Ending One School Year and Launching the Summer Routine

Nothing new here that wasn't already posted on Facebook . . . 

Summer Goals 2022

I'm drafting a list of Summer Goals, one of which is to take the kids (younger ones, especially) on a walk immediately after breakfast most days of the week. Today was Day 1: we successfully walked, jogged, roller bladed, and scootered for one mile! This is good for all of us, but especially good for Thomas. It has been a learning experience for me to come to understand just how detrimental lying immobile in bed for 132 days is for a body. Here we are, discharged home for 14 months and having gone through six months of PT, and Thomas still has physical effects, some of which may be permanent. Walking and stretching out several times weekly could do wonders!

Strawberry Picking

I had a great time taking the younger crew strawberry picking today!

Leaving the House

Leaving the house (leaving Thomas) is challenging. Over 14 months since his hospital discharge, I've gone from NEVER leaving Thomas to sometimes leaving him. Yay me! Today I made the umpteenth attempt to claw my way back to health, going on a 3-mile walk-jog. Yay me! But I was simultaneously getting alerts on my phone that Thomas's blood glucose was crashing down to 42.  

I called home to the babysitting 13-year-old to require him to eat, but he was at that point refusing to eat and throwing a tantrum (could be a typical 6-year-old, could be having too low of blood sugar making him irrational), so I found myself jogging along dictating to them calmly how to dig through my purse to find glucose tablets. Being a fairly new special needs parent keeps causing surprises. It's not easy but I'm getting my feet under me. Just carve out time for yourself, they say. Just start exercising, they say. You deserve some R&R, they say. It's okay to focus on yourself, they say. Well, stepping away for so much as a neighborhood jog means putting out fires all the time and hoping it's just a long-distance mini-emergency, not a hospital emergency.

Ascension Thursday

Today we joined another family to hike at Morrow Mountain State Park in honor of Ascension Thursday. Apparently hiking up a mountain (get it? ascending?) is a tradition on this feast day! Afterward we prayed the Rosary and a prayer to the Holy Ghost, followed by eating cupcakes (and I brought a Thomas-friendly cake for him!). Even though it wasn't any fun at all trying to get out the door by 7:00 a.m., the companionship and event was great fun and we were home by noon.

Closing Out the School Year(s)

Given life circumstances, I did not file any papers from six kids’ homeschooling for the last two years. I was drowning in paper! For the last two weeks, I’ve spent many pockets of “spare” time throwing away and organizing remaining school papers . . . For six kids . . . Covering the last 10 years. One binder per kid per year. Now if some random person drops by and wants to inspect what one of my children studied in third grade, I’ll be ready.