Spontaneous Family Vacation In 5 Days
About two weeks ago Tim sprung an idea on us. We have been talking about moving away from Arizona and New Mexico is a forerunner in the locations to move our family so he thought why not take a short vacation when he has his next three day weekend. We thought it was a fantastic idea and the only drawback was the timing of it all. Tim’s next three day weekend is the 31st less than two weeks from when he had the brilliant idea. We, also, opted to include my mom on the vacation because she would be moving with us more than likely.
We’re renting a mini van to allow ample space for everyone and all necessary luggage. It was really hard to find a mini van, or any large vehicle, that had unlimited miles that weekend. One place even said that she was surprised it didn’t have unlimited miles and asked if there was a special event because normally that changes the mileage allowance. After lots of phone calls and many online quotes, we settled on Hertz. The customer service was fantastic at working around their system to get us the best deal AND keep unlimited miles. We pick up at one place because they have the van available but we’ll drop it at the airport because it has a later drop off time. This allowed us to keep the van the extra few hours we needed without having to pay for an entire day or for every mile over the very limited mileage.
We researched online for things to do while in New Mexico and stumbled across some local coupons for visitors. One of the coupons was for a free night at Red Roof Inn if you stayed three nights. We already had made reservations but thought we’d call and check out the price with the free night. It was a tad bit more than our current reservation but it included a few things that the first hotel did not and it was worth the few bucks more.
We’re planning on spending one day neighborhood spying, as I’m referring to it. We’ll drive around to the different areas in town and get a feel for the good and bad things about each area. We’ve done some research on home price and rental prices to help us with our spying.
Another coupon was for a local shop that was offering a free dreamcatcher. Drama King has been asking for one of these for the longest time. He wakes up frequently by bad dreams and the only time he doesn’t is when he’s at Grandma Deb’s house. The difference: She has a dreamcatcher on her bed and he doesn’t. See how that could lead him to believe that he needs one, too. I haven’t found a place online that sells them because of their unique qualities and we haven’t had a chance to go to the reservation to pick one up for him. This will be a perfect solution.
The last day we are deeming kids’ day for two reasons; a) It’s Drama King’s birthday and b) they’ll deserve it after the adults check out the area. We are planning on spending the entire day at the local zoo. They offer a reciprocal 50% discount on admission because we have a membership to our local zoo. However even at their regular admission price, it would be worth it for what you get.
For now, I’m off to finish our itinerary and do laundry to begin packing. I’ve learned through our many trips to pack enough entertainment for each child so I’m customizing their backpacks for New Mexico. I have printed a coloring ABC book, a few activities, and placed blank and lined paper in their binders. I, also, printed a Flat Stanley for them to design on the drive up. And we’re bringing some books, a few toys, and their table trays. I’ll be packing their portable DVD players and a few DVDs for each of them. I’m not sure if we’ll need them but better safe than sorry.
What’s going on with the blog while we’re gone? I have a few Blogmaniacs posts scheduled for some bonus entries. We also have the $25 Kroger gift card giveaway for you to enter.
Any guest posts? I’m looking into that. I’ve never done a guest post but if you’re interested, let me know.
Will we be checking in? I’ll probably check in at least once for comments but am not expecting to write anything until we get back. Our new phones are smart phones so we may check in on Twitter or Facebook so make sure you’re following us on there, too.
Will we get to hear more about the trip? Yes, after we get back. We’ll probably do a post covering the places we visited and things we learned.
Are the boys excited? Oh yes! And so are the adults.
Little T’s First Swim Lesson
Little T has always had trouble with water, if it requires or he thinks it may require putting his head under water. Needless to say, he was less then happy when I informed him that we signed him up for swim lessons this summer. I opted to put him in the adaptive aquatics for kids with disabilities instead of traditional swim lessons. I thought it might be slowed paced and more understanding of his quirks.
After his first lesson today, he is excited about doing lessons 4 days a week. He will not go into a deep swimming pool without his floaties so this was a first for him. It took about 5 minutes to coax him into the water. Another few minutes to get him to trust himself and then he quickly started doing things.
He floated on his back with his head resting on my shoulder for a minute. He refused at first to put his chin in the water but he DID it by mid-lesson. He walked along holding onto the rail ‘chasing’ the instructor towards the deeper end of the pool. He wouldn’t go past the red line that denotes the shallow from deep end. He bounced up and down over and over. He refused at first to put his mouth in the water but he DID it by the end of class. He floated on his tummy and kicked his feet pushing me and him in the water.
He is SUPER proud of himself and of course Tim and I couldn’t be more excited for him. I cannot wait for him to be able to swim. It’ll be a long road but our only goal is for him to be able to trend water in the event he falls into the pool when we’re not watching.
Forgive My Absence
This week has been filled with lots of ups and downs, mainly downs though. Early in the week, we signed up to take Little T for swim lessons. Since Little T has a speech disorder, a fear of putting his head under the water, and can be temperamental; we opted for the Adaptive Parent/Child Swim so I could join him. During the same time, Drama King will be swimming with Grandma Deb and she will be teaching him. He picked up a lot of swimming in just two days last summer with no real teaching. It went down hill from there.
Wednesday, we had to put our dog to sleep. She had eaten something and it was blocking her intestines. Due to her history of eating loads of non-food stuff (shirts, sheets, socks, plastic items, etc), we decided that putting her to sleep was in her best interest as we feared that any future digestion would cause her great distress and certain death.
Our cable modem stopped working early in the week so Tim and I spent the afternoon at my mom’s house so we could finish the work we had to get done. The cable guy came mid week and ran a bunch of tests on the line and the modem only to determine the modem died. We picked up a new modem so we could have internet until the weekend.
Saturday, Tim and I went to the eye doctor for a check up. Tim, as expected, has great vision and doesn’t need glasses. My prescription hasn’t changed for the last few years but since our insurance covers new glasses and mine are no longer covered under warranty, I thought I’d get some new ones. I really like the frames that have magnetic clip-on sunglasses but they didn’t have any in our price range so they offered to order some samples for me to look at. I browsed through the catalog and picked out three that are in our price range. I’ll go back this week or next weekend to decide on my new frames.
Sunday, Tim and I spent the morning on the phone between our cable provider and the modem manufacturer troubleshooting for the warranty replacement. We’re sending in the not working one and will wait on our replacement. But for now, we have a new modem that we’re using to connect.
If you’re planning on watching the movie awards tonight, I’ll be watching it and posting my take over at Your Celeb Source. The post will go live when the show starts in my area as we get a delayed feed.
7 Years Ago…Our Lives Changed Forever
Seven years ago at this moment, I was sitting in a hospital bed awaiting the birth of our first child. At the time, we did not know if our first child would be a boy or a girl. We were overwhelmed with the wonders of who our child would look like, what to name said child, and PAIN. Well, I was only feeling some of the pain thanks to an epidural but I felt pain none the less.
Now, I feel it necessary to write about Litttle T’s story so our newest readers have a chance to understand a little bit about him. He’s had a few bumps in his life to date so we’ll start at the beginning…
My pregnancy with Little T was fairly uneventful with the only real problem was when ever I ate anything that had cilantro as an ingredient. Cilantro gave my horrible heartburn which was a huge deal for our Mexican food loving family. His birth, on the other hand, was much more eventful. Prior to delivery, he breathed in meconium and was not breathing upon delivery. He recovered fast but none of this prepared us for what we’d face over the next few years.
He hit all of his milestones on or before the “expected” date. Well, all except talking. He walked early. He danced early. He ate early. He grew fast. He counted early. He could add and subtract up to 5 early. But he didn’t talk like others his age and we knew something was wrong. We got the normal ‘He’ll catch up’ or ‘Einstein didn’t talk until he was 3′ or ‘It runs in the family so don’t worry’ but that didn’t stop us from worrying. By the age of 2, our pediatrician was in agreement that something was going on so we began a myriad of testing. We did a standard hearing test. Inconclusive because he was unable to vocalize his answers. We did a sedated hearing test. Perfect score, the little bugger hears better than the average child his age. The technician just kept going to see how well he could hear. She gave up long before he stopped hearing. We saw our fair share of doctors who tested him for autism, aspergers, other spectrum disorders, ADHD, ADD, and many other neurological and speech disorders.
After all of this we were told, “He has Apraxia.” And off Tim and I went in search of an answer. What is Apraxia? Does he need speech therapy? Will we ever understand him? What can we do to help him now? And every other question a parent has when faced with the unknown.
Little T at age 3
Tank Turns 5
Tank celebrated his fifth year with a birthday bash at Reid park. This was the first time we were able to see Erica and Rob’s girlfriend, Melissa, at the same place at the same time. I think they did a great job attempting to get along with each other. The ex and the new girl. It was quite interesting watching them put on the party, together, cooperating in ways I never would have imagined.
In attendance was not only our two boys and the birthday boy but Rob’s girlfriend’s two kids, Nucleus Girl and Marvel Boy, and a few other kids that I don’t know. The kids had a blast at the party. They spent a lot of time running up and down a large hill, playing on the playground, and drawing on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk.
Food was grilled by Tony, decorations were put up and maintained by Erica and Melissa, and dog corralling was Rob’s department. Little T deputed his device and proudly talked to Erica about seeing John Cena a few days ago.
A few days after the party, Tank had his 5 year check up. His pediatrician cleared him for attending kindergarten but referred him to an optometrist because his vision test said he needed glasses. Erica took him to the optometrist and it was confirmed that he needed glasses. His vision tested at 20/70 and from what Erica was told that’s pretty uncommon in young children so they gave him the strongest child lens (only one off from 20/70) and are hoping that his body will learn to adjust to the strongest lens. If not, he’d need adult lens which are heavier and not child friendly. So, of course, Erica is very concerned about teaching him to keep glasses on and not throw or break them. Tank already threw a pair of glasses while they were at the optometrist’s office.
Tank is enrolled at his local elementary school but it is unknown how the school is handling the ‘no more kindergarten’ law that was passed recently by our governor. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
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