Day 363 - Tuesday December 11, 2012

Even as I write the date I am filled with this strange feeling as the year mark approaches.  I am flooded with memories of that day a year ago when we got the call from the emergency room telling us about the accident and the surgery.  I tried to talk to the kids about the feelings I am having, thinking that they too would be having feelings.  Tyler said don't talk about it....it just makes us sad.  I don't want us to repress the feelings, but instead talk about them.  However, I guess everyone of us has to deal with things in our own way. 

Day 362 - Monday December 10, 2012

Something else that has changed over the past months.....when we play card games Bridgett has always just played for fun these past few months.  About a week ago she started wanting to score the games.  She matter-of-factly says, I want to win you know.  This is the real Bridgett!  Her sense of competitiveness kicking back in!  It's so great to see more and more of Bridgett returning all of the time!  Oh, great news about Jenn and the twins!  The babies are four pounds now, ahead of schedule actually.  The doctors said that they are so happy with their development at this point and they want to see her go until 36 weeks before delivering.  Jenn was so happy and excited to hear that; she has dreaded thinking they would be weeks and weeks in the NICU.  Anyway, also they said that the bottom twin, Logan, has moved into a position where he will stay at this point and this position actually protects the top twin, Lincoln, so that if Lincoln's waters breaks Logan will keep the placenta from tearing away causing the hemorrhaging (they believe).  So, anyway it means that we can all (especially Jenn and Tyler) quit panicking so much about there being a problem if Lincoln's water breaks first. 

Day 361 - Sunday December 9, 2012

Sometimes its just frustrating to all of us, mostly Bridgett I'm sure, when she has days with lots of pain.  Today was one of those day....terrible pain in the kidneys again.  It is so hard to watch her in pain!  The pain levels went up to a five and I finally gave her some Lortab.  She said from time to time...can someone just knock me out if it gets any higher.  Mark certainly could understand that level of pain from the kidneys.  That is exactly how he felt when he was trying to pass that kidney stone and actually those were also his exact words.  As if!  Anyway, we were planning on going to sacrament meeting but the pain intervened!  Now every time Bridgett showers she wants to straighten her hair.  She also talks about growing it out, but not too long.  These are such Bridgett things to say, do and think!  Although she had such long hair in her teen years, she cut it all off, donated it to Locks of Love and hasn't wanted long hair since.  Even though she initially wanted her hair to grow long after the accident, she has now come to the point of returning to her normal way of thinking about her hair length.  I think she will grow it to her shoulders and then be wanting to get it cut.

Day 360 - Saturday December 8, 2012

Today it snowed like 10 inches at our house and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  We played Christmas music all morning and Mark got a beautiful fire started in the fireplace for us to enjoy.  Stephany and Bridgett worked together and put up the little lights on the banister and Mark and Tyler brought in the Christmas tree and got it all set up and looking (and smelling) beautiful.  We all love this time of year!  Stephany was pretty worn out after helping with the lights so we will wait to decorate the tree later on.  One goal that Bridgett and I have is to have her do more cooking and be able do more than just help me, which she does, but make things independently.  I should interject here that before the accident Bridgett really didn't like to cook.  In fact, she was pretty shrewd at getting around the whole cooking aspect of living independently.  One of her best secrets....date guys that like to cook!  She seemed to have an uncanny knack for this!  Many of the guys she dated would cook dinner for her almost every night and sometimes lunch as well.  I think that she always planned on marrying someone who loved cooking and would be willing and happy to assume this part of living as she never really enjoyed it.  But, now that we are setting goals for independence, we have set cooking goals.  I really don't think Bridgett remembers that she hates cooking and we are not reminding her! Instead we are using this window to try to get her cooking and liking it.  We'll see how that plays out!  We set this goal....each week she will cook a certain recipe with me (her choice mostly) and then later on in the week she will cook the same recipe by herself.  This week her choice...one of her favorite dinner meals....meatloaf and mashed potatoes.  Actually she started right out and said that she could do it herself and she did and it turned out great!  I did help peel some of the potatoes because by that time she was tiring out a little but otherwise she was in charge, followed the recipe and did great.  We are then compiling a list of recipes for her that she can cook by herself.  Somewhere in all of her packed things I do know that she has a recipe box filled with things that she learned to cook as a teenager but who knows where it is, so we are making another one. 

Day 359 - Friday December 7, 2012

This morning we cruised right through Bridgett's protocol, getting everything done relatively early in the day and then headed into town.  Mark and I had to meet with a notary to get some legal documents signed and we met at our office at 1:00 to do that.  I brought Bridgett with me.  Bridgett was excited to see Scott and ducked out of Mark's office and into Scott's to visit with him for a bit.  After we finished with the notary I was supposed to install the newest version of Quick Books (2013) which I planned would take only about a half an hour.  Instead, there were complications and the whole thing was an aggravation really and we ended up at the office until 4:30. Anyone who has installed new business software or had their software changed at work knows my frustration as I stared at the new screen following the install; I really hate it when things change!    BTW Bridgett was a trooper and either read her Kindle or played cards (I brought them with us) with Mark while I was wrestling with the install.  By the time I could leave it was getting dark and snowing and we still had a few stops to make.  I looked at my list, decided that several of the stops would have to wait, headed to the bank and then to the grocery store and we got everything as quickly as we could and hit the road.  The roads were less than ideal and the traffic was going very slowly...35 miles an hour all the way home which makes for a long drive.  When we crossed the bridge on Hwy 82 there was a police car with lights flashing and we could barely see that a pickup truck had gone headlong into the ditch.  The traffic was stopped going up the hill and then when it was clear to go several people were stuck on the slippery hill with no traction, including a semi truck.  There were men under the wheels presumably putting on chains in order to get up the hill.  Just ahead of the semi were several cars without good tires that were also stuck and couldn't get traction to drive on up the hill (thanks for making sure I had my studs on honey!).  We slowly passed these cars and the semi and turned onto Hwy 35.  From there on the speed was 25 miles per hour all the way home.  After that long afternoon at the shop and then the long drive we ended up at home pretty worn out and I told everyone that they could scrounge leftovers or do whatever they wanted but I wasn't cooking.  I had planned making something special for dinner but obviously much earlier in the day I had figured out that there wouldn't be time to make it anyway.  Oh well, so much for planning! I called Mark and explained the road situation to him.  Actually a couple of hours later when he came home there was still terrible traffice at the same spot and he was stuck on the bridge for 20 minutes. Obviously we didn't get any further on Christmas decorations today!

Day 358 - Thursday December 6, 2012

Mark offered to stay at home and help with things while I snuck away to see Ginny Wood for an appointment.  I decided that with twins coming I'd better take care of myself so I don't get any more worn out!  It was very nice to have an appointment and also very nice to have some adult conversation that didn't involve my teaching someone something!  At times my life is reminiscent of the days when I had all the kids at home and I was homeschooling.....each child sitting around the big table while I ran from person to person answering questions about the subject they were working on and always trying to think of the best thing for each one to help them learn the most.  By the end of the day I was exhausted!  It is always nice to see Ginny and she is always so supportive of our family--thanks Ginny!  When I got home I jumped right back into the routine and by evening I told the family that I was going to bed at 7:30, which I did!  Bridgett also went to bed and we both just crashed.  I amazingly slept until 6:30, which is late for me--eleven total hours of sleep!  I woke up tired but not exhausted like I had been feeling.  Bridgett slept until 8:00 so she was tired as well!  Needless to say we didn't get anything extra done today, which I need to be doing to be ready to help Jenn.  But, tomorrow back to the grindstone!

Day 357 - Wednesday December 5, 2012

We are getting back into our schedule/protocol of things that Bridgett does every day.  One of the new things that they have added....watch the national news daily and read some of the newspaper or a news magazine and discuss with the family.  We are trying to get Bridgett back into realizing what is happening around her.  I started the newspaper back up and it arrived for the first time today. Bridgett read some of the front page and seemed to enjoy it.  We tried listening to the news but it annoyed her really.  We will give it some time and try it again.  So this week Bridgett has been picking up some actual books and wanting to read them, notably her scriptures.  She has done some reading of scriptures from large print scriptures and from her ipad, but she specifically asked me for her very own scriptures (which were on her dresser but she had put something on top and forgotten where they were).  She has read from her scriptures several times a day all week.  Also, she started reading a couple of other books as well.  So, now when she lays down to read she has her kindle, her scriptures, Dinotopia, a Series of Unfortunate Events, and a John Grisham book and she rotates between them. At any given time you see the stack on the bed and it's kind of amusing to watch her rotate between the books.  Also today we put up the Christmas stockings, some of the wall hangings and a couple of things outside on the front door (or next to it).  We will shoot for doing some more decorating tomorrow.