Piper meets Santa

Reagan and I were so happy that Piper was able to stick around Blythedale for the holidays. Today, she sat on Santa’s lap and he gave her a present. It seemed like she was really pretty interested in the whole event, too.

Regan and I arrived kind of early, to get Piper into her Christmas dress, and everything, before Santa showed up. It was the first time that I had every been able to see Piper at her little school. It was super cute.

She was in kind of a sleepy mood when we first arrived. She threw up almost immediately after we wheeled her over to her school room. It always takes her a little bit to be in a good mood again, after that. So she wasn’t being super playful. But There is one volunteer who brings a guitar, and Piper freaking loves that thing. The volunteer holds it up close to Piper, so that Piper can strum the strings. That was pretty much the only smile that we saw her do, during the whole morning.

Piper’s present from Santa was a princess shopping cart. We can already tell that she is going to love it. She has been making a lot of progress with her walking. I think that this little cart will help her even more.

I just have to take a minute and say how amazed I was by the volunteers that we saw in action today. Since having Piper, we have grown a new appreciation for people’s hours of selfless service, spent on these little ones. The Santa was amazing. What was equally amazing was the small crew following him around with pockets full of screwdrivers and batteries, whipping the toys together as fast as the kids could even get them unwrapped. It probably sounds really corny, but even writing this, I’m still getting a twinge of emotion thinking of how overcome with gratitude I am for the good people in this world who help Piper have a more comfortable life. There truly is no way that we can ever thank them enough.

Here are [kind of a lot of] more photos from today.