Crazy Comes & Crazy Goes

Just as the wave of panic and worry came, it went. I don't know what happened. I just got all worried and panicky about Sam's "plateau" and allowed myself to lapse into "google-panic" and felt completely crazed for a little day or two. But, the wave went back out to sea, so to speak, and I'm feeling so much better. "It" is what "it" is whatever "it" is . . . we are not on the precise path we envisioned, but we are on OUR path, and we'll make it. All THREE of us.

Sam's done better in PT this week . . . she's tolerating the quadruped (or crawling) position REALLY well. I remember now that this is exactly what sitting was like -- she hated it. But over time, she'd tolerate it for a few seconds, then seconds became minutes, and now she just sits. She sits. I snuck away from work to attend her Friday afternoon session, which I don't usually do, and was so glad I did . . . it was a GREAT session and we had a world record -- her longest time EVER in quadruped independently (three times through our "Sammie B Rocks" song we sing to her during PT). She's also now rolling on command, which is sort of funny. Poor kid has heard, "want to roll?" so much that she now just does it ;o) She does the same thing for "cobra" and our PT loves it. It indicates incredible things about Sammie B's receptive language skills/cognition, and makes us giggle too ;o)

I've been getting lots and lots of "mamas" lately -- and my heart melts with each one. Sammie has the sweetest, softest little voice! After our nap today, I woke up with her next to me, and she just popped her little head up, looked at me and said in the softest little voice, "mama." That's pretty much the best thing ever! And B is getting "dadas" too, which makes him the happiest guy on earth. We laugh because she says "mama" in this sweet sincere voice, but "dada" is always in a more sing-songy excited little voice. Cuteness.

I found that there's a hypotonia clinic at John Hopkins, and I read a lot on their site (occasionally, google-panic can turn up something positive). Anyway, EVERYTHING on their site is completely consistent with what our neurologist and our OT and PT have told us, which is all encouraging. We just have to be patient, and strong. Easier said than done, but we will do it. I think B and I were both also just glad to learn of such a clinic . . . we feel like IF we reach a point where we feel like our own doctors aren't being aggressive or proactive enough, there's this other option -- we'd figure out a way to get an appointment with the clinic, travel there, whatever. Whatever it takes! That's certainly not anything we are considering now (we love our doctors and trust them implicitly), and we of course hope we never need that option, but its nice to know that there are these "experts" out there.

I mean, really, for this little girl . . . anything!



Mom'ing aside, its been an absolutely INSANE week, life-wise. I'm totally exhausted, so I'll do this part in bullet-points:

- Tons of rain --> huge leaking roof. Got it fixed (temporarily) and after the rain stops, the roofers will come do a permanent fix. We also have contractors coming to do the internal repairs. It's not pretty, and these are the times that being a homeowner sucks.

- Trip out-of-state to hearing was canceled, and at first I was relieved, but the reason I had to stay back is that we got served with yet another stupid expedited motion, and I had to write the reply. So, I ended up working MORE than if I'd gone out of town, but with the distractions of family that I wouldn't have had traveling. It was an EXHAUSTING week with several long, long days and two ridiculously late nights.

- Christmas is coming and while I've done all my shopping for Sammie B (I did it all online), we haven't put our tree up (and now, we likely won't this week b/c we will have construction going on in our living room where we'd normally put it) and I still need to shop for other people. We also need to fit a picture with Santa in (which by the way, because Sam has quite the stranger-anxiety as of late, we are pretty sure this picture will be of a SCREAMING Bean and the jolly red guy, but we have to have it).

- My parents are coming b/t Cmas and New Years, and I'm so excited. It has been too long, and I need some mama-time. I've been all over the place emotionally with Sammie B lately, and I know spending some time with my mom will be comforting and wonderful for my soul. Funny how after becoming a mom, I value my own mom more than ever.

-I'm tired. So tired. And tomorrow is Sunday but I'm going to have to work because I have two huge deadlines Monday. Just hoping hoping hoping I get to NOT work on Tuesday. Unfortunately, it will likely be spent taking everything out of my closet so that the ceiling can be repaired. (All of the internal damage is in my closet upstairs, and right below it in the living room downstairs). Boo. I texted B today (after the fourth leak started) with "being an adult sucks."

- This MIGHT be the worst blog entry ever written, but I must.get.sleep. I stayed up until 2:30 am writing a brief, and B woke me up at 6:30 am to tell me there was yet another leak, and I immediately got up and on the phone with the emergency roof people b/c he had to go run. I DID get a TWO hour nap snuggling with Bean this afternoon (pure fabulousness), but I'm still totally wiped out.

So, I'll end with a few pictures to make the awfulness of this entry seem a little less awful: