It seems like a lot has changed in just the past few weeks. Everybody in the house has something new going on, and it’s (mostly) all good!
I received so many supportive messages from all of you after my post about dealing with chronic pain for the past 20 years. Thank you everyone! If I had just ignored all those doctors who told me “pain after an injury is expected, you just have to deal with it,” it probably wouldn’t have gotten this bad. That said, I’ve started with what seemed like the easiest “alternative medicine” that was suggested to me (always listen to your mother, guys) – CBD oil. I haven’t even been on it for a week yet, so I’m hesitant to give a final verdict, but it seems promising so far. I’m still adjusting my dosage, but will keep you posted. Once I know what this can do for me, I’ll try adding in some other treatments that were suggested to me. My goal has changed from “appear normal” to “feel normal,” and I’m excited to see if I can actually achieve it.
Aaron was moved into an accelerated management training program at work, and got some kind of award from corporate for being awesome (“It’s a major award!”).
Madeline was briefly a unicorn farmer, but then she found out she had a baby on the way (“I’ve got a baby coming!”) and had to give up on her dreams of breeding a magical rainbow unicorn to raise the child. Just kidding. She gave me the baby, said “You’re the babysitter now,” and walked out on me.
She also decided she wants to learn an instrument. I thought I’d let her try out music lessons to see what she thinks, since her last dance class is this week. And, since I’m having a beast of a time getting anyone other than someone of questionable skill level to call or email me back, I just decided to start her on a piano book for preschoolers and see where that takes us. Now when she yells that she wants me to get out of bed at 4am and I holler at her to be quiet, she can yell “FORTE FORTE FORTE!” Winning. I mean her. She’s winning. I hate it.
Emmett is making a lot of progress in school! It’s exciting to see how he’s doing things now with relative ease that he’s struggled to do for the past 3 years of school. Last year, he couldn’t draw two lines that intersect (or, honestly, anything other than something that he told us was supposed to be a circle). Understanding how to cross lines is apparently something that uses different parts of your brain, and it just wasn’t happening for him. We’ve had a lot of snow days in the past couple of weeks, and he was bored cooped up in the house, so he assigned himself some homework and worked on it pretty diligently. He was so focused on his tracing book that he didn’t want to play or watch TV during his self-assigned homework time. “Leave me alone, I’m busy right now!” He didn’t even do it to show anybody else; he just wanted to work. I’m so proud of him!
Finally, I’ve been experimenting with some new hobbies. I decided to try my hand at making jewelry! As it turns out, I’m a little too particular in the types of earrings and necklaces that I like, and have a hard time finding things that I want to wear. If anyone else shares my jewelry sense, check out the shop to see my favorites! Also, you may notice that I’ve cleaned up the shop a bit to make it easier to find what you’re looking for. And there’s more to come! Assuming, of course, that my ongoing experiments turn out as I’m hoping. Failure is just an opportunity to improve!
So, again, thank you everyone for your support. Everything’s looking up, and I’m excited to see how much higher we can go!
