Happy Labor Day!!!

Christina has continued her busy streak. Things should start to get into a rhythm soon.

Christina's appointment for Phenol blocks and Botox injections went well. A long day for all, but it did go well. Christina is again learning how to walk with the lower tone.

Christina really likes school and riding the bus. The princess goes for a full day now and is tired by evening. Christina likes to tell us about her day and the activities.

Christina was able to see all the first cousins this weekend. It was nice to get the kids together. Lots of pictures, heh.

Christina has two molars poking through on the bottom. Gums are swollen and uncomfortable. Hoping they come through all the way soon.

I have the pictures all organized. Enjoy. Slideshow pics coming.

Christina and Grace


Gma Kar reading


One of my current favorites.

With the busy week and being a couple days short of housework time one of my top priorities has been keeping up with pictures. I have been successful with pictures and am only one load behind on laundry. Yea me.

The fam is going to get together this weekend. Looking forward to seeing the siblings and their families.

Happy Labor Day!!!

Thursday was Christina's first day of school, but Friday was the first full day. Christina rode the bus and participated with her new classmates.

Christina really enjoys riding the bus. There was an assembly at school and Christina went and did wonderfully. She has come such a long way, we are very proud.

Many kids surrounded Christina when she first got into her classroom and it was a little overwhelming. Everybody enjoys Christina's company.

It was a good first day and Christina hung in there all through the school day. I bet she sleeps hard tonight.

Daddy and Mommy are super proud of you Christina!!!

Today Christina had her Phenol blocks and Botox shots. It seemed to take longer than usual for the princess to wake up.

Once again I will state that it does not get any easier watching your child get put down.

The hospital seemed a little off today, but I think it was more the new policies that are getting implemented. Each visit seems to have at least one new policy that interrupts the flow for awhile.

I'm feeling productive since as I post this I am backing up the pictures from the week. The backups should be done tonight then I will upload some pics for the slideshow. And for those paying attention, yes I did say 'backups' plural.Original, local backup, off site backup, redundant local backup.

Cheers.

Another good article from US-CERT.

This article does a nice job explaining what rootkits and botnets are. The article was published before and is republished to continue keeping people informed.

It is a scary number of infected and compromised computers being used on the internet today.

Check out the article here: US-CERT Cyber Security Tip ST06-001 -- Understanding Hidden Threats: Rootkits and Botnets

Christina has her new wheelchair. She picked out the color and surprise it is pink. The fitting was yesterday and Christina was tolerant, but not thrilled. I know she will like the new chair, but like any of us the fitting part is never a good time. It went quickly though and overall the trip was not too bad. Now mommy and daddy get to watch for bruising.

How to put this... ummm... seeing the new wheelchair is harder this time than seeing her first one(the Kid Kart).

Christina also went to the Big Rig Truck Show. And wanted to see the Truck Light Parade. I have to share how we ended up going to the parade.

I knew the parade was at 8. I thought Christina may like it, but was concerned about the time. That is the princess' getting ready for bed time. As the day wound down I opted not to go to the parade. Feeling bad about this I figured it would be better if I asked Christina if she wanted to go. Knowing it had been a full day, Christina was in her wind down stage, she loves her bath time and bedtime routine my guess was Christina would agree the parade could be skipped. I was wrong. I set the yes/no switches and asked Christina if she wanted to go to the Truck Light Parade. Christina reached for the yes hitting no on the way. She then proceeded to hit yes many time. I moved the switch, adjusted her so she was sitting more upright and put the switch back on her lap. I asked again and she looked at me and hit yes, yes, yes. We went to the Truck Light Parade.

Christina and John


Christina checking out a big truck

Where to start on what has been going on... Let's start with what's in my head up front and center.

Christina had her wheelchair fitting yesterday. It went well, but it was and is emotionally draining. Let's start with the good stuff. The chair is pink with black padding. The side prompts will hold Christina from her side to side shifting. The chest prompt is neoprene with an elastic band attached which should give the comfort of the neoprene and still have the strength to hold Christina correctly. The lap belt goes over her hips not her waist which should hold the princess in place better as she tries to squirm around. The ankle straps seem more comfortable, but we'll know for sure looking for bruising.

The princess was well behaved throughout; although, she was not a fan and you could tell after a couple hours in the hospital she was ready to go.

We went to the Big Rig Truck Show. Christina enjoyed some of the odd stuff we did. We walked under/in one of the big plows and had fun waling over the foot bridge. Christina wanted to check out the Truck Light Parade that night. As she was watching the trucks go by I was watching her track the lights. Good job Christina. And when they blew their horns Christina giggled on the loud ones.

Christina helped with my first attempt at zucchini bread. After we were done mixing everything and I was greasing the pans Christina asked for a taste. I didn't want to tell her no, but I didn't think it would taste good. So I told her I wasn't sure what it would taste like and she could try it if she wanted. She wanted.
This is taste number four.

Christina has been up to her usual self. Lots of walking and talking. Sunday she did exceptional in the gait trainer. Christina has also increased her teasing me at meal time clean-up. It has become quite the game.

On several instances while we have been out lately people have stopped to make a comment how beautiful Christina is. Christina has been flooded lately with comments including, but definitely not limited to: beautiful, cute, precious, adorable, pretty, lovely. This is not uncommon, but the past couple of weeks seems to be more so.

I should make a point to say the Christina's favorite song is "Three Little Fishies". When asked what song we should sing it is now always this one. She laughs at me if I mess up the words. I compromise and we sing the fishie song and then other songs and then the fishie song again.

So after I install some new software I do the usual reboot. I get an error message during POST that a Windows file is corrupt. Ugh. I try a reboot again just to see and it makes it past that point and starts loading. Only to get a blue screen and a restart loop. The message suggests using the repair console. I give it a go with no luck. Next try is to use the repair. First round did not work. Second round did work with errors. So I decided to try my backup. After I reinstalled Windows, software, and updates I ran a backup and it was stored on the network drive. The recovery was easy enough to start with the small detail that it could not login to the network drive so it could not copy the backed up files. Next step, get the files onto a external drive with USB. 30+GB later I am ready to try again. Success. The biggest 'problem' so far is my iTunes podcasts not being up-to-date.

Email I transferred to a flash drive so that just finished copying back. Should be good to go. The new software I installed of course is no longer installed. So I think I will back up my iTunes library and try again.

Crossing fingers.

Once again I was working on pictures. So much fun and work at the same time. Three hours today disappeared quickly. I am working on a page to limit the number of pictures to make it easier to go through. I have not found software I am happy with yet for adding tags. And once I find something that works and follows some sort of standard I have to get all 30,000+ tagged while staying current.

For those who tell me I'm obsessed with the pictures, you're right. If only you knew the time I put in that you don't see. A minimum of one hour per week is what it takes to pull pics off the camera, rename them, sort them, save them, back them up locally, back them up off-site. Another half hour, usually the next day, to recreate a list of current pics, re-size them, recreate a complete list, verify they are shown on the site. Another hour to follow a similar process of the videos. Then I take a half hour or so to look through pics to find some to upload for the slideshow.

Someday, Christina will tell me I'm crazy for doing it. And someday after that she will tell me it is great. And... I do realize that these somedays have years between them.

New news on Christina's wheelchair. The appointment is scheduled for her fitting. The chair will be fitted just for her. We have been told to plan on an all day affair. Oof.

Cheers.