Christmas 2009

So far Aidan's new medicine seems to be working okay. He's definitely "irritable" as the doctor described the most typical side effect. But hopefully now that the 3rd medicine showed up that will subside a little. I haven't seen improvement in his sleep, which really concerns me because seizures are the most prevalent at night. But conversation is a little easier for him, and he's handling things like crowds much better. He has also stopped all seizures during the day. Pretty huge right there.

Since Aidan gets up super early, and Jace can't without us helping him, we blocked off the living room with a mattress. When I got up and found Aidan in the bathroom, he informed me, "the living room is closed."

I really wanted to keep this Christmas low key. We also really wanted them to have a train table in the living room to share. But the $100+ train tables online and in the stores just wasn't possible, and frankly, I don't like them anyway. I like being able to have more than just trains on it, and they aren't made very well. So as I pondered what we might do for them, the thought came to me we should check DI for the solution. Now around here, finding furniture at DI that hasn't already been snatched up requires a miracle. People literally go at opening time everyday to get the pieces worth getting and resell them in their own retail stores. So I was thrilled when I immediately found a perfect table that I knew Lincoln could put an edge on and paint. After paying $15 for it, I headed out to the car. The boys were with us and waiting with Lincoln in the car. It looked like any other brown table, so when Aidan saw me packing it towards the car and yelled out, "It's a train table!" I was a bit surprised. A few days later I took him into Lowes with me to pick out some paint. He chose cherry red, only knowing he was picking a color, not what for. Lincoln worked on it last Saturday, and I think he did a great job. We set up a train set that's from Grandma and Grandpa Weber. (Thank you so much, Mom and Dad!) I cut the mat to fit on the table, but obviously it can be used anywhere.

The camera, true to holiday form, goobed up Jace's entry, but you'll still get the effect. Now this may seem like a totally non-excited entry from Aidan. But to explain, he'd had his morning dose of the new medicine an hour before, so it was doing it's lovely irritability stuff already. He was upset with me for entering the "closed living room" 1st, because he wanted to, I guess. But pay attention to the look on his face after it sinks in. They were both thrilled with it. They've played non stop together for 5 hours straight. There are 2 activity tents to the side, that Steve had given us to give them for Christmas too. (Thank you so much, Steve!) Once they noticed those, they keep playing with them in spurts too. It actually turned out to be a big Christmas with all of it and stockings. They couldn't even take in all in at first and it took about an hour to process it all. I think they will still remember it though. How could they forget that bright red train table? :)

Sweet Damon was asleep the whole time. I didn't have a chance to get him a stocking, so I hung up a saved gift bag. He got some carseat toys, sensory balls, and clothes.