My Cute Little Monkeys: Floats and AFOs

We went to see the Days of 47 float preview and the floats were VERY cool! Pretty amazing that people spend so much time and effort creating them. Very neat stuff, and fun to get that up close to the movement, sounds and music!

I was planning to meet Traci there and my mistake was to walk through the first doors of the event center. It was hot outside and I just wanted to wait right in the doors where is was cool. I wasn't in the exhibition area yet but you could see the sparkly floats through the doors and Duncan went running "That way!" It was cute, he knew he wanted to go see more of whatever was in that room!

So we did.

But first! We stood in line for the face painting and called Traci to have her hurry to come in line with us since we were nearing the front. She came bursting through the doors! I don't imagine people behind us appreciated the butt in line but I figured if I stepped out with Dylan and Ian and replace those two with one little Abbi it was fair.

Then we did balloons, really in the time I waited for the face painting the number of people there quadrupled. We got there in the beginning so we went to do the things you had to stand in line for first. Dylan and I stood in the balloon line that was moving the fastest while Traci, Duncan, Abbi, and Greg stood in the guy clown's line which was taking forever. The guy would use like 5 or 6 balloons to make some beautiful balloony creation. Perfect for Greg right? The cooler more detailed balloons? Yea, no. They all three got these lame swords that the lady with the fast line could have easily made. Sheeeeeesh! FYI though, Dylan no likey the balloons. Will definitely pass next time, she couldn't care less and doesn't even want to touch them!

Duncan's been watching the same shows over and over. I knew it was coming... but have you seen the Geo Trax shows? They are HORRIBLE. And it's all he wants to watch, all the time. Terrible, just terrible.

Oh and what I wanted to remember him saying is "I waked up!" He comes in every morning at like 6:30, goes to Matthew's side of the bed and says "daddy! I uck up!" So cute. Cuter if it wasn't at the crack of dawn, but you get me.

Dylan also got fitted for her AFOs this week which was a very interesting process! The doctor (is he a doctor? I have no idea!!! Maybe not, but we will go with yes...) said that she has a lot of movement in her ankles so they can easily get them where he needs them to be which is nice. I guess sometimes in neuro kids they stiffen in the wrong position? The whole thing was interesting. She kind of rolls her ankles inward, if you think of how you roll your ankle the "ouch" way, like ankle out foot in, it's the opposite. Ankle in foot out. Because of her neuro business that just feels more normal to her. The AFOs will roll her ankle into place and turn her feet over and flat to be in the correct position for walking. As usual, he was fascinated by her 'walking' on her knees (most doctors are) and he thinks that if we can stabilize her lower leg she might be more inclined to take steps.

He took fiber casts of her lower legs and feet, they will fill that with plaster and then create the braces from there. They do it all in house, he said he wants his hands on it, too much of a control freak to send away for them. It's good, he showed us a sample of one and then talked to us about what changes he would make to Dylan's to get it to do what he wanted it to do. When he cut off the cast her foot was really red and he said that was an indication of how much she was moving and fighting the cast when he was trying to mold it. She was definitely fighting it! She's going to hate these!

They only had two patterns to choose from today but he said the good news is that she will have so many that we will be able to go through plenty of patterns! Funny. He only expects them to last about 6 months before we go back in again. Someone today mentioned they have seen them in pink camo! PINK CAMO!! Seriously?

Here's some pictures from my cel phone of the AFO appointment. I KNEW I should have taken a camera. I will next time!

Sideways picture, waiting for the doctor.

Checkin' the doctor out.

These blue marks will transfer to the inside of the cast - then onto the plaster to let them know where certain 'land marks' are.

Taking off the cast

Cracking it open - There's that blue hose out of the top. I asked what it was for and he said "For the parents' blood pressure when I take the cast off." Which was funny. Course he cut the case and not once through the stocking on the inside which he then had to go cut with scissors.

Abbi's butterfly and Duncan's snake. I asked Duncan if he wanted a snake on his face and he totally freaked out. He was like "Nooooo!" Like 'Why would I EVER want a snake on my face?!'

For Matthew's family - sorry it's not centered. I had a hard time getting him to stand next to it and not turn around and pic at all the glitter! He's a picker, what can I say?