In Which We Suffer From Various Ailments

I'm afraid Connor might be getting sick again; apparently he threw up at school and then kept falling asleep, and he spent most of Eden's swimming practice snuggling on me and dozing.  He actually asked to go to bed early tonight, which is extremely unusual for him, and when I ran through the usual routine of "Yes/No Twenty Questions," as we term it around here, he was able to tell me that he wasn't sleepy, but that his stomach didn't feel good.  He was out less than five minutes after I put him down.

So hopefully he's not picking up a tummy bug or something.  We'll see how he feels in the morning after a good rest.  He's been sick more than enough this winter already, thank you very much.

Eden woke up with a sore foot; she managed to accidentally launch herself backwards off the couch yesterday, did a reverse somersault and landed with her foot on the slate coffee table.  She started laughing so hard I thought she was crying and rushed over to make sure she was okay.  Whoops.  Luckily her foot wasn't really swollen at all and she could walk on it and move it without too much difficulty, so I told her that if it became a real issue at school she should go to the nurse and they'd give me a call.  Apparently by the end of the day it was feeling much better though, so I didn't hear from her.  I'm glad she was alright, and also that she didn't land on her head!  I think that may be the end of the lying-backwards-across-the-couch for a while.

~Jess

In Which My Baby Isn't Such A Baby Anymore

I have a computer again!  It's exciting!  Connor and I both celebrated by contracting a glorious case of what felt like a combination of strep throat and malaria.  The little guy spent an entire week sprawled out on my chest in our reclining chair as it was the only way he could breathe.  I'm fully recovered now and he is much improved, but he still sounds a bit like a Victorian consumptive patient.  I keep having the urge to start carrying around white lace-edged handkerchiefs to hold over his mouth while he coughs.

Eden stayed ridiculously healthy, of course.  This child has not been sick a single day since she came home; apparently living with several hundred other children is a pretty good way to build up your immune system!  She was a huge help while I was convalescing; she cooked dinner several times and helped around the house a ton.  That's my girl!

Connor improved enough to go back to school just in time for Spring Break to start up.  I can't say it will be a particularly exciting break, as both my children would prefer to be in school every day of the week with no holidays at all.  Also I needed to cram as many appointments in as possible while they are off, so they'll be having thrilling adventures like getting fitted for new AFOs and going to the dentist.  Huzzah!

There is one exciting, though slightly terrifying thing happening during Spring Break though-- Connor will be turning eight years old on Tuesday.  Eight years old.  I know I say this about every birthday he has, but that doesn't actually seem like something that's possible.  He'll be in third grade next year.  Whoa.

Even though he's still really, really tiny (at forty-two inches and forty pounds, he's proportionate but the size of the average five year old) it's becoming more clear by the day that he's no longer such a little boy anymore.  His face is longer and losing some of its baby-roundness, though his cheeks and hands will always keep a bit of that due to his genetic condition.  He has six of his permanent teeth and two more primary teeth on the way out, and his reactions to the world around him are more mature as well.  I'm still going to have to take some time to get used to the idea that I'll be parenting an eight year old and a sixteen year old this year, though.

It just seems hard to believe!

~Jess

In Which We Don't Have A Particularly Fun Time

So Thursday Connor had a couple of seizures, threw up something that looked nothing like Pediasure and I pulled about 65 ml of what bore a strong resemblance to dark chocolate mixed with coffee grounds out of his g-tube.  This, for those of you who are not medically inclined, was an indication that the little guy might have had a major gastric bleed, which falls in the category of Things You Never Want To Have Happen To Your Kid Ever.  My threshold for panic over possible emergencies is pretty ridiculously high at this point, but I have to admit that after I saw the contents of the syringe I came the closest to freaking out that I have in a long, long time.

So after a phone call to the doctor's office, where the triage nurse told me that we needed to be at the hospital now, I packed up Connor, made arrangements for Eden to stay with my parents, and headed down to the emergency room.  The receptionist at the check-in and the nurse who did Connor's vitals both recognized us, because my child is a frequent flier down there.  While it gets us really good service, this is not the kind of thing I'm particularly thrilled to be able to say.

Anyway, the emergency room was apparently the cool place to hang out on a Thursday evening, because there were probably over 100 people in the waiting room.  The hospital was so crowded that they were turning away all ambulances that didn't have someone with an airway issue or who was actively coding inside.  Since the little guy, though lethargic and crabby, didn't seem to be dying at that particular moment, we settled down for what was probably going to be a long wait.

Connor doesn't like waiting.  Also he has an impeccable sense of dramatic timing.

So about fifteen minutes after his vital signs were taken, the little guy had a seizure.  I pulled him out of his chair, turned him sideways on my lap, and flagged down a passing nurse for what I thought was going to be helping me time.  She took one look at my kid, who was at that moment turning a particularly lovely shade of blue, told me to follow her and booked it through the doors.

Despite my protests that seizures with cyanosis were fairly commonplace in our house and not why we were here, they kicked some poor guy out of his room into the hallway, slammed clean sheets on the bed and told me to put Connor down.  Of course, his seizure ended just as they got the oxygen ready, and then he took a nice little nap in his new comfy digs.  That's one way to jump the line, I suppose.

So then shortly thereafter we saw the doctor, who tested the residual I'd brought in and discovered that, despite his agreement that it looked exactly like what you would expect with a gastric hemorrhage, it was not in fact blood.  So that was a very, very good thing.  However, Connor proceeded to have two more seizures in the emergency room, so they wouldn't let us go home either.  They gave him a hefty dose of Ativan after the last one, which made for a very sleepy kid.

I pointed out that Connor's seizure threshold lowered any time he got sick at all and it probably just meant he was coming down with something, that we wouldn't have brought him in for seizures and the reason we'd brought him in was resolved, and that any additional time we spent in the hospital meant adding to the risk of the little guy picking up some other nasty bug, but the doctor still decided he wanted us in overnight for observation and that the best thing would be for us to transfer up to Children's in Seattle.  I can understand his viewpoint, though I wasn't really excited about the decision.  Better safe than sorry, I suppose.  So off we went.

The ride there was probably the most dangerous part of the evening.  The roads were covered in ice and it was actively snowing along the first nine miles or so of the trip, and since Jer's gone I had to drive the wheelchair van up instead of riding in the ambulance with Connor like I usually do.  Wheelchair vans are not exactly built to drive well on icy roads, and I had a few harrowing moments where I could feel the back end start to fishtail despite traffic driving at about fifteen miles an hour.  Thankfully the weather cleared up a few miles north and it was smooth sailing after that, but I passed enough wrecks in the first part of the drive to make me very glad the roads would probably be clear by the time we came home.

So after I met the ambulance at Children's and Connor was checked in to the emergency department there, I repeated my reasoning for why we didn't need to be there to their attending physician. Thankfully I was able to convince her with the same arguments, and after a few hours, various clear diagnostic test results and a loading dose of Keppra to keep Connor from having more seizures while he worked through whatever bug he was likely coming down with, we were allowed to go home.  We finally got back at around 5:30 in the morning.

Connor spent the next few days getting over what was probably a fairly mild GI bug, and is now back to school and his usual business of being a super laid-back, happy little guy.  I'm finally caught up on sleep, and have also gotten back into my usual routine.  So all's well that ends well.

I'm hoping that's the last bit of excitement we'll have around here for a while!

~Jess

In Which Things Are Looking Up And I Look Back

Connor went back to school today!  This means that I can once again start looking forward to such events as gaining back a bit of my sanity and the basic mores of personal hygiene.  When your child can literally keel over and die while you are in the shower, you take really short showers.  Either that or you get up before six in the morning while the night nurse is still there to take them.  Guess which option I've been choosing.

Anyway, so Connor was just as excited to get back to school as I was to take him there, so that was nice.  He apparently had a great day, though once I got him home he crashed hard and napped for nearly three hours.  Apparently they gave him a good workout.  I'm really glad that he loves school so much and was ready to get back to it.  Both my kids are this way, actually.  Eden's favorite day is Monday, because that's the day she gets to go back to school after the weekend is over.  Eden is a strange kid; she's perhaps the only teen I've ever met who is actually enjoying her middle school experience.  I remember spending most of my eighth grade year wishing I was as far away from school as possible, so I can't really relate.

Okay granted, I'd moved to a new town my eighth grade year and had managed to break my collarbone during the summer, so I spent the first four months of school wearing a back brace under my clothing that pulled my shoulders back so I looked like I had ridiculously good posture, I had to use a luggage carrier for my books instead of a backpack, and all my clothing had to button at the sleeves.  Also the PE teacher told me that since I couldn't exercise I had to be the 'classroom monitor' and sit in the room with a clipboard writing down the names of anyone who did anything wrong, or he would fail me.

And also I was painfully shy, socially awkward, and had read every book ever written by Mercedes Lackey, which didn't help matters.  Every time I have to meet a new group of people I still have flashbacks to the time that Crystal I-Can't-Remember-Her-Last-Name told me to sit at a different lunch table because "I don't like you and no one else at the table likes you either."  I asked her which table she'd suggest, walked over, put my tray down, excused myself and then went and sobbed into my gym towel in a bathroom stall for forty-five minutes with my feet drawn up on the toilet seat so no one would see me.  Then I got detention for being late to social studies. Yeah, middle school.  Good times.

Um, anyway, got off on a bit of a tangent there.  But overall it was a good day, and I'm glad the little guy is feeling better and back in the classroom!  And I'm also glad Eden enjoys school as much as she does.  She's got enough stuff going on without having any Crystal Whats-Her-Faces in her life, so let's keep it that way, right?

~Jess

In Which Connor Stays Home Again And I Become A Criminal

It's day ten of the Epic Sickness Saga we've been embarked upon around here.  I'm currently making black rice pudding with salted coconut as an afternoon snack and doing all of the laundry in the house.  Connor is amusing himself by watching The Pirates of Penzance and attempting to stick his finger aaaaaaaalll the way up his nose by way of commentary. 

He's gotten to that stage of his illness where he's still sick but really, really bored with sitting around.  Mostly he just wants to listen to "The Pirate King" and "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" over and over again, and he pounds on his tambourine until he exhausts himself and signs "don't like" through the rest of it.  When he's not coughing up a lung, that is.  Or napping.  He's doing a lot of upright napping.  Being sick that long can tire a little body out.

So we're staying home today, except for the trip I had to make up to my favorite coffee shop, since I managed to walk out on my bill there.  Again.  See, I pretty much always pay at the register first, and so if I sit down and eat first my brain apparently short circuits and I forget that I owe them money.  I even joked with the waitress as I was sitting down to remind me to pay so I didn't walk out on them again, and then I totally did it anyway.  I blame extreme sleep deprivation.  Also I think my brain hates me or something.

To make it even worse, I wasn't the one who remembered the next morning that I hadn't paid.  Eden piped up during breakfast and said:

"Mommy, I know something you forget!"

Then she wanted me to guess.  As Connor had stayed up until three in the morning the night before, I was not in a guessing mood.

"Just tell me," I said.

"You forget to pay for food!"  Then she laughed at me and gave me a round of applause.

Clearly I am setting a stellar example for my children here in terms of fiscal responsibility and, you know, not doing stuff that's illegal.  Huzzah.

Luckily the coffee shop folks are very, very nice people and realize that I'm not doing this on purpose and that I will, in fact pay them once I realize I have stiffed them, but I'm sure that this is getting old.  And let me tell you, it was embarrassing enough the first time I did it-- let alone the second or third.  I gave them my phone number this time so they can call me if I do it again though, because this is getting ridiculous.  I am so not ready to start a new career in unintentional petty theft.

This is what parenting has evidently reduced me to-- I used to be able to write complex, nuanced fifteen-page papers on topics like the Order of the Garter's possible connection to "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and now I can't even remember to close out my tab not even half an hour after I've joked with the barista about not closing out said tab.

Sigh.

~Jess

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 Connor Finally Feels Better And We Encounter A Sticky Situation

Connor felt better today!  I'm extremely excited about this.  He's also excited, and celebrating by never, ever going to sleep again.  I am slightly less enthusiastic about that development, but hey, I'll take it  if it means he's feeling better.  He's still tired and has that nasty cough, but he had a lot more energy today and his temperature didn't go over 100 degrees.  I'm pretty sure the worst is over, and I'm so, so glad he's on the mend.

Since I had respite care today and felt comfortable leaving the kiddo since he was feeling better, Eden and I went out for some special time together.  We hit the bookstore and then ate at a Japanese restaurant, where I discovered that despite her initial insistence to the contrary, she has no earthly idea how to use chopsticks.  She gave up after the first bite and used a fork to eat her nigiri and maki instead.

 This isn't really surprising, as Thai people use a fork and spoon to eat-- the only time chopsticks are generally used in Thailand is when Chinese food is served-- but I believe the waitress found it rather amusing that the very, very white person (I practically glow in the dark) was obviously comfortable with them and the Asian person at the table had no clue.  I think it's a good skill to know, especially as Eden has expressed interest into going for a business degree and may someday have to know business lunch etiquette, so we'll have to work on it at home.

There's also the unfortunate fact that since Eden is a first-generation immigrant from an Asian country, people are going to automatically assume that she has mad chopstick skills.  This is one of the stupid little stereotypes that nobody really thinks about but definitely exist.  I think it's ridiculous, but there's not a whole lot I can do about it.  While it goes against my grain, I think that it will probably be easier to just teach her how to use them rather than put her in a position where she'll have to explain that not all Asian cultures use chopsticks to her friends every time she goes out to eat a cuisine where they're appropriate.  That might get old really fast.

In the end, basically this is an excuse for me to eat a lot more sushi, so hey, I'm not going to complain  too much.

~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 The Sickikin Is Still Sick Around Here

So this morning when Connor continued his epic performance of The Saddest Sad Sickikin That Ever There Was, I went ahead and phoned the doctor's office to get him an appointment.  We have kind of an open door policy there, because my child is, well, high maintenance.  We're lucky to have found such an amazing doctor.

I took him in for a strep test this morning, and then we had the doctor's appointment and a chest x-ray in the afternoon.  The rapid test for strep came back negative-- thank goodness-- and we're taking a 'wait and see' approach for now.  The results on the chest x-ray aren't back yet, but I'm assuming that if it were something dire they would already have called.

Connor spent the whoooooole day asleep.  He slept in his wheelchair on the ride to the doctor's office.  He fell asleep five minutes after his throat culture.  He fell asleep during the exam, slept the entire ride home and then zonked out on the couch for another six hours.  I don't think he was awake more than about two hours total the whole day.  Around eight in the evening he started popping a fever again; he was at 101.3 before I got the Tylenol on board.  This come-and-go fever thing is justlain weird.

So at any rate, I'll be staying home with him again tomorrow.  I hope he catches a break soon!

~Jess

In Which More Sickness Happens

It was yet another glorious day on the couch today; Connor's fever improved but he now has a cough that makes him sound like a chain smoker.  So I'll be taking him in to the doctor's office tomorrow, and he'll be home from school again.  I'm hearing a bit of crackling in his lungs, and I'm sincerely hoping he hasn't picked up a case of pneumonia on top of whatever this bug is.

Get better soon, little guy!

~Jess

In Which The Sickikin Is Still Sicky

Connor didn't have a single seizure today, which was awesome!  I suspect it's because I kept him on his max dose of Tylenol the whole day, so he didn't have a chance to spike a fever.  He's still definitely under the weather and will be staying home from school tomorrow, but I'm hopeful that he's over the worst of things.

So I have nothing to report; I spent literally the entire day sitting on the couch watching my kid breathe.  My mom stopped by for lunch and to drop off some food since we were starting to run low and I couldn't leave the house, and that was about the extent of my interaction with the outside world today.  Tomorrow will likely be more of the same.  I just hope the little guy gets to feeling better soon!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is A Sickikin

Well, today was not particularly fun.

Connor had ten seizures today, which was about ten more than I hoped he'd have.  He just seemed absolutely miserable.  We spent the entire day at home, so I had a sad, cranky little one and an extremely bored teenager on my hands.

The kids are off of school tomorrow, so Connor has another day to recover, which is good.  I seriously hope he's feeling better tomorrow though; his doctor's office won't be open for the holiday and if he continues this trend I may end up needing to take him in somewhere.

I really hope he feels better soon.

~Jess

In Which I Have A Party Girl And A Couch Potato

Connor had a rough day today, I'm sorry to say.  He had six seizures and seemed to feel just miserable in general.  He spent pretty much the whole day on the couch.  The seizures of course knocked him out for the day, so now he doesn't want to sleep.  Poor little guy.

Eden's birthday party was today too; it's difficult when one kid has an important occasion and the other gets sick.  My parents ended up coming watching Connor while I took Eden and her two friends to a roller derby bout.  I'm very glad they were able to take care of him, or else I would have needed to cancel the party, which would have disappointed Eden terribly.  My parents are awesome.

Anyway, so after presents, cake and ice cream we went to the bout, which was really exciting for me.  It's the the first one I've been able to go to for a long time, and I was so glad to get the chance to see everyone and cheer on my team!  I really miss roller derby and all the fantastic people I don't get to see on a daily basis while I'm not skating.  Since I couldn't be out on the track, I had to make up for it by cheering everyone on as enthusiastically as possible.  I probably embarrassed the kids terribly with how loud I was screaming, but that's okay.  Embarrassing her child is an important part of every mom's job, right?

Eden and her friends had a great time, and the party was declared a success.  Hooray!  I just wish that Connor had been feeling better; it was tough leaving him at home while he was sick.  Hopefully tomorrow he'll be on the mend.  No more seizures, okay little guy?

~Jess

In Which I Am Sick And A Good Sharer

I caught some sort of nasty bug and have been sick as a dog the last couple of days.  I basically spent every minute I wasn't doing something child related sleeping.  As a result my house now looks like a bomb went off inside it, but I'm at least on the mend.

Unfortunately, I was apparently generous with my germs and Connor is now coming down with the bug.  He had five seizures today, threw up a few times, and just seemed to be generally miserable.  He's finally down again after his latest round of nausea, so I'm headed to bed.  I'm still not fully recovered myself, and Eden's having her birthday party tomorrow so I'm going to have plenty to do.  Hopefully Eden doesn't come down with it too!

~Jess

In Which I Look Ahead

We had a busy day today, and I'm pretty tired!  From the way my throat feels right now, I suspect I might be coming down with a bit of a cold.  It's that season, after all.  The kids still seem to be feeling pretty good though, so that's a relief.  It's tough when everyone gets sick.

It's been interesting hearing about Jeremy's first days of clinical rotations as he gets settled in to the new phase of his schooling.  Obviously there's a lot he doesn't share with me since the privacy of patients is really important, but it's great to hear the enthusiasm in his voice when he talks about his work.  I'm so glad that he's finding it so interesting, and I think he's really going to be a fantastic PA once he's finished.

I've been trying to do some more serious writing in the past couple of weeks; I'm starting to look forward to the time when Jeremy graduates, and while it's still almost a year away it's not too soon for me to start thinking about my plans once he's home.  If I want to eventually return to school, I need to start building up a more significant body of work.

Since I've been out of college for ten years now, I doubt my professors would even remember me-- let alone be willing to write me recommendations for graduate school.  That means I'll have to rely largely on my writing skills to find acceptance into a good school, so I need to work hard-- especially if I'm going to attempt to win a grant or scholarship, which I'll likely need as Eden's education will be our priority.  Most low residency graduate programs with a focus in English or creative writing are extremely competitive, and scholarships are even more so.

So I've got to make sure to practice my skills as much as possible in order to have a chance at getting a slot.  Cramming extra writing in on top of my current sort-of-single parenthood, caregiving, and all the other obligations I have right now is a challenge, but I've got to make it a priority if I want to meet my goal.  I love being a mother and a caregiver, and those are my main concerns right now, but that doesn't mean that's all I want to be.  I think it's important to remind myself sometimes that I'm not defined solely by my role as a mother, and that there are dreams it's important for me to hang onto if I want to be true to myself.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Quiet Day

Connor had three seizures today; two small ones and a slightly longer one in the afternoon.  He seemed to be feeling a bit under the weather-- he might be getting sick.  Hopefully he'll be feeling better tomorrow; it's no fun to be sick any time, but especially not when his daddy's here!

Otherwise the day went just fine; we had respite care and Eden had a Christmas party, so Jer and I took the opportunity to go out on a date, which was nice.  We tried going to a sushi restaurant, but they were so full they didn't want to seat anyone else.  So we ate Thai food instead.  Thai food is always a favorite in our house!  

When we got home Connor was fast asleep, so after Eden came back from her party the three of us hung out in the living room for a while.  Jer played one of his computer games, and Eden and I watched a Korean drama together.  Eden watched a lot of Korean dramas in Thailand, but they were dubbed into Thai.  The English subtitles are good practice for her reading, and I like the mother-daughter time with her.  

So it was a nice, quiet evening, and we all had a good time.   It's so nice to be able to hang around the house with the whole family at home.  The only thing that would have made it better is if Connor had been feeling well and snuggling with us instead of sleeping.  Keep your fingers crossed that he's not getting sick!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is A Sickykin

I kept Connor home from school today as he wasn't feeling at all well; he dozed upright in his chair all through our morning routine and even the car ride to drop Eden off.  So I brought him back home and put him to bed, where he slept for around three hours.  Then he perked up a little bit and I brought him out into the living room, where he watched the Broadway productions of both Phantom of The Opera and Les Mis-- both highly appropriate movies for a seven year old.  Oh well; he loves the music.

With the exception of a brief break for tea with my mother after she popped by to say hello and choir practice in the evening, I spent pretty much the whole day cleaning and belting out the lyrics to the musicals.  Connor seemed to be okay with my top-volume version of "Do You Hear The People Sing?" but the cats were extremely unimpressed.  I'm pretty sure Cricket thought I was dying in some horribly agonizing fashion.

Tomorrow the little guy has a cardiology appointment; I hope he feels up to going!  I have to schedule those things quite a bit in advance, and we need a renewal of the kid's heart medication.  We also have our first respite care session tomorrow, and it would be nice if the little guy was feeling up to meeting somebody new.  I'll be sticking around the house this first time anyway as it will be a new nurse, but I would imagine things will go much more smoothly if Connor isn't feeling crabby because he's sick.

~Jess

In Which I Buy Tree Trimmings And Connor Runs Out Of Steam

I took the opportunity today while the kids were in school to go out and pick up some of my Christmas trimmings for this year.  This will be Eden's first Christmas home, and I want to do it right!  Of course, it made me want to put up all of my decorations now, and it's still too early.  This will be Eden's first Thanksgiving too, and I should probably wait until she's experienced all of the holidays before I start skipping over them.

Connor had a bit of a rough day; he didn't have any seizures, but he threw up all of his meals at school and at physical therapy he did an amazingly realistic impression of a sack of potatoes.  Not only did the kid not attempt to work on any of his normal exercises, but he was actively trying to lie down every time we sat him up.  He spent the entire trip back home alternating between signing "tired" and "sad," and when I gave in and put him down around five in the evening he was out in less than five minutes.  Part of it may just be the season; we're getting into the time when it's dark outside at a depressingly early hour, and goodness knows it always makes me want to hibernate.  I hope he's not coming down with something; maybe it was just one of those days.

Hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow!

~Jess

In Which The Little Guy Is Under The Weather And Eden Holds Her Own

Last night Connor stayed up until two thirty in the morning, so it's not surprising that he was a bit groggy when I dropped him off for school.  Apparently he perked up quite a bit once he got there though, and he was fairly cheery until Eden's physical therapy appointment this evening, where he started throwing up and then conked out on one of the mats for the whole hour.  I think he might be coming down with yet another bug; it is rather the season for them.  I had to wake him up when it was time to go home, and once I put him to bed he was out like a light.  Poor little guy.  He's not running a fever though and he didn't have any seizures, so we'll see how he feels in the morning.

So I was sitting there at while Connor snoozed away watching Eden balance on a wobble board while she threw a basketball back and forth with her physical therapist, and I was awestruck by just how far she's come in the past eleven months.  When she got here, walking more than a few hundred yards was exhausting, stairs were a serious challenge, and something like balancing on a wobble board seemed completely out of reach.  She's not only running and jumping and balancing on that board like a pro; she's also standing so much taller, with her shoulders back and her head held high.  It's absolutely amazing how much of a difference it makes; I love seeing the evidence of the confident, self-assured young woman she's becoming in the way she carries herself.  That's my girl!

In other news, tomorrow I have my intake appointment for the home health care company who will be doing our respite care!  I am so unbelievably excited about this-- I did a happy dance around the house for about five minutes after I got the phone call.  Working with two different companies for respite care and night nursing may be a bit complicated, but I am really, really ready to have my respite care back so I'll make it work.

Anyway, it's late and I need to be up a bit early to get some extra cleaning done.  Tomorrow's another busy day!

~Jess

In Which We Do All The Things

I'm going to start trying to get up a bit early so I can blog.  I have the unfortunate problem that I like to be alone to write so I can do it uninterrupted, which is why I used to do it right before bed.  Now, however, I have a kid who won't go to bed until I do.  She knows when I go to bed because she's currently sleeping in mine.  This makes for a lot of early nights.  So if I want alone time right now, I have to sneak out while she's asleep. 

Ellen isn't a big fan of spending any time by herself right now, which is understandable.  This is a kid who had literally never been by herself before leaving Thailand, and so going from a large orphanage to our tiny household and having to spend some of that time alone is a big deal for her.  And of course, since I need to be eyes-on with Connor whenever he's awake, I'm used to having very little time to myself.  I didn't realize just how much I crave and need that bit of alone time in the evening to center myself (and do things like blog) until I didn't have it any more.

So I'm going to be making an effort to shift my blogging and sleeping habits and get up a bit early to write and have some time to myself.  Right now while the kids are in school that time is pretty easy to find.  It's when the summer gets here that I'll need to get creative!  With Jer in school full-time, the kiddos will be spending pretty much all of their waking hours with me.  Hopefully I can establish some habits that will allow me to have that time to myself, so that I can sit down, drink a quiet cup of tea and catch you all up on what's going on around here.

For the most part things are going well!  On Tuesday, Ellen is going to what will probably be her last appointment for a little while, to the eye doctor.  Apparently she saw an eye doctor when she was four years old and was given glasses, but when she outgrew them she didn't get any more.  The nurse at her school shot me an e-mail the other day telling me that Ellen's eyesight on their low-tech screening was about 30/50.  We suspect she has a bit of strabismus in her left eye too, which is really common among kids with her type of cerebral palsy.  So she'll be going in to get her eyes checked.  She says that if she needs to wear something she wants contacts.

She'll also be getting an ankle foot orthotic (AFO) for her left foot, which rolls in quite a bit when she walks.  She comes down pretty hard on that foot because her left leg is shorter than her right, and so the problem is slowly getting worse.  Thankfully, an AFO should be able to help correct those issues quite a bit.  She wasn't enthusiastic about the idea of an AFO, which I'm not surprised by at all once she described the ones she wore as a kid, which were those heavy metal over-the-knee braces that I'm pretty sure they stopped making after about the 70s.  Once she learned, though, that the AFO would be similar to Connor's and would help prevent her from needing surgery later she was much more okay with the idea.

Connor is doing well; the new seizure medication seems to be helping.  He had a nasty round of seizures a few days ago that seemed to correspond with a short stomach bug, but then he was fine.  We've managed to miss the big norovirus outbreak up here so far, which I am extremely thankful for!  I'm not ready to figure out the One Child Sick And One Child Well situation yet, let alone navigate the whole glorious Mom Is Sick And Everyone Else Is Fine thing.  I've included an only moderately blurry picture of him in a colorful outfit and his leg extension braces to make up for not blogging in a while.  As you can see, he got a haircut and is rapidly advancing to the Handsome Not-So-Little Boy stage of proceedings.  Sigh.  Oh, and here's a picture of a moose.  Because you know, it's a moose.

We've done a TON of other stuff this week that I'm not going to blog about because it would take way too long, which is what happens when I don't blog every day. Ellen picked out an American name she wants to legally change her name to, we cooked a meal together in the kitchen for the first time, Connor is going to be in a drumming performance, we took a trip to Northwest Trek (hence the moose), Ellen tried out Girl Scouts. . . the list goes on.  Things are decidedly not dull around here.  But if I tried to blog about all of it now, this thing would be 80 bajillion pages long.  I hate that I'm not writing all of this down so I can remember it later.  So that's motivation for me to get back to writing!

~Jess