Somehow Very Busy

Tate had a busy week. A good week. His teacher Maggie was here Monday and Wednesday for lessons, and she loaded him up with assignments because she won’t be back until April 1. Tate had physical therapy yesterday and occupational therapy today. His physical therapist told us it won’t be long before he will benefit more from going to a physical therapy facility than from in-home sessions. Tate really enjoys Janet and will be sorry to have his appointments with her come to an end. The occupational therapist Jen agreed Tate was nearly ready to move away from in-home appointments and cautioned us to make sure find a place with “a lot of hand things.” I guess not all therapy businesses are created equal, and we are tasked with finding the right one for him. Jen also mentioned that our insurance company only approved the next six appointments when they had approved them eight at a time up to this point.

This picture was taken during last week’s occupational therapy appointment. It was such a nice day, Jen decided to take it outside for a few minutes. Greg and I don’t sit in on Tate’s physical or occupational therapy appointments. We understand how it might be discouraging to Tate to have extra people watching while he works through his physical therapy appointments and learns to use his hands again. I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this, but when I was younger, one of the worst things I could imagine was having people watch me while I struggled to learn something new. I think there is some of that in Tate. That being said, I think it’s completely okay to lurk in the background silently cheering his progress.

Tate’s occupational therapist said he needed shoes that were flat on the bottom. She also said that many athletic shoes have too much cushion or an elevated heel that will negatively impact his ability to balance when he’s trying to walk. That perfectly described the brand new sneakers in his closet, so we headed to a shoe store Wednesday night. Tate did an awesome job tying his shoes! His fingers were exhausted after trying on a few pairs. His big toes are still stubbornly curled up, so we were glad to find flat shoes that were comfortable for him. Nike for the win.

Some of our favorite people have been sick lately. Tate’s big brother Scott is fighting a nasty cold and missed a few days of school, which is not like him at all. He is also taking antibiotics to treat a double ear infection. At the same time, Greg’s mom has been in town for a week, but she landed at PHX with a cold, and we haven’t seen her even once. It’s very disappointing.

Tate invited his friends Clark and Emma to Subway tonight to use that gift card. This is him zooming away from the handicapped parking space to the restaurant. He made it clear he didn’t need or want help beyond unloading his wheelchair from the car for him.

It has been the kind of week where I don’t know why I’m so far behind in life. There has been a new pile of laundry waiting to be folded on the table every day. I can’t keep up with the dishes. My hair is a busted mess. I have 14 unread text messages and 3 new voicemails, and some of them are a few days old. I haven’t checked Facebook in 10 days, which is weird because I enjoy seeing what everyone is up to and smashing the like button. Watching Tate claim some independence and go off on his own tonight made the many problems we had to work through this week disappear.

Except the laundry. There’s still a lot of laundry.