Today Maria is 3 years old! The day started out ok, she woke up smiling, as usual. Had a good night’s sleep in her own room, gave me a hug, held her own bottle, ate grits and blueberries for breakfast–so much better than last year!
The kitchen is all torn up and the house is in disarray (remodeling the kitchen), we had to stick around until the new range was delivered, so it was pretty warm by the time we got going. We went to the Great Indoors to buy a kitchen faucet. I, of course, forgot where the store was so we drove around for quite some time until I found it. We went to First Watch for lunch. Mine was good, but Maria didn’t eat much. A very friendly lady, who was about 20 feet away, kept telling me how cute Maria is. At one point she asked me if Maria is ok. Hmmm, is she ok. What the hell does that mean? I’m not one to miss an opportunity to talk, but I wasn’t about to shout “hydrocephalus, cortical visual impairment, auditory neuropathy, resulting in severe global delays” to a perfect stranger in a restaurant. So I replied, well she has lots of issues, but yea, she’s very ok. She’s perfect!
Off to The Great Indoors – fantastic store!! I got a lovely faucet and drain hardware thingies–we’re going to have a dark granite sink, dark gray faucet, with black drain hardware thingies–sure hope I don’t regret it. He told me they won’t show the dirt. We’ll see… By that time, Maria seemed to be a little stressed. But, no, I still had to go to Petsmart to get birdfood. Can’t let the birds starve, now, can I? By this time, Maria was doing her usual stress reactions: heavy sighs, stiff moving legs, tight mouth with her tongue sticking out a bit, eyes rolled up; but just to make things interesting, it also appeared that her arms were shaking a bit. I took her to Sue’s house because we’d talked about swimming, and I wasn’t sure that’d be a good idea. Sue looked at her and thought she was having a seizure. Great!
We went home, Maria had a 30-min nap, and seemed a lot better. She ate and we went back to Sue’s for some swimming. Maria was stiff for quite a while, but she eventually relaxed, smiled, and enjoyed the pool. I was going to take her to get a cupcake, but it was almost 8pm, so we just went home and she fell asleep before I gave her her milk. 3rd birthday and no party, instead of cake and ice cream, she had spinach and parsnips and pears and blueberries with grits (hmmm, similar stuff as what I fed her last year). BUT, we’re going to celebrate her and her cousin, Amelia’s, birthdays (even though Amelia won’t be there), along with a late Father’s Day and early Ida’s birthday, in New Mexico. Our cousin (technically our cousin’s husband) died suddenly, so we’ll probably have a Memorial Service to attend also. It’ll be a busy 3 days!!
It’s the day after Maria’s birthday; she woke up boiling hot, 102.5 temp (after stripping her down). Her lower legs were red, like a heat rash, after taking off her ankle-foot orthotics (UFOs as her dad calls them). All she had on was light jammies and a sheet, so I may have to keep the house cooler at night to compensate for the hot bulky UFOs. I gave her Tylenol and her fever came down a bit; she’s sleeping now. I tried to give her cold milk. hahaha. Not even a sip. Then I warmed it up to about room temp. Again, ha. We’re going to go stay at a nice hotel (rates come way down in summer because really who would come here to vacation in the summer…) much of next week because of the kitchen, hopefully she’ll enjoy the swimming. She’s not real happy with the chaos of the kitchen project.