Getting Ready to Party, School Nurse, Date Night, and Renewing our Vows

  • Post category:Birthdays / School
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Birthday Party Next Weekend

One week from today is James’ 5th birthday party. We’ve always aimed to make his birthday parties somewhat of a special event. With all of his medical issues, we just don’t know how many birthdays he is going to have. Stacy has become friends with several moms through various online special needs groups, and unfortunately, some of them have lost their children these past few years. This is why we make a point of making each birthday special, and this year’s is looking like it’s going to be one hell of an event.

Because James is the Epilepsy Warriors Foundation’s Face of Epilepsy for 2014, Party with the Warriors is putting the party together for him this year, has already sent over some decorations, and will be providing our guests with sweets. Icing Smiles, Inc. will be providing the cake. And we will even have a face painter. It should be an awesome party. We’re doing a superhero theme, because James is our superhero.

But before we celebrate this dude’s birthday, he needed a haircut. It was starting to get a little crazy. The picture on the left was before the haircut and the two pictures on the right are after. He looks so much better, doesn’t he?

New haircut: Before on the left and after on the right

 

School Nurse

Earlier this week we got a bit of bad news. We already knew that James would be going to a new school, with a new teacher, and probably have new classmates when he goes to kindergarten in the fall. But we thought that James would be okay because he would still be with his one-on-one nurse so at least he would be with one person he knew. Well, the school district might have taken that away from him, too. You see, the one-on-one nurse is not employed by the district; she works for a nursing agency that the district has a contract with. Stacy got a call from the district on Tuesday to inform her that the district will be going with a new agency, which now means that he will be at a new school, with a new teacher, new classmates, AND a new nurse. Crap!

 

Date Night

Stacy and I are fortunate that we have someone that can come over and watch James for a few hours so that we can have date nights. Most of them are uneventful so I don’t normally post about them. Last weekend we had one of our date nights, and it didn’t end too well. We went out for a nice dinner and decided to stop on the way home and take a walk around a small lake that’s a few blocks from our house. We got back to the car only to find that it wouldn’t start. The battery was dead. I called AAA and the guy came out in less than an hour and after trying to sell me a battery that I knew was overpriced, he was able to jump start it so that we could drive home.

I found out later (thanks to the power of Google) that it might not have been a problem with the battery. There is a little switch inside the car doors that is supposed to flip when the door is closed and then turn off the interior lights. Every so often that switch gets stuck and doesn’t flip when the door is closed, and the interior lights stay on. I think that’s what happened. The interior lights stayed on while we were out for our walk and drained the battery. Fortunately, it’s a pretty easy fix…just spray it with a little bit of lithium grease. I think I will be double checking that the interior lights turn off every time I leave the car from now on, though.

 

Renewing Our Vows

Stacy and I have been though a lot together. Our lives are pretty stressful, as I am sure you can imagine. Some people may wonder how we manage to hold it together. I don’t really have an answer for that. We just do. Don’t get me wrong. It is hard. There have been countless times that Stacy has broken down. There have been times that I have broken down, too. But we have always been there for each other. When we got married, we took vows that we would always be there for each other “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…” That last part is key. In sickness and in health. This generally refers to the couple, but in our case, I think it refers to James as well. I’m not going to leave her just because our kid has health issues. If anything, I think his health issues have made us stronger and made us realize how much we really care for each other.

A local jeweler is trying to set a record for the most couples renewing their wedding vows at the same time.

https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140807/news/140808945/

Stacy and I have decided to do it. James will be there as my best man. I’ve never done this before. Do you have a best man and maid of honor when you renew your vows? I don’t even know what to wear. Do I need to rent a tux?