Excitement, Stress, and Being Busy all at once

This week and last week have been extremely busy.  Okay, when is it not busy - that would be easier to write about.

The kids have had a lot of appointments, and I am deep in the thick of planning both our June race and our August race for Finley and our foundation.

As the months move along as an alarming pace, I realize that our first Massachusetts race will be here before I know it.  It has been so exciting getting daily mail with gift cards and goodies for our basket raffle, money from our sponsors, and just general good will.  An article was printed in one of our local newspapers and it has generated phone calls and donations, both very welcome.  Our town newspaper will print our article this week and hopefully that will bring in even more race registrations to get this party started.

We are at the beginning stages of our race in Pennsylvania but have already had great response from sponsors and goodies for our basket raffle.  I just never am less amazed at the generosity of the people who care for Finley.  It makes me smile to write each thank you to all of our generous donors to let them know how truly thankful we are to them.

The stress comes when I realize that running two large events so close together can cause me to lose sleep.  Somedays I never leave the computer for the whole 6 hours that the kids are in school and realize I haven't eaten a thing in that time.  I am in a zone and trying to get everything entered - not wanting to make one mistake.  I keep a notepad by my bed so that I can write notes at 3am when they come to me.  Thankfully we have two kitchen tables because our dining room table has been divided into Massachusetts race and Pennsylvania race.  I have file folders for each.  I have countless spread sheets.  I have the constant taste of envelope glue on my tongue.  It is an interesting world.

But I enjoy every second.  My type A, love for all things office supplies side kicks in high gear and relishes in the set up.  But the tired mommy side of me looks at the table and thinks "I need to hire a secretary".

We are also running a "Half Way to Race Day" donation program.  I came up with the idea to try this year.  Right now we are just running it for our Pennsylvania folks because......it is half way to our August race.  I sent everyone a reminder letter about the race, updates on Finley, and a form and envelope if they wanted to donate to our foundation.  In the week since I started receiving replies we have received $750 in donations!  It is wonderful.  We so appreciate the generosity.  Hopefully this program will become a yearly thing and a nice way to generate extra funds for our foundation without having to hold an event.  As much as I love our events and getting to see everyone face to face - this is eons easier.  So we will do this, plus our annual event in each town, and our foundation is going to grow by leaps and bounds!

Today Cainan has his Cleft Clinic appointment.  He saw his Cleft palate doctor, the dentist, an Audiologist and a speech therapist.  The consensus of the group was to wait until he is around 8-10 years old and do all the work at once - fix his jaw, do his bone graft, and fix his nose.  This made me happy because I didn't like the idea of doing them at all different times and keep invading his space.  He has already been under sedation 9 times in his short life, and had his lip and nose messed with 5 times, so a break is nice.  The speech therapist would like to see him get speech therapy once a week at school, so she is going to make a recommendation.

Tomorrow Finley is having some teeth pulled.  She has way too much crowing and adult teeth coming in over top of her baby teeth - she is a mess.  She will be under sedation for it because she is young and squirmy.  She is not thrilled about it, but she will be home tomorrow with me after the procedure, and we can just snuggle and relax all day.

Friday Finley has her annual retinal specialist appointment.  I am looking forward to this appointment for the fact that I think things have changed with her vision and I want to see how much.  This appointment, though, tends to last 5-8 hours, so it is not a fun day for anyone.  Mat can't go with me this time, so I am there alone with her all that time.  Should be interesting.  Thankfully we have the Ipad, so she can stay occupied.  I will share the results after that appointment.

Tomorrow we are expecting snow.  Again.  If I ever see that Ground hog, he is a dead man.  Spring starts in a few days, and my tulip buds are making their appearance.  But it is going to be 18 degrees and we are getting 8 inches of snow.  What.the.heck.