Milestones and Munchkins

My brother Emmet (Cous kid #9) graduated from WCC with his Associates degree / high school finished / photography certificate. Boy am I proud!! Sadly he had limited tickets, so I wasn't there to see the crazy socks, the lack of pants under graduation gown, and whatever else he happened. That boy likes to make a splash.

My youngest brother was confirmed last week. I'm so proud of him! And shocked that he's grown up and being confirmed!! Where does time go?? Just a few weeks ago he was calling me to chat for hours while he sat on a stool in the kitchen (he was seriously the cutest toddler ever) and now he's an adult in the Catholic Church! What a man!

My niece Ellie turned three and we had a party to celebrate her birthday and Owen's confirmation.

Allan is standing up on his own better these days and learning to ride his big tricycle. As usual, he blends in with the Cous crowd at parties and keeps us all entertained.

Have I mentioned that there are a lot of wonderful and super cute kids in my life? and more on the way? Well... here's a few smiles for the day...

Maria loves the "park at Aunt Reenie's house"

I am blessed!!

"Cheese"

Every day miracles

Allan is learning to stand up on his own for the first time in his life (see the video). This is obviously a huge step forward for him.



Today my dad informed me that he's able to get himself out of the car and into his wheelchair (which is quite exciting for my dad who has been lifting him in and out the car the past few months). It's neat to see him making steps (literally and figuratively) toward independence that he's never had before! Praise God!

Also this past week my dad took him to the pool at the rec center. Allan was terrified and convinced he would die. But they've got these PVC wheelchairs so my dad wheeled him in and helped him get used to the water. (Apparently in Uganda there's never this much water anywhere). Once his arm cast comes off in two weeks, my dad wants to take him more often to help in work his muscles in the pool. So stay tuned on that too.

On a bike

For those of you following Allan's progress, my dad took some video during his last PT bike riding session. It is really cool to see a kid who has never had any use of his legs able to pedal around on his own! Amazing.

And this weekend my dad went and borrowed my sister's kids' bike trailer to take Allan for an impromptu ride while the weather was warmer.

Allan fans

Just wanted to keep the fans happy. Allan is doing great. He still thinks it is too cold here in Michigan. He's excited to be making progress on using his legs. His hand and arm are recovering from the surgery but they will have a lot of therapy ahead on that. He loves hot dogs and pizza and generally just seems to love life.

The PT's continue to be impressed Alan's progress. This week he actually rode around on this big tricycle my dad says it was a major breakthrough and he was sooooo excited! Can't wait to tell everyone what he did.

Apparently he was telling my dad how he wants to see his friends so "they can see how tall is Allan now." He's very excited to be tall. Maybe living with the shortest family around helps that.

Local celebrity

I just got home from my weekend retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani in KY... more on that later, if I'm so inspired. On the way down, it took me a nice 6 hours to reach the monastery, no traffic to speak of, awesome. On the way home, it was snowing and the roads were icy for awhile in Ohio, so that slowed things a bit. And then I almost died of boredom in Ohio... I think on the way down is better because you hit the most boring stretch (Ohio) early on in the trip and the last hour and a half is in KY, which is considerably more scenic. Not so on the way home... ugh... and, incidently, usually talk radio gets me through really boring stretches and keeps me alert, but apparently Sunday afternoon the only talk radio in Ohio is sports, which doesn't help keep me interested or alert. Oh well. I made it fine, stopped to refill the gas tank in Saline and bought a Sunday paper. And lo and behold, look who made it on the front page!!!

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2009/01/ann_arbor_area_residents_unive.html

More on the epic tale

No more visits from George while I was around, though that isn't saying much since I don't live there. Nonetheless, I thought you'd want to know.

Allan had surgery on both of his legs last Monday. A week before the surgery I'm on the phone with my mom asking how it's going to work, what the recovery looks like, etc.
She kept saying "Oh I don't know, I guess we'll find out next week after the surgery."
Me: "Um, if he's going to be at your house for recovery, you need to know AHEAD OF TIME what he's going to need, what to expect, etc."
Mama: "Well, that would be nice, i guess we'll see."
This is a perfect illustration of the difference between a "P" and a "J". And I am an extreme J twitching uncontrollably after such an open ended conversation!! (And I'm sure my "P" mother wonders what is wrong with me.)

A few days later I hear that the plan was for him to go to Foundation Lady's (FL from here forth) house to recover. So my parents located a hospital bed, got it all set up at her house, etc. In the meantime I keep wondering how this is actually going to work. I mean FL meant to host him before but couldn't do it, why would a post-op Allan be better than a pre-op Allan? In my head, I'm quite confident that he'll be at my parents and I encourage them to be part of any pre-op meetings with the surgeons, etc.

Allan's surgery apparently went well, he was at the hospital for a few days, and then, sure enough, went home to my parents (after they went back to FL's house, disassembled the hospital bed, set it up in my parents' living room). I'm actually glad he's with them. Clearly he has bonded with my family and that is his American "home"... if it were me, I'd rather go home than to someone else's house especially after major surgery! Besides he has physical therapy appointments almost every day and my dad is the one to take him since it requires some lifting, etc to get him in and out of the car. At some point soon, he'll also have surgery on his non-functioning arm, though I'm not sure if that is scheduled yet.

At the gingerbread house party, Allan was obviously a little overwhelmed by all of the activity and opted to stay in bed and watch from the living room- I can't say I blame him. I do wonder what he'll think of a Cousino Christmas Marathon... and it makes me wonder who else will be included in our family Christmas, I mean, my parents randomly adopt all sorts of people, especially for the holidays, so it could make for an interesting crowd. Maybe George will make an appearance with the camcorder again...

Oh yeah, and Allan's English is improving all the time. I wouldn't say he's fluent, but he has picked up a lot and you can tell he understands a lot better too.

And so, the adventure continues...

An Epic Tale

Other stories I’ve been meaning to tell…

My parents randomly have a Ugandan boy living with them. A few weeks ago, on a day we had a big deadline looming, my dad suddenly gets a phone call and heads out, telling me he’s picking up someone from the airport. Okay… not ideal, but okay. I assume he’ll be back shortly. An hour goes by. Bren and I are waiting, working on the parts of the project we can without Ken, but anxious for Ken’s return since he’s doing a big piece of this project. Two hours pass. Three. Four. Finally I call his cell phone and he tells me he’s leaving home and on his way back in. Okay. When he arrived, we didn’t have time for questions and got right to work to meet the deadline.

A day or two later, he casually mentions Allan (a name I don’t know) and something about him being at the house. Who’s Allan?? I ask. Little did I realize where this was headed…

It turns out a woman who lives around here, who I’ve seen around but don’t know and didn’t realize my parents knew her either. Anyway she has some foundation or something that she runs to connect kids in third world countries who need surgeries with wealthy American doctors willing to donate their services. I vaguely remember seeing some blip in the parish bulletin a few months before asking for help (both monetary and physical). Anyway, apparently my dad sees this woman at Mass, and being the super-extrovert that he is, is chatting with her and the subject comes up. Also because he’s my dad, he says they could help in some small way if need be. So she calls the day Allan arrives from Uganda needing help getting him from the airport, thus the lengthy absence. Allan is twelve years old and has cerebral palsy. He has one arm that is fully functioning and one he can’t use. He’s never stood before, his legs are totally useless. This woman has lined up surgeries to repair his arm and legs to at least allow him some use of them. So my dad was asked to help since Alan needs to be lifted in and out of his wheelchair, the car, etc.

I’m still fuzzy on the details here, but next thing we know, Allan is living with my parents. It was apparently also a shock to them. I guess foundation lady thought she’d get a lot more volunteers to host him for a week at a time, etc. and she thought she could host him in the gaps. As it turns out, she’s caring for her elderly mother and can’t take him and hasn’t lined up anywhere for this poor kid to stay, so she asks if my parents can take care of him for the time being. Naturally, because they are very generous and also very “P” (more comfortable with flexibility than with a plan), they said he could.

Since they didn’t plan in advance to have him, there were some immediate adjustments, things that could have been planned for, had this been communicated. Luckily my parents are very flexible and started making adjustments as needed. Allan is used to being pretty independent and so it was tough for him to need help using the toilet, getting into the huge guest bed, going down the stairs, etc. Apparently though, he only needed help the first few times and after that was determined to do it on his own. Did I also mention he doesn’t speak English? Well, that’s another interesting factor here. He does understand a lot of English, and could say “yes” and “no” but couldn’t really communicate much more than that at first.

Allan comes from a tiny village in Uganda and attends school there. His father died when he was very young and when his mother re-married. I guess he lives with an uncle and spends most of his time at school (from what I can gather anyway). Allan is the same age as my youngest brother Owen, and I think it’s really cool they’ve become friends. I also think it’s great that my family can reach out and help this kid who clearly needs a family (here) and a home in the midst of surgeries and recovery and all of this (the time frame of his visit is till unclear as well).

I had the pleasure of meeting Allan a few days after his arrival when my little sister invited me to dinner. She was cooking the whole meal herself and invited my grandpa and some of my other siblings. I walk into the kitchen and am greeted by an older gentleman with a camcorder. “Hi!” he says. My mom introduces me as her daughter, and he says “Oh, well I didn’t see you here yesterday.” Me: “Um I don’t live here anymore.” No more information is currently given to me, just the name “This is George.” George is standing in the cluttered kitchen, among the chaos, chatting, filming, and really hyped up about Alan.

George googles Alan’s school and shows Alan the pictures “Are these your friends Alan?”
Alan: “yes”
George, with camcorder running: “Look, here’s Alan looking at his friends pictures on the internet!!” (takes shots of Alan’s smile, the pictures on the screen).
Me (in my head): Seriously, who is this guy???

Everybody is arriving, Fiona is finishing dinner, we set the table, and sit down. Alan wasn’t hungry having eaten his first American pizza after his doctors appointment that day so he stayed at the computer. I imagine he needed some space in the midst of the commotion as well. Grandpa is telling stories in his usual style, George is talking away at the other end of the table, and mostly I’m just a bit confused by this whole thing. When dessert came out, we convinced Alan to come join us. George had to grab the camcorder to record his first drink of chocolate milk: “Oh my, he’s never had chocolate milk before! Wow, Alan, how was that? Your first drink of chocolate milk!!!” And the camcorder and excited running commentary reappeared for the first bite of apple pie, and the second bite of ice cream since my mom jumped the gun on the bite before his camera was ready. Meanwhile I’m watching this whole thing in awe and confusion over who this guy is. Does excited older gentleman now live here too?

It was actually several days later that I got the scoop from my dad. George is a member of a rotary group that raised some money to bring Alan here. And he is apparently quite excited and wants to record it.

Well this has been long enough for segment one… stay tuned for more…