I tried, and failed, to get a good picture of the kids playing during Saturday's hockey game. They had built a bed, and were all snuggled in. But the second the camera was seen, the whole living room erupted into a round of antics and "cheeeeeese!" Oh well.
Things are busy. we're finally finishing up the move. The junk guys came today - movers come tomorrow. we were going to take up our many offers of help from friends and family, but everyone has a different schedule, and we have heavy stuff left - like boxes of books and the chest freezer. One call, and I've got a couple guys coming with a truck - for not too much more than a truck rental would be in the first place. They come when I say, and I don't need to feel guilt for making them work, because they do this to pay their own bills - they sounded downright excited, to be honest. Someone's got to keep the economy churning, right?
Anyway, a couple more days, and it will all be over - thank goodness!
Kids are all great. Dave is over...whatever that was. He still has big red patches on his face, but the body rash and fever is gone. I assumed it was all a heat rash, but John's teacher sent home a note last week saying one student had fifth disease. we looked it up - it looks EXACTLY like what poor Dave had. Maybe it was that all along. But I think I'm going to take him in to the doc anyway, to have his skin looked at - he has really raw patches that just won't clear, and is due for a check-up anyway.
John's doing well. Going through a bit of a tantrumy phase, but not too bad. Sometimes, he gets it in his head that he runs the world, and we have to knock him back in his place. Gently. One day, we're driving to school or something, and he says to me "Did you know I'm in charge of you?" I was unaware I had been overthrown.
Joan is awesome. She's in a pretty tantrumy phase too. (hmmm...a pattern? Perhaps related to a certain chocolate spewing rabbit? Hmmm...something to ponder....)
Anyway, tantrums aside, she's doing well. She had her gross motor assessment - she's in the first percentile. That counts as severe. It means if there were only 100 kids in the world, she'd be the worst-off one. If there were only 1,000, she'd be somewhere in the bottom 10. It's awesome for funding, and not bad news - with intense therapy, she's expected to make great gains. And that's just what the team intends to do this summer, to get her into preschool in the best shape possible. Tomorrow morning, she's having a mitt made for constraint therapy! It's a removable cast thing that goes over her good arm, downgrading it to a helper hand, and starting in mid-May, we'll be in the hospital for 2-3 hours each day for intense constraint therapy with one of the aides. Should be very exciting. It's kind of an experiment for this hospital - they've neve actually used it before. But this OT is excited about the research, and wants to try it out on some kids. Joan made the list, because she's been using her affected arm the past couple months in ever increasing and exciting ways. Her OT hasn't heard this story yet, but at her last dancey class at the Y, they pulled out a game with pegs, and had a bunch of plastic rings to put on the pegs. Most of the kids were more interested in twirling about. But Joan decided to have a go at this game, and moved each ring, one by one, from one peg to another...all with her right hand exclusively. She COULD have used her left. But she wouldn't - she wanted to do it with her right, so that's what shew did. She did awesome. The first few rings didn't wind up anywhere near the receiving peg. She just kind of flopped them down, and they landed wherever. But the last two actually got on the peg! I wish someone who knew her had seen it. It was a private victory just between us, but it was a great moment. She came over to me for a big hug and a cheer afterwards.
She's got such a fiesty, stubborn streak in her. We turned in her walker just before we moved - she wasn't using it anymore. It had just become another toy for John, and we knew other kids could use it. So back it went. It got replaced with walking sticks. But she refused to use them. We tried everything - we got John to model them. We used them. We left them lying around, thinking maybe she'd secretly use them while no-one was looking, which is kind of her style. But nope - refused. She can walk now, and that's that - she won't use anything, even though she can go faster with help. And in the hospital, she even refuses to hold hands. It takes her about 10 minutes to walk from the parking lot to her therapist's office, but she won't accept any help for a single step of it. Not even holding hands. It's hilarious. And when she gets there, she has this look of "so there - told you I could do it!" smeared all over her face.
She walks everywhere now. She scoots pretty rarely. I can't actually remember the last time I saw her scoot across a room. She has a limp, but it's getting better every day. This house is great for her - she walks miles every day, there's so much room. She finally saw her orthopedic team a week or two ago. They refused to let the OT try botox - they feel she's too young (it usually begins around 4) and they want to see more strength in her hand first, because the injections weaken the hand, which would take her already very weak hand and make it useless for 3 months. But apart from that, they took an X-ray. So far, her hips are completely unaffected by the stroke, and both the surgeon and therapist who works with him think she's made fantastic progress, and walks very, very well.
I'm a little dissappointed they're limiting the OT, but I'm really really excited to see what constraint therapy can do.
In other news, a belated thank you toMike's Grandma - we actually just got your Easter parcel yesterday - the landlord took a while to get us our mail key (we have one of those community boxes). They both love the little music box, and our house is now decorated with giant balloons! Thanks for Mike's B-day present, too - that will come in handy. And a belated thanks to Mike's parents for thier easter parcel, too. It did arrive on time. The hoody fits Dave perfectly - so cute! The puppet has been a hit, too. And you can't go wrong with chocolate. Except when you try to eat it all so your kids can't. Happily, they're too young to notice it evaporating in the night. But it's not a great idea for it to evaporate into me - it doesn't evaporate at all...it pools in unsightly places.
Anyway, better go. Big day tomorrow - hospital in the morning, movers in the afternoon.
I could hear them horsing around in the night, but wasn't quite prepared to walk in on this in the morning. John says it's a rocketship. That's Joan's mattress across the top, by the way.
