First Day of School - 7th, 4th and Kindergarten!

Goodbye summer! That's what the start of the school year says but the weather might say otherwise. It's been beautiful here over the last week or so making it hard to say goodbye to summer.

The kids had a perfect Friday to start their school year. They all were eager to get back to school, routines and to see their friends. Austen got asked to help the 6th graders find their lockers and classes and he looked pretty handsome on his first day. He got out of the car and I was able to snap a photo of him in mid stride as he walked into the teacher line up at the front door with music blaring, hands clapping and a lot of high fiving. What a great way for our middle school teachers to welcome the kids back! It sure put a smile on my face.

Next up was Peyton. She was very happy about her teacher (not another Austen repeat), but one that she was happy she got even though her BFF is not in her class again this year. The first day, the teachers sat them down before they entered school and with the parents watching gave them a speech on how this will be a big year for them and how they are one of the bigger kids in the school now and they must be role models. I think it's going to be a good year for Peyton. She announced over the weekend that she is going to put big kid stuff on her birthday and Christmas lists and maybe only one toy. And, how her teacher said they should be keeping their rooms clean and being nice to their siblings even if they aren't nice to her. Boy, I love her teacher too! If I can see a transformation in her this year, I will be extremely grateful and it will make both our lives easier!

Finally it was Hailey's turn. She could not wait to go and had to sit through watching Austen and Peyton off this morning then returning home to wait some more. At one point, she found me and said, "Is it time yet? Kindergarten is taking a long time, why didn't you sign me up for morning?" She was so excited. She did great. Walked right in. Said she saw Peyton pretty much right when she walked in the door at school (And Peyton noticed right away the new sequin clippy she saw on Hailey's backpack and stewed over it for the rest of the day til she could ask me if I got her one. Yes, we walked to town and I bought Hailey that right before we went to PM kindergarten. No I did not buy one for Peyton because her backpack is full of them already.) Hailey had a great time at kindergarten. Her teacher and then her principal read them a book. She went to music class. She sits at Table 4 with her friend Leela. And she remembered that she was number 20. I thought she did great but it was quickly apparent when we got home that she was exhausted as she has always gone to school in the morning. I think this will be a bit of an adjustment for her as she could barely make it through dinner she was so tired.

But all in all, a great start to the 2019-20 school year.

Hailey's first day sign

Waiting to start

Too cool for school

Peyton and her friends

First day of kindergarten done!

First day done!

An Update on Sadie

As I write this, Sadie is curled under the desk at my feet - something she has not done in almost a month. It started with her not eating very much. We know from Adler that not eating is a sure sign that something is wrong if it persists. A week or so after she stopped eating, we noticed a gradual weakness in her back legs. It was growing difficult for her to get up and just move around in general. She wouldn't get up when people came over and she basically stayed in the same spot in our family room all day. Then when we were in Michigan for 10 days she started limping and not wanting to put pressure on one of her back legs. She didn't have any traction on our hardwood floors so she didn't want to move there either. I called our vet when we got back home and they evaluated her but really wanted her to go see a specialist in the city who sounded familiar to me. Once I looked up where they were, I knew why. Adler had been there 2-3 times when we lived in the city. Once for gas bubbles in her stomach and another two times for her seizures. I called. They asked if I was setting up an appointment for Adler and I politely said, "um, no, she'd be almost 15 at this point. She passed away." I guess they can't assume. At any rate, I got her an appointment a few days later and cleared all of our schedules so we could take her to the city. I made the appointment for 9am because who knew how long we were going to be there and I really needed to be home by 6pm for my kids' practices.

We got there. They evaluated her. I talked to the neurologist who recommended an MRI (her second one and not even 3.5 years old yet) after they did more evaluation with an orthopedic doctor. So we went ahead with the MRI. They put her under and she did great. I'm glad we did the MRI though otherwise we'd be guessing at what was going on with her. Here's what we found out:

• She has another compression point in her 5/6 vertebrae. She previously had surgery on the compression in the 6/7 vertebrae. We thought it didn't work but it's likely that her new compression point negated the benefit of the surgery for her.
• She has orthopedic disease which is basically osteoarthritis in her hips and knees (this is likely what contributed to her pain= not eating and part of the weakness we saw in her back legs).
• She's prone to chronic ear infections. And had to get her ears packed again (three times in about 1.5 years) with a healing ointment pack. 
• She had recent trauma to her spinal cord. We don't know what happened as she didn't fall or we didn't see her hit anything but it could have been something as simple as extending her neck the wrong way (for patients already with Wobbler's this can happen).

We needed to come up with a plan and we decided to get her back to where she was before the trauma and osteoarthritis kicked in. And we're doing it with medical management for now. She takes more pills than my dad but they seem to be working. After 24 hours, she was back to her usual self. She got up (albeit slowly). She came to visit me in the office tonight. She ate her food and was interested in table food again (a sure sign that she's feeling better considering she's lost about 7 pounds in 3 weeks). She's getting stronger, slowly but it's going to be a slow process because she needs to rest for 4-5 weeks from the trauma on her spinal cord to heal.

So that's the latest on my 3 year old baby. I'm glad she's on the mend and not in so much pain anymore. She's too young for that!

My baby! So tired!

Sadie's meds!

Summer in SoHa

Dinner at Salt of the Earth in Fennville

Our first summer in South Haven, Michigan, has gone way too quickly. We just got back from spending about 10 days up there and the time just flew by. I keep thinking that we'll get to do so much more than we actually get in. Maybe because it's summer and we go to the beach a lot. Or maybe because there is just so much to do up there that it's going to take us a really long time to get through our things to do list. That's a good thing, I guess!

This time, we hit the Blueberry Festival, took a short trip to check out Kalamazoo, had friends come visit, discovered a new farm and played golf (well Austen and Tom did with Papa).

Here's our vacation in pictures...

Bumbleberry Farm's shaved ice with Papa

Golfing at Beeches Golf Course with Papa

Pizza cookie from Papa for Sadie

Ice cream from Shermans. Yum!

Riding off into the sunset...

Blueberry Festival

Kalamazoo

 

 

Goofing around in Holland

Swimming!

Grandma Lou Retires

Grandma Lou finally retired at 70 and we decided to celebrate her at the beach house. With so much to do and so many people with disparate schedules, we didn’t get a lot in but we managed to have some good downtime in Michigan.

Friday was the arrival day. Most people hung out, had a few drinks and waited for the arrival of others which pretty much happened every 2 hours. We ordered in and enjoyed a late night of S’Mores and drinks around the bonfire out back.

Saturday morning we had a big breakfast and then headed out to the farmers market in downtown. We walked around, took some pictures and ventured over to the marina. Home for lunch and then some beach time before the big celebratory dinner complete with champagne.

Sunday we toured Saugatuck, a quaint, artsy beach town about 20 miles north. We ate ice cream, shopped, and enjoyed the day before heading back home.

We didn’t get in any wineries but we did manage to get in some sightseeing and a lot of family time. I think it was a weekend to remember for Grandma, and what a great way to celebrate never having to work again!

Grandma with her kids

Grandma with her 7 grandkids