Studying With Corey

Today, after years of encouragement, I finally gave in to Corey's doctors and my pocketbook and had Corey undergo a Gait Study. The study consisted of four hours of hooking Corey up to devices, then hooking him up to more devices, and then adjusting devices that Corey unintentionally unhooked. Great fun!

Actually we had a great time. There's nothing quite like watching medical personnel interact with Corey for the very first time, especially when they are held captive by Corey for hours on end.

Yeah, it's kind of amazing how Corey tells you the difference between Kelvin and Fahrenheit initially, and wow, listen to him read that Biohazard sign! An hour later Corey is explaining how to utilize a weighted storage cube with an aperture sign on it in a Portal game and yeah, doc is getting a little exasperated. By hour three Corey has read every sign in the room aloud and showed the staff how he spells out words by twisting his fingers into Corey sign language. By hour four, the doctor is trying everything he can to keep Corey on track, just ten more minutes and it could all be over with if Corey would just STOP EXPLAINING THE MERITS OF COMIC SANS VS. TIMES NEW ROMAN!!!!

Anyhow.... measurements were taken of Corey for quite a while and then he was fitted with a little motherboard on his back that resembled a jet pack. Wires ran from this box to various muscles on Corey's legs. Corey had to do a few passes along a path surrounded by about twelve cameras and a bunch of computer equipment, and he did just fine. It looked something like this:

Why does this make me think of the Jetsons?

Then came the cool part. Corey was striped down and suited up with a bunch of reflectors and made to walk along the same path. The data was then transferred to a computer which gave the doctors an amazing rendition of just how Corey's gait affects all areas of his body. Initially Corey looked like this:

A case of the bumps.

What the computer saw resembled something like this, minus Corey's body:


Corey, still and in motion.

This is the same technique used in the movies to do computer animation, and it was fascinating to watch but it is very repetitive. Unfortunately Corey, with his not so subtle gait, often knocked off the reflectors which required us to stop often for an adjustment or two or five.

Going...

Growing frustrated and adjustment time.

Things That Made Me Giggle Lately

Well it's been a long Christmas break and school is about to start up again. Here's what has entertained me the last few days:


Watching Corey bury his dad in pillows while dad snores away.


Listening to Max and Cheepers make music (and Corey screaming that it's HIS keyboard and get those things off of it!)


Okay... this is one of those trick candy containers. You think it's bubble gum but when you open it, this pops out.


And finally, watching the boys' mad Photoshop skills progress.

Max and Cheepers

We had a wonderful quiet Christmas at home, and the boys are pretty happy about how it all worked out. As you probably heard, Riley and Shannon were up at 4:11 AM hollering up the stairs, "Mom, Santa came, he left a computer and a cage with two pets in it!" Corey, who was snuggling with me, fearfully whispered, "Mommy, they're not MONKEYS are they? I don't LIKE monkeys!"

At this point I yelled for the boys to go back to sleep and two hours later we were all up to watch the boys destroy the house, I mean open presents. Here's how that went...

After opening presents, Ken was relieved to see that he only had one thing to assemble. Of course, he also had plenty of toys that required two players, so he kept busy.

Once things calmed down Ken and I took a little nap. (Ken just finished 3rd Shift the morning before, and I had been up all night doing what parents do on Christmas Eve.) We let the kids play and when we awoke, this is what the house looked like:

Well, that's about it. Oh, yeah. I forgot. Max and Cheepers? The two new guinea pigs? BIG HIT! Shannon is holding Max and Riley has Cheepers (who cheeps a lot.)

Christmas Eve

Every year I keep most all of the presents hidden away, but on Christmas Eve I bring a few out. Every year this causes great excitement among the kids, and all day long they beg to open one. Every year I finally give in and give each of the boys a present to open. Every year, the gift they open on Christmas Eve is a new pair of pajamas. Every year they are disappointed.

This year was no different, and even though I warned them not to be disappointed, you could tell they were. Until they saw that Mommy got a pair, too. Now they are thrilled!


Because it's not EVERY YEAR that Mommy gets one-piece pajamas just like theirs!

Target Practice

We had such a gorgeous day today so I suggested that Daddy take the boys out with their BB guns. They did so well, it's amazing the difference a year made.

Checking their shots.
Riley helping Shannon cock the gun.

If you look close you can see where the BB hit the can.

Shannon needing to listen better when his dad talks about form.

Daddy showing Shannon the ropes, Riley has it down pat.

One of our neighbors lent Ken a pellet gun, so after these pictures were taken, Ken led the boys over to the woods to find some moving targets. Riley asked if they could maybe shoot a bird and Ken said, "No we're not going to shoot birds, only squirrels. You don't shoot something unless you're going to eat it."

Lucky for us they didn't hit any squirrels.

Fort Riley

I went to check on Riley before crashing for the night and found him surrounded by every single pillow and blanket he could find.

High Aspirations

Yesterday was Corey's Star Day at school, a day where he was able to tell his class everything about him. The teacher walked him through a series of statements about himself and wrote it down for the entire class to see. Here is what you need to know about Corey:

No, my son does not want to be a police officer when he grows up, nor does he want to be a fireman. He doesn't even want to make cereal like his daddy, he just wants to make signs at a shop called The Sign Center. Just think of all the money we'll save when we need to have a... sign made?

All About Shannon

Back to school, time for my boys to tell their teachers awkward things. If you look in the sister and pet columns, you'll see that Shannon wrote, "I use to."

No Children Were Harmed In the Taking of These Photographs

I'll get heck for this but I can't help it. My children each have one new (clearanced out) piece of clothing for the school year (plenty of really nice hand me downs courtesy of Aunt Joyce,) and so I dressed the boys in their new shirts for the first day of school today. New MATCHING shirts. Oh well, they're cute to me.

Bathed, dressed and fed with 1/2 hour to spare.
The obligatory pose in front of the flowers. C'mon, it's cute that they match.

Two Wheels

I taught Shannon how to ride a bike without training wheels the other day. I then forced Riley to get on the bike he got for his birthday two years back that he'd never ridden. Why not? Because it has hand brakes.

This fact wasn't too big of a deal until Riley's Dad decided to teach him how to use the hand brakes. His advice? "Whatever you do, don't brake with the front brake only, it'll flip you over the bike and you'll break your neck!" Niiiiice, Ken, and now he wonders why Riley wouldn't go near the bike.

Of course this incident is right up there with Ken yelling, "Everybody be quiet, there's a big storm coming and there might be a tornado!" as the emergency alert sounded on the local TV channel. The boys had had no problems with storms before this incident and now they freak out if it so much as sprinkles!

But I digress. Here are a few pictures of Shannon riding Riley's old bike minus the training wheels:

Starting out.

Getting going.

Making a turn.

Taking a shortcut through my lawn.

Very proud.

The boo boo he got putting the bike away, not while riding it.

Ten Loooong Years

So today was our 10th Wedding Anniversary and we celebrated it by, well... saying, "Happy Anniversary, wow, we're really old!" In honor of our anniversary, I'm going to let YOU GUYS give us your memories of us in the 'ol comment section. Yep, all two of you. Get to work.

Roku

We've been finding symbols like these all over the house, usually made from pillows, toothpicks or tinkertoys. From what I understand, this is roku, the japanese 6. But you'd have to ask Corey to be sure.

40

Somebody turned 40 around here today. The boys wanted me to put paper 40's around the kitchen, as I do for every birthday, but I decided one large number was sufficient.

I think it gets the point across.

Ken didn't get the party he wanted for numerous reasons, but he did get a spectacular birthday 'cake.' I kid.

Okay, last minute idea after I baked them.

The boys thought it was great and they were great sports while I took pictures of them with their dad.

My boys.

Even though Ken got his 48-inch birthday present a few months ago, I felt bad about not throwing him a party. So yesterday I grabbed myself, I mean KEN, a new iPod Touch and loaded it up with all kinds of goodies for me, I mean KEN, to play with. Overall, I think we had a great birthday.

Under Pressure

Wow, what a strange night! At about 10:00 PM this evening we had a front coming through, so I let the boys camp out in the basement for the night and finally got a chance to head out to the garage for a break. I had the small back garage door open so that I could watch the storm, and the big garage door down to keep out the rain coming straight out of the west.

Out of nowhere, the wind kicked up so hard that I thought the garage door was going to implode, so I hurriedly shut the back door of the garage and went to go into the house. Just as I opened the screen door, the door to the house slammed shut on me. It literally took me 30 seconds to get the door to open using every muscle in my body.

Once I got through the door and into the kitchen, the door slammed shut behind me and I ran to the front door of the house to shut it, as the wind was blowing the rain horizontally into the house. Too late, the pressure caught the front door and slammed IT shut too.

I yelled down to the boys to ask if everything was okay down there, when Riley let out a long piercing scream. I ran down to the basement and tried to calm him by explaining that the wind had just blown the doors shut when he yelled, "Mom! I'm scared and my window is broken!" Crap!

I go into Riley's room and this is what I find:

The wind had sucked the egress window, frame and all, right out of the wall and into the window well.

Ken was still at work so I called our neighbor Matt over, and just as we were getting the window well protected from the outside, Ken drove up. After Ken STOPPED AT THE MAILBOX TO GET THE MAIL, (I kid you not,) he came to help Matt and I, who were working in the wind and pouring rain. Immediately Ken sized up what we were doing and determined that he had a better idea. This is where I gave up and went in the house.

Ken and Matt got to work on Ken's plan, and I went into the basement to take pictures. Just in time, I caught this little mishap:

Ken falling into the window well.

He's going to be a little sore tomorrow with a good gash and bump on his shin and a twisted ankle, but he's lucky because he should have broken his leg. Anyhow, Ken limped back out of the window well, and when I asked if everyone was okay, I got this response:

Along with Ken yelling, "And she's taking a damn picture!"

Shannon and Riley were watching the big guys work from the basement, and they were very excited to notice the wildlife in the window well. Shannon corralled some and I got this picture:

Frogs. Big confused frogs.

Anyhow, we set the frogs free, secured the window well from both the outside and inside, and the storm quickly blew over. It has since been determined that this was all my fault. Apparently, I should have either A) had the rear door of the house open to avoid the pressure buildup or B) stayed in the garage until the door would easily open instead of forcing it open. Me and my great big biceps getting me in trouble once again, I just don't know my own strength.