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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Our 4 days of Christmas…and other stuff.

Here is everything once again in a nutshell…

We had a visit to the doctors on Wednesday to get his leg checked out. After having his doc look at it, he sent us over to get an x-ray done. Cale managed to humiliate me in the waiting room…funny story. Ask me sometime about it.

We were being goofy while the guy was prepping Cale for each x-ray. At one point he put this pad like thing over part of Cale’s leg. It was a smaller size and had straps hanging from every side of it. The guy had left the room and I asked Cale what the pad was. Cale quickly stuck it on his head and said, “A hat!” he left it there until the guy walked back in the room!




On Thursday night we had Christmas with my mom’s best friend and her family. One of the traditions with them and then with Cale is making graham cracker candy houses. Last year we were at the hospital and they used the gingerbread kits, but it was almost the same feeling. ;o) It was fun this year…but so very different then all our years past. Reality check #1.





On Friday we spent most of the day with Mike, Rachel, and Mike’s brother Heath. Rachel and I had been really missing each other and a girl day together. We first all exchanged gifts and then headed out for lunch. After getting our bellies full to the brim of yummy Red Robin goodness, we then put of our Christmas finest (heehee!) and had our picture taken with Santa!


Oh yeah. It was awesome. We spent the rest of the day having fun, laughing, being lazy, and of course….eating more!

Saturday morning after getting up, I worked out so that when I stuffed my face with a whole bunch of goodies I wouldn’t feel so bad. And that’s exactly what happened! Once all of us were up and going, we had our little Christmas with Mama. She spent Christmas with her best friend and we spent it with Cale’s family, so our gift opening came early. Cale had fun opening gifts…and so did I! :o) He was really sweet with the gifts he picked out. Right after we finished, we (sort of) cleaned everything up and then we went to his mom’s house to exchange gifts with his sister. It was the only time we were going to get to see her and the kiddos. It wasn’t too long before we were off again to our Christmas Eve service at church. This is always one of my favorite parts of celebrating Christmas every year. Our night didn’t stop after the service…we then headed to a Christmas party that Cale’s extended family has every year. It was a lot of fun and even though it was a crazy busy day and there was a lot of noise, Cale did great! We had to leave suddenly when I saw the mood go south, but for the most part it was a GREAT day! At one point while we were sitting around our table, I looked around the room and the memories of the first time we had gone to the party together flooded my heart. Reality check #2.

Christmas morning we slept in until it was just about time for me to wake up. When I walked in the kitchen, Mama was up making pancakes! Yum! I’m totally ok with starting my morning with a stack of fluffy goodness. My sister and her family showed up and we all went to church together. We exchanged gifts with them after church and then Cale and I were out the door…again! We went back to his mom’s house for Christmas dinner with his family. His brother Ty and his family were also here visiting which made everything extra fun. Before food was served, Cale was bored and reaching max of just hearing all the noise around him. I led him to the dining room and started a game of Crazy 8’s with him while I listened to all the talking and business in the other room. Reality check #3.

This time the tears came. Things are different. Last year we were in the hospital and every part of our lives was different. It wasn’t a natural living circumstance, but now we’re home. Now is when reality every day hits. When I am just sitting in a room alone with my husband playing cards, unable to visit with everyone because my husband can’t handle it, when normally he would have been out there being the jokester is hard. I wasn’t expecting it to be an emotional day. I wasn’t expecting to miss him so much this last week…but I did. I missed him so badly that it hurt.

Nikki came in and joined our game. She gave me a sweet understanding smile which somehow helped smooth out my rocky emotions. I’m not sure if my tears are what triggered my allergy’s to act up (is that possible?) but shortly after we ate, my nose went bonkers! I was dripping from the eyes and the nose and it wasn’t from crying! I was sneezing over and over and suddenly all I wanted was a pillow. I tried to keep having fun and visiting because…well, it was Christmas!

We ate, played games, and watched a movie. It was very late before we made it home and I was TIRED! Cale always needs some transition time before he can go to bed at night so we were up until about 1am. If there was nothing going on yesterday it wouldn’t have been so bad but he had therapy at 11! My alarm went off at 6am, 6:30, 7am, and then I finally turned it off…but then fell back asleep! I heard Mama come home at 10 and jumped out of bed! Yikes! The whole day zoomed by and I felt behind on everything. I didn’t get much done, but I guess after all of our excitement I needed time to recover and so did Cale!

Randoms…

Cale started telling me his leg was hurting again except this time it was in a different spot. I took a look and found a weird something. Not sure if it’s a bite or what it is, but it is a little infected. It’s really bothering him and after a call to the doctor, we’re supposed to wait a couple days before bringing him in. Another thing? Really?! Poor guy…

The new program I had mentioned a couple weeks ago for Cale has kind of started. Not exactly, but we’ve started a trial for part of it. It’s an independent program that will hopefully help him to feel like he’s the man of the house again. One part of the program is getting him to “work” again. We wanted to find something that he could do that he would be able to tolerate. Also, something that would work with him having someone right there to help him and that we could fake his pay. We had a meeting with our Pastor at church about the possibilities and he jumped on board right away willing to do whatever was needed. He may think differently after all that’s involved, but at least for now he’s game! :o)

We’ve done just 1 hour trials and so far he’s been doing so good with it! So far we've come up with a few jobs for him like stuffing bulletins and fixing all the stuff in the pews. His therapists helped me come up with a plan as far as how much he’s going to get paid and a simple budget for him. I’m going to give our Pastor the cash every 2 weeks and he’s going to put it in an envelope for Cale to pick up and then Cale will have I think we decided 4 envelopes to divide his pay into. One of them is a baby fund!

We’re not having to spend more of our income because what he’s getting out of our account is going right back in and he’s getting to feel like he’s helping! We haven’t started the budgeting and actual schedule until after the first of the year…so we’ll see!

On Tuesday his mom was over visiting and had asked what he had done that day. Normally his response is that he doesn’t remember or doesn’t know, but last week he was able to give her some details!!!!! He told her how he worked at church and a few specific tasks he had done! WOW!!!! This is so HUGE!!!! It’s such a big deal that he was able to remember and give detail! Yeah!!!! No help either because she didn’t know. When I came into the room later to tell her about his day, he had already told her! Praise God! He hasn’t been able to do it since that night, but once it happens, it opens up the gateway! So super exciting!!!

While we were at the mall with Mike and Rachel, Cale walked without his cane the entire time AND just walked around. He doesn’t have a perfect walk and he can’t always keep up, but he tried so hard to walk all by himself and be cool like the guys. Rachel and I had a blast watching him try so hard. It made me so proud of him because he worked so hard.

His new favorite phrase is “Golly gee willikers” thanks to Mama. She said it one day while playing a game of Crazy 8’s and he has been saying it ever since!

I've been spending quite a bit of time with this little guy...and he's been melting my heart! I'm a mush!


Today he had a really great speech session. Doreen did a lot of word stuff with him and he didn’t just get through the session, but he really works hard and keeps going. At one point she had him try to make a list of pets and he said, “Ostrich.” And then he laughed really hard. Haha!

The tears did come, the emotions were high strung, and I had my reality checks, BUT even with all that stuff dished on the side, the main course is incredible. I have my husband home with me-NOT in a hospital, and we spent some amazing time with family. Cale is continuing to heal and make progress and every night I get to fall asleep with him.

This girl…




...LOVES!


This boy…




I hope you all had a very special Christmas just like we were blessed with!

5 comments:

  1. I can not even tell you how much I love that picture, its just like you and cale are another one of our niece and nephew. I can't wait to print the picture and hang it up. I have to say the boys still are as handsome as ever in the git up you all choose lol


    Casey
    Proud aunt to heath, mike, Rachel, and you two now lol

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  2. What a great update. Heath really enjoyed the time at the mall and said it was amazing to see the difference in Cale. I can't wait to get out that way and see you guys... and of course Mike and Rae.

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  3. I think the path to the door and the door on the house are pretty neat. My Sweet Kathleen, I am so very proud of you. I KNOW Father is even more so. You can see His gifts even with the reality checks. I love you, Marion

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  4. Ahhhhh...thank you for sharing with us. You are precious! Loved all the photos!
    Emily Jordan

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  5. Just wanted to say... I love you two. Nikki

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