November 23, 2008

We've finally compiled our list of those who participated in Race 4 Grace 2008, either by riding during RAGBRAI or by contributing money to the team and FSMA. We hope to put this list on the website soon (www.race4grace.org). Our goal is to double the list in 2009, and we'd love to get as many as possible to ride in RAGBRAI 2009.

Grace is doing well. She continues to love preschool; she's learning to write letters and numbers, she can do some sign language, and she can sing a ton of songs.

Also, her wish list for Santa is already multiple pages.

November 8, 2008

Grace was all over the place this past week, because the Sioux City schools were having conferences. She got to go to Kathy's for a day (her previous daycare provider), and she also got to spend some quality time with her Grandma Colleen. She's pretty flexible, but she's also gotten to the point where she misses school if she has too long of a break from it. She must've learned about the election at preschool, because this past week she's been singing the name Barack Obama at home--pretty funny. She told me today that she was frustrated because I wasn't listening to her because I was watching basketball (game film). Funny to hear her say the word frustrated.

I just learned this past week about the guestbook on the Race 4 Grace website--thanks to those who've signed in and posted a message. Pretty cool. We always encourage you to go to www.race4grace.org for current pictures (Halloween pics were just added) and for next year's RAGBRAI info. Locations for next year's event will be released sometime in January or February. We're already looking forward to it!

November 2, 2008

Grace and her mommy had a good Halloween this year, while daddy was on the road with his basketball team. Grace was an angel this year, and she was beautiful in her costume. She had initially resisted any attempt to make her wear anything other than a queen costume, but her mom did a good sell job over the past week. They had a great night for trick-or-treating and made quite a few rounds. We'll get pictures on the website as soon as we can figure out how.

I've decided over the past few weeks that Grace is the most popular girl in her class at preschool. Every morning when we get there all the kids say hi to her and ask her to play with them. I think they've really accepted her and have taken to helping her out with certain needs, such as getting toys and things for her when she's not in her Dani. That makes us feel really good, and we hope that she'll continue to do well socially as she gets older.

October 25, 2008

Grace had Strep Throat this past week and stayed home from preschool for three days. She wasn't actually that sick, but she had a pretty nasty cough. She went back to preschool Thursday and Friday, and she travelled with her mom this weekend.

She's really, really looking forward to Halloween. She's wanted to be a princess since last Halloween, so I'd imagine that's what Michelle has planned for her. Hopefully it'll be nice enough for her to take her Dani trick-or-treating, but we'll see.

October 12, 2008

Grace continues to do very well in school. I got to pick her up this last week because we had morning practice, and it was great to see her out at recess with all the other kids. While she's obviously limited in terms of using playground equipment, her Dani lets her be pretty much as mobile as the other kids. She's very social, and all the kids would run over and say bye to her when we left. Her teacher told us last week that she was the first kid in the class to know everybody else's name and to call the principal by name.

On a sadder note, she's been asking a lot lately again about when she'll be able to crawl and walk. For some reason she's been trying to crawl at home the past week, and it's hard for us to see her struggling. We always try to stress to her the things she can do, and we also have to remember that she's much better off than many, many SMA kids. We pray that Grace will come to understand and thrive with her condition, but we also pray for the Type I kids who don't get to be as healthy as Grace.

October 4

Another good week at school for Grace, she managed to stay in green the whole week. We continue to love hearing the stories she tells about school. One thing that school is doing is limiting her polly pocket and barbie time. So this morning (Saturday), she woke up early and wanted to play with her barbies right away. I think she sensed it was the weekend and knew she needed to maximize her weekend time to get as much dolly time as possible.

She had a nagging cough for about a week, but it's gone away the last couple days. She still has a strong cough, which is a great thing for SMA kids. We hope that her daily Cough Assist treatments will help her maintain her strong cough.

September 28

Grace had a good week at school. Her teacher has instituted a stoplight system to work on the student's behavior. If they're in green at the end of the day, it means they listened to the teacher and followed directions. If they're in yellow, it means they had to be warned a few times. And if they're in red, it means they don't get to go out to recess the next day. Grace told us when the system first started that she was in yellow a few times (she does like to talk). But this past week she was in green all five days, and she got a reward at the end of the week. She was pretty proud of herself.

She's still doing her water therapy and loving that. We haven't been doing the horse riding this fall, partially because we wanted to see how preschool went and were worried about over doing it. She has continued to get more comfortable with her leg braces, and she's wearing them for most of the school day now.