Such a big girl

February 6, 2016 | Stacy

Johanna is a big girl.
She was SO PROUD that she could see over the cart now.

Nene’s birthday

February 6, 2016 | Stacy

My sister’s February birthday often provides a warm spot in a chilly month.
After swim class, Nan made a delicious Italian dinner and I brought a cake.

Happy birthday, Kelly!!

And HELLO FROSTING! Rowahw.

co op 2016

February 5, 2016 | Stacy

This crazy thing happened last fall.
We were making excellent progress through school ~~and Mommy wondered, “How can I make us really over-extended for the winter~~ and Mommy wondered, “How can I enhance their learning experiences?”
So I added skating for 8 weeks, and co op for 10 weeks. Co op actually takes 13 weeks to complete because of all the seasonal breaks. And the skating and co op only overlapped for four weeks.
I offered to teach an art class. And it filled up with 16 students in the first day. The offerings turned out to be not so robust for my boys; they needed to take a study hall for their first period. Marie and Tabitha chose to take a NYS history class, my art class, and gym. Like the boys, they get to be together for all of their classes.
Johanna and Katriel only get to take gym together. I am a helper in there, which is good because it is a little over Katriel’s head. From there Johanna has science and chorus, and Katriel has Play-Doh class and a music class that I attend with her. By the end of week, Katriel was referring to her music class as “Bah, bah, bah class” because we sing songs that go – “bah, bah, bah.”

Is this for real?

February 4, 2016 | Stacy

On January 2nd, I noticed a weird pain in my left arm. I thought perhaps I’d overworked a muscle lifting patients at work the night before and decided to baby it. Over the next 10 days or so the discomfort came and went and changed somewhat in quality. I tried ibuprofen, icing my elbow (where I thought the pain was coming from at one point), and elevation. But by two week mark the numbness and tingling was growing in intensity and keeping me awake at night. I decided to call the doctor.

Office visit – she suspected pinched nerve in my neck.
X-rays – to rule out compression fracture.
Gabapentin – to relieve the pain
Prescription for physical therapy.

It took a good week to get an appointment, but three weeks later I was completely healed! Therapy was HARD. And WEIRD – look at the photos below! And I was in tears the week between visits two and three as my muscles were in revolt against me an my twice-a-day-hour-long stretches. But the PT was beyond excellent. And I can now turn my head further than I had been able to since Katriel was born. (Her difficult delivery left me with reduced range of motion in my neck. Long story!)