Friday

Thanks for all the good wishes and prayers that are coming our way. I feel the breeze of them as we step off another cliff waiting for the angels to bear us up. I love that image because of the trust and craziness involved. I have never found it easy to step off those cliffs of life's challenges but I get better all the time. When we were in Costa Rica (greatest vacation we ever took! and incredibly great for kids! Can't wait to bring Julia there.), we explored the top of rain forest by taking zip lines from platform to platform. Many, many feet off the ground and armed with all sorts of protective equipment, we had to willingly let go and jump. The first zip line was excruciatingly scary -- complete horror, and my body remembers the fear and then the decision to let go of that fear. Maybe it was the ultimate in the moment living. Letting go completely of the fear opened the delights of the rain forest, the view that only birds have, and something so pure, so light. Pura vita. They say in Costa Rica. My body remembers that as well.

Okay, that was just a ramble. Maybe somehow related to life today but I have to leave it until later to figure out the connection.

David is home -- went to work yesterday and intends to go today after he gets a blood draw. His "numbers" are not the best and they may want him back in the hospital. I am encouraging him not to fight that decision if that is the decision, but truth is that he feels pretty good. Relatively speaking, that is, and the hospital is incredibly boring. I compare it to pregnant women who are told to go on bed rest -- boring, yes, ultimately the right decision, YES! The medication he is on right now is giving him much better blood pressure, but it is also dangerous. It can cause serious arrhythmia and the chance of arrhythmia increases over time. His only other option is to have a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) which means at least two open heart surgeries -- one of insert the LVAD and another to take it out and put in the new heart. We are hoping to avoid that.

Julia had a hard day yesterday -- not very well behaved at school. We had an appointment with Marilyn and then went home and did not have therapy. (Marilyn is making a big effort to talk to Julia during our therapy and Julia is slowly responding. They had a conversation of sorts -- Marilyn asking questions and Julia sort of responding. They talked about Julia playing pretend and pretending to be animals all the time. The conversation got down to Julia saying that she was scared to be a little girl when she played -- and this was not an answer to a question but a very clear statement made by Julia. Julia prefers to be an animal -- squirrels these day.) Julia played while the home nurse was at our house and then watched tv with David while I did a bit of grocery shopping. I started dinner when I returned and when I asked Julia to set the table, she had a melt down. I would say that this meltdown had the feeling of coming all week.

I put her in time out on the stairs. She ranted and raved there -- she doesn't like me to control her so blatently and completely and will usually do almost anything to avoid sitting on that step. I usually let her leave time out when she has calmed down and is ready to apologize and do what needs to be done. Yesterday, she left time out to come into the kitchen and tell me how much she didn't like being in time out and she didn't like me.

That was when I lost it and walked her upstairs to her bedroom to finish some time out and calming down time. This is the first time she has had time out away from us and oh, she was angry. She did not let us forget that she was upstairs suffering, and she did stomp for a little while. But the surprising thing to me was that she spent most of the time calling down to us to tell us what she was thinking of doing -- somewhat short of threats but definitely she would have liked some harm to come to me. She did calm down and came down stairs. Then she was all appologies and wanting to please. I had made one of her favorite noodle dishes and she ate a lot of it, telling me that she loved it and generally trying to make it up to me.

We need to do more regulation -- trampoline jumping, taking the dog on walks and swimming -- to keep her in a good place.

This morning there was a school concert with all the kids singing. There were two performances with the gym jammed at the one we were at. I expect the earlier one was as crowded. Julia spent the concert very happily on my lap -- I don't think we have a performer in this one.

I realized much too late that I should have taken the opportunity to saw a few PTO words to the assembled group. Even just one of those assembled crowds is the largest Franklin School commuity get together. I did not have the nerve to do such a thing last minute without having time to put together something to say, but I could have made some announcements. Damm! I have to watch for another assembly like that. I am not a political animal!