No more excuses

I have been kind of slow to get regular chores assigned to the girls, but they have both helped with loading/unloading the dishwasher, setting the table, and putting toys away lately.  So far they still fight over who gets to do their job first, so I have that working in my favor.

Stronger than steel

The Walking Wonder has officially worn out her beloved tall braces.  In 2 years she's had to have the rods extended 3 or 4 times, new rivets on the belt 3 times, one set of new Velcro straps... But she has walked, run, danced, and had a blast doing it.  In about a month she should have her new pair.  Here's hoping she gets 2 years out of this new set!

What really matters

Monday's clinic appointments made for a long (really long) day.  We arrived around 11:15 and finally left at about 4:00.  About 3 hours in, I was trying to keep both girls entertained and started doodling on a piece of paper.

Addy: What did you draw, Mama?

Me: I drew you and Nora.  Can you tell which one is which?

Addy: Yeah [points to the one on the right] this one is me 'cause she has straight hair and that one is Nora 'cause she has curly hair. 

Clinic Day

Clinic day was Monday.  We got great reports from everyone we saw--yay!  Urology was first with a renal ultrasound and consult to see how the new medication is working out.  Next was lunch, followed by neurosurgery consult.  The MRI results from last week show no change in the syrinxes and a continued recommendation to not take surgical action with the tethered cord since symptoms haven't progressed there either.  Next were OT and PT, both of whom were impressed with the progress Addy has made.

Now if we could just shake this sinus infection... Poor kid has been under the weather for most of a week now and finally starting to get better.  But I'll take sinus crud over stomach flu (which is hitting our school system really hard right now).

Hands down favorite patient all day

Addy had an MRI of her spine yesterday. All went well, but it was a long day of not eating for her (it takes 2-3 hours to get all of the images so they put kiddos under general anesthesia).  She did great with the whole thing!  Hoping for a thumbs up on the syrinxes and tethered cord, but we'll have to wait until clinic next week to find out for sure.

The Shopping List

The Precocious Preschooler told me this afternoon that we needed to make plans for her and me to go shopping and get dinner together.  I asked her what we needed to shop for and she told me we needed to go so she could help pick out a wheelchair for Little Sister so she can have one for when her legs are tired.  Heart strings are pulled.  I told her that we still have a stroller that Sister can use if she's too tired to walk, which she seemed to think was an okay answer, but I can tell she'll bring it up again.  I think it's as much her being sweet and looking out for her little sister as it is testing to see if she's as different from her sister as she is from her friends at school.

Conclusion to "Once Upon Another Time" plus another (complete!) story

The End.

(In all honesty, I couldn't keep track of the princesses' names and I'm not sure Addy could either.  She officially declared the story finished and done a few weeks ago.)

The newest tale goes like this:

Once upon a time there were 3 princesses and a prince.  The prince had icky, sticky fingers because he had been eating something and got it all over his hands--yuck!  They found a big scary dragon, who huffed and puffed like The Big Bad Wolf and blew them away.  Then the dragon went to see a scary witch.  The princesses and the prince climbed a tree so they could hide and see what was going on.  The witch waved her wand in a circle and that made the dragon go away.  Everyone lived happily ever after.  The End.