We spent the Christmas holiday in my hometown this year, the first time I'd been back for Christmas in 4 years!! It was long overdue. Leah and I drove down last Saturday with my mom, who had flown up on a 1-way ticket to ride with us, and Ty flew down on Monday. Then we drove back to Minnesota on Saturday. It was an action-packed and exhausting week with the family, exactly as I thought it would be. The 5 grandkids spent a lot of time together, and Leah had a blast. On Sunday they decorated gingerbread houses, which was hilarious. All the boys were pouring sprinkles and gobs of frosting on their houses, while Leah was picking up 1 sprinkle at a time. She got a tiny bit of frosting on her finger and whined for me to wipe it off, while the boys were eating frosting and sprinkles by the spoonful! She also helped my mom, sister and I frost Christmas cookies on Monday afternoon. Again, she was so dainty, just barely dipping her little knife into the frosting bowl and gently putting it on her cookie. Such a sweet girl!
One of the nights we went with my brother, sister-in-law and their 2 kids to the Festival of Lights, which is a 3-mile drive in a park that has lots of Christmas lights. My mom, dad, sister, Leah, and I all piled into the minivan, and met them at a parking lot a few blocks away. Then they all came in with us so we could enjoy the lights together (and save on the $10/car fee... like a bunch of teenagers sneaking into a drive-in movie theater). Leah loved looking at all the lights, but mostly she thought it was so fun to sit on mommy's lap in the car! We also drove around town to see a few houses that were very, very decorated with lights. Christmas Eve was celebrated with church service and dinner with my mom's side of the family. Christmas Day was spent with a relaxing morning of opening presents, visiting with my dad's side of the family at my grandma's house, and then having dinner with my brothers, sister and their families. Whew! Insert the same crazy schedule for all of the 5 kids and it's enough to ensure a meltdown will occur (and a few did!!), but that's the fun of the holidays.
The best part was watching Leah play with her cousins. Bailey is not quite 5, Shane just turned 3, Drew is exactly 6 months older, and Colin is almost exactly 7 months younger. They were all so happy to have Leah around, hugging her and sitting down with her. She spent a lot of time in her rolling stander while we were there, which put her right at eye level with all of them. She was right in the action most of the time too, and even got a little bit rowdy with them! Shane even told his daycare teacher that "my cousin Leah is so pretty and uses her wheelchair to dance!" It's just so normal to them that she's in a chair, and didn't matter to them at all. It's important that she has people in her life who will accept her for who she is and include her (or exclude her because she's a girl, just like my brothers did to me) in their fun. My brothers were joking that she'll never get picked on when she's around those boys. The youngest 3 are very big for their age, and will be quite protective of her. It made me laugh when they said they wanted someone to say something about her just to watch her cousins stand up for her. Haha! Yes, watch out. You do not want to mess with the Cunningham boys!
My oldest and bestest friend also came to town at the end of my trip. It's really comforting having a friend who's known my more than half my life (we met almost 20 years ago... eek!!!), and even though we may not see each other or even talk often, we can still talk for hours as if no time has ever passed. It was a great way to finish out the week.
Then we were back in Minnesota and unpacking a carload of toys and suitcases and Leah's equipment. We took her zip-zac because it's her primary means of transportation in the house; we took her rolling stander because I knew she'd enjoy being up at eye-level with her cousins, and I was right because she spent over an hour in it several days; and we took her brand new Hip-Knee-Ankle-Foot Orthotics that we had just picked up (another post about that later) so she could get some practice with it and because it hardly took up any room. We each had a suitcase and backpack, Ty had a workout bag and strapped his bicycle to the back, plus bags of presents, and her new foam chair, and finally a cooler and snacks for the drive. You'd think we were going on a cross-country road trip for a month! Ridiculous, yes but everything was necessary. So different than the 2 of us jumping in the car with a suitcase each and maybe a bottle of water. I think we spent more time packing and loading the car than we did actually traveling!
Leah did absolutely amazing in the car. I could not believe it. Before Leah, I could get there in 6:45 with 1 stop. We stopped 3 times on the way down, one of them for about 20 minutes to sit down and eat lunch, and clocked in at 7:20. Coming home we only stopped once to do a bathroom break and get gas, and made it in under 7. Thanks to this awesome technology called portable DVD player, she kept very occupied. That and having a back-seat companion to keep her company and lots of snacks made for a smooth ride. I don't think I could do that drive with her on my own just yet, as she did get whiny at times and she's not very good at eating in the car yet (I still have to hand her things one at a time because she'll either shove everything into her mouth at once or throw it all on the floor), but maybe by the time she's closer to 3, she'll do better in the backseat by herself. Now that she's no longer free on the airplane, I'll have to eventually make that trip alone.
Thankfully we'll have a pretty slow work week here with New Year's Day falling right in the middle of the week. That's good because January is going to start off with a bang for us. Ty will be traveling a little more in his job that he's been doing recently. Then with Leah getting her new HKAFO's I want to get her back into PT in addition to the swim therapy she'll continue doing. I think she has the will and the mind to be able to walk, and I'd love to see her get there. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high because it will be a long and slow road to get there. She needs some pushing. She's tough and stubborn and surprises us everyday!
I hope everyone out there had a very happy holiday, no matter what you celebrate!
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