A Special House Tour

Today, I'm taking you on a tour of my little house. My house has differences than yours possibly because I have a special purposed child living in mine.

 

This is the door from our house to our garage. A few months ago, I posted the stop sign on the door for Jaycee. Given the opportunity, Jaycee will run out the door and never look back. It's a safety issue that she doesn't seem to understand. After watching an episode of America's Super Nanny, which featured a boy with Down syndrome running out of a house multiple times a day, I copied the stop sign idea. The Super nanny's sign read: Stop. Ask first. My sign reads: Stop. Ask mom.

Did the sign work? Well now I tell Jaycee to open the door and go out to the van and she won't. She'll wait by the door until I open it. I'm not complaining. She's just doing what the sign says!







Welcome to our kitchen/pharmacy. This is where we draw up medicine, mix laxatives, and crush pills. Bi-pap parts, nebulizer masks, and syringes are all cleaned here too.



 Here's Jaycee taking a nebulizer treatment in our living room/treatment area. Yes, our floor is littered with toys thanks to my son. Throughout the house, you'll find random things that serve a therapeutic purpose. Hence, the red exercise ball in the background, which we used this summer for gross motor activities.

 Welcome to my bedroom. (And my husband's) The monitor is on every night. At 7 years old, we still have to use a baby monitor from time to time. It's jolting to hear "beep-beep-beep-beep" through the monitor which means she's having an apnea episode. Under our bed, we store oxygen bottles that Jaycee uses in respiratory emergencies. Where do people usually store 4 oxygen bottles in a small house anyway?

Here's a shot from Jaycee's room. Her bi-pap mask is hanging off the bed ready to use each night. In the corner, there's a giant oxygen machine. I hate this machine! I had to remove toys out of her room to make room for this machine. That seems unfair, I know! We rarely use this machine because we use the oxygen tanks. But, our supplier is required to have 2 forms of oxygen at our house so we always have a back up.

Finally, this is Jaycee's messy closet. We don't have really have many closets in our house, so excuse the clutter. There's an oxygen tank in the front ready for an emergency. The Tupperware drawers hold a bunch of miscellaneous medical supplies: stethoscopes, medicine, nasal cannulas, sensors for the oxygen saturation monitor, nebulizer parts, tape, bi-pap masks, etc. This thing is crammed full of stuff we need to keep around. You'll also see bed pads and night diapers in the closet too. Needless to say, this closet is always locked.

 

So there you have it! There's our special purposed house tour. Hope you enjoyed it!

5 House Rules

Today I'm going to give you our top 5 house rules. These rules have become second nature to me. In fact, it was hard for me to think of 5 rules because I just do these automatically without thinking about it. We do have to make many adjustments in our life to keep Jaycee safe. Here are the top ones:

1. Jaycee can never be outside alone.
Even at age 6 1/2 years old, Jaycee can't be trusted to be left outside alone. Maybe if we owned a fenced in yard, this would be a different story but we don't. Most of the time, Jaycee is fine outside. However, you never know when Jaycee will decide to take a walk down the road or step into the road to check the mailbox. Plus, we have a swimming pool outside which she thinks she can get into without supervision. The bottom line is that Jaycee doesn't understand dangers that exist.

When I'm at my brother's house, I enviously watch his kids run in and out of the house without supervision. His kids know not to go near water or the road. They stay close to the house where there is safety. His house feels like another world to me. I dream of the day that I can be in that world too.

2. Always keep the doors shut and/or locked.
This rule goes with the first rule. If Jaycee can get outside, she will go. The problem is, she doesn't tell me when she goes outside. Our front door is heavy so Jaycee can't open it. But if I decide to leave the front door open so the screen door can let air in, then I can expect Jaycee to make a run for it. It doesn't matter if it's hot or cold or if she has shoes on or not, she'll go.

To minimize the risk, we have furniture in front of one of our doors. Another door has a knob cover on it making it impossible for Jaycee to open. These are changes we have made to keep Jaycee safe. The doors are always shut or locked. I don't notice this being odd anymore unless someone comes over. If someone forgets to shut a door, I check to see where Jaycee is and then decide if I need to panic or not. That's when I realize that other people don't live like me.

3. The windows are generally always shut.
This rule isn't about Jaycee trying to escape. She's never tried to jump out a window. Ha ha! This rule is for Jaycee's asthma. There are a few times a year when we feel it's safe to open the windows. But during the mowing season and farm seasons, the windows are shut. We try to minimize the allergens in our house.

4.  Certain things must be kept out of reach.
There are certain things that have to be placed strategically to keep Jaycee from losing them or messing with them. If I leave my Bible out, she will surely rip those thin pages! But if I keep it in a drawer, she'll leave it alone. Car keys and cell phones are kept on the counter where she can't reach them. Otherwise the panic button will start sounding the alarms. She just likes the red button!

5.  The kitchen must remain "baby proofed."
I thought by now we'd be done with all the baby locks on the cabinets. But, they are still there. Some of it has to do with keeping her safe. Some of it has to do with keeping her from making a huge mess. Of course knives are something that must be kept out of reach. I cannot set the table before dinner and include the knives. Those wait until we are all seated at the table. Even if I get up to get more food, I have to move my knife out of her reach. A kitchen free of locks and safety latches is another foreign world to me that I hope to reenter one day!