happy birthday, wesley

A handsome little dude turned 7 last month. WOW! SEVEN!

We started celebrating BEFORE his May 26 birthday.... we took a trip to Elevated Sportz, our local trampoline park. The kids were in heaven. Here's a Wesley video, and a Laurel one for added cuteness:

I love those kids. They had a blast.

Monday (Memorial Day) was a trip to Brackett's Landing, our new favorite beach which is right by a set of railroad tracks and a railroad crossing. Wesley's crazy about railroad crossings. It was kinda cold, but then it got better. Later Monday night Shane took Wesley out to eat at Red Robin where he had macaroni and cheese and they sang to him. He enjoyed it. We've really tried to explain the concept of "celebrating" your birthday on a day that's not your birthday ;-)

Tuesday morning we started the day with balloons in his room. Laurel and I bought them four days earlier and hid them in a closet, haha. I accidentally only bought six!! HA!

Breakfast was chocolate oatmeal, one of his favorites. Oatmeal with a teeny bit of chocolate chips, baby marshmallows, and crushed graham cracker. So yum. "S'mores" oatmeal, actually.

I went to have lunch with him, it was just wonderful! I brought cupcakes to share with his class. He got to choose, and he chose red, white, and blue Memorial Day cupcakes. I didn't take a picture!

I'm not sure why, but every kid in the lunchroom got a popsicle that day! One of the teachers said that sometimes they just have these surprises for the kids. Laurel and Wesley were excited. I got one, too :-)

Here is Laurel enjoying her blue cupcake. I got a red one :-)

Our big project that afternoon was frosting the cake! She and I worked on it when Wesley was at school.

As if you couldn't tell, he's really into railroad crossings right now.

Dinner was Little Caesar's pizza and breaksticks. A favorite.

So. At breakfast, Wesley says to me, "when are all my friends coming over?" I'm like, gulp, I didn't plan a party. We went to the trampoline park and the beach, THOSE were the big activities. Anyway, I posted messages in two Facebook groups, my mommy friends and our Church friends, and I said "hey! cake & ice cream at 6:30!" And BOOM! Like 10 friends came, with their siblings and parents! It was wonderful! I cleaned for like 45 minutes tops, I needed zero prep work (I was making the cake anyway!), and then all the cake was gone! One piece left that I put in his lunch the next day. I totally recommend the last-minute cake & ice cream party.

A couple friends brought gifts; how thoughtful. I told them it wasn't necessary, but they really made Wesley feel special. I invited Shane over and it was nice for Wesley to have him here. I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of the gifts! He got some mini railroad crossings for his train tracks (have I mentioned how he is OBSESSED with railroad crossings?), some books, kinetic sand from Shane, Legos, and all kinds of good stuff. He was a bit more aloof with his gifts than he has been before, like a Christmas, you know, opening them, tossing them aside, opening the next one, etc. That was hard to see; I guess he's just growing up into every other little kid out there. I'll have to work on that. Gratitude and such.

I can already see that he's growing up in some big ways. The biggest one:  letting go of Big Airplane. He hasn't been hanging out with Big Airplane nearly as much as usual. Big Airplane has a "bed" and it's been in its "bed" for probably 2 weeks. I never see him with it anymore, he doesn't sleep with it. He left it here the last time he stayed the night at Shane's. Wow.

In some ways he's maturing; he's doing well in school. He has progressed out of the "special ed" services he was receiving for his language delay and fine motor delay. His teacher is really thrilled with his progress. He just moved SLOWLY when doing work, but he CAN do it. I'm nervous going forward still, because if you think of kids in quadrants, the highest quadrant are the smartie pants kids that no one worries about, the 2nd quadrant kids are still "above average" so they skirt by, and the bottom quadrant kids are the ones super behind so they get plenty of help. Wesley's in that no-man's-land third quadrants... not delayed enough to be on everyone's radar, but still worrisome. Yikes. It give me pause, continues to be an opportunity and challenge for me, with his education.We're still in a bunch of therapies and I'm still worried about ADHD/autism kinda things, but overall he's progressed so much and I'm hopeful it'll continue.

Anyway, there's always going to be more to say on that. For now, our annual quiz!

1. What is your favorite color?  blue

2. What is your favorite toy?  trains

3. What is your favorite fruit?  pears

4. What is your favorite tv show?  Cars (the movie)

5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Chickin in a Biscuit
6. What is your favorite outfit?  Spider pajamas

7. What is your favorite game?  Soccer
8. What is your favorite snack?  Granola bars

9. What is your favorite animal?  Cat

10. What is your favorite song?   Bon Jovi, Livin on a Prayer

11. What is your favorite book?  Trains
12. Who is your best friend?  Katy
13. What is your favorite cereal?  I don’t have a favorite cereal
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Play with Laurel
15. What is your favorite drink?  Juice
16. What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  My trains book  

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  Chocolate oatmeal

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday?  A granola bar
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  A daddy

I love you Wesley!!!! I love the little freckles on his face and how his eyes twinkle when he's being silly. I love to talk to him about things he's thinking. I love to hear his idea. I LOVE listening to him read! He's learning so much. I love it when he surprises me.

Happy birthday, my son.

unintended consequences of another slicing

I've been a bit MIA, but I have some posts I'm cooking up in my brain (PRIMARILY: Wesley's 7th birthday!!). For now, you get this one...

I haven't yet mentioned that I got surgery on April 6. The surgery I got in December 2013 on my right arm I also had done on my left arm. The gist is this.... I had had pain on my right side for a full year before I got help (physical therapy, cortisone shot, etc.), and when those things didn't work I had surgery after about 2 years of pain. Well, in January, I started having pain in my left elbow. Immediately I went into my doc to see if there was something to be done. He straight up told me that I had unique anatomy in my arm and the pain would only get worse, and I really should get surgery. If you remember, proximal median nerve entrapment leading to radial tunnel syndrome. Wellll I probably would have balked and stuck it up for awhile, just to be sure, BUT when our divorce is final I'm losing my insurance. An insurance agent on the phone even told me to "clean house, medically speaking," so yeah, I'm getting a lot of stuff done right now. So I booked a surgery date and made arrangements for the kids. I did it during spring break. The kids were in TriCities with their dad and Grandma, so I had the whole week to take painkillers, read books, take the bus places, and plant my garden one-armed.

Things did not go as planned. My doctor said that when he got in there, my muscles and nerves and stuff were really different than other people. It's not bad, it's just different, and it likely contributed to my pain. Some of my muscles were really big, and they had grown around my nerves. In order to free the nerve he had to move all these things around, and at one point he was upside down looking in, and all sorts of other complicated stuff.

SO the long story short is, accidentally my nerve was bruised. My doctor said in 25 years of doing this surgery, this has only happened twice. He said if I was the first surgery he had ever done, he never would have done another because I was so complicated.

What does a bruised nerve means? It means my left thumb and pointer finger have been numb since April 6. It was super bad at first. They felt totally asleep. And since I was under general and local anesthesia for the surgery, we weren't quite sure if I just hadn't woken up yet. By a week after-surgery, when they were STILL asleep, I was freaking out.

It also means I can't bend them fully like I should. When I first would make a first, my other three fingers would pull into the palm like normal, but my pointer finger would stick out like a Heil Hitler. It was freaky to have no control, as hard as I tried and stared at my finger I couldn't make it move.

This isn't fatal or anything. The nerve was bruised, not cut. Nerves recover and regenerate. Every day it's getting better. Two months later (today, June 6) I have most of the feeling in my fingers, and I definitely have better range of motion, but I still can't grip things normally. At my appointment yesterday he estimated I have about 50% strength.

So friends, what are the things you simply cannot do when your two fingers are asleep:

• Put on an earring back
• Open a cracked egg
• Zip up your daughter's coat
• Button your pants
• Open a bag of chips or wrapped granola bar or anything for that matter
• Clip your right hand fingernails
• TYPE (imagine typing not with your 'fingertip' but with the pad of your finger... weirdo)

Thank goodness my right hand is dominant. In that way I felt recovery was easier. I was washing my hair and making myself food well enough. If this had to happen, thank goodness it happened the second time around and on my non-dominant arm.

Anyway, I am alive and I'm recovering. I have these ugly scars that I'm hoping will go away sometime. I'm totally self conscious about them. Doc claims they'll heal and turn white. 

Even after all of this, I really think this guy knows his stuff, I really think this will help me. You can't understand how awful my elbow pain was. Lateral epicondylitis. I couldn't hold a block of cheese and grate it. I couldn't wash a frying pan in the sink. I couldn't pour a full pitcher of juice into a cup. So some temporary numbness to give me my normal life back is worth it. The physical therapist I like calls it "criminals" and "victims." My muscles and entraped nerve were the criminals... my elbow was the victim. This will fix it. 

And, I should say, thank you Boeing insurance for this one last hurrah. Now I tackle the Washington Health Exchange.... (queue eerie music.) 

Boy, my life has been stressful lately. Death, separation, divorce, surgery. Then Wesley shattered the iPad screen two weeks ago. I need to pray nothing goes wrong with my car. I am ready for a sunny summer and strawberries from the garden!