SMA Awareness Day 19: Hair cuts and Christmas Tree Shop equals tired Mama

School is coming up VERY quickly.  The boys needed to have their hair freshened up, well, in Colin's case, hacked for the beginning of the school year.

Look at all that hair!!

Gene was already up and out when I got out of bed this morning at 7:30 which is super late for me getting up and super-duper early for Gene even opening up his eyes, lol.  Checked in with Nurse Julie and Nurse Nancy (who is back from vacation) and we decided to go for the outing to get hair cuts.  Julie called the hair place and left a message to call us back so we could try to get 2 appointments at the same time. 

We all hustled to get the boys up and ready.  And, I had to get myself ready and take care of the dog and cats who were all very demanding.  They didn't like that Gene had gone out so early and they knew that we were getting ready for an adventure.

We got appointments for 11:00 the hair place in the blue mall--I forget what the name is.  We cruised down there and made it early.  Nancy took her car since she only works half a day for Collie on Tuesdays.

It's kind of stressful to get the boys hair done.  Casey was in his power chair so Julie took off his head rest and held his head.  Casey has zero head control and cannot hold or move his head.  Colin is in his chair that lays down so we have to lift up and hold his head and flip it from side to side as needed.  And, we have to contend with secretions--Colin is super spitty when he's not on his humidifier so we had to stop and suction.  Gotta give the hair dresser credit because she didn't flinch when she had to skirt around his spit puddles :)  I usually run back and forth between the two boys, taking over for holding heads and suctioning and repositioning.  Heads are heavy!!!  And, hair ends up everywhere.  All over their faces, and in their ears and shirts and chairs, and in their bags that hang on their chairs, in Julie's purse, ha ha, etc.  We used a hair dryer to try to loosen up the hair but didn't make a lot of progress.

I'm sure they weren't very comfortable with all the hair on them but they wanted to go to a store.  We had thought of Trader Joe's and Pier One but it seemed like a pain to get them back in the van and strapped down just to drive two minutes down the road (but too far and awkward to walk) so we decided to his Dunkin Donuts and then go to Christmas Tree Shop.   So that's what we did.  Nancy decided she needed to do some shopping so she met us at Christmas Tree.  She brought Colin around the store so that I could browse childless, which is very nice.

Colin picked out a Halloween light up skull because he was very excited to see all the Halloween decorations in the store.  Casey found a book.  They also found a Road Runner/Wile E Coyote DVD.  I got a bunch of odds and ends like a fall table cloth, fall flag, some K-cups, oh, and some other stuff. Both boys said that they had fun in the store, so that's a good thing.

Headed home.  Let Jaxon out of his crate and gave him some Frisbee time.  He's such a good boy in his crate while we're gone (at least we think he is!).

Colin watched some cartoons while Julie gave Casey a shower.  Then it was Colin's turn for me to give him one.  Gene came home while we were showering and helped me finish up Collie.  The boys got in some lounge wear and looked handsome and fresh.

Aunt Chris came and wii'd with the boys.  Casey Google mapped.  He was excited because he had to use Colin's DynaVox and it has a better processor so that he gets into some version of Google that he's able to get into the ocean!  They were playing an ocean wii game so I put in the Pacific Ocean for him.

We had some fresh pineapple that Gene had cut up for me so I made a serving of caramelized pineapple, from a recipe that I had, and put it over some Vanilla Bean ice-cream that I had.  Delicious!!

Bedtime.  Here are the boys with their new cuts.