A Week, Briefly (2/15/21)

 This post is dated for the Monday of our homeschool week, but I'm starting with Sunday because it was Valentine's day.

 

It was snowy, intensely cold, and Sir Walter Scott was still in the hospital.  

 

Our usual church broadcast was cancelled so that the people who run the broadcast could stay home, so we had a cuddly testimony meeting in our pajamas snuggled into blankets because our heater couldn't keep up with the cold outside (even with a roaring fire in the wood-burning stove), and I couldn't bear to force anyone to change clothes.

We had our traditional treasure hunt and valentine exchange, but first we decorated cookies provided to us by some dear, dear friends from church.

From Lola to Mister Man--the beetle sticker on the bear's forehead is my favorite part. 

Then the snow cleared just enough for me to safely drive to the hospital to see Sir Walter Scott and deliver his valentines.

It is now warming up, but we were gripped by the cold--to the point that we had cars that refused to start.  We spent hours and hours indoors . . . but one day the need to get out became too great, and Brother got some fresh air.

Our city had rolling black-outs to deal with the high energy consumption due to the cold, so one day we had school in front of the fire when it was our turn for the power to go out, and the indoor temperature dropped into the 40s in some of the rooms . . . but it was pretty cozy close to the fire.

Nature Angel (the last 3) and Little Princess (the first 2) each took turns going outside to photograph the gorgeousness of the cold spell.  I'm including only a fraction of the many beautiful photos they took.

I longed to take everyone out every day, but it was really, really too cold for the babies.

And because we had a marvelous surprise . . .  Sir Walter Scott was discharged on Tuesday afternoon!!!

He is in extraordinarily good condition for a stroke patient.  His two biggest recovery goals are to restore full balance when he walks and restore fully coordinated vision.   His intake appointment for outpatient stroke recovery therapy is scheduled for next Friday.  

In the meantime, we're loving having him all to ourselves!

 

Home is intensely overwhelming.  There's so much noise and motion that just sitting in a room with us all can exhaust him.   The kids are taking seriously the challenge I issued to be Daddy's therapists--almost too seriously.  He was bored and understimulated in the hospital, but we have to be careful of the opposite here.  

This game sent him to bed for 3 hours!

And patching his good eye before building a Lego spaceship was so much work, he didn't make it out of the bedroom before crashing.

But he's stronger and better every day, and his eyes get quite the workout following the cars up and down the Hot Wheels track. :)

A full recovery is predicted, and his co-workers at the hospital are looking forward to his eventual return to nursing.

(A lovely side note is that there are so few covid patients right now, that half of the ICU has been opened up to regular patients, and Sir Walter Scott's floor is the only other covid unit in the entire hospital.)

Ladybug finished two language arts workbooks.

Baymax has suddenly decided he's ready to learn to read. 

We've been working on the rudiments of reading for a long time, but he's made a cognitive leap to remembering and applying what we've worked on, and it's sweet to listen to him sound words out and even sweeter to hear him remember words he's already sounded out.

Brother and Beowulf each had a rough week.  In the interest of simplifying his med regimen, Brother's psychiatrist took him off one of his meds to see if he could do without it.  She made sure I still had enough of that med to put him back on it at my discretion if he did need it. His ABA therapists and I agreed that we saw an uptick in agitated, aggressive behaviors of the med, so I put it back in his schedule.  

That's Brother reading to The Munchkin--peacefully and gently.

 

Beowulf has taken a long time to adjust to his med changes.  We were dealing with a lot of violence and aggression, and I was about ready to call the psychiatrist in despair and ask for a change, when he suddenly seemed to click into positive function. 

I also brought the Skittles back out for instant, positive rewards for cooperative behaviors, and that is helping tremendously.

Nature Angel and Little Princess continue to balance full-time childcare with full-time school, and I am amazed at their abilities.

The babies continue to delight us with their antics and teach us valuable lessons in patience, social cues, language development, service, and empathy.

This is a strange season for our family and for our homeschool, but we are blessed beyond measure, and we are so very thankful for prayers and good wishes!