2018 Summer Update

Cardio appointment -

First things first - John had a great annual cardiology appointment. It was quick. Echo, EKG were all good and unchanged, which is great.  We did not have to have labs or EKG because last year's were great and now Dr. H. wants to do them every other year. I prepared Jasiu for a blood draw and of course promised a Target run after the appointment and there was no labs !!! "But we still get to go to Target Right?!?" inquired John. (this one is easily bribable) Quick and done and to Target we went and I could enjoy the summer with a little bit of ease, as usual.

 

 

 

 

Our Summer -

School was out and the kids couldn't be happier.

Our summer seemed short as always, but there was no shortage of fun.  This year we put up a nice pool for the kids. It was a temporary type of pool, but with a pump and a ladder to get into, so it was much better than the blow up pools they had in the past few years.  John really loves the water, he would go in even on the coldest of summer nights and swim, jump and splash all day long.  The kids enjoyed it so much we are thinking of putting in a large heated pool next year, but that is TBD... for now.

We start off the summer as usual with the Running for Hope 5K ! We had a great turn out and I loved seeing our friends and family support our great hospital that has and is continuing to support and help us on every step of this journey.  We love Team Jasiu ! Thank you for being with us !

We went camping, to Indiana lake house and our big trip was to Tennessee.  I was wondering how John would do with the higher altitude and he did just fine. His endurance was great and was as active as ever.



John also got brand new glasses this summer. I have noticed John was sitting closer to the TV on the floor instead of the couch and we decided to bring him along for an eye doctor visit that we go with Emily  every year (who has been wearing glasses since Kindergarten).  Guess what ? John is now a proud owner and has been inducted into the Glasses wearing club.  Let me tell you, it's not easy to transition to glasses, we lose them about 100 times a day... but he's getting used to it.

This summer was also our very fist ER visit ! It was actually nothing heart related, rather boy related, fast and pretty clumsy boy related.  John split his ear open on our stairs when he was running around and there was blood everywhere...  Turns out that they don't like to do stiches on the ear if they aren't absolutely necessary because the soft tissue would be more deformed from the stiches so they decided to glue it. It was determined that he did not need a CT or head scan since the bruise was not super large and he did not lose consciousness. We stopped our aspirin for a few days while the ear healed. He was up and running the next day ... Boys will be boys.  It wasn't fun and I as always thought of all the bad things that could have happened but all is good.  I'm actually surprised it took us 7 years for this type of injury. 

Let me tell you this looked MUCH WORSE than it appears on a picture !

Just chillaxing in the ER...


 2nd Grade  -

Now that summer is over we are off to 2nd Grade !!!  This mama can't believe it that we have a 2nd grader - a Middle Schooler - in our district. This is the first time the John and Emily are in the same school, though only for one year. Emily started 5th grade and is super excited for her last year in middle school  before she is off to Jr. High.   We wish every one a safe Back to School.

2017/2018 School Year Recap

The 2017/2018 school year is coming to a close and we have put 1st grade in the books.

Another milestone crossed - off to middle school he goes !

 

In our school district pre-K, K and 1st grade is  a separate school from the 2-5th graders, which means Jasiu is now in the same school as Emily for one year while she goes through 5th and then moves on to Jr. High, which is in another school. This means that next school year both kids will be in the SAME school. This is huge for this mama.

 

First grade went great for John, we now know he is excelling in math and it comes quite easily for him, even his timed addition and subtraction facts (with some extra practice at home) has been awesome. He has not struggled with the clock, fractions or anything particularly, though he could benefit from slowing down and organizing his work a bit more. His penmanship could use some work, but we are all working on that.... aren't we.  Reading and writing are his weaker areas and he does not enjoy reading as much as his sister. As creative as he is, he does not want to put pencil to paper to write and express his creativity in writing. Bummer.  However, this too we will work on over the summer.  He does extremely well on his standardized tests and for a kid who was on bypass three times as a baby, that is awesome. Sometimes mama has to remind herself to be patient as we do homework .... (let's just leave it at that... teaching is not my calling... )  Favorite subject, John will say is gym followed by recess and math is a close third.  John enjoyed his classmates and generally likes/ tolerates school. 

 

This winter we went skiing a few times and this year Jasiu really liked it, didn't seem to be too tired and went on the bigger bunny hill instead of the nearly flat one. He said he is ready for the large lift but I am not ready for him to go on that yet, maybe next winter. Emily went on the large hill green trail this year for the first time and she is 9.  Here is our little skier.

 

 

 

The last post said we are looking forward to LEGOLAND in October 2017... well it took us until March 2018 to finally plan it and go, so we took a week off of school and went to Florida early this spring. We took our homework with us and enjoyed some sunny FL, while Chicago had temps in the 30's.  Jasiu was in LEGO heaven. He loved every aspect of it, he loved the room, the LEGO play area, the cafeteria, theme park and the LEGO figures walking around (though we didn't see as many as we thought we would). After LEGOLAND we went to Treasure Island FL to the beach for some relaxation after LEGO mayhem.  It was a great vacation for all of us.  Next stop Gatlinburg, TN in July, stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

Next week we have our annual cardiology appointment. I will post a quick update as soon as I have time.

 

At home and school John has been feeling great cardio wise. He is stronger than ever,  now that the weather has gotten really nice, the kids have been on their bicycles and I have been running behind them with Dominik, now 2, in the jogging stroller. I'm proud to say John can  bike ride 3 miles  with no problem, except for the large hill on our way home, but even I can't bike ride that hill all the way up.  We did the 3miles at least 4 times in two weeks. Emily can almost get all the way up that hill by the way.  Speaking of bike riding, this spring is the year that John finally learned to ride 2 wheels. Since dad was suffering from a knee problem, mom taught John how to ride the big two wheel bicycle. It only took him about 3 days to get the full swing of things. Now this summer mama can get in shape while running after the older two on their bikes.   We have also been really impressed with John's upper body strength. apparently he has been practicing monkey bars at school and showed me how he can do them every time we go to the park. I  am attaching a video to this post for all of the readers to see. This too is  proud mama moment.

 

 Well, we bid 1st grade farewell and off on summer vacation we go.