In Which The Sickikin Returns

I took Connor to church today since he's been so much perkier-- he woke up smiling and laughing, and seemed to have a lot more energy.  He started rubbing his eyes halfway there and by the time the service started he was a cranky, sleepy mess.  He spent the entire service either sleeping on me or doing his best impression of a Victorian waif dying of consumption.  Good times.

So it looks like he'll be missing yet another day of school tomorrow, as by this evening he also had a runny nose and it's entirely possible he's coming down with some entirely new and exciting bug.  He has a tendency to cluster every illness he plans to get for the entire season into a couple of weeks, so this isn't surprising.  Once his immune system is down I think whichever germ got there first just throws open the doors and lets all the rest of them in.  I guess we'll just have to see what the next few days look like, right?

~Jess

In Which We Have More Of The Same

It was another lively day of moping around on the couch for everyone's favorite Connorbot.  His cough seems to be getting worse-- he threw up several times today because he coughed so hard he gagged-- and he spent most of his time asleep yet again.  His fever is doing one of those "now you see me, now you don't" acts, and I'm not finding it particularly amusing.

I did have some company today though, as our pastor stopped by to say hello, which was lovely for me and probably not so great for her, as I spent basically the entire time she was here whining about how hard my life is right now.  But she was very gracious even though I made her late to pick up her kids, and not only was she fantastic company but she even brought me chocolate, which was much appreciated.  I was running low enough that I'd started eyeing the candy bars Eden got for her birthday from a friend, which she keeps in the pantry out of a misplaced sense of trust that I won't go insane from lack of chocolate and eat them all.  You'd think she'd know me better than that by now.

My parents also watched the kids for a couple of hours while I went to choir practice tonight, which was also very nice.  It was basically the first time I'd left the house to do anything except take Eden to school and buy more Tylenol since Saturday, so I was really ready for a change of scenery.  I felt a bit guilty leaving the house with the little guy feeling so punky, but I really needed the break.

The PA at Connor's doctor's office did call with some good news in the late afternoon; Connor's chest x-ray came back normal.  Hopefully that means that this is just some sort of especially nasty bug and not aspiration pneumonia.  They want me to bring him in tomorrow morning for another x-ray if his cough continues to get worse overnight though; hopefully it won't be necessary.

Feel better soon, kiddo!

~Jess

In Which We're Back To Business As Usual

This morning we celebrated Eden's adoption at our church, which was lovely.  It's so nice to have a community that supports us and really makes us all feel at home!  And my parents brought a cake, which was an added bonus.  You can never go wrong with cake.

Connor stayed up until five in the morning, so we were all pretty tired though-- except for Eden, who was full of her usual energy.  I suspect she was a bit bored today, as we spent most of our time quietly at home.  Oh well-- we'll have a busy schedule tomorrow.  The little guy crashed at around seven and we have our night nurse anyway, so we should get plenty of sleep tonight.  Hooray for sleep!

Both the kids are off of school for their Winter Break, so we can all sleep in for a bit tomorrow.  Both the kids have their therapies though, and I need to get a bunch of last-minute things done for Christmas.  It always seems to sneak up on me!

~Jess

In Which We See A Play

So last night and this morning the kids had their Christmas play! Connor played the part of the donkey and the Christmas star, and was adorable as usual.  Hus donkey hat kept falling into his eyes or getting cocked to one side at a rakish angle.  It was pretty cute.

Eden's costume was a combination of wisemen and shephard costume pieces; she wore a shephard's tunic and a wiseman's crown. So she was a wise shephard, I guess.  She was a bit worried at first about wearing the costume, but after she saw boys put theirs on and was assured that hers was not, in fact, a dress, she was fine.  This kid does NOT do dresses.

Anyway, she participated in all the songs and dances and also pushed Connor around the church when it was time for the wisemen (or in this Christmas play, wisegals, as all three were girls) to approach the baby Jesus.  She did a great job; I'm so proud of both my kids!

The whole performance was just fantastic, and all of the kids were so enthusiastic and joyful. It's given Eden confidence to try out for her school play too, which I think is great.

In other news, Jer made it all the way to Idaho today; that's a lot of driving in two days! Hopefully that means he'll be here tomorrow afternoon.  I'm so excited!

~Jess

In Which We Do Our Best To Balance

We had a super, super busy day today!  We had church, and then while Eden practiced for the Christmas play, Connor and I ran home and made some asparagus for a potluck, which happened right after practice was over.  We stayed until nearly three in the afternoon, and then went home so the Little Miss could finish some work on a school project.  Then we headed out to get her a new backpack, since the holes in her old one have gotten two big to cover with duct tape.  This is her third backpack this year; the kid's hard on the things!  Hopefully this one will be sturdy enough to last her a while.

Connor had two seizures today but otherwise seemed to be feeling pretty well.  I think these were probably of the 'every two weeks or so I must have a seizure' variety; I swear he schedules the things.  If he starts getting sick we'll know otherwise, but so far so good.

We had to choose between going to the potluck and going to the annual Loi Krathong celebration at the local wat.  I let Eden decide what she wanted to do this year, and she opted to go to the potluck since it was indoors and it was raining and very cold outside (the festival is held outdoors).  I suggested that we have our own celebration at home if she didn't want to go to the festival, but she said she would rather not.  It's been tough trying to balance activities with the Thai community here with the other many things Eden has going on; I want to make sure she has those connections, but I also don't want to force that sort of thing on her and right now she's not all that interested.

I think right now she's more concerned with fitting into our immediate community, and she's put making connections with other Thai Americans on the back burner.  I suspect she sees being Thai as being 'different' from most of the people around her, and she wants to focus on blending in as much as possible.  I hope, however, that she'll eventually want to take part in events with the the Thai community again.  I won't push her, but I'll keep presenting opportunities and letting her know that our whole family enjoys participating in Thai cultural events and holidays.  We'll be traveling back to Thailand in a couple of years to visit; maybe that will spark an interest for her again.

She's retaining all of her Thai with no trouble though, which is a very good thing.  We want her to be able to travel between Thailand and America and feel like she can fit in wherever she is, and language is such a fundamental part of that process.  I've read so many essays about how many internationally adopted children who lose their native language later feel that they don't fit well in either America or the country of their birth, and while there's no way that we can completely avoid this issue we'd like to make sure Eden is as comfortable as possible balancing between her birth country and her new nation.

~Jess

In Which Cricket Attempts To Shrink And Connor's Chair Gets A Tune Up

Seriously, cat.  This is not going to work.

Today Connor went to school sans wheelchair-- I had to take it in for repairs.  Recently it developed this annoying habit where the brakes spontaneously deploy every ten to fifteen feet with this huge clang.  This, as you might imagine, has been driving me absolutely up the wall, not to mention that it's been seriously impeding getting places in any kind of a hurry.

It's complicated by the fact that while the brakes slowed the chair down, the wheel treads have worn down enough that they didn't actually stop the chair if it's on any kind of an incline at all.  Since large portions of the streets in the Pacific Northwest run down steep hills that end in things like major traffic intersections or you know, the ocean, this had the potential to be really exciting.  So I made an appointment and took it in.

So I spent an hour and a half or so tootling around in Gig Harbor while the repairs were done, and I'm now happy to say that Connor has a chair that goes when it's supposed to go and stops when it's supposed to stop-- sans the giant clanging noise.  Hooray!  It's amazing what a difference a simple tune-up of equipment can make; I didn't realize just how annoying the problem was until I wasn't dealing with it anymore.  Connor seems to enjoy the smoother, quieter ride too.

Eden leaves for her first ever church retreat tomorrow, which is pretty exciting.  It will be the first time she's slept away from home without me there, so she's a bit nervous about it.  I think she'll have a pretty great time once she gets out there though; she'll know quite a few people and it's only for one night.  I think it's a good way to ease into getting used to some independence, and I think it might make her more open to the idea of a summer camp some time in the future.  I have some really fond memories of the camps I attended as a kid, and I'd love for her to have some similar experiences.

It's been getting colder here, and the cats have started spending as much time as they can on laps or burrowed under warm laundry as I'm folding it.  I have seasonal lap cats-- they condescend to sit on me only in the winter time, probably because they think I make a good heating pad.  Then they get really huffy every time I want to move because my legs have fallen asleep or something.

We had a pint sized wool-lined bed we'd bought for Eden's guinea pigs a while back that they didn't care for, so I washed it in anticipation of putting it away.  It was sitting out on the couch for all of five minutes before it became Cricket's new favorite happy place-- despite the fact that it's about three times too small for her to fit inside.  I ended up buying her a more appropriately sized snuggly cat bed so she wouldn't look so pathetic and could fit her entire body inside the thing, but I had to stick the guinea pig bed inside it because otherwise she completely ignored it.  Every once in a while I take it out and wash it and she waits by the dryer until it's done and she can attempt to stuff her entire body into the thing again.  I think she's convinced that if she tries hard enough, someday she'll fit.

Crazy cat.

~Jess