Hearts of Sailing!

A few months ago, I mentioned that Little J was invited to go on a sailing trip with an organization called Hearts of Sailing. This amazing organization introduces the exhileration of sailing to those with cognitive disabilites. This could not have been a more wonderful and fun opportunity for Little J and our family. What more could a kid who has an intense love for wind and water ask for, but a sailing trip! Hearts of Sailing was started by Captain George Saidah. What an wonderful, kind generous man he is. It was so wonderful to meet him and enjoy our sail trip with him. Currently Hearts of Sailing does not have a chapter in the San Francisco Bay Area, but thanks to Brian Richards (who has a 10 year old son with Angelman Syndrome) that may all be changing. This weekend was Hearts of Sailings first voyage in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our trip was 2 hours long and we shared it with another family with a son with Autism. It was wonderful to meet them as well. There were also others involved including Captain John and Brian and Jessica who made us feel so welcome and really took us on the sail of a lifetime for Little J! All of these people will have a special place in my heart forever. I hope someday we will get to sail with all of these wonderful people again.

It was quite cold, windy and choppy out on the water, so this did not make Princess J all too happy. Actually, she was really not all that happy from the first snap of the life jacket. She really looked like a cute little marshmellow! We tried taking her down below for a little while (which hindered the photo opportunities up above) and all she wanted to do was walk, but with her unsteady balance at 14 months old and the swaying of the boat, it was not the easiest task! She was a bit put off by it. Little J on the other hand was in happy heaven in the wind and near the water. He was a little subdued (and now we know why), but we could tell he had a wonderful time. We enjoyed a wonderful lunch and snacks as we headed back into the dock area. This is when Princess J really started to enjoy things. She was standing up on mommy and waiving to all the people in their boats along the shore. She was making lots of noise too! LOL!!!

On a small down note, we figured out why Little J was a bit subdued, on Sunday evening he started running a temperature of 102.6 to 103.4 and we could not get it to come down even after motrin! Poor little kid did not get much sleep. This morning he woke a bit perkier, but as soon as the motrin started to wear off his temperature shot up again to 103.4. So, we took him to the doctor. Thankfully, he doesn't have strep throat, but still the fevers are very worrisome for us. As his temperature goes up, his threshold for seizures comes down and we've been seeing some seizure activity. Also, when he's not getting good sleep, the threshold comes down. So, we're really in the woods so to speak. When Little J has a fever, we have to check on him mulitple times through the night to monitor him, so we really don't get a lot of sleep either. It is so hard to see Little J sick, because of the added stress of the seizures. Please send some prayers for Little J that his virus will pass soon, so that he could get some good sleep, be able to go back to school and also his seizure activity will go away.