Jake is sick again

This is a short update. We are super stressed right now. Jake is sick again and we are 5 days away from going to Michigan for three weeks intensive suit therapy. His pediatrician thinks he might have the flu plus Bronchitis.

I already asked for 3 weeks off, and my husband already bought two round trip tickets. All those are not important but the fact that if Jake is not well enough to benefit from the therapy will be a major disappointment for us.

Our strategy this week is to just let him relax, no school, no after school therapy, no home therapy from mom. Jake will have a therapy free week, boy he will probably be bored out of his mind because all he knows is therapy, therapy and more therapy.

Please keep Jake in your thoughts, and say a little prayer that he will get well soon so he can leave for Michigan this weekend. Thank you.

talk about nothing

Work has been crazy. I don’t know how it all evolved to this point. I got a part time job just to give myself some break from taking care of Jake all the time, and give myself an opportunity to talk to some people who are older than 5 and not Jake’s therapists. How I ended up more and more responsibilities I don’t even know.

We are getting ready to go to Michigan again in three weeks. I did finally ask my boss for three weeks off. He looked at me and said “Jenna, again? Didn’t you just went?” My answer was “Yes, but I have to go again, I have no choice.” After a few more back and forth, he said “OK, I will approve it, but you have to hire someone so I have someone to go to when you are not here.” So then this week, I am setting up interviews.

Jake is doing good, nothing major in terms of improvements or break through, but he is healthy and I suppose that is good news in of itself. He is coming down the stairs very nicely and independently by sitting on his butt and slides down one step at a time. So the middle section of the stair case gets cleaned once or twice a day by his behind, all I have to clean are the two sides. :-)

Here is a picture of Jake reading while "sun bathing" at the front door.

Sleeping alone

I wanted to share a few pictures of Jake’s room. Jake now has two beds in his room, one is his old bed (left) which he falls out of it sometimes in the middle of the night because the rail is very low; the other one he just received last week through the Care at Home Program from New York State (below). This bed is like a big crib where you can raise and lower the rail whenever necessary; you can also raise or lower the head or the foot of the bed. As much as I would like Jake to sleep on the regular twin bed, the new bed is safer for him at the moment.

The other major milestone we achieved since Jake got his new bed is that Jake now sleeps by himself in his own room. I think that was probably my major milestone rather than Jake’s because he didn’t have any problem sleeping by himself, I had the problem letting him sleep by himself, after all, his bed was next to ours for the past five years. Since he got his new bed, I figured it was time for me to move out of his room, which was where I had been sleeping since we moved into the new house.

My mom is leaving the country for 3 months, she said by the time she comes back, Jake will be heavier and taller. She is probably right. We are facing a new issue which hasn’t been an issue up until now, and that is Jake is almost too big to fit into the shopping carts in the supermarket, or target, etc. Going out shopping with Jake hasn’t been hard since he has very good head and upper body control, we just pop him into the shopping carts and off we go around the stores. But now he is getting too tall and too big for those carts so what are we suppose to use to transport him inside the stores? I can’t push his stroller and the shopping cart at the same time!? This is just one problem and I know that more and more problems will surface as Jake gets older and bigger. God I pray for the strength and the courage to face those problems.