Tiring week

Last week was the first week this school year during which Anna was in school all five days, minus her Thursday afternoon therapy appointments.  Granted, kids were only in school four days during two of those beginning seven weeks.  Still, the initial observation gives an idea of how the first quarter of the school year has gone for Miss Anna ... and NONE of those absences were caused by illness.

Needless to say, Anna was t-i-r-e-d by the end of the week.  A late night on Wednesday for communion class (while the rest of us went to Ethan's preK Open House), followed by a late night on Thursday for the third grader open house contributed to that tiredness.  By Friday night, though, she was beat.

So was mom.  The sunny, breezy weather in mid-October meant that I had my hands full with garden clean up.  In addition to canning the late crop of pears and pulling up tomatoes, peppers, and their supports, Ethan and I dug the sweet potatoes on Wednesday afternoon.  Although the sweet potato crop wasn't quite as stellar as last year's, it will still feed us for a good portion of the winter.  Friday we completed the garden tasks by tilling up most of the space; we still have some broccoli and peapod plants that are producing a little bit.  We also started on the leaf raking/collecting work of the season.

All this made for a tired momma by the end of the week, made worse by the fact that we had more nighttime disruptions than we have had in a long time.

Saturday morning the kids played, played, and played in the basement.  Here's a snapshot of their creativity and fun.

Thankfully, the whole family is very supportive when it comes time to clean up these elaborate set-ups, especially if they know it needs to be done before anyone can watch TV.

Meanwhile, Matt and I worked on more of the outside fall tasks.  With our modified pool set-up this year, we will be leaving the pool partially filled for the winter, but having it "closed down" with extra bleach and a fancy cover.  We'll see how it all goes.

Saturday afternoon was dubbed "load firewood into the basement" time.  The older the kids get, the more willing and able they are to help with physical tasks like this.  Hooray!

A few hours later, two full truckloads of firewood were into the basement storage area ... but that made for a tired and sore Mom AND Dad this time.  Maybe next year Kate and Ethan will take on even more of the responsibility :)

A few different times in the past week, Anna has opted to try out the harness in the basement again.  This particular set-up helps her practice standing and balancing while being protected by a few different bungees from hitting the ground too hard when she falls.  We've been known to have dance parties down there with her :)  This weekend it was a silly game of catch.

And finally, before I forget, here's a somewhat blurry picture of Kate walking in with the other 3rd graders for their music program that was in conjunction with Thursday night's Open House.

One of the coolest parts was that the kids looked like they were having SO much fun while they were singing.  Our school is very blessed by the different talents of all the educators.

Mid-October

Last week was cold and rainy, which was actually our first bout with this kind of weather in a long time.  The kids mustered up the energy to push through, but the cloudiness made me grumpy.  By Friday we were all wishing for some down time when (surprise, surprise!) Kate's 4H gathering for the night was cancelled due to the rainy weather.  No one really wants to have a bonfire at a corn maze when it's raining :)

Instead we curled up in the basement and watched a movie, went to bed early, and everyone slept in.  Hip, hip, hooray!

The second 4H event of the weekend, a couple of hours of cleaning out the 4H beds at the community garden, was cancelled on Sunday afternoon because of the continued wet weather.  Another relaxing evening is what we all needed before beginning a full week of school and work.

This week includes school open houses for two different kids on two different nights, but also another night at church for Anna.  We enjoy our times at home when we have them, especially if the sun is shining!

Here's a few other snapshots of life recently.

For awhile now Ethan has been talking about building a wooden semi truck with Matt.  A couple of weeks ago, they talked through their ideas and the engineering required, made a few sketches, and then worked on building it together.

Ethan learned a lot over those weeks about having to wait for things to get worked out "just right", having to wait for the glue to dry, and having to wait for Dad to get the right parts for the axels.  He also learned about the tools in the garage workshop and took much pleasure in giving me a tour of the workshop one afternoon.

Partly because of this project, Ethan has been enjoying drawing and sketching recently, too.  Here's a semi-truck he drew one afternoon.  (If I don't keep a record of these little things here on this blog, I tend to forget them ...)

When he's not playing with cars and trucks, or building, or drawing, Ethan is often found at the piano, practicing his songs for the week, or just making his own music.

Kate is usually found playing, reading, or drawing as well.  Her pictures continue to get more complex.  Whenever we ask her about a particular part, she often has a long explanation about why something looks the way it does.  I wonder what it's like to live in that child's head ...

Here's what Kate drew during church this last week to help her memorize Psalm 23.  Sure enough, after drawing something for each phrase, she had the whole psalm memorized.  (Again, if I don't record this here, I'd probably forget all about it ...)

Kate has also been losing teeth right and left.  The second top one just broke through the gums this week, but she certainly has a checkerboard mouth these days.  It's a wonder she can eat anything!

Anna's plugging along.  Everything seems to be going smoothly right now, so we will enjoy that for what it is.

Lastly, Ethan's class had a field trip to the pumpkin patch today.  The bus ride, the animals, the corn maze, and the playground area were all memorable experiences for Ethan and his friends.  It was a windy, but sunny, day for the trip.  Good times were had by (almost) all.

Let's hope this sunny weather continues!

Moving on

Matt and I made the collective realization recently that we have entered a new stage in our family's life.  Gone are the days when we are all home together every evening after dinner, with our comfortable, safe routines.  Gone are the weekends when we have no outside commitments.  With the girls getting older and participating in different activities, we find ourselves having to balance work, home, school, and life outside.

It's tough for these homebody parents to extend the daily and weekly routines into the after dinner time and into the much treasured weekends.  However, we recognize that this time won't last forever, just like the struggles and joys of the little years didn't last forever.  We value the life lessons and experiences of the outside activities so we know it is not in everyone's best interest to stay huddled up in our home together all the time.  As such, we will do our best in the coming years to make time for ourselves individually, our marriage relationship, our family togetherness, and now the rest of life.

What are all of these extra demands, you may be wondering?  Not much when you consider them individually, but when all of the dates and activities get added to the calendar, the sum of them can be overwhelming.  During the month of October, Anna has first communion classes every Wednesday evening across town at church.  She and her fellow fifth graders (all 13 or 14 of them) get together for dinner, fellowship, and a class portion taught by one of the pastors.

With Kate starting 4H this year, there are monthly meetings, at least one extra activity each month, and responsibilities such as fund raising, project work, and planning for meetings.  Plus, now that Kate is in 3rd grade and has a nice group of friends, there are things like birthday parties we have to consider :)  In addition, the 3rd graders in our congregation receive a special Bible during a Saturday morning breakfast which also happens in, you guessed it, October.

Besides those extracurriculars, October and November usually contain some kind of open house for each child's school, at least one field trip for each kid, and then parent-teacher conferences for all three kiddos now, too.

Like I said, not a lot when looked at individually, but every week/weekend in October has multiple nights with extra responsibilities.

Then there was that whole surgery thing for Anna.

Speaking of which, Anna is well on her way to recovery.  Her eyes look so much better healed already than they did for most of the summer, although she is still complaining of a headache off and on.  Our theory as of now is that the headaches are related to the extra strain on her eyes and brain as everything tries to work together again.

Anna was back at school again last Friday.  She probably could have managed it on Thursday, too, but we had an appointment scheduled across town to get her new AFOs fitted.  Unfortunately, that appointment was cancelled about an hour prior to its scheduled time due to circumstances at the office.  Oh, well.  Anna came along to my weekly Bible Study time and then she was a trooper for her therapy that afternoon.

Tuesday was the one-week check-up with the ophthalmologist.  He is happy with how things look right now, even though Anna still sees double at distance.  He believes this will continue to subside, but if she still has double vision at her next check-up in December, she may be in the market for another set of prism lenses.

Here's his current theory for the crazy eye-turn in the summer months.  Every once in awhile, a kid's body overreacts to the surgery and his table of measurements that usually works, doesn't.  He figures that Anna is one of those kids.  It's just another way that she stands apart, I guess.  This man has been doing this kind of eye surgery every Monday for the last twenty years and now Anna's eyes and body have surprised him on more than one occasion.

Let me end this post with a couple of fun pictures.  First is Ethan.  After a month or so, he has finally figured out how to have fun playing independently in the afternoons again.  Here's a few race tracks he designed and built in his bedroom.

He has also enjoyed playing with the marble run, tinker toys, and lincoln logs.  The piano still gets a lot of love from our boy.  It's been fun to watch his personality and interests continue to develop.

Along with many Lutheran churches, ours will be holding a special celebration this October for the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing his 95 theses to the church door.  Part of the celebration has included short announcements from a few puppets (Martin Luther, Katherine Von Bora Luther, and Philip Melanchthon) performed by Matt and me.  Another part of the celebration has been an opportunity to build a scene or design related to the Reformation with Legos.  Last Saturday afternoon was rainy and cool, so the girls and I got out the Legos.  Kate made a peasant home/street scene whereas Anna and I used an online model to made Luther's Rose.  It turned out pretty well :)

Now it's on to another week/weekend of fall!

Surgery Day

Monday, October 2, was the day of Anna's second bilateral eye muscle surgery.  The day itself went well, although we had a bit of uncertainty in the days leading up to Monday because of Anna's cold.  The nurse who called on Friday with our report time (6:15 a.m. ... ugh.) was willing to give it until Monday and then let the anesthesiologists make the final call.

Thankfully, Anna successfully blew her nose in the parking garage so she no longer had her morning sniffles and slight cough by the time we were actually in her pre/post-surgery room.

The anesthesia experience went very smoothly this time around.  Everyone, our family especially, is still pleasantly surprised that Anna doesn't have any nausea when she undergoes anesthesia these days.

The pain and discomfort hasn't been too bad for Anna this time around.  She had a hard time opening her eyes at first, but they are overall less irritated than they were in May.  Perhaps this is because the doctor used completely different stitches.  We didn't know it at the time, but Anna's body reacted very strongly to the material that was used previously.

The main issue for Anna on Monday was tiredness and the fact that she would get a headache when she sat up.  However, these symptoms were gradually decreasing as the day wore on.  Having an awesome sister whose caring and compassionate side showed through this evening certainly helped.  ("Anna, do you think it would be okay if you sat up and colored with me for awhile?")

In spite of all this, we aren't rejoicing yet at the results of the surgery.  It's usually not a good thing when the doctor says, "Well, that was more complicated than I was expecting".

Here's what we know now.  The muscles involved in the previous surgery were still attached, but they had "slipped" by a couple of millimeters.  (Don't ask me how that happens or what exactly that means.)  This shouldn't have caused Anna's eyes to turn as severely as they did, though.  The doctor believes the remaining movement came from an overcorrection of Anna's muscles/brain.  We knew this was a possible outcome of the initial surgery, but were under the impression that it wouldn't happen as late as it did.

So now we wait and see.  I'm not declaring anything a success for at least three months this time.

In addition to the muscle surprise, the doctor discovered a staph infection along Anna's lower right eyelid.  The lid had never looked completely clear after the chalazion was removed, but we were under the impression that it was from those recurring styes.  Turns out we were wrong, but there wasn't much we could have done differently.

The infection was only on the surface and very slow-growing, so the doctor simply "scraped" the infected epithelial cells on her lower eyelid (my skin still crawls as I think about that) and prescribed a stronger antibiotic drop to use.

We will see him again in a week to see how everything is healing.

We appreciate the thoughts and prayers during this time.  Although Matt and I were both very tired on Monday, we made it through fairly easily.  More importantly, though, we have a happy and relatively healthy Anna at home.

Superhero Run

Saturday morning was this year's BCCN Superhero Run.  After Anna was an honorary superhero in 2015, we had wanted to participate again.  Last year, however, just wasn't the year for it.  We needed a break.

This year, though, we went and had a good time.  Earlier in the summer, we communicated with the family of a third grader in McFarland who was an honorary superhero for the BCCN in 2014 to see if they wanted to join together with us to make a McFarland fundraising team.  Since Bella and Anna are in the same school this year, we thought it would work well.

Although we didn't get quite the show on the day of the event that we had hoped for, we received plenty of support from the McFarland community and our church family.

At the beginning of the summer, Kate started "training" with me with the hope that she would be able to run the 5K with me while Anna rode her tricycle.  After we took a break in July, it became apparent in August that she probably wouldn't enjoy running that far just yet, but she came up with the idea of riding her scooter along with us.  With Matt, my parents, and friends from church walking with Ethan, we were all able to participate.  Hooray!

Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful.  After opening ceremonies, Kate, Ethan, and Anna ran in the kids' dash.

Both Kate and Ethan ran both laps; Anna worked hard to make it all the way around once.  She thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Then the girls and I got ready for the 5K.

Amazingly, Anna kept up her pace the whole way while I ran *almost* the whole time.

Kate scooted plenty ahead of us, then decided to run for the last quarter mile or so.  (She's in the green shirt and black pants while her scooter and helmet were in the back of Anna's tricycle.)

Since us girls finished ahead of those walking the 2 miles, we took some fun pictures with my mom's phone :)

It was a fun way to spend a beautiful fall Saturday morning ... especially since the girls were off of school already on Friday for a staff development day.  Then no one was too crabby about having to get up early and go somewhere on the "only" day off.