Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Go'in to the Zoo zoo zoo

This spring Dean's hours got cut at work. That means he lost 20% of his pay, but it also means he's home one day during the week. He had been taking Wednesdays off, but a few weeks ago decided to change things up and take Fridays off instead. The cut in income has hurt a bit, but the long weekends with my most favorite person in the world have been great!

It's been so hot here all summer we haven't really been able to do much outside. Angela does not tolerate the heat well and uses a cooling vest once it hits 80*, but we've been in the high 90's to over 100 and her cooling vest doesn't do any good at that point. But a couple weeks ago the temperatures finally started to drop into normal ranges! The Minnesota Zoo is just minutes from our house so that's where we headed. It's the first time we've been there this summer.

Because the zoo is closely and we have a membership, we only visited parts of it. Apparently all the pictures I took, except for the camel, were in the farm. LOL Going to the zoo is a great way to introduce the boys not only to new animals they'd never heard of before, but also to learn the ASL signs for them too.

Angela was the only one to ride the camel. We didn't even bother to ask Axel knowing he'd be afraid of it and Asher...well...I don't trust him to stay on and I didn't want to ride. LOL







It wasn't easy to get Axel up on the tractor. He really wanted to, but he is petrified of having his feet get off the ground even a few inches. He'll climb up the climber in our back yard now, but things that are unfamiliar? UGH! Takes A LOT of coaxing!

 Asher, on the other hand, has no fear of anything and climbs anything that is remotely climbable! Notice he was already up there and seated while I was still trying to get Axel to step down the steps they have in place.





KIDS IN THE COOP!

Climbing...

Climbing





Always climbing.

3 comments:

Anna said...

I'd like to read more about Angela's intolerance to the heat. Does she have a medical condition or does this go along with her other diagnosis? Our daughter has down syndrome and has spells in the heat. It's sad when you live in Fl with the high humidity. Her drs are trying to determine if there is a cause.

Leah Spring said...

Anna, Yes, Angela has Anhidrosis, which is an inability to sweat. What is more common among kids is to be able to sweat but not enough (hypohyddrosis) Angela is not able to sweat at all...not a single drop..making the risk of overheat very high for her, and we've had a couple times over the years where she was in a very dangerous situation. Have her see an endocrinologist and have a sweat test done (the same test they do for Cystic Fibrosis) It is a painless test and simple to do.

Imogen said...

Beautiful photos! My fave being the one of Angela's head on the chicken's body - that made me laugh out loud.

Looks like a fun day (and don't those goats look like they enjoyed being pampered by all that petting!)