Remember that time I broke my leg...

 

This has been my view of the world for the last 56 days. It's changed from a splint to a boot, but essentially this has been my view.

What happened you ask? 

I tripped on grass. 

Okay, okay, it was uneven grass. 

And if you want to make it sound noble, I was trying to help Joe down a couple of stairs.

I chatted up a lady sample server at Costco who had a daughter with the same kind of injury (broke two bones, displaced ankle) and the same kind of surgery (open reduction internal fixation with a syndesmotic suture thing)---I'm really surprised how many people I meet who have had the same thing happen to them!

Anywho, she was SKYDIVING and landed wrong, so she broke her leg bones and displaced her ankle. That is a MUCH COOLER story. 

So, if anyone asks, I was skydiving and landed wrong. That's how I broke my ankle. True story. 

My boys love whatever mobility device I happen to use: crutches, wheelchair, and lately, a knee scooter:

 

(I have to remind them that I use the wheelchair/knee scooter/crutches like my legs, and they cannot just walk off with them and leave me stranded!) 

But, life goes on. It was a bit blurry [some medication haze, some struggle to keep up] for the first four weeks, but we're moving now. I even lowered my knee scooter over the balcony with bedsheets so that I could take the boys to the park. We're getting a bit of cabin fever here. Jim tries to get the boys out after work, but he has a full plate being both parents and taking a lot of household responsibility. My favorite outing is to the tennis courts because it is super fun to play with tennis balls and the wheelchair.

Anyway, I'm super impressed with Joe. He can now navigate the U rung steps at the park! It makes my heart palpitate, but he does it!

I love this monkey child of mine: 

I tried getting a picture of Rae jumping off the side of the curvy slide, and had a photobomber, who usually doesn't like me taking his picture. So this picture makes me giggle.

We kept trying to get all the boys on the bridge and looking at the camera. Ha! 

 

A lot of our activities are indoors. 

 

And sometimes we have friends come play with us. 

 

The hardest part of the last almost two months has definitely been dealing with Joe's school. Hands down. Doctor's appointments, stir crazy children, maintenance emergencies, feeling like I'm not contributing are not even nearly as awful as dealing with Joe's school. 

Joe has a speech disability, and it shocked us last year when we started teaching Joe sign language that he soaked it up like a sponge. Like a 350+ (I've stopped keeping track) sign sponge.

Now I am not a native signer, but I know a lot of vocabulary, and putting it together is a skill I am learning. Signing, using ASL, is a really different way of looking at the world. It's beautiful, it's fun, but the most important thing is that it helps us communicate with Joe and gives Joe a community of people that he can communicate with.

We've been advocating for Joe to go to the Deaf school so he can learn ASL. And the school turned it down. Right now, it has been about an 8 month process. We other options to exhaust: Title II, mediation, due process, but the thought of so many more meetings is overwhelming. I mean, just his regular, annual IEP meeting was a total of 7 hours long. 

I want him to have access to education, and I feel strongly that ASL would help Joe develop language skills that he desperately needs. I also feel that ASL has helped Joe tremendously up to now. Before we started signing with Joe, we had no real way of communicating with him. He could hear, but he didn't understand. 

So, anyway, the fight goes on because we are invested in Joe.

With the stress of figuring out how to get Joe what he needs, I have Jonah Days. Do you have Jonah days? One morning, I was having a Jonah morning. Grumpy at everyone and everything. So, Rae wrote me this note. It says, "I love you, Mom, no matter what." He sounded it out and put it together for me. It was just what I needed.

I'm so glad that he loves me no matter what. 

 I love this boy. He is spunky (he really doesn't like all the indoor time we've been confined to), he's the life of the party. Caleb is all action, and doesn't care if he makes a mistake, he just keeps on going. He also makes the best faces, and I caught a few of them:

 We bought squish packs because they were on sale, and Joe tried them! And now I dream in squish packs... We still spoon feed Joe because poor motor control and he can't eat solid foods. This is the first time he could independently eat something! It was just a few ounces of applesauce, but victory!

Now I want to put all of his food in squish packs, and Jim tells me I need to rein in my enthusiasm. But seriously! If Joe could independently eat his food in a squish pack and his water through a straw, boom! Life would be made.

 I took this picture of Rae to remind myself that I will laugh about this in the future sometime. You can see flour in his hair, a tape mustache and you can glimpse the chaos that is in my house. The problem with a broken leg is that it is hard to get around. The problem with children and a broken leg is that they make obstacle courses you never needed. Some days all I manage is a clear path to the bathroom. (Just between us, diarrhea and a broken leg do not go together. For reals.)

So, someday I will laugh about that time I broke my driving leg with three little kids, but for now I feel like this...

 

with a smattering of this:  

 (He's napping MIDDAY! Voluntarily! ...Because he's sick.) 

But, I am grateful that the weather is slightly cooler. That I can shower, that I do have friends who help. I am grateful for a very supportive husband. I'm grateful for good medication and steady healing. I'm grateful that someday I will understand why I needed this particular experience! 

Because right now... gah!