Sorry for the delay in reporting, our lives are SO incredibly busy during the week and the weekends have been filled with a combination of relaxing and fun things.
Alistair is doing well. He is enjoying being back at school. He is in his fourth week now. He is staying all day with no problems and participating in his therapies after school with gusto and determination. His therapists all make comments about how he is such a hard worker. Everyone who sees him says he looks better, "even in the short time since I saw him last." It is hard for us to see that since we see him all the time. From our side, things seem to be getting better slowly and in the meantime we are dealing with the side effects of his trauma. Everything is harder and messier and slower. Alistair needs help with just about everything. Nothing is done without one of us involved. It makes everything take longer. Sometimes it is fine, sometimes it is frustrating and stressful. Patience is the key. But then he does stuff like put together almost an entire Lego Race Car without much help. That kind of stuff is nice to see!
Everyone always asks how we are doing and I usually say fine, hanging in there. Usually I do feel that way, sometimes I just don't want to go into it. It's hard to really pinpoint how we are doing. We are tired, we are stressed out, we are trying to stay positive and be a cheerleader for Alistair while trying to manage his emotional state and keep him from getting too discouraged. We are also trying to manage Gillian's emotional state and not make her feel less important or left out. We are trying to live some semblance of a normal life with the normal things we used to do in the evenings and the weekends. We are sad and we are pissed, especially when we see things like his Smarter Balance test scores and how he scored Above Average on Reading and Writing and Average and Above Average on Math and wonder if it would be the same now or if he has been screwed over on that too. Some days we have the Dory way of thinking, "Just Keep Swimming" and other days we have the "F This" way of thinking. But all of that waxes and wanes...we have good days and bad days.
This past weekend marked a month since we came home from the hospital. It is certainly nice to be home, it is great to be able to cook and eat regular food again and it is nice to not be driving back and forth to Children's and splitting our time. When we first got home it was blissful and we were writhing in joy over the fact that we were in our home. Everything else was secondary. Now that we have been here and are reacquainted with our Bothell selves, it's just insanity and busy, busy. I figured it would be the case when we found out how much therapy he would still require once he was home. Add that to Gillian's gymnastics, squeezing in homework and reading logs and finding a few minutes to eat dinner together and we are skidding into bedtime at 8:30! Never a dull moment around here!
Alistair is enjoying life and getting out and doing stuff. Nothing has been too much for him, he hasn't let anything stand in his way of going out. He went on a field trip with his class to a corn maze, we went to the Kangaroo Outback Farm in Arlington where he fed a alpaca with his lips (see above!), he went to Brickcon and the last Mariner's game of the season with Seth...all on the same day! And last weekend we resumed one of our most favorite past times...camping! Alistair loves getting out camping and was beyond super bummed to learn that we had missed so many trips this summer. He did great! He walked to the beach a few times, ran around in the woods with his cousins and even was able to use his controller for his R/C Jeep with two hands! He has yet to resume his campfire assistant duties...but that will come! We really enjoyed being out doing something normal again too. Except for the medicine and shots, I almost forgot about this summer!
