Glass Blowing

Randy had speech therapy this morning. He had asked me to get him up before I left this morning. It was a little difficult. Since he stopped taking the Amitriptyline his sleeping habits haven't been the greatest, so he was awake rather late last night. I did finally get him up. He very sweetly went outside and started my car for me. He was so cold, though, from going outside that he went back to bed to get warm and fell back to sleep. He ended up being a little late to his speech therapy.

In his speech therapy, Vanessa gave Randy a couple of sheets. One contained a bunch of numbers and the other a bunch of letters. The one with the numbers, Randy had to go through and cross out all of the 3's. He said he found that one rather easy to do. The letters one, though, he had to cross out j's and s's. He said that one was a bit more challenging.

Vanessa also gave him a packet of stuff to do. It contains 10 weeks worth of weekly functional memory tasks. It also had 50 daily assignments as well that each contain 5 things that need to be accomplished each day.

Vanessa then had him start 3 of the activites to approximate multitasking. The idea was to attain accuracy and efficiency.

Later in the afternoon, Randy's mom took Randy and Cass to a glass blowing studio in Renton. We had started the tradition a few years ago to go there every Christmas and make a couple of Christmas Ornaments. I didn't get to go this year because I had work, but it really is a lot of fun to do. You pick out the colors you want and then you get to blow into the thing to puff out the glass to make the ornament. We get to pick up the ornaments that were made today on Christmas Eve.

When I got home this evening, I thought I was coming home to an empty house because there was no car here and the lights were out. When I walked into our bedroom though, Randy was lying on the bed, fast asleep. Apparently it wasn't a planned nap, though, because he had his PDA and the keyboard to it lying on him. As I walked in the door, the noise of the dogs greeting me woke him up. I walked out into the kitchen area and he followed me. A little bit after getting up, he looked down at what he was wearing and said in a very confused tone "Is it AM or PM?" I told him it was PM and he kind of laughed and said he thought it was funny that he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday and thought it was odd that I would be up and ready that early in the morning. It actually took him a little bit to get oriented.

Later in the evening, he and his dad were sitting in the living room and his mom and I were sitting at the table. His mom yelled something into the living room to his dad about having him make his famous chilli. Randy then started in on telling his dad about his speech assignment. A couple words into it, though, he realized he had said something without responding to what his mom said (something I have been talking to him about because he does it quite often ~ ignoring the conversation around him and then starting off on his own subject), so he quickly added "Oh, yeah Chilli, sounds good" and then went right back to telling his dad about the assignment. I just had to start laughing. At least he noticed what he had done!

I also wanted to post on here that Randy has been walking around a lot without his cane. He has been only taking it when he knows he is going to go places where there are a lot of people. His balance has greatly improved!

Randy's dad came over the pass tonight and brought with him a huge basket from Harrah Community Christian School and the Yakima County Fire Distric #5, station #7 & #8. What they sent us is absolutely amazing! We got a bunch of different teas (which Randy and I drink every night) and a bunch of hot chocolates. There was also homemade fudge, cookies, these really cute candy covered spoons, and caramel popcorn. There was also a very nice gift certificate to Home Depot, which Randy quickly grabbed and pocketed. We are so very thankful!

I also want to thank my coworkers. The other 4 supervisors that I work with went in together and got Cass a gift certificate to Toy's R Us, which she is beyond excited about! They also gave Randy and I a gift certificate to Maggiano's in Bellevue (Italian food if my favorite and I have been telling Randy about this place for awhile, so I am very excited to get to take him there).

People have been so amazing to us throughout this year. We feel very blessed to have had all of the support of so many people right from the beginning through until now.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and stress-free weekend before Christmas!