Tonight I sat up in my bed with Katy after the two of crawled around my room together. It’s one of the cutest things I think I’ve ever seen her do. We know she has the ability to crawl but she doesn’t use it very often. So, when I said, “Come on, Kates, crawl with me!”, I wasn’t expecting her to crawl for long. Oh, but I was in for a surprise. She crawled right next to me back and forth across the room with a big smile on her face. Sorry – That one didn’t make it on film. That one was for me.

This week has been tough for one main reason: allergies. This year has been horrible for my allergies, for Shel, for everybody in my family. And Katy the worst. But the bigger problem for us goes deeper than this. You see, we have two problems here. First, getting Katy to take her medicine. (Huge problem.) Second, getting Katy to stop using a bottle. (Complicated problem.) What happens is this: we decide (for about the 20th time) that it’s time to get Katy weaned off her bottle. So we stop giving her the bottle. Katy stops drinking much at all. Katy doesn’t get her medicine in her. Katy is not only getting dehydrated, but now her allergies begin to attack. Her little nose just runs non-stop. She’s miserable. She doesn’t sleep. Which means we don’t sleep. So, what do we do? We end up giving her the bottle back, so she can get her medicine, so she can breath, so she can sleep, so we can sleep. It’s a never ending cycle. But we honestly have no idea, at this point, how to get her to take her medicine any other way. It is quite literally impossible to force medicine down her throat. She clamps her mouth shut and will gag up anything you get past her teeth. We’ve wasted countless number of pills in the past trying to do that. Running out of options, here…

Saturday was Katy’s second time out with her wheelchair as part of the SPENSA (SPecial Needs Soccer Association) program. I won’t say we were surprised, but we were extremely thankful and really, really happy to see Jenni and Whitney from the Lindenwood University Women’s Soccer Team come back out. This was not a mandatory thing for their team this week. They didn’t have to be there. But they were there to help out my little girl. That means a ton to us. Katy’s physical therapist, Amanda, and her husband Tim also came out to watch her. Amanda played soccer for Maryville during her college days. So Katy had her full entourage out there. Unfortunately, her allergies were so bad she really didn’t want to do anything. When in doubt with Katy, go fast.

I felt really bad for Whitney and Jenni. They had no idea what I was getting them into when I asked Katy if she wanted to play “Run, run, run.” When Katy nodded her head, “yes, yes, yes,” Whitney asked me, “What does that mean?” Well, it means you run, run, run as fast, fast, fast as you can, can, can. And if Katy thinks it’s fun, you do it over and over and over again if you want her to keep smiling. I can’t believe how many times they did it. I mean, thank God they’re soccer players and they’re used to running. I think I would have puked! Every time they would stop, Katy would go “Whoo!”, like she was the one running down the field. It was hysterical! Watch the video below and you’ll see what I mean.