Olympics!!!

What made starting school August 15th this year a WHOLE lot easier was the fact that we had Olympics to look forward watching the rest of the day after we finished.

Here we have: Jacob - 6th grade, Xavier 4th grade, Julia 1st grade and Ellie who has enough learning/fun things on her iPad to last her entire education!!  The boys sit next to each other across from me and Julia sits to my left.  Thankfully Ellie is beyond the age of really "messing" with stuff so we have all our stuff out like we want it and she walks by.  Although one day last week I did have some lovely "scribbles" on a notepad I was keeping some thoughts on.  :) 

Some special things about this year are of course the iPad for number one.  Ellie has unlimited videos I've downloaded, most of them have some form of educational element.  I even found some things for older kids that she seems interested in and when Julia is done with her books (much earlier than the boys) I love her enthusiasm in skipping over to Ellie and sitting next to her. I can see them sitting on the couch together from where I sit. Julia flies through her books just to go sit with Ellie.  Sometimes they drop the tablet for a game of pretend cooking.  Another thing this year is I have about 4 "group subjects" that I'm teaching the boys at the same time.  They are challenging for Xavier but I love seeing him keep up.  We do French together as well as this editing book of mistakes I got that they love correcting.  I also try to read out loud to them every day and have them dictate or summarize what I write before they dive into their main subjects.  If it weren't for Ellie being content with her iPad (and she'll let you know it's hers if you try to hold it, lol!) I'd never have the quiet, focused time with the boys. God is involved in this area in a major way for it to even be possible to pull off schooling the children.

On to the Olympics!  We got really into the games this year.  I was telling Jacob, the 2004 Summer Olympics began the day we came home from the hospital with him, August 13, 2004.  That basically saved my sanity, watching the excitement on t.v. as I adjusted to the realities of having a newborn.  Then in 2008 I really can't remember much since we had two active little boys running around the house at the time and didn't watch much television.  Summer games of 2012 - the dates almost perfectly aligned with a hospital admission for Ellie to get her feeding tube surgically placed and stay for a while until her pulmonary hypertension got a little more under control. 

Here are the dates:

Hospital admission: July 26 - August 17

Olympics: July 27 - August 12

Here's what I remember about those hospital days during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London - we had it on the channel and as nurses came in to check on her, they would linger a bit to catch an exciting moment on the t.v. before they walked out.  I myself was not fully engaging in the events but I recall it was nice to have it on in the background.  It felt comforting to have it there as a reminder of normalcy and it was also inspiration to preserve through this challenging time.  Sometimes just waking up, providing milk for her and the smallest amount of self care felt like a 100 meter dash in those days.

Here are our four Olympians practicing a "marathon" by walking (no running please!!) laps around and around the house!  Julia and Ellie held hands as they kept pace with the leaders :).

If only I could remember why Ellie does not have a shirt on.  Maybe it was because she just ate and it was dirty.  Or maybe I was in the middle of dressing her when the race began.  But a good photographer does not stop to make adjustments to her subjects lest the moment pass!

How cute is Ellie's expression in this picture?  And her little leg in motion?!!!  She looks like she's doing a ballet move! 

Would you allow me to share our "top Olympic memories" we've all compiled together? It felt worthy of archiving and I thought this would be a good venue for that. 


1. Speaking of venue - the number one memory has everything to do with the location in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. During the Opening Ceremonies there was a camera shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue with a green light shining on it and the stadium in the background. The symbolism of Christ watching over the stadium and city moved yours truly to tears.


2. The debut of golf in the Olympics.


3. When Brazil won the gold in soccer.


4. A bike race where the leaders got into a surprising crash at the very end and as badly as I felt for the leaders, something like number four ended up winning.  We liked the lesson of perseverance and "it ain't over...".


5. A ping pong gold medal match with some serious Chinese rivals!


6. Sweden and Germany Women's Soccer gold medal match.


7. On the very first day of the games we decorated Daddy's room at work and the kids all watched Olympics while sitting in desks.


8. Watching the 8-person rowing events.


9. "Uncle Ralph" - a track and field race where an American won and the family of the athlete went so crazy in the stands that we named the people.  Mainly Uncle Ralph who climbed on top of the father of the athlete and started bouncing up and down on his (presumable) brother.  As a result, multiple people were squished and falling over and the whole thing was quite entertaining.


10. The night I took Ellie to the ER, Jeff had to go back out for the medicine pretty late.  I stayed up and waited for him while watching swimming on t.v.  I laid in bed with the cell phone so we could text and I watched Michael Phelps swim for the first time.  I remember it as a good distraction after a long day.


11.  The kids drew country flags on index cards and we hung them in the house.


12. "Everything" - well said by one member of the family.


Of course one can't forget about the Winter Olympics.  Admittedly, the sports are a little harder to relate to.  But we looked up that they will be held in February 2018 in South Korea and we are excited about them already! And one more programming note - the Paralympics start September 7th on NBC in the same Rio venues.  You could say this year is really the first time I've made the connection that this "second Olympics" is as much as a real deal as the first round of athletic competition. I'm almost looking more forward to seeing those two weeks play out than I was when I was bouncing up and down on the couch to cheer on Michael Phelps in the pool!  That says a lot!  There are so many lessons to learn from the Olympics, I can't wait to sit with the kids and have some discussions about the everyday challenges these individuals face.  Of course one day we hope our Ellie can be in the 3rd form of Olympics - the Special Olympics that are held in most major towns in the U.S.  I wonder what event Ellie will want to try?

Tissue

A story I never want to forget:

About a week ago I was sitting on Ellie's bed - the canopy of the tent over my head, the enclosure providing an intimate setting for the two of us.  There was a glow of a light from an aquarium toy given to her by a Godmother of the family.  I stared at her and she stared at me and I just started busting out crying.  The kind where you kind of heave and make funny noises.  The journey, the love, the transformation of the 4 years...it all came shooting out of my eyeballs in the form of tears.

I told her why I was crying - because I love her so much - and I hugged her and left. The next night we did the same ritual and instead of crying I just looked at her and said I love you and started to leave.  She started to say something like "shoo shoo" and pointed to the bathroom she shares with Julia. After taking some time to figure it out I thought she is famous for bringing me a tissue when I cry.  So I said, "tissue?" and she said "uh huh".

Infection

Friday the 5th we went to a playground, then the library. That night after shower we noticed a red spot on Ellie's leg. I wondered if she fell and I just didn't know?  Then Saturday it started to look different.  Blisters, bubbly, red...I'll stop there.  This is what it looked like by Sunday evening.

Not wanting to wait and thankful for the very good pediatric ER in town as well as a smooth insurance process thanks to having two insurances...Ellie and I loaded up the iPad and headed to the hospital. It was a 5 minute wait to get in and the whole thing was a big adventure for her.  She and I on a fun trip for an hour and a half!

It turns out it was a "staph" infection as we had suspected. But, treatable by antibiotics and really not a major deal at all.  Well, if you catch it early and treat it I should say.  So, on the way home we stopped at the one pharmacy open 24 hours in town and turned in the prescription. It was an hour and a half wait so we came home and I put her to bed.  All the kids were so happy to see her and learn she was ok.  They all went to sleep and Jeff went out at 10:30 to get the medicine.  I laid in bed watching Olympic swimming waiting for him to arrive back home.

The next morning I had no idea how the oral (liquid) medication was going to go.  She had never taken medicine by mouth before!  Back in the day, it allllll went in the tube! Well, thankfully they make it taste good so I put the 5 ml dose in the syringe and made it fun and like a little baby bird she sucked it right down!  I was so thankful!  Just precious.  And one night (the night of Jacob's birthday) I forgot the p.m. dose and she was already asleep!  I could not miss the dose so I crawled in her bed with the syringe and roused her slightly. She opened her mouth and sucked for one second and licked her lips and then closed her eyes again.  I had more to give so we repeated this process three or so more times until it was all gone.  I can not tell you how sweet this was!  I had a little light from a toy in her bed and it was just so sweet how trusting she was. I love that little baby bird!  :)

5 days later her leg is healing and she's been feeling great all week.  Happy, loves her iPad game and videos and eating great.  Just coming and going around the house in the rhythm of our days here now as we transition and get ready for school to start in next week.

Rooms

More on the bed which Ellie continues to LOVE and dive into every day for a short rest time (no napping any more) with books and toys and night time for a solid 8:30 pm - 8:00 am sleep with no peep!  The bed came in this suitcase that is meant to be for travel with it.  It's a very nice hard shell suitcase!  And it's green which is her "favorite color" that the kids picked for her wayyyyy back before she was even born.  Jacob likes red, Xavier orange, Julia yellow so....naturally they decided we had to keep in order with the rainbow :).

Anyway if you do travel with it by plane you are supposed to tell the airline it's a piece of medical equipment and there's no charge.  I hope one day we get to do that!  But I can't help think of the very distant future when one day it might just have some of her clothes in it and it will be a great memory of that special bed that kept her safe when she was younger.  Where will we go I wonder? 

For Julia - we agreed to let Ellie sleep in her room for a trial period. The boys share a room - as seen here.

This is what the girls' room looked like when they joined together. For two nights. That was all we all could handle of  the shananigans Ellie had up her sleeve. "What, my favorite playmate is right next to me?  What, she wakes up at 6:50 - I can do that too", said Ellie in her mind.  So she's back to her "green room" and thank the Lord she never fussed about missing her roommate.  It helps that Julia tucks her in every night.  So, another time down the road we'll try it again.

What's been very sweet is Jacob has had some really late nights with out of town events so Julia gets to "sleep" in his bed in the room with Xavier until he gets home.  The two of them love that time together.