Saturday, February 27, 2010

Nothing too exciting....

We haven't had too much excitement around here lately, much to Liam's chagrin. This boy is BORED. He's so ready for spring - he needs to be outside on his bike. Today Liam starts swimming lessons - he's going for his level 2, and he's crazy excited.

Lola's been up to no good most of the time. She's a bit of a troublemaker. She likes to throw her sippy cups/toys into the garbage and laugh, she likes to wait until you're bent over, and then she'll smack your butt really hard (laughing the whole time, then running away). See what I mean? A wee bugger. Anyway, it keeps us laughing, and it definitely keeps us on our toes. She's been doing really well with her therapists/developmental specialist - they note improvements everyday. We're still battling the seizure monster - and some days we don't win. We're still waiting for an MRI to see what's going on. In the meantime, we do what we can, and feel quite helpless. How can we "fix" this? It's pretty frustrating/heart-breaking - but she's a tough one, as we all know.

Words: at school she will say "more" and "all done" or some approximations of those words. She's saying "tat" for her cat that she sleeps with (a stuffed one, don't worry), and "tee-tat" (kitty-cat). She also says Mom (but only before bed, with her cheek pressed to mine - it's almost a sigh - the sweetest thing), and of course Da-Da, which she says a hundred times a day.

Her latest thing is dancing, and stomping her feet. Especially when you sing/play "Skip to my Lou" - Liam gets in on the action with the "Lost my partner" part of the song. So cute. She also likes to play her tamborine - she goes crazy, stomping around and smacking that thing on her leg. Funny kid.

Sleeping lately has been brutal - but she sounds like she has a bit of a cold. It takes us up to two hours to get her to sleep, then she's up a couple of hours later. We can't just leave her in her room, because she gets out of bed and hammers the heck out of her door with her fist. It's so loud! Anyway, she's happiest when she's got mom or dad in bed with her, and about 30 stuffed animals and maybe a book or two. Did I mention she has a single bed? That's some comfy sleeping right there.

Steve's busy planning a bike race - with the proceeds going to loveforlola.com as well as to GRIT, Lola's school (that's if we make a dime - these are our intentions). Sean has also been lending a creative hand, designing posters/stickers/letterhead and such. It's coming together nicely, but it's a lot of work.

I'm crazy busy at school, as usual. I'm directing two plays at once right now, which is fairly insane. After school, I'm directing The Taming of the Shrew, and in Musical Theatre, I'm writing/directing Glee: the Musical. It'll all be fun once we're in show week, but right now I'm not sure how this is all going to come together. Maybe that's why I can't sleep and I'm blogging at this time of the day? Could be.

This is how I cope: on Thursday, I entered the theatre from backstage (where my office is) while riding a broom. I got off the broom and said, "Man, traffic was brutal!" My students rolled their eyes, and a couple of them laughed. I looked over to see my principal and some parents/students - I guess he was giving a tour. How embarassing. I was mortified. Oh well - another day, another humiliating life experience.

Monday, February 8, 2010

A beautiful day in Banff...
















Though it was -14 in Calgary, we headed to Banff to see what was going on. It was much warmer there, sunny, and gorgeous. We wandered around, went for a walk along the river, checked out some shops, then headed home. Lola did not want to stop moving, and she did not want to go into any shops (how could this be my child?!) Luckily Liam did, so Daddy took Lola for a long walk.





It was a perfect day.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Introducing.....La-la!

Lola had a huge breakthrough yesterday (at least that's how we see it) - when I got home from work, Leni said that Lola had been trying really hard to talk. Usually she'll just babble "dada" a lot in response to questions. Today was different. Leni said, "What's your name?" Lola thought long and hard, looked Leni in the eyes and replied, "Yali." Leni said, "You're not Yali. What's your name?" Lola did the same thing, and said, "Lala." Last night I tried relentlessly to get her to say it for me - and the strangest thing happened - she would puff up her cheeks with air, and struggle to get out different B sounds. Then an L sound. Then finally she said, "Lala." What a miracle! We are so excited. She seems so interested in communicating now - so let's hope those new words keep flying.

Seizure-wise, things are about the same - she has a handful of head drops per day, and sometimes a couple of bigger ones. Yesterday she didn't have any big ones, which is great.

Liam had his Winter Carnival at school yesterday, and got to wear a jaunty sash around his waist like Bonhomme. He was pretty excited. He got to drink hot chocolate and eat maple syrup. He talked about it all night, so it must have been something special!