Skip to main content

Faith's First Bus Ride Ever!

For kids at school in Bismarck, today marked the official end of Christmas vacation. But for Faith, it wasn't just any ordinary back-to-school day - she started the New Year off by taking the bus to school! It was her first bus ride EVER!

I could tell she was a little nervous this morning about her big adventure. We waited downstairs in our lobby for about five minutes then it was there - the big orange school bus. I rolled her outside and turned her backwards so they could get her situated onto the lift. When the lift began going up, Faith began to relax and even smiled.


Faith getting loaded onto the bus

Once she was in the bus, they locked her chair in place and I hurried down to the school to meet her. As I hoofed it down over the snow-covered sidewalks, I was thankful that today was the day Faith started taking the bus - it would have been difficult to get Faith over the sidewalks with all that unshoveled snow.

I barely made it to the school before they began to unload her. As they got her onto the lift, she was all smiles! Then, when the bus driver wheeled her over to me Faith exclaimed, "I rode the school bus! Mommy, I did it!" It was music to my ears to hear her so excited!

Here she comes off the bus!




YAY! We did it! I know that putting Faith on the bus at least through the rest of the winter was the right decision and it makes it even better that it is something fun for her!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Used to Our New School Schedule

Today marks Faith's 8th day of school and we are all adjusting to a new schedule. Faith has made huge strides this past summer in sleeping better and having more energy so we decided to have her go to school from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. 5 days a week. This is a change as last year she did not go Tuesday and Thursday afternoons due to how tired and worn out she would get. Faith's first day of 4th grade School starts at 8:30 a.m. but we asked if it would be okay for us to get her there at 9:00 instead. This allows us to more time to get her first feeding into her before she even gets to school. Her aides noticed last year that when we brought her to school without any food in her tummy, she was pretty sluggish and tired upon arrival. Sometimes, after getting her to school she wouldn't start getting her feeding until after 9:00 a.m. which meant, that because she gets a feeding every 3 hours, her last feeding of the day didn't end until 10:00 p.m. Another advantage to

A Real Pain in the Arm

Last Wednesday I had my yearly doctor exam and when she said I should get my tetanus shot updated, I didn't think twice about it. The nurse said my arm would be sore for a couple of days, gave me a handout and stuck the needle in my arm. The next day my arm was sore and although I found it a little harder to pick up and carry Faith, I was glad the pain wasn't going to last long. Boy was I wrong! But not only was my arm sore, my whole body was. I felt achy and extremely tired. According to a medical site on the Internet, these were mild side effects of the Tetanus shot. If these were only mild side effects, I would really hate to have them at a moderate or severe level. On Friday, two days after getting the shot I felt so tired that I took a four hour nap after getting Faith off to school. Then on Saturday I took a three hour nap up until 7 o'clock but still felt tired and was able to go back to sleep around 10. On Sunday, finally the fatigue started wearing off and I didn

Goodbye to Our Special Tomato

Today we said goodbye to our Special Tomato adaptive car seat. And special it was. It helped Faith stay safe and secure in our Hyundai driving her back and forth to therapy appointments, shopping excursions and many other activities. It also helped us through our time of not being able to afford an accessible van. Like all adaptive equipment , the special car seat was expensive and although it is the law that a child is secured in a car seat while traveling in a vehicle, neither health insurance nor Medicaid would pay for it. Thankfully, we were able to receive funds from the fundraiser, the Great American Bike Race ( GABR ) which helps families pay for services and equipment that insurance doesn't cover for kids with cerebral palsy and related disabilities.  After doing research on the Internet and talking to Faith's physical and occupational therapists, we decided to go for the Special Tomato adaptive car seat. You would think something with that name would be r