Happy Thanksgiving (part 2)

We had a nice day aside from some major crankiness from someone little, cute, and sick.  This morning I could not get anything done without hearing "Mommy, up! MOMMY, UP!" so I wrapped her up on my back.  She was very happy and comfortable up there and I was able to get some things accomplished.  Soon she fell asleep.  Lee snapped a couple pics...forgive the PJs, bedhead, and no makeup.

And here's one of my sweet guys snuggled up on the chair...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Looking forward to spending a nice quiet Thanksgiving with my wonderful family.  Zoe is sick again, if you can believe that.  Feverish and clingy.  Loving the extended snuggle time with my not normally snuggley girl, but I feel so bad for her.  She hasn't really been 100% since starting day care.

Some good news is that Jackson is another few steps closer to getting his ECO2 with ECOpoint.  The assistive tech therapists are going to write it up for insurance.  Hopefully it will get approved straightaway, but I am guessing not.  I am always surprised (shocked might be a better word) when the big things go through without a fight.

The ear problems continue

Zoe finished her 10 days of antibiotics on Sunday.  Yesterday we noticed her playing with her ear again.  Today her other ear drum started draining.  Back to the doctor, and another 10 days of stronger antibiotics.  Poor babe! 

A funny (but typical) Zoe thing:  When I noticed her playing with her ear I asked her if her ear hurt.  She immediately starts screaming "NO NO NO NO!!!" and proceeds to throw a tantrum, rolling around on the floor and everything.

My sweet sensitive boy

We get a lot of library books for Jackson since he really loves when we read to him.  Since Halloween was not too long ago, we still have a "ghost story" type book geared to the young elementary set checked out.

Lee noticed that when he gets that book out and ask Jackson if he wanted to read it, he did some strange posturing.  His arms would go out stiff and his head would turn hard to the left.  (This is not a completely unusual thing for Jackson to do, but it was unusual for him to do it when presented with a book.)  Same thing happened the next two times he got the book out.  When Lee would ask if he wanted a different book, Jackson would vocalize yes.

Today Lee asked me to try, and Jackson did the same thing.  I asked him if he didn't like that book and he vocalized yes.  Then I asked him if he thought the book was too scary.  Yep, that's the reason he doesn't like it...poor kiddo!

Hangin' with my kid

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day.  I have the day off from work and Jackson also has the day off.  We are going to drop Zoe off at day care and I get to have some one-on-one time with Jackson.  I can't tell you the last time I got to just hang with my boy so I am excited! 

Zoe is such an attention hog.  If she is awake she is demanding that I (or Lee or both of us) pay attention to her.  Jackson is really wonderful and patient, but I am happy that I get to spend some time making him feel special.

I don't have anything big planned, but the weather is supposed to be fabulous (it's been near 70 all this week!) so we will definitely be outside for a while. 

Zoe is feeling better today

We took Zoe back to the doctor today to get her labs drawn again since her hemoglobin was low before.  They thought it was most likely just viral but they wanted to be sure it was getting better not worse, which it is.  So yay!

Ear infection

The virus that Zoe had has now developed into double ear infections.  :(

 Can you believe Jackson is 7 and has NEVER had an ear infection?  So this is our first time dealing with them. 

Anyway, one of her ear drums perforated and now her ear is constantly draining.  She's on antibiotics now, so hopefully she will get to feeling better soon.

Lee is super stressed since he has had to stay home with her so much this week, he is not getting any work done.

Halloween pics

We took these at the (rather lame) halloween party we went to last weekend.  Not sure if the kids will want to dress up again tonight since Z is not feeling well and they both already had a halloween celebration at school.  Jackson's duck butt barely fit in his chair!

House of little sickies

Zoe has been feeling ill since Friday evening.  Super-clingy, feverish, fits of crying alternating with fits of coughing, and refusing nearly all food.  Poor little babe.

Jackson doesn't seem to have a fever but he was pukier than normal yesterday.  We went through 4 shirts and 2 pairs of pants (and I had to take apart his wheelchair to clean it).  It may have been that I gave him straight formula rather than blending real food for him as I normally do.  So today I blended for him and so far he is holding everything down.

Hopefully everyone will feel better tomorrow, but I'm thinking Zoe may need another day to recover.  No fun to be sick on Halloween!

Look at my cutie now

She is getting so big and gorgeous.  At school they put her hair up into pig tails often.  (Lee gets her ready in the morning.  He does a great job but he does not do pig tails!)  She had on a super-cute outfit today and adorable pig tails.  By the time the pics were taken one pig tail had come out...still cute though.

Hi Ho Hi Ho

Before Jackson got sick I had been a special ed teacher in a Chicago high school.  Once he got out of the hospital I had to go on leave and eventually to quit to take care of him.  This was more than 5 years ago.  Now that Jackson is doing so well in his school (I don't feel I have to be close by "just in case") and Zoe is old enough not to need me quite so much (ha ha!), we decided the best thing for our family was for me to start looking for a job.  I had been looking since the beginning of the summer and finally found a position recently.  I started last week.

It's been a big adjustment for all of us, especially Zoe.  We found a great day care only a few blocks away.  The director is a parent of a kid who goes to Jackson's school so I kind of knew her already.  Zoe really likes going to school, but she has been a bit of a terror at home (yes, even more than normal).  Plus she has had a constant runny nose since she started there which is no fun.  This weekend we really had to crack down on some of her more out-of-control behaviors and it seems to be working a little already, thank goodness!

Lee has been taking on more of the stay at home role...he gets the kids ready for school after I leave for work, gets Jackson on the bus, and drops Zoe off at school.  Then in the afternoon, he hurries home so he can meet Jackson's bus.  We are not sure exactly what we are going to do about after school care for Jackson but until we figure it out, Lee is the man.

Jackson wants to be WHAT for halloween?

So I was trying to figure out what Jackson wanted to be for Halloween, which consists of me asking him a lot of questions and he will touch my hand when the answer is "yes" to each question to narrow things down.  He said he wanted to be Donald Duck.  Hmmmm, that's not what I would have guessed at all.  Really, I am very dubious at this result.

I made Lee try again with him to be certain that is what he wanted.  He absolutely positively without a doubt wants to be Donald Duck.  Okay...

It's not a very popular costume with the bigger kids.  It wasn't that easy finding a decent Donald in his size that we can afford (plenty of full size mascot costumes for hundreds of bucks out there in adult sizes though in case you were wondering) that does not have a mask (he would gag if we put a mask on him for more than a few minutes).  But we ordered what appeared to be a good one in his size...it didn't have a red bow or legs though.  So I also ordered some yellow sweatpants (which are not that easy to find either!) and I think he is going to be a pretty good Donald.

A funny Zoe story in honor of her birthday

We were out at dinner tonight and she wanted some of my lemonade, but she forgot what it was called.  She kept asking for "whatever it is" pointing over to the lemonade.  We didn't understand her at first, so then she threw a mini tantrum over whatever it is.  She was crying and yelling "WHATEVER IT IS WHATEVER IT IS WHATEVER IT IS!"  When we finally understood what she was asking for, we made her ask nicely.  "PLEASE whatever it is?"

It made Lee and me laugh so hard!

 And now that she has had her official birthday if you ask her how old she is she will tell you "I 1, 2 old!"

Zoe's birthday party

Zoe is not officially 2 until tomorrow, but we had her party yesterday since Aunt Rae and Uncle Joe were in town visiting. She had been seriously studying up on essential birthday party items and making sure we were going to have everything necessary to have a good party...balloons? presents? cake too? blow out candles?

Here we all are singing. I love that Jackson was singing too! And she got to blow her candle out.



Here is her official 2nd birthday party slide show

2nd grade

Jackson started 2nd grade this week.  As usual, he loves school!  Much better than sitting around the house being bored with Mom.  He has the same teacher this year.  He is the only boy in his class this year!  I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. ;)

We had another incident today with his pump not being on the chair when he arrived at home today.  I noticed right away as I was taking him up the walk from the bus and I was able to ask his bus aide (also the same one from last year) but she didn't know anything about it...she's with another class during the day so she doesn't get his stuff ready to go.  I called the nurse right away when we got in the house and as I was calling her, she was also calling me.  She told me she would be able to drop it off as she was leaving the school, thank goodness. (Jackson is no longer fed continuously so we could have made due without it for a half a day but it is so much easier to have it!)  Then the bus aide called me and told me she had talked to the nurse and that the nurse said that she would drop it off on her way home.

I really love the way everyone at the school takes care of him.  It makes me feel really happy that we made the right choice moving here so he could go to this school.  Especially if you think back to some of the crap that happened back at his old school.  (If you don't remember or are new to the blog you can read here, here, or here. There are more but these are some of the biggies.)

We have been having a small bit of construction done at our house right now...getting a ceiling fan installed in the living room and a fan in the bathroom.  It has been a little more disruptive than I thought it would be.  The living room is our main room.  We do everything in there...all the toys are in there, the TV, computer, the music, Jackson's futon so he can chill before and after school, we even have a table in there so we can eat nearby him.  With this room out of commission for most of the day for the last 3 days, it has been challenging.  And the bathroom...well, you know. Hopefully they will be all done by Friday.  (They had to run electric up to both rooms, cut a bunch of plaster out, drill hole in brick for the bathroom fan exhaust,and then patch everything up which is why it is taking so long)