Friday Update

Ben scored a gem of a birthday party invitation -- an overnight trip to Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park with his best friend & family and another friend. He leaves after school today and comes home tomorrow late afternoon. He is of course very psyched, and Becca is of course feeling rather left out! Joel is going to take her to dinner and a movie tonight, and I arranged a play date for her for tomorrow morning to help  make up for it.

In other news, Caroline's blood test results came back. Her TTG level is 68. Normal is 0, or close to it. Her first test result showed her TTG level of > 128, which is as high as they measure. So, off the charts high. The doctor is happy with the drop from >128 to 68 in six months, and will recheck it again in May. I am happy that she is improving, but it still seems pretty slow for me. I didn't know at the beginning of this process that it could take a year to get her digestive system back to normal. She is doing so much better than she was six months ago, and I am impatient to see the improvements that another six months will bring! She still has some bloating and normal-only-for-Caroline-bowel movements ;) But the diarrhea, lethargy, irritability, stomach pain, lack of weight gain are all gone -- she gained 5 pounds these past six months :) Yay for Caroline and the gluten free diet!

In still more news, Ben and Becca are going to sleep away camp this summer! Ben is going for three weeks, from July 13 to August 3, and Becca is going for one week, from July 13 to July 20. They are going to Camp Blue Star, which is a Jewish camp in the Blue Ridge mountains about 2 hours or so from here. Ben's best friend is spending 7 weeks there, and I thought it would be a good way to entice Ben into becoming more independent. At the moment his independence level on a scale of one to ten would be about a -2 ;) He would never have gone for the idea if his friend weren't going too, and once he gets there I am hoping he will gain some confidence / learn to do some things for himself / make some new friends. Becca, upon hearing about this and all the activities and trips Camp Blue Star has to offer, immediately said, "Well I'm going too!" For which Joel and I were prepared, so we offered to send her for one week, making sure she understood that Mom and Dad would not be there with her, she would be sleeping there for a week, etc. To which she replied, "Do I need to pack?" and started to dart off to her room to pack her things! I had to quickly call after her that she was not leaving yet! The price of sleep away camp is a small fortune, and Ben and Becca will be doing day camp before / after sleep away camp, so I am still congratulating myself on somehow convincing Joel to agree to this plan.