A little bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop

Things are going amazing with both kids right now at the same time. I honestly don't think this has ever happened before. It feels a little bit like waiting for the other she to drop, but I'm trying to just enjoy it.

Ryan had an awesome weekend. Thursday was his 2nd grade music concert and art fair. He participated!!!! He actually sang part of the time and only got irritated a couple times when the kids on either side were touching his arms. And it wasn't even like anyone else would realize he was irritated, he just kept crossing his arms and sneakily giving death glares to his neighbors. LOL. Then afterward we walked around and looked at the art projects, he gave us a tour of the school. HE SAID HI TO HIS FRIENDS!!! He even said, "You guys! Do you see that I'm talking to my friends? I didn't do this before!" It's so wonderful that he even realizes how well he's doing. We went to church today (zero arguing) and then he spent the vast majority of the day outside doing yard work with Greg. I went for a walk with Monte around 7, asked Ryan to come, and he declined. I got about 4 houses down and he ran and caught up with me. We walked for a mile! This may seem like no big deal, but remember that as recently as 3 months ago he was a boy who could barely leave the house. He couldn't walk more than half a block, if that, without complaining that his legs hurt. He was so happy on our walk, jumping around, talking about when he grows up, and just being a regular kid. I feel like PANDAS stole him from us for a solid two years, so this is something I hope I never take for granted. It just amazes me when he's able and willing to do every day kid stuff like go for a walk and go to church without a meltdown. On the same day, no less! My amazing friend and coworker came over to fix Lauren's new AFO brace (he's an orthotist) and Ryan happily said, "Hi Mr. George!" He had toast (including crust) with peanut butter for dinner.

Lauren got her cast off on Thursday!!! Let me say it again, LAUREN'S CAST IS OFF!!!!! She was terrified to take a bath (so strange) but luckily Grandma Pam bribed her with a Disney princess fishing set to play with in the tub. She also had the "pins" taken out on Thursday. The surgeon kept calling them pins. Uhhh, they were GIANT screws that required a power drill to remove, in office. Lauren is of course amazing and did great. We used her noise canceling headphones for the cast saw and the drill. I really don't think it hurt her so much as it scared her because of the sound. I was thinking she'd be able to jump right back into walking. Apparently not! They said she'd be almost kind of like a baby again, first she'd crawl, then pull to a stand, then take some steps. So far we're 3 days out and she's crawling. I can get her to stand on her left foot (with the brace on) but she's also holding onto something with both hands and I can't really say she's bearing weight. She feels VERY unsteady on her feet and I think this is going to be a slow grow for her. She and I went to the store today to buy shoes and ended up with 2 pairs of shoes, an 11 for the right foot and a 12.5 for the left to accommodate her brace. They're purple and light up, so at least I got a lot of bang for my buck. Shoes are not cheap, especially when you have to buy 2 pairs for 1 set of feet! Any time I try to encourage her to take a step or stand up she says, "I'm nervous!" so we're going super slow. It looks like her wheelchair will be sticking around. I'm not sure how long she will wear her brace for, but she's supposed to wear it all the time. We had it on/off a lot this weekend so her leg can get used to it. Luckily she mostly wears leggings so the brace fits right over them. It has butterflies on it and she loves it! She was so excited to go to church this morning and tell her teacher about her cast coming off! At Ryan's music concert on Thursday one of his friends kept coming up to try to say hi to Lauren, and Lauren really wasn't having any of it. I finally coerced her into saying hi and she offered a hug! It was really sweet, especially because the little girl didn't give up and tried multiple times to engage Lauren in conversation.

So yeah, things are amazing here. Lauren and I went shoe shopping AND to Meijer today. She did elope from me at Meijer, but not impulsively just because she was bored while I looked at socks. And she was in her wheelchair and couldn't get too far away from me anyways. Otherwise, she was amazing, hence us going to places in one outing. She really must've been in more pain that we realized because her general demeanor seems a lot nicer. I feel like I have my sweet son back and it feels so wonderful. Life is good here!

Documenting a hilarious weekend

Ah, Lauren. She has been so hilarious this weekend. She was really tired this morning (she had "a sleepovers"with Grandma Pam and probably didn't do a whole lot of sleeping! She was crying on and off all morning/after church. But then she was great.

We went to the zoo yesterday and she was begging me to let her pet the tiger. She said, "Mommy, he will not bite me! I promise!"

Today at church, one of the volunteers in her room walked in a little late and Lauren said, "Good morning! You look like a princess!"

I took her to Costco to get new glasses. She took FOREVER to decide. While I was working with the employee to get the paperwork done,  Lauren grabbed the mirror and says so loud, "I am so pretty!!!" She then told me I was taking too long and rolled herself away from me. I figure she's a bit harder to kidnap in a wheelchair so I just finished what I was doing 😂

Then she was tired, fell asleep in the car on the way home, and finally we just put her in bed around 6pm. She woke up around 7pm and Greg brought her downstairs to me. She said, "It's morning time?!" Uhhh, negative sleeping beauty.

It was nearing bedtime and I told her not to argue when it was time. She actually bowed and said, "My pleasure!"

Then as I was leaving her room (after attempting to escape multiple times) she said, "Goodnight my special mommy! Have so much fun at work tomorrow!"

SERIOUSLY. She is a dream.

We went out to lunch after church, and an older woman (probably mid 80's) was in the bathroom as I was trying to get Lauren to hold onto the counter and balance on her right foot so I could wash my hands. She wanted to use the 'magic towels' aka paper towel dispenser herself, so I'm sure you know what that was like. The woman said, "I had a brother just like her. People are so much more accepting now, it's really a great thing. It's so wonderful to see her be so self-determined!" Then she stopped us again as she was leaving, gave me a hug, and said, "Don't they just have more heart than the rest of us?" I teared up and said, "We really are the lucky ones." And then she teared up. It was such a beautiful encounter and I really, really love when we get these kind of divine meetings. It feeds my soul.

This is hard and how it's different from parenting a typical 6 year old. (Not that I would change her!)

I'm admitting this is hard!

I feel like I currently have my normal Lauren-level of difficulty (minus the elopement since she can't walk right now, thank God. It's been a nice break.) plus the mobility issue. Today was a super fun day, but it was really freaking rainy. Wheelchair plus rain is not fun! Lauren gets a little freaked out about little things like raindrops touching her wheelchair, her coat, her pants, etc. I can never transfer her from her chair to the car fast enough. She's really freakin' heavy.

But you know what? She called me "sweetie mommy" multiple times today. I got tons of kisses and hugs. She was awesome today about telling me she needed to go potty. She wore the same outfit all day! No potty accidents. This is a big deal nowadays because it's tricky with her not being able to get herself to the bathroom. She doesn't generally love to tell us she has to go, but she did awesome today. Ryan had a self defense class for kids today, it was awesome. My nephew did it too. I signed Lauren up knowing she'd likely not be able to participate in the majority of it. She did for about 5 minutes, and during that 5 minutes Ryan reached his arms out for me to hand her to him, then put his arm around her while she sat on the floor next to him. Melt my heart! The rest of the time she sat in her chair or on my or my sister's lap. She got plenty of snacks, watched my phone for a little. She covered ears when it got too loud in the class. (Why am I incapable of remembering to bring her headphones to things like this?!) She asked to go potty a couple times there.

Then we went to lunch at a coney island, and she was great there. They had little quarter candy machines at the front and afterwards I gave all the kids quarters. Lauren got (my choice) a little plastic animal instead of candy. (They only had gum. Funny, I let her try gum again earlier today for the first time in a year and remembered why she can't have gum. LOL.) She got a cute little squishy squirrel and I told her not to put it in her mouth and she didn't! Not even one time. It's itty bitty, like the size of gumball. She thanked me several times and held onto it all day (she loves to have things to hold onto).

We all went back to my house to hang out, she was pretty people'd out so she watched my computer and had some downtime while the boys played. We played Barbies a little bit (the bane of my existence, I am a bad pretend-player. Plus she always wants to make one of the Barbies sick and have to go to the doctor/hospital/dentist. You know your kid has special needs and lots of doctors visits when....).

Then later a while after Greg got home from work we were going to have a family movie night and it was Ryan's turn to pick. She desperately wanted to watch Puppy Dog Pals and couldn't be persuaded, so she and I found an episode on YouTube and snuggled upstairs. She got to talk to Grandma Pam and Pa Tim before bed. Once her show was over it was bedtime and she didn't argue. I of course snuggled with her a little bit while she was falling asleep.

And I realized how lucky I am I get to do this. Is it hard? Yes! It's mentally and physically exhausting a lot of the time. But she is generally a pretty happy kid and she just wants to be near me. If she could spend 100% of her day touching me in some way, she'd be thrilled.

There's really no downtime right now for me. If she's watching TV or whatever, she needs me to get her water, snacks, clean her glasses 50 times, etc. Take her to the bathroom, fix her sock, etc. In many ways this is no different from parenting a typical child. The self defense class today was for ages 5-7, Ryan was only there because it was for my sister's work and my nephew is 5 so he got to go too. Seeing what other, typical girls and boys in this age group look like and behave was a little bit of a reminder that yep, I am not parenting a typical daughter. Lauren isn't shy, but she often won't talk to other people. Lately when asked a direct question by anyone but me, she whispers to me, "Mommy, you tell her!" If she doesn't want to do something, there is no bribing or coercing her most of the time. She doesn't whine about it, which I love. But she is also not easily persuaded. With Lauren, what you see is what you get. I don't know if she's realizing lately that others may not understand her speech and it frustrates her? I'm really not sure what to make of it. The kids in this class could hear multi-step directions, watch a demonstration, and then complete the activity independently. It feels like Lauren is light years away from this skill. The class was explaining the concept of running away from a dangerous person, the different between good people and bad people, good touch and bad touch, NOT going with somebody because they offer you candy/a puppy/a toy, etc. They talked about causing a scene if someone tries to abduct you, that bad people are often not strangers, using a family password so that an unsafe person can't coerce the child to going with them. These are not concepts that Lauren cognitively understands or is able to process right now.

I don't list these differences to complain at all. I certainly wish Lauren was capable of age appropriate skills, of course I do. I simply want to highlight the differences between where Lauren is currently compared to typical peers. Parenting her in many ways is very unlike the reality of what other parents of typical 6 year olds live on a daily basis.  In someways I love Lauren's innocence and her complete faith that everyone wants what's best for her. But of course it's terrifying and I wish I could keep her in a bubble of safety and love.

Here's Lauren and I during the class

 Here's Ryan with the instructor. They were role playing Ryan walking home from school and someone approaching him and trying to coerce him to go with them. Ryan was a year too old for the class and almost the same height as the instructor! It was funny to see and did not go unnoticed. During this exercise,she helped all the kids put the backpack on. Then she got to Ryan, handed it to him, and said, "Sir". We all died laughing. They also talked about how you can tell a good person from a bad person. Ryan said, "A bad person will have a devilish smile!" Ummmm, what?! LOL.

I want Ryan to do the course for 8-12 year olds this summer, but convincing him might be impossible. That class covers everything they talk about in the younger class, but goes over bullying in more detail and I think talks more about being coerced to go with someone vs abduction (because 8-12 year olds generally are a little harder to just pick up and run off with). The instructor asked for a volunteer kid to let her pick them up to demonstrate and Ryan was the only kid who raised his hand. She was like, uh that's not gonna work!

Magically nicer and the sweetest boy ever

I hate to jinx it, but it's been a solid 3 weeks so I'm saying it.

Somehow, during Lauren's foot surgery, they made her nicer. That, or her foot was hurting her more than we realized and she was irritable because of pain.

She is so dang sweet now! She has been so sweet. So agreeable. We have our moments, but significantly less than before her surgery. She's still not nice to strangers. (A coworker of mine told Lauren she liked her dog, and Lauren said, "Don't talk to me." Embarrassing!) Last night I rocked her to sleep and she made us sing happy birthday to each other. So stinking adorable! She then very unexpectedly stuck her tongue IN my nose, which was disgusting and I laughed so hard I cried.

And Ryan? My meltdown-every-time-we-leave-the-house kid? Just today we went out to breakfast, to Target, and to Costco. Zero arguing. No meltdowns. No whining. Super sweet. And he cleaned the basement! On Thursday he tried pizza with bacon on it. He was a little irked this morning because Lauren woke up before 7am (on a freaking Saturday) singing suuuuper loud. He couldn't fall back asleep, so he just went downstairs and played with his Lego table. Poor guy!

Costco on a Saturday was exactly how you'd expect. Add in a cute dog, fending people off, and I'm people'd out!

At Target this morning we took advantage of the Caroline's Cart, which was great. I did not want to have to push her chair and pull a cart behind me, or trust Ryan not to run anyone over. So we went in, I got Lauren transferred to the Caroline's Cart and then Ryan buckled her in and watched her while I returned the wheelchair to the car. (I actually had her too-small adaptive stroller because the wheelchair was in Greg's car...and he was at work. I will say though, her wheelchair is tiny and Lauren-sized, so even my short self has to lean really far over to push it. I like her adaptive stroller way better but it doesn't allow for the leg support her cast needs for longer outings, like school. We took the stroller to Costco. The kids call both the wheelchair and the stroller a wheelchair.) Anyways, he was super sweet with her. Then I wanted to look at hair stuff and they wanted to look at toys, so I let Ryan take her to the toy section. I found them in the Barbie aisle, meaning he took her there first,and he was grabbing toys off the shelf to show her and see if she wanted them. Melt my heart! I have the sweetest boy ever.