What a Week

Wow! To describe this week as difficult or challenging is certainly an understatement. I was frequently reminded of the Murphy's Law that just when you think things can't get worse, they do (or something on that order). Ok, that sounds really pessimistic. The bottom line is that we survived a really hellish week and we're all still intact, so no worries.

Let's see, here's a rundown of the week since I last posted:

Saturday evening - B pukes, we clean up the house and him and in the midst of that, Elise starts puking. We clean her up and the house and in the midst of that, B pukes again. We clean him up and the house and in the midst of that, Elise pukes again. It was a glorious evening.

Sunday - B and Elise were feeling better, but we pretty much had to stay home all day to be sure they fully recovered. Being trapped in the house all day with 3 grumpy children is not fun.

Monday - Started with hubby being on local travel and not getting home from work until the kids' were going to bed. That meant being alone with the 3 kids, prepping dinner alone and going insane for me. Top that off with having tons of work at work. Oh yes, our babysitter's car died that evening so she had to leave her car at our house and arrange for a tow the next day.

Tuesday - Hubby still on local travel and still not getting home from work until almost bedtime for the kids. Same deal. Babysitter's car still not running, so she was unable to drive Elise to therapy. I had to cancel OT, ST & Floor-time for that morning. Since hubby was unable to drop off and pick up kids, I couldn't even get in 8 hours at the office and the work was piling. Ended up having to work after the kids went to bed.

Wednesday - Babysitter's car still not returned to her running until mid-afternoon. Hubby still on local travel, but at least returned in the afternoon. I had to pick up twins at school. Worked until 9 pm, leaving hubby alone with the kids all evening. Actually, he was smart and decided to pay babysitter to stay until their bedtime. A started puking that evening while I was at work. This literally continued every half hour throughout the night and ended with a major diarrhea accident - sorry for the graphics, but it was beyond gross. I kept retching from the smell making it really hard to clean. Thank goodness hubby handles it a bit better than me.

Thursday - Hubby stayed home all day with a sick A while I took Elise to an evaluation / medical review for the research study in which she is participating. Grueling is an understatement for the experience. Elise went through a 2 hour evaluation followed by a 2 hour intense parent interview for me. Then, we spent 30 minutes for a quick physical exam of Elise and for both of us to have a blood draw. I still have some paperwork to complete and send for this and the doctor called Friday at lunch to complete the 15 minute medical history with me (Elise was too tired for us to finish this on Thursday). Whew! At least it's over. With the commute, our day started at 6:30 and ended at 2:00. It's unbelievable that starting next week that will be our daily life for 3 months, except it'll start at 6:30 and end at 3:30...Poor girl!

Friday - Hubby took Elise to her gastroenterologist appointment. He feels she has a degree of active withholding contributing to her constipation. She's now continuing with the probiotic and adding Miralax daily. She has a follow-up in 6 weeks. Babysitter's kid got sick at school. She brought him to our house (this was ok with us). Other than that, things were actually looking up on Friday. I e-mailed our service coordinator to find out where things are with the ABA therapy. I can't believe nothing has moved on that! I haven't told her about the fact that Elise is starting the UCLA program next week because if things move that slowly when they think your child is getting no help, I can't imagine how slowly it would move if she knew.

Saturday - I was hopeful for a nice weekend, but alas, this is not to be. Hubby woke up sick this morning. I walked the dog with all 3 kids, cooked a pancake breakfast, managed to get them all out the door by 9:40 and took them all to Elise's OT session. Her therapist was very understanding to them being there and actually invited them back anytime because they behaved so well. Not a chance I'll willingly bring all of them to therapy anytime soon. Then, I took them all out to lunch as part of my operation burn off their energy. I brought them home at nap time and took off to get my hair done. I've been looking forward to my hair appointment for weeks now and hubby's illness was not going to prevent me from going. He survived. As soon as I returned home, the twins woke and things were busy again. I took the 3 kids to the grocery store on my own. They did well because I bribed them with chocolate.

Anyway, that's been this week. Unfortunately, I think the next 2 weeks don't promise to be much better. Hopefully, we'll all manage to at least stay healthy.

Elise has done well the last few days. Yesterday, I was on the phone and she came up to me and placed a toy in my hand and pulled me to play with her. That's a huge step for her to initiate play so directly. Yeah, Elise! Later, she played with her brothers before bed. A decided to play a game following her and copying everything she did. At first she was getting really annoyed. Then, when she realized they were playing with her, she became really happy. She was laughing, smiling and really enjoying herself. It made us really happy to see. Same thing tonight, she played in the bathtub with them and was really happy, laughing and smiling, at least for a couple of minutes. Then, they overwhelmed her.

I was so proud of her at the evaluation on Friday. She really did a great job. She participated in quite a few of the activites. She even spontaneously said 3 or 4 words. The doctor tried to engage her to see how she shows emotions. She wasn't interested, but when the doctor had me try, Elise easily engaged and laughed. I also was able to get her to say Go! and to play peek-a-boo with me. She communicated with the doctor to let her know which snack she wanted and which toys. She demonstrated her difficulty with transitions, but that's all good because we do need to work on that. I thought it was a great representation of where she's at right now. At the blood draw, she only cried for maybe 1 minute. She's such a trooper.

Today at OT she wanted to sit on her therapist's lap to play when we were all at the table. Her brothers were arguing and she usually walks away when that occurs. Instead she sought her therapist's lap and stayed put, an improvement to needing to leave.

There have still been some upsetting things, but overall she's done well. She now sometimes does wierd things in public like suddenly yelling "Ahhh!" with her mouth wide open. I guess she's still young enough that it doesn't look too odd, but I worry that soon she'll pass that age where it's overlooked and we'll start getting the judgemental looks. I guess that'll be a problem for another day.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. We're due for an easy day!