Tony and Paige.com

And we are definitely looking forward to it. Matthew will be five years old this Christmas. Can you believe that? Five years old? We were talking about his birthday today and he asked me if we had his school clothes ready. I asked him what he meant and he said, “Well Mom, I’ll be five soon and I can go to school.” I really hated to tell him that he cannot start school until late August or so. He seemed disappointed, poor guy. Looks like the only one crying on the first day of school will be me.

Merry Christmas, friends and family! Hopefully we will be seeing most of you soon.

I really feel like I am coming to the end of this pain thing. I have a great reduction in pain and pain medication and feel like I can see the light at the end of this over a year long tunnel. (Thanks, Dr. Harris) I still have some bad days but I feel the tide is turning. Soon the good will out number the bad.

I also had a very nice person read about my prolotherapy experience here and contact me. I can’t tell you what it did for my spirit just to email back and forth with some one that is pretty much in the same boat. Until now, I’ve never had contact with anyone who was going through prolotherapy and even though it was just a few short emails, it does me tremendous good to know I’m not alone in this. Yes, I knew other people were having prolo but to have an exchange with an actual person who is, just made me feel more optimistic about my situation. I guess really knowing you’re not the only one makes you feel connected some how. Makes me think I should have tried to reach out long ago.

…since Tony has abandoned this site to me. Poor guy, I guess I ran him off. I haven’t had much to talk about these past couple of months. Still struggling with my Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and there is only so much you can say about that before even I get tired of hearing it. It is a two steps forward, one step back situation, so I am taking it day by day. I was wondering today if things will ever get back to normal. Things like working again, energy level, and another child we thought would be here by now.

Matthew had his first Multi-Sport class last Thursday. He did really well and was overwhelmed at some point in the middle.   Considering that the place, people and situation were all brand new to him, I think that is expected. I did let him work things out for himself and didn’t rush in to tell him it was okay (with some restraint from my husband – sure the teacher loved you for that, honey). We talked about it after class and he was okay and wants to go back this week.

Meeting the other moms was an experience. I’ve got a lot to learn in that department. I know not to be a braggart, so I listened and oohed and ahhed, not comparing Matthew to one mom’s child. Then she found out that Matthew can read, her older child can’t, and long story short – she stopped talking to me! No big deal, I then found a mom who is more like myself and we had a good chat. She has three boys and the no nonsense attitude that comes with raising three boys. Is there a handbook about interacting with other moms that you’ve never met?

We did have a great holiday weekend and enjoyed having 5 members of our family come for a visit.  Round Rock actually had two firework displays going at once so everyone had a great view and skydivers landing in the park to kick it off.  The downside to this is that while it was spectacular, it took an hour just to begin to drive out of Old Settler’s Park!   This was our first year and we hope to be better prepared next year.    Here are a few pictures:

Yes, if you ask Matthew, the coolest part of the night was that Mom & Dad bought him a light saber.  It looks much better in darkness.  The fireworks were awesome but I didn’t take any pictures of them.  I just wanted to sit and enjoy.  Maybe next year.

I just love this picture of Matthew. His Aunt P. took this during her recent visit with us. It just captures his happy face so well!

She can always get a great pic, even when I can’t even get him to look at the camera.

This afternoon will be my second round of prolotherapy injections. I am half looking forward to it, half just wanting to get it over with so I can see if there are going to be some decent results in a week or two. I very much want to reduce my pain medication because it limits my physical activity and has side effects. Too much sun and I get weak, nausea every morning and sometimes during the day, I can be happily working out or in a store walking and suddenly get faint. On the vain side, it messes with my hair texture-yeah, my hair looks pretty bad these days. Did I mention it makes me forgetful? Where was I again? Oh, yeah…

But most of all, I am looking forward to the pain lessening. Dr. Harris says that the majority of his patients see some kind of improvement after the second round of therapy. Financially I am hoping it works quickly since the insurance company won’t pay for any of it. They think I’m crazy. Well, I might be but that isn’t what causes this pain! That really chaps my hide, to put it nicely. Something else that bothers me is that every time I type “prolotherapy” on this dang computer, it tells me that it is not a word and tries to replace it with, among other things, psychotherapy. Great, even the computer software thinks I’m crazy. How funny is that? Do you think the software company and the insurance company know each other? Ha!

Seriously, I couldn’t be luckier. I know I have a lot to be grateful for. I have found a doctor who could diagnose my problem and treat it as well. I am grateful that I don’t have to have back surgery and my treatment is minimally invasive and pretty straight forward. It is still scary that multiple medical professionals misdiagnosed me and I even had an unnecessary surgery trying to figure this all out. I wonder how many folks out there are being misdiagnosed right now. Very scary.

Here’s hoping one day doctors will have that scanny-thingie the Bones had on Star Trek. Take a pill and grow a new kidney…

Breakfast at Round Rock Donuts. Suppose to be world famous and now we know why. Never had donuts like these before. They are a yeast donut made from a recipe that is 90 or so years old and the are orange in color. Awesome and they were still warm when we got them, which is even better. We got there late in the morning and had to stand in line but what was really crazy was the drive-thru, out of the parking lot and down the street. We’ve heard around the holidays the line can take up to one hour!

For lunch, we happened upon a taco shack. Yes, it was a shack but it was packed so we knew it had to be good and we were hungry. It was Sunday so they had a gospel band playing outside in their court yard and when they broke out into “O, When The Saints Go Marchin’ In” a dance line formed complete with folks waving scarfs in the air. It is a great place to people watch and apparently, shoes were optional and dogs where welcome. But what really mattered was the food. Our tacos could not have been any tastier and the whole meal for the three of us was $8.95. Guy from the Food Network had visited the place and left three or four signed pieces that they hung on the wall.

What sealed the deal for me to go back again was when we left and Matthew asked, “Can we go back tomorrow?” Here are some pictures of the place.

The outside:

The inside:

New random picture. We were at a festival where they were doing face painting but he opted to put it on his arm. I think the painter guy said he would do over a hundred of these that day. Matthew really liked it.

We were driving to the library to return some books this morning when we saw a man running down the street for exercise. He was wearing small running shorts and shoes. That was all.

Matthew says from the back seat, “Mommy, he’s not wearing any clothes!” I said, “Well he has on some clothes, shorts and shoes.” To which Matthew replies, “Well, I think he forgot something.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Weekend before last we went to the Pecan St. Festival in downtown Austin.  It was several blocks of vendors, artist, and performing artist along with food, petting zoos, and bounce houses.  We met up with our friends Goeff & Elizabeth and their friend Stephanie and wandered our way through the maze of amusements to be seen.

I wanted to share some pictures of the street performers we happened across.  They were extremely talented and humorous but kept it at a family level.  The pictures below are of them:  the woman juggling fire torches while standing on the man’s shoulders while he hula hooped and they both simultaneously  rotated in a circle.  You don’t see that everyday.  We left a tip.

And here they are knocking a bread stick in half while in the mouth of an innocent bystander.