SASHA NY

This morning I walked out to my car to find a nearly flat tire. I knew something was up with one of the tires on the driver side, so thank you, rear tire, for solving the mystery and owning up to being the problem child. I had to get Isaac to his therapy appointments, so I stopped at the gas station to fill the "problem child" up with some air. A Volkswagen GTI zipped in front of me and beat me to the air pump, and I must say, I was a little ticked off in that moment because I can't stand being late. But then, I read the license plate, "SASHA NY". So I had to see who was driving this car. As I watched and waited, in one quick, fluid motion, a woman stepped out of the car and popped open her umbrella like she was Mary Poppins. It was amazing. I was truly impressed with her ability to avoid a single rain drop. She then pranced over to the air pump, holding her umbrella at the perfect height, of course, and pumped up her tire without skipping a beat. She replaced the pump, checked her watch, and with the same ease, closed her umbrella and popped back into her car.

SASHA, you amaze me. You, in your perfect outfit, with your heels, and your perfectly done hair and make-up. Impressive. I wish I could wield an umbrella just like you do. Did you take lessons from Mary Poppins? SASHA has been making me mad all day. I can't stop thinking about her.

If I even had an umbrella (don't feel sorry for me, umbrella's are totally annoying so I don't want one), I'd probably stand outside of my car trying to get it to open, and then I'd probably poke my eye. And then, once I got to the air pump, I'd have to do that thing where you try to hold the umbrella handle like a phone, but in reality, it's too skinny for that, so it ends up falling over and it you get soaking wet anyway...yeah, that would be me. Instead, I choose to get wet. And I'm smarter than SASHA NY. I don't do my hair when it's raining. Silly SASHA.

SASHA NY, I know you probably have matching pajamas. That's totally boring. I bet even your bra and underwear match. It's okay, I'll let that slide. I tend to feel extra special too when my bra and underwear match. You probably wash your hair every day. Don't you think that's a bit excessive? I doubt you've ever had to sit at a sleep study, or go to a billion doctor appointments for your child who has special needs. SASHA NY, you're clueless. But I'll forgive you because you entertained me with your umbrella skills.

Cone of Shame

Stella came in the house this morning with a puncture wound on her leg. I have no idea how she got it and we've scoured the yard in an attempt to find the culprit. We made a trip to the Vet. to have it checked out, and much to Stella's embarrassment, she must bear the "Cone of Shame." 

Isaac's first drink of water...

He can blow bubbles with the straw, but won't actually take a drink. 

Isabella loves to draw and spends most of her free time coloring or drawing pictures for me.

When I was pregnant with Isabella I took a knitting class and worked on making two baby sweaters for Isabella and a few scarves. I didn't finish a single one of those projects. I'm happy to say, this baby blanket is my first completed knitting project. Despite the fact that the pattern had in the title, "Eight Hour Baby Blanket", this took way more than eight hours.

First fall craft.

Stella was feeling rather sad and in need of a lot sympathy regarding her wound. This led her to sit in a chair much too small for her so that she could catch my eye and look extra pathetic.

Isabella tried to comfort her with a few household items, including the Bible, so she could pray for healing.

It looks like her leg will be okay. She's on an antibiotic and pain meds. Isabella thought Stella might feel better if her cone was decorated. As she did this she kept telling Stella that she was so beautiful even with a cone on her head. Oh, and now Isaac is scared of Stella. Apparently, giant cones aren't his thing.

I'm crazy!

The fact that next Wednesday Isaac will have four appointments in one day, proves the point that, I'm crazy! Only a crazy person does that. Last night as I was trying to fall asleep and running through my internalized calendar of Isaac's schedule, I realized that Wednesday Isaac will have OT, PT, SLT, and in the evening he and I will drive to Rainbow Babies for a Sleep Study. Add to that his Help Me Grow appointment on Monday and if I decide my sanity isn't at risk, a Sensory Adventure Day on Friday, at one of the privately run schools for special needs. When you have to schedule so many appointments, there's always one that has to come before the other. Hence my agreement to scheduling the sleep study on the same day as three other appointments. He has to have the sleep study before we go to our already scheduled ENT follow-up, and then of course he has to have that before we go to the already scheduled Sleep Doctor follow-up. Well, and then there's neurology, and she'll want to know all about everything so we might as well come with some juicy sleep study news. 

I think we're going to have amazing sleep study results. After the last one I was kind of freaking out because the Sleep Doctor and the ENT were discussing a future craniofacial surgery that would essentially break his jaw, and move it forward in order to open up his airway. We're still praying that we can avoid that one, and judging by his improvement in sleep and overall breathing since having the tonsillectomy, I think he'll just need some heavy duty orthodontics. 

Side note: I'm kind of excited about the sleep study because the next morning, I get to drop Isaac off at my parent's house, go home, and snuggle up in bed with Stella. It's going to be wonderful. Sleep. I can't wait! 

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Homeschooling doesn't get much better than this: pajamas and a Starbucks coffee. And she says she want to go to real school. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

Isaac is learning to read too. He's also learning to count: "Isaac, say, one - two - three - GO!" "Uh, uh, uh, GO!" Close enough.

Have you ever watched Curious George? If you haven't, I don't recommend it. You listen to the most annoyingly high pitched monkey repeat the same sound over and over again for an entire 20 minutes. With that said, Isaac kind of reminds me of Curious George, in a nicer way, of course. They're both really good at miming, and they both repeat the same sound over and over again until the man with the yellow hat, or in our case, Walter and I figure out what he is telling us.

Isaac's usually goes like this: Mama. Maaaama. MAMA. Uh, uh, uh, eh, eh, eh, oh, oh, oh...as he gestures for me to sit on floor and swings his arms like he's swinging a bat. Oh, duh, you want to play baseball/catch with the ball! I'm getting really good at this game. It's his favorite, and if I don't do it: MaaaaMA, Mama, uh, uh, uh, UH, EH, OH, UH, BA (Ball).

Notice the tongue sticking out for extra focus. :)

I could used some knocked out, oblivious to the world sleep like this....

They love each other so much. If Isaac is sitting next to Isabella, he caresses her hair.

Isaac knows exactly where we keep the board games and he sits at the door and cries until we let him pick which one he wants. Then he forces me to play with him. I tend to hope he doesn't pick Operation. That requires a Tylenol to go with it.

This is Isaac realizing that he just hit the Squinkie jack pot while Isabella wasn't looking.

Squinkie makers, what exactly inspired you to create "Zinkies" (a much smaller version of Squinkies)? Are you trying to find more ways to torture parents?

We had a few very rough months trying to get Isaac to not scream as if we were torturing him every time we went to the library. I really didn't want to give up on going, because when we go it's for Isabella's "special" story time and craft time. Well, the perseverance paid off, and now he will happily (most of the time) play at the computer and is way to loud with excitement while he's there, but so far the librarians haven't kicked us out.

Example of inconsistent exposure. I changed my settings before taking the next two pictures. 

He looked over and saw Charlotte typing and thought that looked like a cool idea. 

I went to the grocery store (Heinen's, to be exact. Where most of the people recognize us because we shop there every week) and bought a bottle of wine for our post roast. I only took in my bank card with me because I don't like carrying a purse if I don't have to. Of course I didn't think to bring in my I.D. I generally assume that if I'm grocery shopping with two kids, that automatically puts me in the category of "old enough to purchase alcohol". Not so, they made me go out to my car to get my I.D.

Here's to looking like a teen mom.

Sierra

Do I have a nickname?

"Mommy, what's my nickname?" 

"Um, I don't think you really have a nickname."

"Well, everyone has a nickname. What is my nickname?" 

"I call you 'girlie' some times, so I guess that could be a nickname."

"No, what is my real nickname?" 

"Why are you thinking about nicknames?"

"Maya says everyone has a nickname."

"Really. Well, I don't have one."

"You don't?! Well, I want my nickname to be 'Bella'"

"Hmmm, I don't really like that idea. I like your name, so that's what I'm going to call you." (Me thinking, DARN IT, I knew this would happen one day)

"Well, my nickname is 'Bella'" 

"Okay." But I'll punch you in the face if you call her Bella, so don't do it. 

We went for a hike today. Something we used to do almost every weekend in the pre-Isaac days. We had tons of fun, and Isabella had a blast until we reached the car. She hiked almost two miles without complaint and then..."That was the worst thing I've ever done." "I never want to go on that hike again." "Next time we need to go on a shorter hike." BLAH BLAH BLAH. 

Walter and I were so confused. We were sure someone stole our child and replaced ours with an evil look-alike. She went to her room and then I used the very classic: If you don't have anything nice to say, you aren't allowed to say anything at all. So I set the timer for ten minutes, during which she wasn't allowed to talk. Those were the best ten minutes. You can look forward to pictures from the hike in the next post.

Before you look at the first picture, I just want to inform you, that Isaac does not sleep in the bouncy seat anymore! Hooray! (Except when Walter is in charge of nap time, and Isaac falls asleep to the History Channel--Apparently he thinks history is pretty boring). Now that he has graduated from the bouncy seat, he sleeps in a very comfortable double bed, and has trained me to sleep with him for the majority of the night. Kids are so good at training parents. 

Benefit of tube feeding: My child can eat while he sleeps. Very odd. And also not something we do very often because I try to teach him at least some awareness of his own hunger. 

Air Show. I must say, I have not seen my husband in the past three years so completely happy as he was at the Air Show. The man loves planes, and if I would let him, he would get a pilot's license. Maybe I should dress up as an F-18 for Halloween.

This is called, "tube feeding on the go". It works. Isaac can tolerate bolus feeds now, so if we're out and need to get in 8oz pretty fast, we can speed up the pump rate. He doesn't like to have a feeding this way because it bothers him to see the tube and have it touching him. In this case he sat in the wagon and pulled his hair. Otherwise, we were pleasantly surprised with how well he handled the Air Show.

He refused to wear ear plugs or headphones. Thankfully he fell asleep right as the Blue Angels took off, so we were able to hold a blanket against his ears.

Isabella says we're too loud for her and on this particular night, she fell asleep with the headphones on. During the day, when Isaac starts crying, she grabs them and puts them on. I should have bought another pair for myself.

Isabella learned how to jump-rope. Today we had a jump rope contest. I won. The only problem with any form of jumping after you've had two kids, is that I had to make a couple trips to the bathroom. Moms, you know what I mean. During most of pregnancy with Isaac, he felt like he was just going to fall out, which he definitely did not do, but nonetheless, he managed to do some damage. Not cool.

Isabella is making some really good progress in school. She is now able to read a few words, which I'm really excited about! Aside from the fact that when I say, "Okay, time do our school work!" I hear in response, "Do you mean real school, or home school?" Fake homeschooling is going really well, and I'm happy we made this decision.

You guessed it. History Channel at work again!

Isaac has made some really amazing progress in the past two weeks. He has added many sounds to his vocabulary and has started saying, 'no' and 'me'. I love it! Last Monday evening he drank his first sip of water from a cup. We couldn't believe it. At the time, he was sitting on my mom's lap and pointing to her glass of water, she asked him if he wanted a drink, he nodded yes, and took a sip! He thought it was hilarious that the water touched his lips and then made it game to blow bubbles in the water instead of take a drink. Sorry, I don't have those pictures uploaded yet.

Speaking of blowing. I read a book about improving speech and oral motor skills for kids who have low muscle tone, and they suggested incorporating musical instruments into therapy sessions. I decided to work on this with him at home and he has become very good at playing a kazoo, and can even blow out candles now. We're working on a harmonica, which is a different sensation for the mouth and lips, but he is close to producing some sound. Once I started incorporating these things into our "at home" therapy, I noticed that he was moving around his mouth more, closing his lips more often throughout the day, AND, drum roll please...can close his lips around a spoon AND around a straw! Hooray! This is huge progress for him!

We have a bunch of appointments lined up: Endocrinology, Sleep Study, Sleep Doctor, ENT, Neurologist....And on top of all of that, he has at least two therapy appointments each week. This was supposed to be our first week of three back to back therapy appointments in one day (OT, PT, SLT), but the fire alarm went off when speech was supposed to start, so he got out of that one.

My fingers are tired of typing, and Walter just asked if I am writing a book. So, I'll leave it at that.

Goodnight.