What A Pair. . .

Devon & Avery spent a busy day together -- running errands, making a roller coaster car, and working in the yard. And one other thing they did together pretty much all day long: sneeze. Yup! Here we go. Luckily one of their errands this morning was picking up her brand new prescription for Zyrtec. We'll be giving that a try tomorrow. Although I was concerned for her, nothing else could have been as hilarious to Avery as sneezing all day long. She laughed every time it happened. I'm sure that will get old soon.

By the time they got home from Home Depot one of the wheels had fallen off (the hole needs to be drilled a bit bigger).

I was just about to get out the paints to finish it up when out came the one thing that can trump painting in a second -- STICKERS!All done -- certificate in hand. Hi, my name is Avery, and I work in all departments: Toys, worms, and calming Jordan down with my voice (she particularly likes it when I sing the ABC song to her).

Avery's certainly getting to be a big helper these days. And one of her favorite places to help is in the yard -- anyones. She usually gets a day or two in nana Noma's yard, and at least a day or so with Devon in our yard. All you have to do to keep her interested is find worms (note, that generally means you're digging, bummer). As soon as she goes outside she builds them a 'worm house' (hole in the dirt), and then she can spend the whole day collecting worms to put in the worm house. Sometimes she names them, sometimes not. Today they even found 5 snails & put them in with the worms to be friends. She named the first 2 snails: Jesse (for the boy in Free Willy) and Susan Wells (for those of you who are not Elf afficionados, Susan Wells was Buddy's mom. . . we almost died laughing when she said that). The other 3 snails and most of the worms remained nameless today -- too bad for them.

Jordan & I have buddied up for the last few days in particular. She's not feeling so well, it seems. She's been pretty cranky for a few weeks, and I'm not sure why. It's possibly some "Keppra-tude" from that seizure med she's been on for ~1 month, even though it's a very low dose. Or, perhaps the Keppra is helping her brain, and she's just better able to express herself (waaaaaa, I need my diaper changed, I don't like that water in my face, come pick me up). But now we've added another variable to the mix: a red rash on her body, and random fevers for the last couple of days (easily controlled with Tylenol). We're already trying to clear up the Keratosis Pilaris, and now we think she might be having a reaction to the MMRV vaccine she had on Wednesday. Oh well, better to have a rash & some fevers than to actually have measles, mumps, rubella, or chicken pox. I can't imagine what a disease like that would do to her.

Avery was helping Jordan calm down from a little screaming fit tonight, and thought it would be fun to "hold" her. 39-pound Avery was outta there after only a few minutes of "holding" a 25-pound, 3-ounce Jordan.

Some of the other things we've been doing is enjoying the nice weather all week, celebrating Easter, and devising more and more ways to make life with Jordan & her equipment easier. We'll be celebrating again tomorrow with the Wood family, but it won't be in the 70'F + weather we had on Thursday at nana Noma's annual Easter Egg Hunt & party (uhhhhhhh, so far I have ~600 pics to sort through, but I AM working on them. . . . -- coming soon).

Last weekend we found out that actually sliding isn't all that much fun for Jordan, but lounging on the slide in the sun is quite nice.

Avery didn't want to slide, either, she just wanted to give Jordan a head massage with her feet.

Avery wanted her fingernails to match her new apron. She picked dark red for her toes. I've never painted her nails before, but it seemed like a fun thing to do. Note to self for future: It's virtually impossible for Avery to sit still long enough to get one nail painted, forget the 19 others, and the drying time -- and I had to bribe her to get her to hold still long enough for a picture. . . . The really funny thing is that she thinks the red polish smells like blood -- I think she has Devon's imagination!

And because Devon doesn't have quite enough projects to do to keep this house & yard running, he managed to sneak this project into the line-up. One of the awkward things about Jordan's wheelchair is figuring out how to go shopping with it. There's NO PLACE to put anything. So, Devon set out last weekend with one task -- to make her wheelchair shopping friendly. A Rubbermade storage box, 4 furniture wheels and 2 bungee cords later we took a family trip to the local supermarket to give the prototype a try:

It worked great, but boy does it get heavy by the end! Avery got a bum deal though, she had to walk the whole trip, and was pooped by then end.
For smaller trips I got a wire basket that I can strap to the handle. It works well, too.