Our Little Life

I'll start out this blog by killing two tags with one stone. Ages ago Brenna tagged me to write 7 interesting things about myself and Karen just tagged me to write 7 quirks I have so I'll do them both at once:

1. I am totally squeamish when it comes to veins and needles. I can handle lots of other stuff but even right now as I'm typing, my hands are resting on the keyboard tray and I am painfully aware of the bulging veins on the inside of my wrists and it grosses me out. I can't have anyone touch my wrists because it freaks me out. Weird, I know.

2. I love doing laundry and loading the dishwasher, but I hate dealing with putting the clean stuff away.

3. I love to alphabetize things - all our DVDs and CDs are in alphabetical order (and if you saw how many we have you would know it's a big job). It really bugs me when Maddie pulls them all off the shelf and they get mixed up.

4. I have no green thumb - I try my darndest but I seem to kill every green thing that enters this house. They may appear to flourish for a while but it never lasts.

5. I love to read but I always do it too quick - my mind and eyes keep jumping forward to find out what happens next. Sometimes I even start at the bottom right hand corner of a page and read backwards. I often miss important details though and so I like to read books over and over until I have all the info.

6. I am a list maker. I even made a list of what to write for my 7 quirks before I wrote them down. I sometimes even write things on my "To-Do List" that I've already done, just so I can have the satisfaction of crossing them off. Some may feel that is cheating but I don't!

7. Whenever I eat pineapple, my tongue gets really itchy.

8. Because I'm so weird I have to add an extra one - every time I see billboards or brand names or any words when I'm bored...I count, in my mind, how many vowels are in the words and add them up. I would do this at university when I was bored with a lecture. Sometimes I even count rare letters - like x's or z's or q's. It helps me pass the time.

I would love to hear about the quirks/interesting facts about Jenny, Tanis and Sarah - if you have the time!

We've had a busy few weeks. Here's some highlights:


We spent a day at the zoo with other kids from the CNIB and we got to meet lots of "behind the scenes" animals. Here is Madeline chasing the petting zoo animals. She would run from animal to animal, giving them a pat and moving on to the next. She just kept going and going!





Another fun activity put on by the CNIB was a visit to the Build-a-Bear store in West Ed. The ASVI gave the kids $20 each to put towards a furry friend so we had a ball picking out the sounds and accessories. Here is a picture of the lifeless bodies we picked out for the girls.

Here's Claire hugging her bear Sunshine - we picked it out because it was yellow and sparkly and picked a giggling sound for her button.


One rough part of last week was that we noticed some seizures again during the night. It's a really scary thing because it just seems like Claire isn't really there and we can't get her back for that minute or two until it's done. It was even more of a blow since we haven't noticed any since November and we thought we had things figured out. Now it takes another EEG, another day at the hospital and probably another "wait and see" or "up her meds" solution.

I love to look at pictures of Claire when she's just purely happy - she is never fake about what makes her laugh and what makes her happy. She equally as able to tell us when something scares her or hurts her. I wish I could take those scary times away from her but I'm trusting that Heavenly Father is allowing this to happen for a reason - although I can't see it now.

I've decided that rather than beat myself up about having mostly photo-centred blog entries, that I would embrace it and continue my tradition. Here's a few things we've done lately:





Greg and Steph live on the first floor of our apartment building, we live on the second and Steph and Mel share a suite on the fourth floor. Zach used to live on the third floor too! It's so nice to have everyone close and we are lucky enough to visit and be visited often. We all moved out to Mom and Dad's for the weekend so it was just like we were in our own building! It's always an adventure figuring out who is sleeping where when we are all visiting. I think we drained the hot water tank a few times on Sunday morning with all the showers.

I picked up a free newspaper today on Whyte Ave when I took the girls for a walk and it lists all the summer activities for each day of June, July and August. I'm busily looking through it and cataloging all the things I want to do throughout the summer. July will be a bust since Ryan will be working for TWP but we're hoping to do lots of fun things in August. I can't believe it's already the later half of June. Time really does fly!

This is what comes of leaving my blog for a few weeks - we've had so many things going on that it's impossible to discuss one thing in detail so I'm skimming over our activities and throwing in a dash of photos to go along with it.










On my birthday we went out to Aunt Sheila's house where she generously let us invade her farm and meet all the new baby goats. Jason, Kate, Ben and Brigham Thompson came with us and Jenny and Luke met us there. It was so fun to see all these great kids interacting and having fun. Here is Aunt Sheila entertaining most of the kids with her singing goat toy!
Madeline pretty much went crazy seeing all the baby goats. She kept trying to grab their tails. We put her in this tire to keep her from tripping and falling into poop piles. The goats were very curious about her and would come up to eat her coat and sniff her. It was fun!

Besides what's represented in these pictures we've been to lots of CNIB playgroups and had fun building forts in the living room and going for walks to the park. We had another CNIB sensory safari at the museum (but I forgot the camera!) so the girls got to feel animal furs and bones and a live snake and cockroach and scorpion. We got to explore the museum and have lunch at the cafe for free. It was lots of fun. We survived moving FIVE people out and in at the end of May and it was pretty hectic. Ryan is winding down his school year and trying to look ahead to another one in September.

We've acquired yet another doctor in our quest for Claire's diagnosis. Dr. Bolduc is specializing in diagnosing children who have no diagnosis. We met with him last week and had a good talk but after reviewing her files he only has two tests he wants to do and if those are negative then that's probably it. Apparently about 50% of kids like Claire never have an official diagnosis. It's frustrating but we're less fixated on it now. Even with a diagnosis, things can be so different than predicted. It's hard not knowing why this happened or what the chances are of it happening again. We'll just have to take it day by day and enjoy every minute of it.

Ryan just signed a teaching contract with Ecole Campbelltown in Sherwood Park for the next school year! I wanted to publicly say how proud I am of him - he stepped into this position with no experience in teaching elementary school or French immersion but he's put a lot of work and time into it and it has paid off for him.

I remember the moment we found out he had got this job - it was last December. I had spent 4 days in the hospital with Claire after getting her G-tube put in and there had been no end to the problems and pain she had to deal with due to an infection. I felt like God had forsaken us and we were on our own - I cried so much watching her feel so awful and not being able to do much besides keep her company and badger the nurses and doctors to figure out what was happening. Ryan got a call on his cell phone about the position and was shocked to be offered it - not that he isn't a good teacher, but he studied to be a junior/high school FSL/computers teacher - not a grade 5 French immersion teacher! We knew it was the right thing to do and it made me feel like maybe we weren't so "forsaken" after all. Now I feel that even more as we have another year of a great job and great hours so we can spend lots of family time together.

Good job Ryan! I love you!