Myles Receiving the Courage Award

We are so very proud of our boy.

There have been a few medical things Myles has been going through that I have not been ready yet to mention here, on the blog.

We are a pretty open book, but it has taken me a few weeks to get my head around things, and adjust my mind to a "new normal", and frankly, to be emotionally ok enough to talk about it.

A few weeks back Myles started having verbal and non-verbal tics.  He went to school totally fine, and walked out of the class at the end of the day uncontrollably twitching. His face kept making a grimacing look, and his eyes were blinking really, really hard, and his nose doing a weird twitch....sometimes all 3 together, sometimes a variety of the 3 things.  About a week later, his body started to twitch, like a really bad case of hard, fast hiccups....but w/o the hiccup. All of these things happen in manner that looks very odd, like when it happens you know it's not a normal movement and it's happening because something is off or wrong. There are also episodes of uncontrollable throat clearing, and sniffing.  The following days were a series of Dr appointments, including an hour, one on one, with a neurologist. 

The good news is that for an 8 year old boy with ADHD, this is very common.  They go together.  The not great news is that there is no cure.  It could last a lifetime, or disappear over night, or last until around age 12 and die out.

Obviously, as a mom....it's hard to watch happen.  We are supposed to ignore it....but it's hard to make him sit and do writing homework while his eyes keep slamming shut.  It's hard to send him to school and know that it's very likely he'll start to get made fun of at some point.  It's hard to sit him down and explain that to his classmates, it may look funny. Explaining that most likely kids will ask him about it, and coming up with a plan for what he can say, or how he can explain it.

But you do it.  That's what I'm realizing through all this....you just do it, move through it, one day at a time you figure out how to deal with things.

Mostly, though, I watch him, and I gain strength everyday from his courage, his bravery, and his endurance.

His teacher told me last week he would be getting this award today. She said for a few reasons, but mainly because he has no fear when it comes to standing up for his beliefs, and that he's very matter of fact when it comes to explaining his "issues". Issues being the things other kids notice and ask him about, whether that's the tics, his chewing on rubber pencil toppers so he doesn't eat his shirts, Velcro under the edge of his desk to keep his hands busy and not pulling out his hair....he just explains it, and moves on.

So, today was a big day.  We are so proud of him.  His courage gives his parents more strength than he knows at this point.

Hikes, Biscuits, and Bikes

Getting you caught up a bit -

 King of his castle, mighty squirrel hunter. This is his hunting "blind", or perch if you don't watch Duck Dynasty. He has actually jumped straight out the window knocking the screen off from this spot.

 After school snack that makes my house smell so good. That's raspberry jam mashed w/butter.

 Saturday evening hikes/rides out of Mitchel Canyon are back in the regular rotation since the weather has been so great.

 She's most likely saying, "What???"

 

 Castle Rock's creek is getting low again...but still flowing.

 My kitchen window, decorated with flowers from Myles patch of mustard in the garden. Other than weeding around these flowers (which are really weeds), I don't mess with his patch. He picked these for me, Sophie helped him arrange them.

Myles reads a lot of Calvin and Hobbes. Here's a pic to refresh your Calvin and Hobbes memories-

This is how he was sleeping when I peeked in on him. (fyi, he actually has a Cars comforter, but snagged that one out of the linen closet.) Oh, and yes, that is the belly of a trout above the polka dot pillow.

Also, I do realize the quality of these pics is poor, but I don't have time today to edit them.

Mountains, Water towers, and Green Grass

Above, I don't know how, after all these years, I've never spotted the tip top of the water tower from this perspective. Maybe it's because when I run through the parking lot and out the other end I'm usually watching for cars and potholes and today I looked up and to the right.....just at the right time. Stopped me in my tracks. So Pretty.  Who put the up-lighting right in front of the tower like that?? So pretty.

Brian's in this shot somewhere.

These were all from an early run on Sunday, out of Mitchell Canyon.

Beast, Thank You!

It's a special thing to have that friend who knows exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

I hadn't seen The Beast in months. A lot of months. We are both busy, stay at home moms. (yes, stay at home moms are busy...with real life stuff, not getting our nails done, fyi). We both have 3 kids, running in different directions, and other "life" stuff. We do keep in touch, but hadn't seen each other in a long time.  This morning's hike came right when I needed it. Thank you!!

My Boy

 I heard him outside singing. 

After a few minutes, I snuck into my bedroom where I could see him, but not disturb him.

Eagle Peak - #3 - Family

 Em doesn't know how to happily hike if she's not in the lead, adds to lots of moments like the one above.

 I love the above picture of Sophie. This hike isn't dangerous, but there are sections you wouldn't want to step off the side...or trip. Behind Sophie is one of the more dicey bits, you can just make out the trail coming down the hill back there, it's nearly straight down, there's sort of stairs built into the mud, but it's steep down, and while you can't tell this, it drops of on the downhill side of the mountain pretty nicely.

 And that, my friends, is a way too full parking lot. There were tons of people on the last half of this hike.

Can't blame people for wanting to see scenes like this, though.