Her Hair

It was bound to happen, sooner or later, but maybe she had lulled me into complacency.  

I had begun to believe that it would never happen to us.  At least not with her.  Maybe with Tessie, if I was careless.  But we were past the danger with Maggie. 

So I thought.

That morning, as I brushed her hair, I thought to myself how lovely it was, now that it could finally be kept long and clean and brushed.

I'm pretty sure that that was some sort of dramatic foreshadowing for what was coming next.

Sigh.  We went and saw Santa.

I powered through and made it to Mass for the first and only time in a month and a half (sitting in a separate room away from any and all people in case I am contagious).

And we got home and had lunch and the kids scattered to different parts of the house to play.

Here's what happened next, unbeknownst to us.

Maggie moved a large heavy chair and climbed up on a doorframe and got down a long nail, that had one end filed down.  She used it to pick the lock of the door to Sadie's room.

Yes, she picked the lock, quickly and expertly (because of course she did).

Then she went inside and found Sadie's school scissors and did what we all would have expected her to do.  Then she went back upstairs.

She didn't look different at first.  Only one strand of hair fell off in the beginning.

Sadie found it and brought it to me.  I picked up a brush and started to brush Maggie's hair, fearing the worst, but hoping for the best.

And gigantic pieces began to fall away.  Here and there and everywhere.

I went and found my scissors and began to do damage control.

And then I came back and evened it out a bit more.  It was truly a mess.

It is easier to manage now.

But wow.

I feel like I should have seen this coming.... the moment that I thought, "her hair certainly looks lovely..."

The Kid that Never Napped

James stopped napping when he was sixteen months old.

I remember discussing it with his physical therapist, and with the early interventionist who came to work with him.  "When did he stop napping?" she asked.  I remember thinking hard.  "Oh, when he was sixteen months old.  Exactly sixteen months old.  When he weaned.  After that naps were a thing of that past unless I was holding him and the second I set him down he was awake."

But I couldn't hold him forever, or even for all that long, because by then I was gigantically pregnant with Tessie.  

And so he had a nearly two year hiatus from naps where the only time he really napped was when he was in his car seat.  

All of the sudden he has decided to make up for it. 

Every time I turn around, he's asleep.  

On the couch.  In the big bed.  In the car.  On the floor.   

Here there and everywhere, James is a champion napper.

I guess this means he's figured out how to self sooth.

And I'm thrilled.

Finding Me

One of the reasons I've been somewhat reluctant to write in the last year is that as the months went by I've felt increasingly like I just didn't fit in, in the Catholic mom blog world.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm still Catholic.  I still believe in all those teachings of our Church.  And obviously, I'm still a mom.  And sometimes I'm still a blogger.

Me.  Catholic.  Mom.  Sometimes Blogger.

Which I guess makes me a Catholic Mom Blogger, and that in the past gave me an amazing sense of community.

But by the end of 2016 I found that I felt out of place.  Many of the topics that I'd blogged outspokenly (and even obnoxiously) about in the past I had (have) done a 180 on.

I have "I'm very disappointed in your wearing pants" messages to prove it.

And often I feel like I'm moving in the opposite direction, on non-Church matters, of most of my friends.

Now I'm going to take a deep breath and start typing and trust you guys.  And I'm going to trust that for some of us, we can believe radically different things and still be friends.  And I'm going to try to tone down the defensiveness that have developed about some of these subjects (especially the ones relating to autism) and if that seeps through I hope you'll understand.

Here we go:

I am not the same mom I was when I began this blog, know everything and wanting to share all of my advice with the world.  I have happily discovered that my kids are okay eating gluten and casein.  And non-organic food and sometimes hot dogs and macaroni and cheese.

I have discovered that topamax helped Maggie and I with our migraines more than any essential oil ever could.

I am politically homeless and while I'm prolife I'm also pretty passionate about the good that I believe social programs do in our nation.

I've opened a hundred blog drafts on my computer and started posts about the problems of racism and sexism that I've felt compelled to speak out about that are probably the last thing many readers want to see here, before chickening out and closing the window.  Someday soon I want to be brave enough to not do that.

I don't wear a veil anymore in Mass because there were too many hands yanking it off and no matter how cleverly I sewed in the combs or selected my fabrics, they could get it off.  I still think it's a lovely practice, but with a sigh I have set it aside as something that is not for me at this time in my life.

And perhaps most shocking in these parts, I'm excited when my kids are up to date on their vaccines (yes I've done my "research," no not really because talking to doctors and specialists and googling and reading other peoples studies isn't really research, at least not when we're talking about "medical research," which we usually are when vaccines are mentioned, but I have educated myself on the topic and reached the conclusion on what is best for my family), and I also enthusiastically hauled five kids in to get flu shots this year, which is something that can get you an equal number of angry and (sarcastically?) laughing faces on Facebook if you admit it these days in certain Catholic moms' groups.

Okay, I should probably apologize a tiny bit for that last part.  And not just for the run on sentence, right?  When you have kids with different medical needs, including kids on the spectrum you get a wide variety of people with helpful suggestions about alternative medicine and comments like "don't you wish you hadn't vaccinated now?" in your inbox and in real life and after a while it can make you a little bit... snarky... about the whole subject (For the record, no, I don't believe that's why we have a bit of neurologically diversity in our family.  As I'm sure our doctors would enthusiastically tell anyone our genes play a big, big role).

The reaction we all wish we had.  Some might be wishing they can use this one after the last few paragraphs, am I right?  Hang in there though.

And now we're getting to the point of this post, that I've been warming up to.  The part that some of you may even have guessed at if you follow me on Instagram, or that you know about if we're friends on Facebook.  If you've hung in here this far, thanks.

If you've been a long time reader of this blog you know that from the time it began, really from the time I was pregnant with Sadie, I was adamant that I was going to homeschool, and there was never ever going to be a reason that I wasn't going to homeschool because it was always and ever going to be the Only Best Thing.

I mean, sure, I might have allowed, that there might have been other best things for other families, but not for us.

And then reality arrived, and hit me like a Mac truck and I admitted that perhaps I needed a little bit of extra help and that perhaps Maggie needed in home therapy.  And she thrived.  And after a few years of in home therapy she began attending a therapy center, where she made friends and had a blast.

And then Sadie asked to go to school.

So it happened that Sadie and Patch went to our parish school, and Maggie was placed in a special class room at a local public school.

For a little over a year we gave parochial school a try.  And academically it was fantastic.

Academically I do not have a single complaint.

But unfortunately the school experience is not entirely based on academics. There were bullies.  And one day the phone rang and I jumped when I saw that it was the school, my heart in my throat.

A list of possibilities ran through my head.  My child had been shoved to the ground, in the mud and spit on.  My child had been hit in the head twice (and it was repeatedly called "teasing" like "flirting").  And there was just the day in day out bullying that wouldn't stop.  Sometimes it was physical, sometimes it wasn't.  The days when it wasn't were nearly as bad as the days when it was.

Sometimes it was witnessed and taken seriously and sometimes it was dismissed.

The child in question loved school.  They were learning and flourishing academically.

But when the phone rang that day I was so afraid of what had happened, what the call was going to say, my heart was racing and my hands trembled as I fumbled to press the button to answer the call.

It was nothing.  The voice was automated.  The schools phone system would be down for an hour.  If we needed anything we could call the parish office.  But in that moment I knew.  We needed to take them out.

I called Paul.  This had to stop.  We couldn't go on like this.  Because sooner or later it wouldn't just be an automated voice.

The next day I went to our public school and picked up applications.  And a few days later the bus arrived at our house.

The kids are happier.  I'm happier.  We spend less time driving, less time in the car, more time as a family.  We're getting to know more people in our community.

It's been a month now, a glorious month and my greatest regret is that we didn't do this sooner.

Years ago.  Really I regret that it took me so long to figure out that this was what was best for our family and for our kids.

Now if the last years have taught me anything it's that best isn't static.  It's that right now best is public school and that something else could be best later.  That while that might feel impossible now the one thing the last decade has taught me is that in schooling choices at least to never say never, because the best thing this year for this kid may not be the best thing in five years for that kid.

We shall see.

Things used to be a lot harder.

I believed that they were harder because they were making me holier.

And sometimes suffering is the path to holiness.

But sometimes hard is just hard.

Sometimes something is hard because it isn't the right path, and you aren't meant to be miserable, and your children could actually be learning from loving, caring adults, even if those loving caring adults aren't their parents.

Sometimes the extrovert that was bored at home, no matter the program or curriculum, will come home chattering and excited and reading chapter books and with the highest math grade in the class from public school and when you mention to their teacher in passing that a year ago they could hardly read, despite the fifty seven curriculums the two of your poured over every day, she will be absolutely stunned.

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Labels used to matter so much when I was writing here.

In the blogging world it seems like they still do.  I mean I guess that's what that whole first section of this blog was, me figuring out who I am not compared to who I used to be, in a way that probably made some people uncomfortable, or even angry.

I guess if I was writing a blurb I would say that I'm a Catholic mom, with a gaggle of kids in public school, and a couple still at home, who likes to knit and write.  But doesn't that sound silly and awkward?

I'm not about to begin to pretend that I can write something that can tear down all the divisions that we create and throw up between ourselves and others.  But I'm writing this in case there's someone out there reading it who doesn't see a reflection of themselves in the other blogs that they usually read, who might see it here.

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I've probably offended half of my readers with my first few paragraphs about who I'm not, which wasn't my intent.  It's just that sometimes it can feel like there's a box in this little corner of the blogging world that some of us have called home and if you don't fit in that box and meet certain criteria you don't really belong.  

I was just about to stop writing here when I realized that maybe, just maybe there were other people who felt the same way.  

I mean you don't have to be the same, that's the whole point.  Or part of the point.  

And that is where I am beginning again with writing here, for now, knowing far less than I did when I started out, knowing everything.

If you're still here, welcome.

The Grumpster

James is fantastically verbal.

Which is strange sometimes for me because the three older kids all have varying degrees of speech delays (and are all in speech).

James does not.

He graduated from Early On the day he turned three, shortly after graduating from the PT that started when he was seven months old.  He's taking gymnastics once a week now, which I think is helping him continue to get stronger and stronger, and you really can't tell that this same little kid couldn't sit up until he was nearly a year old.

I, not infrequently, have found myself marveling at how easy speech is for him.  And by extension how much easier life is with a two, and now three year old, who can tell us what's wrong.  Because he has words he's much less frustrated, generally, than the older kids were at the same age.

His early interventionist and I used to talk a lot as he was nearing graduation about how he isn't just verbal though, he's hilariously funny.  He intentionally tells jokes that have all the adults around him cracking up.

And they're particularly funny because James so often has his very serious "Grumpy Baby" expression until he delivers the punch line.

Last night before bed he and Patch were asking to look at baby pictures, and both boys were laughing hysterically over James' expression in so many of his pictures.

It started, more or less, from the day that he was born.  In every single picture he had, what would later become his trademark James' frown:

"I was angry at your phone."

As he got older the perfected the look:

"Because I wanted to go out!"

It could range from slightly concerned to aghast at the antics of his older siblings:

"I was angry at Maggie.  No.  I was not angry there.  I was happy at Maggie."

And one of the reasons it was so funny was that he was one of the happiest, most easy going children that I have ever met.  But when it was time for photos, he had no time for that nonsense:

"I was angry at you.  I was angry.  Because it was not fun. It was not.  I was not going.  I was not talking."

And so it became something of a joke around here.  James looking grumpy eating cake.  James looking grumpy in tummy time.  James looking grumpy snuggling with his sister.

"Because I hate the cake."

He was always up for glaring, usually before breaking into an elusive (on camera at least) smile.

No comment from James on the cause of this glare.

The other day we were walking down the stairs together and he pointed out this picture, which is hanging on the wall.

I asked him what he was thinking and why he was frowning.  We'd just gone through a corn maze, had walked through a pumpkin patch and had gone on a hay ride.

He was having a fun and running around.  And then he paused and I had snapped this picture on top of the hay fort.

Why the frown? I asked.

"I was worried that you were going to leave me.  In that barn.  You know you were always doing that. Leaving me in barns.  All the time."

I assured him that he had never in his life been left in a barn and he started to chuckle.  "Yup, always leaving me in barns.  All the time.  Every day."  followed by hysterical laughter at the silliness of his story.

I pointed out that he has never, in all his life, been left anywhere, but the story of the barn has quickly become a favorite that he likes to tell.

As he's gotten bigger his face is no longer quite so much a resting frown and he poses and shouts "take my picture!" whenever he suspects a phone might be in camera mode.  But once in a while the Grumpy Baby frown peeks out and I'm always interested to hear his narration of why he was frowning when I show him what I snapped.

And these days his smiles are nearly as dramatic as his frowns.

"Take my picture mom!  Take it!  Cheeeeeeeeese!"

I still can't believe that he's three.  Although he still refers to himself as "the baby."  And when I ask about Tessie he says that she is "tinier."

I can't wait to hear what he's going to come up with next!

Family Photo Struggles

Our family photos are something of a joke around here, because no matter how much I plan and wish and hope they are always spectacularly bad.  You would think that I would have learned by now that part of what I always end up loving about them, much, much later is how they sum up the personality of our family.

I will admit that pretty much the only time I struggle with envy is when I see photos of a bunch of kids and they're all lined up and looking at the camera and smiling.  And I can't help but think "guys, come on, can't you do that for 3 seconds.

But alas.  That is not us.  Even for .3 seconds.  Even if the lady at the Santa for kids with autism photo shoot takes twenty photos.

In the beginning, it was easy to get a family photo:

And even once Sadie came along, she usually cooperated.  In the beginning at least:

And then Maggie arrived.  And the photos still had a chance of turning out the way I'd hoped:

But by the time Patch arrived everyone looking the same direction was a distant memory:

And often time hilarity followed:

Can everyone look at the camera?

No.  No they cannot.

The photographer exclaimed that getting this photo was a challenge to the twenty years of tricks he had up his sleeve.

And when I tried to get photos of all the kids together?  This was pretty typical:

Then James added his Grumpy Baby frowns.

And so last year when I read that there was a time for kids with special needs to get their photo taken with Santa I was thrilled.  The kids had a blast and the picture was really, really good (for our family):

So perhaps I was overly optimistic when I saw the ad on Facebook to sign up to see Santa again.

The kids were extremely excited in the car.  They had a great time before and after.  Lots of giggles and laughter.  They had a blast.

But every time the camera snapped...  chaos.

This was the best of many, many photos:

The more I look at it, the more it makes me laugh.

Maybe next year... maybe...

And maybe not!

Finally an Update

I have been meaning to post an update all week, but I don't really have much of an update to give you.  I'm still sick.  And I'm really tired of being sick.  I'm also extremely thankful for school buses or I'm not sure how I would have survived the last few weeks.

At the doctor's appointment after I wrote my last post I didn't have a fever.  The next day I did, but it was low.  My doctor was cautiously hopeful that maybe it was just a bad virus.  I'm still hoping it was just a bad virus, but it's been hard to tell because first I was sick, then I was in a lot of pain from the spinal tap, and by the time that went away I was sick again, although now with something that feels more like the flu, that one of the kids brought home from school.

I keep hoping that this respiratory thing will go away and I'll be able to tell if I still have a fever without it.  I know I should make an appointment to see my primary care doctor again.  He is sending me for some genetic testing.  And I'm on a waitlist to see another doctor sometime in January.

I'm still sleeping a lot, but I've also been able to be up and about around the house way more than back in November so that has me cautiously optimistic.

I've also been knitting.  A lot.

Thank you for the prayers.  I wish I had more of an update.  It has been a rough couple of months (November 3rd was the last "normal" day) and I'm ready to feel like myself again!

Day 18 and a Spinal Tap

Disclaimer: If medical tests like spinal taps make you queasy, maybe skip this one.

Yesterday I found myself thinking, as I signed a paper that said I understood the procedure that the ER doctor was about to perform (followed by a brief description in my own words that said he was going to "insert a needle into my spine to withdraw fluid to be tested" to make sure I really knew what I was agreeing to), that any time I'm having a tough day and find myself thinking "can this day any worse" I will forevermore ask myself "have you had a spinal tap today?" and if the answer is no than yes, it can get much, much worse.  

On November 4th I woke up with a slight fever.  99 degrees.  Not even a real fever, really, I told myself.  I had a 5k to run.  It was my second after four months of training and I was so, so excited.  Sadie was in a kid's race and was extremely excited for us to be running on the same day. Besides I'd had a cavity filled the day before, so maybe it was from that, at least, that was the excuse I made when I laced up my shoes. 

So I ran, which, in hindsight, was a horrible decision.  By the end of the race (my disappointing 11 minute mile was a miracle) I knew that the temperature wasn't a fluke and that some bug was coming on fast.  

Sadie's 1k

By night time I had a fever of 105.2, despite Tylenol and Motrin.  I finally managed to sleep and in the morning I felt a little bit better.  The fever was down to 102.  

By Monday morning I felt mostly better and we had a busy week of new schools and bus schedules and while I knew I didn't feel well enough to run, it didn't really matter, because life was too busy with all the changes that had come along.  I pushed through the fatigue, and headaches, and nausea, and went to sleep as soon as the kids were tucked into their beds.  

The next week was the next time that I took my temperature and it was then that I saw that it was still over 100.  And over a hundred it stayed.  After a week of daily fevers I went to see my doctor, and told him I was afraid I had a kidney stone, because my kidneys had begun to hurt (and having had infections in the past, and one stone, I knew that feeling).  

Every test came back normal, including an ultrasound of my kidneys.  He said to come back in a few days if the fever didn't resolve, and so, three days later I was back.  He ordered ultrasounds of my gallbladder, liver, spleen, and a few other organs, and while my spleen was slightly enlarged, everything looked good.  

Feeling sick, but there's always someone to cuddle with.

After thirteen days of fever he ordered a Mono test, an EBV test, and a CMV test.  They were all positive, but the results showed that they were all past infections, with no current antibodies.  

Somehow I cooked Thanksgiving dinner (I was extremely proud of managing that while feeling the way I felt) and yesterday, on the seventeen day of the fever I called at 8am when the office opened.  

I mentioned that the fever was still hovering between 100 and 101 most of the time, and that for the past three days I'd had a dull headache and neck ache. Nothing horrible.  Just annoying.  

And they sent me straight to the ER.  

I was embarrassed to be there, with my low fever and dull headache and neck pain.  The triage nurse put me in a room with a chair and said they might move me somewhere else if someone else thought I needed it. 

After an hour a PA came in and was immediately more concerned.  17 days of fever.  Well 23 if you counted the week I didn't take my temperature and went back to that fever of 105.2 (and apparently everyone there thought that counted). And neck and head pain.  But not severe, I pointed out to anyone who would listen (I'd googled and google said spinal meningitis was the worst headache ever... this was not that).  She told me to wait while she talked to the doctor.  

A nurse arrived a few minutes later and took me to a room with a bed.  And a moment after I tied the hospital gown behind my neck the doctor was in the room explaining the difference between viral and bacterial meningitis (he did not think bacterial was likely, because I probably would not have survived that long with bacterial meningitis, but viral might be possible, yes, even with the dull pain) and he was explaining why I needed a spinal tap, and excuse me nurse can you bring her some fentanyl and ativan (things I learned yesterday: I can still be totally panicked about that needle being near my spine after being given ativan).  

Before yesterday I had had 10 injections in my spine... four cortisone injections for a herniated/ruptured disk, two spinals, and four epidurals (one went bad and had to be replaced with a spinal, which is why they don't add up).  When I go in for c-sections, the epidural is the thing I stress out about for months and months beforehand, not the major abdominal surgery.  

And the lumbar puncture was... about as I expected.  It's not something I hope to ever experience again.  And today I've found that I can spend a solid ten minutes on my feet before I have to lay down.  It still hurts.  A lot.

And so far still no answers.  I'm home.  Something liver related was elevated.  Even my white blood count was solidly normal (and lower than the last blood test... I glared at those results like "you aren't even trying!  Fight back!").

So we're now on day 18 (or 24) of fever.  But who's counting?  Okay, me.  Totally me.  I'm probably counting hours at this point... I am tired of being sick.  I go back to the doctor tomorrow.  

And that is what is going on here.  Lots of laying in bed with kids on all sides watching cartoons (and when they aren't here catching up on any and every Netflix show I've ever been vaguely interested in).  I'm really caught up on my royal family news.

Also knitting.  Lots of knitting.  Scarves for everyone.

And I've never been more thankful for buses.  Today everyone came and went to school and all I had to do was walk out on the porch and wave.  I'm not sure how I would have survived without those glorious yellow buses.  

Hopefully I'll have some good news soon.  Like that the fever is gone.  And that I'm up and about and not running to lay down every half hour.  And that the scary things that come up if you google "persistent fever" have not come to pass (I know, I know.  Do not google.  I'm the worst at that.).  

Tessie News

I promise that one of these days I'm going to write about something else.  I was meaning to write all week, had blog post ideas flitting through my head, but I'm on day eight of a hundred plus fever and I've been falling asleep as soon as the kids are in bed each night.

I've even given up on NaNoWriMo this year, as mini disaster after disaster have kept me from writing until I've decided it's just not in the cards for 2016.

We had another scary night with Tessie.  It started with an alarm going off and a floppy baby and momentary terror that had my heart in my throat and was followed by a dozen more apnea alarms before morning, but this time I realized in early morning that the light that signaled a too slow heartbeat was also bright red and glowing.  And that is how I found myself on the phone again with the pulmonology office, the after hours line this time, in the early early morning.

It can be a delicate balance.  She has central apnea.  That means her brain stops telling her to breath.  That's why she has a monitor.  If I called every time she had a dozen apneas in a night I'd have called a lot.  Every night when she was tinier.  And the "is this important enough to call" can feel complicated.  Sometimes, as we've been on this journey with her, tiny things are actually huge and things that feel huge aren't important at all.

The person who was on call was in her car when she called back and explained that as a result she couldn't see Tessie's file, but after a moments conversation she announced that she knew exactly who Tessie was, because there had been some conversation in the office about the results of the second sleep study.  

Now for those who is new here, two sleep studies ago Tessie only had 15 central apneas, which was no enough for her insurance to continue to pay for her monitor.  I fought this, because she's had instances, like the one the other night, where she's stopped breathing after having next to no apneas for a month beforehand, and had to be turned onto her back and had her chest rubbed hard until she gasped and started breathing again.

I spoke with a nurse twice and was told they would not be budging on this, it was policy that when there were less than five episodes an hour the monitor went back to the medical supply company, and than Paul spoke with one of the pulmonologists and was told the same thing.  We finally took her in to see her pediatrician and he called and fought for her to keep the monitor and they ordered another sleep study, saying that if this one is normal we'll know with 99.99999% certainty that she is fine.

I will admit that I felt like I was being humored.  And what were the chances that she would have a bad night?  They were terrifying, but also few and far between.  

But she did.  She had multiple instances of hypoxia, which earned her the right to keep her monitor for another six months, and resulted in the delivery of a giant oxygen machine that gurgles happily in the center of the room all night long.

The On Call knew who Tessie was because there had been a conversation in the office about her case when the results of the seconds sleep study came back, about "mother's intuition" and how unlikely it was that I had persisted in pushing for more tests.  She said the talk in the office had been that "if that baby had been with another family, it could have been..." her voice trailed off and she left the rest unsaid.  

It could have been very, very bad, my mind completed the sentence.  

Two nights ago, Paul had gotten to her before I did, he was maybe three steps ahead of me, and he shook her shoulder and she had flopped back and forth still, soundly asleep and for a split second, before I realized that the heart monitor was still showing a steady green light, I was terrified.

I thought that we'd lost her.  Then I saw her chest moving steadily up and down again and I couldn't stop shaking.  

If she hadn't had her monitor then, would she have been all right?  

Still the sleep study and hypoxias have bought us six months with her apnea monitor and maybe in six months she really will have outgrown it.

If she's going to outgrow it.  

No one can tell me if she'll outgrow it because we still have no idea why it's happening.

Or maybe I'm going to be holding my breath every six months, forever.

There is a tiny sliver of good news in all this though.  

Tessie has had weekly therapy sessions since her developmental delay became so glaringly obvious when she was between one and three months of age (at three months she was missing virtually all of her one month milestones).  

Her last evaluation was about a month ago.  Her results came back showing some big strengths.  She scored a 12.5 out of a cutoff of 7 for intelligence.  Her gross and fine motor skills were similarly strong. But she was way below the line in social communication and initiative, giving her a 40% delay in those areas.  Which is... not insignificant.  

However after five days on oxygen she was vocalizing way more than she usually does and was making a little bit of eye contact and definitely using her voice (in whines mostly) to let us know when she wanted something.  Usually she doesn't do that and doesn't let anyone know when she needs something, so that was extremely encouraging.  

Her pediatrician is planning on sending her for an autism evaluation in a month and a half when she if officially eighteen months old.

On Wednesday we were at the older kids' gymnastics classes and she fell asleep on me for the third time in her life (if I'm counting correctly).  She loves to snuggle but it's almost impossible for her to be still against me.  Usually when she's tired she wants to be in her bed by herself and she quietly falls asleep.  Which is how she has been since the day that she was born.

So I loved every moment of her sleeping quietly against my chest.

And in other news, she was able to have a equine therapy session alongside Maggie yesterday, which was hilarious to watch.  At one point she was riding along and I could see her bouncing up and down on the saddle happily as she went past.

So we wait and pray and cuddle our hilarious and strong little bunny.

We are so lucky to have her.