The Foorce

My 6 month old started crawling early, waving hello and going to bed late. My 2 yr old started wearing an eye patch  for six hours a day. Strabismus. In both eyes. We’re up to about 3 hours a day so far. My 10 year old visited with not one, not two, but four different grandmas over the recent break (there is a whole separate post upcoming on grandmas). We had 5 doctors’ appointments in the last two weeks. We took a long day trip to Philly to visit family – my seat is the one in between the two car seats. My sister came to help out for part of the break but instead caught the stomach bug that has been passed around our family for the last 2 weeks. My husband was able to join us for dinner twice during the entire break – our day trip to Philly and on Easter Sunday. My parents came for Easter and took James home with them for 2 days. James returned and seemed surprised that he isn’t in fact an only child.

Whew, so that was my spring “break.” How was yours? My husband told me that school breaks are not supposed to be fun for me, which I understand objectively. But something inside of me still screams for relaxation and rejuvenation when school is out and mornings start later, while also providing fun springtime and Easter activities for the kids. In reality, what the break provided me with was an abundance of topics to post about but virtually no time to actually write anything.

Overall, I am pretty sure the kids had an enjoyable vacation, aside from all of the doctors’ visits. They got to visit family and spend a lot of time outside, and made out like bandits for Easter. They each received 4 Easter baskets between all of the family. I think my 6 month old even got an Easter basket. They also went on 2 egg hunts. As a result of this ridiculous amount of festivity they each inhaled more candy over the course of the week than they are usually allowed in a year. My 2 year old would actually stop in between finding eggs to shove all of the jelly beans or M&Ms in her mouth before racing to the next one. Of course, by the end of both egg hunts she still had managed to fill baskets full of eggs while James found a medium batch of about 10 eggs. Thankfully, he didn’t notice the discrepancy – just one of the things I love about him. I wish I could say the same for my 6 month old. Beginning to crawl when there are small candies hiding in every corner of the apartment is not the ideal, let me assure you. But, it seems to have been motivating for the baby!

As you can see from my opening paragraph, I have a lot of material to draw on in the coming weeks. I also have posts in progress regarding Respite Services, behavior challenges in “tweens” with disabilities, how to reserve tickets for the DMF concert on May 22nd, and a “Call for Speakers” for our 2011-2012 meeting season. We have a couple of fantastic meetings being arranged for the Fall including a parents’ round table and a special needs school review.

So check back often for lots of news and updates! A new post might appear when you least expect it, like 3 am on a Friday night. But right now I am being summoned, loudly, to “fix the Duplos” with my daughter because her brother is eating the firefighter she just put to bed. Ah, the trials of being a big sister.