Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Can you say snow, snow, and more snow?  I think on the news this morning they said we are well on our way to setting records for having more than an inch of snow on the ground for such long periods.  We are at 42 days today and the record is 63 days AND it is snowing today AND it is supposed to snow on Friday.  I am so tired of it.  I decided to remove the three feet of snow from the third lane of our driveway on Saturday.  I worked on it for probably two hours and was only able to remove half of the snow.  It had to be broken up using a regular shovel first before I could use the snow shovel and throw the snow onto the growing mound on the grass.  I went back out again Monday afternoon to finish and spent another two hours.  Sadly, the snow had been so heavy on the concrete that it depressed the bottom section of the driveway 2 to 3 inches below the sidewalk line.  Hopefully with warmer weather it will rise up again.  Hopefully.

Amy had an appointment on January 12 to see a new orthopedist at the Longmont Clinic.  We switched insurance companies this year and no longer use Kaiser Permanente.  So they x-rayed her leg once again and removed the cast.  Dr. Wood said that she was okay to walk on it now, but when it came time to put her socks and boot on, Amy didn’t want to put any pressure on it.  Great!  She rode in the wheelchair down to the car.  Fortunately the nurse came with us since I also had Kristen in a stroller and Misha was not able to maneuver it very well.  I made the mistake of taking the girls to Kohls to spend their Christmas gift certificates from Grandma Ball.  I didn’t have Amy’s wheelchair with me so had to push her and Kristen in a cart.  I should have just gone home.  By the time I finally gave up and took them home, I was one crabby Mom.

We took the girls back in to town on Saturday.  Much easier with Christopher’s help.  Amy still hadn’t walked much on her leg and was back to using crutches in the house.  For some reason she suddenly got brave at the mall and began slowly walking while hanging on to the wheelchair.  Within a half an hour she was walking without the wheelchair, though with quite a pronounced limp.  She has done better throughout the month and still limps.  Stairs are a bit of a challenge for her, but she is doing so much better.  Dr. Wood asked us to come back in February to have the leg re-x-rayed just to make sure everything was healing okay and that the growth plate wasn’t affected at all.

Amy’s first bath was pretty disgusting.  The dead skin just floated off her leg and filled the water.  I had Amy scrub as much on her leg as she could to get the excess skin to come off and then we emptied the tub, washed it out and filled it once again.  She stayed in the tub for at least a half an hour enjoying her self. 

Misha is doing well in school.  I went to school last Wednesday to help out and was impressed by her.  So many of the kids in her class are much farther behind.  I know that I could do more with her and do plan to spend more time just listening to her read, but she is doing well.  Her biggest challenge is listening and not getting distracted.  I think that will likely be a challenge she will always face as it is just so much a part of her personality.  But we can work on it.

Kristen is becoming more two all the time.  She doesn’t say “no” yet but is quite proficient at “nuh uh” when she doesn’t want something.  She doesn’t say too many words yet though I work with her.  She can identify many body parts and is beginning to know more animal sounds and names.  Kristen loves going to the library.  The story lady, Miss Jan, has a bubble machine that she uses at the end of class, and Kristen identifies story time with bubbles.  ‘Course once we are there, getting Kristen to wait until the end of the session for bubbles is a bit of a challenge.  We have been going a couple of months now, and even in that time she has improved in her sitting still and interaction with other kids.