Our Week 12/5-12/11

Justin's crossfit cert arrived!

 This week was a pretty busy week, but after working the whole weekend Justin had Monday and Tuesday pretty much off. Because of this and the pain of having an empty fridge/absolutely no motivation to go to the commissary, I took the opportunity to stock my pantry and fridge. Enjoy the pictures of my pantry.
 
Monday was a day of PT for Devin - the first one in about 2 months. It will probably sound terrible, but I was really happy to have a break from physical therapy. Not only was I saving $10 a week in gas/$9-12 a week in childcare, I was also not having the headache of trying to actually DO exercises on Devin. Please, try to to get a rambunctious almost-two-year old to sit for 16-20 minutes a day for stretching, then endure an hour of pins-and-needles sensation (E-stim) without ripping off the sticky pads, and THEN get him to fall asleep with a night brace on that is clunky, tight, and forces his foot into a flexed position. It sucks. And really, it's not fully do-able 100% of the time. Every time I go to PT I wonder if I've done enough and leave feeling bad if I haven't met the prescribed amount of stretching/E-stim time or if I took the night brace off because I just needed Devin to sleep.

When we got in for the appointment, we weren't able to do much with Devin because I needed to discuss what had happened and what I had noticed since the cast came off. The newest development with Devin is he is now telling me "OW, hurts mom" whenever I try to do E-Stim on him and then "No bwace!" when it is time to put the night brace on. We talked and decided to just continue with the pre-casting therapy plan for now since the cast was only newly off.

 Justin started working on his programming for January on Monday. He and the other trainers at the gym switch off months to pick which workouts to do. Justin will be writing the schedule for January. So far Justin really likes working at the gym and keeps trying to talk me into opening a gym someday.



Justin hard at work

On Wednesday we dropped the Swagger Wagon off for a front-end alignment and in the afternoon we went to a parent-teacher conference for Lukas as the preschool. In the informal meeting they told us that Lukas is a class leader and one of their go-to guys when they need help instructing the other children. He helps a lot, shares well and is very independent (i.e. he washes his hands by himself and puts his coat on by himself). I was a proud mother duck for sure and trying not to smile tooooo big.

Friday was another PT day for Devin. This time we met with the Orthotist (the guy who makes the braces) and physical therapist at the same time. Pretty much the entire appointment was spent watching how Devin walks, runs and squats shoe-less, with shoes, and with the brace in shoes. The surgery did so much for Devin. He was walking and running so well that the PT was at a loss for words! It was decided that as a precautionary measure, Devin will wear the day brace for 3 hours daily to help prevent him from starting to walk on his toes again. During this appointment the orthotist also took the day brace and heated the plastic to mold it to fit Devin's leg a little better since it seemed to be digging into his scar tissue. 

SNACK TIME!

Shining their boots together.

Devin loves to "help" empty the dish washer.

 On Saturday we went to the mall, picked up some Christmas presents, and stopped by Chick-fil-A for lunch. If you haven't gone to one, you should! They have the best customer service of any fast food restaurant. Love it there. After we got home, Justin decided he would hang up the Christmas lights. This WAS AMAZING, because it was the first time ever that he has hung the lights! He had Lukas go upstairs to get me and surprised me with the "Griswold Christmas light" reveal. Dream big, Justin!
Today (Sunday) Justin is working at a drill team fundraiser all day and I'm chilling with the kids. Luke is feeling a little under the weather, so Santa buddies and cookies are filling our day.

Funny stuff/interesting things: Every time I ask Devin a question, he whisper-yells the response to me. Luke used to do this and it makes me chuckle. 3 out of 7 nights each week I have to snuggle Devin to sleep he hates his brace so much. During this time he goes through a process of falling asleep that is just like Justin's. He starts deep breathing and his little legs and arms jerk :) It makes me smile thinking about how much he's like his dad - especially his mischievous nature.