Rewind. Summertime!

June

When I arrived home from my trip in June, our house was listed and it sold in just two days!

July

Keira is full of surprises. On the fourth of July, we typically go out to Jeff's grandparents' house for family and fireworks. They live atop a hill out in Marsing and the views are just great. During the day, Keira had been giving all of the signs that she was overwhelmed (coughing/vomiting/muscle tension), and I nearly stayed home with her. For whatever reason, we went ahead and took her and we had so much fun. First of all, her distant baby cousin, Bethel, was there, along with many other cousins, and she soaked up all of that attention. She spent an hour, at least, examining the cool blinky ring Grandma Joy gave her. She also unexpectedly loved the fireworks!! Sometimes it's really hard to know how she'll react!

August

August was busy, busy, busy. Jeff took the boys on a backpacking trip. The boys also went on a trip (Hawaii!!) with Grandma Janie and Grandpa Dave. Somewhere in there, we moved! Here's a picture of Keira holding her own pen at the closing.

August and September were a little rough. My parents had 10 days between when they got the keys to their new house and when we were going to have to vacate our old house. They had huge plans to remodel their new place, so as soon as they got the keys, they tore up/down 3 walls and ripped up most of the flooring. Unfortunately, putting it all back together has been a much slower process than they thought it was going to be. It was hard for me to move in to our new place, and feel good about making it ours, when my parents were essentially squatters across the street.

Now, 3 months later, my parents are close to being finished with their remodels. They've finally moved into their bedroom. And I think that they both really like their little "cottage." This is a huge relief to me and Jeff and I are enjoying making our new place our own.

We started with pouring a new, large, patio out back. It is fantastic. It's easy to roll Keira out there and seats lots of people for barbeques. Inside, we stripped lots of wallpaper (sorry, Mom!). I've done lots of painting and put up "tile" in the kitchen. Jeff bought me a new chandelier for our 15th anniversary. To help ease the transition, I hoped, I painted Keira's room (my old bedroom) to look just like her room in the old house. We recently hired a finish carpenter to build windowsills, add crown moulding, and transform the fireplace. I love it!

Mom's old living room

My new living room

Mom's old dining room

My new chandelier

Mom's old entry

My new entry

Mom's old kitchen

My new kitchen

The boys were not particularly excited about the move. I think they both worried that they'd miss the old neighborhood. The boys were actually in Hawaii when we moved, but the day they got home, we had a big family Nerf gun battle in our new house, thereby "staking our territory." It was a great evening.

The house is WONDERFUL. Better than I even expected. For one, we have Keira's wheelchair in the house, making it easy to zip her around to wherever we are. But being on one floor has other advantages. I feel like we are all together, whether I'm cooking or doing laundry, or working at the computer. One level just feels more cohesive, yet its big enough for us all to have our own space. It actually feels enormous to us compared to any other place we have lived. We feel so incredibly lucky and thankful to my parents.


Just before we moved into the new house, Keira got her new wheelchair. It had been months in the making to determine exactly what she needed, had all of the twenty-something parts authorized and paid for (the whole thing cost more than our first car), had it built and shipped. She was so cute the day we got it. She seemed to pleased. She looks really good in it. By that I mean, she seems well supported. She is able to sit up quite a bit taller than she ever was in her old chair because it fits her so snuggly. The chair is narrow, which makes it easy to fit through narrower doorways in the new house. However, no adaptive device is a slam dunk. The thing that makes this chair great, namely the small size, is also its worst characteristic.. The small wheels make it difficult to push her over even the most minutely uneven surfaces. I had to teach the boys to be really careful, so as not to accidently tip her over completely when trying to get her over a bump in the sidewalk or a gravel patch. Second, we ordered a very cool, high tech headrest that was supposed to support her head really well, and with a strap on her forehead, it would keep her from pulling her head continually out of the headrest (something she's done a lot in the past 6 months. We think its a way of communicating and/or getting attention, but it looks so uncomfortable and can be a problem during therapy, or if I have to pull over while I'm driving in order to fix it). Well, we were reminded that K has microcephaly. The head strap was too small and Keira could still pull her head away from the headrest. Rather accidentally, Jeff discovered that the forehead strap served its purpose if it was positioned as a chin strap. The PT thinks Jeff is a genius. We've since ordered a child size CPAP chinstrap and this seems to do the trick.

Trying out her new chair

All the time!!

The head strap that doesn't work

The chin strap that does

Oh! And school started in August. She was happy to go back and she seemed to do well going twice each week. The teachers love her and, if nothing else, it gives Keira something to do and kids to hang out with. Keira seemed fussy a lot of the summertime and all I could surmise was that she was bored. So this was a welcome opportunity.