First Day Back

(Tuesday)

Today was AJ’s first day back at school following Christmas break.  I woke up victorious, having gotten a full night’s sleep for the first time in weeks. AJ chose today as the first day to sleep in the last two weeks.  Each morning we wake to “beep, beep, beep, doo doo doo, doo, spinny thing, vroom vroom”…you get the idea.  Because AJ needs his seizure medication around the same time each morning, there is no more true sleeping in for this family.  Unless… Jer and I are in Hawaii. There was lots of sleeping in there.  Sigh.

Anywho, I had to wake him, which was rather uneventful.  He had a few seizures during breakfast and maybe two more after breakfast-or what I’d call his attempt to be a bird.  His platform swing…wait.  Did I tell you we put it up?  And he loves it?  He does.  The bolt came out of the joist on New Year’s Eve. We’ve had a bit of a sad boy, but then we pull out his ginormous new body ball (yoga ball) and he’s giggly again.  The swing should be up by this evening. 

Moving forward again…usually we swing after getting dressed, as he knows that’s the next thing in our routine.  Sadly I told him no we couldn’t swing and signed broke while I said it was broken.  When saying, “Do you want you ball?”  I received a big smile and manic signing of please occurred.  I love that little guy.

So roll on the ball we did until it was time to go.  He stopped in the middle of the driveway and starred at me whining a bit.  Hm.  Odd.  Lightbulb! He’s got to go potty.  Sure enough, that’s what it was.  This is what makes things so frustrating at times as he knows what in blue blazes is going on and needs a way to tell us.  I know, you say whip out the iPad.  Well, we’re learning quickly that there is no perfect system (other than saying aloud what you need, honestly) to this.  I knew what he needed, so we went.

We arrived at school and he was tired, but excited to be there.  I spent my morning listening to the pleasant hum of the humidifier while I did homework, sent out 435 emails and making 1,765 phone calls.  It was one of those days.

When I picked him up from school he was sleeping, and slept a good 2.5 hours.  He woke up happy and bubbly.  Happy and bubbly until 11:30pm.  We swung A LOT and he ate A LOT.  All was normal.

I often find myself going over days like this over and over in my head to try and see if there was something I could have done different.  I decided that if I find him sleeping that hard again, I’ll allow him to sleep until the latest time possible and take him in to school late.  We’ll play it by ear. Sleep is very important to kids with epilepsy-it certainly is for our little dude.

Mahalo Molokai

I can't believe its been five months since our trip to Hawaii.  We spent 8 days there...the perfect amount of time for us to unwind.  We flew into Honolulu on a Friday afternoon and stayed overnight close to the airport.  The next morning we flew to Molokai, which is the island nestled between Maui and Lanai.  Holy We Are In The Middle of Nowhere.  It was breathtaking.

Our hotel was the only on the island.  The restaurant was 20 paces from our room.  

Did I mention it was on the ocean?  Did I mention our room was right on the ocean? 

We had a gorgeous view of Lanai.

 Find one of the many small paths between the greenery and your on the sand.

 

We spent the week touring the island-all 38 miles of it.  

Heading to the West End we spotted this gorgeous spot.

 On our first night in Molokai our hotel sponsored a benefit for the Special Olympics.  

Did we want to go? Absolutely!

We tried local food favorites. This is "Loco Moco":

And had lots some of these...

 There are more Packer Fans on Molokai than you would think!

 We went off-roading and snorkeling...

And went to the beach...

 The most gorgeous black 

sand beach on the East Side-Halawa Bay.

(I had a print made of this shot for our new house-LOVE.)

 We enjoy doing lots of nothing...

 Night strolls on the beach...

 Learned about and cracked our own macadamian nuts!

 And celebrated 10 years of marriage.

I wasn't quite sure if this trip was going to doable, especially the night Jeremy bid on the timeshare week someone had donated to a charity event we attended. I was thinking about it logistically.  Who the heck is going to watch AJ and, and, and... It all worked out.  A very special thank you to Jer's Mom for watching AJ for the entire week.  

We had an amazing time and really had a chance to reconnect as a couple.  I was silly, he was silly.  We laughed until we cried.  We relaxed and talked about the future and talked about how we need to do this more often.  Perhaps, not a trip across the country all the time, but we found ourselves totally re-energized and ready for life.  We needed recharging.  We hope some day to make it back to Molokai, but for now, we'll enjoy our amazing memories.

In Which I Am About To Be Surprised...

I've always wanted to start a blog post with "In Which".  I love reading Jess' posts on her blog...not just because she's an awesome writer, but because she draws me in by starting each and every post with "In Which..."

Jeremy planned a vacation for just the two of us this weekend.  He gave me the dates in August and told me we were flying somewhere, in the States.  He arranged for his Mom to come in and watch AJ...even my own Mom is in on the whole surprise.  I must say, they have all done an outstanding job at keeping the location of our journey a secret.  Bravo people.  Its driving me nuts!

If you know me, you know I don't do so well with surprises.  I'm Type A, gotta know.  Ya know? 

I haven't been on a plane since we flew home with AJ.  That wasn't the greatest experience and caused me some trauma. Nevertheless, Jeremy thought it was important that we fly somewhere with a relatively short distance (as far as flights go) before we fly 8+ hours for our anniversary trip in February.  Good thinkin' hon.

I'm beginning to get excited about this weekend's surprise trip.  While we've been on a few mini-getaways since becoming parents, we have never gotten on a plane and actually gone on vacation.  We need it.  That's all I'm sayin'.

I'm looking forward to the lack of thinking I plan on doing. I'm looking forward to a break.  I'm looking forward to whatever it is we'll be doing. I'm looking forward to spending time with my husband. We'll be together, just the two of us, for over 3 days.  We might just get sick of each other!  Do I really think we will?  No. 

Warm weather he tells me.  Pack for warm weather.  Guess what?  Sandals were on clearance when I went shopping today.  Woot Woot.

I'm excited. 

Summer Vacation 2009

We took a trip to Green Lake, WI and Cedar Rapids, IA earlier in August.

Jeremy had a one-day conference at a gorgeous hotel on Green Lake so we drove up as a family, stayed overnight, and then left for Iowa the next day after Jer's conference was over. Here are some gorgeous shots of Green Lake we discovered while Dad was hard at work.


Haley was once again here, which was such a blessing. She had been here for almost a week, helping us with AJ. Instead of taking the train back, she just rode to Iowa with us! While Jer was at his conference we took AJ to the hotel pool. I am not kidding you-I have never seen this type of kiddie pool in a hotel before. At least not one without the waterpark attached to it. It was awesome! AJ absolutely loved it, and we played between the kiddie pool and regular pool for two hours. AJ enjoys being in his new carseat and really enjoyed the ride to Iowa.




Over the weekend we enjoyed the Corn Fest at Grandma & Grandpa's church. AJ did a great job of eating his way through and went on his first ride, the Carousel. It was very exciting that he was able to enjoy something at the Corn Fest. We were a little disappointed he couldn't go down the big slide with Haley (no double riding), and was too small and wouldn't understand to sit and stay in the train ride, but at least he was able to go on the Carousel. They had an entire Kiddieland Tent set up. AJ fished, picked a duck, threw a football, and picked a sucker from the sucker tree. It was really cute.






The next morning we headed to the Amana Colonies for some yummy breakfast with the breakfast group. AJ loved the European style pancakes. We enjoyed the neighbor's pool...AJ is such a natural in the pool. And we can't forget the always hilarious games of Catch Phrase.






On our way home we stopped in Cambridge, WI. "Our" bed and breakfast, Lake Ripley Lodge, is located there, right on Lake Ripley. We've come to know the owners rather well, and after many failed attempts, decided to stop so they could meet AJ. Jim and Janice are such wonderful people! They were very excited to see us and we enjoyed our visit with them. Janice is a former SLP, so we chatted abou cochlear implants and how AJ was doing with it. It just about melted my heart when she signed shoes and socks to him on the porch. While she offered us "our" room, we left for home. We are anxious to get back there, as we haven't been all year! It is the perfect getaway-only about an hour away and driving distance to Madison. Maybe this fall...

Back to this vacation:
Thanks for having us Grandma & Grandpa Nutt!