Thursday, June 19, 2014

On Swimming and Strawberries and other Summer Things

Evan still loves swimming. And wearing hats. And one time we went to pick strawberries and discovered that he loves those, too. At least he liked one bite of each strawberry in the basket.


Picking strawberries has been on my bucket list for a long time. Every time I see pictures of other people doing it, it just appeals to something in me with the joy that comes from such simplicity. There's a U-Pick place between Woodland and Davis and we finally stopped by a few weeks ago. We were the only ones there. Evan sat in the dirt and ate berries. My fingernails got a little dirt in them. It was everything I dreamed it would be. The strawberries were soft and sweet. In comparison to most strawberries from the stores (I'm thinking, like, Costco) they were much more strawberry tasting. Go figure.











Evan and I still go on lots of walks in his fancy jogging stroller. Sometimes he plugs his ears and talks to himself. When it's windy and hair hasn't been cut in some time, the following results:


I actually gave him my first little boy hair cut two days ago. He was playing with the iPad along the ottoman and I just started snipping away. It could definitely be touched up a bit with the clippers but I did a pretty darn good job, I think.

Last thing--Evan is pretty much the poster child for all the therapy centers he's been a part of because he uses ALL of the therapies and has such a unique story. Unexpectedly a few months ago we were visited during his speech therapy session by a group of people from the local Yocha Dehe Wintun tribe. They had donated money to our new therapy center and were coming to collect information on the center for their annual community fund report. 
"Do you mind if we ask a few questions and get your picture for the report?"
Uh...sure! We just got a copy of the report. I didn't realize we would be so prominent! That's a full page, yo.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

3 Years and Counting

Last week was Isaiah's and my 3rd anniversary. It just so happened that my baseball team (the Nationals) was playing his team (the Giants) that night, so naturally we just had to go. Although attending the game was planned for months, just before leaving I went to print out our tickets and noticed they were for the night before and we had missed it. We had to buy new tickets but we were still able to attend. Evan joined us as a neutral team supporter, though he obviously cheered more for the Nats which gave them the win, thank you very much.


Guest Services gave him a "first-timer" certificate to commemorate his first time going to AT&T park.


The weather changed from 104 to 64 during he drive from Esparto to San Francisco and the wind was strong while walking around the stadium. We were lucky to have seats that were sheltered from the wind and we bundled up in hats and jackets and a blanket to keep warm.


Evan has finally reached the point where he is actually enjoyable to bring places rather than just a nuisance and inconvenience. He's even got special benefits like handicap parking which set us up for a quick escape after he game and he slept on the way home. I love my boys!

Thursday, June 5, 2014

June 5, 2014

I'm so excited about this post, so I'll get right to the point:

Day 1 with the walker:



Day 2 with the walker:



Evan's therapist loaned us this awesome gold walker for the week. I thought he'd learn to take a few steps with it during the time we had it. After all, he screamed during the first few attempts with it. I figured it would take a LOT of time to get used to. But once Isaiah got working with him, Evan literally ran down the hallway and there was no stopping him after that. We headed outside, took these videos, and emailed them to his therapist. She said she was near tears watching them and now we'll have to talk about getting our own walker!! (I say that like it's part mine, which I sorta feel like it is.) Now we just need to work a bit on steering and we'll be on our way! We're feeling very, very blessed.


We rotate through the braces-twisters-giant-pink-shoes combination and the hiking boots-twisters combination with a break from everything during sleeping times. There are pros and cons to each method and we're just trying to do our best for his precious little twisted feet.