Back to the neurologist.

DSC_0002

Edda’s been on Keppra for about 9 months now – her daytime seizures are gone, but we are still seeing up to 4 nighttime seizures a week. We’ve pretty much maxed out the dose of Keppra – so we are trying Lactimal now.

The Lactimal seems to taste better than the Keppra – at least Edda doesn’t complain when she has to take it. We are hoping this works, because if not, Edda’ll be classified as having intractable seizures. Blech!

Violin.

We hurried back from the wedding to make Vince’s first violin recital on Sunday afternoon. He looked dapper with his red bow tie.

DSC_0322

The tough part wasn’t the playing in front of the audience, the tough part was sitting still for all the other students’ performances. We forgot to prep him for that, so he was extra wiggle-ly.

Kappa came down to DC special just for the occasion.

DSC_0323

Our wedding adventure.

We had the best time this weekend at Tony and Natasha’s wedding in Long Island. Edda was a flower girl, Vince was the ring bearer. Vince did not lose the rings. Edda did not lose her cool. Tony and Natasha really know how to throw a party, I had so much fun talking to their parents and relatives and friends! It threatened to rain, but it held off for the outdoor ceremony. I was trying to tell Tony – cloudy days make for great photographs!

Waiting for our turn in the procession:

DSC_0124

After the ceremony:

DSC_0180

Partying with the groom after the ceremony:

DSC_0237

The reception was amazing and we all had a great time. Edda enjoyed dancing more than I expected.

DSC_0281

All during the reception, we tried to convince Vince to dance – the dance floor was hopping, with so many people dancing and the DJ was really good. Vince kept begging off, he said he didn’t like to dance with only grown ups. I thought he would never get up on the dance floor – but finally, Fire Burning came on and Vince could not resist, he cleared the dance floor with his moves. It was unbelievable. Someone tipped him $20!

DSC_0306

And to top off the evening, guess who caught the bouquet!

DSC_0316

Eco point trial.

Vincent came downstairs today sniffling and coughing. He complained that he woke up at 2 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. Nevertheless, I sent him to school. Is that a terrible thing to do? I told him that if didn’t feel well during the day, he could go to the nurse and I’d pick him up. I didn’t hear from him all day. I hope he sleeps well tonight, or else we are all going down in a ball of flames as the bacteria/virus makes its rounds through the rest of the family. Coinciding perfectly with the wedding on Saturday in which my children are to be picture perfect. I’m imagining grumpiness and snotty noses in professional wedding photos. I’m hoping to avoid this.

My mother-in-law is in town this week, helping me permaculture our backyard. I’ve taken some time off to help her dig, mulch, cardboard and native plant our little plot in suburbia. Here is a photo of a clementis which was planted before we got here.

DSC_0102

Vince’s illness did not prevent himself from having a tremendous about of fun after school spraying himself with the new garden hose sprayer we bought from Home Depot.

DSC_0091

Edda, our super-trooper, tried out the ECO2 today at school. She did pretty well with the calibration and the selection of songs or videos. Not so much on academic work. But I think it was promising and the best part is that the company is going to loan it to Edda for a month for free and the school system is going to arrange all the logistics and the teachers will work with Edda for a month with it to try and get her to pick something else besides Dora videos. I don’t have to do anything! Except give her kisses and hugs which is really all I want to do. And snuggle too. I learned a long time ago that shouldering too much of the therapy on my own shoulders leads to nothing but tears (for both me and Edda).

DSC_0098

Why Pittsburgh?

Jeremy just came back late last night from a 2-night trip to Chicago. I was so tired last night, that I fell asleep with Edda at 7:45 pm after telling Vince that he had to put himself to bed (which he did very nicely at 10 pm).

I just wanted to finish off our recap of our spring break trip to Pittsburgh. Why did we go to Pittsburgh? Because I wanted to go see Fallingwater (which was amazing in so many ways). Falling water is about 1.5 hours outside of Pittsburgh.

DSC_0086

Here’s Edda in Fallingwater’s cafe:

DSC_0070

Bring your kids to work day.

Vince convinced Jeremy to take him to work today in honor of Take Your Kids to Work Day. I was not optimistic about this endeavor, I mean how much fun can watching your dad work in front of a computer screen all day be? It’s like a get-out-of-school-free-card! But Vince insisted and Jeremy capitulated. Jeremy managed to turn it into a learning experience – Vince interviewed 7 people who work with Jeremy and I’ll post some of the videos this week.

This is Sarah:

OK, backing up on the vacation…

On Easter Sunday, we found ourselves in Pittsburgh, where we ate a delicious breakfast at Pamela’s Diner where we all helped ourselves out to their delicious crepe style pancakes!

DSC_0183

DSC_0181

Then we headed over to the National Aviary where Edda mingled with the penguins:

DSC_0196

And Vince hand fed birds:

DSC_0244

The boys and Denise went to take in a Pirates/Nats game where Vince ended up on the Jumbo-tron a record 3 times! Edda and I hung out and enjoyed this enormous cheesecake!

DSC_0249

Lucky Easter!

We had a really nice Easter vacation – I’ll start with the last thing and then work backwards. Here’s a nice family photo of us at the White House! Vince is trying to make Edda look at the camera.

DSC_0296

We were lucky enough (!) to get tickets to the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House this year. Vince and Edda were actually not very interested in the actual rolling of eggs, so we focused on other activities on the White House lawn! I wore a borrowed bright yellow dress which made me feel fabulous 🙂

We met various cartoon celebrities… many photos, I will present only one for your enjoyment…

DSC_0265

It was hot and Edda was asleep for a lot of the event, but she woke up long enough to shake hands with Michelle Obama. Lucky girl 😉 I know Ms. Obama looks a little concerned in this photo, but I only got off one shot with my camera and this was it – so there you go!

DSC_0307