Nathan and Kaitlyn can play games together now!!! As long as we keep the game simple Nathan enjoys spinning, counting and manipulating objects. He is pretty good at taking turns, though he always offers to “help” me on my turns. Sometimes I let him and sometimes I tell him I want to “do it myself” and he seems to understand that.
Duck Duck 1-2-3 by Cranium is a great beginner game that they BOTH love.
Nathan has his own doll now that he calls “Bitty Boy” so he doesn’t have to compete for Kaitlyn’s “Bitty-Bitty” when they play. He rarely won that battle. He enjoys caring for his baby when his sister brings out her doll. And all the “baby games” and finger games they loved as babies and toddlers we now do with the baby dolls. We don’t have any new babies in the house but the kids still want to play at these nursery rhymes and games with fingers and piggies. I still do these with Kaitlyn and Nathan as well but they are getting mighty big for a few of them.
We had time to read and time to bake together.
There were riding lessons from a joint Christmas gift… an excuse to get to the farm and fun to see these wonderful animals.
There were Sunday afternoon snacks!
There were Thank you notes to work on. Kaitlyn took time for details on hers, especially when it came to painting the letters for the note.
Nathan tells me “Mom, I LOVE paint” and it’s true. He sat for an hour and a half at the table painting about 10 pictures one afternoon. Each one looked different and when I hung them to dry on the wall they spanned the length of the kitchen in a line. This boy has never sat still for an hour and a half for any reason before. Water colors are enjoyable and require less clean up but Poster Paints are still Nathan’s favorite given an option.
More play time with the dolls and some practice with writing skills, something they don’t really teach in school anymore in my experience with my older children, but I feel is an important skill to develop. Given what Kaitlyn is reading and writing by herself I know that this is a good time to work on proper letter formation and this book makes it fun.
We did lots of different puzzles including this large one of ocean creatures.
We invented some of our own dinosaur skeletons and discussed what kind they might be, what they might have eaten and made up some names for them.
Tristan and Rick spent time at Scouts making his Pinewood Derby car.
I made up a super delicious strawberry cream pie. It has a chocolate crumb crust with a layer of strawberries topped with homemade vanilla pudding and a chocolate drizzle. It was a good kitchen creation.
ABSeas is another fun game that Nathan is learning letter matching and naming with. Kaitlyn may not be napping in her bed anymore but Spooky and she are inseparable regardless of where “Quiet Time” takes place in the afternoons.
I think this year we had the January Freeze instead of the January thaw. Three of my cats certainly enjoyed the open windows of winter on a mild breezy day as they spied on the squirrels scavenging for their lunches right outside the window.
And finally it was nice to have a little down time after work with Rick coming home many days this month at a normal dinner hour. It was nice to see most of the kids cozied up on the couch with him one evening recently as they waited for dinner to be ready. And while this was pleasant we all know that life is made of many opposites, challenges and constant change. Something is always coming up as a surprise. Something always comes up that was un-planned. Through a series of appointments with various doctors in the office and tests at the hospital they made a firm diagnosis this past week on Rick. About 6 months ago I noticed Rick having consistent difficulties that seemed to be more frequent, more and more common. In late August I looked him in the eye and asked him what was going on and then told him he needed to see a Dr. He dragged his feet all the way to December. This past Tuesday, he received his diagnosis of Achalasia and until recently I’d never heard of it. It is a rare disease of the muscle and nerves in the esophagus. Looking back I can now see symptoms of this going on for quite a while though it doesn’t usually present until middle age. I guess we’re here! And since his esophagus is enlarged at this point we know that the condition has been present for a while. Given that the symptoms he presented with mimic the same symptoms of cancer this diagnosis is “good news”. Next month in March he will take a few days off of work to have a procedure done in the hospital and for recovery time. He is opting for the less invasive non-surgical procedure to start with which should help him but there is a 5% risk of rupture that would require emergency surgery anyway. Of course there is no cure for this. He will have to be monitored and receive more treatments as time goes on throughout his life. In the meantime he will go on with things normally and we will have to be on the lookout for weight loss, pneumonia and acid reflux disease which some studies show increases cancer risk and there will probably be the occasional trip to the ER. He may be on medication for the rest of his life to help support digestion and control stomach acid to reduce other risks and discomforts. Rick has no known family members diagnosed with this disease to my knowledge but my reading indicates that this condition could be genetic. This makes me concerned for my children. I was not counting on dealing with health issues like this at the age of only 40 as my family tends to not have a lot of need of doctors and they tend to live pretty long healthy lives so this is sort of a blow to me. And of course I wish that Rick didn’t have to deal with this problem either. I am adjusting to the idea of this but I know with the help of modern medicine Rick should be able to live a normal happy life for many many years.
No comments:
Post a Comment