How is Nick doing?

I have had a bunch of people asking about how Nick is doing.

I have been trying to get him to take it easy while he is recovering. First using his wheelchair outside and walker inside. Last week we pulled out his crutches again. Nick said he didn't want them and they were too hard. So we took his walker away and crutches was his only option.

He did fight it at first. But once he tried it, and started walking with is crutches he would do more and more.

Over the weekend he was at the cottage with Kyle (I stayed at home and worked). Kyle said he spent the whole time with his crutches. Including going up and down the hill to the water, and walking through Walmart with only his crutches!

This is something he didn't even do before!

Nick also wanted to go up and down the stairs with his crutches. This has been a goal we have worked on in physio. But the difference is that he wanted to do this himself.

After our orthodics adjustment yesterday, Nick's centre of balance shifted a bit (as we are trying to get him straighter). But it hasn't stopped him at all with his crutches.

Yesterday I tried to see how long he could stand for unassisted. We got to about 10 seconds. So I decided to see if he could take those steps again. He took one step and stop! (But of course I don't have any picture of video)

 I am so happy with Nick's recovery! He is good with his crutches, is moving around the house like normal. He isn't having any pain (unless I forget and lift him wrong). He is still staying completely dry all day. He says his feet are feeling better and he can definitely feel when we touch his feet, and it is hit or miss if we do it very lightly.

His back still has a scab on the 'scrape' (as he calls it). And a suture sticking out of the top, so 2 more weeks until he can be swimming. And we have his follow up appointments for MRI and Dr Rutka at the end of the summer.

So Nick is doing really well.

Katheryn is doing well too. She has been good listening and following direction to not be too rough with Nick. And she has been enjoying the summer so far. (We tried getting Nick to run through the sprinkler as well, but he didn't want to).

Summer Fun

Nick had a follow up orthodics appointment.

Have a mentioned how much I love our orthotist, Eric, and his passion for the job. And his job is support Nick in getting him up and moving to the best of his ability.

 

 

We have appointments every couple of months to make adjustments as needed.

While we wait we are in a giant playroom. The kids love it.

 

 

They find new things to play with every time we are there.

Because they can do all of their adjustments right in-house we are usually there for a couple of hours. But the kids have more fun waiting

 

Afterwards I thought we would put our bowling coupon to good use. The kids have free bowling through the summer thanks to BowlingGivesBack. We got free bowling last year (and I upgraded it to a family account last year and we never went). So this year I wanted to get some bowling fun in!

 

And we all had fun

 

Even if some of us were not very good

Katheryn had this pose every time she shot!

And she really liked getting Nick all set up for his shot as well.

Katheryn has turned into a little bowling shark!

Of course we all used funny names to play. Nick was Cap, Katheryn was Hera (a character from Star Wars Rebels) and I was Ms Marvel.

I think the kids had fun, and even though we can mark it off our bucket list, we hope to come back again!

But Katheryn and my day wasn't over yet.
Katheryn has been begging us for a haircut. She wants to cut it all off. We did get her hair trimmed before her first communion and I told her if she still wanted it shorter after a month, then we will do whatever she wants.

This is the before...

Katheryn knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted it very short, above her shoulders and closer to her chin. I had a hair appointment (which takes 3 hours to get the purple in my hair), and so we scheduled Katheryn in the middle of it.

Overall we had a great day!

Cottage weekend

We started vacation with a trip to the cottage!

On the way up to the cottage Katheryn wrote a whole list of things that she wanted to do over the weekend.

On the top of the list was going in the water!

It was a hot day, so Katheryn pretty much stayed in the water for as long as she could

We had a plan for Nickolas to get him in the water.
Or at least close to the water so he could participate.

I got this boat for him to float in. It was the best that we could do, but still wasn't the same
I got a 2 person one and not the 1 person one because this one came with a pump and paddles, but the paddles were still too big for Nick to move around by himself.

We had the boat tied up so it wouldn't float too far away from everyone. Katheryn would go in it as well to play. And the jump back out.
I put some stuff around him to support him a bit more, but he still got his shirt wet (but his back dressing kept his scar dry)

 

But in the end Nick liked playing on the big boat and pretending to fish

The sun and the water tired everyone out!

Kyle and Katheryn liked playing some Mario Kart. And Nick cheered them on!
(Katheryn won)

We also went into town for some lunch and shopping

We found a comic store and bought a bunch of comics.
Nick also found an item he wanted to bring home

Because it was Canada Day we had a firework show!

Nick's earmuffs worked really well and he really enjoyed them!

Happy Canada Day!

Summer Bucket List 2016

The kids and I decided to come up with a bucket list of all of the things we wanted to do in the summer.
Each of us wrote what we wanted to do for the summer and I combined it into a list

We made up the list because when we talked about what to do in the summer the kids kept saying "I want to, I want to, I want to"
I thought that if we made a list, then we can post it and cross stuff off as we go along.
And we included big places to go to, and smaller things to do.

Looks like we are going to have a great summer!

School's Out!

Another school year is done!

They have grown so much from the first day of school!

Katheryn is going into grade 3 and Nick is going into grade 2 next year!
The kids are going to miss their friends (and Nick came home with 2 phone numbers) but this is their reaction for the coming summer

Nick is excited there is no more homework! (Little does he know I have some math-plans for the summer) and Katheryn is sad she doesn't have school anymore.

Their report cards are good this year.
Katheryn got 10 As and 6 Bs. Not surprising that she needs to work on her writing (but has made improvement) and her spelling. And she needs to be more organized. And her best subject, with solid As is math (she is playing with multiplication and division right now... yes I said playing), as well as art and gym.
Nick got 2 As and 9 Bs. His best subjects are social studies and drama. Reading still remains a challenge, but he has improved so much (I had hoped his grade would be higher), and math is higher than I had thought it would be. Nick needs to be more independent, and I can see in his card that he has become more comfortable in school.

Nick tells me that he will be having the same teacher again next year. This would be good, except it would also mean that in 4 years of school he has had 2 teachers.

For now we are looking to enjoy the summer!