Brain Balance is AMAZING!

This is not the post that I intended to make tonight. I was working on filling everyone on in on our adventures Wednesday thru Friday, while I had the girls with me. We had lots of fun, and I WILL finish that post tomorrow. But I have to tell you about our day today. It was truly awful, and at the same time, pretty amazing. It started out alright, just me and the boys (I took the girls home yesterday). We decided to head to Sensations, the super cool sensory gym that another Brain Balance mom told us about (Thanks Tammy!) This place is huge, and it has every kind of sensory activity you can think of. There is a huge room with a bike path (think racetrack) and tons of tricycles, bikes, plasma cars and such for the kids to race around on. There is a room with puzzles and games, an art room, a sports room, a toddler play room, a quiet room, and the coolest room of all is the therapy gym - a huge rock wall, monkey bars, tons of swings, and a 55 foot zip line that ends in a ball pit. The kids LOVE it there, and it's very open, so it's much easier to keep an eye on everyone than at the Children's Museum. We got there around 11 am, and the plan was 2 hours in the gym, lunch on the way home, and then a big beautiful nap. We were supposed to head to the pool in the late afternoon as well. I packed a cooler and off we went, ready for fun. It wasn't very crowded and the kids had a blast. Everything was going according to plan. Around 1 pm, I rounded everyone up and we headed to the car - with very little drama. I buckled them in, passed out lunches, cranked up the car and prepared to head for home. I reached for my phone in my pocket to use the GPS...and I pulled out my case, but no phone. That's right, NO brand new iphone, my only link to the outside world. Uh-oh. I ran inside to see if anyone had turned it in...no dice. Ok, well, I guess I'm going to have to hunt for it. I had taken videos of the kids on the zip line no too long before we left, so I knew I had had the phone very recently. I brought the kids back inside to play while I looked for the phone. I'm gonna make a REALLY long story very short here - FIVE HOURS LATER, still no phone. The folks at Sensations were AWESOME, helping me look everywhere for the phone and helping keep an eye on the kids. At one point, ALL of the employees and every parent in the place was helping in one way or another. We tried calling it - straight to voicemail. We emptied the ball pit, searched through all of the cushions and mats (that are EVERYWHERE), no phone. We went through every toy bin in every room, no phone. I called Verizon several times, and there had been no usage on the phone at all, so it didn't appear to be stolen. Oh, and they told me that even though I had ALWAYS carried insurance on my phones and had told my salesman that I wanted insurance, according to them, the phone was not insured! (Not to worry - after we left Sensations I went to the Verizon store where I'd gotten the phone 2 weeks ago, and handled THAT little snafu. It's insured and I can have a new one by Tuesday.) Ok, so we spent 7 hours in the sensory gym and then had to go to the Verixon store - where is the amazing part, right? Well, I'll tell you. Through all of this madness, Aidan was awesome. Totally AWESOME! He played well with other kids, waited his turn on the zip line, watched out for his brothers, helped me find them from time to time, he was amazing. And I didn't really realize just HOW amazing until after we'd gotten home and settled. Typically, he's the kid I watch like a hawk, no matter where we go. And today, he played totally independently, both by himself and with lots of other kids, and there was NOT ONE INCIDENT involving Aidan. (Ashwin, however, would not stop throwing blocks for a minute, and he did bop another kid on the head. Back to the cars he went, no harm, no foul. And Aeson was the drama king today when it was finally time to go, and the ENTIRE time that we were at Verizon.) But Aidan was great, and super helpful getting the brothers to and from the car as well. Thank you Aidan, and thank you Brain Balance for giving me something hugely positive in this record-bad day. I will leave you with a couple of videos, and some more words of wisdom, courtesy of Zac Brown Band.



"We're gonna make this day a little better than the last....Find a way to wash away any regret you have. Don't let this moment pass, live inside this day"


Much love,

Allie