Our Unplanned Fire Drill

When we were first married, Adam always used the buzzer on his alarm. I HATE buzzers...ever since I was a teenager and my parents made me use this alarm clock from 1979 with a buzzer that sounded like a rabid bird. Needless to say, I quickly won Adam over on the idea of waking up to the gentle sounds of the radio.
This morning I would have even taken the rabid bird over what I got. Adam woke up early and was in the shower, and C and I were snuggled in our beds still sleeping in the cold house. (We left the heat off last night and it got a little chilly.) All of the sudden I heard the smoke alarm start blaring in the hall outside our rooms. So, so loud...I swear I can almost still hear it. I jumped straight out of bed, and if the adrenaline from the alarm wasn't enough then the blast of cold air from throwing off my blankets gave me just what I needed to go racing out of our room.
As soon as I got to the hallway I could see the smoke, but I quickly determined our death wasn't imminent. Apparently, Adam had kindly started the fire in the living room when he got up to warm up the house...not knowing that last night I closed up the flue to keep out the cold air. So instead of the smoke being pulled up the chimney it just made its way through the house.
I started batting at the smoke alarm with a blanket, but being vertically-challenged I wasn't quite making it. After a few jumps I finally got the thing to shut off, but being in my half-asleep stupor it didn't occur to me that if I didn't stop it at the source the problem would continue. After a few off-and-ons of the alarm, I finally clued in to what was going on and went to shut off the fire.
About this time Adam finally heard the alarm in the shower and came out less-than-fully dressed to make sure we were all okay and take a few swats at the smoke alarm himself. C was also obviously awakened by the alarm and was yelling at us from his behind the door in his bedroom, the door I didn't want to open to let smoke in his room...unfortunately a week or two ago was "fire safety" day at school, so he was pretty freaked out.
A few minutes later we finally got ourselves together and got everything shut off, got dressed, and were snuggling on the couch with the doors open sending smoke out and 30-degree air in. Now I think I still smell like smoke and my toes are frozen, but I believe the smell is out of all the rooms in the house. And, as Adam said, at least we know the smoke alarm is working just fine.

Bad and Worst are Good Again

Tonight I am thankful for my husband. We got some really unhappy news tonight, and I told him with tears running down my cheeks how I just didn't know how to deal with it on top of all the other things we're struggling with. So he looks at me with a goofy smile and says, "You can just do what I do. When another really bad thing happens, I just say, 'Well this really sucks but it's still not as bad as ____.' So sometimes we can be grateful for the worst trial happening to us cause when a new bad thing happens that worst trial makes the new thing not look so bad."
So I actually laughed out loud. And then I felt much better. I'm really not sure if he's a genius or going insane...all I know is if that's insanity it's making me smile and I wanna be wherever he is.

First Day of School

I know it might be October now, but I figured better late than never, right? In August (yes, I'm a slacker) C started preschool. I wasn't really worried leading up to this event...I've left him places for three hours before, and he always does fine. The school we chose for him was Friends School, and we truly love them. Their student population is 80% typical, 20% special needs...so with C's issue being a purely physical disability we figured he'd have lots in common with the kids there. Before school even started, we had a meeting with the Special Needs Coordinator & his teacher, a Parents' Open House, and Kids' Classroom visit/Open House, and a home visit by his teacher.

So, when the first day of school rolled around, I wasn't worried at all as I dropped C off in the classroom. He was so interested in all the new friends and new toys that I literally had to physically turn his face to mine so he would hear me say "goodbye" and know I was gone. As I walked down the hall and toward the front door, I was very impressed with myself--no tears, not even a sniffle. Then, as I took a step outside the glass door and saw my van parked across the parking lot, it suddenly hit me that I was getting into a car alone and not buckling anyone else in. I started to have this panicky feeling I didn't recognize....I knew I was leaving him in capable hands and I wasn't worried about that...and I finally realized that feeling was pure old loneliness. I was now a mom without a kid for three hours, twice a week.

Well, at first it was pretty depressing. If we had been able to keep to our original plan, I would probably be pregnant with our third and last child right now, and not waiting around for someone to choose us to adopt their baby. So then, that--of all things on this day--was what set off the tears.

But, I am happy to report now that preschool day is one of my favorite days. C LOVES school, and always has something cool to tell me about his day...he painted with apples or rode a fire truck or played musical instruments. I just can't feel guilty about being away from him...in fact I know he is getting things from school that I never could have given him. And...I now grocery shop alone!

How Goldfish Make Us Happy

So this week I am trying not to drown in my guilt by simply assigning myself the "Bad Mom" award and moving on.
This is what happened...we have been working on getting C a mobile stander. In case you don't know what that is it is basically a manual wheelchair but you are in standing position instead of seated, which is much better for bones/muscles/breathing. He had a mobile stander before and could push it short distances like around a room or two, but not at....say the zoo. It has been in the works for months now, but we are still trying to get the right documentation to submit to insurance for prior authorization.
We have been anticipating this for a long time. We purposely found a home with wood floors and very low profile carpeting so it would be better for him and he could use it some to get himself around the house. Since he can't crawl anymore, he now just bum scoots around as far as he can which isn't always as far as he needs to go.
So, the other weekend Adam decides we need to clean out the garage--the last big stronghold of unpacked things. I reluctantly agreed, though I was really glad we did it once we were all through. About halfway through, I noticed our old manual wheelchair in the corner. Our First Steps physical therapist had given this to us as a donation from another family when C was about two and a half. It has all its parts, but has been well loved. When we initially got the chair, we put C in it but his little arms were too short to really get a good push in the wheels. So in essence it was a glorified stroller, but we wanted to have it for a backup in case the power chair was in the shop and he was too big for a stroller.
So there I am, staring at it collecting dust in our garage, and it occurs to me that the last time he tried that chair was a year and a half ago, and his arms are bound to have grown since then. And if he can push the mobile stander wheels, he can push the wheelchair wheels. I wish I had better words to explain my feelings at that moment, but "duh" seems all that is really appropriate. I cannot believe it never occurred to me to let him try it!!! So we pulled the chair into the house and wiped that baby down with Clorox wipes, and put C in it.
And what did he do? Started pushing himself, albeit slowly, around the house. He was so, so happy. He drove himself all the way into the kitchen and said, "Mom, I'm gonna get myself a snack" and when I walked around the island, he had pulled the lower cabinet door open and was just leaning up with an orange bag of goldfish in his hands. And then he just wheeled away like it was nothing and it happened every day and started stuffing his face. And I cried. He GOT HIS OWN SNACK!! I know I'm such a softy, but I am so proud of my sweet little boy and his strength...not the strength of his muscles, but the strength of his heart and his desire to grasp for whatever independence he can get, even when it's hard to do.