Thanksgiving

Lars had a wonderful Thanksgiving, with Cary, John, Tucker & Zane here from Vermont from Wednesday to Friday, and Mommy visiting every day. Lots of sound & energy & music & wonderful smells, and although he didn't partake in dinner at the time, he has enjoyed some leftovers.

Spent Mama's birthday with Lars' Godparents Lisa & John & their birthday boy Griffin, and friend Rocky. Quite lovely. Next morning visited Denise & Kali & went with Kali to the Mapparium. Wow, what a place! If you haven't been there, it's a three-story, stained glass globe in the Mary Baker Eddy Library, in what's known as the "Mother Church"- the huge Christian Science church downtown Boston. It's stunning visually,

but for Lars the acoustic properties were of course more interesting. Glass completely reflects sound. If two people stand at each end of the 30-foot bridge, with their backs toward each other, they can whisper to each other and be heard as if they were standing side by side. And if you stand in the very middle and make sound, it reflects back to you from every direction. It's quite amazing. (No photography allowed inside, so I nabbed those photos off their website.)

Note from last Wednesday in Lars' preschool book: "Lars beat the conga today on his own!! Very exciting--we had a blast. He needed repeated guiding to find the drum--but once he did he beat with both hands repeatedly! Yahoo! Jill" Wheee & yeah for music therapy. Lars is so blessed to be able to work with Jill.

Could definitely tell this was Lars' first fall out of the house & with other kids: he got one sickness after another, with no breaks in between. Happily (knock on wood) he's been well for several weeks now. I was gone for six days at a conference the week before last, and Lars & I had an incredibly joyful reunion when I returned. Having never been away from him, that was challenging. And wonderful. Michelle & Andey took extra good care of him, and of course he had his fantastic Perkins Preschool crew. Reports are he mostly did well, although a bit grumpy and out-of-sorts toward the end.

Here's to staying well through the holiday season. Cheers.

more trampoline

trampoline arrives

Several weeks ago we got a 14' trampoline for free from the local freecycle network! It happened to be a neighbor giving it away. I wish I had photos of us seven adults carrying it down Mechanic Street, around the corner and up Ash street. We stopped traffic. The boys both absolutely love it.

apple picking...feeling...frolicking...

Nice leaves, smooth apples.
Great hills to roll down, too.

Halloween

Lars had a fever & couldn't go out, but was still the cutest little skeleton in town. And jolly, too. Joa as bat-biting Ozzy Osbourne. For his school halloween dance, he died his hair black, too. Mommy dons the wig Joa rejected.

missing Halloween :(

Little Larsy is sick. Still? Again? Hard to tell. He had a touch of pneumonia, went on a 10-day round of anti-biotics, and then right when he got off he spiked a fever & threw up 15 times in a night (Saturday night). He's been home from school all week, and last night was up to 104°. I got it down to 100° with tylenol & a cool bath. We'll see how he feels today.

It's very sad to miss Halloween @ Perkins! Such a sensory experience. Sigh.

trade-off

Such an intense trade-off: eating and drinking for feeling good. Woah.

Really seems to me that the neurontin--which by all accounts appears to be what soothed Lars' terrible pain from last winter & has kept it at bay--has almost completely erased his appetite, desire to eat, willingness to allow food & drink past his lips... This morning he had explosive diarrhea and threw up all his meds (I think the amoxicillin is getting to him), and even in the wake of that I tried & tried to get him to drink a little sip of water to clear his mouth of all that nastiness. No go. Nothing. He eats a few bites a week, here & there. Some weeks he drinks some sips, others nothing.

This is a boy who used to love to eat. And drink.

But this is also a boy who used to scream for hours and days and weeks on end, and now he's happy.

feeling better

Larsy is feeling better. He even went back to school today, and ran a 3 hour feed with not one gag. His communication book from school said, "Lars had a pretty good day back at school." He was certainly happy to be headed that way this morning, and totally and completely exhausted by 6:30 tonight, sweet little pumpkin mine.

We're all having an early bedtime tonight. Zzzzzzzz.

pneumonia

Yikes it's been a long time since I've posted. I'll work backwards. Lars was diagnosed this afternoon with pneumonia. He's pretty spunky for a guy with pneumonia, and both Dr. Richie Cunningham and Lars' wonderful PT Alice said they heard the rattle, but it's not too extensive at this point. He's on amoxicillin 3x/day for 10 days. He's never had pneumonia before & it's a bit freaky for me because I get so dreadfully sick with pneumonia. Hopefully he didn't inherit that from me. He threw up four times this morning, so he stayed home from school. Little Richie is thinking the stomach stuff is because of the pneumonia. He's getting pedialyte via g-tube instead of pediasure now.

He's been sick off & on for a couple weeks now, little munchkin, and his gagging has radically increased. We were running his g-tube feedings at 200 ml/hr when he was awake, and now we're running between 50 & 70 when he's awake, otherwise he'll gag & throw up. Big difference. I'm really hoping the antibiotics just clear things up & we can move on. He'll be home from school again tomorrow.

I'll get around to photos later, but we had fun this past Sunday going apple...searching. We didn't get to pick them because we arrived a few minutes after they stopped selling the bag to purchase them, but we sought them out & felt the leaves & rolled down the hill (Joa with his body & Lars in his jogging stroller) & had a bunch of fun.

What have the other highlights been from the past few weeks? Hmmm... Definitely kayaking the night before and the night of the full Harvest Moon- that was totally amazing.

Well, and the major reason I haven't posted is that Andey has told me she wants a separation/divorce, and I've been having a LOT of feelings that aren't necessarily appropriate for me to post here. We are currently working with a mediator who is very skilled, and trying to work out arrangements. I am doing everything I can to make sure the kids can stay in one house (Ash Street) and have us trade off. Everyone I've ever talked to who is an adult whose parents divorced said the worst part is going from place to place and not feeling like you fully belong in either place, or that either place is really yours. Some of your stuff is one place, and other stuff isn't & the kids experience this as very stressful. Besides, it's the adults who can handle inconvenience better, and who are the cause of the inconvenience, so we should be the ones who take it on. My opinion.

We don't have any answers yet, but are in the process. It's very sad.