Faith's Mom's Blog

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 ...

All of us North Dakotans know that summer goes by way too fast. While winter can last six long months, summer comes and goes before we know it. Normally, I don't mind when summer is over because I look forward to Fall and all the busyness that the new season brings. Not to mention the cooler weather, the changing leaves, and celebrating Faith's birthday. But this year is different - I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to summer. Maybe I'm not quite ready because it has been unseasonably cool with temps in the 70s and low 80s - to me those are perfect temperatures! Or maybe I'm just not quite mentally prepared for Faith to go back to school where she'll be a 4th grader. Or it just might simply be this summer has a great one for our family and I'm sad to see it end.    Faith and I enjoyed hanging out on the patio at our apartment complex this summer Faith, on the other hand is all gung-ho to start school again. In fact, ever since it ended last year ...

Upon reflecting about the month of July, I have come to the conclusion that Faith has never had more appointments in one month than she did last month. She had over a dozen chiropractic appointments, eight ABM lessons, two visits from the Easter Seals coordinator, one occupational therapy consult, one optometrist appointment (and a partridge in a pear tree!). The Easter Seals visits were merely a formality as Faith has a new case worker and we needed to update some paperwork. Her disability case manager came along on one of the visits. Her optometrist appointment was her annual routine eye exam, and we are glad to report that Faith's eyes continue to remain the same and she still isn't needing glasses. We are thrilled about this as Faith had glasses at one time and we also had to do patching on her eyes, but her vision and her eye muscles continue to function normally! (Praise the Lord!) Faith getting a chance to relax! In June, Rob took Faith to see a chiropractor for ...

I loved the shocked look on my friend's face on the 4th of July when upon asking, "So did just your dad come down for the 4th?" And I told her, "My parents live in Bismarck now." In March of this year, my dad officially retired from the oilfield after 35 years, most of those years spent driving an 18-wheeler. Shortly after his retirement, they officially became residents of Bismarck. In fact, their home is just down the road from my younger brother's place. They still have their land and their home in Watford City though so whenever my dad starts missing home, he can always go back to visit! They were blessed to have met some great people to rent their home out to who moved here from California to work in the Bakken. Welcome to my parent's new place! (I made that sign in high school!) My youngest sister, dad and me on Father's Day. Besides my parents moving here, my youngest sister also moved here from New Town. So now with the exception ...

Every year I am disappointed because neither Faith nor Rob wants to go to the 4th of July Parade in Mandan with me, so I end up not going at all. This year was going to be different though. This year I had a parade date - my dad! Also, I was going to be meeting up with my friend Kristi and her family who sit in the same spot every year. I was so excited to go to the parade! The night before the big event, Rob and I asked Faith if she wanted to go, too. She has only gone to the parade twice and didn't seem to really enjoy it either time. So, I was totally expecting her to not want to go again this year. But then she said she did want to go and started asking all sorts of questions about what we were going to see at the parade. Even though she seemed excited, I didn't get my hopes up too high. Sometimes she acts excited about something, but when it comes down to actually going through with it, she changes her mind. Whether she went or not, I was still happy to be going with...