29 March 2008

Twice In One Day, In Late March?!?

We woke up to snow! Other low-lying places had it yesterday (including nana Noma's), but today was our turn, too. It hung around until ~11:00am, then around 5:30pm it snowed & hailed again, covering the ground. Mind you, we don't even normally get snow here in December & January, let alone late March. No wonder all the flowers are so confused! Heck, with the good weather we've been having even I'm confused (and cold) about this!
Jordan's Easter Lilly's from Avery & nana Noma -- and we've already had Easter. I'm glad I didn't leave them outside last night! We holed up inside as much as we could. Jordan practiced chewing on her banana, playing with her balloon, and getting her hand to her mouth all day. She's getting good. Wait until my new Flip Video camera arrives in a few days (like I need something else to waste time on!). Avery got a couple of chances to bond with new friend (finally!) Mojave. 4 years in the making is that relationship! He'll let her come to him now if he's sleeping comfortably, and she's slow & quite. He does love getting combed, so that's a bonus if she has the comb in her hand.

27 March 2008

Making Progress

Favorite Avery-ism of the Easter holiday -- Devon: "Avery, what is Easter about?"
Avery: "It's about when Jesus gets a life!" (alive? perhaps)

The drywall & texturing is all done! Yippee -- time to install the shower pan & get going on the tiling in the bathroom. And wait for the cabinets to be built & installed for my office area.And paint, paint, paint.
In addition to widening the door to the bathroom, we accidentally widened the hallway at the bottom of the stairs by ripping out the last remaining wood paneling around the stove. Lo & behold, there was not wall there, just phantom wood paneling. It's nice to have the extra space, even if it was an accident.
Avery has already progressed past her 25-piece Easter puzzle & started tackling the 84-piece USA states puzzle. She whipped through it tonight with astonishing pace, but wouldn't let me take a picture of it when it was done (I have no idea why). We started with the states she knows on the west coast, and moved eastward, although her favorites were definitely the little ovals with the small state names written on them on the east coast. And, I can understand why Jordan has taken to wearing Devon's ski socks, but could they please be a little wackier?!

24 March 2008

Around The House

We've been busy as usual.

Jordan is hanging in there. We still don't have the cast stink completely under control, but its so much better than before the duct tape we're relieved. I have since learned that there are Gore-Tex casts, and Gore-Tex liners, and I'm dying to know why Jordan doesn't have one of those!

Unfortunately, she seems to be in pain when she's in her spica car seat. We're going to try to make it more flat-lying, and keep her out of the car as much as humanly possible. She cries with tears & puckers & screams after about 3 minutes in it -- and Jordan doesn't just cry for anything. It's quite unnerving. I can hardly concentrate on anything when she's like that, it must really hurt.

Also, her cast seems to be too big now that the swelling has gone down. Devon & I noticed it first and thought "oh, it's Shriners, they know what they're doing." Then 3 nurses and Jordan's PT have commented over the last couple of days, so I guess I'll give them a call tomorrow to see what they want to do (if anything). It's probably fine, but I'd hate to find out 6 weeks later it should have been fixed early on.

But otherwise she's doing great. She's been eating sweet potatoes & getting them to her mouth herself. She's definitely playing with her balloon & watching it. And other than being in the spica car seat she is doing really well tolerating the cast.

Over the weekend we went to nana Noma's 4th Annual Easter Festival (pictures & post to come). When we got home Avery & Devon enjoyed the great weather to work on Jordan's wheelchair ramp. And the next morning, we found that the Easter bunny had been by in the night and left a couple of baskets full of goodies. Avery loved them all, and dove in for the bubble gum first. Later Avery & I colored an Easter poster that she wanted to give to Kate, Kelly, & Ed. I told her to write their names on the back, and then I went to deal with Jordan. A minute or two later she brought it over and had written "KATE CLELY" all by herself (confusing C for K and knowing that there was a "silent" L, but she couldn't exactly remember where). She's getting good with writing her letters in lines and sounding out words on her own.

She even has her own toolset
The loot!
Mojave was so traumatized by all the construction, banging, compressor rattling, and dust downstairs he was willing to take all the soothing attention he could get, even if it was from Avery (yes, things are moving along down there -- I can't wait!)
Avery & nana Noma got these flowers for Jordan at "nana Noma's cookie store" (aka Albertsons supermarked, where they give Avery a free cookie at the deli counter everytime she goes in there with nana). On the way home with them, though, she was really torn, as tulips are Kelly & Kate's favorite. I love their form today (a week later), it's almost art itself.
Grey skies in Portland

22 March 2008

Stinky!

OMG! The stink of a cast around the diapering area. Really, there is no way, even with a Poise Pad, a #2 diaper shoved into the cast, and an Attends brief on the outside to keep that damn cast dry. And soaking in pee stinks. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So today, after some help from "hip baby" parents on line, I went to the store & bought a hairdryer with a cool setting and some red duct tape. Once the thing was dry (lots of hairdryer-ing on cool setting), I started taping it as far inside as I could & wrapping it around the outside. My feeble attempt to "waterproof" that area. We'll see how it goes. . . .

The red tape matches almost perfectly, but I did add some moleskin around the edges to make it softer on her skin.

You'd think with all the technology we have in the world today they could make a pee-resistant cast. . . . . I think this proves the point that Duct Tape Can Fix Anything!

21 March 2008

EggCiting

Thursday was egg coloring day. Those girls plowed through 3 dozen eggs in ~45 minutes, so Ed boiled up another dozen. We had about a zillion decorating kits, but I was all about the glitter. Kelly was into "egg tatoos" and the wax crayon. Avery & Kate let the eggs sit in the dye for, oh, about 5 seconds each, until we convinced them that they would be darker and "cooler" if they could leave them in the cup for, oh, about 10 seconds. Or, gasp, a minute or two, perhaps. This is my dining room table?
Glitter eggs
The highlight of the day was the egg ferris wheel. Talk about nerve-wracking (for me). Good thing eggs are cheap, they were getting dropped left & right by those butterfinger 4-year-olds.

Glow Golf

Happy 4th birthday to Kate! We all had fun at her GlowGolf birthday.
Avery, Kelton, Kate (pink dress), Hallie, Finn (in stripes)
With all these gifts it's good to have friends to help unwrapA funky place to golfThe birthday girl gets golfingTiger Rowe
The highlight of the evening, sliding down the "Out of Order" 18th Hole. Here's Hallie at the bottom, Kelton waiting her turn, and Logan watching on