Dropping Anchor

Wow, what have we been up to?

November is a busy month for you, right?  It has been a crazy month for us, too.  As you know, we came back to Kansas to get some medical things taken care of, so we have literally been in various doctors offices nearly every day this month.  The verdicts?

Corbin's eye looks fabulous and he's set to have his follow-up surgery in May of 2014.  We will have one more visit with the surgeon to make sure everything is looking good.  We are so thankful for this report, because this was a really risky surgery for such a little guy.  But leave it to this 1 in a billion kid to out-perform everyone's expectations.  He's goin' big or goin' home-always!

Violet has her diagnosis and is being prescribed play therapy a few hours per week.  The psychologist says she is absolutely amazing and has had good parenting.  We recognize this is a HUGE blessing, because we are far from perfect parents.  We must give credit to the trauma training we've had (Particularly "The Connected Child/Created to Connect by Dr Karyn Purvis) and Violet herself, as she's a resilient, awesome little person and of course, God for giving us a sense about her and leading us to gentler ways to parent her.

GraceAnne is, well...GraceAnne didn't have any doctor appointments at all.  I guarantee you she's thrilled about this fact as GraceAnne is even more anti-doctor than her dad or I ever considered being.  I hope we are donig an okay job helping her see what help some of them have been to us.

And then there's me...I've had some tummy troubles over the last couple of months and needed to get it checked out.  I've had blood tests and they show elevated lipase and low potassium (even after supplementation).  I've spoken to a GI and Wednesday they will perform an endoscopy.  I've had to go on a full gluten binge diet the last 2 weeks and I've been both excited and sad about it.  On one hand, I feel like crap, but on the other, I have so missed some of my favorite foods and just the ability to eat what I want again has been a huge load off my mind and good for my mental health (though feeling gross does not help my mental health, so maybe it's just a scratch game?  haha) I am very nervous about the scope and trying hard not to think about it.  It will be good to have answers, though if the test comes back negative for celiac, I'm not sure what to do from here.  I do know one thing, though, I am SO in need of a good detox/juice cleanse!

In other good news: 15 sleeps until Disney!!

AND...

Because we have to be somewhat settled down for Violet's therapy, I found a Montessori school for the girls to enjoy for the rest of this school year.  They were approved for a scholarship and are both super stoked to start after the new year.  I toured the school last week and I have to say I think it will be a perfect place for us to recover a bit from the blow of Violet's diagnosis and Allan's deployment.  We are still hoping to travel here and there on weekends/breaks, but I do feel like we're dropping anchor.  As per the norm, we will ride this next wave and see what's on the horizon!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!  Are you having family/friends over?  Will you be the guest?  What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?  (The kids are particularly looking forward to a pumpkin pie I picked up at Whole Foods with a gluten-free crust.)

Diagnosis and Down Time

Today we had Violet's autism assessment, which was one of the big reasons for us coming back to Kansas.  We left early to make sure we could find the clinic.  We needed to score some lunch and check our mail, too.  I didn't exactly know where we were, so I was very pleasantly surprised when we made 2 turns and found the mail facility and Trader Joe's.

Next it was off to the assessment.  The determination? PPD-NOS (High Functioning Autism) with Sensory Integration issues.  What does this mean?  Really, nothing new.  Violet has always been Violet and she always will be.  The only thing that changes is our ability to get the training we need to help her grow into exactly who she was made to be.

So her diagnosis is good news.  But the appointment flat wore me out.  3.5 hours of talking and watching and thinking and prodding will fry a brain.  Thankfully the kids had a blast, they didn't even want to  leave.  Violet really attached herself to the doctor...literally...I had to peel her off the doctor to leave.  

I had dinner to consider, but couldn't bring myself to actually use the mush between my ears, so we stopped at Chick-fil-A so the kids could play while I had some coffee and sent an email to daddy about our girl.

I initially wanted to go to Target afterwards, but it was rainy and already getting dark so we came home instead. The kids have been begging to see The Croods again, so tonight is a family movie night complete with popcorn (stove-popped in coconut oil with lots of butter, Real Salt and nutritional yeast) and a Zevia soda, which was waiting for us as an awesome surprise at the mailbox! (Keep an eye out, because they are going to give 5 of my readers a free 6-pack of their own 0-calorie, smarter soda!)

I'm really grateful for this much needed family night and a few days with no doctor appointments or bills or anything except settling in, getting some school done and learning what it really looks like to do life without Allan.  There will probably be some tears, but hopefully there will be a lot of love, too.

I'm wishing you all some rest of your own in this season of go-go-go.