Canada Day

The shots were taken on the way home after last night's fireworks. They were pretty good, but we were high up on the hill, so they looked tiny. John and Joan squealed with excitement through the whole show, while Dave let out an occasional "wooooow" of wonderment. Tom didn't even notice them - he ate and dozed the whole time. He could sleep through a train wreck. It's an ability that comes in handy around here - I can put his seat in the middle of a room where his siblings are rough housing, and he'll sleep through the whole thing! Looking over this, it feels like he's not even around. But he's either sleeping, screaming, or being held by me. It's hard getting pictures of him doing anything but sleeping. But that's better than nothing, I guess!

I had an entertaining conversation with John yesterday, about why Canada has a birthday, sparked by his question "How can a country have a birthday? That's just weird."

Me: Well, we used to belong to England. Do you remember how we got free from England? (we discussed this heavily on Victoria Day.)

John. Yes. There were massive earthquakes, and the plates of the earth separated, and we just drifted off to sea.

He's probably right, but he went back a little further than I was expecting!

Tom's been in a bit of a rough patch - he's a pretty fussy little guy these past few days. The night feedings with the growth spurt seem to have passed, but he's still really fussy in the day. It might be gas. Mike thinks it may be the start of teething. We tried Tylenol, and he did settle down for a nap after that, so it could very well be. He sleeps fine if he's being held, and is sleeping well at night again, but he's hard to soothe and he's not sleeping deeply, because he pops awake when I set him down, which is very unlike him. he's been such a good sleeper so far, so something's up.

Joan met her actual OT today - the girl we saw before was SUPPOSED to be her OT, but had just accepted a job in the hospital's rehabilitation clinic, so she just wrote up a report. The girl we met today is newly immigrated from Australia, and she's great! I had to bring all the kids, because she only works on days that Mike works, and she too it all in stride. She got the boys involved, but was still able to see what she needed to see from Joan. She's going to see her twice more before we head to Dryden - next time she's coming to the house to help teach Joan all the tricks she needs to dress herself. We talked about adaptive things as well, like adding longer pulls to her zippers and things. We don't do a lot of adaptations for her - we were told that at this age, it's best to force her to adapt to real everyday things, so she can do as much as possible, and to treat adaptations as last resorts. We do give her a plate with sides, though, so her food doesn't glop onto the table as she eats. We give her narrower drinking glasses, as well, so she can hold them in one hand. But for the most part, we still keep her daily life unassisted, and this OT agrees with that, too. But she said she'll likely need to have certain things provided to her daycare come fall - apparently, it's often things like chairs with wheels or rails,so they can tuck themselves in easier. spring-loaded scissors. that kind of thing. But she never had a wheeled chair in Calgary - I'd think that would be more dangerous. I think they just have to be small enough and lightweight enough - the clinic here has heavy little wooden chairs, and she wasn't able to scootch herself up to the table in it.

Gotta go- I suddenly have three soaking wet kids surrounding me, all pointing fingers at each other. This aught to be good!