Monday was surprisingly an even more hectic day! We moved Fidget's morning ABA session from home to the clinic, as I myself had a dr. appointment at the neurologist. It was mostly just a routine visit for new prescriptions, but we also did a nerve conduction test on my hands, since I reported at my last visit that here Fidget is 2.5yo now, and I never have gotten full sensation back since the severe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome flare-up from pregnancy. Unfortunately the results aren't good; severe CTS in both hands, doc recommending surgery by the end of the year. So I'll go to see my neurosurgeon in 3 weeks. Normally this is done one hand a time so that people still have one good hand left, but just taking away one hand removes my ability to push my chair, transfer, use the bathroom, etc. so I may ask him about doing both at once. It means I'll be completely out of commission, but in this situation at least I'll only go down once instead of twice. The doctor actually finished sooner than expected, so we walked over to Barnes & Noble and browsed for awhile. On the way to pick up Fidget we got lunch at Dairy Queen, then once we had him shot off across town to Sunshine's gymnastics class. I don't normally go with her, so it was a treat to get to watch her practice and thankfully Fidget wasn't as much of a pill as I expected. Her coach reported she can tell she is getting stronger, which is great. We're mostly just in it for the fun and exercise, but I wouldn't be surprised if she gets into competition at some point. My main concern though is just that she develops good technique and conditioning so help prevent injury, which her gym does a great job of ensuring.
Tuesday morning Sunshine and I worked on her room while Fidget had ABA, then that evening we all went with her Daisy troop to a nearby pumpkin patch. The kids had a hayride, story time, got a snack, and each one got a mini pumpkin. Fidget esp. enjoyed himself; so many new sights and textures! He had this one pumpkin that he kept picking up and putting in my lap, so it came home with us as well. Tuesday was also my mom's birthday. None of us wanted her to just sit at home alone all day, this being her first birthday without my dad, but neither of my siblings were available, so Mom joined us for the pumpkin patch then we took her out to dinner. One of the local pizzerias was donating a portion of that evening's proceeds to our church parish, so we took her there. And wouldn't you know, we got sat right next to our priest! Papa Bear and I were a bit nervous how Fidget would do, but we actually managed to all make it through an entire restaurant meal for the first time in MONTHS! This was a huge relief and gave me hope that maybe we'll all actually survive our trip to WDW in the spring.
Wednesday was the one relatively low-key day of the week. Fidget's ABA case worker came to do a couple hrs of parent training with Papa Bear and I while Sunshine *finally* finished cleaning her room. We got some school work done in the afternoon, Sunshine went to CCD, and Fidget had his OT session. I was extremely glad for the quiet day; after three straight days of running around I could really feel myself struggling with fatigue.
Yesterday Papa Bear took Sunshine on a field trip to go hunting! Not much to shoot, but at least they had a nice hike. Papa Bear is on a stay-cation from work so he's been enjoying having some fun time with the kiddos. Fidget had morning ABA yesterday; they recently updated his schedule so he now has a full morning on Thursdays instead of just two hours. During the afternoon Sunshine and I read up on the sun and eclipses, and made two different kinds of pin hole projectors, but unfortunately thick cloudcover moved in about 45 minutes before the solar eclipse began. So we had to settle for watching the live feed from NASA, and Sunshine helped her Daddy fix supper while Fidget had speech. I loooove his speech therapist, and will be so sad when we lose her in the spring (when he ages out of early intervention). She said he is doing so very well; it amazes even her to think back to where we started 8 months ago. He didn't even call me Mama, would only label Papa Bear and Sunshine, not use their names for any purposeful reason, and wasn't attempting to name things around him. He had little receptive understanding as well. He still needs a lot of work on articulation, and there are still some things that he cognitively doesn't understand when we speak to him, but his vocabulary is almost caught up! Absolutely astounds me.
ABA this morning was cancelled, so we had a quiet morning around the house. Papa Bear fixed breakfast, then we all played outside and the kids "helped" him wash both cars. Sunshine has spent the afternoon playing with a neighbor friend, and Papa Bear went out to run some errands for me. This evening we have a Halloween party at Fidget's ABA clinic, which should be lots of fun. Tomorrow I'm going to try to have a regular school day with Sunshine, since we've slacked a bit on the formal school work this week. Fidget has ABA until noon, and Papa Bear is taking the troop camping training class at one of our council's camps. Then we'll all gather around the TV to watch the big LSU/Ole Miss game!
I'm happy to report that although I still have a day or so of medication left to take, I successfully made it through staph-watch without a trip to the ER. There were a couple of evenings I was a bit concerned, but by morning it always looked better. Especially in light of my now upcoming surgery for my hands, it was nice to dodge the bullet of a hospital visit at least once!
