Happy Halloween!

It has been a pretty quiet night. We've had about 30 kids come to the house and Bennett made it out to two. He's been pretty sick with a cold the last couple of days and he doesn't really eat candy so he doesn't care. What he does care about is when the kids leave. He gets very annoyed that kids come to the door and don't stay to play. Jim and I on the other hand had a very good time decorating. Our pumpkins look great but the pictures don't do them justice so I decided not to post them.

He makes a very cute little pumpkin doesn't he?

The Ringer

We're almost finished our current block of occupational therapy. We've continued to work on getting him to use his right hand and have spent a lot of time encouraging bilateral hand use. It's coming - slowly but we are making progress. The activity we're doing below is one that Bennett really seems to enjoy - unlike the shape sorter! He's holding a wooden spoon in is right hand and putting the rings on with his left.

Go Bennett Go! The video is 50 seconds but well worth it - or at least I think so...

New Sleeping Arrangements

So it seems we have new sleeping arrangements around here and I've ended up on the couch. Jim and Bennett are sharing a bed...

Bennett is in there with his head partly under the pillow - both boys happily snoring away.

Above, you can see Mr. Innocent sitting beside my new bed - our living room couch.

I'm glad at least one of us is happy.....and well rested.......

Party Guy

Bennett has a busy social calendar - much busier than mine. However, that really isn't saying much considering my life. This past weekend, he attended a birthday party on Saturday and then had a play date with Kasia on Sunday. He had great time at both. I remembered my camera on Saturday but forgot to bring it on Sunday.

The picture above is Bennett and Daddy. In the bottom right hand corner, you can see the side of Sam's face - everytime I tried to take a picture he turned his head so it's difficult to see how extremely handsome he is. He was not the birthday boy but is the son of my good friend Tiffany.

In the video below you can enjoy an exciting game of hot potato. Unfortunately, it is cut off at the best time - another victim of my pathetic camera skills.

Apple Pie!

Finally - I have my apple pie! I baked it yesterday and it's delicious. I must confess though that I cheated. I had no idea until Monday that Pillsbury made refridgerated pie crusts - they don't tell you stuff like that on the Food Network. So I purchased the pie crust but I made my own filling.

Busy Guy

I’m tired – especially by the end of the day. Jim is greeted at the door on a regular basis with my enthusiastic and slightly desperate cry of, “Thank God you’re home!” The main source of my exhaustion these days is my precious but precocious little boy. He’s not walking yet but he crawls fast and is pulling up everywhere. He has figured out every door, drawer and cupboard in the house. It seems nothing escapes his attention. Examples of his latest antics include:

Bennett loves to empty drawers and sometimes if I'm lucky he’ll even refill them. He also likes to take stuff from one place and then put it somewhere else. Like the day he took everything from the bottom drawer of the change table and put it all in the laundry hamper.

He also likes to go into the fridge or a drawer and pull out one item to amuse himself. One day he found a can of mushroom soup and proceeded to roll it around the house for about 15 minutes. I know there’s a lot that can done with a can of mushroom soup but this particular game never occurred to me. I guess it shows my complete lack of imagination!

Throwing stuff down the stairs has also turned into a fun game. He seems to enjoy the excited reaction this gets from mommy each and every time.

I believe that Bowser and Bennett have begun to conspire behind my back as well. Bowser has been wearing Bennett’s socks to prevent him from licking his paws. Bennett thinks it’s great fun to pull them off and Bowser seems to agree! I think Bowser might be starting to believe that this Bennett guy is not so bad after all.

Bennett has also started closing the door behind him when he goes into a room – something I didn’t think he would start until his teens. The other day he went into the bathroom and closed the door. When I opened the door I found him sitting on the floor happily licking the toilet plunger! That certainly provides new meaning to the term “potty mouth”!

Disclaimer: This post is in NO WAY a complaint! It is a celebration of a little boy doing exactly what a little boy his age should be doing – driving his mother crazy! However, that doesn’t include the plunger incident – that’s just gross!!!

Did You Know...

That Go Diego Go is on TV at 1am? Well it is..and how do I know you ask? Because I'm up - we're all up...again. Bennett wants to play, Bowser wants to pee and Jim and I just want to sleep. I'm not enjoying this new schedule. Do you think maybe Bennett and Bowser are plotting against us?

Do you think I should use this time to make my apple pie?

Cruisin'

Mummu has requested some good news....here you go. Some Friday night cruisin' before bath time. Please ignore Bennett's pants that are too long and my annoying voice...

At Least the Day's Half Done....

What a 12 hours it has been.

Warning - this is a bit of a continuation of yesterday's whine.

We were pretty tired last night - it's been a rough week with all the peeing going on around here. We had just fallen asleep when we heard Bowser peeing again at 12:30am. So we got up - Jim cleaned the pee and I mopped the floor. We got back to bed at 1am. At 1:15am Bennett woke up and decided that it was time to start the day. He continued his efforts to convince us that it was a good idea to be awake until 6am when he and Jim finally fell asleep in the chair. Meanwhile, I was looking at apple pie recipes online and Bowser peed (sp?) a couple more times outside - not in the house thankfully.

We slept until 9:30 then anxiously rushed to see the orthotic guy at the hospital about Bennett's brace. It was a strange and infuriating appointment as this arrogant guy who may have been having a bad day proceeded to yell at and belittle us and our physiotherapist. We haven't been treated that badly by a "medical professional" in a long time. It left both of us in shock as we weren't sure how to respond. I don't even want to go into what was said because it's all so riduculous but I'll summarize by saying that he insisted his brace was fine. So, we're back to square one but hopefully the shoe modification will work.

Anyway, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the rest of the day. However, I remain determined to make that damn apple pie.......

Overwhelmed

I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately so please let me indulge in some whine. Feel free not to read.

Bennett
A) Starting Daycare – Exciting but scary. Will he like it? Will it be good for him? Will he be sick with colds all the time?
B) The Brace – Apparently it’s the widest brace ever made. We have an appt tomorrow to hopefully fix it. In the meantime we have a useless $1200 piece of plastic.
C) Walker – Brand new with a seat, back rest and harness. The rubber stoppers are stiff and he can’t propel it very well on his own. Because his left side is stronger he tends to drift so we’ve added 6 pounds of weights to try to correct it. So, this 22 month old kid with CP is trying to drag a 10 pound piece of aluminum with him as he learns to walk. He’s still smiling – I’m not.
D) Therapies – Right now we have all 3 therapies happening. That’s a lot of appointments and lots of homework. Of course, I still feel like I’m not doing enough.

Me
A) 2nd anniversary of the accident – This is now my life. I am done healing. I won’t get any better. Last year, I still had hope that things would improve. Now I’m coping with the fact that they won’t.
B) Legal crap – Can’t say much about this. Just appointments, paperwork, assessments, etc….

C) Teeth – I haven’t been to a dentist in about 3 years. I’ve always been meticulous about my dental health. I appreciate all the money my parents spent fixing my teeth. However, first I was pregnant, then the accident, then more surgeries, then cerebral palsy. I’ve been so busy worrying about losing Bennett, my life and my leg that the prospect of losing a couple teeth hasn’t seemed that important. But I know I have at least one cavity and a wisdom tooth that needs to come out. I also dread hearing the lecture about how I need to brush more, floss more, go to the dentist more…
D) CT Scan – My orthopedic surgeon has requested a CT scan of my ankle which apparently isn’t looking so great. I’m too terrified to book it. Every time I pick up the phone I put it down and walk away.
E) Frazzled – I’ve always taken pride in my organization skills. However, lately I’ve been double booking appointments. I’ve purchased a day planner for 2009 – hopefully that will help. My current wall calendar is such a mess that I can barely distinguish the dates anymore.

House
A) Hot tub – our hot tub hasn’t been working and it’s taking FOREVER to get it fixed. What – you have a HOT TUB? Yes - and it provides me with wonderful relief, however I haven’t been able to use it in months.
B) Mouse in the house – Nothing against mice but I don’t like them living in my house.
C) Unfinished projects – So many little things in the house need to be done and neither one of us seem able to find the time. In the grand scheme of things, the odd piece of missing trim is small potatoes but it still bugs my borderline OCD personality.

Bowser
A) Paws – Bowser has been licking his paws so much they’re raw. At first I thought it was just anxiety and everything that has happened in the last couple years had caught up to him. I put off taking him to the vet because I was afraid it could be something terrible and felt I couldn’t take anymore. I took him in last week. The vet suspects it is an allergic reaction that has snowballed and has prescribed medication. Hopefully this works because if it doesn’t it could be an immune disorder which is quite serious. I feel so GUILTY and ashamed that I let my sweet dog suffer just because of my own selfish fears.
B) Pee - Bowser is doing better but the medication makes him pee a lot and by a lot, I mean every hour. As you can imagine this is a problem at night. So, I’ve been cleaning up messes every day.

So, those are just some of the highlights of what’s been going on in my life lately. And worst of all (not really, but I’m just trying to lighten the mood) I have been dying for a homemade apple pie. I have the ingredients and the pie plate has been sitting on my counter for days waiting for me, but I can’t seem to find the time. Maybe tomorrow……………..

Happy Birthday Auntie Bonnie!

Happy Birthday to you - I hope you had a wonderful day! I'm sorry that I'm a day late, but we were camping. I think we need to get together again soon for a new picture - I barely recognize that little guy in your arms - I think I was only 10 days old!

Just for you, I had mommy add a couple pictures from our Thanksgiving camping excursion!

A Weekend Away

Two weekends ago, Jim and I went on a mini-vacation. We drove around northern Michigan and then returned to Sault Ste. Marie, ON where we took the Agawa Canyon train tour. We had a great time but missed Bennett a lot. He stayed at home with the grandparents (both sets) who I'm sure are still recuperating! Here are some pictures.

The Brace

We finally have it! It took 3 months but now it’s here. So far we’re pretty much at the stage where we’re trying to get him used to it a little bit at a time. He doesn’t seem to mind and it doesn’t affect his crawling. However, it’s flat and plastic on the bottom so he can’t pull to stand with it, which is frustrating for him as he likes to stand up everywhere. As a result, I don’t like to leave it on him too long even though our goal is to have him eventually wear it for most of the day.

I just bet some of you are wondering to yourselves: “Why doesn’t that woman just have him wear a shoe over his brace?” Well I wish we could. However, it seems that just might be impossible. I don’t know how easy it is to see in the picture but there are huge knobby things sitting very low on the brace that prevent it from fitting in the shoe properly. I will admit that I haven’t scoured the earth for shoes, but our physiotherapist agrees that it may not be possible to get a shoe for the brace. We have a call in to the guy that was responsible for making it but when you consider that it took three months to get it, it may take almost as long to hear from him. In the meantime, we keep trying to stretch out the sides of the shoe that we found and have him wear the brace when he crawls. Our physio suggested putting a large non-slip sock over the brace to help when we practice standing but we can’t use it to walk which was the area that the brace was supposed to be most helpful.

So, really, I don’t know if we’re much further ahead than we were. We’ve been told that it should be very helpful to him when he walks but I can’t say yet. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, if anyone who reads this blog has had a similar problem and solved it, I would love to hear from you!

Thanks!