My Sick Boy

Today is Day Three of the Sick Boy at Home.

Over the weekend he developed the sniffles and a bit of a cough. We laid low except for church. Monday morning I decided to let him sleep and kept him home from school. By afternoon he seemed to be more like himself. So Tues morning we got up and off to school he went. By mid morning he had spiked a fever and the school was calling me to come pick him up.

Tues afternoon and evening his symptoms abated and he looked like he was on the mend again. But not wanting a repeat of Tuesday, I waffled whether to send him to school or keep him home. After hearing him coughing in the early hours, I made my decision to keep him home again.

Today has been more of the same: sniffles, a little cough once in awhile, lots of cartoons and lots of liquids.

The hard thing about Joe being sick is that he rarely acts sick. He doesn't lie on the couch, moaning or napping. If you didn't hear him hacking or have to wipe his nose you'd barely know he was sick.

I'm really hoping he gets to feeling better. With no school on Friday, if he doesn't go to school on Thursday he will have missed almost the whole week.

I'm keeping up with the laundry, the dishes and the meals, but I'd really like to get back to my writing. Kind of hard to do when Dinosaur Train is on in the background!

Thankfully, #1 son doesn't get sick often. Just part of the challenges of being 'mom', right?

Til next time .....

Doing The Happy Dance

Yesterday we had our follow up meeting for my son. We had our first meeting with the school a month ago. It was a hard meeting. But we were prepared. I wasn't sure what to expect yesterday. I was pleasantly suprised by everyone coming on board with our desire to move Josiah into a self contained classroom. We have wanted a different classroom for Josiah ever since he was placed in his current classroom, almost 2 years ago. And we got what we wanted! I'm doing the happy dance, with a bit of moody bittersweet thrown in. Being an idealist I wish that Josiah hadn't had to experience the last 2 years where he has been. And not knowing if we will even still be in Boise next year, it feels a bit like a hollow victory.

But I'm consoling myself that even if we move, now I know what to ask for in the next district. I am learning. I love to learn. But I'd rather learn things that I'm interested in, rather than these lessons that are thrust upon me. Guess I'm having one of those "welcome to holland" moments (referring to the poem of the same name about being a parent of a disabled child. If you haven't read the poem, do so! It explains so much)

But onto the happy dance for now! Twirling around with my son who's big brown eyes captivate me every time.



Til next time ....

Thank You & New Obsession

Thank you for the prayers, comments and well wishes for my meeting yesterday. Without divulging alot of details (this is the internet after all!) I can safely say that we came to a meeting of the minds and that the rest of the school year should be better than the first half was. There are still a few changes we would like to see for next year and we will be meeting again next month, but that is next month. For now, I can breathe a little easier and get on with more pleasant things like: MY NEW FAV OBSESSION



My friend PJ loves wearing red polish. After last years idea of being a nail tech, I started dabbling in wearing polish myself. My trouble tho has always been smudges on the polish while drying. I would paint my nails and within an hour or two I would be taking it off. But no more! PJ put me onto a great drying product and that has made the difference. That and I now do my nails in stages. That way I can actually use my hands. It may take me as long as 2 days to do both my hands, but that's ok.

My other inspiration was finding a couple blogs where the bloggers show off their latest polish colors. One gal even does a full blown review on each color, the cost, the way it wears, etc etc

So, are you interested in the particulars? The picture above, was taken a month or so ago, but I still love it. It is cheap too! Its called Lincoln Center by NYC: in a New York Color Minute. Don't remember the price, but I believe it was under $2. I told ya it was cheap!

So, do you wear polish? Come on, spill! What's your fav color? And if ya don't wear polish, why not? Were you like me, always ruining the look with smudges and goofs? Or something else?

WARNING: sentimental kid stuff

you've been warned. sentimental, mushy kid stuff coming up. if you gag at just the thot of it, leave now and go read some snarky post elsewhere. otherwise, get ready for a little misting of the eyes.

as you know by now if you're a faithful reader, our 11 yr old son is non verbal. he has a few signs he does constantly (ie pizza, dad, dog, lightsaber, & crocodile) he had others in his repetoire too, but usually has to be prodded to use them. and then he has others that we try to teach him, but he has no patience for, for whatever reason.

this year i wrote to his teacher and asked her what the sign for merry christmas is. i thot it would be great to try to teach him that this year. so after we found out, we started working on it at home, and they worked on it with him at school as well.

yesterday in the journal that comes home with him to let us know how school went, it had a note saying that they had an assembly with Christmas music. Joe loves music anyway, so had a great time. AND .... in the middle of one of the christmas songs joe signed "merry Christmas" without any prompting!!! when i heard that my mama's heart just welled up with pride. my son gets it! he knows what merry Christmas means and said it to let others know that he knows. sigh .... it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

now i'm hoping we can catch him signing it and send a video to grandparents, family and friends. of course, that would mean finding someone with a video phone or something of the sort to help us in the effort! but whateva ... i can dream.

don't ya just love messing around with photos?

i was upstairs doing some sewing. i decided to come down for a snack and the computer just reached out and grabbed me! seriously, 2 hands reached out of the screen and pushed me into my seat.

so i had to do something. so i went to my photo area and played around with some of my fav pics of my son. i think they turned out cute, but you be the judge and let me know which is your fav.





i kind of like this one: half tone effect



this one is called topography, i kind of like this one



next we have charcoal, you can't see the effect very good in this shot



my least favorite: colored foil effect



and last this is colored pencil, i think this might be my favorite of all the effects. and of course, #1 son is my fav subject

my weekend: co-opted by circumstances

if you notice the last post i made i said not much was happening. how that can change in such a short time.

friday nite #1 son came home from his special needs program crying. turns out he fell in the bathroom and bumped his head.

dh and i monitored the situation, checked the internet as to how to care for someone with a concussion. i knew he wouldn't feel like eating so we just settled down in front of the tv, making sure he could rest. soon tho he was throwing up and after an hour his crying hadn't ceased. when you're dealing with a non-verbal child it is so hard to know what he is experiencing. it is a very helpless feeling ....

so we headed off to the ER. even tho the ER was being slammed, they got him in quickly. we weren't sure what to expect since everything we had read said that docs can't really do much for a concussion. the ER doc finally got around to seeing #1 son. after checking his ears, nose and eyes he told us there was blood pooling behind his left ear. so he wanted to proceed and order a CAT scan. he asked if our son could hold still for 5 minutes while in the machine---HA! so first they had to give him some drugs. oh how i hate to see my son poked and prodded and drugged up. when he came out of the CAT scan his eyes were glassy and darting everywhere as he tried to shake off the effects of the drugs. and he was still crying.





we soon found out from the results of the scan that he had blood between his brain and skull, not a good thing. and the pressure that ensued was causing the pain which was resulted in the crying ....

what we weren't expecting were the next words out of the doctors mouth: "we can either send your son to salt lake or boise" what?!? i thot we were going to be sent home and told to rest for a couple days. but no, because of the blood and the pressure our son needed to be in a larger hospital in case it didn't go away on its own. so, they ordered a helicopter to take our son up to boise. we decided that dh should ride along with them and i would drive up and meet them at the hospital.

i kissed my son goodbye, watching him being carted off to the ambulence, and rushed home to toss a few clothes and necessities into a bag before heading out. of course, i forgot a few things, like a change of clothes for hubby! oooops!

as i drove the 2 hours to boise i prayed, i sang along with worship songs, i prayed some more. i had made a few phonecalls already to let others know what was happening and put our son on their church's prayer chain. as i flew along the freeway i felt the wings of the angels holding me up and keeping me awake. i knew the Lord had heard my prayers and others and was anxious to hear what this hospital in boise would say and do.

they had admitted our #1 son into the ER and i connected with dh and son. he had been given some anti nausea meds so he wasn't throwing up as he had been doing the previous 5 hours. later that night he was transferred to a regular room in the pediatric ward. dh and i decided that he would stay and i would drive over to my brother's and bunk down there for the night. i am so thankful that my brother and sister in law moved to boise 2 years ago. and not just so i had somewhere close to bunk down for the night.




the next day #1 son seemed to be getting better and then took a turn for the worse in the afternoon. so we as his parents, along with his doc and the main nurse who had been caring for him decided it would be best to stay one more night.

finally sunday afternoon we were released and headed home. #1 son is no longer in pain, is holding down light foods, but is still a bit unsteady on his feet. we had a low key day today and hopefully he'll be ready to go back to school tomorrow.

i have pics and hope to download/upload? some and get them on this blog. and now, i'm ready for a weekend! where did mine go?