Phenobarb Labor Day

We kept a low profile over this holiday weekend.  In our efforts to get Will's seizures back under control, we started him on phenobarbital.  Which has some pretty serious side effects, the most significant of which is intense tiredness (especially in the first couple of days).  We have had Will on a half of his regular dosage over the past 2 weeks to get him used to things, and planned this long weekend to bump up his dosage to full strength. 

Labor Day used to mean the unofficial end of the summer.  When I worked as a lifeguard in Maryland, this was the day the pool closed and the leaves and the squirrels started taking over.  School started.  It was autumn.  This is not the case in North Carolina... our outdoor pool doesn't close until the second week of October.  It was nearly 90 degrees this weekend, and we've been in school for a month.

So Labor Day didn't mean too much more than a weekend of hunkering down, beating the heat, and allowing Will to nap whenever and as often as he needed.

We started off Friday night pretending to welcome in the autumn with a fire pit in our neighbors back yard.  We cooked marshmallows, sat around the fire, picked off ticks... all those typical autumn things.  Only it was still more than 80 degrees at 100 percent humidity and the boys had been jumping on a trampoline for an hour before Will's call for bed was heard loud and clear.

For those of you with eyes of green, you'll notice Will's old school Greenbelt Swim Team shirt... in honor of Greenbelt's 75th birthday and the Labor Day Festival! We considered coming up this year to celebrate such a special anniversary, but the phenobarb won out. See you in 2037!

On Saturday I was trolling the Weather Channel website to see if the remnants of Isaac were headed our way when I uncovered an interesting story about the 10 best places to get ice cream in the United States.  As karma would have it, one of the new ice cream shops on the list is about 40 minutes from our house - Maple View Farm in Hillsboro.  So after Will and Matt woke up for their naps and everyone was ready for a little time out of the house, we hopped in the van and made our way into the rolling hills of central NC.  The front porch was lined with rocking chairs (full of people who had apparerently read the same story I did) and the line inside was long but quick.  We enjoyed our ice cream on the melty porch, overlooking the farm proper before heading back home.  If you're nearby, I totally recommend Maple View!  Good ice cream - and they sell their own milk, cheese and butter too.

Sunday was a rainy day.  Will needed a long nap in the middle of the day after sleeping poorly the night before, so we played trains, Legos, Matchbox cars, and Memory and made chocolate chip cookies to pass the time. 

Today (Monday) was another rainy (but weirdly hot) day.  Thankfully Will slept a little better last night, and he was not as nearly as tired this morning.  We're thinking that he is adjusting to the full strength of the phenobarb.  He did have a couple of cranky moments, but didn't take a nap today as he has been.  He was happy to go to bed tonight.  Hopefully things continue on this path.

Sometimes holiday weekends work out just right... when you don't plan anything except a medication change and do your best not to kill each other by the end of it ;-)