Christmas 2007

It's been a long week but I finally have a monitor and a new keyboard (more about that at the end.) Dear Son and I had a wonderful Christmas. Here are some pictures of our apartment.

This is our living room. I especially enjoy it at night when all of the candles in the sconces are lit.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Dear Son as a little boy sitting by our Christmas tree trying to get the lights off the tree. Wiggles seems to like it too.

This is my new Christmas tree this year. I purchased a 7 foot "slim" tree. It fits much better than the full size one I had last year and is a lot easier. I used the same decorations as last year though. I have collected many of these ornaments over the years. My favorite ones are the blown glass ones. When I lived in my house, I had a maple staircase. I used to drape fresh garland and a gold and silver chiffon type ribbon through the lighted garland and hang all of my glass and crystal ornaments on the garland. The lights would shine through the glass and was quite beautiful.

This is our dining room. Dear Son loves to sit near the table in his rocking chair, lean his head on the table and listen to his Christmas music boxes.
This is the armoire in my dining room. I used to have the armoire in my living room to hide the t.v. however when I moved to my apartment, I ended up using the armoire as a pantry since they I don't have one.

This is Dear Son sitting in his new rocker in his red/white shorts and hat. I bought him this Christmas hat and he loved wearing it. This was Christmas Eve. If you look closely, you can see the sling for the Hoyer Lift that he's sitting on. If you look at the top of the rocker, you can see where the sling hooks fit over the top keeping the sling in place while he sits. This makes it easier to get him out of the rocker since the sling no longer falls behind him when he's sitting.

While Dear Son loved to wear his Santa hat, our cat Wiggles, not so much. When Dear Son gets tired and starts to fall over in the rocker, I set him in the upholstered chair. While he was sitting there, the cat came and sat near him. I decided to put the Santa hat on the cat and take a picture of both of them. Dear Son was laughing however I couldn't seem to get one of him smiling. I was happy just to get a picture of both of them in their Santa hats.

We celebrated Christmas with my family the Sunday before Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, I started Dear Son's feeding pump at five a.m. and allowed him to open one of his presents (actually I wrap them and open them up since he can't do it). I got him a carousel and he enjoyed listening to it while he got his Pedia Sure via the g tube. Our cat got some cool cat toys from Santa and I gave them to him at that time too. He loved batting his new toys around the bedroom and it made Dear Son laugh. Dear Son made me this present at school. The school sends home a present from him to me and he is always very proud of that. I told him we had to wait until Christmas to open it. After he got his carousel and the cat got his present, I opened this gift from him. We decided to hang it on his IV pole while he ate his breakfast. He was thrilled. WE opened the rest of the gifts after he got up. I got him mostly clothes (shirts, pj pants, pants and a new down winter coat). Dear Son is such a happy kid. He wakes up with a smile every day and Christmas morning was no different.

His absolute favorite gift was this iHOME iPOD charger that plays his iPOD. Prior to getting this, he'd listen to his music on the iPOD headphones however since he needs to lie on his side (he'll choke on his saliva if he lies on his back), the headphones would get drool on them and then malfunction. In addition, it just wasn't comfortable. With this, he can listen to his music while he eats via the g tube. Since it typically takes almost three hours to get his breakfast and dinner, it's nice to have some music to listen to while that is transpiring. His eyes light up every time he goes in his room and sees it on his nightstand. He just loves listening to his music.

This is my favorite gift although you can't really see it well in this picture. It's an illuminated keyboard by Saitek. The keys light up in one of three colors: blue, red or purple. The purple looks more like pink to me. Not only do the letters light up, but the keys are backlit and the sides of the keyboard light up as well. This is great because I frequently type in the dark (after Dear Son goes to bed) and I can be on the internet and not have to turn a light on. The reviews said the keyboard isn't bright enough however I have not found that to be the case. As you can also tell, my cat likes to sit with me while I am on the internet (maybe he likes looking at Poppy Q or Miss Daisy in her modeling outfits).

On a different note, Dear Son has been having some good and bad days. Prior to Christmas, he was choking severely on his saliva. He seemed to do a little bit better on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day however yesterday he was unable to sit up in his rocker at all. He kept falling over and seemed to be having a lot more seizures. He was up most of the night last night and has been up a lot this week. I have this weekend off so his Dad was up a lot with him. I was able to sleep in today and then go out this evening for dinner with my friends. All in all, a wonderful holiday.