Daddy's home

After a week trip for work, Alex returned home just in time to start shovelling snow.  Yeah for me!  We're trying to keep the driveway 'super-clean' to facilitate wheelchair mobility to and from the bus. 

We spent the weekend watching Brodie play hockey, cuddling the girls and shoveling snow.  Brodie has had a lot of fun outside making snow forts.  When awake, Mira spends her time eating and smiling.  Hope enjoys life with little half smiles while drooling on the couch.  Ashley has moments of soft smiles which are interupted by seizures followed by extremely upset crying.  Basically, nothing new, but we're happy to have Alex home.

Rehab Centre for Children

We just got back from an appointment at RCC.  Lauren helped me today and we managed to get Brodie out the door by 8:45am, pack up the three girls, two strollers and one wheelchair into the van, get a coffee at Starbucks and arrive at RCC in time to get everyone unloaded and into the building by 9:30am.  We're getting very good at this!

Ashley was fitted for her new wheelchair while we were there and they used the molding device to create a mold of her back.   This allowed them to form a piece of foam for the new wheelchair that will fit her twisted spine and hopefully provide a comfortable sitting position for her.  It will take a couple months before we get the wheelchair, but the process is started and I'm happy.  Ashley has outgrown the KidKart and Hope is using it.  While we were there, they also adjusted Ashley's Convaid Stroller so that the seat base is now longer.  Ashley really needs to stop growing!

Of course, I forgot my camera, so there are no pics!  Oh well.  We've increased Ashley's Clonazepam twice in the last 10 days.  This made for a nice morning, despite the four major seizures that Ashley had while we were at RCC.  I've concluded that Ashley is not in a very stable state right now, which makes sense because Hope is rather stable and the girls always seem to take turns.

The same...

Everything is about the same.  Mira is doing great and Brodie is enjoying her as much as we are.  Ashley has good moments and a lot of crying moments, so we're still increasing meds, hoping to find the right balance.  She's definitely doing better, because we have more good moments, and more quiet cuddles.

Smiles and Crying

We're lucky to have Mira's smiles to offset Ashley's crying.  We increased Ashley's Risperidone last night, which should have given her a good nights sleep.  She was awake and crying by 7am unfortunately.  This morning she alternated between seizures and very upset crying.  I kept her home from school yesterday because she was so upset.  I sent her today, but I'm not sure if she'll do well.  They have a little room with an excercise mat where they can help her stretch and get some quiet, if needed.

Sleep!

We are definitely getting more sleep now!  Mira is six weeks old now!  She's only waking up once a night, and during the day she's eating a lot and having good naps.  Mira and I saw our chiropractor a couple times this past week, following the little car accident (we were rear-ended), and we're both fine.  I don't have any neck pain or head-aches anymore.

 Hope is doing about the same.  We can get these sweet little smiles from her when we sing to her and play with her hands, but she's mostly sleeping and still has a lot of seizures.

 Ashley is doing fairly well.  I'm getting some very positive comments from her teacher and EA about school.  She still starts crying around 5 or 6pm every day and it appears that she's not sleeping through the night anymore, so we'll be looking at another med increase soon.

 Brodie has a couple hockey games this weekend, and now is telling me that hockey is great.  He scored three goals in the game yesterday (according to him), so I guess this makes hockey a lot more fun.  He wasn't too excited about the practices, but now that the games have started, it's all good.  Katie was lucky to see Brodie's game yesterday.

Friday

It is Friday and we were happy to welcome Alex home after a week away for a work trip.  We were lucky to have Katie, my cousin, here helping us for the week.  We had so much fun working together, and accomplished a lot too (although I've been told not to tell everyone about all the cooking, laundry and cleaning she finished while here...te he).  It was a great week, and we're thrilled to have Alex home.

Teeth...

Ashley lost her two front teeth this weekend, and then lost another top tooth.  Brodie is telling everyone how unfair it is that Ashley has lost more teeth than him!  You can see Ashley in the photo below having her hair washed...

Now we'll have to get used to Ashley's new look.  She had a good sleep last night and went to school very happy.  She's still crying very hard each evening.