The Second Half of August

Alex gave us a huge scare!  He got sick…and he has never been sick since we got him.  He was crying and miserable.  On the second day I took him to the doctor.  He had a low grade fever and is teething, but he was really, really not himself.  I worry all the time about his shunt.  People tell me “You’ll know when it is malfunctioning.”  “How?” I asked.  “Oh, you’ll know.”  Well, after missing a small thing like blindness, I am just not trusting my mother’s intuition right now.  So off to the doctor we went.  Her advice?  Get him to the ER at TCH.  Awesome.  Well, we had to wait for the night nurse to come watch Bella and then Jason and I headed down.  By the time we got down there, parked, and made our way to the ER  (They actually call it the EC at TCH- the Emergency Center, whatever), he had started laughing at Jason’s funny sounds.  OK, so some first year resident is going to look at us like we are crazy!  So we headed over to McDonald’s and waited and watched Alex.  Throw up.  Spike a fever.  Anything.  Nothing.  OK.  Let’s go home.  The next day I woke up feeling crummy.  Ahh…no wonder you have been whiny Little Brother if you felt like this!  Two days later Alex broke out in a viral rash.  So mystery completely solved.  Alex had a virus.  Very relieving, but my fears about his shunt didn’t go away.  How will I know?  As with everything with Alex, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Alex did get to have his ECI intake.  We filled out all of the forms that will allow a teacher for the visually impaired to start working with us.  I am so excited!  I have learned that she is also O&M (orientation and mobility – usually a separate teacher) trained!  I can’t wait to start learning from her!

Sammi went babysitting often and roller-skating with some of the Young Women.  She loved it! 

Becca got her parking space – very important!!  The van decided to die.  We took it to the shop only to find out that the video player in the car had killed the battery.  While embarrassing, at least it didn’t cost anything(!) and Becca had a car for the first day of school.  Becca loves her Didi!

The kids had a Primary Activity in the Ludlow’s backyard.  Lizzy had a blast!  A boy from the 11 year old Scouts were assigned to help Joy, but Jessi wasn’t going to leave her sister behind.  Everyone had a fun time!

There were lots of Open Houses going on.  Lizzy’s new class at Horizons had face painting, shirt pick up, and food at theirs.  Doerre Orientation – Jessi was super excited to get her schedule, her PE clothes, her locker, and walk around to find her locker and classes!  No fun activities at hers. :)  Joy had Meet the Teacher. She got to meet Mrs. Fannin and see the room. Joy LOVED the play kitchen! I got to give Mrs. Fannin a little info about Joy. We showed Joy where her back pack would go and delivered all of her school supplies.

Joy got to go with Sammi and I to Young women – doesn’t happen often, but with no night nurse leaving Joy at home would have been too much for poor Daddy!  I brought the ipad along to entertain Joy, but the part she loved the best was running laps with the YW!

The Texans won!  Sonic has a promotion.  Every time the Texans win, they give away free Texan slushes (cranberry and cherry!).  I think we visited our sonic three times that day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Therapy

Joy and her Chick-fil-A, playing in the rain!, Lizzy and Hershey (she’s gotten so big!!)

Culinary masterpieces:

Jason and Becca made Thai soup and Lizzy made home made chocolate cake

First day of School!

Becca, Jessi, and Joy all headed out to public school.  Becca is a graduating Junior (sniff, sniff), Jessi is in 6th Grade, and Joy is in Early Childhood.

Sammi and Lizzy started home school bright and early.  Mandy and Nathan were here with us.    It was a day of excitement for the kids.  Lizzy told me, “I love home schooling!”  So do I , kiddo!  I love watching them learn and discover new things.  It fills me with such contentment and peace.  I love that feeling! Sammi did a great experiment about molecules. 

It was also a scary day.  That day my brother was down at MD Anderson having his tumors removed.  I was never far from the phone! Mercifully, the surgeons think they were able to get all of the cancer out.  My brother has been so blessed!  We have all been so blessed!

Someone got to pick up her letterman jacket on the first day of school – huge smile!  School is exhausting though! Joy came home, managed a little PT and then crawled under the chair and feel asleep!

First day of Horizons! On Wednesdays Lizzy goes to a home school enrichment class. She was so excited! She had her lunch box and her shirt on. They do science experiments, PE, math enrichment, art – basically lots of fun educational stuff! She is loving it so far! On Wednesday Bella also had her first day of school with her homebound teacher. She was amazed by how much Bella has grown and how much she is trying to talk! On Wednesday I decided to drop everything (skip Bella’s school and therapy) to drive down to see my brother at MD Anderson. How I wish I could have spent more time with him while he was there! I just hate to see others suffer! I wish so badly that I could take on all of the troubles and suffering of those that I love and spare them. I know that isn’t the plan and I know I would stunt their eternal progression, but it seems so much easier to go through trials myself than to watch others I love suffer. I also learned how de-sensitized I am to all things medical. Amazing what life teaches us.

Random family pictures!                          (love his new monkey wubba nub!)

Bella loving on her sisters

Playing around and headed out to swim

I saw this egret while waiting to pick up Jessi after school.  Love how their legs work backwards compared to ours.  Joy and her dog, the love of her life.  And Alex…because he’s so cute!

Becca and Jason went to the JV Football game.  Meanwhile Sammi prepared dinner and help get everyone feed.  I am so grateful for her help!  Six nights in a row with no night nurse is hard.

We got more things in the mail for Alex.  Another book in braille plus a book I ordered on CVI written by parents for parents (yea!)  I also got this great bag full of goodies.  It’s fabulous!  We are starting to learn braille.  I have a through j down!  It’ll happen.  There is so much out there to help us learn! 

 

 

If you look at this picture, it looks like Alex is looking directly at Jason.  But we have learned with CVI that vision kinda comes and goes – still trying to learn more about that one!

 

Alex is so funny – we have the Primary songs in Mandarin and whenever we play them, Alex stops whatever he is doing and just listens.  It’s so cute!

On September 1, 2012 Linda got married to Ronnie.  We got to be involved with the wedding.  It turned out very nicely.  Linda was happy -  that’s the important thing!  Jessi and Lizzy were flower girls.

Becca played her viola and then she and her friend helped serve.

Congratulations Linda and Ronnie!

Other things that happened during this period: a birthday party, buying college books (Bec’s English class is another college class.  I haven’t paid $200 for two books in a long time!), had to go register Joy and Bella because they changed campuses, art lessons started again. 

Bella had her nursing re-eval.  They have decided to submit for 20 less hours a week.  Ouch.  She is improving.  We’ll have to make some adjustments.  We had no night nurse for six nights in a row.  That was painful. 

Joy had her ARD.  It was awesome!  I am loving her school! 

And another huge decision – Becca has officially decided to gradate early and go to BYU-Idaho.  Kinda hard for Mama.  I have had my moments, but was grateful that Heavenly Father has given me peace regarding the whole thing.  It’s a big decision for her to make, especially to leave her friends behind with the hope that her future will be blessed for this decision.  Hard to watch, but how proud she makes me!

And finally….I have resolved not to let this much time past between posts.  They are just too long! :)