THURSDAY'S THOUGHTS

I've had a couple of my friends ask me where I've been the last couple days. They hadn't heard from me much. One word: COLBY. Take today for example. Got COLBY up for school. The nurse came and we got COLBY loaded up in the van. Took COLBY to school (in the cold pouring rain I might add.) Stayed with COLBY and the nurse at school. Then we loaded COLBY in the van and brought him home. The bath aide came over and we did COLBY'S bath. Then gave COLBY his afternoon cough treatment. Hung out with COLBY for a couple of hours, then put COLBY to bed. Also took COLBY trick-or-treating on Halloween so yeah, it's all about the kid this week. And that's different from any other week how exactly...?

So this new nurse, whom we really, really, REALLY like, wants to go to school with Colby 3 days a week. Hallelujah, yee haw, good news, thank goodness. I'm hoping the principal will agree to let me come to school with Colby 1 day a week. Haven't had a chance to ask him yet. I really like being in the school to get a feel for what's going on in Colby' class. He doesn't exactly come home and get to tell me about his day, you know? If he's able to go to school 4 days a week I'll be very happy with that for now. Next week is a no-go. No school Monday and Tuesday, professional development days. Wednesday and Thursday we have appointments in Cincy. Friday we'll need to rest from being at Cincy! But the following Monday, it'll be school full tilt. Tomorrow I'll talk to the principal and transportation to get a bus starting on the 14th. The nurse will come here to the apartment. We'll load them all up and he'll be off to school! I think the nurse is ready to watch Colby on her own. Oh who am I kidding, I'm sure I'll either ride the bus with them and go to school 1 more time or maybe I'll just follow the bus and "supervise" the new nurse 1 more time. Gotta make sure my sweet boy will be okay!

Mr. Colby is being quite stubborn lately and NOT using his eye gaze/communication device. I thought maybe he just didn't want to do it for his mama, but today at school he didn't give much effort for the speech therapist either. I don't get it. Seems to me if you finally, after 9 years of not being able to communicate your needs, had a machine that can "talk" for you, wouldn't you want to "talk" all the time? Apparently not. We've told him over and over he can say anything he wants with the eye gaze. Tell us your feet are cold. Tell us your favorite color. Tell us you're bored. Tell us our breath stinks. Tell us you want to go outside. Tell us SOMETHING for shit's sake. He's obviously not feeling it lately. So we're going to try to figure out a way to motivate him to use it. Any suggestions?

This Halloween candy has got to get out of this apartment, immediately! I packed up 2 baggies worth of suckers, Nerds, Life Savers, etc and gave them to Colby's bath aide today. She didn't want any chocolate (what is wrong with that chick?!) But tomorrow the chocolate stuff has to go somewhere, anywhere but in my face. It's no big secret I gained weight over the summer. My larger, wider ass pretty much tells the story on that these days. Thanks thyroid issues and hospital stay stress eating, really appreciate it. I've been trying to lose some of it and that will never happen if all these goodies are around here. I'll openly admit I have no self control when it comes to sweets. So it's all got to go. Except maybe those peanut butter Snickers squared. Man, those things rock.

I want to take a moment to say THANK YOU to my friends who are organizing this upcoming benefit for Colby and me. My friend Pam said hey, you haven't been able to work, we're going to have a benefit to help. Then she called 5 or 6 of my other girlie friends, and viola, a benefit is now in the making. THANK YOU, THANK YOU to those who are organizing the benefit. THANK YOU to all who are helping to spread the word. THANK YOU to all who are donating or collecting raffle and auction items and THANK YOU to all who plan to attend. Should be a fun time with lots of activities throughout the day. I've said it before, don't know where I'd be without so many caring, giving, loyal friends and family. Again, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH everyone.

I just realized it's almost midnight. I've been blogging and babbling on for quite some time now. Need to get to bed. Thanks for "listening." There are several SMA kiddos in the hospital right now. Tis the season for respiratory complications. Some of them are good friends of ours. If you're the praying sort, please give a shout out to the Big Guy for these sweet kids. I'm hoping they all get well and get out of the hospital soon. It's a sucky place to be, especially this time of year with the upcoming holidays.