St. Patrick's Day Recap

Today was a gorgeous day.  The sun was shining.  Emma had off from school to stay far away from the chicken pox that some of the kids had and with only Julia to go to school we all slept a bit later than usual.  We awoke to find that leprechauns had visited our house.  The toilet water was green, the milk was green, and there was a bag full of rainbow lollipops for Julia's classmates.  Silly leprechauns!

 

St. Patrick's Day is a day we celebrate to the fullest each year.  My Dad came over on the boat from Ireland in his 20s and never looked back.  Err...he might have looked back, but each visit home had him coming back here - I think it was meant to be for him to meet the love of his life and start his family here :-)  Over the weekend we created and decorated a banner to string across our living room wall.  Today there was the leprechaun visit and a trip to McDonald's for a Shamrock Shake.

Actually, Emma was just so engaged in everything today.  Since Julia was at school and Emma home with me without any therapy appointments on tap (a once in a blue moon occurrence) we got to have some good old fashioned fun.  Let me tell you she is a delight to be with, but everyone probably already knew that!  I put her in the KidWalk because she just seems to want to MOVE all the time lately.  I've talked a bit here about how she is "walking" in the KidWalk but if I'm really honest she was mostly doing a hop with both feet when no one was holding the top of the walker just so.  Anyway, today she walked in the KidWalk All. By. Herself.  With her braces on.  Yep, really!  And it just blew me away! It's so hard for her to walk in her braces since they are new and require a bigger shoe and lots more coordination than stepping in her sneakers without braces.  She didn't just walk once, she walked the length of the living room several times and came in the bathroom to find me once.  We were playing with the baby dolls and feeding them, putting them to bed in the cradle, covering them with blankets, rocking them when they cried and I kept moving the cradle to the opposite end of the living room floor each time we put them to bed and Emma would walk to the cradle to get to the babies and rock them and take their blankets off and toss them on the floor.  Did I mention she blew me away?  She also made a lot of sounds today.  Especially on our long walk where we saw a sure sign that spring is almost here - the blooming crocus flowers!  Bring on the good weather.


Julia didn't eat too much of her lunch today because her wiggly tooth is getting "wigglier" and it hurt to eat her PB&J.  No worries, Shamrock shakes to the rescue!  We hit the drive thru on the way home.  Let me tell you, Emma went bananas for the shake!  She screamed and yelled at me everytime I tried to give her some real lunch food until I gave her more of the shake.  Needless to say she had a shake for lunch with a side of lollipop and she enjoyed every minute of it.  I was thrilled that she showed an interest in using her tongue to lick a lollipop and will consider the lollipop used for therapeutic purposes!  We spent the rest of the day outside enjoying the beautiful weather.  Julia was on the move with her scooter and car, Emma was on the move on the lawn.  She kept moving off the blanket I laid down for her and came up with lots of grass stains on her stockings.  I love it!  Since she really was intent on moving and I didn't want her to scrape her face with her scooting around I decided to bring the KidWalk outside and she managed to walk a bit more in it.

Emma started out on the far back corner of this blanket, with both shoes on!

We had a dinner of Irish sausages and fingerling potatoes followed by more time outside.  It was a lovely St. Patrick's Day and I'm hoping all the activities of the day will result in a good night's sleep for all of us.

I wish everyone a Happy St. Patrick's Day and leave you with an old Irish Saying:

May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.  

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This post I remembered to include some information on Cerebral Palsy for Awareness!  So, here are a few more tidbits I'd like to say:

• Emma has CP, but it doesn't have her.  I don't recall ever meeting a happier child that is thrilled with life despite it's many challenges.
• Having Emma in our life is a joy.  I love her exactly the way she is.  I hate when people say they are sorry about Emma or they feel bad that Emma has CP.  I'm not.  Emma beat LOTS of odds and fought to overcome CMV to join our little family.  She teaches me things every day.  She has a lot to teach us if we are willing to learn.
• CP is a lifelong condition.  It can be managed effectively with the help of therapy and special equipment.  Most of this is not covered by traditional insurance.  We have had to rely on Medicaid to supplement Emma's primary insurance.  It is important to remember that many children on Medicaid have chronic conditions that their primary insurance does not fully cover.  Now, more than ever, we have to be sure our politicians are not cutting the insurance coverage that so many families with special needs children need just stay afloat.