10.18.2011

The one where Monkey George gets left at Meatballs.

After J's game a few weeks ago, my brother, his daughter, the boys and I decided to go out to lunch at Noodles and then to Yo Mama for ice cream, then home to watch the Brewer game.  J had a bit of a runny nose, but seemed fine.

We eat lunch, J had a cup and some crackers and decide to walk up the street to the ice cream shop.  As we're walking, J starts coughing and within seconds, he's barking, wheezing and retracting.  I scoop him up and run to my car, toss Jameson's car seat into my brother's car and head to the Chateau.

It was a packed house for a Saturday afternoon.  The ONLY good thing about breathing issues is that we get VIP service to the front of the line. 

We're taken back to a room and a med student comes and asks a bunch of questions.  The nurse comes in and starts to administer the breathing treatment which I mistakenly assume to be a Racemic Epi.  Jackson barks and the nurse says, "Does he have croup?"  I say, "Yes, that's what he's usally dx with when we come in."  The nurse whips off the mask and says that she's giving him the wrong medication based on the med student's dx of asthma.  At least we figured it out early.

This is about the time I realize (or should I say Jackson realizes) MG is not with us.  I didn't remember seeing him in car, so I call my brother and ask him to call the restaurant.  They say the don't have him, but my brother gives them his number in case they find him.

Jackson in hysterics without MG, that he freaks out anytime any of the staff approach him.  The pulse ox and breathing treatment didn't help that.

My brother calls back about 30 minutes later saying the restaurant found MG under the table and they will hold him until we come back.  Hallelujah!

Jackson responds well to the meds, so we don't have to stay overnight.  We hop in the car and head straight back to Noodles and MG is sitting on a shelf behind the counter.  Jackson yells, "Monkey George was waiting for you!"  The look of relief on his face was so sweet.  I tell the cashier, "We're here for the monkey" and he starts to laugh.

We get home and Jameson says, "Did we leave MG at Meatballs, Mom?" 

Alls well that ends well.

Object du Jour:  MG

10.13.2011

Baseball!

Last day of baseball!  Look at that face!  (He got a haircut on Tuesday, so now he can actually see!)

wow.

I missed a whole month! In that time, J has started first grade and finished the baseball season.

School is going well so far! For the most part, he's excited to go and they tell me he's happy most days.

Jackson's strongest subject at school is spelling. He's gotten 90% on his first three tests! I'm nervous about this week's test because most of the words are four letters and he wasn't thrilled about spelling them for me. It's really amazing to me that he just learns the letters from me spelling them to him and reading simple stories that contain the spelling words in them. He then takes the tests at school orally because his writing isn't close to a first grade level yet.

New this is year is homework. J was really excited the first few times and now he runs from me when I tell him we have homework to do. We have to do most of it hand over hand, but he's brought little trinkets home every week for having his work done at the end of the week.

We have his first parent/teacher conference tonight. We'll see how it goes!

He's still getting to swim every week with the adaptive phy ed teacher and classroom aide once a week. They said yesterday he kicked around the pool on his own with a floatie thing around his waist holding on to a pool noodle. Never thought I'd see the day!

Baseball ended so well! He wasn't happy to be there at first and then it got to the point where he was asking daily to "run the bases." I think it helped that after the first few games his buddies were always Vicky on Tuesdays and Mike on Saturdays. They were both so good with him. There was an award ceremony at the last game and Jackson got his first trophy! 7 years ago, if someone told me my kid with "trisomy 4p" was going to someday earn a baseball trophy, I wouldn't have believed it!

Eating is still chugging along. The State (in their infinite wisdom) decreased Jackson's feeding therapy from 1 time per week to 1 time per month. My 7 year old is mainly existing on baby food and formula. We're hoping that for the next eligibility period we can get them to up it, at least a little.

Object du Jour: MG and tons of plastic letters.