An admission

I'm a total wimp when it comes to bugs. Right now I'm in our family room. Trying to stay calm. Trying to not let the irrational fear take over.

What is so terrifying you ask?

Well...a bee. A huge freakin' bee. A bee that (probably) can't get anywhere near me. It's stuck behind the glass door of our fireplace insert. But it's huge. Did I say that it's huge? And it's buzzing against the glass trying to get out. And I'm totally freaked out. I've got that horrible "heeby jeeby" feeling. Like all the hairs on the back of my neck are raised. I keep glancing over at the fireplace to make sure it hasn't escaped.

I may have to leave the room. I'm so pathetic, it's ridiculous.

Any admissions you'd like to make?

Happy Belated Easter

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend with your families. We had a perfect weekend. Perfect weather, happy children, family get-togethers, and lots of good food. What else could we ask for?

On Saturday afternoon, we had our big family get-together and Easter dinner. My Dad purposely had his tractor out of the barn so the boys could look at it. Well, they weren't contect to just look at it. They had to "drive" it.


On Sunday afternoon (after filling our bellies with my Mom's huge breakfast), we headed out to enjoy the crazy warm temperatures. We went for a nice walk along the boardwalk / trail across the river and then hung out on the boardwalk for a while. Here the boys are just checkin' out the water and all the birdies.

This was a perfect area for both boys to play. Nice and flat for Ben and lots of things to keep them entertained. I love this pic of Ben chasing after Daniel. It warms my heart.

Daniel insisted on wearing his hat "backsards". What a punk! But he's pretty cute.

I forced the camera on my husband so I would have at least a few pics with me in them. Here's Ben and I enjoying ourselves.

I love the focus on this shot with Ben being in focus and Daniel not. What cute boys I have!

Their favourite thing to do was to throw rocks into the river. They would run back and forth to pick up rocks and then throw them in to hear the "splash". Here Daniel is winding up to throw.

Ben did simply awesome with his walker. We've now unlocked one of the backwheels and he's figured out how to back up and turn around once he's stuck! That definitely makes it much easier on us and gives him much more freedom and independence.

All in all a great weekend! Hopefully many more to come since Spring is here!

Things that make me smile

I'm stealing this idea from Katy over at Bird on the Street. She will often do a post about things that are making her smile and I love to read them. So here I go...here are some things that are making me smile these days:

1. A gorgeous Easter weekend - Last year, we got 6 inches of snow over the Easter weekend. This year...sunny and warm temperatures all 3 days. Today was 15C and tomorrow it should get up to 20C. Beautiful. Oh...and I should mention...the snowbank in front of my house is now completely melted. I think that's about a month ahead of last year. Woo hoo! I now declare "Spring is HERE"!

2. W-sitting - I know. The PT's hate it. And I get why. But Lord, it is so freakin' functional for Ben. We went out for a walk down the street today (we live on a Court so there is no traffic at all). Since there were no mud puddles to play in, the boys were quite obsessed with the man-holes and the water below...in particular they were enjoying throwing rocks through the grates and seeing / hearing the splash at the bottom. Last year, Ben wouldn't have been able to participate at all. This year, he plunks down into a w-sit and throws away. As he said afterwards "fun time Mommy".

3. Old Dutch Baked Salt & Vinegar Chips - YUM! These are my new favourite snack. I really can't believe that they are baked.

4. Just 4 weeks to go - My husband and I are both accountants. It is tax season here in Canada. The deadline in Canada is April 30th (not the 15th like the US)...so that means just 4 more weeks to go. Then I get my husband back. Then we are going on a real family vacation. To Florida. To spend a week on the beach. I am so freakin' excited!

5. The twin thing - My boys have a pretty awesome relationship. That doesn't mean that they don't fight. Of course they do. But they love each other so much too. Daniel is always thinking of Ben. For instance, he'll decide to play with the LEGO Bus. Well, to him that means that Ben needs the LEGO tractor. So off he'll go to get the tractor for Ben. No one asks him to do this. He just does it. It makes my heart go all fuzzy.

Climb on Up!

Ben has recently figured out how to climb up on his Pottery Barn chair. I couldn't believe it when he first did it, but now this is one of his favourite things to do. Check it out!

Strength in numbers

Until a month ago, I did not know one single person (in real life) that had a child with CP. Not one. Just a month later, two moms I know have had one of their twins diagnosed with CP. This kind of blows me away.

Both of these women are moms of twins that I met through our local Moms of Multiples club. Until now, I was the only mom there that had a disabled child. And now all of the sudden, there are 3 of us.

I have reached out to these moms. Because that is what I would have wanted 18 months ago when I was first told that Ben had CP. I was desperate to connect with other moms that had been there. And because I couldn't find anyone to reach out to, I reached out online. And found all of you.

So far, I have just communicated with these moms via Facebook. We have traded emails. I have met both of them a few times either at playdates or our monthly Moms Night Out (all prior to diagnosis) but I do not know either of them very well.

All of us deal with this kind of news differently. So I'm trying not to scare these moms away by emailing them constantly or calling them at home. But I really feel that I have something to offer these moms. And I'm hoping that we can all be a support for each other.

So this is my question for you. What do you remember about those early days after the diagnosis? What did you want or need?

A pretty huge realization

Lately my husband and I have been focussing on making our house and yard as accessible as possible for Ben. We plan to put a ramp to the side door so that Ben can go in and out independently with his walker. We are going to redo our deck (which right now has a step up in the middle of it) so it too is accessible to Ben. We plan to get rid of the step (or add a small ramp) as well as add a ramp off of the deck to the backyard. We also need to do some work on our backyard so it doesn't slope so much. My vision is that Ben will be completely independent to go in and out as well as play outside on his own.

So needless to say, we've been having alot of discussions about Ben, his abilities, and how to help Ben be as independent as he can be. It's rather all-consuming.

And then the other night when we were out for dinner on our own, we started talking about retirement. When we think that might be and what we might do once my husband no longer has to work for a living. The first thing we knew for sure is that we will not be staying in Canada for the winters. We'll probably buy a place in California or some other warm place and winter there. And we'll likely sell our house that we live in now and build a smaller place on the ocean (just 15 minutes away) for summers.

So as we were having this conversation about the future, it dawned on me.

Ben will not live with us forever and his disability will not affect our everyday lives forever. His disability will affect HIM for the rest of HIS life, but it will not affect us on a daily-basis like it does now.

WOW.

It was a pretty huge thought. That kinda threw me for a loop.

And don't take me wrong. This doesn't make me happy. No. How could it? It was just something that I hadn't thought of before.

Ben's abilities are such that there is no reason why he won't be able to live independently. Ben will pretty much be able to do whatever he wants (well, except play in the NBA). So no, he won't live with us forever. He'll likely go off to university, get an apartment, get a job and probably even marry and have children.

It's kind of changed the way I look at things. It's given me a bit of perspective. Like, this CP thing happened to BEN. And not so much to ME.

I'm not really sure what this all means...maybe it doesn't really mean anything. I guess that's why I'm blogging about it. But I'll let you know if I have any further insights.

A typical PT session

(So I've been trying to do this post for a week now. I have a couple small videos of Ben's last PT session and I wanted to share them with you...but I cannot get the videos to load. So I will do this post with photos instead...it won't be as good but hopefully you'll get the main idea.)

Ben has PT twice a week - once at our local hospital and once by a private PT at home. I took some photos (and video) of his last PT session at the hospital for my own records, but also to share with all of you.

We are pretty consistent about making sure that Ben is stretched every morning so when we arrive for our PT session, we just jump right in. This week we started out "playing stickers". We've done this quite a few times, mainly because Ben loves it so much. And with a two-and-a-half-year-old, you just go with the flow!

This entails many, many plastic-sticker-like things that will stick on a mirror but will also peel right back off. He sits on a low bench so that his feet are firmly planted on the floor. The PT has his reach all over for the next sticker (over his head, on the floor, behind his back) and then he puts the sticker on the mirror...usually high up so he learns to stand and sit independently. He does awesome at it! And loves to tell us what each sticker is (there are dinosaurs, snowmen, butterflies, and lots of animals).


After this, he decided he wanted to walk. We used to practice using his walker, but we don't do that now since he's so good at it and gets to much practice at home. Instead, we decided that we would try "cruising along the wall"...which we've only ever tried once with no success. Well...this time...SUCCESS! Yes, he needed to be helped along and "spotted" but he did great. He walked all the way along the wall to the basketball net (which we moved to next).



Ben LOVES basketball...I don't think there is another kid out there that likes basketball as much as Ben does. Basketball almost always plays a part in his PT sessions at the hospital since they have a basketball hoop. In this part of the session, he's actually standing on his own in the corner (he's very good at this and we do it at home some). He then has to shoot the basketball. This takes a lot of balance and he does great. And he loves it as you can see.

That was about it for that session. He's usually a little worn out, but he's still full of motivation and energy so he actually walks all the way back to the car in his walker when we're done now. (I don't let him walk TO the session since I don't want him too tired for the session.)

And just because I think my boys are so cute, here are a couple more recent photos.

Here are Daniel and Ben in Daniel's chair. Ben was sitting in it first, but Daniel always insists on climbing in behind him.

And here they are enjoying their milk first thing in the morning. (Daniel left, Ben right).