An Update on the Mom

This picture is an older one, but it brought back some awesome memories and I needed that. *laughs*

Okay, so normally, I don’t post about myself unless it relates to Taylor, but I suppose I need to change that up a little.  What affects me, affects her.

So, last week I spent some time in the hospital for pneumonia.  Needless to say, I’m still feeling like crap but trying to do that at home.  I had to make a repeat visit to the ER on Friday for IV steroids, but got to come home. 

Is it just me or is it all us special needs moms…I tend to take my health way less seriously than I do Taylor’s and that isn’t really the right way to be.  If I’m not healthy, I can’t take care of her but sometimes that just doesn’t translate into practicality.  Please tell me I’m not the only one! *laughs*

Taylor went and spent some time with her care providers while I was inpatient. She enjoyed that.  They have a dog.  See…Taylor is the ‘dog whisperer”.

This is 1 of the pics she sent via text to my phone while I was in the hospital. 

Apparently Taylor doesn’t like to sleep at their house.  She’s too afraid of missing something.  She is up and down all night.  When she comes home, she ends up taking a several hour nap and/or going to bed at 7pm then waking up around 10am.  Either way, it works for us and they don’t seem to mind.  I love these people!!! 

As a side note, I hate, hate, hate the brokerage service that we have to deal with for Taylor to get respite.  They are being *&^%$heads.  But I’m changing firms, so hopefully, it will work out.

 

Throwing Tub Toys & a New Haircut

Taylor got a new haircut yesterday.  I think she looks cute.  Also, no more struggling with her to put it in a ponytail first thing in the morning so she doesn’t have food in it. *yuck*

I realize that it’s a little odd to take pictures of a new haircut while the person is sitting in the bathroom floor.  However, this is Taylor’s “office”.  Every day, she takes her work equipment, aka bucket of tub toys & mp3 player, and heads off to work.

She then proceeds to throw said toys over the shower curtain and into the tub.  That is the sound we get to hear all day…plastic toys hitting and bouncing all around the cast iron tub.  Keep in mind the fact that this is a 1 bathroom house.  So anytime we need to use the bathroom, we have to wait while she gathers up her work materials to take with her.  You better not wait until you really have to go in this house.

Taylor takes her “work” very seriously. 

It wouldn’t be a good post, if I didn’t end it with a smiling Taylor picture.

 

Respite Care Rocks!

Taylor last summer.  A time out chair big enough for her *laughs*

Since Taylor’s sister got married and had to move, we’ve been without respite care.  It’s hard to find someone you trust completely to keep your child overnight.

Luckily, we were able to find those people.  One of the nurses at the infusion center Taylor has been going to since 2007 offered to do it.  She loves Taylor & Taylor loves her.  She thought it would be good for her kids to be exposed to someone like Taylor.

So, for the past several months, Taylor has been stuck at home day in and day out.  Since we run a 9 to 5 business from our home, it’s hard for me to get out and do things with her.  So she has been bored and boy can you tell.

She would just meander through the house with her bucket of tub toys…trying to decide if she wanted to go throw them over the shower curtain and into the tub ( a favorite loud past time) or take her mp3 player out and lay on the swing.  Another loud past time if you have ever heard Taylor sing.  Think 100 cats being run over by a car simultaneously.

She would also make 500 trips to the bathroom every night to make sure nothing fun was going on in the evening without her. Anyway, last week, all the respite paperwork was done and the family came to pick Taylor up for 3days/2 nights.  I wanted to run around the house yelling “free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!!!!” (Didn’t…but wanted to.  Taylor probably would have done that if she could talk)

Apparently she had a blast.  She attached herself to their 10 year old daughter Ally, who enjoyed the attention and gave one of their dogs more love than it probably ever wanted.  She came back a whole new girl.  She walked in the door, had a snack, then took a 3 hour nap.  Got up to eat dinner and then went back to bed until 10am the next morning. 

She has been happy and good every day since then.  No getting up a thousand times a night either.  That little break from home did that child wonders.  People should never underestimate the awesomeness of respite…for both the parents & the child.