Spring Break 2012

We had a staycation this year for spring break.  With spring break the week before Easter, there was no way we could go anywhere.  Drew is a pastor.  The week before Easter is his busy week – like the week before April 15h for accountants.  Even though we stayed around here all week, it was still nice to not get up and have to get the kids to school.  We were able to stay up late and sleep in late.

We had one fun day and then the rest of the week was way busy for me.  The kids have watched more tv and played more Leap pad this week, but hey, it’s spring break.  The rules were a little lax this week!

Monday Lindy had physical therapy in the morning.  We casted new braces for her.  She got good news and bad news.  Her right foot/ankle is looking so good that we went to a very low type brace that can pretty much just stay in her shoes.  It doesn’t come up around her ankle at all.  Great news for her right foot.  But the bad news for her left foot is that we made her a high brace.  That girl has gone back and forth from low to high on the left side.  Lindy’s PT will probably give me a low brace leftover from another kid to use as well but right now she just needs the high brace.  She is making it as flexible as possible.  The girl is still walking on her toes.  When she slows down and thinks about it she walks correctly.  But how often does she do that?  Practically never.  She is always running around and I’m sure not thinking about her feet.  We will pick them up at the end of the month.

Tuesday was our busy and fun day of the week.  The kids and I headed out early morning and we did all our grocery shopping for the month.  After lunch we surprised the kids by taking them to their second movie at a movie theatre.   We went and saw the Lorax.  I thought it was really cute.  Lindy did pretty good. We sat on the second row and she seemed to see things.  I think a big problem is probably how fast things move on the screen.  I’m sure she loses things when they go by quickly.  The movie wasn’t so bad but some of the previews were so fast!  After the movie we went home and we made some dinner and then we headed back out again for a Wake Forest baseball game. It was perfect weather for the game and we enjoyed all three innings we stayed for.  We would have stayed longer but a storm was brewing and we saw lightning so we headed out.  We weren’t 5 minutes from the stadium and it started raining.  So glad we didn’t get caught out there in a downpour!  Hearing aids and rain don’t mix.

Wednesday was another busy day for us – but not the kids.  I volunteered to make 60 – yes that’s right, 60 – tent weights for the March of Dimes walk.  We needed a good way to weigh down the pop-up tents that they use.  We found a way online that used PVC pipe and cement.  I talked Bob (my father-in-law) into coming up to help me get started this week.  He came up Wednesday and we did 40 of the 60 tubes!  I had all the tubes ready to go so all we really had to do was mix the cement with water and put it in the tubes.  Bob was the official mixer and Drew and I filled tubes.  Then I had to leave and go for a meeting and they kept working on them :)  I brought lunch back with me and then we did some more after lunch.   My dad is going to help me finish the other 20 this weekend.  Sure do love my hubby, father-in-law and father for helping me out with my project!!

The rest of our week was spent cleaning the house since we had company coming.  The kids got lots of good playtime in and discovered toys they hadn’t played with for awhile. 

Friday afternoon my parents pulled in the driveway for Easter weekend!  The kids were so excited to see them.  We dyed Easter eggs this evening with Nana.  Lindy dropped her first egg on the ground (by accident) and then the second one on the table.  We started off well!  It got much better after that but they were both determined to make a mess!

This morning we got up and my dad, Drew and I finished up the 20 cement filled tubes.  My dad bought these little flower box kits for the kids and so the kids got to hammer the nails in.  Their first real hammering and building experience.  Will  has been talking about building houses with Papa when he is 10 so this was his first chance to try it out!  Mom, Dad, and I headed out to run some errands in the afternoon and then we ate dinner out.  We got the kids in bed and then Mama and Nana Easter Bunny went to work! 

Getting new braces made.Watching the Lorax on TuesdayHe sat up so straight until we told him to scoot back and he could lean on the seat.At the baseball game, before we got rained out.Drew was wearing Will around his neck like a scarf.  I thought he looked like one of those scarves made out of fox fur that still has the fox head attached to it!I found Lindy like this one day during her nap.  In case you couldn’t see her stomach was entirely puffed up.  Had me worried for a nanosecond.Then I realized she had stuffed her blanket up there and fell asleep with it that way!Will created a neat little tv watching chair for himself.  A whole lot of PVC pipe!Men at work.A few of the finished products.  Watching the dye dissolveDyeing the eggs!!Finished products!Building with Papa!Lindy loves her bike helmet and wears it every chance she gets!

Hello Spring Break

We are technically on spring break but we have no plans so it’ll be kind of a boring spring break!  At least we get many days to sleep in!

Let’s see what we did last week.  Tuesday was gymnastics as usual.  I guess one of her teachers has finally had enough of her messing around in circle time.  He threatened her with time out and so she came over to the gate crying.  What to do with that child???  After gymnastics we went with Katie and Claire to the library.  Simple and fun activities turn stressful quick when two kids are pulling out books left and right. 

Wednesday the kids had their Easter parties at school and then they had music class.  I decided to let the kids paint outside that afternoon.  I don’t do messy things all that often so they thought it was great.  I set up the easel and taped a picture up to each side and they painted away.  Will took his time and did a pretty good job.  Lindy just slopped paint up there.  One time Will came over to look at her side and he was kind of talking to himself and said, “That looks so bad!”  We got Lindy a new picture and we painted together and she did a lot better.  We talked about painting only the white parts of the paper, not the ones that already have paint on them.  Will drew a maze with his second picture.  They sure did have fun!

Thursday Will and I dropped Lindy off at school and then went shopping at Kohls.  I got some great deals for the kids with a few different coupons that were all expiring.  We headed back to Lindy’s school for her Easter egg hunt at 10am.  Will was with me and so we had to have a talk about how this was Lindy’s class and he could help Lindy find them, since she can’t see as well, but he needed to let her pick them up.  He did a great job helping her but letting her do it.  After the egg hunt her class headed back in for the rest of their party but we headed out because Lindy had a follow-up appointment with ENT. 

If you remember we went to a hearing test in Jan. and Lindy had fluid in her ears.  Her audiogram was much worse than normal.  We went to ENT the next week and he confirmed she had fluid.  He wanted to give her 6 weeks to clear it up by herself.  She had about 3 colds and a hospital stay.  There was fluid in her ears as late as March 8th.  She missed her original follow-up appointment because she was in the hospital so they rescheduled her for Thursday.  I figured the fluid would still be there.  The school audiologist did a tympanogram for us on Thursday morning and when I picked her up I saw the tympanogram and it was normal looking!  I was so excited.  Her last one had been flat and this had the nice bell shape curve on it.  We took it with us to ENT and he confirmed that the fluid was GONE!!!  I was shocked she had cleared the fluid on her own.  We avoided tubes – again!  This is the second time they’ve found fluid and both times she has cleared it on her own.  I know tubes aren’t a big deal but if we don’t have to have them, then I don’t want them.  The ENT said some kids with tubes get a lot of drainage and then kids can’t wear their hearing aids.  I don’t really want to mess with all that.  So we had a good ENT visit and we will follow-up in 4 months with him.  We have another hearing test scheduled for May. 

Friday was our first day of spring break.  No school!!  I had to go do some March of Dimes things around lunchtime but in the late afternoon we headed out for a ride.  We picked up some free milkshakes and then headed to a neat little area of town to look at the beautiful azalea bushes in bloom.  It’s a tiny little park (actually the median of a street) but it was big enough to get out and walk around.  The kids had a blast exploring this little place and the flowers were amazing. 

Yesterday we had our spring fling at church.  We went up around 10am because they had set up the bounce house an hour early so I let the kids bounce while there were no big kids around.  They had so much fun.  There were two other church kids there and one is a girl that Lindy loves to death.  She is 9 years old and she helped Lindy out in the bounce house.   They had so much fun going down the slide.  Before long Lindy was going down on her stomach, head first.  I was a little worried about her breaking her glasses but thankfully she didn’t.  The games and fun started at 11am.  They played games, ate lunch, made care packets for soldiers, saw the Easter bunny, and had an egg hunt.  GrandBob and Suzette came up and spent the morning with us at the church.  The kids loved having them there.  It had been raining in the early morning but thankfully it stopped raining and turned into a nice (and hot) day. 

Until next time…Lindy’s motley crew of hearing impaired kids (and Will)!"There’s one Lindy!”Beautiful azalea bushes!Loving the bouncy house!Loving Hailee!And GrandBob!Not exactly sure about the big bunny!Hunting eggsSomeone else had to try out the bouncy house slide!