Sleep-walking taken to a whole new level

 Miles has been sleep-walking pretty consistently over the last year, and we thought that maybe having a broken ankle would keep him a little more stationary at night.  Nope.  

We had mercy on him and moved him into Jinna's room, on the 2nd floor of our house, so that he would be closer to a bathroom. Each night we hear him hopping on one foot into the bathroom and occasionally he has hopped into our room and tried to carry on some nonsensical conversation.  

But last night he took it to a whole new level - -literally.  At one point during the night he hopped on one foot up an entire flight of stairs, to the 3rd floor, where he flopped into his old bed.  Later, he woke up to go to the bathroom and Pete and I were awakened by loud thumping above our heads as he hopped across the house to the bathroom.  He never woke up.

Years ago when he broke his arm we hoped that the cast would break him of his thumb-sucking habit.  (It did for the 6 weeks he had it on, but then the day it came off, back in went the thumb.)  This time we were hoping for a cessation of the sleep-walking habit....  Looks like we'll have to keep waiting.

Broken ankle

 The kids these days like to try to "break his ankles" when they play soccer, and in Milo's case he actually did just that (although I think you're supposed to break your opponent's ankle, not your own).  It didn't look very serious when he did it... he hobbled off the field and didn't seem to be in much pain.

Thankfully, our friend who is a PT was stopping by to pick something up at our house and said he'd look at the ankle.  His diagnosis was that it was probably broken, so off we went to get x-rays.  Yep, broken.  Then the orthopedist thought it might be a pretty serious fracture, so off we went to get an MRI.  

Jinna had an MRI about 2 weeks previous to this to check her pituitary gland, and they discovered a cyst on her brain... It's been an eventful month, medically speaking.  Turns out I don't get an award for having 2 kids get MRI within the month, though.... Just really big bills.)

Anyway, the MRI showed that he would likely need surgery, which we were not thrilled to hear.  When the surgeon met with us later that week, though, he said he thought we could proceed without surgery and see if things healed properly on their own.  Yay!

Mercifully, the ankle does appear to be healing straight and surgery will be avoided for now.  It's just a long road of casts, crutches, and boot.... But Miles is a trooper and rarely complains.  This is his 3rd bone break now... guess he's learning the drill.

After the visit to the surgeon's office, we stopped at Playthings, Etc., the world's coolest toy store!

Heaven? No, Grove City.

Yesterday we had an appointment with a new doctor in Pittsburgh.  At one point he asked us where we were from and when I said Grove City, he went on a long tangent about how wonderful Grove City College is – beginning with how it is more beautiful than ANY other campus he had ever been on, including Harvard and Yale.  But on top of that, he said, the people there are all just so KIND to each other.  He has a few former patients who have attended the college so he has come up to see their orchestra performances, etc., and he was amazed at the whole culture on campus.  He said it was so completely unlike any other student body that he had ever experienced.  I laughed when he said, “I asked myself, ‘Is this Heaven?  No, it’s Grove City!’”

After this long speech he asked me if we are familiar with the college.  I told him that we sure are.

No, it’s definitely not Heaven, but we’re enjoying being near and a part of this very special – and beautiful - place.

(Photos taken yesterday) 

Soccer days

 The boys have been playing on 2 different teams this fall.  Originally I knew this might be excessive, but I figured it rains around here a lot so a lot of practices and games would be cancelled.  NONE of the games were cancelled all season!  And only 1 practice was missed due to rain.

So we had a busy time of it -- until Miles broke his ankle and missed the last couple of weeks.

As always, we enjoyed watching them do what they enjoy -- even if they only won 2 games between the 2 of them!

The Wrays/Deuces come to visit!

 Rounding out our month o' visitors were Dan and his kids -- a visit greatly anticipated by all of us!  They made a quick trip of it, but we packed in as much as we could while they were here.

Thankfully we had good weather to enjoy our activities...  Visiting the ol' alma mater, going to Rachel's for pretzels, hiking at Leesburg Falls, a quick trip to the apple orchard, tromping through a corn "maze," and enjoying Oktoberfest back at our house, complete with Rochester "white hots." 

 Somehow in between all of that Jinna and Addy found time to write approximately 156 notes to each other, which I found after they left.

We also had such stimulating conversations like, "What is your favorite math problem?" during which everyone went around the table and shared one. Are we raising nerds???  Surely not.

We are so glad they came!

4 years with our girl

We celebrated 4 years with Jinna Rai this week!  She has grown so much and is such a delight to our family.  All day long we hear her singing or talking to herself, making up all kinds of imaginary scenarios with her little stuffed animals or telling stories.  She loves writing everyone love notes constantly and I've found many on my pillow before going to bed.  Her ability to learn and memorize has grown by leaps and bounds lately and she is doing so well in her Classical Conversations work.  We love to see how she is thriving here!  What a clear answer to prayer that has been.

Nonna and Poppa come to visit!

 We had so much fun with Mom and Dad here!  They, being cut from the same cloth as the Clarks, were super-enthusiastic about EVERYTHING.  We are so blessed with the quality of guests we've had this year.

Some of the highlights were:

Playing games...

Going to the Emmett's...

Visiting Irons Mill Farmstead and Corn Maze....

... and going to our friends' party and square dance!

Some of the lowlights were watching Miles break his ankle and having to navigate the farmstead in the middle of a rain storm with a kid on crutches...  but overall it was a fantastic visit!!!