Kindness

I have to be careful what I type because the schools all have HIPPA rules, but I have been wanting to share this story for awhile.  Honestly in Bella’s classes I have a hard time figuring out who is there for therapies and who is there to be a normally developing peer.  Bella is obvious, but the rest are very similar, I can guess, but I am probably wrong on more than one.

But the story I want to share is one of great compassion.  There is a little boy is Bella’s class who has food allergies, I believe pretty extreme allergies, but I don’t know for sure.  He has a restricted diet.  He likes to eat at the same table as Bella.  He also takes great interest in what she eats, because to him, she is also someone who has a restricted diet.

All on his own he was able to explain to his mom all about Bella’s food.  Bella’s class has room parties, people bring in treats for holidays and for their birthdays.  They have an approved snack list to cover kids with allergies, so that whatever treat is brought everyone can eat.  Well everyone but Bella.  Most of the families don’t think about (and probably don’t know) about Bella’s blended food diet.  But this little boy knew that she could only eat this certain foods and explained it so well to his mother that they have been giving Bella special bags of pureed food for the treat bags during class parties.  I was truly touched by their kindness and it brought tears to my eyes the first time I opened up her treat sack and saw food that she could actually eat and enjoy.

I want to thank this family again (even if they never read this) for going out of their way to make Bella feel included.  It means a lot to me.  And should hopefully make us all realize that sometimes it’s the smallest things that can mean a lot to someone.

Well–It’s curing

So as with all our projects, things did not go as expected.

On Sunday, Jesse started making the form and getting it ready for the concrete pour.  It was a nice day outside, so we took advantage.

I was called upon to help every once in awhile, so we set up the kids in the living room.

Can you see him?  Look closer.

Someone enjoyed the view out the window, and happy he could see mom and dad.

And Bella enjoyed talking to him from inside.

On Monday we poured the concrete.  This time we are pouring directly onto the cabinet below.

A couple hours after finishing you are supposed to be able to remove the front face board and then do any filling in of holes, or smoothing as necessary.  Except, the board did not come off nicely and did more damage. 

Jesse was ready to get the shovel and tear the whole thing back out.  I hadn’t been super excited about the sharp edge, so the fact we had to come up with something else was fine with me.  Since we weren’t going to be able to make anything perfect, I figured we would go with an organic look and just make it non-perfect and more raw looking.

Hopefully we will be able to sand the edge to make it smooth.

It will be interesting to see how it looks once it is all completely dried, but for now I’m liking the natural “raw” look.

Veggies

Jesse is only a little worse than I when it comes to vegetables.  We just don’t eat them.  You know I said I was going to eat two servings a day for lent.

All I can say is – I’m trying.  I am at least eating one serving a day.  I also wanted to try new ones and try making them in interesting ways.  Because if you left us to eat the ones we both enjoyed, it would be corn, raw carrots, and an occasional salad.  And that would be it.

So this past week we tried:

Yellow squash.  Which I must admit, turned out a little smoky flavored, and I didn’t enjoy it.  So it got pureed and mixed in with Bella’s barbeque.  She gobbled it up….go Bella, at least someone likes vegetables in our house.

Next up was zucchini.  I first wanted to try zucchini fries dipped in pizza sauce.

The fries were okay.  I would eat them again if someone else made them, but they took a lot of prep work to make, and didn’t have a lot of flavor to them.  So I won’t be making them again.

I still had a zucchini left, and decided zucchini bread would be up next.

The zucchini bread turned out great as long as you have something to drink while you are eating it, in other words it’s a tad bit dry on it’s own, and I didn’t want to smear butter on it.  I think I would make this again, and it’s great that I am getting some vegetables in my breakfast.  It was also very filling.

Next recipe to try is bacon wrapped asparagus.  I have eaten this before and found it to be alright.  Can’t you tell that eating vegetables is a struggle for us.  The other problem, are you noticing all the bad ingredients we have to add to even attempt to eat the vegetables.  I guess in the end we are getting the nutrients, but it would be nice to find some vegetables that we like just as they are!

It’s a bust

This is our concrete countertop.  We have been keeping it in the basement, trying to figure out how to fix the pock marks in the front edge.  We had brainstormed a couple ideas, but decided on trying to grind the edge down.

Jesse started the grinding this morning, and got about 1/3 done, and decided he didn’t like how it was going.

Plus we had to contend with the crack at the sink basin.

So we finally made the decision to scrap this countertop.

And try again.  Keep your figures crossed that we will have actual bathroom pictures to show you soon, with an actual countertop.  Scrapping this one is something we should have done months ago!!

Mom was gone

I had a conference all day today.

Jesse took the day off to stay home and watch the kids.

These are the texts I got today.

Glad to see everyone survived without me!!

It’s time for Lent

Which means it’s time to figure out what we want to give up/take on.

Jesse is giving up sweets.  I will try to limit my sweets so I don’t tempt him.

I have decided to make myself eat 2 servings of vegetables a day, and at least one serving of fruit.  And that’s because I probably on average have about 3 servings of vegetables a week, so I really need to push myself.  I also want to try a new vegetable, or form of a vegetable a week.  I do okay with fruit, so I’m not being so stringent with that.

I might cheat a little and not officially start until this weekend.  The reason is, since we don’t normally eat vegetable around here, we don’t really have any in the house.  So I need to make a list and get myself to the grocery store, which honestly isn’t going to happen until this weekend.

Somebody loves his puffs and is rockin his uncle Jer’s hat.

Jesse wore the hat for a 20’s theme party we attended last weekend.  It’s not quite the correct decade, but a hat was a must for the costume.

Arcades

I had a work outing at Dave & Busters last night.  The whole family came along, and we decided to stay out as long as Oliver could make it.  Being that his normal bedtime is 6:30pm, we figured we wouldn’t be out too long.  We did want to make sure Bella got a chance to go through the arcade area and see all the lights.

Jesse took her through while we were waiting for dinner.  He came back and reported that we definitely need to take Bella to Vegas.  Granted the first time I posted that he thought I was crazy and that Vegas was not a good place to take kids.  I don’t disagree, but I know how much Bella would love the lights.  So maybe someday…….  But apparently Bella had a half smile/smirk going on the whole time they were walking through all of the lights.

Unfortunately we had to leave before we had a chance to play any games.  Maybe we should take Bella back sometime in the future and she can play some brightly colored games.  It’s about a 50/50 shot if she would actually pay attention.

What happens when?

I often have these great stories to tell.  I think about them when I should be sleeping, when I’m driving, when I’m feeding the kids, etc.  Then I finally find a little bit of time to write them, and I don’t feel like typing that much, talking about them anymore, or I just plain forgot.
Bella is currently upstairs in bed……..yelling.  She is supposed to be napping.  I don’t put her down for a nap that often anymore.  But I just got done giving her a bath and while I was getting her dressed, which meant she had to be laying in her bed, she was keeping her eyes closed the whole time.  So I figured maybe she wanted to rest for a little bit.  Oliver is currently napping, but I’m guessing with the yelling going on right next door to him, I will have to go get him sooner than I can finish this post. 
I don’t know if I ever reported that our family did not receive the bath remodel.  It went to a family with two middle school age boys that were both handicap.  I couldn’t imagine giving two 12 year old boys a bath, because I am having a hard time giving my light 4 year old a bath.  I’m really not sure how much easier it would be with a shower chair.  She currently sits in her special bath chair.  The hardest part about giving her a bath is when it’s time to wash the parts of her body she sits/lays on.  Which, sorry for being explicit, is the parts of her body that are the stinkiest and need to get washed.  The other hard part is lifting her out of the bath once she is slippery and trying to maneuver a towel around her while not getting yourself wet.  I guess you could also say that just washing her in general while having to uncomfortably lean yourself over the bathtub is also difficult, and pretty much guarantees yourself a backache when you are done.
But as I mentioned with her only being 4 years old is only the beginning.  Some things that really scare me are mostly related to being a girl.  I couldn’t imagine trying to shave her armpits, she would not keep her arm up for it, and she probably even wouldn’t let us keep her arm up for her.  And then her legs would probably be easier, but still a pain.  I know I have a ways to go before I really have to deal with it, but I still think and worry about it.  And yes it might be superficial in comparison to all her problems, but in general I don’t want silly things like leg hair to be noticeable and cause even more kids/adults to view her as different and unapproachable.
And for now, Bella has stopped yelling, maybe she even went to sleep.  And Oliver doesn’t seem to be making any noise.  So I might just have a few spare minutes to myself!

Back from the slopes

Jesse and I took a small vacation with friends to Breckenridge this past weekend.  We had a good time.  Jesse has been wanting to take a ski vacation for years, but normally I win and we head to the beach. 

We both did a little snowmobiling, and then Jesse hit the slopes for two days.

The kiddos stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Sneller.  They did pretty good for them, but I guess Oliver didn’t really want to nap much for them, and liked to wake up two times each night.  So I think it’s pretty safe to say, they were excited to get their sleep back, once I got there to pick them up.

I flew into Omaha to get the kids on Monday night, and Oliver was already asleep by the time I made it back to the house.  Bella was still up and she gave me some big smiles when she saw me.  Oliver woke up that night at 4:30 am and also gave me a big smile when I picked him up.  He then looked around the room and I think he was looking for Jesse.  I gave him a bottle, changed his diaper and then put him back to bed.  When he woke up for the morning at 8:30 I went in and got him, as I was picking him up he said “ma ma”.  I couldn’t believe it.  This was the first time he had said those words, and pretty much the first time he was using constanants.  I know he had no idea what he was saying, but the greeting couldn’t have been more perfect.  He has been babbling more today, so apparently he started to talk while we were gone.  I think he is also pretty close to saying “da da”, so hopefully Jesse can be around when he does.

Trips

I hate to pack.

I think it’s because I hate to make decisions and then not be able to have more choices when a situation arises.  I am also afraid I will forget something.  The problem with having more children, is that the packing gets worse.  And of course our situation is unique anyways.

Bella needs her kid cart, which takes up half of our packing space.  Mainly on trips she uses this as a high chair, and on occasion depending on the trip, as a mode of transportation.  We also have to worry about packing most of her food to eat, and bringing her blender for things we don’t pre-make.  We still have to pack bibs, her special spoons, bowls, and cups for drinking.  Bella still wears diapers, so we have to have plenty of room to pack all of those.  She also baths in a special chair, and in reality most times we don’t have room for it, so she has to go without or get a modified sponge bath if she isn’t at home.

Oliver is still young enough that he has a bunch of things he needs.  He still needs a pack and play to sleep in, a high chair to eat in (although he has used Bella’s chair in a pinch), and if we were really to be mobile (as in go to a park, etc.) he would need a stroller.

Jesse is complaining that we need a bigger vehicle.  And in reality we probably do.  The dogs can no longer go on a trip with us, as there just isn’t room.  But I don’t want to get a bigger vehicle until we know exactly what kind of chair/transportation Bella will need when she outgrows her kid kart.  We will have to have some type of modified, handicap vehicle.  We just don’t know exactly what that will be.

So for now we do our best to pack everything in and Jesse gets to complain about it every trip we take.  And I think this will be our reality for the next 1.5 years or so. 

Hopefully everyone appreciates the lengths we take to come and visit them………it isn’t easy!

Valentines

Bella and I were prepping her class valentines today.

Elle got the containers ready for us.

While Bella and I worked on some of her fine motor skills.  In class they are working with her to grab objects and drop them into a container.  So I dumped all the candies on the floor by Bella.

She proceeded to pick them up and I would put the container under her hand and have her drop them.

She actually did a really good job and seemed to enjoy the task.  So we were able to say that Bella put the valentines together for her classmates.

Colby supervised and was greatly disappointed that all the candies were in individual wrappers.  And the fact she kept getting shooed away for getting in Bella’s way.

Luckily Oliver was napping otherwise I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have been a safe activity to do around him.  The past couple of days he has begun to figure out how to put his puffs in his mouth and eat them.

Just being

I am enjoying Oliver’s moving around.  Even though I have to stop him every five minutes because his favorite toys are not toys at all.  He makes me laugh.  I believe he is thoroughly bored with the family room, which is the room we are in the most.  And gets such enjoyment out of exploring all other rooms.  And he is getting faster, not to mention learning shortcuts to get to his favorite objects.  The toys of choice this week are curtains, and registers, and electrical cords.

Bella is currently working on getting her 4 eye teeth in, all at the same time.  She has been doing pretty well with it, but we can tell some days she isn’t quite herself.  And on occasion she has been waking up crying in the middle of the night.  Last night she was crying enough that she broke blood vessels in her face again.  I let her sleep in and stay home from school today.

At this point Bella is unamused by her brother.  He likes to crawl over her and most times take her toys.  She is pretty patient with him, but will often turn away and do her own thing ignoring him.  In the early mornings she sometimes gets in bed with me once Jesse gets up for work.  Recently on the few mornings that Oliver is also up early and joins us, she goes from being happy and very chatty to being silent and pouty.  You can definitely tell she doesn’t want to share her special time in bed with mom with her brother.

On the Move

I can’t help but laugh.  Almost every time I leave the room, I have a follower.  This morning I was unloading the dishwasher and I could hear him slowly make his way over to me.  I do mean slow at this point, because he both isn’t too quick yet, and he gets easily distracted and stops at many objects along the way.
I grabbed the camera because once he got half way to me, he laid his head down on the floor.  I didn’t get the camera soon enough because he was off again.
Had to check out the chairs and table.  He got caught under there yesterday and was a little upset, so today he didn’t go so deep into them.

Back onto his path of trying to find me.

He found me and I thought he would try and pull himself up on my legs so I could pick him up.

But no, off again he goes.  He still has to keep checking to make sure I’m nearby.

Can you notice all the scratches on the floor?  If only we had an extra $100 grand and a year of no work to get the house all finished up.  We still haven’t gotten the concrete countertop finished in the bathroom, but hoping this weekend will be the one to get it all done.  Praying that it all fits or we might be starting all over!