It’s been a busy couple of weeks around here. Not so much for James, though. With the fundraiser coming up in less than two months, that’s been our primary focus. With the abnormally cold weather we had in January, we had to cancel several meetings so now we’re making up for lost time.

I have to admit that we’re a bit overwhelmed with the amount of kindness and support we have received so far. Between our friends and family members that have offered their time to volunteer and solicit donations and the many companies that have signed on to sponsor the event, it really pulls at our heartstrings. There’s even been an article posted about the event:

https://skokie.macaronikid.com/articles/5825e31adafd905530a2d3f4/lets-get-james-rollin

Thanks to all of you that have contributed in some way, we have a good feeling that this is going to be a very successful fundraiser. We will be placing our t-shirt order at the beginning of March, so if you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please sent us a message on James’ Facebook page soon so that we can include your logo on the back of the shirt along with these awesome sponsors.

So what’s new with James? Let’s see. Well, he seems to be doing a bit better, but he still seems like he’s fighting some sort of illness, so the pediatrician started him on another round of antibiotics last weekend. I have been a bit concerned about the number of times that James has been on antibiotics, so I questioned the doc about it. I asked him if we should be worried that James will eventually grow resistant to antibiotics because he is on them so often. The doc said that he purposely rotates antibiotics so James isn’t on any one antibiotic for a long period of time, and therefore will not grow resistant to it.

IEP Meeting

On Monday we had an IEP meeting at school. IEP stands for Individualized Education Program. I’m not sure if this is the same as other states, but in the state of Illinois, special needs students have IEPs. James obvious can’t learn the way normal kids do, and can’t do the things that normal kids can, so the purpose of the IEP meeting is to sit down with his teacher and therapists to discuss how he has been doing in school, where he is doing well, where he could use some improvement, writing goals, and discussing how they can help him reach those goals. Before James came along, Stacy was an elementary special education teacher, so she’s been in lots of IEP meetings, but she still can’t get used to being on the parent/student side of the table.

School

We really love his team at school. His teacher, his nurse, and all of his therapists have really helped him thrive this year. If you follow James on Facebook, I am sure you have probably seen these videos before but want to share them here as well. Here he his playing catch with a classmate with help from his teacher:

And here he is working on a Valentine card for mommy and daddy with help from his nurse:

His therapists have learned that James has a thing for Miranda Lambert and seems to work harder when he hears her singing. Earlier this week Stacy and James were watching CMT and he got a bit excited when one of her videos came on.

Speaking of Miranda Lambert, we got something a little special in the mail a few days ago.

We’re not sure who it was, but somebody must have referred James to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and we received the paperwork to fill out so that they can grant James’ wish. We have to start thinking about what we want James’ wish to be. Because James seems to have a thing for Miranda Lambert, a few people have mentioned that James’ wish should be to meet her. That would be pretty cool! I don’t think Stacy and I would have a problem with that. We’ve got some time to think about this, so we’ll see what else we can come up with.

On that note, I think I am going to head off to bed. Maybe James’ wish will come to me in a dream. Before I sign off, I want to leave you with one last picture. I know that Valentine’s Day was a couple of days ago, but I have to share this collage that Stacy made. Look how much he has changed in the last few years!