monday musings #4

It’s been a wild July and I feel like I’ve been scattered all over the place. I figured I’d start the week off with some quick updates!

Weighted dance Dino and hotel room ice cream!

 

PT Update

I’m in this weird space where I feel like I should be progressing faster, but I’ve also come so, so far. I have to keep reminding myself that I started weight-bearing at the end of May and got out of the boot and back to driving at the start of July – it really hasn’t been that long!

 

Now that I’m more comfortable walking (and less terrified my ankle/foot will shatter into a million pieces), my PT is all about building strength, balance, and endurance. I’m finding that I can walk for a few minutes in good form and then I start to limp– and, the limp leads to my right hip and lower back hurting. This was exacerbated by going back into the office 2 days a week (which is so much walking) and sitting in awful chairs on the weekends for Lil Momma’s performances. So, I’m also doing a lot of hip and back stretching (especially now that I know how to get on and off the floor safely, haha – such a barrier!). 

 

My biggest challenge these last 2 weeks has been a huge drop in energy on Thursdays after being in the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’m a disaster – can barely keep my eyes open, naps between meetings, etc. We think I may be undereating for the uptick in movement I’m having, so the plan this week is to bring more food (and actually eat it) during my in office days and see if that helps. If that helps this week, I also want to start easing back into exercise. Obviously, nothing intense! But, I need to start building up strength and mobility and I really want to bake it into our routine heading into the fall. 

 

Lil Momma’s adventures in 4 parts

Part 1: Beetlejuice Jr with a line!
LM felt so much pressure going into her musical theatre summer camp auditions this year because she’s (still) being considered for their competition team in the fall. It’s a whole situation where the majority of kids know they’re on the team and she’s one of a handful waiting to hear, sigh. 

 

She has never had a line in the summer show and has often been relegated to being with the younger kids, which is hard when she’s such a strong dancer and has to watch the kids in her grade at school get to do more, so we entered this experience with trepidation and a lot of reminders about how having a good attitude matters.

 

But, it worked out! She had a great audition and was a featured ensemble member who got to be a main Beetlejuice Clone and dance in a bunch of the numbers – and ONE line! We were so excited!

 

Part 2: A summer of accidents

LM still has trigger finger in her ring finger and we have been seeing an occupational therapist for it, which has been great. The finger is still “stuck” down, but we can see some progress and have hope she may not need the surgery to release it.

 

Towards the end of the second week of camp (they put the show up in 3 weeks!), LM was in an accident involving a car. Most importantly, she is ok and so is everyone else! However, it was pretty harrowing for my Mr. and me. She was pinned to a picnic bench by a parking car that had a line break and ended up being transported to a pediatric ER for a full trauma protocol.

 

We are so incredibly blessed that all she had was a sore core and stiff back – and a lost trigger finger brace. I can’t even write about the scenarios that went through our heads. It was all a lot and has messed with my anxiety, sleep, etc. which is taking some additional energy and focus for me to rebound from. 

 

Part 3: Dance nationals were saved by Occupational Therapy

2 days after her accident, LM had National for her musical theater dance solo. She had been practicing and prepping and was quite upset that she might be too sore to dance AND could not hold her cane because we had lost the brace for her trigger finger.

 

She had an OT appointment before we hit the road and her amazing OT made her a new brace out of scraps of materials she had in her toolkit! IT WAS A MIRACLE! And, it was lower profile than the other one which was exactly what we needed.

 

Once LM and I got to hotel, we worked on re-choreographing the parts of her solo she could no longer do because of her core and back soreness and went to bed early – only to be woken up by a fire alarm at 11pm, sigh.

 

However, my girl rallied! Her solo won one of the special spotlight awards the judges choose throughout the session and scored really well. We were so proud!

 

Part 4: The curtain goes down on 3 months of performances

Finally, last weekend was her last show of this May/June/July run of performances she’s been doing. This one was extra special after the accident and being her first summer show with more to do and she did so well. We are so ready to be done with recitals and comps and shows for a few months but are also so much more aware of how fleeting this season of life is and grateful for the opportunity to see her doing what she loves and doing it so well. (Even if we still haven’t heard about the competition team haha sigh….)

 

What’s to come

There is so much more to write about that I really do believe I’ll have a chance to on the other side of some of this. I have a whole series of posts half-written about it being 500 (ish, now) days until I turn 50 and my thoughts/feelings/plans around that, an August where my girl turns 12, a week here at the house with only the dog, a reading update, etc. So, hopefully more to come and more consistently, as well.

 

Can you believe that this is the last week of July? As a fall fan, I’m so ready for the heat and humidity to skedaddle, but also am hyperaware that it’s here for another couple of months.