In Which Connor Plays Hard And Eden Sees The Seasons

The kids both had pretty good days today; I used my respite care time to take Eden out for a little mother-daughter time while Connor enjoyed listening to music and playing on his rocking horse at home.  He was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day and went down quickly, which I'm happy about.  The quad rugby game tomorrow might be loud, and he always has fewer sensory issues in regards to loud noises if he's well rested.

Recently I made a questionable parenting decision and introduced Eden to donuts, and she has now decided that they are her new favorite treat.  So we went out and ate donuts at four in the afternoon, because hey, any time is a good time for donuts.  Then we did a bit of shopping and headed home.

I finally took down the pine wreath on our door today and started decorating for spring; even though we've still got nearly a month until the season is here it's really starting to feel like it's coming up soon!  Eden's been noticing all the bulbs pushing up in the garden-- last year she was too overwhelmed to really notice the changing season.  

In Thailand they have three seasons: hot and wet, hot and dry, and slightly cooler.  And by 'slightly  cooler,' I mean only ninety degrees.  So the whole concept of the seasons changing is pretty fascinating for her.  She also lived in a pretty urban area before she joined our family, and I don't think she had a lot of opportunities to notice things like new growth on plants or the habits of local wildlife because there was very little of that.  

She's getting to know our local hummingbird, Gus, very well because he's always more demanding in the winter time.  Today when Eden and I left the house, Gus was sitting on the top of our dwarf Japanese maple only inches from our front walk.  He was all puffed up and looked extremely put out that his feeder had run low.  We all eyed each other for a bit while he scolded us, and then he flew up to the top of a cherry tree and let us pass.  There are no hummingbirds in Thailand, so Eden thinks he's pretty amazing.  I'm so glad I get to share this sort of thing with her!

But close encounters with hummingbirds aside, my girl is thoroughly tired of winter by this point and has announced that fall is her favorite season so far because it's "a little bit hot, but not a lot hot."  

We'll see what she thinks of spring this time around!

~Jess

In Which We Take It Easy And Start Planning A Trip

We had a fairly quiet day here today; all of us were pretty tired and feeling a little under the weather, so for the most part we stuck to the house.  Connor had two seizures, which makes me think he's at the start of another seizure cycle.  He spent quite a bit of time napping on the couch.

Jer and I started talking about what we might want to do for spring break this year; we're thinking about the possibility of taking a family trip up to Canada.  We've been in the Pacific Northwest for over five years now, and the farthest north we've made it for an overnight trip is Whidbey island.  So we're thinking about heading to Victoria or maybe to Vancouver-- some place in BC within a day's drive (or ferry ride) of Seattle that's got a major hospital nearby and plenty of things to do.  Or not do-- it would be great to just let somebody else feed us and clean up after us for a few days.

Plus the last trip we went on together as a family was back in December of 2010.  And I believe the last family vacation we went on that was just a vacation and not a visit to relatives was the aforementioned Whidbey island trip, which we took in 2008 (the picture from my blog heading is from that trip). 

So yeah.  We're way past due.

Jer and I much prefer staying at B&Bs rather than hotels, but as Connor gets older it becomes more difficult to find one that will both accommodate children and is wheelchair accessible.  We've had luck calling places in the past that normally don't accept kids to see if they'll make an exception-- it's not like Connor is going to be running around breaking things.  We prefer B&Bs over hotels for a variety of reasons; most of the time they are absolutely gorgeous, the owners tend to be friendly and know all the little secret spots of their cities, and of course we love to eat good food. 

Okay, most of the draw may be the food.  Yum. 

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions on places we should go or stay, we'd love to hear them!

~Jess

In Which I Am A Food Snob

So it's finally springtime in the Pacific Northwest, and you all know what this means in my household.

Yep.  It's food snobbery time.

We participate in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program year round and absolutely love it, but in the winter time after a while we get really, really tired of root vegetables and apples.  So when spring hits our CSA suddenly there are all these wonderful fresh greens, asparagus, rhubarb, and (soon!) strawberries and about the same time our weekend farmer's market opens up five minutes from my house.  Somehow the big influx of ridiculously tasty freshly-picked produce goes to my head.  That's when I go a little nuts and suddenly start announcing the dinners I make to Jeremy like I'm running a fancy restaurant instead of slapping something together before roller derby practice.

Like tonight, for example.  Tonight I made a mixed greens salad with smoked salmon, rosemary-dill sheep's milk cheese, apricots, sunflower seeds and spiced blackberry vinaigrette, served with a slice of fresh honey wheat berry bread and garlic butter.  With the exception of the apricots, everything was either from the CSA, farmer's market or homemade.  It took me all of ten minutes because everything was already in our fridge, which didn't stop me from being tremendously proud of it and expecting wild praise for my cooking genius.  Genius, I tell you.  I chopped things!  And I put them in a bowl!  Shouldn't I get some sort of award for that? 

I know from experience that I will continue to announce the meals I make to Jeremy in capital letters until about July, which is when the CSA produce starts really outstripping what I can cook and instead of being thrilled about having so many fresh, tasty things in the house I end up in a cooking frenzy once a week, attempting to cram produce into as many dishes as possible and foisting said dishes off on other people so I can make more room in the fridge for the new delivery of fruits and veggies.  Almost all of these dishes will contain some form of summer squash, including the brownies.  I will not tell the people I am foisting the brownies off on that they contain zucchini. 

So if I show up on your doorstep around mid-July, consider yourself warned. 
~Jess

In Which Connor Rides A Zebra And I Try Not To Go Nuts

As a part of my Get Out Of The House So I Don't Go Crazy Waiting For Our Adoption Agency To Call campaign, I spent most of the day at the mall with Connor.  I know the mall doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun for a kid, but trust me when I say that Connor enjoys the mall a whole lot more than he'd enjoy any of our usual haunts right now.  The Children's Museum, Science Museum, zoo, etc are all great and wonderful, but not during Spring Break.  During Spring Break they are all extremely crowded and make Connor super overstimulated.  However, for some reason people don't think "Hey, it's Spring Break!  Let's go to the mall!" so things aren't nearly as crowded there.  This makes Connor pretty happy. 

Also our mall has a carousel.  This does not hurt.

So we spent the day out and about.  We rode the carousel four or five times-- Connor really liked the zebra-- and wandered in and out of the stores while I imagined coming to the same place with my teenage daughter.  I wondered which store would be her favorite and scouted out which stores I would absolutely not be buying her things in no matter what. 

I was waiting for a phone call from the nurse line about Connor's MRI and hearing test tomorrow, but by the time we got home early this evening I still hadn't heard anything.  So I called them up to see what was going on.  After being shuffled around to various phone lines (including a fax machine at one point, which meant I had to start over) I finally managed to locate an appointment desk that could find Connor on their records.  Apparently his MRI and ABR were moved to April 6th, and no one had gotten in touch with me about it.  This explains why I didn't get a phone call from the nurse line today. 

Good thing I called them; it would have been kind of awkward if I'd shown up there at seven in the morning tomorrow only to discover we didn't have an appointment.  Also Connor would have been ticked about the whole not-eating-anything-for-twelve-hours thing-- especially if he had to do it again a week later.

So we'll be figuring out something else to do tomorrow!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is On Spring Break And I'm Not Waiting Very Patiently

Connor's on Spring Break! 

Of course it would help if the weather would cooperate, because it looks absolutely nothing like Spring out there.  Oh well.  We spent the first day quietly inside, where he spent a whole lot of time looking kind of confused and asking repeatedly for Daddy.  I guess he thought maybe it was still a weekend and was wondering what Jeremy had done with himself. 

But no seizures today.  Whoo hoo!

On Wednesday Connor should be having his MRI and his hearing test (both sedated) so I've started talking to him about that.  He's got his Hospital Monkey-- a stuffed monkey that I modified to have all of Connor's surgical scars, hearing aids, a hospital bracelet, etc-- and I've been doing some role playing with him.  He seems pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, but then it's not like hospitals are a new thing for him or anything. 

Wednesday is also the day that our adoption liaison for Thailand is supposed to be back in the office, and as you might imagine I'm having just a wee bit of trouble waiting for her to call me to let me know how her visit with Ellen went.  Even though I know that they have to put together all the pictures and video for these kids (and there are over sixty of them on the Waiting Child list, so it's not a small job) that doesn't stop me from wanting to have whatever information they've got like, yesterday.  I'm doing my best to be patient; mostly by driving Jeremy insane with my incessant spouting of facts about Thailand, older child adoption and teenagers.  Also I'm eating a whole lot of double chocolate cookies. 

Cookies solve all problems.

~Jess

In Which Spring Is Finally Here

Connor had another amazing day today!

Really, I could get used to this.  Maybe the kid had such a rough run of things so I would appreciate it so much more when he actually had a good day.  That's pretty much the strategy I used on my mother in regards to cleaning my room pretty much my entire childhood-- I figured if I kept it really messy all the time then her standards would be lower and she would be really excited the once a month or so that I actually cleaned it up.  I don't think she was really thrilled with my theory. 

Sorry, Mom.

Anyway, so once again he had no big seizures, and he had a great time at his physical and occupational therapies despite having gotten about four hours of sleep the night before.  I think I should pretty much expect to be spending Tuesday nights up for the next month until we're completely worked down off the medication.  Thankfully his insomnia only lasts one night and he's fast asleep right now. 

We saw some pretty amazing stuff at his physical therapy session; we had Connor standing and he was not only allowing us to rest his hands on the table top, he was actually keeping them there and bearing some weight through them!  That puts him one step closer to being able to stand on his own, and it was pretty exciting.  I've noticed a definite improvement in his balance over the last week or so, and he's now jerking only once about every fifteen minutes instead of once a minute.  The change is pretty incredible.

Even Mother Nature got in on the act today; the sun came up through the clouds and stayed out the entire day, and it the weather stayed warm enough that Connor didn't even need a coat on outside!  Since we live in the Pacific Northwest, we all go a little stir crazy in the winter time and the return of the sun is a pretty important occasion.  I threw open all of the blinds and while I did laundry and cleaned the house I wheeled Connor from one window to another.  Every time we passed one his whole face lit up and he signed "Light!  Light!" while he squealed in complete and utter joy.  The cats were just as thrilled, and we had to dodge them on our circuit around the windows because they were both sprawled out on the floor underneath whichever window had the best light at that particular hour.  And every time we stood in a patch of sun and I heard my son laugh I felt a little bit lighter myself, as if some great weight I'd been carrying on my shoulders was being lifted up and swept off with the retreating clouds.

I know that the weather up here is pretty fickle, and it's likely that tomorrow we'll be back to a whole lot of gloomy skies and rain. 

But right now, it feels like Spring.

In Which The Weather Changes

Today was such a gorgeous day outside-- it really felt like Spring!  We drove by the most beautiful cherry tree in full bloom today-- it looked like a giant frothy pink petticoat.  There are fat, mysterious buds on the rhododendrons that line our fence in the backyard, and I can't wait to see what color they'll turn out to be.

After being in the dark and the gloom that is Seattle winter weather for so long when the sun comes out it's like the entire world goes a little crazy.  A huge flock of crows was doing an elaborate, raucous mating dance in our parking lot this afternoon.  People were out in mass walking their dogs, doing yard work-- any excuse to get out in the sun.  The highways were jammed with people heading out of town and towards the great wild outdoors. 

It's supposed to rain later this week, and we'll be back to the Eeyore weather.  But the nice thing about the sunny day today is that it reminded me that the nights are getting shorter and the worst of the winter is behind us.  Spring is not here yet, but it's reminding us that it's coming.

I kind of feel that way about our situation, too.  I mean, the last six months we've both been doing a whole lot of waiting.  We're unsure of what the future will bring: how far Jeremy will recover, whether or not he'll be able to stay in the military, whether or not Connor's conditions will remain stable, and what the next few years will look like for us as we continue to adjust to the new challenges in our lives.  Being stuck in limbo for so long hasn't been easy.  But I kind of feel like we're coming out of hibernation: that the new house will make things lighter and happier for us, and that we're over the worst of the bad times at least for now.  As I go through the apartment cleaning the clutter out of our closets and from under our bed, it seems like I'm shaking off some of the detritus that's been weighing us down since August.  Today life seemed pretty wonderful, and the sun beaming down was a reminder of just how far we've come. 

We still won't have any answers to those questions once we've moved and the seasons have changed here.  But we'll at least be one step farther down the road.  And I think that waiting for answers in such a beautiful sun-filled place as our new home will be a tremendous help in making the time pass by more easily, if not more quickly.

It's been a long, dark winter.  But I'm pretty sure Spring is on its way.

~Jess

Coming Out of Hibernation

Tonight Jer and I, accompanied by a slightly grumpy Connor, went out to a restaurant for dinner. It's honestly the first time since Connor's surgery I've gotten dressed up, actually blow-dried my hair and put makeup on. I took a look around the house when we got back. It's a disaster-- I've let everything slide because we've been so stressed. The garden is full of weeds and our sink is full of dishes.

I kind of feel like I've been wrapped in cotton wool for a few weeks. With the surgery, everybody being sick, our emergency room visit, the insurance company fiasco, and the business with Connor's school, our lives have been put on hold. All of my energy that usually goes into taking care of myself and the house has been channeled into taking care of these other things. Now that everyone is on the mend, it's time to start picking up some of the balls I've been dropping.

Tomorrow I'm going to spend some time putting the house to rights. Then I'm going to clean myself up-- go get a haircut, maybe treat myself to a manicure. I know from past experience that taking care of those two simple things will not only make me feel much better, but they'll actually give me more energy. Just being in a less cluttered space will help, and knowing that I look good will give me that burst of confidence I need to tackle all of the issues we're dealing with.

The weather man says the sun is supposed to be shining tomorrow. Spring is finally here. It's time for me to wake up.

~Jess

Golden Day

Today was one of those days that makes you realize no winter can last forever. I woke up this morning to the sun streaming down on my pillow and Connor laughing delightedly in my ear. We walked outside and it felt as if sometime during the night our house had quietly picked us up and moved to Colorado-- clear, cloudless achingly blue sky, mild temperature, the mountains stretching their snow-covered shoulders in the distance. I saw the first honey bee I've seen in months making frantic love to the tiny purple crocuses in my front flower bed. We threw open all of the windows and doors, turned the radio up, shook all the rugs out, and began our own spring cleaning.

Nothing could have possibly gone wrong today. I found a twenty dollar bill in my coat pocket and missing library book under a chair. When we went to the library to pay for the book (lost since last November) the woman behind the counter simply extended the due date until March so we could turn it in without paying the fine. When we took a picture to our local craft store to have them add a wire hanger to the frame, the girl behind the counter took it into the back room, added the hanger, and then refused payment, handing it to us with a smile. I found two books I've been looking for for months on the clearance rack of our used book store. We stopped at our favorite coffee shop to read and have a cup of tea, and the owner brought Connor out a little cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and gave me a cookie. Traffic was light and they played my favorite songs on the radio. Connor figured out how to rock himself in his rocking chair and spent the afternoon giggling and playing happily while I whistled my way around the kitchen. He ate well and went to bed quietly and on time.

I wish I could go back and share this day with the me of three years ago. I was terrified, very much alone, and convinced that winter would never end. I'd spent three months waiting to lose my son and I had one month of waiting left to go. It would have been such a comfort to know that every moment of sorrow and agony I experienced during that wait would be encompassed threefold by joy on days like these.

I know that next week we'll probably be back to our usual wet, gloomy skies and freezing temperatures, but today has reminded me that even though it seems like it's been dark and cold forever, spring is on its way.

~Jess