Some Saturdays are all-around amazing. Some Saturdays are less than good. But most Saturdays are somewhere in between with a mix of good and bad, special and simple. Those are the ones that don’t get highlighted very often. This was one of those Saturdays.
Ari began a new year with Inferno, her special needs cheer team at Arizona Heat. She was so excited to get to be in the middle of the action again. Many a Wednesday afternoon had passed where she sat behind the spectator window, watching her sister’s lessons with Tommy. And although she has the lowest physical ability level of all the girls on the team this year, she will no doubt make up for that in her energy and radiance at the competitions just like she did last year.
Bella trained with her amazing coach, Tommy, while Ari was with her team’s practice. This one works hard, but she loves to be silly too.
She is like, so strong.
Liam and Ari, who are normally rivals, called a ceasefire and played nicely together for a little while. Ari and Liam - who is still very difficult to understand when he speaks – babbled away together incoherently and seemed to understand each other perfectly well.
Jake reattached Ari’s and now Bella’s shirt strap with needle and thread. I am hopeless when it comes to sewing, and prefer to use liquid stitch, safety pins, staples, or a mix of all of the above. I was impressed by his skill and touched at the sweet gesture.
Honeycrisp apple season has begun. These apples are the best and rival Bella’s face in their size.
We put the kids down for a nap so they could rest up for some birthday parties that afternoon. Bella had one for one of her besties, Claire, and the family had one for my nephew, Vance. Later on, we would all plan to celebrate Jake’s brother, Ryan’s as well.
But Ari had a seizure. It was her second in the month of September, and maybe her sixth or seventh since January. Bella found her and alerted us again. Bella says that Ari always lets out a cry just before her seizure. Hopefully, she continues to do that. We stopped the seizure with her rescue Klonopin. Ari slept and slept after that. We thought that would be the end of her day.
We sent Bella to her friend’s party, and I let Jake take Gabe and Liam to Vance’s party. I stayed home with Ari. When she awoke, she was irritable and upset to be left behind. When I asked her if she wanted to go see everyone at Vance’s party, she told me she did, so I packed up my emotional, drowsy girl and headed that way. She was so happy to see everyone, but she was especially enchanted with her Uncle Ryan. She has post-seizure eyes here, but she can’t help smiling at her silly uncle.
Someone was happy to see me too.
Vance’s birthday party was at Flow Rider, which is this amazing surfing / boogey boarding simulator. It is pretty intense, making it really fun for kids and parents too. The boys had a blast, riding it over and over.
Liam even got on with his board tethered to the lifeguard.
Of course, Ari couldn’t let her brothers have all the fun. She demanded a turn on it. I tried to resist because of her seizure but a few hours earlier, but she was insistent. So she borrowed her younger cousin’s bathing suit, and we plopped her on. It worked out okay. Alright it was awesome. It was truly amazing.
She had the best time, and even broke the rules by letting go of the board to splash herself in the face.
I think everyone would like to go back there.
Even me.
That night, we celebrated Uncle Ryan’s birthday with dessert at our house. Ice cream of course. I don’t know of anyone that loves ice cream as much as the Taylors and the Shobes. Ari took a bath and seemed more or less back to herself. I picked up Bella from her friend’s house. She had had an amazing time at Claire’s tea party/Build-a-Bear party. The kids ran around on a sugar high and the parents chatted from reclined positions, trying to fight off the fatigue of a full day. It was a good fatigue. We were happy to be together and reunited for a even a short while and to have our house full of family again.
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