I’m tired so I hope I don’t ramble too much, and this post is somewhat coherent. When covid first hit back in March, I asked my boss if I could work remotely because I didn’t want to risk catching it and bringing it home to James. He allowed it. Then over the summer he wanted me to come back to work to get stuff ready for fall semester and I could work any hours that I was comfortable with. He agreed to let me work from midnight to 8:30 am so I could get stuff done and not have to worry about coming into contact with too many people. Once school started back up, I adjusted my schedule again and am currently working from 4:00 am to 12:30 pm. So, if this post is hard to follow it’s because I’m tired, my body has no idea WTF is going on, and I don’t even know what day it is anymore. I’ll do my best to make it at least somewhat readable.

School

I love the fact that Stacy takes yearly first day of school pics of James. It’s cool to look back to see how much he has grown over the years.

James started this school year the same way as the last one ended: fully remote. His one-on-one nurse found out that she was pregnant in January, and since she is due in September, she decided not to go back with James this year. So, we had to wait for the school district to find a new one-on-one nurse before he could go back to school. Stacy and James just met the new nurse this past Tuesday and he will be switching to a hybrid schedule starting tomorrow. He will be going to school on Monday and Tuesday mornings, and then be going remote the rest of the week. We are very thankful that he will finally be able to get back to some of his therapies. We are a bit nervous, though, with him going back to school and being around people. We do not need him contracting covid. We don’t what would happen if he did.

I have to say that I am very thankful—and I think James is lucky—that Stacy used to be an early childhood special education teacher. I think it has made things easier with this whole virtual school thing. I don’t think I could do it. For all of you parents out there that are helping your little ones with remote learning, I take my hat off to you. I know it can’t be easy…unless you were or are currently a teacher.

Here are a few pics from James’ first few weeks of the school year.

Virtual gym class. He had to hit the ball into the basket.

Virtual math class. It’s hard to tell in the pictures, but he had 12 blocks that he had to snap together (with mommy’s help) and had to count from 1 to 12 as he was putting them together.

And of course he had to get some time in his stander:

The Pumpkin Farm

Last weekend we had an outing with Bounce Children’s Foundation to a local pumpkin farm. They have a nice little zoo that we think James enjoys. If you’ve been following James for a while, you know that whenever we go on vacation, we almost always go to a zoo.

Nestle Health Science Interview

Earlier this year—I think it was January or February—Stacy was approached by a friend of a friend who works for Nestle Health Science, which is the company that makes the formula that James has been taking for as long as I can remember. Since James is strictly tube fed and is unable to take anything by mouth, this formula provides 100% of his nutritional needs.

The interview was originally supposed to be an in-person interview, but because of covid, we ended up doing it virtually in August. Here is a condensed 9-minute version of the interview if you are interested in watching it.

Thank you Nestle for letting us share our story and for providing James with the nutrition he needs.

That’s all I got for this month’s post. Part of me thinks I should go back and re-read it to make sure it sounds okay, but I am just too tired. I’m sure Stacy will read it and tell me if I need to change something.