So Tired of Snow!

Stacy and I have talked about moving to Tennessee after we retire for many years…before James was born. After the winter we’ve had, I’m starting to wish we could move there sooner. We’ve gotten so much snow over the past few weeks that we’re running out of places to put it.

I’ve been trying to shovel some areas in the back yard for Maggie to do her business, but at times I just couldn’t keep up. She got spayed in early February and had to wear the “cone of shame” so she wouldn’t lick her wound. How is a dog supposed to sniff for the perfect spot to go potty while wearing a cone when there’s two feet of snow on the ground? We jokingly refer to this picture as the snow cone of shame. Poor girl!

But seriously, I wish we could move down south away from all of this snow, but I know we can’t. My family is here; Stacy’s family is here; and probably most importantly all of James’ doctors, therapists, teachers, and classmates are here. Maybe after James graduates from high school we would consider it.

School

James graduating from high school isn’t really that far off, so moving south may be coming sooner than we think. On Monday we had his transition meeting to junior high. Our little baby James isn’t so much of a baby anymore, is he? He’ll have two years of junior high, and then off to high school for four years. Only six more years until he graduates from high school. Holy crap!

I don’t know who started it—probably Stacy—but there was a lot of crying during the meeting. Stacy was crying because her little boy is growing up and moving on. And I think she’ll miss his teacher and the therapists that have done such a good job with him over the past couple of years. His teacher and the therapists broke down a bit too because they’re all going to miss him. I may have shed a tear or two myself, but only because everyone else was doing it. I didn’t want to be the oddball.

Valentine’s Day

On a happier note, James got a nice Valentine’s Day card in the mail from the son of one of Stacy’s friends:

Although Valentine’s Day was on a Sunday this year, it didn’t keep James from wearing his Valentine’s shirt to school:

Covid Vaccine

Stacy got her first Covid shot about three weeks ago, and now it’s my turn. Tomorrow I will be getting my first dose. Stacy didn’t have too much of a reaction to hers, except for a sore arm and a little bit of a headache, so I am not too worried about it.

Since there are vaccines available from two different pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer and Moderna), I thought it might be smart for Stacy and I to get different vaccines. Because these are new vaccines, we have no idea if there will be any long-term effects. I would much rather have one of us suffer some debilitating illness than both of us. Someone has to take care of James.

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re both going to get the same vaccine. We weren’t given a choice of Pfizer or Moderna. It was just grabbing a time slot and you get whatever vaccine that particular pharmacy has. Oh well. At least I am getting a shot. That will bring me one step closer to going back to working normal hours. Working from 4:00 am to noon sucks!

It sounds like they are going to start testing vaccines on older kids so hopefully James will be able to get vaccinated sometime this year, too.

One thing that makes me a bit nervous is that this seemed to have happened awfully fast. I mean, we first heard about Covid in February or March of last year, and here we are a year later, and multiple companies have developed vaccines for it? These vaccines were developed, tested, mass produced, and distributed around the country in a year. How much testing could they have done in such a short period of time? What long-term effects do we have to worry about? How effective is it? So many questions that we just don’t know.

Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month

Remember that March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month. If you follow James on Facebook, you should start seeing Stacy’s daily cerebral palsy facts throughout the month of March. In the past I have taken those daily facts and made two blog posts, one around the middle of the month with the facts from days 1 through 15, and a second post at the end of the month for the remaining daily facts. I will plan on doing that again. Looking at the calendar, the 15th falls on a Monday so I may post days 1 through 15 on that Sunday, the 14th. March 31st is a Wednesday so I am not sure when I will post that one. Maybe on Sunday, the 28th? I wonder if there is a way that I can write a post ahead of time and schedule it to go live on a specific date and time. I’ll have to look into that.