story.  Basically he winds up, slams a hand down on the paper and then yells at the top of his lungs for a second before picking it up and doing it again.  I don't try to talk to anyone on the phone while Connor is finger painting, because the combination of WHAM!!!  "AHHHH!!!" WHAM!!! "AHHHH!!!" in the background is kind of distracting while you're trying to hold a conversation. 

Then every minute or so he takes some time to shake all of the excess paint off his hands in an attempt to cover as much surface area in our house as possible in paint.  I use a drop cloth and his chair sits well away from our table and any other furniture while he is painting. 

And when he's tired of doing that, he simply wipes the excess paint on his face and hair.

So after Connor was done creating his masterpiece, he and Jeremy took a (much-needed on Connor's part) bath.  We have to fill the bathtub up before putting Connor in now, because for some unknown reason he's decided he's terrified of the faucet running and cries hysterically until you shut it off.  Otherwise he enjoys having a bath, though usually we use his shower chair instead.  He's heavy enough now that it's dangerous for me to try and give him a bath by myself.  Jer was off of work today because of the holiday, though, so they got to spend some time splashing in the tub together. 

We also changed out the little guy's g-tube today.  We get one with our feeding supplies once every three months, and we change them out at home.  It's really nice to not have to make a trip to the doctor to change them, and as long as we wait until his stomach is relatively empty it's not very messy, either.  There's a nasty bug going around right now, and so we're happy that we're able to avoid a trip into the doctors any time we can.  From past experience, I'd say one of the best places for Connor to pick up a nasty illness is at the doctor's office.

All in all it was a pretty good day!

~Jess

In Which Jer And Connor Have A Daddy Day, And I Work On The Deck

I had an awesomely productive day today.

It was mostly Jeremy and Connor free, though, because the guys went on a field trip together!  Connor doesn't get to go out with just his daddy very often, so he was pretty excited about it.  They spent the whole day together; they were gone from ten in the morning until five in the evening!  They started out at the Glass Museum (where they watched the artists make snakes out of glass!), wandered around downtown Tacoma for a while and found some lunch, and then drove back to Puyallup and saw Toy Story 3.  Or about two-thirds of Toy Story 3, anyway; apparently Connor got bored towards the end and started making way more noise than was movie-appropriate, so they ducked out early.  Oh well.  Then they finished up the day with some ice cream!  I'm so happy that the two of them got to spend some quality time out and about together, and Connor had a blast.

I spent most of the day either cleaning the house or working on the deck; Jake was here today and we mixed and poured the concrete for the front ramp landing.  Jake gave it a brush finish, which looks fantastic.  I'd never worked with concrete on this scale before, and after having now done one measly 8 foot by 4 foot ramp landing, I'm relatively sure I never, ever want to hand mix concrete for any larger projects.  The twenty-some-odd bags we had to mix for this were more than enough to make me sure I will have very sore shoulders tomorrow.  We'll be pouring the landing and sidewalk for the ramp that runs down the side of the house in a few weeks, and I'm pretty sure we'll be bringing in a truck for that, because there's no way my shoulders and back would be happy mixing up that amount of concrete.

We also planned out how high the benches on the deck will be set, and I spent some time this evening designing our paver patio that will go in next to the deck and calculating out costs and the number of pavers we'd need for the pattern I drew.  I believe the patio will be the next project after the deck is completely finished; we're just kind of working out way out into the yard.  I don't think the patio will be quite as intensive a project, though, because we'll be sand-setting the pavers instead of using concrete.  Most of the work will be digging out the area to lay the gravel, sand and pavers.  Which is more than enough work, believe me.

This thing is going to be so cool when it's finished.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Not So Great Father's Day

So today, as you no doubt all already know, was Father's Day.  Connor got his daddy two presents: a scone pan and a three-minute long seizure. 

One gift was slightly more well-received than the other.

The day started off well enough; after a leisurely brunch we headed down to the Meeker Days Festival, where we sat in a parking lot for a while waiting for the ran to let up and listening to The Vinyl Cafe on the radio.  When it became obvious that the nasty weather wasn't going to change any time soon, we decided that we'd rather spend the day somewhere dry.  So we drove up to a mall we hadn't explored and spent some quality time walking around together and browsing.

We stopped by a gourmet food/kitchen shop, where Connor helped pick out the first of his daddy's presents.  Then we looked at several different shoe stores for a good pair of Chuck Taylors or something similar for Jeremy.  Jer's gotten to the point where his feet are flexible enough that his tennis shoes aren't "challenging" him any more, so he wanted a good pair of fairly low-to-the-ground shoes that would help him continue to stretch out his feet and add to his flexibility.  We found a good pair at the third shoe store, and then decided to go find a late afternoon snack. 

Jeremy decided he wanted "breakfast for, um, snack" and so we drove to a local pancake joint, which is where Connor delivered his second, surprise gift of the day.  When I turned around in the front seat to grab my purse, I saw that Connor had a completely blank expression on his face and his head was down on his chest; a sure sign that he was having a seizure.  A quick hard rub to the bottom of his left foot (the place he is most sensitive to and defensive of) that garnered no reaction confirmed it.  We laid him down on the back seat of the van, started the timer, and hooked him up to oxygen.  His right leg started jerking rhythmically shortly thereafter.

He only stopped breathing for about ten seconds this time, thankfully, so that wasn't so bad.  What was a little more disturbing is that for about two minutes after the seizure was obviously over (he was breathing, making facial expressions, tracking with his eyes, etc) his whole left side from the neck down remained completely non-functional.  He could squeeze my hand with his right hand, and he'd jerk his right foot away from a tickle, but the left hand and foot were dead weight and didn't respond at all, and he showed no indication in facial expressions that he was even feeling me moving or tickling them.  This is new, and was more than a little disturbing at the time, though I've since done my homework and, while I'll wait for a neurologist to confirm it, suspect that what we saw was something called Todd's Paralysis, in which case it's not that worrying.  That's not to say I didn't totally freak out at the time, and we'll make darn sure the doctor knows about it.

Needless to say, we didn't eat any pancakes. 

We spent the rest of the evening quietly at home.  Connor spent most of it either napping or clinging like a limpet to me; I actually let him watch an entire movie as a special treat (Mulan-- his favorite).  We went 22 days without one and I was finally starting to relax a bit again; guess it's back to the drawing board.

Hope everyone else's Father's Day was slightly better!

~Jess

Photo Time!

Every year for Father's Day, Connor and I go and get a picture taken with the two of us, which becomes a present for both Jeremy and my father. This year with Jer leaving, I decided we needed to have some pictures taken with the whole family, as we haven't had any done of the three of us since Connor was three weeks old.

One of our friends recently had pictures taken, and she recommended an awesome photographer to us: Lucie Holloway. She's also a military spouse based in the area, and she has fantastic rates and was really flexible and willing to work with us. It's hard to find a photographer that works well with a special needs child, but Lucie was really accommodating, and we ended up not only getting some great shots (over 200 photos-- crazy!), but having a blast in the process. She's got a bunch of them posted up at her website which you can go check out, but here's some of my favorites:

I think that with Jer leaving it becomes even more important to document all those little moments-- Connor will be completely different by the time his Daddy gets back. I'm so glad we went and had this done, and it was so much fun that we might have to make it an annual affair!

~Jess

Baby Shower Fun!

I saw Connor for a total of about an hour today-- he and Jer had a Daddy day. This was because I helped throw a baby shower for my good friend Anna. We all had a blast!

The girls and I had decided on a tea party theme for the shower, which due to my insane obsession with tea was right up my alley. We decided to go with a sort of mixed casual and formal eclectic look, with mismatched silver and china.

I spent a few weeks collecting china tea cups from thrift stores all over the area. The cups were our party favors-- everyone got to pick their favorite and then take it home with them in the end. Finding them was immensely fun, they got a good reception, and they were pretty cheap as favors go (I paid between fifty cents to three dollars for each teacup). The teacups were all so neat, I almost just went out and bought other favors so I could keep them all. Now I want to collect tea cups. Oh well.

I also picked up a bunch of mismatched silverplated serving dishes and teaspoons. Fresh flowers and honey came from the farmer's market. Fun!

We had a good time planning, cooking and presenting a yummy menu-- and an even better time eating everything! So first, of course, I picked out the tea; we used Tea Forte for the occasion. It's a little pricey, but it's high quality tea and the presentation is just so darn cute that it's perfect for parties. Then we made a wide variety of finger foods. My contributions were miniature quiches, lemon bars, and some cherry raspberry truffles of my own invention. Here's the recipe for the truffles, which are pretty simple and are to die for:

Jessie's Cherry Raspberry Truffles

1/2 cup creme

1 package frozen raspberries

20 fresh cherries, pitted and halved

8 oz bittersweet chocolate (preferably high quality)

12 oz semisweet chocolate (ditto)

unsweetened cocoa for garnish

1.) Dump the frozen berries into a saucepan. Stir over medium low heat until the berries soften and release their juice. Pour the raspberry puree into a strainer to get rid of the seeds. You want anywhere between 1/2 cup and 2/3 cup raspberry juice-- however much is released (it will depend on the raspberries).

2.) Pour the creme into the raspberry juice until you've made one cup of liquid total (i.e. if you have 1/2 c of raspberry juice, use 1/2 cup creme, 2/3 cup raspberry juice, use 1/3 creme, etc.).

3.) Melt the 8 oz bittersweet chocolate. Pour creme/raspberry mixture into chocolate. Stir to mix. Then refrigerate until set-- about an hour.

5.)Take chocolate ganache (what you just made) out of fridge. Working quickly, roll into balls the size of your cherries. Mash each ball of ganache into a cherry half. Return ganache and cherries to fridge and let firm for 30 minutes.

6.) Melt semisweet chocolate. Let cool until at room temperature, and then reheat (this will temper the chocolate: make it shiny and prevent it from "blooming," or separating out when chilled) Using fork, dip cherry/ganache balls into melted chocolate until thoroughly coated. Place on wax paper cherry side up- it makes a nice, smooth dome this way.

7.) Sprinkle lightly with cocoa to garnish. Put in fridge five minutes to set, and then remove from fridge and serve at room temperature, if you can wait that long.

Makes 40 truffles, unless you can forgo the rolling, dipping, and garnishing entirely and simply eat large spoonfuls of ganache directly out of the bowl. Then it makes one huge bowl of ganache with cherries on the side. Yum.

Everything turned out beautifully, overall it was a big success. We're already coming up with reasons to have another tea party. It was so much fun!

~Jess

Fruitless Errands

I just got home-- I've been running fruitless errands all day. Some days are just like that, I guess. I made a stop by a friend's house to drop something off, but we'd gotten our wires crossed and she wasn't home. I went from there to the hospital, where I discovered that the hospital didn't have the paperwork I needed to pull. From there, I drove to the framing shop, where I learned that the picture I needed to pick up wasn't ready yet. I got some dinner and drove out to my CPR class.

While I was at class, the framing shop called to say that my picture was ready. Class ran twenty minutes late, and I pulled into the framing shop parking lot just as they locked the doors. Let's just say that this was not the most productive day in the world. I now sympathize with those hamsters on their little wheels-- I can relate.

Because of all my errands, Connor had a Daddy day. Jeremy has fun wearing out the little guy, who always has a blast and as a result sleeps like a rock, which makes me happy too. Kind of a good deal all around. Hopefully he'll sleep in late, so Jer and I can too. Otherwise we'll play rock, paper, scissors tomorrow morning to see who has to get up and who can continue to make sure the pillows are functioning properly.

At least I'm officially certified in CPR now. Though I have to say, since I've performed it six or seven times on Connor, I kind of feel like they should give you a free pass or something for that. Apparently the government doesn't agree with me on that one. Oh well.


~Jess