A Beautiful Thing

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this "beautiful thing", this is our local grocery delivery truck in my driveway at 8:15AM today. For a mere $4.95, my hand picked groceries came to my door. We are currently without car after our "flat tire without a spare" episode yesterday. It's so exciting not to have to take children to the grocery store - multi-tasking at it's best! I might have been one of the delivery mans more excited customers of the day as the three of us were waiting by the window with glee but hopefully he didn't see me taking the picture of his delivery truck - HA!

The Tysons Adventure

We had plans to meet my dear friend from high school and her adorable 14 month old daughter at Tysons Shopping Mall yesterday mid-morning. Well little man apparently had a different plan in mind when he woke up at 3:45AM and decided to play until the sun came up. As I explained in Adventures of a Saturday Night, his nighttime sleeping can sometimes be disturbed by that pesky hyperarousal! Usually within an hour or two, he settles himself down and catches a few more snoozes. Not this time. So I'm sitting on the edge of the bed in the morning discussing with hubby - Should I go or Should I stay home. A common discussion we have. It's one of those inner battles I fight. We can pull thru this, we can do it, we don't have to change our lifestyle - just strap on your boots and get out there! Afterwards I see this image of God looking down on me, "Oh mama, when will you learn", as he grins and shakes his head.

So off we go to meet our friend at Tysons. Everyone was smiling and happy in the car ride. We got to the mall, and little man was asleep in the stroller within 5 minutes. SWEET!!! He was technically 3 hours behind so a nap was great! We shopped and played in the Disney store for awhile. (And a little tip for moms - this is our new playground rather then those germ infested playground pits in the mall. We could spend hours in there finding characters in the big stuffed animal wall and staring at Cinderella) We shopped a little more and then headed up to the food court.

Little man decided to wake up as we entered and wasn't a very happy little man. After about 15 minutes of trying to calm him we packed up our pizza and traveled home. Poor guy was so overtired and cried the whole way home. I rocked him a bit and he finally came around to eating his pizza and then napped again. But back to the food court.....I expected a slight protest from the daughter since I said "Let's Go" in mid-bite of pizza and the germ infested playground is painfully parallel to the food court. But instead she obediently put on her coat and carried her pizza to the car without a complaint. I'm truly amazed by her each day. She's learning inconceivable virtues by being the big sister of a special needs child. So as we were driving home, and little man is crying while princess and I were discussing why we still have 4 more months until we can go to the pool, I was trying to think of something fun for her - a special treat. A HA! So after little man was settled for his afternoon nap, we made strawberry sundaes with chocolate fudge, whip cream and sprinkles and then we settled on the couch for a lovely afternoon of Cinderella together. Ahhh the joys of little girls. She was dripping with delight.

So all in all - it was a fine afternoon. I had a little over an hour of shopping time with my friend, little man got back on schedule and a wonderful afternoon with the princess. What more could a mama ask for in a day?

And I don't think I've shown you all how cute her new haircut is...here's a side view.

Stylin for a four year old!

And thank you all for your inquires and prayers for my Pap-Pap. All is good and he's back at home with Grammy. It will be a slow recovery but he's very happy to be back in his recliner!

Visiting Pap Pap

Late last week my Pap Pap had fallen ill and went into the hospital. The poor guy had 3 clogged arteries, one at 100%, one at 85% and one at 65%. Because of his weak kidneys, his age and black lung (my Pap was a very proud coal miner) they decided to go forward with stints rather then open heart surgery. On Sunday we decided to piggy back on Dad's already planned but convenient business trip and share a hotel with him so we could visit Pap Pap in the hospital. Hubby switched his hotel from a swanky downtown Hilton to a family friendly Residence Inn outside of town. After talking with my friend Kamber, who was 5 days overdue with her 2nd child and I was on call to watch her first child, we made some back up plans and off we went....like a herd of turtles as our Daddy says!

Last time we stayed at a hotel, it was due to being snowbound on I-81N in the lovely town of Scranton, PA. It was February and we were on our way to see hubby's parents, Nicki and Jim, and of course to watch a Syracuse Game at the Dome. We made a big deal out of staying in the hotel, so it would be a fun memory for princess. We hoped it would erase from her memory the previous 12 long hours we spent in the car. Dinner at Friendly's, ice cream on the bed, staying up late - loads of excitement. So since then, princess always mentions how much she LOVES staying in hotels. In fact this past year, she asked Santa if she could stay at a hotel with him. Interesting....not sure where to go with that, but luckily we knew (wink wink) the Santa so he understood. So on Sunday when we mentioned we were going to a hotel, you would have thought we were going to Disneyworld. I heard more WOOO HOOO's out of that little lady then a pack of of hyenas in the wild. Hubby and I laughed, can you imagine the day when we actually do take her to Disneyworld? We think she might just fall on her knees weeping with excitement on Main street when she sees Cinderella's castle!

The kids and I went to visit Pap Pap the next day while Dad proceeded with his work trip. We got to spend time with Pappy, Grammy, Aunt Suzie and Cousin Jennifer. Lots of time in the waiting room but we had fun entertaining the kids.

All said and done, Pap Pap had 12 stints and an angioplasty balloon done over the course of 2 days. Now have I told you my Pap is 87 years old? What a trooper! He's also quite a jokester, so as my Gram enters the recovery area, his first words are "Look Jean - I made it"! We knew he was feeling well at that point! Recovery is doing well and we hope he's able to return home by the weekend.

After our hospital visit, we went back to the hotel to have dinner. Did I mention how much I like Residence Inns? 2 bedrooms a living room and a kitchen - and very affordable! So I made some dinner for the kids, I was tired of eating out at this point without hubby - too much work. I realized in our quick packing frenzy, I had forgotten a booster seat for little man. He mostly needs something to just hold him still, so I devised my own with an extra fitted bedsheet - is this legal?

To keep with tradition - the first night we had popcorn on the bed and the second night the princess was introduced to Ben and Jerry's. The two of us shared some chocolate chip cookie dough on the bed. We have now renamed this ice cream to "Treasure Hunt". Wonderful memories! And I stayed up watching too much TLC until Daddy came home. Good family times!

Pap Pap, you're in our prayers for a quick, painless and healthy recovery!!

Jimmo's Six Month Review

Today was little man's six month review with the Early Intervention Program. A little background on what this is......the Early Intervention Program is a service required by every county which provides therapies for infants and toddlers with disabilities. This Early Intervention Program discontinues when the child turns three and the next step is a program called Child Find. Each year there is an annual review and then a 6 month review in between with all the childs therapists together in one room. We review the past goals and make new ones when applicable. Thru this program, Jimmo has a physical therapist, an occupational therapist and an educational specialist. He gets speech therapy thru a private organization.

Today Jimmo is exactly 2 years and 4 months old. We're very proud of his progress. Obviously he progresses on his time, but each milestone brings such joy to us! Here are a few of the milestones we were able to check off today. As proud parents - we just wanted to share.

• Ability to place objects in a container and dump them


• Understands 5 interactive songs and the actions that accompany them (ex. Itsy Bitsy Spider)


• Can choose needs from pictures


• Uses both hands at midline to play with toys and objects


• Plays with toys correctly and purposely - this was huge for us!


• Pushes cars/trucks around a room with purpose


• Responding to several verbal gestures


• Big improvement in imitation skills - YEA!


• Walking solid with a 1 finger assist with not such a wide base of support


• Crawls up the stairs well and now cognitively understands how to come down

For gross motor skills he's at a 12 month level. For fine motor, cognitive, receptive, social and adaptive level he ranges from 11 months to 16 month level. Because of these accomplishments, he now qualifies for a 9 week Sensory Motor Therapy Playgroup that is held at the county office. This will be a great experience for him as he gets to have additional therapy in a group setting with other little guys and gals at his level. Mom and Georgia are excited to participate in the fun as well! We hear there's lots of shaving cream and pudding involved!

We're having a full 2 day evaluation done the first week in March by the Fragile X experts at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Maryland. They have one of the 12 official Fragile X clinics in the US. Jimmo will be reviewed by a neuropsychologist, speech therapist, autism specialist, neurologist, and a psychiatrist. Last May, Jimi and I visited initially with the head Doctor at this clinic and have been anxious since to have this clinic completed. You can imagine the list of questions we've accumulated since then. It's so nice to be in an office of experts and you don't hear the words - Fragile what?

So that's our little Jimmo 6 month therapy update....many more to come!