Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Halloween 2015

Wow, I've been incredibly delinquent on updating Stephen's journey!!!  I had a few posts I started over the Summer and when school started back up again in September and can't believe I never finished or published them.  The last published post was back in March?!?! Shame on me! 

Well, I guess I need to put an end to this no-bloggin streak then and post an update on our Superman! I'm thrilled to report that he's doing so awesome!!!  He started Pre-K in September at the same school he's been going to since January 2014, Primrose School of South Riding, and he's having a blast in Pre-K!  He now goes every single day, and I'm happy to report that since the first day in September, I think we've only had tears twice!  It's a miracle!!  He has some of his old friends from previous years in his class and he's made some new friends too.  And this year they get to wear what Stephen calls, "his big boy uniform."  It's made getting ready for school a breeze and on top of that, the kids look adorable!

He's had one illness so far this year, a respiratory bug (similar to pneumonia), in September that kept him home a few days and that had him doing nebulizer treatments at home and at school, but other than that, he's been healthy!!  KNOCK ON WOOD!!!  We've been doing blood work here in Virginia in between every-other-month visits to CHOP and all his numbers are great!  And I got an update from Kristin, Stephen's kidney donor, a few weeks ago, that she had her 2 year post-transplant check-up and she also got a clean bill of health!  Next transplant clinic visit to CHOP will be right before Thanksgiving.

You may remember, last year at Halloween, we were on Stephen's Make-A-Wish trip to Disneyland (out in California).  While we were there, we got to participate in Disney's Not-So-Scary Halloween Bash in the park.  Stephen dressed up as a race car driver, which was super fitting because we were in Disney to meet Lightning McQueen.  But unfortunately, Stephen wasn't really into the whole Halloween-thing and it was a massive fight to get him into his costume last year!  But thankfully, he finally agreed, because that night, he got to meet Captain America!  And it was really cool because they sort of matched, and aside from the Cars at Cars Land, Captain America was the only "mascot/character" he met (he's scared of anything that resembles a mascot).  

So this year, when the time came to picking out a costume, he bounced around between a police man, a soldier, and another race car driver,  but finally decided on Captain America!!  I wasn't sure if he'd get too excited for Halloween this year since he was so indifferent in the past, but when the box arrived with his costume, he went nuts and immediately had to put it on!  And then Captain America hung in the closet for a few weeks until last week when he got to wear it for his school's Halloween costume parade and then for trick-or-treating on Saturday. And boy, did he ever do trick-or-treating!  This kid went nuts and probably ran to no less than 50 houses!! Wearing his mask, shield, and carrying an overflowing bucket of candy the whole time!  It was so much fun watching him and his neighborhood buddies run from house to house having a great time!

And unlike last year too, he went to town on his candy!! Stephen and Daddy had a good time sifting through all of his candy and picking out their favorites.  He's made a lot of progress on his eating over the past couple of months, and we've finally got a pretty good eater (albeit a bit picky) now.  Which makes like a whole lot easier for us when we're out and about!

So all-in-all, this little dude is kicking butt!  We have absolutely nothing to complain about and are now gearing up for Thanksgiving and Christmas!! I think Christmas this year will be the best one yet with Stephen and I hope finally we'll get that ever so elusive photo on Santa's lap :-)  We've certainly been working on our Christmas list for Santa!!

Here are some photos from the first day of school, his school picture, and Halloween.  And a fun comparison from last year to this year.