Eric's New Bibs

Every once in a while I need to make new bibs for Eric. I try to find some nice hand towels and add a half of a bandanna to make the tie. I have tried to find nice ones pre-made,but after about 4 years of age I had to start making my own.

Friday I made 6 more for him. 2 penguins and 4 octopus's. I would be willing to write up the instructions if anyone is interested in the pattern. The current pattern is the result of trial and error over the years.

Have an wonderful day and enjoy your families.

Recovering

The tummy bug that is going around is a nasty one. We fell like domino's, starting with Eric. I followed a day later and it hit John today. I think the only reason that John got it was because he stayed home to watch Eric yesterday. This is where John would like me to add that no good deed goes unpunished. Sorry John, but with out you we would have been toast yesterday. There was no way on Gd's green earth that I was going to be vertical for any part of the day yesterday, horizontal was hard enough.

I am also wondering how many days my ribs will hurt from all the wild eyrping. Sore ribs make laughing hurt as in don't watch John Stewart or the Corbert Report on Comedy Central. Guys I seriously love your shows but do you have to make me laugh so hard? It also makes movement and house work hard too. It's really bad when you can't bend down far enough to start the roomba vacuum.

I am happy to say that Eric made it to school today and I managed to get 2 loads of laundry done. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but the laundry pile grows in portion to how sick I am. The sicker I am the bigger the pile of laundry. I mean, how much laundry can one sick little boy make? Wait don't answer that I really don't want to know.

Food is still an issue, aside from crackers, grits, Popsicles and white bread nothing looks good enough to eat with out my tummy grumbling. I really should being enjoying taking a break from cooking, but some how its not the same as when I am feeling good and take a break from cooking.

On the other hand I am getting a lot of knitting done. I almost have a blue key hole scarf and cap set in blue done. I wonder how fast I can fill up the finishing basket?

I hope that you stay healthy and avoid this bug. Enjoy your families and have a great day.

A Long Night

Last night was a long night, I did not settle Eric down till after 1 am. Poor little guy was not feeling well. He had me back up at 5 am. I am seriously wondering whether a half a case of Diet Coke will get me through the day.

On the bright side I knit 3/4 of a charity hat last night while I was up with Eric. I probably would have done more, but color changes when I am half asleep kinda scare me.

I am much to tired to drive today and I am wondering whether it is to selfish to have soda delivered or just to brew a pot or two of tea as the day goes on? If I am too tired to drive am I too tired to deal with boiling water?

My executive decision is not to fold the laundry that I did last night. After all the laundry is clean and we can just grab what we need from the basket right. I wonder if it will fold itself? The answer is no, but when Eric's aide came this morning he folded all of Eric's cloths. Thank you, Joe.

Well It is going to be a long day of sick child care and knitting, I wonder how much I can add to the finishing basket today.

Have a wonderful day and enjoy your families.

A Wonderful Day After All

After spending half the night trying to get Eric settled down for the night and not wanting to wake up today, it turned out to be a pretty good day.

After a venti soy chai from Starbucks,I started to wake up. The Friday Fun Knitters group at the mall was just what I need today. I was to tired to work on anything that needed counting so it was a black wash cloth today. The hand knit wash cloths seem to bring nostalgia of a better time for most people. I always hear "my grandma used to make these and use these all the time." So I am happy that I can create good memories for a lot of people.

Karen brought us two treats today, she made the best cookies, but alas I stopped at just one, I had to share with everyone else. Then she yarned* us all, we all got to take home new to us yarn to make charity projects with. I can see lots of children's hats in the next week or so.

Nancy brought in a stack of patterns and I found a few helpful ones including one for baby hats.

If you are ever in Tucson on a Friday morning please feel free to stop by with your knitting or crocheting at the Foothills Mall food court from 10 am till noonish. All we ask is that you have fun and enjoy yourself.

After lunch with my husband and a badly need nap it was off to Eric's doctors appointment. I always get a little nervous about having to get Eric weighed. After a complete work out of getting everything off his chair they said he gained almost 11 pounds in 6 months, a big wow!!! I said that the scale had to be off and maybe Eric's will chair modifications earlier in the week were responsible for part of the jump. So Kayla, Eric's Aide manage to get Eric out of his chair and the wheel chair had lost 3/4 of a pound, which meant that Eric really did gain 11 pounds in 6 months. Now this does not even begin to bring Eric up to the 1st percentile for weight but for us it was huge.

So to celebrate we dropped Eric and Kayla off at home and went off to a quite dinner. I threw in a green tea boba for the celebration.

I am just so amazed at the highs and lows one not so little boy can bring into my life in one 24 hour day. What can I say this is life with Eric.

Now I think it is time to do some more knitting and watch a little television.

* Yarned- the act of giving yarn to a fellow fibre artist, that you hope they can do something useful with because you want the yarn out of your house.

Have a wonderful evening and enjoy your families.

Looking for Summer

OK, I surrender. What do I have to do to get the glorious days of summer back? No I am not talking about the twice a day run to camp. I am talking about all those glorious days with the temperature above 100 degrees.

I woke up to the weatherman say cool temperatures are back. It's in the low 60's outside and that we may not even hit 90 today, its so sad. It is time to start making all those cold weather foods, turkey with stuffing, soups and stews. Anything that will warm up the house and requires to oven or stove to be on for hours at a time.

I have started layering clothes and trying to match socks and shawls to what ever outfit I am wearing. By the end of October I will be layered to the max. To add insult to injury The snow birds are back running around in shorts and t-shirts.

Bring back
oh bring back
bring back my summer to me.

Have a wonderful day and try to stay warm.

Hard to be Cheerful

It is hard to be cheerful on a day like today that went through the blender called life with Eric. I had a nice leisurely day planned out a little knitting, getting caught up on some of my shows, errands and a quite lunch at Sweet Tomatoes.

10 am. the call came from the wheelchair clinic, silly me I thought that they were confirming his appointment for tomorrow morning, but no they had to see him today. They could see him at 10:30, now try making it to the high school and then to their office in mid town in 30 minutes, do they think I drive "Chitty-Chitty,Bang-Bang"? When I said I could not make that one they said that they had a 1:00 pm slot, that I could make and and even had time to cram lunch down in the parking lot before the appointment.

They were reluctant to help me get Eric from the chair, but I stood my ground and the tech finally figure he would not get the chair for the modifications till he helped get Eric out. That is when Eric's Mickey Button popped out. Eric has had a g-tube for over 7 years and this has not happened once. I did manage to get it back in, but had to change it when I got home. And then Eric managed to knock down my drink and there was that to clean up. At least the supply company was nice about it and could not believe that this has not happened before. Cross your fingers with me to hope everything will be OK till the spare button comes later in the week.

The new Sunflower Market at River and Orange Grove is very nice. We stopped by because I needed a little sane serenity dippity in my life to today. Did I mention that it was the grand opening today, definitely not sane but the staff was well trained and very nice. The Representatives from Harris Ranch Beef also gave a good tri-tip recipe. Use a salt and pepper rub. heat the grill to 350 cook the meat for 45 minutes turning every 5 minutes, Boy do those guys know how to cook a mean tri-tip roast.

The snow birds came out in droves for the grand opening and defiantly do not like to give the van accessible spaces to people with wheel chairs. There is nothing worse then waiting for a space and having a snow bird block access and practice hand jesters that they deserve time outs for. Where are their children when we need them?

Here to a quite evening. Sorry dad there was no way that this day was going to turn out "somewhere between great and fantastic" I really tried. Should I offer a bonus to Eric if he goes to sleep on time?

The comments and opinions in this blog are mine. I have not received compensation from Sunflower Market or Harris Ranch Beef.

Have an wonderful evening and enjoy your families.

Caught Between Two Worlds

My husband I and I were talking over dinner how we feel caught between the two worlds of parenting. We have come to the realization that we will never leave the diaper bag phase of our lives and yet we can not imagine what life would be like with out Eric. Yet at the same time we are going through the empty nest phase with our oldest Teri leaving for law school.

Each child has brought extreme joys and challenges to our marriage. Both of our children are so different they only way to know that they are siblings is by those gorgeous hazel eyes. We have managed to raise to the challenge of both children, lets just say that they both dropped off the pediatric developmental chart at 18 months of age but in opposite directions.

It is physically challenging to raise a disable child and the hours are long. The toll on the body is great. I love Eric's smile and gleeful chortle that seems to make it all worth while. Eric has taken us to places that we never would have imagined going to. He has gotten us special tours of places when we did not know that we needed to make reservations for a tour a year in advance in the first place. He has opened out lives to some of the best people on the planet. He has the knack of bring out the extremes in people either the best or worst, but mainly the best.

Teri on the other hand is the precocious child always asking, why, how, what. This can be harder then the challenge of the disabled child. While most of my friends were trying to keep their children from stuffing food into the VCR, Teri just had to know why when she put in tapes that looked the same on the outside gave her different stories, at 3 she just had to know how magnetic coding worked and how it was applied. We went through the same questioning with the solar system and volcanoes and just about any other subject. Her melt downs were usually because I could not explain how something like a laser worked. She did not like me to put her in time outs or to get in trouble so by the time she was in 1st grade she usually figured out on her own what she did wrong and anticipated what her punishment would be. She must have been one of the few children on the planet to utter the following phrase " leave me alone I in time out because I did____" with out being put in time out by an adult. So we taught Teri that you must look at a problem from all sides, that if you had 2 people in a room and could not come up with a least 3 view points that someone was asleep. This trend continued through out her life. I was at a speaking engagement once and had to excuse myself to take a call from Teri. Teri knew that I could not drive her home that day but called to see if she could go to a lecture on black holes with her friend and that her friend's mom would drive them home. It was the same day a highly anticipate CD was to be release and the malls were going to be packed. Some one had ask if she was asking to go get the CD, and I had to say no she wanted to go to a lecture on black holes. By the look on the persons face I could tell this was not a usual high school students reply, but it was typical Teri.

One would believe that with 22 years of experience with these two children that we would be prepared for this stage of life. We feel like empty nester's yet we have one child that will need care for the rest of his life. We would love to travel but you should see the amount of gear that Eric travels with, let put it this way, we fill the van to overflowing and yet everyone but Eric, only has an overnight bag for the week.

If you are ahead of us on this curve of life please let me know how you manage to handle things, otherwise we will just muddle through like we have for the last 22 years.

Have a good day and enjoy your families.