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Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Life rolls on

Saturday we celebrated our 11th anniversary. Todd took me to Wingers. Don't laugh, I know it's not all romantical, but it's good food, man, and it sounded good to both of us, and that's rare!





We had a great time. As we were finishing and getting ready to pay I ordered us a last round of drinks. The hard stuff. Vanilla Coke for me, and Cherry Coke for Todd. As he reached for the bill he inadvertently clipped his nice full glass, which in turn clipped his plate, broke into smitherines, and flooded the table, his lap right down to his Crocks. But don't fear, it somehow managed to miss the wings!

I insisted on photographic evidence. Contrary to how he looks, he wasn't mad, we had a good laugh, and the waitresses all probably thought that I was a horrible person. But it's for posterity, people!


We finally got Todd's contacts prescription. Thanks to a very kind secretary we didn't even have to pay for a contact fitting in addition, and she faxed it to Coscto the other day. Today Todd put his contacts back in, and while it will take some time to get readjusted after wearing glasses (and of a slightly different prescription, no less) for so long, he said that it is helping his vision. It didn't fix the looking problem, but at least now when he moves his eyes he can focus, and things in his periphial vision are not blurry.

Sunday we had a meeting with the bishop. He wanted to check on us and see how we were doing. I learned a lot about how Todd's mind is working in listening to him have a conversation with some one else. We talked about it after the bishop left. It's like his mind or his mouth doesn't know when or how to stop. So he gets to a point in what he's saying where normally you would pause, and the other person would interject something, but since his brain doesn't know how to stop, he just says "um" and then continues talking. And if he's exhausted what he's talking about he just starts talking about the next thing that his mind jumps to, and then he gets distracted and says things that he doesn't really mean. Or they come out wrong. So we talked about him noticing when he says "um" and just stopping there. We'll see how that works. It's pretty interesting to have to analyze the nuances of conversation dynamics. To borrow what someone else said, it's like Todd has to think about himself like he's on the outside, and at the same time, multi task that with actually having the conversation, finding the words, keeping on topic, organizing his thoughts, making eye contact, etc. All the things that we do normally without thinking about it. He has to think about it. Try it for a minute, or the next time you have a conversation with someone, and you'll get an inkling of how difficult it is, and how easy it is to get side tracked and distracted.

I wanted to bring this up today in his Speech therapy (which we have renamed Cognative therapy) but we took Oliver with us since it was only the one appointment, and we were running too late to drop him off at Auntie Tali's house. Next time...

The office staff there had a blast with Oliver. The secretary Dianne let him play with her resin frog, which he promptly broke. Then an OT brought out some of the therapy balls.

Oliver loved this planet-sized orange ball best. He pushed it clear down the hall, around the corner, and all the way down the next hall. Then I chased him back with it.



Dianne found some grahm crackers for Oliver to eat, since his mommy forgot not only toys and entertainment, but snacks too.



Oliver playing ball with Dianne


We ate lunch at Mickey Dees, then jetted home to drop off Todd, pick up the dogs, take Oli to preschool, take Doggies to the vet for shots, jet back, pick up Oliver, and finally return home. Exhausted. Cause in all of this running around poor Oli didn't get one speck of nap. He muscled through, getting punchier and clumsier as the day went on.

Phew. And now I've spent WAY too much time on the computer getting some "me" time in. Tomorrow is more therapy, and we have some guys coming to measure and give us an estimate on windows. Fun fun.

2 comments:

Jj Starwalker said...

Amy, you had QUITE a day!! I'm glad that you had a good time on your anniversary, despite the attack of "klutz mode." Todd, it happens to us all... especially me.. K says, on those rare occasions when I don't end up wearing some of my meal, that the aliens messed up in the clone they replaced me with. LOL

Sounds like Oli is growing up.. I can imagine a day like that -- sans nap -- being totally un-dealable with not all that long ago. The pics of him with the ball is great! I can totally imagine how cool it would be to have a ball big as you! I always wanted one of those weather balloons, that have a more durable surface and can be as big as me, now. So you can tell Oli that his Grandma Jj is jelaous of his getting to play with the big ball.

MarKay said...

Happy Anniversary you two! It sounds like Todd is doing great. I hope all is well :)