Being Thankful

Very happy to be able to say that Korban's new medicine is working very well for him. It's a very small dose of a beta-blocker called Propranolol being used to treat his anxiety. He's more relaxed and interactive, and also MUCH less aggressive, with no negative side effects like acting drugged or whatever. Very big praise report!  We have had the best weekend we've had in a very long time. Friday was his infusion and while he still didn't like getting his IV, it was much easier than it usually is. He still cried and screamed a lot but he didn't get sick beforehand like he often does due to nerves. We only had to hold his arm steady and keep him still rather than laying him back and having to hold him down like we normally do. It was far from perfect but it wasn't the battle we normally have to fight. He fell asleep and had a nice little nap while getting "infused." 

Love that sweet face!  

He woke up before the infusion was over but was in a good mood and was ready to eat. 

Selah played and watched tv while waiting on her brother to get finished. The volunteer who does the face-painting was there and Selah was all excited to see her. She had her mind all made up--she wanted two apples, one red and one green, painted on her arm. 

It turned out so cute!  I especially like the worms. :)

After Korban was finished, we headed back across the street to the Ronald McDonald House. 

Here's Daddy carrying Selah and her much beloved Hundley. 

We had lunch at the house. There was a surplus of Easter candy, and of course it caught Selah's eye. She's mine, after all. 

She chose this candy which looked like a rubber ducky. She loves ducks and it really was cute. I'd never seen anything like it. 

At least she shared: 

She ripped off the duck's head and passed it on to Korban. (After taking a bite to make sure it tasted okay first. 

I'm sure she wouldn't want to give her brother sub-par candy.)

Then she tore into his tail feathers, saying "bye-bye, butt!" Oh, Selah. 

After lunch we headed to the Birmingham Zoo. The Ronald McDonald House has a membership arrangement so that any of their residents can go to the zoo for free. We love the zoo so much, so this was a big treat for us. The weather was just lovely and Birmingham has a very nice zoo. We really enjoyed ourselves. 

We went to the reptile house first. (Of course we did!). See the tortoise in the picture above?  He's sort of flat and camoflauged on the ground there. He's actually called a pancake tortoise. See?

This completely tore Selah up because she thought it meant he liked to EAT pancakes. I get a really lovely image of the zoo staff taking the tortoises on a field trip to IHOP if I think about that for very long. 

We were walking around looking at a different things, and Selah started trying to pull us down this dead end alley. We told her no, that there wasn't anything to see down there, but we were wrong. This was what Selah had spotted:

A big peacock in all of it's glory!  

Selah sidled up for a photo op. She was probably trying to figure out how to get that thing in our van!  ;)

Both kids even got to pet it!  Niiiiice peacock. 

Selah also got to see her other favorite bird, the flamingos. 

Since she's Selah, she also did some climbing. 

Hang on, sister!

Korban went to visit the gorilla. That's his favorite animal there. The gorilla was totally chillin'--enjoying the sunshine. 

Look at him--all laid out. I love the arm in his face. So funny. 

He did sit up and move around a little bit while we watched. Very pretty animal. 

Korban loved watching him. 

We had a blast at the zoo. This whole weekend was great, and I want to write about all of it but this post is already long, so I'm going to have to break it up. Consider this part one. To be continued!