Hope: One Less: Day 26

Chris:
I slept with the little one last night. I woke up and snuck out of her room about 7am and got some work done as I waited for her. I was able to take a shower and get ready and decided at about 9:30, I better wake her. I would have probably let her sleep longer but we had plans to go to Kelsey's office at 11:30 for a hand off. It usually takes about 2 hours for her to get dressed and eat.

She was in no mood to get out of bed. Not terribly surprising as last night she was in no mood to go to bed and therefore was up way past what is reasonable. I finally broke the news that we were going for a ride and that sped things along well. When she started to slow down eating brunch, I told her we were actually going for a ride to Kelsey's office and she went into hyper mode. She suddenly was so focused on getting ready and leaving by 10:30 she was ready to put Bessie in her crate. That isn't completely strange as she is always open to putting Bessie in her crate.

I saw that it was getting close to 11 and I know how delayed the shoes, coat, hat and gloves process can be so I thought we should get started. I figured 15 minutes to get coat etc on and 15 minutes to get to the office. We pulled into the office at about 11:15. I underestimated a couple of very important pieces of information. The first is that we are going for a ride and she was focused. The second was that I promised the ride would end at Kelsey's office. She got her shoes on by herself before I could get mine on and had her coat on in a jiffy. We got to Kelsey's office and she looked at me and said that we weren't supposed to be there until 11:30. I will be honest. I was just glad it wasn't 12:30. :)

I left her with Kelsey and headed to work.

Kelsey:
She was at the office for about one hour and 15 minutes. We had to keep the door to my office shut most of the time to keep her from wondering around. She was so patient and quiet as I started and finished a 30 minute call to a client. She got to meet Tom for the first time and made herself right at home while he was eating his lunch. She "borrowed" his napkin. Then Joyce came to visit my office and helped her put her tiara on. We said our goodbyes and headed to Charleston to run some errands for Big Brothers Big Sisters. She got to meet Kelly and the ladies at the bank were very generous with their suckers. She had two Dum Dums before we left town. She was also being a little ornery and put her coat on backwards. We got home about 2:00 for a late lunch which worked out fine after her brunch. She had fried rice, meatballs, string cheese, and raw green pepper strips (w/ dip). My mom, Nana, came over for her last visit. They got lots of snuggles in and played with the birthday balloons. Nana also brought her two new bracelets. I'm thinking this girl may have as much jewelry as I do. She wanted to have her picture taken a lot. She had some Chex Mix and worked on writing her numbers in her workbook.

Chris:
I got home about 5pm tonight to take over so Kelsey could go to her BBBS meeting. The first thing we had to deal with is a meal. She eats about every couple hours when she is in control of her eating schedule so we set out to resolve her hunger. She couldn't quite decide between rice and fried rice except that I told her she needed to eat pepper steak along with the white rice. So she decided to eat fried rice instead. She was very distracted at dinner so her first helping took about 40 minutes to eat (this is reasonably normal). She then asked for another helping and didn't touch it for about 30 minutes. This is probably one of the most difficult things for me to deal with. It takes forever to finish a meal and every meal comes with every possible distraction. After dinner we made about 20 videos singing "Happy Birthday". She loves singing it and she loves to be on video so she can watch it over and over again.

Kelsey;
After I got home from my meeting, she ate the remaining fried rice (that she left on her plate from dinner), grapes, and 1/2 of my baked potato.

Chris:
Nana Smith came over and played with her this evening. They looked through pictures and had a good time singing and watching her sing "Happy Birthday" from earlier. She is very fond of Nana because she brings her small gifts like clip on earrings.

We played with balloons after she took a bath tonight before laying down with Kelsey. I am sure it was a great winding down activity before bed.

Tomorrow will be our last day at home. Thursday we have a couple stops early and then we head to Chicago. Keep us in your prayers as Friday morning will be a very difficult good bye.

That's All Folks!