Hi everyone,
Disclaimer: This is a long and kind of boring email. It's OK if you just skim it. Or skip it. :-)
It is already 10:30, and I need to be in bed. Ben and I have been working really hard on getting the boys to bed earlier, and we're trying to set the example, but I'm failing tonight. The post-weekend cleanup gets me every time.
Anyway, it was a fairly good week. Let me see if I can remember what happened.
Monday: Woke up to dark clouds and thunder. But mother nature was playing a trick on us, and we only got maybe 10 minutes of rain before it all blew away. We really, really need rain around here. Lessons during the day and flute for Joseph in the afternoon. Joseph has been really diligent with his flute practicing. I haven't had to nag him about it once. I was hoping to drop him off and then stay in the car and wait for him, but he's still nervous about going into the UT music building by himself, so I went in with him (which involves circling around until I can find a parking space, then going to get the parking ticket from the machine, then wheeling myself a block to the music building). I like that he wants me with him, though, and the walk to and from the music building gives us a chance to talk. For FHE we had a lesson on respect and talking to authority, which Ben did masterfully, using the scriptures, and managing to get across his points without making the boys, especially Mosey, feel defensive.
Tuesday: This might have been the morning when I got a call from Ben telling me that Mister escaped and was at some person's house waiting to be picked up (Ben's phone number is on Mister's tag). He got all the way to the Presbyterian Church across the street from the school, and then followed a woman and her daughter home several blocks further from our house. Grrr... It had been really windy, and I think one of our gates blew open.
Wednesday: Can't think of anything unusual about Wednesday. Lessons during the day, art in the afternoon. The boys are doing a music unit right now, taught by the mother of our one intrepid girl in our group. She was a vocal performance major at UT and has an incredible singing voice. She has been teaching about various classes of instruments each week, and this week was on percussion. The kids made tambourines with paper plates and bells. This mother is also blind, which makes me admire her so much and also identify with her quite a bit. We are the two "disabled" people in our ward, and we've talked a lot about being different, and raising kids with a disabled parent, etc.
Thursday: Typical busy Thursday. Piano lessons in the afternoon, violin lessons in the evening, Relief Society presidency meeting at night, which meant I didn't get home until 10:15 PM, after being gone since 2:45 in the afternoon. Brigham is coming along really nicely on his violin. Mosey does well, too, when he feels like it! His main difficulty is mastering proper form. Violin is so hard for beginners, because there are so many really important things to remember about form-- posture, violin arm position, finger position, bow hand position, bowing technique, and it all has to come together in order to make a good sound, and not get into bad habits that are hard to break later on. Mosey's not super excited about violin, and it is a hassle to make him practice. I'm still thinking about switching him to cello, which he seems more excited about, but I want to wait until after our academic year is finished before I try to add yet another lesson to our schedule.
Friday: I took the boys to get passports on Friday!! When we go to Seattle, we want to go into Canada for a day or so, and visit Vancouver Island. Which means we all need passports. My passport was issued in 1994 and was long expired, so I had to get one, too. It was quite the ordeal! And really, really expensive. I am amazed at how much it costs to get a passport. Doesn't help when you have to pay extra to get the paperwork expedited because you keep forgetting about it until the trip is only a little over 4 weeks away... So that was our morning activity, and we didn't get any lessons done that day, OR practicing, since we had to go to horseback riding in the afternoon. Slackers. The boys all went to spend the night at a friend's house Friday night, which meant I had the evening free to go through the pile of mail that has been accumulating on my desk for a really, really long time, and to finally get going on taxes. Yes, I am a procrastinator.
I got home from taking the boys to their friend's house only to find that Mister had somehow managed to get an unopened 18 ounce bag of Cadbury mini chocolate eggs, open it, and eat the entire thing except for 2 eggs. Aaarrrggghhh!!! It wasn't enough chocolate to make him sick, which I guess is good, but I was kind of hoping he'd at least have to suffer some consequences. It probably would have only meant more messes to clean up, though.
Saturday: Did chores and worked on taxes some more in the morning. I'm all done now, except for one missing form. Ben is on the board of directors for a company he worked for previously, and they're pretty casual about things. They send Ben hand-written checks for example, and emailed Ben last week to tell him that oops, they forgot about the 1099-MISC form, but it's coming! Good thing I procrastinate my taxes. :-) The boys didn't get home from their sleepover until 1:00 PM. They had stayed up really, REALLY late the night before, eating pizza and watching movies, and then went on a hike in the morning. They were all pretty tired. Ben and I had made plans to eat lunch with a couple who is here from New Mexico for the weekend. The husband is one of the other transplant patients from the Houston location, and he's in town for his 1 year followup. We had communicated quite a bit by phone and email before his transplant, and it was nice to meet him in person. Anyway, I let Brigham and Mosey stay home since they were not excited about going, and Joseph came along. It was really interesting meeting Dave and his wife. I wonder what the other people at the restaurant thought, seeing the two of us with our forearm crutches. He's doing really well, and has seen a drop in his EDSS score since the transplant. He told me it was a bit of smoke-and-mirrors, though, since his sister is a physical therapist and has worked a LOT with him on his walking, and he works out 1 1/2 to 2 hours every day! Maybe I could see a decrease in my EDSS score if I did that, too. He can walk 500 meters now, which seems unbelievable to me! He told me it is not a pretty 500 meters, and he would never casually walk unaided without his crutches or rolling walker. That made me feel better, because I sometimes feel like I'm cheating the system, struggling with everything I have to make it those 100 meters, when I would NEVER do this on a daily basis, and as a matter of fact I NEVER walk 100 meters unaided unless I'm being tested. Which kind of seems to be defeating the point of the EDSS rating system. But if everyone is doing this, then maybe my 5.5 EDSS score really is reflective of everyone at 5.5, since everyone who takes this test is pushing themselves far beyond what they would normally do under everyday conditions. Dave also has a nearly identical disease history as I do, so to see him doing well in this study makes me feel good, since if he does well, maybe I'm doing well, too. Maybe I'd be at an EDSS score of 4 if I worked out 2 hours every day. :-)
When we drove home, we turned the corner onto our street to see a police car parked outside our house. Not a good sight, especially since 2 of our boys were home alone (there is no law in Texas regarding what age you can leave kids home alone, so I wasn't worried about that, at least). Turns out Mister got out again. Two boys on their bikes with a cell phone called the police. And the police, who apparently had nothing else of importance came out to the house. Mister was hanging out right outside of our house, so when the cop checked his collar, he didn't have to go far. :-) Anyway, the cop was nice, Mister was let back in the house, and the incident was over. Mister is not winning any points with me. We figured out where he was escaping from, and piled some big heavy cinder-block bricks in front of it.
In the evening I took all three boys to a concert by the Austin Chamber Ensemble who was doing a program of PDQ Bach and Claude Bolling (jazz composer) pieces. The PDQ Bach pieces were actually fairly serious pieces, but still fun to listen to. And one of the Claude Bolling pieces was a suite for flute, which Joseph really liked. All the boys liked watching the percussionist and the string bass player. Afterward we stopped at McDonalds for ice cream cones, and didn't get home until after 11:00, which meant two very late nights for my boys...
Sunday: We were awakened by a phone call at 6:45 AM from someone who had Mister. This time he broke through a board on our gate, which is going to be a big pain to fix, and managed to make his way really, really, really far away. He was way over by the 183 access road and Lake Creek Parkway, which is a couple of miles at least. Ben went and got him. I'm starting to feel like he is that cat that came back. Except opposite. He is the dog that keeps going away, and we keep going to get him back. I'm beginning to question WHY we keep going to get him. Does anyone want a 12-year old escape-artist dog who will eat any and all treats he can possibly get to in your house? No? Really? Anyway, later in the morning I gave the boys haircuts, much to Joseph's dismay. I did keep it long on the top, though, and he told me this afternoon that it was the best haircut I ever gave him, so I guess it wasn't that bad. :-) Went to church. Brigham, Ben, and I all spoke during testimony meeting, something I haven't done for at least a year or two. Went home, took a nap, woke up, made dinner, went on a walk, sent the boys to bed, cleaned up the house, and spent the next hour writing this email which is way too long. But I don't have time to go back and make it shorter and more interesting, so sorry, that's how it goes.
And, I only have one boring picture of Joseph and Brigham reading on the couch for the week. Sorry!
Love,
Gabrielle
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