Taking the Scenic Route

Dad was moved out of the ICU and into a regular room.  He is able to sit up to eat and is just generally doing better.  Praise be!  I am so relieved.

Now, for the rest of life…

Zach is still sick.  He is to that point (well, actually beyond the point) of having patience with it and is understandably irritable.  The doctor not giving him anything to help with the symptoms didn’t make him very happy either.  So far, the Tylenol and Aspirin don’t help at all, only the Ibuprophin is helping reduce his fever, which doesn’t really make any sense, but is true nonetheless.  He already had all of his classes but one set up, and the one that isn’t he sent out a memo that he would get the second assignment out later this week since people are still registering and dropping anyway. 

Low point of the day:  Tonight Zora pinched her finger in the accordion doors in front of the washer/dryer.  It bled, she was hysterical and I had a hard time discerning where the blood was coming from for a while until I finally saw her poor little thumb.  Most of the pad of her thumb was pinched and it looks like it will make a nasty blood blister.  It was scraped pretty bad, but not ER worthy.  She wasn’t impressed with the band-aid either.  Holding her and trying to comfort her tonight was my breaking point.  I cried right along with her as we lay in bed together tonight at bedtime.  It hurt and I couldn’t do anything about it.  I am getting so familiar with that feeling this week, but at least the grownups have some ability to cope.

I did get a nap today, but I also only got about 4-5 hours of sleep last night.  The main living area is somewhat picked up, but I am still having the frustration of everything taking just a little longer than it should because everything isn’t in order like it should be.  I was able to finish one load of laundry, I have another waiting in the dryer (It got pushed to the side when Zora got hurt and I am giving Zane a few minutes to fall to sleep before I start messing with it since it is just outside his room, and he doesn’t have a door on his room), and the final load I will do today is in the washer, waiting for the dryer.  There is enough clean to get us through a few days at least. 

Oh, and on a somewhat funny note, if anybody gets a weird email from Zach, he was sending me a picture of a boombox with a dvd player in the spirit of “look what they did now”, and instead of hitting the email for just Robert and me, he hit several group email buttons, so my whole family, and another group of people are going to get a link to a boombox and be wondering what the heck that is about.  lol

Zane starts back at ST at the college this week.  The new student clinician called tonight, apologizing for it being last minute.  I am actually glad she called tonight because in all likelihood, had she called earlier, there is a good chance I would have forgotten.  I told her about the teachers using sign.  I know she probably can’t address that this first week back, especially since she is a student and not able to switch gears that fast (it wouldn’t be a picnic for a professional, but they have more ability to switch things around when something like this comes up), but that it would be something important to address with him to help his transition into school.  I told her that I had an idea, but hadn’t had time to implement it (make a matching game between PECs that he is familiar with and the signs he needs to learn, maybe also paired with doing the action….I was sort of rambling, I hope she caught the drift of what I meant.)  I told her that I hadn’t talked to her ‘boss’ about it, but she might have more concrete ideas, and reiterated that I don’t expect it to be on the agenda tomorrow.  She knows Zane from preschool last year, so that is a big bonus. He doesn’t have to learn a new person.  

I worked with Zane a bit tonight on ‘hands behind his back’ thing tonight.  (and the ASL, but that seemed less successful so far) That is one rule I really like because it is so much clearer than the typical list of what you aren’t supposed to do that we were given as kids.  (don’t push, don’t touch, don’t hit, etc.)  Instead of kids testing the boundaries of what they can and can’t do (I can see myself as a kid thinking “they didn’t say I couldn’t clap my hands, so it isn’t against the rules), they gave one clear rule…hands behind your back keeps a LOT of other options off the table.  It might take just a bit of practice for Zane to be able to walk without veering over with his hands back there, but I think he can get it (and if he can’t, we will make a viable alternative, but I think he can handle the motor planning involved for that in short order)

Well, Zane is probably asleep now, so I will close, switch around the laundry, and relax a bit.