Month: May 2010

I’m typing this post as I’m watching Nikki:A Girl Who has Rett Syndrome. I ask for this DVD for Xmas more than a year ago, but this is the first time I am watching this documentary. I guess I had to be in the right mindset to see this movies – a sort of detached type of mood.

Anyhow, today we went on a hike at Black Hill Regional Park. This was part of a Scouting program called Jamboree on the Trail where scouts all over the country go on a hike!

We prepped for the hike by going to McDonalds. Edda is eating and trying to fall asleep at the same time.

And off we go!

Very exciting day! Jeremy got to ride a school bus today! Vince’s class went to Brookside Garden – our local botanical garden. The kids have been studying the life cycle of butterflies and the gardens have a live butterfly exhibit going on. I had signed up to volunteer to chaperone, but I had to go into Alexandria for work today, so Jeremy pinch hit for me (which I really appreciate because he is terribly swamped at work).

There was only one other adult volunteer for Vince’s class, which kind of shocked me because at Edda’s school when I chaparoned on the farm trip, it seemed like there was an adult for every 4 kids. Based on that experience, I thought that I had volunteered for some sort of reasonable kid-management project. Alas, Jeremy spent the day wrangling 15 kids around the grounds. The weather was awesome, the kids had fun.

Because of this science unit pertaining to caterpillars, Vince has been collecting caterpillars from around the neighborhood and he brought one into the house last Saturday or Sunday. I asked him (maybe I pleaded) with him to release it into the wild as I was sure that it would die a slow painful death in the tupperware jar. He told me not to worry, that he knew how to take care of it and I shrugged and waited for the poor thing to die. On Tuesday, Vince showed me that he indeed knew what he was talking about as the caterpillar has been happy enough in the Tupperware container to settle down and make himself a fuzzy cocoon.

This past weekend, Jeremy took our new drill and put a new wooden gate on our outside deck. Now Edda can enjoy the deck without someone standing guard at the top of the stairs – which will be awesome for when we grill and want to keep the sliding glass door open. Although it now occurs to me that it’ll be kind of a pain for the kids who tromp up and down the stairs during the cookout and I’ll have to remind them a million times to shut the gate. Oh well. It is what it is. Maybe we’ll have to install a self-shutting mechanism. No matter! We revel in our wooden gate glory!

It’ll also be nice for Ruby because she can be left out sunning herself on the porch without disappearing. When she disappears from the deck, it’s usually because she wants to be let back in and for whatever reason, she leaves the deck and goes to the front door and waits for someone to let her in. This usually freaks out the person who let Ruby sun herself out on the back porch who ends up yelling “Ruby, Ruby!” all over the backyard before coming back into the the house and opening the front door for a “Ruby!” yell and she’s just sitting there – looking at you expectantly.

Last week Edda had back-to-back dental/orthodontic appointments. The dental appointment was a surprise – Edda’s spacer was falling out. She had the spacer put in when she lost a baby molar tooth when it abscessed about a year ago. The spacer is suppose to hold the space where the lost tooth is suppose to be so that it doesn’t slide closed during the 3-4 years we are going to need to wait for the adult molar to come in. The regluing took 5 minutes.

Then Edda and I went out to lunch at Whole Foods. We tried a bunch of stuff from the salad bar. Edda was having a blast and happily making a lot of noise. It was a lot of fun to have a girls only lunch. I was trying to shush her a little, not that I think it would have worked, but basically because I think it makes other people around me more comfortable if every 3 minutes I just say “Shhhhh!” so it seems like I’m trying to make her quieter. A Whole Foods employee walked past my while I was saying “Shhhhh”, and she said quite loudly, “That’s all right, you know, she can be as loud as she likes!” Very sweet.

My splurge these days is Greek yogurt.

Next: the orthodontist. I love my pediatric dentist who recommended the particular orthodontist. I was a little nervous going to the orthodontist. Edda has a terrible underbite and her front teeth are a little splayed, so I was a little worried that I’d be “convinced” to do a lot of orthodontia which would both be painful/uncomfortable for Edda and expensive for me. However, I fell in love with the orthodontist who said the perfect thing, which is that he knew that what I wanted for Edda are low risk / high benefit procedures and that although he could recommend starting to correct the underbite, that frankly as she is chewing and eating well, it would be not worth the effort and pain. It turns out, he has a nephew with Angelman’s, which meant that he has a familiarity with disabilities and has a now has an orthodontic practice which takes care of a lot of special needs patients. Hooray for folks who know and work with people with disabilities. So we are going back in a year just to keep an eye on Edda’s teeth..

Believe it or not. One of the hottest news in Taiwan these days is about an old lady called Chen Shu-chu. The following is from Wikipedia about her.

Chen Shu-chu is a 59 years old vegetable vendor in Taitung Central Market in Eastern Taiwan. She gives generously with her modest incomes. She is selected as one of the Time 100 for year 2010 in the Heroes category[1]. She is also one of the 48 heroes of Philanthropy by Forbes Aisa[2].

Over the years, she donated about US$70,000.00 to the local charities. She has a bad foot which badly needs medical attention. She carries a US$3.00 bag and a big smile with her all the time.

After winning her honor from TIME magazine, originally, she didn’t want to come to New York to receive her honor. But with the urges from the President, County Chief, local officials and everyone else, she came with VIP treatment from passport officials, high ranking government officials, US visa office, airlines, pilots, flight attendants and fellow passengers.

It is really a Cinderella story that everyone here (Taiwan) is very proud of. I am too!

Today is the day that I found out I need to wear glasses. I knew this day was out there somewhere in the future – however, I did not think it was going to be today. Even after Sheila tested me and confirmed that my eyes were not 20/20 and I have known for a while that Jeremy could read signs (with his glasses) that I could not, I went into today’s eye exam thinking that I still didn’t need glasses. Mid- morning, Vince and I went to our Costco eye doctor appointment. I was sitting through the eye exam when I came to the slow realization that I was not able to read the smallest lines of text and in a sudden moment, I understood that I was not going to get out of getting glasses.

I don’t think it’s a very strong prescription, but when the doctor rigged up a set of lenses that had this prescription and I looked through them – I felt like I was seeing through my 15-year-old eyes. So clear and my eyes felt so relaxed reading text. What a great invention, glasses. I decided to order this pair.

Vince’s eyes are fine. They are 30 years younger than mine, so there are a lot fewer miles on them.

Then we had some pizza for lunch. Vince wanted to say that this was the biggest pizza slice ever. Costco. The land of the biggest.