Surprising Joy, and Chicken

Part 1

I've meant to write this post for quite awhile, just haven't gotten around to much since I started my new job in January. I'm loving the job (part-time outpatient mental health therapist), but ever since I began working there has seemed to be one mini-crisis after another - mainly, lots of missed school days for the boys due to the weather. Pastor Matt has been wonderful in accommodating me being the "new kid" at work and making sure I could work if at all possible, which means he took care of the boys A LOT. Now that Spring finally seems to have really arrived, perhaps our family life will be a little calmer and I can get back to doing some writing - I have missed it, and it occurred to me last week that I've barely touched the "book" idea since we moved last summer.

We recently celebrated David's fourth birthday; I turn 39 (!) this weekend, then Simon will be 7 and Matt, 38, all in the next month. David continues to do quite well in his preschool; we're thinking we'll need to make a change for the summer and/or fall to something that offers a more full-day program, because we love his preschool but the fact that it lets out at 3:15 is a complicating factor for us. Simon will finish up the first grade soon; he has loved attending the after-school program since I started work, and he's signed up for the summer program that is basically 9 - 6 the entire summer, with lots of activities and field trips. I feel a little (   ) bad about having him in camp/school pretty much every day of summer break, but I recall that when we moved last summer and we didn't really have anything lined up for either boy ... it.was.a.nightmare.  I joked that once I found work, we were going to establish the Simon Dean Summer Camp 2014 Savings Fund and that he was going to go to camp Every Single Day, so I suppose I have gotten that wish. It's pricey, but to have it all worked out/arranged is worth it, I think. David will likely attend the summer program at his preschool, and we'll continue to work out picking him up every afternoon, but then maybe for the Fall we'll find a full-day daycare or preschool.

The title of this post comes from something that happened ... awhile back? A couple of months ago, probably? Is that how long I've been meaning to write this? ... There was some sort of mix-up with the child care provider for our Thursday night contemporary service at church, and so I ended up playing with David the whole time in the church nursery. He simply cannot be maintained in a church service, especially one when his Daddy is preaching, so I didn't even try. Normally this would be a stress-inducing experience, but we had so much fun - much more fun than I would've had sitting in the service without him. Here's some of what we did:

And here are some more (semi-) recent photos:

Part 2

One sad note - the cat I've had for about 15 years, Chicken, died a couple of weeks ago. She was old, obviously, and had been slowing down for awhile, slowing down more the past month and much

more so the last week. She seemed to have trouble walking and we were going to take her

to the vet, though I knew what the recommendation would be. But she died at home the 

morning before the appointment and we had her cremated. I've never done that before; growing up 

in the middle of the woods we always buried pets out in the woods, but it was a nice

experience. We got the ashes back in a nice little carved wooden box, and a card with a quote

and a little story professing that pets DO go to heaven, that dead pets exist in some sort of 

really nice pet limbo until their owners die and then you and the pet go to heaven together. 

I know Matt thinks this is total hooey, but it's a nice story.

This is Miss Chicken, as she was also known ("Pretty Girl" was another nickname)

at Christmas at our house in Cashiers. She was a very pretty cat, very soft fur, and her little face

was just always very clean and pretty and white. I got her when I lived alone in graduate

school, and for a couple of years it was she and I against the world, sort of. I've had her longer

than I've had Matt - when Matt & I met he was actually allergic to cats (I had two of them then, Cat 

Stevens died a few years ago) but I apparently made it clear they weren't going anywhere, and 

eventually the dander didn't bother him any more.

This is Chicken and Simon - how old was he, goodness? Maybe 18 months? If you are wondering

what Chicken is doing, she's not doing a routine bath. She was abandoned as a kitten and does

(did, frown) this wool-sucking thing that the vet called "wooling," that is common in kittens who

weren't weaned appropriately. A lot of cats do it to wool sweaters or broom straws, but as this girl

was abandoned near some train tracks there were neither of those things around, so she 

just sort of nursed on her thigh. Or, when she was younger it was her thigh, as you can see in this photo she has gotten on a bit in years, is less flexible, and is sort of doing it to her side. Most

cats outgrow it, but this one did not. She did it pretty much every single day of her life. You could predict that whenever she sat down in your lap and started to purr, she would do it, and

even I have to admit it was kind of ... gross. She'd do it for an hour if you let her

(and no, I never really tried to do much about it), and that's a lot of wet cat thigh

to then brush up against you. Ah, Miss Chicken. You were a wonderful

companion, and I miss you a lot.

Some Tough Shots

As I posted on facebook last week, I kind of forgot about the 3-year anniversary of David's open-heart surgery (8/12/2013). I'd thought about it the week before, but then we went to the beach and all, and it completely slipped my mind until 8/12, when I had to fill out some paperwork for David's new preschool and both enter the date and write "Repaired AV Canal defect" on a list of medical conditions.  I don't have a lot new to say, so here are some flashbacks:

(To read last year's surgery entry, click here - it's pretty good, which I can say because it's mostly stuff from an article I did not write)

And here's some other stuff I have written about the surgery:

Shiphrah, Puah, David Moses and the Red Line (this was my first "real" writing, I think, and I still think it's about the best thing I've written, or at least it's my favorite)

Exodus Things and Stuff, Parts I and II

Misgivings and Doubts

Tubes and Probes and Wiggling

After Surgery Stress and Letdown and More Post-Surgery Letdown

Hey Hey Dr. K (a letter to David's heart surgeon) and A Quick Response (in which I explore the differences between the words "sheepish" and "sheepless")

And (WARNING) here are some previously-unreleased photos. Difficult to see, yes:

(These first 3 are the day and evening before the surgery)
(he looks so small and lonely in this shot to me)

Yes, this is horrible. But we were so glad he was alive, we didn't really notice at the time. 

This is a few days later - he was in the hospital a total of 7 days. Pretty amazing. 

So he's doing so much better now, these seem ancient. And I did end up making a cake, but the photos are still on my phone and I'll publish them soon.

Thanks again to everyone: Dr. K, Dr. Aaron, all the nurses and other docs, and all our family, friends, and complete strangers who have prayed for and supported us these 3.5 years. God bless.

What Am I Doing, Exactly?

I came across a website a couple of weekends ago that I've been thinking about a lot. It's a blog by another parent of a son with Down syndrome, and we just started following each other on twitter. The blog has a list of other recommended (Down syndrome) parenting blogs, and you can nominate your own blog. I thought, oh great, some extra awareness & publicity, then I read the two requirements:

In order to be sure we provide our readers with a valuable and encouraging list of Down syndrome blogs, so in order to be included on the list your blog must:

1. Be updated at least once a month.
2. Be encouraging.

Communication Breakdown

I have been a little quieter than usual over the past few weeks, partly because I received what I am choosing to call, some negative feedback about something I wrote, not on this site. There were several, ah, facets to this feedback, and my position is that on the more technical issues, the person kind of missed my main point. I would characterize the feedback as (overall) discouraging and unhelpful, but I think the thing that bothered me most was that the person (who is a healthcare professional) discussed the number of times she has heard similar comments, in a way that made me feel that I had wasted all the time I took to write what I wrote, because I really have nothing new to add to the current dialogue. The person did not say that directly, but Matt agreed that was not a crazy-Joanna interpretation.