In Which We Were Snowed In

Hi!

I am extremely happy to say that our Internet finally came back on this morning.  Our power flickered off and on this week but thankfully mostly stayed on, but our Internet has been down since Thursday.  Apparently a tree hit something important. 

Trees hit a lot of things in our neighborhood; our house is actually one of the only ones on the street that didn't lose at least one tree to the heavy load of ice and snow.  A few pine trees bent and broke in half, but it was the maples and cherry trees that suffered the worst damage-- most of them either lost huge branches or in a few cases, simply fell over.  We ended up getting about eight inches of snow, and then we got freezing rain for two days, which formed a thick layer of ice over the snow.  If you were careful you could actually walk (or more accurately, skid) along on top of the snow without leaving footprints.  It was crazy. 


We got off pretty lucky; I'll need to go up and check the roof because some of the neighbors' overhanging trees dumped a massive load of ice and snow on it once temperatures rose and it started melting, but otherwise we didn't have any major issues.  We're on high ground, so the flooding currently going on shouldn't affect us either.  Connor has been off of school since Tuesday, and Jer ended up home from work most of the week too, so we kind of had a miniature vacation. 

The temperatures are back up above freezing and the snow and ice are melting (hence the flooding issues), so the streets are mostly clear now.  The biggest issue is the downed trees-- many of them blocked roads and did a lot of damage. 

The pets had a bit of an adventure too-- a couple of days ago Jer and I were startled awake by a tremendous crash.  At first we thought a tree might have gone through a window.  After searching the rest of the house and coming up with nothing, I opened the door to Connor's room.

The gerbil tank was on its side on the floor shattered into several hundred pieces.  Loki was balanced on three legs on the plastic frame of the tank.  He was using the fourth to fish around in the shavings inside.  Apparently he'd snuck into the room when Jer went in to give Connor his medication, managed to wedge himself between the tank and the wall and then shoved the whole thing off the table.  He's nothing if not persistent.

I leaned over as far as I could to avoid the broken glass on the floor and grabbed Loki, who was too busy trying to catch a gerbil dinner to try and get away, and deposited him outside of the room.  Then I went back to play a fun game of "Stick My Hands In Paper Shavings And Broken Glass" to see if the gerbils had survived their unplanned aerial adventure.  Amazingly, when I clicked my tongue at them like I usually do before I feed them, two little heads popped out of the shavings.  Cranston had a tiny cut on his heel, but otherwise they were completely unscathed.

Those are some seriously lucky gerbils.

So they spent some quality time together inside their gerbil wheel while I cleaned up the mess and braved the weather to find them a new tank.  They're lucky the worst was over by that point, or they would have been stuck in our bathtub or something until we could leave the house again. 

Crazy cat.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Snow Day

More snow today; at its peak we had probably about seven or eight inches on the ground.  The teenagers in the neighborhood roared by on their snowmobiles, and the smaller kids brought the sleds out and tobogganed down the middle of the street.  The neighborhood park is sporting an army of snowmen. 

Jer had the day off work and Connor was of course off of school, and we've already received the call that he'll be off tomorrow as well.  I have to admit that I'm getting just a bit stir crazy.  The wheelchair won't handle in snow that deep and we don't want to risk the van out on the roads-- especially since our street hasn't been cleared-- so we've spent the last two days holed up inside.  It's supposed to rain pretty heavily tonight and tomorrow though, so it will probably clear up pretty quickly.  Though it's beautiful, I can't say I'll be sorry to see it go.

It has been lovely having Jer and Connor both home though!

~Jess

In Which It Snows Some More And I Buy A Cat Bus

More snow today; we've got about two and a half inches on the ground now and we could apparently get six to ten more inches over the next two days.  No news yet on whether or not Connor's school will be closed tomorrow; they may be waiting to see just how much snow we get tonight before making the decision.  It was closed today because of the holiday, of course, and Jer was off of work too.  So we spent most of the day cozied up inside enjoying each other's company.  Oh, and cleaning of course.  I'll put this house completely to rights if it kills me.

I did manage to make it out of the house to find a new laundry bin; I've been wanting one with casters so I can just roll my laundry back and forth across the house.  The one I found has three bins and a mesh shelf underneath, which the cats immediately decided was a little hammock just for them.  Loki has been quite happily lying on it and allowing me to push him between the bedroom, where all the interesting people are, and the laundry room, where his food is.  Basically instead of getting a rolling laundry hamper I seem to have actually invented a cat bus.

A bus for cats, I mean.  Not this kind of cat bus.

But other than providing feline public transportation services today was relatively quiet, which was a nice change.  His impetigo has almost completely disappeared, and he was in a cracking good mood so he's obviously feeling a lot more comfortable.  He's actually starting to take interest in his toys again and show a bit more initiative, which is something we haven't seen in a while. 

It's great to see him feeling so much better!

~Jess

In Which It's Getting Cold And Connor's Seizure Cycle Restarts

Connor had two seizures today; the first just before school started and the second late in the afternoon.  Both involved a whole lot of violent twitching, but he actually breathed pretty easily through them for once, which was nice.  I hate to see the little guy having any seizures, but as far as seizures go these weren't bad, even though they both lasted over three minutes. 

I finished up the front of Ellen's stocking today!  Jer and I decided on the English spelling of her Thai name today, and I went ahead and sewed that on.  Now I just have to line it and sew the two halves together, and then it will be ready to hang up just in time for the Christmas season.  I think it will look really nice up there with the rest of the family stockings. 

The weather is really starting to get cold; we're starting to dip down into freezing temperatures and apparently there's actually a chance of snow this weekend, which is about the same time that our first snow happened last year.  While I doubt we'll get as much as we did last year, I look forward to once again watching Loki bounce around like a maniac all over our front yard.  Somehow I doubt he learned his lesson last year.

Crazy cat!

~Jess

In Which It's Snowing

I was planning on mowing my lawn today, but then it started snowing so I had to change my plans.  I think the weather always knows when I've got yard work on my schedule.  Not that I would have been able to mow anyway, as there was no way I could park Connor outside while I did it.  He was too busy sleeping.

Yes, I attempted to get the kid up around eight or so, but he was so miserable and tired that I finally put him back down.  He immediately fell back asleep and was out until past eleven in the morning.  He was supposed to have occupational therapy this morning, but we ended up canceling due to the fact that my child was comatose, and also that right before we were supposed to leave it started snowing so hard you couldn't really see anything. 

So we holed up for the day instead, and spent our time alternating between snuggling by the fireplace and-- once Connor finally decided to wake up-- banging on that mixing bowl.  I'm beginning to think I'm just going to need to get the little guy his own personal mixing bowl, because I'm not sure I'm ever going to get mine back.  He needed big breaks in between drumming sessions though, because he was still really tired.  I think he's probably in the middle of a run of seizures and while the Ativan is keeping them under control it's still wiping him out for whatever reason. 

The snow is supposed to slow down; the weatherman predicts one or two more inches tonight.  We'll see whether or not he actually has school tomorrow.  I'm hoping he'll be able to go, but it's pretty likely they'll cancel if the snow sticks to the ground.  Snowy weather is not something they have a whole lot of around here.  I don't really mind driving in it because I'm from Texas, and Texans are born with an overinflated opinion of their driving ability in bad weather.  Especially if they have four-wheel drive.  Four-wheel drive solves all problems.

We'll just have to see!

~Jess

In Which I Have Roller Derby Drafts Tomorrow And It Is Snowing

Seriously, my sister takes awesome pictures.

It's snowing outside right now, which is lovely.  I'm perfectly happy to welcome the picturesque white stuff just so long as it's all melted by tomorrow evening so they won't cancel roller derby drafts.  If I have to wait another week to find out if I'm on a team I'm relatively sure it will kill me.

Okay, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration.  I might barely survive, though I'd probably be horribly maimed or something.  But seriously; we New Bruisers (as the derby hopefuls are affectionately called in our league) have put three months of sweat, tears and (occasionally) blood into preparing for tomorrow, and so the mere thought of drafts being postponed makes me start hyperventilating just a little bit.

So provided the weather cooperates, I'll be going in for draft interviews tomorrow.  Hopefully by the end of the night I'll know whether or not I made a team, and if I did make one (oh happy day!), which team I'll be joining.  There are four teams in my league: the Maurading Mollys, the Trampires, the Femme Fianna, and the Hellbound Homewreckers.  All of them are looking to potentially pick up a few new skaters, and all of them are awesome.  I'd be thrilled to make any one of them!

If I don't make a team this round of drafts, it's certainly not the end of the world.  That just means that I need more skating experience before I can play with the vets, and so I'll continue to practice with the New Bruiser pool until the next round of drafts.  We'll just have to see how things play out.  Either way I still get to keep skating, which is great news as far as I'm concerned.  Not that I would stop skating regardless.  Really, I'm seriously addicted at this point.

What derby girl could be complete without an awesome roller derby name?  I have my gigantic name pool narrowed down to five potential names, and which one I'll ultimately choose as my alter-ego will depend entirely on what team I ultimately (whether this round of drafts or later) end up skating for.  I'm keeping them under wraps for now, but if I make a team tomorrow I'll make a final decision and announce it here. 

So wish me luck tomorrow, and bring on the warm weather!

~Jess

In Which Connor Says Good Night

So Connor and I spent pretty much the entire day inside today. That's because our neighborhood looked like this.

We did make an attempt to go for a walk in the snow. Connor's wheelchair is not really built for snow travel-- it really needed some skis! It was a pretty good arm workout for me, though. We slowly crunched down where I thought the sidewalk might be until we reached the park, where I decided it might be fun for Connor and I to try and make a snowman. I'd even brought a carrot with me just in case we found a likely spot for one and needed a nose!

Alas, our snowman was not to be. The snow didn't really want to pack well, and also I had to sacrifice my gloves because Connor quickly made his soaking wet once again. He has apparently decided that his gloves (and today, the rest of his clothing) are there for him to chew on. And when I say 'chew' I actually mean 'bite repeatedly,' as Connor doesn't seem to be able to move his jaw from side to side-- one of the major reasons why most of his nutrition is by g-tube. He's kind of in an oral stage right now; you can see him chomping away in this picture. So anyway, I ended up having to give him my gloves, which came up to his elbows and were apparently not as tasty. Snowmen are not fun to make without gloves in 18 degree weather though, so instead we turned around and slogged back home.

We spent the rest of the day indoors; I didn't really want to venture out and risk the wheelchair van on the icy roads. I wasn't concerned about my driving-- the van handles very well in rough weather. I was more concerned about all the little cars I'd watched fishtailing up and down our street all day. So we sat and played with the iPad for a while instead. Connor is newly in love with a program called Vocal Zoo. It's got a bunch of pictures of animals, and when you tap the picture the sound the animal makes plays. They have some really unconventional animals on there too, like the llama and the zebra. Mostly he likes to mash one animal over and over again. He particularly likes the ones with high-pitched, annoying calls.

We also played around with Proloquo2go for a while; it's the assistive communication program that was one of the main reasons we got the iPad for Connor. After some discussion, we programmed it to say "Good night Daddy. I love you!" and then I helped Connor push the button to play it for Jeremy when he got home.

Connor grinned and nodded after we pushed the button.

He's found a voice.

~Jess

In Which It Snows A Whole Whole Bunch, And Connor Is Not Happy

As I was turning onto our street when coming back home from derby practice tonight, a couple of guys on snowmobiles whizzed by me in the other direction.  That gives you some idea of what it looks like outside at the moment.

And yes, of course I went to derby practice in the snow.  I'm from Texas, remember?  This means that I have absolutely no idea how to drive in snow but I believe I can do pretty much anything, because people from Texas have natural roughin' it sort of abilities that make them superior to other people who don't know how to drive in the snow.  Also people from Texas drive really big SUVs with four wheel drive.  All those little efficient Smart Cars non-Texan people drive around here weren't doing so hot, even if they do all have sporty roof racks on them.

Anyway, so outside of our house we no longer have bushes, we have vaguely bush-shaped mounds of snow.  Loki escaped outside today and ran out into the middle of everything, sinking in approximately to his knees.  He made it to the middle of the front yard before he realized that something was very, very wrong.  Where was all the delicious grass to eat, which is why he'd run out there in the first place?  And what was this weird cold white stuff? 

I would like to point out that Loki encounters snow every year, because it takes me twice as long to get the door closed when I'm all bundled up and trying to stomp the snow off my boots before I come inside.  And he does the exact same thing every time.  I swear this cat has roughly the intelligence of a kumquat.

Anyway, so just like last year Loki decided that the proper way to deal with snow would be to jump straight up in a stiff-legged hop, perhaps figuring that he would be able to levitate above the snow and thus not get his feet wet.  When for some inexplicable reason this failed to work and he came down in exactly the same place in the snow, he decided that springing sideways would perhaps work better.

So in the end I had to wade out into the yard and rescue my crazy cat, who was desperately trying (and failing miserably) to defy the law of gravity and was simply managing to coat his entire underside with snow as well as leaving Loki-sized craters an impressive distance apart in the middle of my lawn.

Once I got him inside he of course immediately jumped up into my chair and shook himself, spraying the upholstery and everything else in a five foot radius with melting snow.  Then he demanded to be petted, like he'd done something I should be proud of him for.  He'd vanquished the hideous evil white stuff!  Now he deserved treats!

Sigh.

Connor was not overly thrilled about the snow either.  That is to say he was indifferent about the snow, but he was less than excited about missing school and he hated the hat and gloves I made him wear.  I played Fish The Glove Out Of The Snow Bank quite a bit today, and after a couple of hours between Connor chewing on them and throwing them in the snow there was no point in him wearing them because they were soaked through.  His fleece hat is one of those that fastens under the chin, because other than his yeti hat (which isn't warm enough for this weather) it's the only kind that wouldn't have been following the gloves over the side of the wheelchair.  But we needed to go out and get our dinner fixings for Thanksgiving, so he didn't have a choice about the hat.  Trust me when I say he made his opinion very clear on what he thought about that.

Oh well!  At least I've got the ham in the refrigerator now, so we shouldn't have to venture out tomorrow.  Unless I can't manage to keep Jeremy out of it and he eats it all before Thanksgiving.  It's a distinct possibility.

~Jess

In Which It Snows And Connor Receives A Really Pricey Electronic Piano

So today we woke up to big flakes tumbling out of the sky and promptly turned on the fire and pulled up a blind so Connor could see the magic of snow!

He wasn't very interested.  The cats were fascinated, though.

Then we did what everybody does on snow days.  We hopped in the car, drove to the mall and bought Connor an iPad. 

Okay, so maybe that's not what everybody does on snow days.  But that's what Connor did on his snow day, and he's really the only one who counts for anything as far as our household is concerned, so it might as well be everybody.  We've been doing research over the last few weeks to figure out exactly what we wanted to get him; we think the iPad could be a fantastic assistive communication device for him.

That is if we can get the darn kid to touch the thing.  Despite downloading all sorts of really cool apps for him, the only one he wants to play with is (surprise!) the piano simulator.  He'll pound on that piano all day, but if you try to get him to turn the page on a Dr. Seuss book he reacts like you are attempting to put his fingers in the paper shredder.  We'll keep working with him and hopefully he'll get there!  In the meantime, I've already downloaded a Mahjong app and a Thai Language course. 

Those are totally for Connor too.  Right.

The little guy did very well today.  I think he was happy to be home!  He was pretty snuggly but he seemed to be feeling good; I think he just was excited to not be spending the whole day in bed. 

We could get up to three inches of snow tomorrow, so we'll see whether or not Connor has school.  Nobody knows how to drive in the snow up here, so usually if we get over about an inch they shut everything down, which is probably good for me because I'm from Texas so I don't know how to drive in the snow either.  If that ends up being the case we'll hunker down in front of the fire, put the tea kettle on and listen to Connor play us a rousing, extremely loud tune for a few hours!

And then maybe we'll play Mahjong.

~Jess