Month: January 2009

Edda’s mouthing is very intense. She mouths all the time. ALL THE TIME. It doesn’t drive her crazy as much as it drives me crazy!

The first year that Edda mouthed, we used arm splints, but for the past few years we have given up on using them because:

1. Edda does the famous kung-fu moves to whip that arm brace off.

2. It restricts her arm movement too much. After we used it for a year, we noticed that Edda’s right arm was losing muscle mass compared to that of her non-splinted left arm.

So we’ve let her mouth for YEARS now, so wet, so chapped, so gross! We’ve tried mittens and socks – all hard for me to put on and easy for Edda to take off. Finally, this week (I don’t know why I didn’t think about this before), I put Edda’s hand in a small, soft fleece drawstring bag. Easy to put on and easy to cinch down – cuts down on the slobber and Edda’s face looks better – there is still some chapping because there is still a little mouthing of the other hand and a little chewing on the fleece bag, but it’s much, much better than before.

Tonight we had Swedish meatballs for dinner via IKEA.

No pictures mom!

As I went to bed last night, I could hear the ping, ping, ping of frozen rain/sleet against the window of the bedroom. This morning, I put on my boots and navigated my way across icy sidewalks to get to the bus stop because there was no way that I would make it to the Metro in one piece on my trusty BMX bike.

The kids, of course, had a third day in a row of no school. Obama made fun of DC today – apparently Chicago schools haven’t been closed due to weather since 1999.

Jeremy just got home from 2 days in Indiana. He attended a conference at Purdue. Go Boilermakers! (Had to look that one up.)

We’ve been keeping warm at home. Vince and Edda had a scheduled day off of school on Monday and today (Tuesday), the snow was coming down, so a snow day today. I trudged off to work both days, leaving Yvonne at home to watch the kids. After both Jeremy and I came home, we went out to play in the snow, kind of. We don’t have proper boots for Edda, so we put her feet into some old rain boots which I think were a little too small. Not an ideal situation.

Vince recorded a fart sound on one of Edda’s talkers and has been sneaking up on all unsuspecting parties and making them fart. What is with little boys and farting sounds?

My favorite part of the inauguration was when the quartet that played, “Air and Simple Gifts”. Of course, I found out today that they lip-synced, but that’s besides the point.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,

‘Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

I want to be in the place just right, in the valley of love and delight. Where is it?

Jeremy biked to DC for Barack’s big day. It was cold, exciting and a long ride. He estimates that it was about 30 miles back and forth. We spent the day at our cousin’s house eating sandwiches and bagels and watching the inauguration on a 42 inch HDTV. I have never spent time in front of such a grand TV, it’s almost like being there (except not so cold).

I have been preoccupied this weekend thinking about being Edda’s mom. We have started drawing up our wills and also all this extra focus of Edda starting kindergarten has thrown me for an emotional loop which I do not like being in. I spoke with a friend last week who has a disabled son and we talked about whether it was possible to be happy if your child has a long-term disability. She is not so sure if it is possible, I told her that I needed to believe that it was possible, otherwise, what is the point of it all? The pursuit of happiness – that’s what I’m doing.

Maybe in response to that conversation, I was a little determined this weekend to take Edda to see a little more of the world. She spends so much time at home, there is so much more to do! That’s why we did the crazy ice skating thing. I had no idea how it would work out – would Edda yell her head off? would she fall to the ground immediately and break an ankle? – she did neither. We went around twice.

We took the kids ice skating today – our town has a fake ice rink. It isn’t made of ice, it’s made of white plastic. It’s less slippery than real ice.

We biked to town.

Vince loved it.

Edda was not thrilled, but neither did she complain (too much).

We held our own inaugural ball! We did invite the Obamas – but did not hear back from them, perhaps they were booked tonight.

Jeremy cooked a meal based on all the places associated with Obama. Hawaii, Indonesia, Kansas, Kenya, Indonesia, and Hyde Park!

Obama dessert:

And we boogied down to the wee hours of the morning – well until 8 pm.

We are luxuriating in a 4 day weekend here in DC. I was thinking about going to work next Monday and Tuesday – but the traffic around here is already getting a little unpredictable, and I’ve had just about enough of work – so we are staying put and trying to keep warm.

Kiki is down here enjoying the festivities (since it’s so cold, it means that we are watching a lot of videos). Here we are watching, “Annie Get Your Gun”. Had no idea that Judy Garland was originally suppose to be Annie and that “There’s No Business Like Show Business” was from this musical.

Vince went to an indoor climbing gym for a birthday party. I thought I had never been to this climbing gym, but as soon as walked in, I had this flashback to high school. I looked at their brochure an they’ve been in business since 1990, so it must have meant that I went the summer of my senior year.

On the constipation front, I think we’ve had a breakthrough. Thank goodness.