2 months later.....

Is there anyone that still follows my blog? I post for a few reasons. One is friends and family that I mentioned in the previous post. The other is my crazy plan to one day make a book from all my blog posts and have a rough journal of what our family did. So even though these are few and far between they will keep coming.

So I left off last time with just putting my house on the market. Well, 21 days later it sold. Yep, that's 3 weeks people. We are truly blessed, sometimes I think a little too much. See, I had pretty much ignored my kids for the month trying to get our house on the market. I calmed my guilty conscience by telling myself that I would play lots with my kids while I waited the 6 months that was typical for houses selling in our area. That didn't quite go according to plan, instead, they got even more ignored while I did my best to pack and plan. See, we were able to find a house we loved, but with the lending situation, we would need a few days to officially get the money from the sale before we could turn around and put it into our new mortgage. So in essence we were going to be homeless for a week. To help matters, everyone (except Madde for some reason) got sick. The no energy, hate life for a week sick. Our saving grace was my parents who stayed a few days on their way home from a trip and packed us. My Mom deserves props for watching Dayton so much and my Dad deserves more than I have for being thrown boxes and a garage and told to pack. That really was about as much instruction as he was given. I really don't know how we would have gotten out of there without their help.

(For you English majors, there is no reason why I'm creating a new paragraph than the last one looks really long, continuing...) Well, we threw our stuff in 2 PODS, packed the rest and headed to a hotel and officially became homeless on May 18th. Incidentally, we sold our house to some good friends and couldn't be happier for them. It is a little strange to knock on your own front door. On May 24th we signed on our new house and started to SLOW process of unpacking. Brad's mom came out the next week for an art conference and was a huge help unpacking, organizing, and being patient and loving with my now extremely grumpy, tired, sick of being ignored kids.

In the meantime....

We celebrated Madde's 6th birthday with a party at the park. Pizza and a park, EASY! We actually bought kites for everyone since it was a windy day and let them go. It was so fun and a fairly cool sight to see so many kites flying. We also celebrated Hunter's 4th birthday. He wanted to invite his friends - all 2 of them - to go get cupcakes at Coldstone. I couldn't say YES fast enough. That was even easier than Madde's party. It also helped that Grandma and grandpa were in town, so he felt extra special. I can't believe how old they are getting. I'm constantly reminding myself to let them grow up (ie don't help getting clothes on, shoes on, eating food, etc.) They will be amazing adults, I'm just doing my best to enjoy them even with the craziness of life.

Dayton had a neurology appointment. Seizures are somewhat common with Angelman's. We had actually noticed jerky movements before his diagnosis and thought they might be seizure related. The Neurologist diagnoses myoclonic (I think) seizures based on the description, with an EEG to follow. From a brain standpoint, they aren't really concerning, they are extremely short, like hiccup short. The problem is that people have a tenancy to fall down or hit things while having them, so the docs like to control them. He started us on Keppra and so far have been doing good. Actually between that and the GI meds, Dayton has started sleeping alot better - 2 all-nighters, in a row. Cue shouting for joy.

Both Madde and Hunter finished school for the year. Madde had a week of party days: water day, game day, kinder play day, party, you name it. She's so bummed schools out for the school year, but really with all the last week of fun, who wouldn't be. Hunter's preschool invited parents for a party. They showed pictures, sang some songs as a class, and had a graduation ceremony. He was awarded the best sharer award. He didn't seem to thrilled, but like lunch afterwards. He is really excited to start up again in the fall. We were lucky to have Ede (Brad's mom) here for the first week of summer, but now the true boredom has hit. We created a list of fun activities that they would like do to this summer. We do at least one a week to hopefully liven things up and are starting to get regular friend groups going.

Dayton turned 2. It was a little more subdued than the other 2 birthdays, but Madde and Hunter still had fun helping him open his presents. Brad was out of town for training, but we had Ede here. Warning to the grandparents: my kids are starting to see a pattern with visitors on their birthdays and Hunter asked who was coming next year. At least we have a whole year to have that discussion. Dayton is still really far behind developmentally, but does progress, just really slowly. For the most part he is so calm and has a smile for just about anyone that come close enough. Even with all his issues, we feel so blessed to have him in our home.

Well, congratulation to anyone who made it this far. Round of applause. Things are settling and hopefully the posts will come at more regular interval and with pictures.