Postcards From Holland

This is for you, Kris

2012-01-20T15:58:00.000-08:00

This is for my friend Kris, who says I never update my blog. I'm updating RIGHT now.

So I'm seeing a new therapist for Holland and I have to say I'm loving all the housework I'm getting done. I just put my feet up and, BAM! three little punks argue with each other and then are sucked into the housework vortex. The new rule is if any of them argue, fight, hit, don't do a chore or something they're asked to in a timely manner, or general naughtiness, I assign "repair work". They have to repair our relationship by performing housework or chores for me. They all love it so much. Each one has complained that it does nothing for them. I say so sweetly that it's not meant to help them, but to repair my relationship with them.

The first time Holland really broke the rule by hitting me, an automatic hour, he had to pick up everything he had trashed and then do his repair work. I made a list and just propped my feet up on the couch and played on my phone. See, the key is delivery. The therapist says my reaction plays a huge part in getting Holland's behavior to improve. Now, I already knew this, but it's getting to that point that was the hard part. When you are faced with a kid who complains and yells from the moment he wakes up until he goes to bed; who you are in constant fear of him hitting you or hitting his siblings; or destroying something in the house, then it gets really tiring trying to stay calm and pleasant in that kind of environment. My reaction is supposed to be "oh, honey, first you need to do your repair work, and then I'd be happy to let you do the computer." It was interesting, though, this first time he had an hour's worth of work. By the end of the hour, he was chatting pleasantly, asking me things, crossing the jobs off the list. I was totally ready to give him the priviledges back.

Still, he gripes and complains every time we start a new repair work session. He's adament he's NOT going to do it. I just let him wander around and when he tries to do something like the computer, or tv, I physically block him and say sweetly, "remember your repair work and then you're free to do the computer". He gets so mad and tells me to stop talking in "that" voice. It makes me want to laugh because he's totally noticing the difference! I've had to also make him wait to eat dinner because he had done something and of course that meant me stopping eating as well. That's the fun part. I get to suspend whatever I'm doing and make sure he's doing the work. He can get very controlling over meal time. With the gluten free diet, my cooking has changed quite a bit. He doesn't always like what I cook and many times I've just let him make himself something to avoid the argument. The new therapist probably wanted to crawl out of her skin when I told her that. "No, no, no, dear. He eats what you all eat." "I know, but he physically pushes me around and tries to eat something else." "Then you stand in front of him and prevent him from getting it." So here I am in the kitchen, trying to wrestle away food from an almost 13 year-old who won't eat chicken tortilla soup! It's nuts. But, after a few times of this, he did sit down and munch on a few things. Cried the entire time. Made dinner so pleasant. What chef doesn't want their patrons to cry over their meal as a way to thank them?

My favorite repair work was the time he had to sweep both the kitchen and nook floors. Then I had him on his hands and knees mopping just the kitchen floor. When he was done, he asked what he should do with the water. I said, "oh, just leave it on the counter. You'll probably need it later." Sure enough, he needed it. When he had to clean the nook floor, he picked up the bowl of used soapy water and said, "is it okay if it's cold?" " Oh SURE!", I said. Then today, his repair work involved washing all the doors, inside and out. Then I had him wash every single post going up the stairs and the whole molding from top to bottom. Nice and shiny now.

Just waiting for who'll mess up tomorrow so I can get something else cleaned.

So long, Betty

2012-01-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

It only took one more day for Betty to get snatched up by some nice gentleman that I assume was going to treat her nice. He probably had a toasty warm house all ready for her. Some ice cream for her freezer. Some milk and yogurt for her fridge. Who am I kidding? You could tell the moment he drove up in his dumpty Toyota truck that he was going to recycle every last piece of her. But he humored me in an email on Saturday morning and said he'd love to "come pick up the ol' gal and give her a new home". I'm just glad she's out of my driveway and no more little kids are wandering around our property looking for ways to get stuck inside an old fridge.

Betty

2012-01-13T12:49:00.000-08:00

You've got to hand it to craigslist. You meet - or more often than not, DON'T meet -some very interesting people. We've put ads on before. Sometimes things are for sale and sometimes things are for free. I've discovered that it doesn't matter if money is involved, or something is free, there are flakes from both neighborhoods.

Recently I posted about a free refrigerator that we have had since the beginning of time. Well, the beginning of OUR time, which is 20 years. When Super Hero bought our first house, it came equipped with this fabulous retro fridge. Don't get excited. In this case retro just means old. The thing was pitiful. It was so old that the freezer was inside the fridge part. It had these wonky shelves that bowed when you put a gallon of milk on them. And the freezer just accumulated ice so quickly it was a pain to defrost. The space just kept shrinking and shrinking every time we opened it. I think the food actually froze inside the ice at some point. When we sold the house though, a nice new fridge took Betty's place, and since that's what the new homeowner saw, we couldn't do a switch with Betty and had to bring her with us.

We've moved several times and she's been in our garage here for about 14 years. My mom finally took pity on us and just gave us the fridge she bought on craigslist last summer for when my brother and his family came to visit. Their brood took over the "Barn" where we grew up and it only made sense to have a fridge in there for them and their six kids. I really do need the second fridge because I have to store all the different gluten free flours there. Otherwise the moths keep getting it and then I have to gut the pantry. And, well, that's just not how I want to spend ANY day.

Super Hero moved Betty to the driveway. (Side note here: he does NOT know that I named her. Let's just leave that dog alone.) One of my VERY concerned neighbors (and if you know me, you know this is exactly the opposite of what I mean) came over to tell me that I needed to put this big lock on it so kids wouldn't climb into it. And he sure hoped the police didn't come by and see it. Helpful, right? So I looked online for a way to get rid of Betty. Recycling is a waste of time. They try to lure you with 40 bucks. Sounds great, right? Don't be fooled. I'm here to school ya. You have to clean the fridge (um, no thanks), make sure your fridge meets the size requirements (yeah, it's probably within that size range, sir), make an appointment to have someone come out and inspect your unit, has to be plugged in and shown to be working (???), and then you have to show that you've replace that unit with an "Energy Efficient" model. I don't even know what that means. What, is there some big label on the side of appliances that says 'I'm energy efficient'? So, yeah, not really worth 40 bucks.

That's where the craigslist ad comes in. I thought I'd be all clever and try to get people's attention. I mean, reading ads on craigslist is like reading a phone book. Here's the ad (I'm just pasting what I wrote because when I take the ad down, it likely will disappear)
Find Betty the Refrigerator a New Home (Oregon City)

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Date: 2012-01-11, 2:09PM PST
Reply to: sale-sa7uu-2795146952@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
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We've traveled far with this refrigerator and it's time to find Betty a new home. She's probably 60 years old, so you figure out what her new purpose is. Her freezer is inside the fridge part (so don't tell her if you're just using her for her parts) She's sitting in our driveway attracting small children, so we need her to move on as soon as possible.

Within an hour I had 5 people lined up and ready to haul her off. Of course for some reason I felt the need to go in order and be all diplomatic about it. So I offered it to the first person. She thought I was in Molalla. Which you can clearly see by the title, that I am NOT in Molalla. The third guy is the first person who used Betty's name. He said, "call Manny to come get Betty the freezer" and immediately I fell in love with him. But alas, he was third on the list. So I emailed the second guy. Who turned out to be quite needy and wanted a picture and phone call. Excuse me. This fridge is free and yeah, it's free. By this time I'm irritated that people are so demanding for a free refrigerator and should be begging me, not making all these requirements of me. I did get two cute emails last night, both from women. They both said that although they weren't interested in Betty, they thought it was the "cutest" and "cleverest" ad they'd ever seen on craigslist. Awww. Just here to throw a smile your way and to prevent the boredome of reading a phone book.

So. This morning, I penned an email (can I say "penned" when referring to an email? I think there might be a need for a new word in the dictionary), and sent it to I think 9 people who had inquired about Betty. I loved all who referred to her by name. Here's the email I sent:

Good Morning!
I appreciate all the emails regarding finding Betty a new home. There have been several no-shows and Betty is getting awfully cold out there. She belongs to the first person that finds his or her way over to rescue her from the elements.
Good luck soldiers.

So far no one has ventured over here. Maybe I scared them off with my demands :-)
Who knows, with craigslist. It's a strange new world out there.

It Must Be Christmas

2012-01-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

I don't have to look at the calendar to know it's Christmas. It has nothing to do with shopping, or cold weather or putting up decorations. No. In our family it's about getting sick. It's all about getting violently sick. About a week before Christmas, I heard a noise in the middle of the night. I just assumed it was Holland. He's famous for getting up in the middle of the night. Then I hear this knock on my door and it's Romania saying he'd just thrown up. He did that probably three more times before morning and then just hung out on the couch all day. At one point, Egypt got him a big plastic bowl in case he didn't make it off the couch. He almost didn't, but luckily each time he was able to hold it til he got there. He wanted to eat so badly, but kept throwing it up. He was pretty wasted the rest of the day, but slept good. The next day he seemed to have improved, but I wouldn't let him do anything for fear of the next wave of nausea.

Then about 2 days later, my mom took the three kids out to see a movie. When I picked them up to go grab some food, Egypt kept complaining about not feeling good. She said her tummy hurt. I said it's probably just because you're hungry. We were at McDonald's. Now when a child doesn't feel like eating McDonald's, stop. And think about it. That's not what I did. I said, "oh you'll feel better after you eat something" and continued to order food. She looks at me, her face almost green and says she needs to go to the bathroom. So I had my mom finish the ordering and took her to the bathroom inside the play area. We barely made it into the bathroom and she vomited right into the toilet. Great aim, I tell 'ya. She kept apologizing and I just told her it was alright. She didn't have to apologize for being sick! So I came out of the bathroom and told mom to have them pack all the food up and we needed to go home. She threw up probably 4 or 5 more times that day. She was better by the next day, but just like Romania, I wouldn't let her do anything else. Did I mention that this whole time I was sick? Not the throwing up kind. Let's just leave it at that.

Then, right on cue about two days later and right in time for Christmas, Holland got sick. Throwing up, not wanting to eat anything, but hungry and complaining about everything. He's not a very fun sick person. Egypt apologizes. Romania cries and sleeps and Holland just gets grumpier. Didn't think THAT was possible.

I missed Christmas Eve service at church because I was so wiped out from all the taking care of everyone that I hadn't recovered. I also decided to stay home from the in-law's traditional "let's-eat-out-of-small-tea-lit-bowls-of-oil-with-16-people-who-are-all-trying-to-cook-tiny-pieces-of-meat" fiasco. Not to mention that we were told to feed the kids BEFORE coming to enjoy dinner. That makes as much sense as inviting people over for a birthday celebration and telling them to bring their own cake. I'm thinking next year we'll just bring pizza for us while they stand around with their tiny pieces of meat. Can you tell this isn't the first time this has happened?

So Christmas is over. Whew. Everyone is better. Oh wait. Now we're on round two of the sickness. It has mutated into something different. No more throwing up. But now it's coughing, fever, congestion. I just love the holidays. It's the only way I can tell it's flu season.

Changes

2011-11-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

I really try to update more often. When I finally get around to updating, there's so much to say, that I feel it's necessary to leave things out - lest you get bored and stop reading!

We've had some pretty rough times. Times I'd like to forget, but they did happen. We had to call the police for the second time. Holland became enraged with something Romania did and threw his brand new Nintendo 3DS and broke it. After trying to separate them, Holland ending up pushing me down the stairs. Super Hero got the phone for me and I called 911. The entire phone call, Holland was hanging on my back trying to get me to hang up. Two cars were here within minutes and the four officers were amazing. They talked with him and with the other two kids, holed up in Romania's room, but nothing was really done. He was calm by the time they arrived. They advised me on residential treatment and said to call them without hesitation if it happened again. For several weeks, I was considering residential and had called my insurance and several places to see the process for admitting him.
Hard to believe I actually got to the point of needing and wanting to place him somewhere, but I was feeling so unsafe.

While continuing to do school with Egypt and Romania, I would spend a lot of time online researching Reactive Attachment Disorder. I was led to website after website. Books, names of people, methods and researchers on the topic. I had pursued this before, but the only person I had found, was not on my insurance. And they wanted me to come in everyday for months. I could just not afford that - time or money. Then one day last week, I found the name of a website called ATTACh. I couldn't tell if it was for professionals or actually a resource for parents to find someone to help them. I found someone listed for Oregon and shot an email. Not even knowing if the list was current or not. The same person actually emailed me back that same afternoon and said she was the contact person and could speak to me and gave me her number. We played phone tag for a few days, but when I actually did talk to her, I knew she was the exact right person we have been looking for. All the things I described for her were exactly things she saw in many of her other patients. Nothing freaked her out - although she was worried for my safety. There were two glitches: the first was she was going out of town for two weeks to help out in Haiti with all the adoptions after the earthquake there; the second was, she's not an in-network provider on my insurance. After speaking with my insurance, I found out it was going to cost quite a bit to see her each time. I asked for an exception to be made since she was a specialist and I could not find anyone in-network that dealt with RAD. The insurance explained that the doctor would have to do that (I can see why doctors do NOT like dealing with insurances! She doesn't have time to do that kind of thing).

Well, the Lord moves in mysterious (and sometimes painfully slow!) ways. Every year it seems, Super Hero's insurance gets changed. We go through finding a new psychiatrist, finding a new therapist. It's just awful starting all over. I would get so irritated because, hey, I want to save money, but it's just so hard to find a doctor in the first place. But to find a NEW one every year that specializes in what we need is so near impossible! I found out two days ago that yet again, we are changing insurances. I was trying not to get upset. Praying that we would get to keep the gastroenterologist; the pediatric rheumatologist; the pediatric opthamologist; the psychiatrist. The person that helps read through all the insurance plans to decide the best coverage has been so nice to us - and emailed Super Hero to ask him specifically what were the doctors we needed on the plan. I emailed him a list and included the therapist that I wanted, that wasn't currently covered. I just found out, that she is on the new plan! I could hardly believe it. I almost don't want to believe it, in case it's a different Blue Cross plan or something! So, I might just wait until the new year to start up with the new therapist. Seems like a life time away, but might be easier with all the out-of-network billing.

The other big news is that finally Holland got a new school placement. We had been waiting since the beginning of the school year. I just went yesterday to a placement meeting. They are going to start slowly introducing him to the program and then by Thanksgiving week, he'll be there at least one day full time. It can't come soon enough! And the other good thing-the new school is about 3 minutes from our house. It's actually at the building where we did a homeschooling co-op several years ago. He's totally familiar with the building. No more hour or even half hour bus ride. I'll just have to shift things in my mind that my day ends at 2 instead of 2.45!

A New Ride

2011-09-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

I've stirred the pot again. I agonized all summer about what to do with Romania for school this year. He's been at the charter school since the middle of first grade. Now he's going into 5th grade. I did not know where Holland would be attending school for the whole year. Since school staff take the summer off, nothing is ever decided until the new school year starts. He has aged out of his current placement, but we are in limbo waiting for the new school to have a spot for him. What was so hard last year was the different schedule times of the boys' schools. I would drop Romania at the bus hub, race back home to get Holland in his ride to school. Then he got home at 3 and then I had to wait until 4 to leave to pick up Romania. I was sick of leaving the house every day. But homeschooling two students, especially one that hasn't been home since he was 6, was a huge decision to make.

I made a list of pros and cons for both. That helped me to see better what I was thinking and why. Even though sending him somewhere to be educated seemed easier, I wasn't just worried about his education. I was worried about his heart. He is surrounded by so much turmoil at home. And he was coming home from school so tired, so stressed out from the long day, and not wanting to do anything expect sit and watch tv. It was hard to spend one-on-one time with him and encourage him in the way he should go.

So all the deliberating turned into a decision and I started ordering curriculum. I started to get excited about what we were going to be able to study. When I had Holland home, I found this wonderful literature-based history study. Holland loved it. I just kept putting books on hold at the library and we read as much as we could. When I decided to homeschool Romania again, I was excited to start another of the books with him. The bookstore where I go has a great selection, and the staff is well versed in the different varieties of curriculums, subjects and programs. Turns out on the day I went to buy the history book, they had just that morning received the newest book in this series called "Beginnings" As the book says, "The Grand Unveiling of human history". And boy are they right. Just the couple days that we have read it, the Bible is coming to life. I am having trouble finding the resources she is recommending, but I kind of figured that since it's a Biblical study of history. Hopefully I can find enough to fill us up!

I can tell my next few posts will be about our new adventure in homeschooling!

Seaside

2011-08-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

This picture slideshow made with Smilebox

2011-08-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

If you've never heard of Pinterest, you're missing out. I discovered this about 6 months ago and it is the most brilliant idea. It's a place to "pin" things that interest you. Each person decides what they want to bookmark, name the category and organize projects, ideas for things, books, food, whatever you find interesting. You can follow people you like and they can follow you. You can easily search for things, too. Like tonight I was looking for an idea for a fabric garland to decorate Egypt's room. Boom. Search for fabric garland and tons of pins popped up. Everything from wedding decor, birthday parties, outdoor garlands, tutorials and even different shapes of garlands. It's so much easier than following a blog (by the way - thanks for reading mine!). It's actually a great way to find different blogs because the pin takes you right to the original link.

If you want to check out Pinterest, you can "follow" me. My username is "hmarineau".

Happy Pinning!

He's a Middle Schooler

2011-08-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

Ok - I officially had a middle schooler last year, but he wasn't that excited about doing middle-schooler-type things. Yesterday he made it more official by going to his first middle school retreat with kids from our church. A wonderful family has a house on the Clackamas River and every year, opens their house (well, the boys get the barn) to the 6-8th graders at church. I have to interrupt myself and say that I recently got a new book from the library (darn those libraries with all their informative books) about Reactive Attachment Disorder, which shall be heretofore referred to as RAD. So I've come up with some handy-dandy ways to assert myself and attempt to change this child's behavior. And I forget - what have I been doing the past 12 years? Oh yeah - medicating him for bipolar when in fact the newest and bestest doctor says it's RAD and ADD. Love that I can abbreviate everything. Sounds so official instead of saying "yeah - my kid's got bipolar disorder".

The author of this book is very clever. She says that RAD kids do nutty things. Don't try to figure them out because they're just nutty things. They will NEVER make sense to you, so don't attempt to go figuring that out. I've decided that she's probably right. She's parented many foster and adopted kids with RAD, so she must know her stuff. Unlike all these fancy-schmancy doctors who've sat in an office for the past 20 years doling out diagnoses to kids and their parents. So, I'm not sure how much I'm going to share with you - because you'll probably be offended that I have a child that swears (he picked that up from the kids at his school) and picks at scabs. Ok - looks like the cat's out of the bag, so I might as well tell you all the funny things he does and how I've handled it. I have to add that the author talks about 12 things to do (not all at once - I'm not a miracle worker) and the first thing is to take care of myself. Get 10-12 hours of sleep. I actually stopped reading the book at this point. I thought "if this woman thinks I'm going to get that much sleep, there is no hope for me to ever get past step 2". But after picking myself up off the floor, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to figure out if her wisdom had any merit.

The first things I've tackled are the swearing (usually at me - it's always directed at the mom), and picking at scabs. The author says that kids swear for shock value (REALLY?!? I'm shocked! I did NOT know that) and that when you react in a shocked way, they've got the power. She says that I'm the queen (see why I like her?) and hubby is the king and the kid is maybe a royal subject. But probably closer to some sort of slave. Just kidding. The first thing you do when the child swears is say "oh sweetums, I see you need time to do some swearing. Just go in your room. Take 5 or 10 minutes and get all that swearing out. Then you can come back down and feel much better". I was appalled when I read this. You mean I'm giving him permission to swear? But I don't WANT him to swear!! I figured I should at least try the opposite of everything I've been doing. So yesterday after school, he decides to call me a few choice names when I tell him to go pack for the retreat. I said as sweetly as possible (another thing he is hating) "oh, Holland. I can see that you are weak and need to do some swearing. Just go upstairs, get it all out and then come back down." He looks at me with this blank stare and goes "I'm done." I tried not to fall off the couch and just thanked him for being done.

The second thing was the scab picking. Again - I am constantly telling him to stop picking at them. He's getting pimples, he picks them, they bleed, they scab over and then he picks them and we have to start all over again. I've been reduced to going into his room at night, rolling him over and putting zit cream on his face. Either that or Neosporyn. So yesterday on the way to the middle school retreat, he's sitting in the front seat, trying to hide that he's picking at it again. I look over and say (sweet, happy voice again) "hey - I've decided that you have created a new hobby and I'm going to help you out. I'll get a ziploc bag, you can go in your room and pick at the scabs, put them in the baggie and then you'll have a collection!" He immediately shouts "that's gross!" and stopped picking. I haven't been able to view evidence of the ceasing of scab-picking since he's been gone. But it was sure fun shocking him with the scab-picking hobby idea.

She's got many more good ideas, but I'd better get to bed if I'm going to get anywhere close to 10-12 hours of sleep.

Shiny Children

2011-07-12T19:58:00.001-07:00

I have such brilliant children. No, seriously. They are so smart, they figure out ways to stump me with their logic. Here's a conversation that happened today:

Romania yells from upstairs: "Mom, Egypt hit me for no reason!"
Egypt yells back: "He hit me, too!"
Romania yells again: "Yes, but I had a reason!"

Isn't that great? How do kids manage to have conversations that defy logic? Here's another great conversation overheard. By the same two involved in the last one.

Egypt: "You are such a monarch!"
Romania: "That's a butterfly. I think you mean 'moron'."
Egypt: ....."aaarrrrrghghghghg!!"

Wasn't that nice of him to correct her? I mean, what kind of brother would actually take time to tell his sister the right way to insult someone? See? Pure brilliance.

Finish It

2011-07-06T19:20:00.000-07:00

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is my new motto. Today was not a particularly good day and it actually had nothing to do with Holland. Facebook is a slippery slope and today I experienced something that makes me question whether to be on it or not. I made a comment (innocent in my mind) on someone's post who wasn't feeling particularly loved that day. She felt left out of something and we kind of relate because we are both dealing with special needs kids. Sometimes it can get lonely not being able to do everything that other adult friends get to do. I was just trying to make her feel better. My comment offended someone else. There's no need to go into what was said, but this person has not been able to let it go. I apologized to her. Several times. I deleted the comment so no one else would have to see it. She would not stop emailing me. So I posted something on my Wall that said I was determined to have a good day. And it wouldn't matter that someone was mean to me.

I felt like I was back in high school. I've never had an encounter like this before. I left the comments up there so people could see the conversation and wouldn't think that I was the nut job. Sometimes no matter what you do, it's not enough for some people.

Tomorrow is a new day. I'm done with today; I've done what I could.

Home. Sigh.....

2011-06-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

We've been home from the beach for a few days and already I miss the weather. Can you believe the weather was better at an Oregon beach, than in the Rose City?? Crazy. Yesterday was my birthday and with it being the first day of summer and the longest day of the year, the sun was out and it was perfect! Of course, I had to take the kids to pick out something for me (a bead for my bracelet) and my cake. Super-Hero doesn't do too well in the party-planning arena. But that's okay. I was able to listen to the kids argue for 15 minutes over which bead to get me. Doesn't matter that I had made a list of the beads I liked and any of them they chose would have been perfect! The store-owner was super sweet and patient with my kids and assured them that whatever they chose I would love. When I'm not embarrassed by them, I actually do appreciate their thoughtfulness.

I'm still trying to get the house back under control. I made the silly mistake of imagining coming home to a clean house. After all, four of us were gone for a week and most of the messiness comes from three of the four who were absent. I'm playing catch up with laundry (even though three suitcases came home clean and two were filled with dirty clothes) I'm still tearing through the mountain of dirty clothes. Romania and Egypt started a Sports Camp through our church, so I drop them off every morning and run around doing errands. Then in the afternoon, try to fix dinner, put clothes away, help straighten rooms and get Romania ready for a baseball game. Oh - I also spent time at the DMV on Monday. My driver's license was expiring on Tuesday and I completely forgot about renewing it. It didn't help that most of the paperwork was going to be difficult to find. You have to prove you're a citizen, your full legal name, full address and social security number. It was never this hard to renew a license before - I've gotta thank illegal aliens for making this process more complicated. I emailed Super-Hero while we were out of town to have him find my birth certificate and last year's tax forms. That would cover my name, social and address from the tax form and my legal citizenship from the birth certificate. He couldn't find the birth certificate anywhere. I went to the closest (I thought) open DMV office after dropping of the kids at Sports Camp. They would not accept the documents I had as enough to renew my license and the woman almost cut up my license right there! But she decided since it actually expired on the 21st, she would give me a "pass" and hope that I could find the documents I needed to prove who I was. I spent most of the afternoon looking through the files I could. But Super-Hero had locked the file cabinet in the garage and I couldn't get into it. I even asked Holland to try to pick the lock (he's done it before on door knobs!), but it didn't work. I was totally in a panic because I knew my birth certificate wasn't in there. The other document they'd accept was a passport, but I knew mine had expired years ago and wasn't sure how long past the expiration they would accept it. The DMV person told me five years past expiration and I went to England in '98 for my brother's wedding. Thankfully, Super-Hero found the passport and I raced out of the house while he got all three kids ready to head out to Romania's baseball game. Craziness.

The office I went to for the second trip to the DMV was a lot closer. I thought they were closed for renovation, but they weren't. And they were open 'til 6, so I had just enough time to get there and pray that my documents were enough. I was in and out in 10 minutes! Whew!! Got a temporary license (my mug on a piece of paper) and a hole punched in my card since it expired. So glad I got that taken care of. Here's my warning to everyone who has to renew in the next few years: look for your paperwork NOW! I can't believe how hard it was to find everything.

The Beach!

2011-06-17T23:43:00.000-07:00

We've been in Seaside for almost a week and I do NOT want to leave! It has been so much fun. We've played so many times on the beach, I've lost count. The house we rented is just fabulous. The owners have done an amazing job with some remodeling and it still has all the charm of an old house (I think it was built in the early 20's). We've had fun talking through the floor to the kids! There are vents on the first floor that you can see through to the basement. Whenever someone is talking, it's hard to tell where they are in the house. The little ones like to stand downstairs and just talk like you're in the same room!

My nephew is playing in a beach soccer tournament, so my sister, my mom and I rented a house in Seaside where the tournament is taking place. We decided to come the week before the event. It's been amazing - the weather has been so kind, the kids have had a great time and we've made some special memories during the trip. A friend I've known for over 20 years (we used to work at a Christian Conference Center in Cannon Beach) still lives in Cannon Beach and I try hard to see her when we are able to come to town. This week was a crazy schedule for her, but she was able to make time on Friday to meet us at 7 in the morning to go hunting for sand dollars at low tide. She said this particular beach was usually just littered with sand dollars. And they weren't broken! I have never seen a sand dollar with all the fuzzy stuff on it. Only when they're dried up and broken. We walked around and found so many different sizes and colors of sand dollars. And Holland was even able to catch a razor clam! Some guys were clamming when we got down there and one let Holland dig and then pull the clam out and keep it! He was so proud! What a great experience! I'll post some pictures of our adventure later when I have time to make a cool slide show. We leave on Sunday and I want to stay the whole summer!!!

What we witnessed this week is truly proof of an amazing God!

Great Wolf Lodge

2011-05-28T15:58:00.000-07:00

Super-Hero and I have been planning a secret trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, Washington. We decided not to tell the kids because it's just too hard for Holland to wait. Like his new psychiatrist says, "he lives in the eternal now." Plus, it was fun announcing on the morning of school that we were skipping!

We stopped for lunch on the way, but Holland refused to get out and eat. I said we were going inside and if he wanted to eat, he could come in. We sat in a booth near the window so I could see the van and he didn't move the entire time we were in there. He does a lot of "if I'm not getting my way, nobody else is going to be happy, either" thing. I told him he wasn't in charge and we were going in to eat. (He wanted McDonald's, but we chose Dairy Queen) When we got to the hotel, Super-Hero and Holland went in to see if we could get our passes early. They let you check in and use the waterpark before you even get your room. Which is nice, because you can't get your room until 4! We got in to swim at 12:30. Kids had a great time at first. It's always a gamble with Holland. Will he have fun? Will he cause problems? Will he demand things and make a scene? Yes, to all of those things. The first problem that happened was a ride down one of the tunnels. Romania and Egypt had gone down with Super-Hero and I had stayed in the wave pool with Holland. Egypt wanted me to go and dad said that I would have fun. Holland decided to come. He does not like fast, scary rides. He gets scared at Oaks Park with the small rickety roller coaster ride. Well, turns out that Egypt had taken us on the stairs to the scariest of the four rides. I thought I was going to fall out of the raft. Holland was NOT happy and was screaming (not a fun scream!) the entire way down. Egypt had this huge smile on her face. The tunnel drops straight down at least two times that I remember. Your heart goes up in your throat. After that, Holland decided he had had enough with the water and wanted to go. I said no, we were staying. He went back to the chairs where our stuff was, and fell asleep with towels over his head.

We got into the room at 4 and decided around 4.45 to look for a place to eat. Holland was content using his laptop that he brought and again refused to come eat. I left Super-Hero's phone with him and told him if he needed anything to call. We found a restaurant that was right across the parking lot. Super-Hero and Romania ordered hamburgers and Egypt ordered chicken strips. I ordered a chicken salad and I'm the only one who had a decent meal. Romania asked for a plain hamburger and it had cheese on it. So he took it back and asked for another one. Meanwhile, Egypt and Super-Hero are eating and I can tell he doesn't like his hamburger. Egypt said there was something "funny" about the chicken. When I looked at it, it didn't look cooked. When Romania got the plain hamburger, he took not even two bites and wouldn't eat anymore. Said it was horrible and Super-Hero said the same thing. My salad was the only thing that saved me! When we got back to the room, Holland was sitting in the exact same spot, doing his computer.

After dinner, the kids wanted to go back to the pool. I was getting a headache, so stayed behind and he took the kids back. They all had more fun and Holland came back about an hour later saying he was tired. Egypt and Romania slept in a little den area with bunkbeds and Holland slept on the hide-a-bed (only bed with an outlet nearby for his computer). Kids had no trouble falling asleep. At one point, Romania said he couldn't fall asleep and I said, "oh, you'll be asleep in five minutes." I went back to my bed and then a few minutes later hear him say, "mom, has it been five minutes?" I said "yes, why?" He goes, "well you said I'd be asleep in five minutes and I'm not asleep." I told him he was too literal and to be quiet!

The next morning, we couldn't get out of the room fast enough for Holland. He didn't even want to eat breakfast. That makes three meals he didn't eat. He wanted to go down and check if they could get in to the pool area at 8.30. We told the kids we needed to pack everything up before we went down to swim or we'd have to come back up and pack up everything and load it into the car by 11. Holland was so mad and threw a couple tantrums saying he didn't want to do that. I kept reminding him he wasn't in charge (psych's idea) and that this is what we were doing. After much complaining, by now it was 9 and they still hadn't loaded the car. Holland was not happy. I told him as soon as he helped load stuff, they could go swimming. I stayed to finish packing and get ready. Then I went downstairs and Super-Hero went up to load the rest of the stuff in the car. It's nice because you can play in the water area before check in and also after the next day. You just have to be out of your room and so we had to organize which clothes the kids would need after swimming.

By 11 am, Holland was complaining very loudly how hungry he was. I reminded him that he hadn't really eaten much the past three meals. He complained a lot. Super-Hero had left valuables in the car rather than get another locker. So he had to dry off, go back to the van and get his wallet. I took Holland to a snack shop and he got a hot dog, fries and a drink and his mood changed for the better. I had another chicken salad (too much greasy food on vacations!) and then the other two kids got something to eat with Super-Hero. We played tag like this all day. Swapping kids and duties. Worked out pretty well. But then Holland got bored and said he was tired and wanted to go home. I said we weren't going home and we couldn't go back to the room. He got upset (very loudly) and complained a lot. I told him he could go back to the van if he wanted. When I went to find dad and the kids eating, there was Holland, asleep! on a chair. Everyone who walked by had this sad look on their faces of a kid asleep in such a fun place. The other two finished eating and wanted to swim again. I said I would stay with Holland. When he did wake up, he wanted what he wanted (which wasn't what we were doing) and got angry. He then shoved the table, which hit my foot and broke my toenail. He also knocked some stuff off the table. I got up. I had had enough. I told him to clean up the mess and walked away. I could tell he was throwing a fit behind me. I fully expected him to come running behind me and push me. He didn't, though. He just kept after me, crying that it wasn't his fault. So tired of hearing this. I told him as soon as he cleaned up his mess, he could get his laptop. Dad came back to where we were sitting and I explained what was going on. Super-Hero took him back to the mess, but it had already been cleaned up. More crying about how it wasn't his fault.

Super-Hero decided to get him the laptop and took him to the lobby where he sat until we left at 6.30. Egypt and Romania played hard the whole time and didn't want to leave! We had a great time - minus the meltdowns that Holland had. We found a pizza joint in Centrailia called "Grandma's Pizza" with a giant pizza man outside the place. Kids thought that it was really funny to have a place called "grandma's pizza" and not have a grandma outside! We ordered a pepperoni and the kids each had these bottled drinks. We watched funny home videos on a giant tv and then left for home. Holland and Egypt fell asleep on the drive home. We were able to get all to bed without much fuss.

Now I'm wondering how our beach trip in June is going to go. My nephew is playing in a soccer tournament in Seaside and we rented a house there to stay the entire week. Hopefully having his cousins around will mean he'll have more fun. But who knows? Things rarely work out like I think they're going to.

2011-05-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of the kids over the past several months. Romania is playing baseball this spring. Egypt loves to hula hoop and climb trees and Holland is busy decorating giant gingerbread cookies I bought on clearance at Trader Joe's

How Does She Do It?

2011-05-22T14:55:00.001-07:00

This could have been the name of a website *I* came up with! But it's not. It's my new favorite place to plan meals and keep track of recipes. Last week I was making another effort to get organized for the week and plan meals ahead of time. It's such a simple concept, yet something that I struggle with all the time. It's hard enough to fit in everything I need to do to keep the house running. It almost feels like wasting time, to sit down and plan out a menu, shopping list, etc.

So I Googled. I just love making a verb out of a noun. What I found was 1. Most websites I came across either wanted a membeship paid, or money for a CD for a menu planner. 2. Most websites were not helpful at all. The layout was confusing, or not attractive or not helpful. 3. When I finally did find the right website - I realized how EASY it was going to be to get organized!

The website is called howdoesshedoit.com and is just wonderful. I can input my own recipes. I can search for other members' recipes. I can cut and paste members' recipes into my own menu planning. The recipes you enter are there forever (unless you delete it, of course) and then when you select a recipe, the entire shopping list is saved into a seperate link that you can print off! I can't say how much I love this site. My first week started last Sunday. I spent a couple of hours (ok - that's probably the only downside to this) entering in recipes and measurements. But when I was done, I had my entire week of dinners planned out and I'm happy to report that I stuck to it the ENTIRE week! Yes, that's right ladies. I actually followed my own plan. I figured out what I had already on hand, what few things I would need to buy and chose recipes. So far I have maybe 12 dinner recipes, 3 desserts, a couple salad and snack recipes. I will have to keep entering recipes in to my databases to be able to pull them out for later use, but then all the hard work will be over.

I was also smart and cooked up a bunch of shredded chicken, ground beef, cubed cooked top round and shredded beef, all from other meals and then I froze. Now, I just find recipes that fit the meat I have and type them up on my new friendly website!

Overdue Update

2011-05-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

I've been scolded several times for not updating my blog. I think I spend too much time on Facebook updating my status and have forgotten about my blog.

I've started several posts, only to abandon them and never hit "publish". The quick update is we have a new doctor. We started seeing him in March. Holland came to the first few appointments, meds were dropped and a new one added and glad to say he is doing somewhat better. The medicine is for ADD and seems to have helped him get the focus he needs. I'm shocked at his handwriting and how much he is reading and writing. It looks like the past 6 or so years, I've done nothing. I've decided that the medicine has helped so much that it's not my fault he couldn't read or write until 6th grade. The teacher and staff at his new school (he's in a day treatment program) are great. They've done several home visits to help work on family social skills and just to see how he does in a non-school environment.

We've had a few bumps in the road. Like the time he physically attacked me in a park on the way to Romania's baseball game. It was like a scene out of "What Would You Do?" with John Quinones. Only this time no one stopped to help me at all. He was really angry about having to stay for Romania's baseball game and for the time it took to walk from the parking lot to the field, he kicked, hit, yelled, yanked my coat and tripped me. And then repeated that scene on the way back to the van after I dropped Egypt off with Super-Hero at the field. It was horrible. I couldn't believe that he felt nothing about acting like that in public. He's so upset when he doesn't get his way that he resorts to phsyical violence to get what he wants. The interesting thing is that when I told our new doctor about this scene, he wasn't surprised at all. He also did nothing about giving me help on what to do when something like this happens. What I wanted to do was turn around and smack him (how's that for honest?) It's humiliating and degrading to be beaten up by your own child. And it's even harder to turn around and show love after that. All I wanted to do after that was completely ignore him. Instead of ignoring, we came home and worked around the house for 3 hours while the other three enjoyed a day at the ball field. Let's be honest here - I'm the one who was punished in this case. He feels remorse (which I'm relieved he does), but I just wish he could get to the point where he doesn't have to resort to physically hurting someone (it's not just me; he hurts his siblings, too).

We are no where near what I would consider 'normal'. I don't even like using that word. It's more like what's 'typical'. But we've come so far from last summer when I had to hospitalize him.

The next thing we have to work on is getting him into another program next fall since he ages out of the current placement. I am also planning on sending him to a 7 week program this summer and calling it 'camp'. We'll see if the even flies.

Along The Winding Path

2011-03-06T15:34:00.000-08:00

Ok. I cannot believe it's been this long since I posted. I think I've started 3 different posts, only to be interrupted and had to stop. If there's too much chaos around me, I tend to start typing what I'm listening to. And we don't want to go there. You don't need to hear the kids' arguments. Ahem.

So while I'm still waiting to get into the CDRC for testing for Holland, Super Hero's insurance got changed in January and I had to start all over looking for yet another psychiatrist. I could have continued with the nurse-practitioner we had, but I don't want to spend $50 each visit. So I looked at our insurance list and just started calling doctors who fit the bill (nice little pun there). I ended up choosing someone who answered his own phone and was willing to talk right then about what it was we were needing. He had an opening the following week for an evaluation of Holland. The first five minutes he was fine. Then he started complaining he was bored. He wanted to go home. He didn't want to be there. What does that light do? Can I use your computer? Do you have wireless? Can I bring my laptop and hook it up to yours (no's to all these), then - I'm bored, I hate this, I want to go. Doctor started tossing a ball back and forth with Holland and pretty soon he was answering questions again. He contined to wander around the room, touching, opening, crawling under, flinging and playing with anything he could touch. If you didn't know the kid I was talking about, you'd think he was 4. He's about to turn 12!

So, our appointment didn't last as long as was scheduled (90 minutes), but we were to come back the following week for more observations. I also brought all his school testing, the private testing we had done, the last doctor's chart notes from the 4 years with him and his current IEP at school. By the end of the second appointment, this doctor was sure that it is not Bipolar Disorder, but rather ADD (yes, not the hyperactive one!). After reading through all the school notes, testing, previous doctor's notes, he said he was shocked that no one else had come to this conclusion. He said every doctor we had had, just stuck with the bipolar diagnosis. He said it's glaring the amount of symptoms he displays for ADD. It's all about executive function. Think about it like this, he lacks the ability to use cognitive reasoning skills. He lacks the skills for cognitive flexibility, working memory, directed attention and cognitive reasoning. This is why kids with ADD cannot finish a task, or get distracted while doing something and move on to something else.

We talked about taking Holland off all the anti-psychotic drugs. This is the first time (other than his hospitalization) that a doctor has suggested taking him OFF something. Not only are the drugs he's on powerful, they can have severe side effects. And these drugs are not tested on children. They are tested using adults and then adjusting the dose based on weight. The process will be slow. He wants to take him off gradually and meanwhile start an ADD medicine called Intuniv. He's actually been on this before. The NP gave us samples. But when we went to fill the Rx, it cost $50 for the month. There is a generic of it, but it has to be given more often and a higher dose. I noticed a difference between the two. I'm praying (yes, you pray too!) that our insurance will just charge a regular co-pay. The insurance says we have to get preauthorization with this drug. Which the doctor says usually means they aren't going to cover it. But God could have different plans. Look how He got us to this point. We've been through 4 different doctors and a major hospitalization.

He's been on the Intuniv for two weeks now and I've noticed differences. He's doing a bit better handling change, being able to go to school without a major meltdown. He still gets himself in trouble when he doesn't get his way. He'll be up to the full dose in another week and then we'll go from there.

So finally the big update. Hoping that it won't take me another month to keep things current.

DD is delayed more

2011-01-26T18:45:00.000-08:00

I got an email today from social services. I had turned in additional paperwork a couple weeks ago to see if that changed Holland's denial status. Today the gal said that she wanted to let me know that they finally received Holland's hospital records from San Diego - the ones that mysteriously disappeared and then were found.

It's good news and bad news. The records didn't change his status for denial, BUT...
they are requesting additional testing! Yea!!! This means (I think) that he will have some kind of neuropsychological testing done - hopefully on their dime. Months ago I had filled out paperwork to have neuro testing done, but it was just overwhelming what needed to be acquired to even be put on the wait list. So they are putting the process on hold until additional tests are done and looked at. I'm hoping this also means we can be pushed to the front of the line and don't have to wait months to be seen.

So thankful that we are still going to be considered for disability. This is the only time that you hope the tests turn out bad!

Feed the Homeless

2011-01-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, a friend came to me and said her son wanted to make sandwiches to feed the homeless in downtown Portland. Last year, he earned money and bought the stuff he needed and made about 100 sandwiches. His parents drove him around Portland and he handed out sandwiches.

This year, he wanted to do something more. So they decided they would get donations from people at church, make sandwiches and put them in H2O bags. About five years ago, two of the pastor's daughters came up with this ministry to homeless by providing them with a lunch sack with a non-perishable food item, socks, water bottle, Gospel tract and Rescue Mission meal voucher. The girls sell the bags at church for $3 and this year some of our Treasureland kids are going to make sandwiches, purchase these H2O bags and give them out to homeless in Portland in Februrary.

This morning's service was a combined service with both of our church locations in attendance. We meet across the street at the West Linn High School to accommodate all the people. We arrived early and Egypt and Romania and 5 other kids stood by the doors as people came in. They held signs and coffee cans with information about their project. The kids did a great job and in just one service, raised close to $75 (which is probably a very low estimate!) Next week we'll take the kids to each church location and ask for more donations to be able to buy as many H20 bags and sandwiches as we can. In February around President's Day, we'll make sandwiches and then head out to downtown and let these kids minister!

The Cleaning Fool

2011-01-18T14:30:00.001-08:00

Everyday after getting the boys off to their different schools, Egypt asks me if we can do something "fun". Somehow we always end up baking. I'm not sure how that happens. When Holland was home schooled, we were always disassembling things. We took apart an old electronic typewriter so he could use the motor (remember the motorized sit and spin? or the make-shift weed eater?); he had me build a pit kiln in the backyard so he could make his own nature print tiles; he made robots out of IKEA boxes, electricity wires, motors and thing-a-ma-bobs; he made a luge out of boxes and two skateboards. So I thought with Egypt home, things would be low-key.

Nix that idea. We've been baking, cleaning and puzzling for about two weeks now. Every day for about 10 days, we made muffins, bundt cakes, cookies, gluten free cookies, brownies and bread. Then I would bore her with "school". She kept complaining that she wanted to do something fun. I told her we couldn't bake all day, but I was happy to do that for one project during the day.

That desire to bake has been replaced by the need to clean. And more specifically, iron. She loves to sweep the kitchen floor, wash windows, vacuum, and straighten up the boys' rooms. This morning after the boys left and she had her bath, she starts trying to convince me we need another project. She wanted to do something "fun". I said I needed to finish some laundry organizing (Super Hero built me a new shelf and clothes rod in my tiny laundry room) and then iron a few things. I said we could do some school and then she could pick something to do. It had to be "fun". I asked her what "fun" was. She said, "like ironing!"

He's Alive!

2011-01-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

Well, it appears that Holland was born afterall. I finally got my act together and went to Social Services to turn in more paperwork for my appeal. In case I forgot to mention this before, the application for Holland's disability was denied. I've heard this is very common. They want to weed out all the flim-flam and make it so difficult to get any assistance and hope you'll give up. I can see why people do give up. Navigating this system has been horrible. No one wants to help you, you get misdirected answers, and people generally feel all you want is money.

After I got the denial letter, I immediately got on the phone with Oregon Disability Rights and talked to someone about what to do. I sent them a bunch of paperwork on past testing. But they didn't get the last two pages of something we had done 5 years ago. The psychologist that did the testing is impossible to get ahold of and hasn't returned either phone call from me. So I'm still waiting to get them what they need.

In the meantime, someone from Social Services (probably the state level at this point) calls me and asks me a bunch of questions (but I wasn't given the chance to ask any) and says basically we will have a conference call on a specific date to talk about the appeal. It was irritating that he wouldn't give me any other information. So the conference call came and they told me why Holland wouldn't qualify. I told them repeatedly that I understood he wouldn't qualify from the bipolar diagnosis. I told them his learning disabilities were going to prevent him from functioning as an adult. They told me his IQ was too high. I pointed out that the testing they had was not the entire picture. The testing they had was from the current IEP, which wouldn't have been a problem, except that Holland had had testing back in February of 2010 and I was told at that meeting that he was "mentally retarded". Something very hard to hear that I actually fought against putting in his IEP. I requested more testing since I didn't think those results were accurate. The testing was done under stressful circumstances, in long sessions and with a person he'd never met and had trouble taking instruction from. In both testing situations, he scored "extremely low", "very low" and "below average" on many things. He had a few jumps in scores that showed he was above his age for logic. The thing the conference call people said was his "overall" picture was that of a kid with learning disabilities, but not developmental disabilities.

I said I also was trying to get ahold of his birth records from San Diego where he was born. I had been told that the hospital could not find those records. I knew he was exposed to drugs and alcohol during pregnancy and it was a matter of finding those documents. I called our lawyer and asked if she had any records that would indicate drug use. She actually had paperwork from a social worker in San Diego that showed birth mom admitted to alcohol and meth use during her pregnancy. The records indicated that she was "clean" at the birth, as was Holland. But she had been in the hospital for three weeks because her water broke early. So of course she wouldn't have drugs in her system at that point. The fact that she admitted to it was a big plus. Although I don't think it shows the true amount of what was consumed.

The conference call people said I could ask for an extension and get those documents and have them faxed to them. So yesterday, I had social services fax those papers and when the gal was giving me back my copies, said "You must have put pressure on the hospital for those records." I told her that the socialworker paperwork was actually from my lawyer. I didn't get what she was talking about. She explained again that the hosiptal did in fact have his records and needed another request sent out and they would send them to her. I couldn't believe it. How did they find them when they were adament about not having them? Someone, somewhere put pressure on them to look harder. The social worker told me it was really good I had documents proving that birth mom abused drugs and alcohol.

Now I just have to wait for the appeals people to call me back. Hopefully with good news that my appeal has been accepted and we can move forward.

Holding My Breath

2011-01-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

How is it that a month goes by without me blogging? A year ago that would have seemed impossible. I think I had something important to say every day! Yeah. I wish that were the case. But I have some relatively good news about Holland. We switched him to a new med. Well, not entirely new. He's been on it before and beats me as to why we took him off it. But another med he was on caused a 15 pound weight gain in a month and a half! Doc thought it was probably a combination of a growth spurt and the medication. But once he was taken off it, in less than 3 weeks, he had dropped five pounds. And I really think it was making him all wonky. He just didn't feel good and the medicine was making it worse.

He's back on Abilify for three weeks, and I've been noticing things over the past 8 to 10 days that have been very encouraging. I've always known he's got a very caring heart. He truly wants others to feel comfortable and be happy. And he's really been able to do that. If one of his siblings is hurt, he's running around looking for bandaids or a blanket. When I was sick on Christmas Eve, he brought me ice water with a straw. One time he made me scrambled eggs. And he's controlling his temper so much better. His tolerance for frustration is showing signs of improving and he's able to switch activities and not come unglued.

This is a far cry from just a month ago when things were so bad I was considering some pretty drastic measures. Praying that we can keep him on this med for awhile and he can be successful. And we also need to find a new doctor. Super Hero's insurance changed again and our current psych isn't on the list. It's either find someone else, or pay $50 each visit! Yow-zar!

School, School, School. Sigh

2010-12-09T21:53:00.001-08:00

Every day there's a tension as to whether Holland will get in his van for school. Even after it's driven off, I still am worried that the driver will come back to my driveway and say "there's no way I'm drivin' this kid 45 minutes!" He's refused to get in the van three times. And two of those times have been after I gave him a particular medication the night before. It's a catch-22 with his sleeping. He takes something to help him sleep, but it doesn't keep him asleep long enough. Well, long enough for me. He can probably survive on the sleep he's getting, but since it's so unsafe for him to be wandering around the house in the early morning, it would be best for all of us if he could stay asleep until 7 a.m. That's where the second med came into play. The first time we reintroduced it, I gave him half the dose he had before. I had so much trouble waking him up to get ready for school. He was so cranky and obviously still had the med in his system. He refused to get in the van (this is the time where the driver threatened to call the police because he was so overwhelmed with what to do).

So a few days ago, the psychiatrist suggested trying it again because he's not staying asleep long enough. Same thing happened the next morning. He's overly cranky, mean to everyone and causing problems when I'm dropping Romania at his bus stop. When we get home, the van is already in the driveway and he's upset because he's too tired and wants me to drive him in. I tell him that's not part of the day's plan. That he has to ride the van if he wants the reward of me picking him up after 10 successful days going in. Well, I found out that part of the reason he was so upset is that one of the staff had scheduled two different times to come for a home visit and had to cancel. The first time was bearable, the second was not. So, he was tired and on top of that very upset that this person wasn't coming like she had promised twice.

So he ended up staying home on Tuesday. Just flat out refused to get in the van. I had to cancel the entire day's plans of errands and things with Egypt. I was so frustrated. The whole point of having him at this day treatment program was to get the help he needed for his behavior. So far, they've seen very little of what I see at home. They are probably still wondering why I fought so hard to get him out there. They probably think I'M the nut job for not just putting him in a regular educational setting. Well, I take that back. They saw a glimpse of that last week when I came to school for a meeting and he wanted to come home with me. He got outside the locked gate and clung to my van for dear life. Then when I called my mom to tell her I would be late picking up Egypt, he crawled on top of the van and jumped up and down trying to get me to change my mind. I let 5 staff just stand around the van to make sure he wasn't going to hurt himself. But I waited it out (they asked how long I wanted to wait. Usually I don't get that benefit because it's jut me against him all other confrontations. But this time with so many adults around, tag-teaming was a lot easier.) It took him 45 minutes to get off my van and come inside and another 20 to 30 to be able to be calm enough to talk and walk off his anxiety. Turns out his speech teacher is a really great person to have around. He had us walking and talking and within 5 minutes, Holland was taking deep, relaxing breaths that he'd been holding in for over an hour.

So the stress of getting Holland to school is just wearing on me. It also is really hard to see Romania upset every day that I take him to the bus stop. He's in tears most days and it's so sad that there's so much stress on his little 9 year-old body. Part of me just wants to keep him home so he can get some much needed attention. Then Egypt says how much she wants to go to school with Romania. "I want to ride the bus and have the teacher teach me things and I want friends." I told her that right now it was very important that I be able to teach her the things God wants me to teach her and she can't learn that in public school. She paused for a minute and then said, "Can I go to school some of the time and then come home and you teach me the God things?"

Oh, if were only that easy.

Love you, Uncle Pete

2010-12-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

My Uncle Pete died on December 4th. He had scheduled surgery for his knee and found out through pre-op exams that he had had several heart attacks. The doctors decided he wasn't in any shape to have knee surgery and his heart needed taken care of first. He had quadruple bypass surgery two days before Thanksgiving. There were several complications. He had to go back into surgery after they discovered internal bleeding. His lungs never fully worked to capacity because he was a smoker and had emphysema. After more than a week in ICU, his doctors moved him to his own room and then only two days later sent him home.

His wife had to call 911 the following morning because he was having trouble breathing. After a short stay at our local hospital, he was sent home with more medication and an oxygen tank. My parents had dinner with him and his wife and my mom stayed over. Then Saturday morning when my dad came over to pick up my mom for a Christmas Tea we had planned, there was an ambulance and firetruck there. My mom had seen him when she woke up. She went upstairs to take a shower and 15 minutes later my aunt saw him, but he had stopped breathing. The paramedics worked on him for 15 minutes, but it was obvious he was gone.

We are all grieving this loss. My kids had such fun going over there for BBQ's and s'mores in the fire pit. They climbed trees, played ball and soccer, and just ran around. But in the wise words of a 6 year-old, she reminded me that even though gramma was sad, Uncle Pete was in heaven with Jesus and he was happy.

Post mix-up

2010-12-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

For some reason, the post I just wrote about Holland's school update got posted before the post about the Shutterfly cards. Probably because I started that post back on November 19th! Well, at least I know that my computer can keep track of when I write things, even if I can't. Maybe it can help me find where I've hidden all my Christmas presents this year!

Shutterfly Cards

2010-11-29T08:34:00.000-08:00

About a month ago I got a Groupon for a photobook from Shutterfly. It cost me $10 for a 20 page book worth $30. I decided to make a book for Super Hero for Christmas. It took me awhile because I got to choose all the backgrounds, borders, wording and fonts. But I am so happy with the results. They also ship very quickly. The entire book was printed and arrived in my mailbox in a week. So you still have time to order something for Christmas! They are having a sale right now - 20% off all holiday cards. Check it out here.

Yesterday we took the kids to Washington Park in Portland and I took pictures in the Rose Test Garden. Even though the flowers are not blooming, it's still such an amazing place. The kids had a blast running around, helping with poses and exploring the gardens. I've been impressed with Shutterfly's Christmas card selection, and will probably end up using a design from here.. My favorites are the cards with multiple photo spaces. So many memories to choose from throughout the year!

The kids are so excited to see the results of our photo session. I love the quality of Shutterfly so much, that it makes me want to throw a party, just to use their invitations!

The Big Update

2010-11-17T09:46:00.000-08:00

So much has happened in the last month. It's no wonder I haven't been blogging about my ever so interesting life. Holland got into the school I was hoping for. We had several meetings and they decided it was a good fit.

We've had several mishaps with transportation (first day he was supposed to start, there wasn't a ride for him; and later on his driver told him she was going to call the police to get him out of the van because he wouldn't get out). Let's just say that I've never seen the school district react so strongly, so quickly and so appropriately. For the next two days right after this happened, they had a substitute driver. The director of Oregon City schools transportation went down to the office of the contracted student transport services and discussed the problem. They then switched the driver for Holland and the other boy who rides with him. Now we have a trained driver who has actually worked with special needs kids before.

There have also been a couple problems with getting him to stay at school. For the most part he's been fine and seems to be adjusting well. He gets lots of freedom for breaks and allowing him to cool down, but the hardest part is just getting him there. The program is a day treatment program so there are counselors and specially trained staff to deal with his emotional and academic learning needs. Within the first two weeks, two of the staffers had come out to visit Holland at home. They even both climbed his 4-story tree fort! This next week, his support staff Mary is coming out to work on family interactions. Romania will be home from school for a community service project. So she will be able to work with all three kids.

I will try to be more consistent with posting updates about all that has been happening. My uncle just died yesterday morning and things have been happening so fast all around me.

The Big IEP Meeting

2010-10-04T21:34:00.001-07:00

Finally had the IEP placement meeting for Holland last week. I haven't been able to update because I was sick last weekend. And life just moves too fast sometimes! The woman from the parent advocate group was there but wasn't able to stay for the whole meeting. Five minutes after she left, the school rep says, "Ok. Let's talk about placement." Arrrggghghgh! She was helpful, though. She wrote suggestions down on the IEP draft for me to bring up, or request to be included in the IEP. At one point, the school psychologist was going over behavior goals. One of the items said he would "use self-management techniques when frustrated instead of damaging school property 75% of the time." My parent advocate then asks, "So, it's okay to damage property 25% of the time, then?" I wanted to laugh out loud! Her point was that if the goal is written as anything other than 100%, he would become confused if sometimes it was okay to damage property and other times it wasn't. The district guy wants to see the paper and says "I don't think that was the intention of the goal." But she had a very good point and it made me laugh.

They've put in a request to a place in Beaverton called Lifeworks. It will be a 40 minute bus ride. That's just awful. There is nothing closer than is appropriate. At this school there will be the teaching staff as well as medical professionals available for his needs. I haven't figured out how I'm going to tell him. I just know it's not going to go well. Maybe they'll have a computer for him to take apart!

This is New

2010-09-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Real quick update: saw the new doctor Monday because Wednesday had an appointment for developmental disability services. This doctor isn't changing his diagnosis (and really only a developmental ped or psychologist can do that), but she says he's showing lots of signs of Asperger's Syndrome. I've actually heard this before, but we've never pursued it. We've always treated the symptoms as bipolar and she'll continue to do that. Even if he does have Asperger's, there can still be underlying issues like a mood disorder. Interestingly, if we can't prove his developmental issues are related to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder or some other mental impairment, we won't get any assistance. Bipolar doesn't qualify him at all, but Asperger's would.

Now I'm doing more research on Asperger's and trying to view his impairment from this angle. It's tough trying to figure out if his behavior is from a mood disorder or a neurological impairment.

GROUNDHOG DAY

2010-08-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

This is my life. Waking up day after day and having the same problems.

Shriners: Part III

2010-08-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

How many updates can a person have on a situation? Turns out a lot since this process is so long and tedious. I'll get right to it. Save you the trouble of having to read through all the boring details. Holland didn't get accepted to Shriners. So very disappointed.

I took Egypt and Romania over to my mom's house the night before because we had to leave the house by 7 and I didn't want her to have to get up that early. It took under an hour to get there, but glad I allowed myself the extra time for parking and navigating the building. It's so confusing up on "Pill Hill".

I had most of his records sent over before the appointment but found out the day before that the neurosurgeon's office had not sent over any of his film. It would have been nice after getting all the requests for records to be sent that they would have said "by the way, we won't be sending over any of your x-rays, MRI's, or CAT scans so be sure to request those through the records department." Silly me thought that the doctor that actually ordered all those tests would have them included in his file. So I had to pile the kids in the car and drive 45 minutes up to Emanuel, walk in a big circle to finally find the film library. The woman that I spoke to was so nice and had everything ready for me.

After filling out some more forms, we were given a pager that would beep when they were ready for us. I knew that Holland was anxious because he wouldn't go play any video games. We didn't wait very long and were taken back to get weighed, measured and blood pressure taken. Once in the room, more questions, more information entered into a computer and then finally a doctor came in. He did a quick once-over, looking at how he walked and looked briefly at his back. Then the big-wig doctor came in and asked "what can we do for you?" Well, isn't it obvious? I'm here to get help for my son with spina bifida and encopresis problems. But apparently you have to be very specific with what you ask for. After doing some x-rays on his feet because of what he thought was bone sticking out of his feet, we were told that there was nothing they could do to help us. My request for orthotics was a waste of money and to just go buy something at the grocery store to put in his shoes. I know from the inserts he had before that it helped with his leg pain. His ankles are so weak, that they turn inward. Not only that, he's pigeon-toed and has no arch.

But I honestly believe that because I didn't come right out and ask for physical therapy or occupational therapy, they didn't offer it. They knew from our medical treatment history that we had done that. We had also tried exercises at home, but he's in so much pain, I can't do them with him. I really don't understand why he wouldn't be a good candidate for treatment. But I know they are used to seeing very disabled kids on a daily basis. Why else would two different people say to me "oh look, he can walk!"? I guess because he's not crippled, we really can't benefit from their services. Because everything is free, they only want the most severe cases for treatment. Which makes it very hard on me.

The last doctor that came in talked to me about the encopresis problems and the celiac. I think he just wanted to see how much I knew (which is a lot from doing this for 2 1/2 years). I found out from him that the C1 vertebrae that has a huge gap at the bottom of his spine, is the vertebrae that controls bladder and bowel functions. Okay. Sorry. But doesn't that just fit in with a spinal cord problem and shouldn't he be treated for this malformation? I didn't find out until the very end that there is another option for people suffering from constant bowel problems. And I'm talking constant. I've thrown out 5 pairs of underwear just this week (TMI, I know, but you get what you pay for). This doctor told me about some tube that's inserted and every two days or so, the person sits on the toilet and the tube gets emptied out automatically. Then there's no accidents because he gets cleaned out every couple of days. Why was this never brought up when I was talking to Mr. Big-Wig? When a kid has an obvious bowel problem that hasn't been cleared up with a tethered cord surgery, wouldn't it make sense that it's probably related to the spina bifida and NOT the celiac disease? I just don't understand what is going on. What is the plan here? For Holland to continue suffering? For me to clean out poopy underwear for the rest of my life?

Someone throw me a flashlight because there's no light at the end of this tunnel.

Another Day, Another Window

2010-08-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

We've had two sessions with our new doctor for Holland. And I really like her. She's a nurse practitioner, but she has her Ph.D and she can prescribe meds as well as counsel. Hoping to get some bang for our buck. I gave her lots of paperwork on Holland and she was impressed with all that I brought (finally!, Someone who appreciates what I do!) At our second appointment, she had had time to look through everything and we were able to discuss med changes, what meds he'd been on and which ones I thought didn't work. We also talked about an ADHD med, but that will come later, if at all.

I had to email her for some counsel because Holland broke another window. This time my sister had come over every morning during this week for about 4 or 5 hours to help me clean, organize and work on Holland's angry outbursts. He had been told he couldn't play with friends due to prior behavior. When a neighbor girl came over to invite Egypt to come play in their sprinkler and he was told (repeatedly) that he couldn't go, he got physical with me. My sister ended up stepping in and basically after not being able to stop the violent behavior, we put him in his room and waited. Much of his belongings had been removed, but we couldn't remove his window and he threw a ceramic piece he had made into the window several times and punched a big hole in the back of his door (again). I wish he would have smashed the old computer in his room. Then I wouldn't have to deal with husband being mad that he had to replace another window. Which he didn't even want to do. I told him he needed to remove the glass because Holland was starting to pick pieces off and saving it for his spear to injure deer in our backyard. Our doctor said we could increase on of the meds he was on and that should help slow him down. Which sounds really awful when you just hear that. But after being hit, kicked, spit on, called names and yelled at, then having him break a window, can't say I'm complaining about the slowing down part.

I also have made many phone calls trying to find us more help. My insurance doesn't cover any kind of day treatment program and I doubt any in-home assistance. I have several calls out to county agencies seeing what we qualify for. Hoping we can get some respite in-home care because if this doesn't get better, I'm admitting myself into a hospital to be taken care of.

This Guy Needs a Review

2010-07-23T17:56:00.000-07:00

And I'm just the person to give it to him. After two sessions with who was supposed to be the new psychiatrist treating Holland, I decided I AM a pretty good judge of character. I didn't really like him the first time, but people encouraged me to give it a second chance. Mostly because of the hospitalization issue, but also because we just don't have anyone helping us right now.

After the first appointment, I immediately made a second appointment so our interpreter would know her schedule. It was more than two weeks away. Then the major melt down happened and I didn't know what to do, so I called this guy's office hoping to either get some really good advice or an appointment sooner than our already scheduled one. The soonest they had was for a week later. She told me to "take care of the interpreter" for her. I didn't bother telling her that I wasn't going to get an interpreter. Super Hero had been taking so much time off from work to see Holland at the hospital, the first doctor's appointment, etc. I didn't feel he needed to go in with me (seeing as the then third appointment would also be with an interpreter and I didn't want to cancel that one). On Wednesday night when I left the hospital I spoke with the doctor and they wanted to keep him until Friday to be able to monitor his sleeping and the reduced med in the morning. So I was expecting to have him come home on Friday. Thursday morning (the day of the appointment I was to have with the psychiatrist), the hospital calls and says, "come get him." They had 5 new kids come in the night before between the ages of 9 and 11. They just didn't have the staff for that large a group of younger kids and Holland would be doing nothing productive for that time.

Big quandry here. I was supposed to drop my kids off at my mom's and drive up to Portland for this appointment. There was no way I could keep the appointment and pick up Holland from the hospital. I called the doctor's office and pleaded my case. I just couldn't make the appointment. Under the circumstances, would they not charge me for a late cancellation. No. Doctor's policy said I would be charged $130 for a canceled appointment. I couldn't believe it. They have no feelings. No empathy. I would understand it if I canceled and it wasn't an emergency. But I wasn't running off to the beach. So I emailed Super Hero and asked him if he could go to the meeting for me. No interpreter. Last minute change. We both thought a $25 copay sounded better than $130 for no services received. He came home with a bunch of paper work and items the doctor requested. Interestingly enough, he requested the discharge papers. Which he would have had, HAD HE WAITED FOR ME TO BE THERE. This guy is unbelievable.

So, now we're up to Thursday, yesterday. Scheduled appointment with the interpreter there. We arrived early. We waited 10 minutes past our appointment. No explanation. No - "doctor will be with you shortly." Nothing. Then when we get into his office, he starts directing everyone where to sit. Now first off - he knows nothing about deaf people and their needs. His office staff wondered why I couldn't just "sign" for him. (They even said 'well, if you REFUSE to do that, I guess we'll get one.') The interpreter and I just looked at each other. Usually people are very accommodating and ask where would the best placement be. But not this guy. He states "I prefer all my vision to be in THIS direction, mostly." He wanted the interpreter to sit next to Super Hero. Excuse me, hearing person who knows nothing about deaf people. If a deaf person sits next to the interpreter, then he can't see you and her at the same time. We finally got it figured out (I figured out that this guy liked to be in control and have his needs met. It mattered not one whit if we were comfortable. Super Hero and I were not sitting next to each other. Calculated move on his part.)

He starts going over paperwork from the hospital and says right away that he doesn't understand the diagnoses. I was told it wasn't bipolar. But I was also told that insurance companies don't like the diagnoses "severe mood dysregulation". So I was sure that this doctor felt it was better to put bipolar so our insurance would cover it. This new doctor says "That Crombie just likes to make up his own diagnoses to fit whatever he wants." I just sat there stunned. Who talks about a colleague like that? More talk about what Holland did in the hospital. He threw a chair. I knew that he had trouble a couple nights. Separation anxiety from me. Not wanting me to leave. Threw a chair? I doubt it. Knocked it over? More likely. He goes through the list of grievances and the whole time, he's very condescending about it. Like I didn't already know that Holland had problems and how bad his behavior could be. This guy needed to tell me again how awful he was. The killer part came, though, when he said something about the meeting last week with Super Hero. He said "it's too bad you chose not to take care of that." (meaning me getting an interpreter). Again, stunned, I sat there. Then I had to ability to say, "There wasn't anything to "take care of." I wasn't planning on having my husband come. He had missed so much work with the first appointment and all the times coming to visit Holland in the hospital that I didn't find it necessary to have him be there a third time. Knowing that we already had this appointment scheduled. Your office told me I would be charged $130 for canceling and I felt that $25 was better than $130 for nothing." Then he says, "Well, it was about 15 minutes of productivity." I said "good, at least you got something done." I really can't believe I was able to utter any words. I have never been so insulted and belittled in my life by a professional like that. There were many other things he said. Off-hand remarks about things, like "even though you are a saint, even YOU can't do everything." Believe me. It wasn't a compliment the way he said it.

At one point after reading through parts of the report, he tells me that Holland's reaction to being there was NOT normal. He told me that 90% of kids who come in do not have the severity of adjustment issues that Holland did. I said, "you mean that kids aren't scared and don't react that way?" No, he said. The only explanation for that is that this guy is talking about drugged up, comatose kids. Because there's no way on earth, if you dropped a kid off at a hospital, and said, you're staying and I'm not. Here are some security guards that you don't know, look really scary and you have to go with them. You're telling me that it's not normal to freak out about that?

He also requested more testing. I'm sick of testing. Holland's sick of testing. I said I didn't think the psychologists at his office were covered. "That's going to be a problem." he says. I said, "I'm sure my insurance has psychologists in-network." "yes, but then I wouldn't just be able to talk to them. I would have to wait for their report." Oh. So sorry that you're inconvenienced by all this. What can I do to make it easier for you? (that's what was going on in my head. Really wishing I had said something like this.) I knew within the first five minutes that hell would have to freeze over before I went back to this guy. I offered very little information (didn't bother telling him about the meth use. Why give him the satisfaction? The egotistical jerk didn't need any more pats on the back). I just nodded and took the prescriptions (he gave me a year's worth of refills. He has some major confidence in himself). Then when I got out into the parking lot, the interpreter and I just looked at each other, stunned. Then we both signed "jerk, with a capital J".

So that's why I need to write a review on this guy. People out there need to know that this person is a horrible doctor. Has horrible 'bedside' manners. Doesn't care about people and has been in the business so long, he's right and doesn't need to listen to the parents or care about their feelings.

There is a light shining dimly at the end of this hellish tunnel. On Monday, Holland and I have an appointment with a Nurse Practitioner that the social worker at Emanuel recommended. She said she's even better than most doctors (after seeing this guy, I don't doubt that.) She can prescribe medications and also will do counseling. And she's close by. No more four hour productions of dropping off kids, fighting traffic to and back. And you can look for my review of Dr. Turner from The Children's Program in Portland, Oregon, coming soon to a yelp app near you.

Wednesday with Holland

2010-07-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today I got a late start and didn't get to the hospital until close to 4. Traffic was horrible. Car on fire on I205. Major construction on MLK. Four lanes squished to one for a few blocks. Took me close to an hour to get there. As soon as I walked in, he announces that the doctor said he could leave. I didn't really think this was accurate because he tends to hear things the way he wants them to go. When the doctor did come in to chat, he said that they talked about Holland leaving on Friday, so I understood why he got excited. All he heard was "go home". So he was a bit upset. He's also not eating. They've started to monitor his caloric intake because they don't want him to lose weight. I know it's just because he doesn't like new things. The hospital did a fantastic job with all the gluten free food, but with Holland's issues, I'm really not surprised he's not eating it. They did start offering him Boost drinks and I had given him those before when he went through a spot of not wanting anything at home. I've also brought tons of food he likes: gluten free bread I made; blueberries from our garden; snap peas from Aunt Heather; strawberries; cantaloupe; cherries. He loved it all and that ended up being his dinner.

The bad thing about not being able to leave tomorrow is the social worker can't meet until Friday. So he has to wait two extra days until I can have an exit meeting with her. Totally not good. My dad's birthday is tomorrow and when he found out he might be missing a party, he got really upset. They talked about doing an hour pass, but getting him back into the unit would probably get ugly. I see no reason to make him go back. Once we leave, that's it.

So far the doctor has eliminated or reduced with the intention of eliminating, 3 meds. So happy about that. Simplify. And since we are treating Severe Mood Dysregulation instead of Bipolar, I think the treatment is going to be way better. Tomorrow I'm meeting with the psychiatrist that Super Hero and I met with a few weeks ago. I don't plan on continuing that relationship, but the social worker thought it was very important to meet with him since I already had the appointment. I still have not had a chance to call the nurse practitioner that was recommended. But what can I say? The hospital staff lock up my purse and phone and I'm without technology (and bored!!) for 6 or more hours.

Updates Galore

2010-07-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

I guess I thought I posted about our doctor troubles, but I looked back and saw that I never did. I deja-vued Twitter. Or Facebook. Or the mom board I'm on. I'm getting old if I can't remember where I write something. Or I have too many places that I can write.

A few months ago I got a letter from the psychiatrist Holland has been seeing for over 4 years that he was closing his practice. He was taking a new position in another state and wished us well. He gave a few names of doctors he might recommend (no doctor ever should have to commit to any advice, you know). But all of those doctors were either not on my insurance list, were full and not taking new patients or didn't think they could help us because we were too complicated. I so misunderstood what a psychiatrist does. Someone might want to add a definition to Wikipedia so we lay-people can understand their job. After calling about 8 different doctors, I finally found one that was on my insurance but couldn't see us for a whole month! Ridiculous. The mental health care in the U.S. is appalling if I can't get an appointment for a month. And he also didn't want to see Holland first. He wanted to see Super Hero and I. So then I had to call around for an interpreter ("why can't you interpret? You sign, don't you? Well, okay. If you're refusing to do it, we'll find someone".) I just ignore people who put it this way. They are clueless and me trying to educate them will just frustrate me more. After 45 minutes of talking, explaining, answering questions, he tells me it's not bipolar, but looks like results of meth use in-utero. He said lots of babies born in Portland have moms that used meth. I explained our son was born in San Diego. Whew! We're in the clear. Turns out, he was exactly right. I contacted the gramma and found out that in fact she (birth mom) had used meth and probably other drugs (but she would never admit to them).

So skip forward about 2 weeks and I've hit my limit. I tried to take him to his new summer school program. Sparing the ugly, ugly details, I had to call the police and then my sister and I ended up driving him to the emergency room to have him admitted for observation. My intent was to get him in inpatient care and the only way to do that is through the emergency room. It was a horrid 5 hours of sitting, waiting, filling out paper work and Holland begging to go home so he could swim in his aunt's new pool. When we finally found out he'd be able to be admitted, it was 10 p.m. He was exhausted. I was exhausted. And then I noticed 2 big security guys come into his room. They actually had to use big security guys to strongarm him over to the pediatric psych unit. That was the most horrible day. But I had run out of options. There are really no options left when you have to call the police and take your son to the ER in hopes they see a need for inpatient care.

He's been there over a week. And apart from yesterday's little encounter with an on-call nurse, the staff have been wonderful. His inpatient psych is smart, to the point, doesn't mince words and lets me ask any questions I want to. The nursing staff is friendly, patient, and respectful of Holland as a human being. The only problem we're having is food. He won't eat anything they've given him. The dietician and I worked on a gluten-free menu that was great. Lots of options. Food did not look like hospital food. I've wanted to eat most of the meals. They've resorted to giving him protein drinks and said I could bring in anything I wanted. So today I'm bringing in his GF oatmeal, lots of fresh fruit and veggies and I also made GF bread that he's been munching on.

I don't know exactly when he will come home. They've adjusted his meds and want to make sure he's on good doses before they send him home. They've given me lots of doctor resources and counselor's names that hopefully I will find someone wonderful and close by. The first few days were the worst. I couldn't even say goodbye because he got upset, anxious, mad that I was leaving. But he's been better the last few days. Knowing that I'll come back. Now he just needs to make the connection that when he's finished doing what they need him to do (group meetings, individual counseling) he can come home. His lack of executive-functioning is not making that connection. Pray that he will just make a compromise and talk so he can get out of there quicker.

Hard News

2010-07-02T23:26:00.000-07:00

Want to know what it feels like to get punched in the stomach? Have a doctor tell you your child shows the symptoms of a meth baby and he doesn't think that he is bipolar, which you've been treating with toxic drugs for 5 years. Then get word that in fact, birth mom was taking meth and probably other drugs as well. Any treatment now is useless. He will not get better. Drugs will not help his underdeveloped brain. I don't see how I'm going to be able to do any type of discipline knowing his brain is damaged from drugs.

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

The Dog

2010-07-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Well, instead of paying for medical necessities, I'll probably be paying for my neighbor's dog to get its leg fixed. Today after lunch I gave Holland permission to go outside and play in the front yard with the neighbor boy. A while later, I got a call from my neighbor across the street. She wanted to know if Holland knew how her dog got hurt. I didn't even know he was in her yard. Apparently kids migrated over to her yard and there were probably 6 or 8 kids in her yard. They were running around, playing with the dog. When she went back there, the dog was limping. She asked him about it and he said he was petting the dog, but he didn't know how the dog got hurt. I got two more phone calls asking if he remembered anything else and I kept saying no. We already knew his memory is terrible. Then I get a call from the husband saying that one of the neighbor girls said Holland was chasing the dog and jumping on it. She is the only one saying this, but what does that matter? They assume that Holland is the one who did it, so I'm sure I'll be paying for this. At least if it was a person that got hurt, I'd only have to pay for what insurance didn't cover.

So not only is he destroying my property but now this involves the neighbors as well.

Shriners: Part II

2010-06-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

I blogged awhile ago about Egypt getting into Shriners for her arthritis. There was this whole application process and when we were approved, we went up to meet with the doctor to determine if she could be helped by their services. It was determined that yes, she would. I thought I would continue with them, but after trying to get ahold of the case manager to make another appointment, I felt weird because they saw that I went back to our original doctor. We had already made a follow-up appointment before the Shriners appointment, so I just kept it. The case manager says, "Well, are you using his services or ours? There should be only one doctor handling this." So I felt weird. I should be able to go to any doctor I want, so I stopped going there.

After finding out Holland's orthotics were going to cost us $500, I decided to give Shriners another chance. I applied for care for his spina bifida and hopefully they will determine that all his leg problems, etc are caused by that. Otherwise we can't get help from them. We got an approval letter in the mail and have an appointment in August. Now I have to call all the doctor's we've seen over the years and have them send copies of all the x-rays, CAT scans, surgeries he's had.

Whiplash

2010-06-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

I'm inventing a new medical term and calling it "Emotional Whiplash". Holland will swear up and down that he will do such-and-such and then when we get there, he refuses, cries and panics. This has happened several times the past few weeks and it's driving me crazy. This week I've been taking Romania and Egypt to a VBS at a church near our house. Holland went last year, but I ended up sitting in the classroom the entire time because he didn't want me to leave. This is his last year participating and I thought for sure he'd want to do it.

Monday: he promises he'll go, looks excited, we get there and he gets this panicked look on his face "I don't want to stay, I'm homesick". Fine. We leave.

Tuesday: he promises he'll go, looks excited, we get there and he gets this panicked look on his face. Are you sure? Yes, I don't feel good (always his way out of something he doesn't like or can't accomplish)

Wednesday morning at 7.10 am. He comes into my room and says he wants to invite the neighbor boy. I said it's too late to invite him. No, no, He assures me. I asked him yesterday and he wants to go. I said - "but you won't want to stay. We'll get there and then you'll change your mind." "No, I promise. If Stephen goes, I'll want to stay." Me to myself 'yeah, right'. He and Romania wait outside on the porch swing for 30 minutes waiting for the neighbor boy to walk over and we could leave. He seems excited. He even grabbed two bananas and a gluten free bar so he'd have a snack. We get to the church. "I don't want to go in." I said you have to. You invited a friend. I walk away and take Egypt to her group. I go sit in my car and wait. And five minutes later, Romania comes out with a teacher and says "Holland doesn't want to stay." There's the whiplash. It's all day long. It makes for an exhausting day because I never know what I'll be able to do.

Basic Skills

2010-05-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

This morning I visited the school where I want Holland to attend next fall. He's been staying at my mom's house for a few days and I took Egypt with me to observe the class. I really liked it. They use a lot of the same curriculum I use; they're a Christian school that's is located very close to me and the instruction seems great. The morning teacher uses the Orton-Gillingham method that I've been looking to get my hands on for Holland. This was the last day of school, so it wasn't really a normal day. But the kids are all very respectful, they stayed on task, the teacher had no distractions from the kids while teaching. The afternoons would be spent doing science projects, art projects, etc. It's four days a week from 9-3.

Oh - and it costs $500 a month. I don't have $500 a month. Pray for a miracle!

2010-05-01T08:08:00.000-07:00

So. Holland endured 8 hours of testing. We found out his orthotics could cost $500. He has constant abdominal pain from impacted bowel. His legs hurt everyday from not having orthotics. His hips hurt. And I just got a letter from the psychiatrist we've been working with for four years. He's closing his practice and moving to Vancouver to be the head of some program up there. I have a month to find someone to take his place that we like, that's on our insurance and is reasonably close by.

Whats on the agenda next? I think I'm done with all the depressing, frustrating, unfair events. What good could possibly come out of this?

Orthotics and the Testing

2010-04-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Holland had two more hours of testing this morning and it went well. He got to work with the same guy as last Friday - lots of hands on, memory games, sequencing stuff. I used this time to make a bunch of phone calls to get Holland an appointment for new inserts for his shoes. He has very flat feet (almost no arch) and his ligaments are very weak. Not only is he pidgeon-toed, but with weak ankles, he rotates his foot inward. It's very painful and his legs hurt him every day.

I found out that our new insurance coverage for orthotics is just lousy. Our deductible is $500. The insurance we had last year covered almost all of the orthotic and they only cost about $90. If I was smart (and could predict the future) I would have bought another pair last year so I wouldn't have to pay $425 for these. I chose to go back to the place that did his first pair. (She's also the one that did Egypt's shoe lift for her arthritis - gee, I'm giving her a lot of business!). So I like her and don't feel like using up energy to get the pre-authorization to go somewhere else. My insurance requires a doctor's authorization and the clinic where I was planning to go requires the doctor to set up the appointment. It could take months to get in with these people. It wouldn't matter even if I went to the preferred provider because my deductible is so high. So, now I gotta come up with $425. This means that I won't be able to have any testing for dyslexia done.

I called several places last week to find out about testing. The first place said they do two tests and it will run $800 for both. That includes a report (how generous!) and recommendations for tutoring. So after all that testing is done, I will still have to pay for private tutoring. I heard back from another place today and she at least said they would want all of his testing scores. Then they could get a clearer picture of patterns in learning and then I wouldn't have to pay for duplicate testing. It's so frustrating that the school will not test for dyslexia. They don't consider it a learning disability. And insurance doesn't cover anything like this. How do people afford this? It's obvious I should have been a speech pathologist, a psychologist and learned the Orton-Gillingham method so I wouldn't have to pay anyone to do that.

Four Hours Down, Four To Go

2010-04-24T13:18:00.001-07:00

This past week Holland had 2 sessions of testing with two different people. During our initial meeting, the testers asked if there were any motivations that he would need. I said, oh yes. He's motivated by money - it's his 'love language'! I told them about the weekly "yes, mom" contest we'd been doing and said I'd bring in the poker chips and they could give him whatever they felt he earned for the work.

The first test was on Monday and after arriving and sitting down for about 2 minutes, I could tell it wasn't going to go smoothly. He already complained of being too tired and not wanting to be there. I had Egypt with me and just assumed I'd be able to drop him off and run errands with her. Well, he wouldn't even leave the office to walk over to the testing area. He was freaked that I was going to leave him and started to cry. The tester looked at me and mouthed "it's not worth it to continue if he does this." I told her it wouldn't matter if we came back - he'd still feel the same way later. I finally was able to convince him to at least go look at the room where he'd be so he could be familiar with it and ready for when we DID come back to test. He wasn't cooperative, but managed to show some interest in all the cool toys she had in her office. After about 10 minutes, he finally warmed up to the idea and Egypt and I sat at a table for two hours, right outside her office. Big window and all so he could see that I never left. I was totally unprepared to entertain Egypt for two hours. Luckily, she had these cool magnetic shapes that she played with and I let her play a few games on my iPhone.

He finished the testing and earned 5 poker chips. On Friday we went back for two more hours of cognitive testing (Monday was for reading and writing). I had to drop Egypt and Romania at my mom's house because Romania didn't have school that day. Holland was less thrilled about me leaving the testing area, but due to confidentiality reasons, I couldn't sit in the outer office because there were other kids being tested. Holland reluctantly agreed and I sat in the main hallway for almost 2 hours. This testing was more fun for him - matching, sorting, manipulatives, games. It didn't really feel like testing to him, so he had a good time. He earned 6 poker chips today and the tester even showed him how to play poker during their break.

This week he has one more session with each tester. Then we will schedule a meeting to discuss the results. I did talk to the language tester and voiced my concerns over the possible change in disability status. She said that if the paperwork would have crossed their desk without prior approval, they would have red-flagged it. She said they take those labelings very seriously. And the woman that wanted to change his status didn't even have the authority to change it on her own (how was I to know that?). But that's good. At least I know that more than one person involved has to know what's going on before a huge decision like that is made. She did tell me, based on her first session, that he didn't strike her as MR. He has obvious reading and writing deficits and the bipolar adds a huge variable to that ability to learn something. It was hard for her to know if he would have performed better if she had pushed him more. But he gets frustrated so easily when he's forced to do something he's not good at. (aren't we all??!)

I also called a Parent Advocate place this week to find someone to go with me to the IEP meetings. I'm not sure how helpful they're going to be. They aren't allowed to interject their opinion. They are there to take notes and help you voice your opinions and ask for services. I asked the helpline if they would be able to steer me in the right direction for services and she said no. Added to the befuddled mess is the fact that I homeschool and not all of their advocates know much about laws pertaining to homeschooling and IEP's. Great.

New Tests Scheduled

2010-04-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

I had a really good meeting yesterday with the special ed people from the district. These are the same people that tested Holland 3 years ago when he was first put on his IEP. They are competent, thorough and mindful of his limitations regarding duration of testing. We have scheduled 4 sessions, each 2 hours. I've got it all figured out how I'm going to motivate him to make it through the hours of testing: poker chips.

My sister started this "yes, mom" contest at her house about a month ago. Every time a kid utters the words "yes, mom" and does what was asked, they get a token put in a jar. I've set up jam jars in my kitchen window and bought poker chips for tokens. Each kid has a different color, so there's no swappin' going on. The first week Romania won. Then Egypt won. The third week, Holland had it in the bag. But after a disastrous day and behavior that would have scared the socks off anyone watching, I removed half of his tokens. I didn't want to to it. I wanted the tokens to reflect the positive behavior and what good things he was doing. But I just couldn't let this go by. As it turned out, Romania and Egypt tied, so I took them out for a quick treat of ice cream at McDonald's. From his reaction, you would have thought that I'd
killed a pet or something. Ice cream made him physically distraught. I thought he was going to throw up and I prayed that he didn't destroy anything while I was gone.

So next week, I'm giving poker chips to the testers so they can reward Holland during the testing. Hopefully he'll rack up a huge number of chips and run away with the win. At some point this all has to get better. The tension in this house makes me want to crawl back in bed everyday. If I didn't have to take Romania to the bus, I probably wouldn't get out of bed every day.

Why Tests Are Bogus

2010-04-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in the past month. Holland finished all his OAKS testing, did all the testing for his IEP re-eval and we got all the results. This is probably why I haven't posted in almost a month. Hard to believe it's been that long since I've had something to say. I actually have lots to say, but just having a hard time saying it.

Someday when the kids are grown and I have no purpose, my purpose is going to be a parent advocate for parents at IEP meetings. I have 3 years of experience with IEP's on the other end: I wrote them for all my deaf students. I sat in on parent meetings and told of the student's progress. I answered questions about goals and test scores. But that didn't prepare me for what happened at my IEP meeting. After cramming what should have been 8 or 9 hour's worth of testing into 6, I went into this meeting hopeful about help I was going to get to help Holland learn to read. I was going to assert myself and straight out ask for what I needed. I'm kind of an oddity to them, I'm sure. I homeschool my kid and he's on an IEP. No one knows who legally is required to help me. The charter school he's enrolled in doesn't have the resources (no on-site resource teacher) and the district says he's not enrolled in one of their schools to help him. Makes you want to scream.

But the fact that I didn't have someone on "my side" sitting with me while the tester told me that my child is no longer considered "learning disabled" and they want to label him "mentally retarded" was something that I couldn't even comprehend. Who would ever think that this incredibly curious, hard-working, industrious kid would ever test as mentally disabled? She started out by telling me that "she believed the test scores to be accurate and valid". It didn't matter that Holland had never met her, she was 30 minutes late to our first meeting, he refused at first to even cooperate and wouldn't work if I wasn't sitting in the room. The second session was spent playing tag. We went to the tester's school and she came to ours. Fourty-five minutes of waiting for her to show up and then she did more testing. The last day we tested, I had all three kids with me. By the end of the session, he was so wiped out that he refused to go on. She had to bribe him with an ice cream gift card. Then she has the nerve to tell me she believed her results were "valid".

The only thing that saved me was hearing my ES remark that the test he was given for this was not the same IQ test he was given 3 years ago. I was so upset, I didn't even catch that. I immediately said I wanted the same test done. We weren't comparing apples to apples. They wanted me to sign something that said I agreed with their results and we would change the IEP accordingly. Guess what? I refused to sign it. I was bawling almost the entire rest of the meeting (which was almost 2 hours). They kept talking like it was a done deal and at one point I remember saying very loudly that he wasn't dumb and I was not going to let them label him as MR. I said that he's already in the system, why does the label need to change. The director said that it more "accurately describes him" to people that would be reading his IEP for services. I said no it didn't. That any IQ test they gave him would not consider any of the amazing science things he does, or what he builds after he takes something apart. He has working memory problems, probably dyslexia (which they don't even test for) and trouble organizing multiple things in his head. All things needed for reading, he struggles with. I do not believe for one second that this is a child who will never learn more than he knows now. He has auditory processing issues that need to be dealt with that they aren't dealing with.

They started talking about programs in the district that would help him. They want him to be in a life skills class. A life skills class would teach how to tie your shoes, or write your name and address. This would not be an environment that would foster his curiosity, let him explore and create, let him discover things. Here at home I push him. I make him write things that he doesn't want to write. These people probably think I am wasting my time teaching him any math beyond simple addition and subtraction, or reading about history or our science. How could I ever consider putting him in a class like this? It would destroy what learning ability he does have because they would have no expectations. Why would they care if he knew about our solar system, or Lewis and Clark or how to skip count by 9's?

I've researched online about parent advocates for IEP meetings. I still haven't figured out how to get one. But I know that no parent should ever feel what I did when I was blindsided in this meeting. I'm still waiting to hear from the special ed department about further testing. I said that I wanted several more tests done before I'd sign anything (and I still don't have to agree with their label). Everything happens at a snail's pace in the world of education. It's very frustrating that this hasn't been figured out and he's in 5th grade. I keep imagining him in 6 or 7 years and feel like time is running out (or it's already too late) to help him. Books I've been reading say 10 or 11 is pretty much the age that a child's brain connections are all made. We had time up until this point to grow those areas and make new connections, but they are wasting time.

By the time he gets the help he needs, he'll be 18. He'll be 18 and won't know how to read.

I hate laundry

2010-03-04T20:27:00.001-08:00

I'm totally ignoring it. Is that legal? Are there Laundry Police somewhere that will come crashing into my house with Shout stain remover in squirt guns because I refuse to admit we have a problem? I cannot keep up with it. I need a separate room for it. I actually do have a separate room, but it's not big enough to fold the clean clothes. So the process goes something like this:

Big mess of clothes on the floor. In between getting three kids ready to drive Romania to the bus stop and fixing my face, I dump a load of wash into the machine. I may even decide to take the clean clothes out of the dryer and dump them on my bed.

Come home. Do school. Clean up Holland's experiments, computer cords, chicken coop project (ask my mom about that one), typewriter motor (still playing with this thing), eat lunch, do more school, let Holland loose around the house while I try to spend some one-on-one time with Egypt. Clean up more messes of Holland's. Try to remember we need to eat tonight and thaw some type of meat. Try to contain Holland and tell him we are not in fact done with school. Go pick up Romania. Sit down and ignore the fact that it's 5 and I still don't have dinner figured out.

Walk upstairs to see the giant laundry mess on the hall floor. Put the clean clothes into the dryer. Walk into our room and notice the sky-high pile of clean clothes on the ironing board. These never get put away. I find there are more important things to do than put away clean clothes. I'd rather read a book to my child, or bake some cookies, or look at something with our new loupes for science. I feel guilty and frustrated and tired looking at this pile of clothes. Last weekend, bless him, Super Hero says "My goal is to have all these clothes clean by the end of the weekend." Awww. What a nice, child-like thing to say about laundry. Do men actually think laundry ever gets "done". Like it will somehow end? Sure. If we all are nekkid, then laundry will be done. Of course, it doesn't help that I have three kids who at some point have accidents and I'm changing sheets.

So I will just have to let the Laundry Police storm my house and shame me into finishing the laundry. That's the only way it will get done. There are just too many other things to do. Last week, the school OT came over to do some testing on Holland for his 3 year IEP eval. I know she means well, she only works 2 days a week and her kid (notice it's not plural) is gone all day at school, but she asked if I thought about giving the kids more chores. I tried so hard not to laugh. It's probably a combination of several things: I homeschool, so the kids are actually HOME; I have children, one more than the other two, that has to be moving every second of the day, creating, building, planning, that it's impossible to stay on top of all the clutter from him; and I just don't have the energy to follow through with the chores I DO give them. I've done lists and charts and frankly, I've come to the conclusion that my energy cannot be spent on worrying if my house is perfect. That just means that I can't have much company right now! Life is a season and this season will be over and I will have missed it if I spend all my time cleaning!

Growing up, my mom had a fridge magnet that said "an immaculate house is the sign of a misspent life." Amen!

The Typewriter

2010-02-23T18:47:00.000-08:00

I had to show you what we've been up to today. The ever-persistent project guy was at it again. Yesterday he found a book at the library "Building your own Robot". I said, "only you could find a book about that!" He immediately decided he wanted to build something. Of course. But I didn't have time to look through it and there are always too many materials that we don't have. But today after he was done with his schoolwork, he came to me again and asked to build something. I said we could look through the book and decide which project we wanted to do. I really doubted we had many of the supplies that would be required.

Right away we found a project he wanted to do and it seemed I had most of the stuff. I said we would need to get a dowel and some wooden wheels from the craft store, but everything else we had. The directions even said to find an old machine with a motor and take it apart to get the motor. Can you believe I actually had a machine for just that purpose? Months ago a friend from church gave me an old (30 pounder) electric typewriter. I let the kids play with it for awhile but didn't tell them they could take it apart. I'm glad we saved it. Today Holland and I spent over 2 hours taking apart this thing. The first thing we had to do was take the cover off. There were no screws and no visible way of removing the cover. Holland runs to the garage and comes back with a crowbar! We pried the cover off and went to work. We just looked for screws and bolts and started taking them off. Finally, we were able to get the motor off and Holland got all his electrical wires and doo-dads and went to work. Within minutes he had the thing running, spinning cardboard and cooling us off while we ate pancakes for dinner. (My pathetic attempt at dinner. I was busy with the typewriter and that's as good as it got tonight).

He was so excited that we got it off and of course tomorrow I have to produce some wheels and dowels to put the robot together. Here's some pictures of the gutted typewriter and Holland with his trophy motor.

The Key

2010-02-08T21:33:00.000-08:00

To save my sanity, several locks have been purchased and installed in our house to prevent Holland from breaking and entering. Don't bother telling me I should just tell him to not go in. It didn't work and with his impulsiveness, it's not worth it to me to keep saying something over and over just to have it ignored. So there are keyed locks on the pantry, my bedroom and finally Romania's bedroom. I mentioned this several times to Super Hero because I was tired of having Holland go into his brother's room when he was at school. I was tired of wallets disappearing, Game Boys going missing and things rearranged. Romania was so excited when he was given his own key and able to lock it and know that his brother and sister couldn't get in without his permission.

It's come in real handy since we've acquired this new mutant frog and tiny fish. In the short span of time that Romania was home, unlocked his door and fed his frog some boxelder bugs, Holland had filled a metal container with water so the frog could bathe. This container is not leak-proof and even though there was a towel underneath it, it still leaked water all over the floor.

But you just can't put it past Holland to try to find some way around the system. Today after Egypt's eye appointment and running one errand, I was getting lunch ready and noticed the microwave was on. I hadn't put anything in and was smelling something. Apparently, the locksmith was making his own key. My guess it was to hack into his brother's room. He had taken clay from our low-fire clay bag and made an impression of a key into the clay and was baking it. I'm sure some day I'll find some humor in his creativeness, but at the time I was irritated that once again he was bucking the system and attempting to violate his brother's space.

I didn't want to encourage this type of behavior so I didn't ask what he was planning to use to actually make the key.

Homeschool Buyers Co-op

2010-02-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

The Homeschool Buyer Co-op is a free homeschooling organization for both new and veteran homeschoolers. Co-op membership is free and confidential, and entitles homeschooling families to discounts from hundreds of educational suppliers. The Co-op also sponsors "Group Buys" for curriculum packages that can save homeschooling families lots of money. On the site you'll find lots of free information, such as databases of free curriculum, field trips, and educational contests and scholarships.

This site has been a great resource - I've purchased some deeply discounted curriculum, found out about field trips in our area, looked up information on homeschooling laws for my state. They also provide links to free websites and activities. It's been a great time-saver to have all this information in one place and know that people work so hard to find this for busy homeschool families.

Click here for more information.

Memoirs of a Crazy Mom

2010-02-07T15:39:00.001-08:00

This is what my blog should be called. So says my sister. I was just chatting with her and telling her about the rat my 10 year-old just bought. While out on a pet store run with his dad and brother and sister. You wonder how this could be accomplished? Let me tell you - it's kind of complicated.

First, you tell your husband to take Romania to the pet store to pick out a frog and fish from an I.O.U from Christmas. He had a beta and a frog a couple years ago that didn't last very long, so I kept promising him another pair. So yesterday, Super Hero takes him to the local pet store to purchase said frog and fish. Now, this next part is my fault (Super Hero would probably argue that ALL of it is my fault, but whatever). He took all three chillun's with him. And Romania came home with a giant frog (giant as is 4" instead of a tiny water frog to keep the beta company). And he didn't get a beta. He got some fish that cost $4 and I don't even know what kind of fish it is. The frog is called a "Dumpy" frog. But Romania is calling it "Dur" because it was dirty when he saw it. I keep trying to convince him to change the name to Dumpy but he won't do it.

Normally when humans buy pets, they find out what kind of food they need to eat. But Super Hero did not do this. Which is why he needed a second trip to the pet store to find out what to feed the critters. My only involvement was calling the store to find out their hours. I didn't think I should have to get involved with this project. But apparently when dads are left to purchase pets and take kids places, they come home with mutant animals and stowaways. When they got home this afternoon, Egypt and Romania ratted on their brother. And that is such a good intended pun - Holland actually purchased a rat. I do not know where he got money. He actually owes me money for breaking some things. But while Super Hero was helping Romania figure out what type of food he needed, Holland was off buying a rat. When Super Hero figured out what happened, he couldn't get Holland back in the store to return it. So when he got home, naturally it was to become MY problem and I was told I needed to return the rat. I said "thanks, but no thanks". Holland said we couldn't return it because he ripped up the receipt.

And you think I'm buyin' this kid a dog? Think again.

Lewis and Clark and Seaman

2010-02-04T20:09:00.000-08:00

This past week, we have been reading about Lewis and Clark and their westward journey. The reference book I have - TruthQuest History - has been a remarkable resource for books. Everything I've checked out from the library has been a hit. I have had to return some of them unread because there are just so many good books that we can't possibly read them all. All the books end up being read aloud due to Holland's reading level, but I've enjoyed everything and have learned a lot too!

The latest books have been about Lewis and Clark's trusty dog, a Newfoundland named Seaman. The first book we read was from the dog's perspective and Holland just loved hearing the tales of adventures from this lovable dog. His favorite was when Seaman jumped in the river to capture squirrels that were migrating the river. It was mighty funny to picture this huge 150 pound dog grabbing these tiny squirrels in his mouth and giving them to his master and then swimming back over and over.

Holland is so excited about the Newfoundland dog, that he had me researching them online. It gets very dangerous to listen to his begging - I even found a breeder in Oregon. But I assured him we were NOT getting a dog. I've been saying that for years. But he went ahead and called gramma and told her we were getting a dog.

I said "the dog would have to live outside. Look - it sheds really bad." Why am I even having this conversation with him? We are NOT getting a dog.

"Lewis paid $20 back in 1803 for this dog, Holland. Today they cost $1200." Again, why am I even saying this? It's not like we're getting a dog.

"They need to be brushed for 20 minutes every day. You don't even brush YOUR teeth everyday!" He assures me he will.

"They have webbed paws, great for swimming. We can take him to the lake!", he says. We are NOT getting a dog. "He'll be a good guard dog!"

We are NOT getting a dog.

Did You Know?

2010-01-23T09:39:00.000-08:00

That if Dolley Madison hadn't taken the portrait of George Washington out of the White House before the British burned it in 1814, that we would have nothing from his presidency?

That there are 312 rooms in the White House, but tourists can only visit 7?

That the statue on top of the Capitol building is called "Freedom" and weighs 15,000 pounds?

That the expansion of the Capitol was carried out mainly by slaves?

That Abigail Adams hung her laundry in the unfinished East Room to dry?

I'm loving our TruthQuest History. I love not having to pour through the library catalog to find books that are meaningful and appropriate. And the kids are loving it too!

Now What?

2010-01-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

Ever feel like you work so hard at something and that it's just too late? You spend all this time researching, planning, implementing and revising and still, nothing has worked.

Holland is now in the 5th grade. Physically, he's 5th grade. Academically, he's about 1st grade. Do you know how frustrating that is? To not be able to teach him so he can learn something? After feeling like I hit a brick wall when he was in 2nd grade and enrolling him in a special education class through our district, only to pull him out the following year, it feels like I'm on a moving walkway that is going nowhere. I have tried so many different reading programs with him. He's on an IEP that would seem to indicate he would get the help he needs to manage those deficits. It hasn't made one smack of difference. The only assistance he's received is speech and that's shoddy. We'd get better speech services if we paid for it ourselves. But that's not something we can afford right now. I had to cut out Occupational Therapy and his counseling he was receiving because of our reduced income.

His three year evaluation for his IEP is coming up and there are certain tests I want done to determine if he is dyslexic. Guess what? The school district does not test for dyslexia because they don't recognize it as a learning disability. The school district is only required to do testing to determine eligibility for IEP services. The method that I've found online that will help a dyslexic child is very expensive. Holland's struggles match almost exactly to the warning signs listed on the Bright Solutions for Dyslexia website. One of the things that scared me is the emphasis on early intervention. That children who struggle to read and write shouldn't be dismissed as "late bloomers" or that they will outgrow the struggle to decode. If a child doesn't have intervention by 3rd or 4th grade, it will be 4x's harder to overcome those delays.

The charter school we are involved with doesn't have a resource room available. They don't even have an on-site teacher to help with reading or writing issues. Then the school he would attend if we were doing public school says that it's the charter school's responsibility to provide accommodations. So I can't get the district to admit that he's (probably) dyslexic and I can't get the schools to provide any services. See? Brick wall.

Cooking Fool

2010-01-17T22:05:00.000-08:00

For some reason today, and maybe it was because I finally finished watching "Julie/Julia" last night, I felt like doing some cooking today. I found a website dedicated to gluten free cooking and was inspired by the recipes. And with Super Hero's big snag the other day of 50 pounds of millet gluten free flour, I felt the need to dispose of some of this flour.

The pizza crust recipe called for 6 different types of flour. And in all craziness, I actually had all 6 kinds. No special trips to the store. Millet flour - check. White rice flour - check. Sweet rice flour - check. Tapioca starch - check. Tapioca flour - check. Almond meal - check. And I even had xanthum gum which any gluten free baker knows you absolutely cannot do without if you're baking something that has no gluten. Gluten is this great binder that is missing in all GF flours. So you need a binder. If you look on the list of ingredients for bread products, most likely there is either xanthum gum or guar gum. Thank goodness for Bob's Red Mill. This tiny bag of about 8 ounces cost me $12. But usually a recipe only calls for a teaspoon, so this bag will last me into the next millenium.

The pizza crust was a success. I even had a piece and it wasn't all bad. It's a taste you have to get used to. But the almond meal gave it a nice nutty flavor. I'm going to bag up a bunch of dry ingredients and have them at the ready whenever Holland feels like eating pizza.

I also ended up making dough for an M&M cookie. He got so excited when he saw the picture. The dough is in the fridge and should be ready tomorrow morning. I find nothing wrong with cookies at 10 a.m.

Super Hero's New Hobby

2010-01-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

Since money's been tight, Super Hero has taken to stalking Craigslist. He makes it a point to check every few hours since people add new things all the time. We've come close to snagging several things but people seeking free things are mighty quick. Recently he came home with a piece of wallboard. We actually needed it to fix a hole in Romania's room where the door knob had smashed into the wall. He had to cut a big hole and patch it with a piece about 12" X 12" so it could be attached to studs.

Today before leaving work he checked the freebies section and someone was giving away gluten free flour. Now, if it was a person, I probably wouldn't have wanted this. But there is a new bakery in the Portland area dedicated entirely to gluten-free baking. I checked out their website and it looks delicious! Holland was so excited when he saw baguettes and cookies and pizza crust and pretzels! It's called new cascadia tradtional and they're located fairly close to OMSI. I can't wait to go there and try some of their baked goods.

Need Some New History

2010-01-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

I've been scouring blogs and homeschooling sites to find a good history curriculum. No offense to Story of the World, but I'm tired of it. It's too much information scattered all over the place. Sure, it focuses on a specific time period and it seemed to be "creation-centered" in the first two volumes, but by the third installment of "Modern Times", Holland has lost interest. He is unable to read it for himself and I want something that focuses on American History.

I was looking around and found a blog that mentioned a curriculum called TruthQuest History. I went to the website and was reading parent's reviews of the curriculum and how they are using it. It is unlike any curriculum I've found so far. I almost didn't even bother checking it out at Exodus Books. But this one review had me laughing out loud because she was describing her boys and it sounded exactly like Holland! Here's an excerpt of what she had to say about it:
"I will try to give you a peek into our TruthQuest History adventure. I have BOYS that are ALL boy. They are not the kind who sit nicely at a desk and work away quietly at their copywork. No, no, no. These are the kind who crawl behind the furniture as if they were preparing for an ambush while I am reading aloud. They are the kind who can make anything out of paper. I do not jest. My 8-year-old made a working musket out of construction paper, with the ball, rammer, and a little hook place for the rammer. While we do have parameters, don't think that our children sit in 'Circle Time' and listen quietly while I read War and Peace!"

This really piqued my interest because I am constantly (as you know if you faithfully read my blog) intercepting inventions, creations and contraptions. This history curriculum is actually an extensive list of living books pertaining to a specific time period in a specific geographic area. There are no 'lessons', no 'workbook activities' and no 'tests' that are included in the book. The activities that are suggested are called "ThinkWrite" exercises and all you do is READ. What can be more simple than that? I'm so excited about this and really think that this is exactly what Holland needs. We are going to be reading rich, living literature that is God-centered and not elevating man above his right place. I can get on board with that!

Sneaky Cats

2010-01-01T23:02:00.001-08:00

I'm going to catch those cats in the act. They've made a huge mess of the cat food. I used to have a huge container of cat food securely in this empty plastic litter box. But then I made laundry soap for my sister for Christmas (like that, huh?!) and I didn't have another container. I found a smaller plastic jug with a lid that had a pour spout. I put what I could in the container, put the container under the sink and the rest of the food in a drawer in the laundry room. There was no way this cat was gonna get this food.

She is not hard of smelling. She found the drawer with the bag of food and was scratching at it. She was able to open the cupboard under my sink and dump the container over and knock the lid off. Tonight I put it in another container with a snap lid. And guess what? She opened the cupboard again, knocked the box out and was scratching at it. I got video, but she never got it open. I was hoping only for viewing purposes that she would get it open so I'd have evidence of the craftiness of this cat. She is so not underfed. She must weigh 10 pounds. I gotta put her on my postage scale and see what she weighs.

Mr. Inventor

2009-12-26T16:25:00.001-08:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It's just the day after Christmas and it hasn't slowed down Holland. He was out inventing early this morning. My mom came by for breakfast (Egypt invited her) and snapped these pictures of him. I don't even know where he got that hand truck. Do we even own a hand truck? Mom said that she asked what the extension cord was for. He said it was his brake. He tied it to a tree.

Seriously. Discovery Channel hasn't found us yet? Forget balloon boy. Forget the White House crashers. Come find us. We're honest. We're hardworking. We don't try to fool the media. I need a budget for his experiments. He just came downstairs and showed me a boat he made for Egypt's little horses. I gave him a glue gun and some craft sticks for Christmas and he's built a bird house for gramma and now this boat.

Thank You Shriners

2009-12-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

I took Egypt to her Shriners appointment last week. Super Hero had the day off (I really need to find another way to say that. He was home, unpaid....). So he stayed home with Holland while I drove up to OHSU. I've been up there so many times, you'd think it would be no big deal. Have you SEEN this place? It's huge. It should have its own zip code. I had directions for where to turn into the parking structure. They are actually not part of OHSU and if you park on their property, big trouble. I missed the parking garage the first time. It didn't even look like it was somewhere you could turn. The garage itself was something to behold. My van isn't long and obnoxious, but I could barely make the turns and there were cars parked alongside the ramp the way up.

But we were on time and filled out some more paperwork and waited with our beeper to be called. Everyone was so nice and after being seen by the pediatric rheumatologist, physical therapist and occupational therapist, they said anytime we need any services to just call! They didn't think she needed another injection at this point and to just watch for any stiffness or sore joints. The physical therapist gave us some pencil grips to help her hold her pencil correctly. And some ideas for exercises at home.

We're so thankful that God has given us access to these services for free until she's an adult.

Mmmm, Bread

2009-12-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

If Holland hadn't stolen my camera, I could have taken a picture of the beautiful loaves of bread I've been slaving over for the past two days. Slaving, as in watching them rise, transferring to a clean bowl, putting in the refrigerator, letting rise again, kneading a bit, putting in two bread pans and baking. Whew. And they tasted pretty darn good to boot!

I bought this great book recommended by a friend. Her husband is a cooking fool (well, she is too, looking at all her Facebook status updates) and he's always making bread. I bought it on Amazon. It's called Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers. The title alone should have scared the socks off me. I'm not a serious bread baker. I'm not even a serious baker. But I'm a serious eater, so I figured that I qualified in some way to buy this book. I read through some of the techniques in the front of the book, just to familiarize myself with the vocabulary. I had experience with bread making before - and not just throwing flour and yeast and water in a bread machine and flipping a switch. I actually learned to hand knead. Doesn't seem a like a big deal, but when your Kitchen Aid mixer starts to levitate on your counter, you'd better know how to knead or you'll be buying a new machine. I think it actually growled at me.

The recipe calls for a starter. Not too hard. A little hand kneading and throw it in a bowl for 5 hours. Then I even got to refrigerate it and forget about it until today. I realized that I should have cooked the brown rice before taking the starter out of the fridge to come to room temp. Oh well. Make a mental note of that for next time. The recipe calls for two different types of starters. My friend recommended doubling the recipe and using all of the same starter. Good thing. I think one starter is enough for a novice. The only thing I wasn't completely familiar with was testing to make sure the dough was ready for the final rise. There's a technique called a "windowpane" test. To make sure that the dough is the right consistency. If you've over-kneaded the dough, there's no way to add water or flour to fix it. Luckily, I never reached the point of no return - which the author recommends you throwing it out if you've achieved this feat. It actually stretched the right way. I even gave a bit to the kids to play with. They were fascinated by it. Punching it, kneading it, rolling it and Holland even snuck a bite.

The house smelled wonderful. Romania thought I was cooking pizza. Nah. That was probably just the provolone chicken I was baking while they were playing racquetball with Super Hero. My, my. What's with all this cooking and baking? I'll analyze that after I eat some more of the homemade almond roca sitting in my kitchen. Talk about cooking skills. Try bringing butter and brown sugar to a hard crack without a candy thermometer. Now that's some skills. Thanks, gramma for all those lessons on Little Grandma's Christmas suckers or I'd have no idea what that even meant.

Something's Missin'

2009-12-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

Somethin's missin' alright. How about my digital camera, half a dozen rechargeable batteries, two night light chargers, and the phone cord. I have no idea what he did with this stuff. The other day, Holland opened a brand new package of No. 2 pencils and used packing tape and some printer paper to make a sail boat for his bath. It's hard not to be irritated. Sure. To you it's probably "fun" and "inventive". To me, it's just annoying to find projects assembled all over the house that use items that I need or destroy things that are still working. My house has become a science lab. Where's Bill Nye the Science Guy when you need him? Why isn't the Discovery Channel knocking on my door to document this? Maybe someday we'll harness his power for the greater good of mankind.

I'm So Flexible

2009-12-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

That title makes me want to laugh out loud. This is just life now: Be flexible or go crazy. Super Hero's hours have been cut at work. We are finally feeling the effects of the bad economy. Just when you hear that things are picking up, his company is taking a hit. He lost 3 days of work last week and two this week. So I'm flexible. I work around him. Which isn't all that easy when you're trying to homeschool, clean house, do laundry, cook dinner, drive and drop off kids, deal with doctor appointments. I was hoping he'd see how busy I am and give me some slack. He has helped, but sometimes (and moms everywhere know this), it's more work to have them home, even if you think you'll get some help. It's too much 'splainin' (in the words of Ricky Ricardo).

Yesterday Super Hero took Holland to his OT appointment. That was such a big help, because it gave me time to work on sewing projects for this bazaar I'm doing tomorrow at Romania's school. But when they got home, I had to pop him back in the car, get Egypt, get schoolwork together, drive to my sister's, drop off Egypt, pick up my nephews, drive to their charter school for fencing and Holland's speech class. Then work on school work in a noisy room with a bunch of teenagers playing guitar. Then take my nephews home, come back home with Egypt and Holland for lunch and more homeschooling. Which, I have to say, is pretty much a lost cause after all that. Talk about being flexible. I was getting ready to do more school with Holland when Super Hero, who had been perusing Craigslist found some free stuff. Of course Holland wanted to tag along. (That's actually what's fun about homeschooling - being able to do things at a moment's notice). They drove up to Kelso, WA in hopes of getting a table and 4 chairs, a snowboard, snowboots, a new bike, a new tv and some other things. Of course, it being free, I didn't get my hopes up. So when they came home around dinner and Holland bounds in the house "look what we got!" I was ready for some big ticket item. It was a digital TV antenna. "Just like grandma's!". Seriously. That's what thrilled him. Oh. And a big bag of potting soil. Yup. Not kidding. They drove to Kelso from Oregon City for a tv antenna and a bag of potting soil. But it got them out of the house, let me do more sewing and spend some time with Egypt before retrieving Romania from the bus stop.

So, while we're on the topic of flexibility, here we are on Wednesday and I feel like we've done no school at all this week. I know that's not true, but sometimes it feels like we move at the speed of a snail going backwards. Super Hero had a dentist appointment this morning. So he offered to take Romania to the bus (third time this week!!). I didn't even shower until 10.30. Woohoo! And Holland didn't get out of bed until 9.45. We had a leisurely morning of spelling games online, reading and mopping the floor. This idea is all Holland. He decided (my inner skeptic came up with this) that it would be a lovely idea to mop the floor for mom. How do you discourage a 10 year-old that wants to mop your kitchen floor? "Oh shoot, honey. Don't mop the floor, we need to do school". This is his way of getting out of work.

And now that it's 12.30, I'd better eat lunch and get him back to work. Mariel of Redwall is waiting.

Good Report from the Rheumatologist

2009-12-06T15:11:00.000-08:00

I took Egypt to see the rheumatologist on Thursday. It had only been a month since her last appointment, but we thought she might need another injection after only three months. We've been going to the physical therapist once a month and it seems to have helped stave off the need for another injection. There is no change in her range of motion for her knee and the thumb and jaw look the same too. That's such good news. I wasn't looking forward to taking her in again.

Next week is a full schedule - including going back to the orthotist. I misplaced Egypt's insert for her shoe. The problem is we keep switching it depending on which shoes or boots she wears. It's probably somewhere lost in a basket of clean laundry. But instead of trying to find the proverbial needle, I'm just going to have another one made. Too bad that insurance views this as a cosmetic thing or I'd get 3 or 4 of them.

Now I'm off to madly sew for a few hours. Super Hero took all three kids to the health club. Every Sunday there is a free racquetball class that the boys have been taking and love it. Then Egypt will swim with daddy and I'll get some more work done for Thursday's bazaar at school. Yesterday I got 10 child aprons sewn and 1 adult.

Cooking School

2009-11-20T22:47:00.001-08:00

Today Holland wanted to make homemade french fries. And of course, I was all for that. He got the bag of potatoes from the garage and asked if he could peel them. Of course - I assumed it would be his job. I told him to put them in cold water after peeling so they wouldn't turn brown. I left the kitchen to do something else and when I came back, this is what I found. Of course before I got mad at him, I took a picture. He peeled 20 potatoes! Hey -now we can put him to work on those Thanksgiving potatoes. It took several hours to actually cook them all. I'm crazy and cook them twice. They're nice and soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Potato perfection.

Speech Therapy. Finally.

2009-11-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I met with Holland's IEP team. A meeting was called when I told them I wanted to drop speech services. Too complicated, but basically it was scheduling conflict and too many activities (meaning doctor appointments!) for Holland. Last year we had the speech person come to our house and it worked out great. This year the speech person gave me times she was available, but they conflicted with our school schedule and the fact that I don't want to leave the house everyday.

After having a private speech therapist evaluate him, I decided 20 minutes a week was not worth the hassle and there were many other things I couldn't drop.

I was all ready for disagreements to this, so I came prepared with the report from the private speech therapist and also my monthly schedule for the last two months. The open times were again presented (nothing had changed from our last conversation. I still couldn't do it). I explained that I was caring for two children with heavy medical needs and could not be leaving the house any more or drag all three with me to some grade school just because she serviced other students there. Finally, the director of the school suggested dropping Fencing. I haven't wanted to do this. I want him to follow through with something. He really is not liking it, but if we stopped everything just because he was frustrated, he wouldn't learn anything. The speech lady had an open time during his class. Since he's not enjoying fencing, I'm pulling him out and he'll do speech for the first 20-25 minutes. Then I'll find something for us to do while we wait for my nephews to finish the fencing class.

So, it's a pretty good compromise. I won't have to drive anywhere else and he can get free services (although I don't know how much good they'll do).

The Mother of All Inventions

2009-11-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

When I'm not being irritated by Holland's inventions, I am impressed by his creativity. I don't know how he comes up with the contraptions he does. He usually takes things apart to make new things. His recent projects have included a motor of a fan hooked up to be a weed eater. He's built a luge out of a giant box and a couple of skateboards. He's used his sister's outdoor car, a large golf umbrella a skateboard and some other odds and ends from the garage and built something to ride on that he could actually steer. It's hard not to get annoyed by all this building, especially when he takes things apart that are not broken. I give him lots of opportunities to build (I let him take apart a washing machine for pete's sake!). Finally last night, he built something that I think is my favorite invention so far.

I was getting ready for bed and as is my routine went in to check on all the kids. You know, making sure no one was hanging off a bed or had fallen asleep with a gameboy stuck to their face. I walked into Holland's room and ran into a piece of string tied to his doorknob and was immediately hit with a foam dart. This ingenious inventor had rigged some of my sewing thread to his doorknob and attached it to his dresser and when it was tripped, it fired this foam dart. He asked me in the morning if I liked his trap. I told him I thought it was brilliant. That's when he told me it was actually for his sister!

Now if we could just harness this power for good.....

Yea for the OT

2009-11-11T00:13:00.000-08:00

Another busy day. Today we had Holland's OT appointment after fencing. We did this last week and it was a disaster. He was literally bouncing off the walls by the time we got to the OT. He could not pay attention and his body was bumping into everything. He is really not wanting to do fencing. It's hard to know how far to push him. He refuses everything we offer. On Mondays I pick up Romania from the bus stop and we drive up to meet Super Hero in Portland. Holland goes with him and I take Romania to handbell practice. He kept crying saying he didn't want to go and wanted me to page dad and tell him I said it was okay not to go play at the club. I told him that Mondays were his night with dad and I didn't care what they did, but I was still dropping him off. I emailed dad and told him this. He needed to figure out what to do - I didn't care if they sat in the parking lot - just don't involve me. So getting him to do fencing has not been fun. He has working memory deficits that make it difficult for him to remember a sequence of things. He is also not very aware of what his body is doing and as a result got yelled at two weeks ago in fencing class for being a bit out of control. He did not want to go today, but I said we were still picking up his cousins and he needed to at least try. The first 30 minutes of the class are spent warming up. The kids play games and today the instructor asked which parents wanted to play against the kids. Everyone just sat there, so I jumped down off the stage and joined for a game of dodgeball with 20 kids. Eventually some other parents joined and it was fun. My legs still hurt from that. I consider it my exercise for the week.

After returning my nephews to their house and picking up Egypt, we drove straight up to Portland for the OT session. I was worried that it would be a repeat of last week. He fell asleep in the car ride up. Never a good sign. But he seemed alert when we went in and had many things to share with Camille. I sat in for the first 20 minutes and he did an awesome job listening and trying out the exercises. Some of them are very difficult for him because they require some upper body strength. He didn't complain once and each time Camille asked him to do it again, he did. I left for a bit to talk to the speech path about possible services and to ask her opinion of how to deal with this school situation. She has never worked in the school system but we talked with a PT who has been in public school and told me that I needed to lay out the reasons why it wouldn't work and them tell them "these are the circumstances that I will accept your services." I loved that. I want her to come with me! They keep saying ' oh you're in charge. Whatever the parent wants, it's your decision.' That's a bunch of hooey. What happens when you disagree with them is they bring in a table full of people all on their side and you show up bombarded with reasons why you need to listen to them. The wording she gave me was perfect for retaining control of Holland's education. If they're not going to provide speech by coming to our house, then I'm not going to accept their services. I would love to not have to pay for something, but it doesn't look like we'll make any improvements because the school speech path is only looking at the incorrect way he's making the words and not the underlying problem.

So say a little prayer on Thursday when I go in to face all the big wigs of the school district. After all, I'm just a mom who has no idea what the best thing for her son is (insert sarcasm if you didn't already).

3 Month Eye Check

2009-11-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

I took Egypt to her 3 month eye check today. There was no real noticeable vision change (in my estimation, she missed about half of the pictures/letters). Doctor said we could wait three months or get glasses right now. Egypt was so excited and of course wanted to go pick out pink frames! I told her we would look, but probably not buy. When I got up to the window to schedule the next appointment, the woman says "that will be $44 please." I told her I already paid the co-pay. She told me that my insurance viewed the need for glasses as a 'medical' condition. Um. Hello? How is needing glasses not a vision reason? They are billing the need for glasses from the JRA, which in their eyes is a medical condition. I doubt that the JRA caused the near-sightedness, so it's not right that they bill it under medical instead of vision. She went back and asked the doctor if they could change it and he dropped the fee.

Then, since I only had Egypt with me, we drove to Costco and picked out two frames, which was cheaper than the FRAMES ONLY at the eye clinic! Crazy. She was a little sad leaving without the glasses. She was expecting to be able to walk out of there with new glasses. She informed me two weeks was way too long to wait.

I also had a bit of good news arrive in the mail the other day. About a month ago I applied for care through the local Shriner's Hospital. They do orthopedic care, burn care, spinal cord rehab and cleft lip/palate care. I got a letter saying that my application had been approved and our appointment is scheduled for mid-December. I really hope that they will be able to help us out. Holland's care is costing so much and Egypt's physical therapy, cortisone injections and shoe lifts are getting costly as well. Now I just have to call all her caregivers and ask that they send over her records.

On a side note, I called Holland's case manager for his IEP. I told her I needed to drop the speech goals. The times the speech person has available either don't work, or use up too much time (2 1/2 hours for a 20 minute appointment. Drive time, plus waiting until Romania gets out of school to drive him home). The case manager is calling a meeting to discuss the "inconvenient scheduling times". I told her that I do plenty of inconvenient things, but it's not just about the scheduling issue. There are too many transitions in Holland's school days. He has weekly doctor appointments, monthly doctor appointments, two outside the home classes, Egypt's doctor appointments, and oh yeah, actual school! We have to meet with our Educational Specialist once a week and then the added speech on top of that. Not only am I feeling overwhelmed with the schedule we're on, but I'm dealing with so many behavior issues right now. I think I'm going to type up my schedule for the next three months so this case manager can see that it's not just about me saying this is too much trouble. If she could only walk in my shoes for a week, I'm sure she'd sing a different tune. Maybe I'll just tell her to read my blog.

We Have Lift-Off

2009-10-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

It was another busy Monday here. I feel like we're on a moving treadmill all day long. After dropping Romania at the bus stop and hurrying home to get ready for our weekly ES meeting, I got a call from Holland's school OT. She wanted to stop by to install some software for us. If you know anything about this software, you know that it took me about 8 months to actually track it down and get the school OT last year to install it on our computer. She always had an excuse of why it wasn't going to work out. Then the hard drive on our computer gave out and we lost all our CD installed software. So, gone was the Clicker 5. I mentioned at the annual IEP review that I would like to have it again and this morning she called wanting to come over. She knew we had our weekly meeting. She even changed the day she was working because Tuesdays and Wednesdays didn't work for us (how's that for accommodating?).

While we met with our ES, Ming Ming installed Clicker 5 and then showed me quickly how to navigate around to get started. She even offered to come over any time I needed help or wanted help with Holland's work. Such a change from last year's non-helpful OT.

After doing a bit of school, we left for Egypt's appointment with the orthotist. We barely got away with a shoe insert. She could have done a 1/2" insert, but then we would have to get an insert actually in the sole. They sand down the shoe and add the needed height. It starts at $90 a shoe and it would only be in one of her shoes. Plus she would grow out of them so fast. Insurance doesn't pay for this. They consider it cosmetic. Holland's inserts were covered because they are for his flat feet. I'm not sure how an uneven leg is considered cosmetic, but for now, we don't have to get the more expensive insert. Plus, now I have to get rid of all her cute shoes. Some of them are too shallow and she'll just walk out of the shoe.

We came home and did another paltry 30 minutes of school and then it was off to pick up Romania from the bus stop. We came home, I finished getting dinner ready, but we didn't have time to eat it (tired yet?) because I had to drop Romania off for handbell practice. Then I huffed on over to Bi-Mart to gets some Rx's and cat food. Egypt and Holland were just bouncing off the walls. Sometimes I just want to tie them together and string 'em along. It's just exhausting having kids with you while you're trying to run errands. I was hoping to pop into Goodwill and look for some jeans for the boys, but there was no way I was going anywhere else. Thankfully, Super Hero was home and he went to pick up Romania from handbells.

Tuesday looks to be even more tiring. Holland has his OT appointment in Portland; we have fencing class and I'm debating on whether I'll show up for speech or not. I'm going to have a speech evaluation for him at the same place where we do OT. I just don't think 20 minutes a week is enough and since we're already up there, might as well.

It's 6.52 and I feel like going to bed right now. Maybe nobody will miss me if I sneak off and lock my door. Yeah, right.

I Need a Personal Assistant

2009-10-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

My life has become so complicated that I am now taking resumes for a personal assistant. The pay is what you'd expect - nothing! I'm having a hard time figuring out what I have to drop in order to continue being a sane person. I did not start out the school year thinking that having Holland take two classes would put such a snag in everyday life. But now I have to add a weekly occupational therapy appointment for him and a weekly physical therapy appointment for Egypt. She will need another cortisone injection and she has trouble gripping a pencil because of her affected thumb. She needs some intervention so her joints don't freeze up. Luckily I can do these two appointments at the same time. But it means driving into Portland and that sucks time from the already limited schooling time.

Tuesdays Holland takes Fencing class and I drop Egypt at my sister's house and take her two oldest boys to the class. I got a call from the Speech Path and we are trying to figure out when she will do the 20 minutes of speech that's on his IEP. Sheesh. Really? Only 20 minutes? Why bother? I'm trying to decide if I want to drag Egypt with me to another school building and sit in the office while Holland has his speech. And this could happen when Romania has no school on Fridays. I am thinking about driving out to Springwater, letting Holland have his speech session and work in Romania's class. But in order to make it to Egypt's new handchimes class (did you see the video? She just LOVES it!), I would have to leave Springwater before school is out.

I'm running out of daylight hours to do everything. None of this scheduling dilemma takes into consideration all the trouble I'm having keeping Holland on task. He argues about absolutely everything. Keeping him focused is near impossible. You'd think I was asking him to walk on hot coals when I ask him to write something. All he wants to do is sit and listen to me read. We are reading "Mattimeo" out loud. It's the third book in the Redwall series. We read history out loud and he draws while I read. I read all his science out loud. Do you see a pattern? I'm exhausted and feel like I accomplish nada on a daily basis. How's that for feeling motivated? I'm beginning to think that someone else can do a better job. Romania complains almost daily that he doesn't like school and wants to come home. I ignore Egypt all day long. I do NOTHING with her. People are freaking out that I don't have her in preschool. That's just what I need. One more place to drive to. I just shoo her out of the school room and once in a while let her sit on the floor and try to attend to two kids. Holland gets so distracted and can't do anything on his own. If I try to help Egypt, he walks off or sits and complains that I'm not helping him.

If you want to feel real good about yourself, homeschool a kid with special needs. That'll put you in your place.

Handchimes class

2009-10-08T21:04:00.000-07:00

Romania did a handbells camp this summer. He loved it so much, we are now doing a Monday night class. The instructor asked how old Egypt was. I said she'd be 5 in a few weeks. She invited her to join a hand chimes class for younger kids. Here she is (Holland decided to try it too - he's in the green shirt)

A Busy Bee and the Rheumatologist

2009-10-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Today is a very hectic day. After I dropped Romania at the bus stop, I came home to drop Holland with my mom and take Egypt to her rheumatology appointment. Holland has a ceramics class on Thursdays, so my mom took him there and I drove to Emanuel for Egypt's appointment. After lunch, I have Holland's annual review IEP meeting, pick up Romania, then drive up to Portland for another doctor's appointment at 5. I'm tired just typing that all!

Egypt's rheumatologist said that she has two more joints affected. He checks the affected joint each appointment, but also checks non-affected, because it can happen fairly quickly. He noticed a slight deviation in her jaw. He measured how far she can open her mouth - which was good - but her jaw deviates to the left. There is no swelling so far, but we have to come back in 2 months (instead of 3) to check it again. I went to an information meeting one time and saw the horrible things that arthritis in the jaw could do to a person's face. I'm totally freaked out by that. She also has a thumb affected. He actually thinks it may have been affected before and he didn't see it. But the way it moves makes him think that it's not a recently affected joint. So we are now looking at the possibility of polyarticular JRA because of the smaller joints involved. She was diagnosed with pauciarticular JRA because of the larger joint and only being one. If a child has bigger joints involved, it's more likely that it will stay pauciarticular. But now that she has smaller joints affected, the diagnoses has changed.

We also have to look into getting lifts for her shoes. Her right leg is growing faster and each time we go in, there is a bigger discrepancy in the difference of length. Now there is over a centimeter. He's afraid if we don't address this, she will continue to keep her right leg bent to compensate for the length difference.

Almost a Life-Changing Day

2009-09-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

Every day I pick Romania up from the bus hub. It's actually my old high school building. I park the van and then Egypt and Holland and I get out and wait on the sidewalk. I parked the van on the opposite side of where the bus actually stops. When Romania got off the bus, I took Egypt's hand to cross the street and turned to Holland to tell him we were leaving. I assumed he was behind me on the right and I walked across with Egypt and Romania. When I was crossing, I saw a city bus half a block away and just continued on to the van. When I got there, I realized Holland had not come with us. He was talking to a boy in the doorway of another parked van. I decided not to call him, because I was afraid in doing that, he would run across the street. Just as the city bus is coming down the block we're in, Holland sees that we've crossed the street and starts to run toward us! I yelled and yelled for him to stop. I play it over and over in my head. If I had not seen him, he would have gotten run over. The bus driver barely had time to stop. I waved him to cross and he just yelled at me that I didn't yell "bus!". This just reinforces his inability to think before he acts. God was watching out for him yesterday for sure!

Some Great Websites

2009-09-27T20:12:00.001-07:00

As a homeschooler, you're always on the lookout for good curriculum, fun and interesting websites and of course, good deals. I belong to a homeschooling co-op. It was free to sign up and they offer great discounts on curriculum, website memberships, field trip info, conference schedules and of course, freebies. My favorite.

Today I was going through their website because I wanted to find a deal on a membership for BrainPop. Romania's class has been using BrainPopJr. at school and I've been debating whether I should get it or not. I found a discount link and also found some great websites for free curriculum, games and interactive websites. Here are a few of the ones I bookmarked.

A Game A Day has brainteasers, word games, trivia and crosswords to challenge your knowledge, problem solving and critical thinking.

Story Online is a website that has people from the Screen Actors Guild reading books. There are activities and lesson ideas for each book. Holland and I listened to "Enemy Pie" read by Camryn Manheim. It was cute.

Xpeditions is from National Geographic. Lesson plans, maps, interactive fun, and xpedition hall - an interactive "museum".

Alder Plantetarium has great links to astronomy activities, showcases current exhibits, shows a current moon status and has a neat activity to chart the stars in your area and send in your results. They also have free podcasts to find out what celestial and man-made objects may be in your night sky and recent solar activity. These are only a few of the countless activities you can find on this website. One of my favorite so far and great since we are studying astronomy this year!

Parent Child Education gives tips, advice and activities for almost anything you could need. The very first page caught my attention because it shows how to teach a child to hold a pencil properly. I wish I had found this before Holland got used to his grip. They are mostly language based activities and videos to teach how to tie your shoes, put on a coat, letter-sound games and I saw a couple papier mache crafts.

Chess Kids is a website that - you guessed it - teaches kids to play chess! There is a beginner level that you can challenge a virtual opponent at the end of your lessons; there is an "Improvers" section that teaches famous moves and strategies. They say there are 3 years' worth of free lessons (refers to how long it would take in a school setting).

Have fun exploring all these great websites. And better yet - sign up for Homeschool Buyer's Co-Op and you can see for yourself all the great resources that are just a click away.

Busy Weekend

2009-09-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel like you've had a really busy weekend and then can't remember what you did that kept you busy? That's what I feel like this weekend. We did a lot, but I feel like we didn't DO anything. On Saturday while I was returning books to the library, I realized that the city was having a Fire/Safety Awareness day. So I came back home and got the kids and Super-Hero to come down so we could take a close-up look at some fire trucks. They got to ride a fire truck that Oregon City had used in 1947 and we also got a ride in the back of a police car. Those seats are not comfortable and I can't imagine anyone over 5'10" fitting in there! We bumped into some people from Romania's school and got some free ice cream.

On Sunday after church, Super-Hero took the boys to a birthday party and I packed up my serger that wasn't threading properly to have it looked at. After getting it fixed, I drove to a fabric store just to buy some good thread and $65 worth of fabric later, realized I hadn't even purchased the thread. I cannot just walk into a fabric store without buying something for a project.

Then around 5.30 I got a call from the gal who fixed our computer. She did an awesome job - getting rid of a virus, saving all my files to DVD's and CD's, installing new anti-spyware software and a virus protection program and even gave me a hard drive when I got scammed from someone on Craigslist. When she was leaving from working on it the first time, Holland showed her his setup in the garage with our old computer. I have no idea what was wrong with it, but he had somehow hooked it up and got the screen to come up. No working mouse, so he just clicked until he got what he wanted. He asked if she had any spare parts (luckily got a laugh from her on that one!) and she offered to take it home and tinker with it. Tonight she called and wanted to bring it by at 7. She said she couldn't fix it, so she was giving us an old Gateway she had! We also didn't have a working mouse, speakers and the DVD player was broken. She must have some fabulous stockpile of stuff! Holland was in complete heaven and I told her she would be his favorite person in the world now. You should have seen his eyes pop when she hooked up everything. She didn't even know if her speakers worked, but Holland even knew where some extra cords were in the garage. We got it to work and installed a couple games. I can't believe we have another working TV in the house. Now the kids will not bug me while I'm on the computer. She even told him if he ever wanted to take apart a computer that he needed to call her and she would help him. She didn't want him to do it by himself.

Right before she left, she said Holland asked if she wanted to trade something for the metal detector she had in her car. Never the shy one.

I'm In a Quotable Kind of Mood

2009-09-03T14:45:00.001-07:00

So I've been pouring over websites all afternoon. I should be cleaning the schoolroom or doing laundry or reading to the kids. But I just can't get past this speech that Obama will be giving (and most schools viewing) on Tuesday when students return to school. I'm dumbfounded as to why the parents aren't even being given the choice to participate. Even more curious is why show it during the school day? Since when did Obama become School Superintendant? I emailed our school principal and asked if they were participating. If so, we'd like to opt out and if that was a problem, we'd be coming to school late. Not surprisingly, they are feeding this to the kids, complete with lesson plans from the government. Wow. Just wow. So here are some things to ponder as you send your kids back to school:

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." Thomas Jefferson

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” George Washington

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill

“When governments fear the people there is liberty.

When the people fear the government there is tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson

A government powerful enough to do anything FOR you, is a government powerful enough to do anything TO you

"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." - Ronald Reagan

We Were Bound For Some Excitement

2009-09-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

I guess things had been slowing down so we needed something to jump start our boredom. That boredom was interrupted by my sister calling to tell my our dad had had a stroke. On Tuesday afternoon, my mom had to call 911 when she realized my dad was experiencing a stroke right in front of her. She gave him aspirin while on the phone with 911. Paramedics came out and transported him to a hospital. I emailed super-hero and he came home as quickly as possible. I wanted to just drive over there, but I had all three kids and he told me to wait for him. So I sat in the car with all three kids strapped in and waited. Then when he got home, I didn't think I would be able to drive slower than 80 mph, so I asked him to drive. He can't win of course, because I complained the whole way there that he was driving too slow. Whenever I feel he's poking along at an unacceptable speed, I say "pretend we're on our way to an OSU football game". I always think that's going to work, but he doesn't find it funny.

They did an MRI and determined it was a stroke and the neurologist said there was a three hour window of opportunity for administering a certain medicine. There were risks involved (how can there not be?) and dad agreed to have the drug. They said his speech should improve, but we still haven't seen that. My cousin in CA is a speech therapist for stroke patients, so I called her up and got some great advice and heads-up on things we should be expecting from the SLP. By Tuesday night he was moved to the ICU and removed the oxygen tubes. He seemed very coherent, just unable to speak. He understood when you talked to him (of course, he's lost a lot of hearing from his years in a paper mill) just was unable to answer. We even tried letting him write something, but being without his glasses and his right hand so weak, it was illegible. When I saw him on Wednesday, he was sitting up and eating a bit of dinner.

He'll probably be there one more night and then we're off on another adventure and seeing how his speech comes back and physically what he's able to do. We're so thankful for God's protection that he wasn't driving at the time and that mom caught it so quick.

Mmmmmm Peaches!

2009-08-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about my peaches. It's because last year I missed out and I couldn't make myself buy canned peaches from Costco. It's like eating rubber food. I got 21 quarts out of the 72 pounds we picked. Of course the kids and I ate at least a dozen before I canned. They were so good that I didn't mind. I really wanted to make it back to the orchard but just didn't get it done this week. But come winter we'll be enjoying fresh peaches while the rest of the non-canning population eats rubber peaches from Costco. Good luck with that.

Alpenrose Dairy and some Peach Pickin' Time

2009-08-24T00:11:00.000-07:00

For a couple days Super-Hero has been bugging me about what to do this weekend. Frankly, I didn't want to do anything! He offered the beach. And you say to yourself "Are you crazy? He's willing to take you to the beach and you don't want to go?" And my answer, this time, is no. Because it's all about the packing. You see, we wouldn't go to the beach and stay the night. We would leave early morning (after I've fixed breakfast for everyone) and head off to the beach. The kids would play, we might fly a kite, dig some holes to China and then eat the lunch I had to bring for all five of us. And not forget that 90% of what I would bring would not be gluten free for Holland. Then we'd get wet, have no place dry to go change and then we would leave and maybe get taken to McDonald's on our way out of town.

Normally, I wouldn't mind doing that, but Friday when the idea was put on the table, I just couldn't wrap my tired little brain around more planning and fidgeting with food that would have to be properly stored while traveling. It just did not appeal to me. My kind of trip to the beach would be one small night spent somewhere, getting up at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise. Sitting on the beach late at night knowing you have a warm room to go back to and could tuck the kids into bed and read a book and be refreshed for the drive home. When we get to the beach for the day, I end up driving most of the way because super hero here can't stay awake for more than 45 minutes while he's driving. I pack those No-Doze pills in our glove compartment, but he'd rather slap himself on the cheeks to keep awake. Or roll down the window for some fresh air. Or let me drive. Which wouldn't be bad, except 5 minutes after I've taken the wheel, two things have happened: 1 - he's fallen asleep. 2- someone is arguing with someone else in the back seat. Or touched someone or looked at someone sideways. So now I'm trying to drive and tell everyone they need to shush because I'm distracted and don't want to crash.

So, that's why I'm not in the mood for the beach. But I was in the mood to go check out a fundraiser at Alpenrose Dairy in Portland. I had never been up there, but Super-Hero had played Little League baseball up there a couple times. There were cute kid's activities (face painting, a real live camel, tossing games for prizes, catching rubber ducks, pitching contest, a bouncy house and of course food.) All the food was free. And after you filled your tummy with a delicious burger and ice cold coke, you could wait in line for free ice cream! It doesn't get much better than that.

What gets better now is that I'm talking to my mom asking if she made it to the rummage sale (she's the one who told me about it). We had a good laugh. She, my dad and sister's family all came up and we were all there about the same time, just never ran into each other. I found out they were heading towards Hillsboro to pick peaches. I missed peaches last year due to husband interference :-) He just doesn't understand that it's something I've done for years; something that makes me feel good and productive; saves us money by canning; and gives the kids a wonderful memory of picking peaches in an orchard. I convince him to go. In his mind "it's sooooo far!" Well, we're more than half way there right now! Let's do it. The peaches weren't completely ripe which is good and bad. They shouldn't bruise as easily as ripened peaches and we wouldn't have to come straight home to can peaches that could spoil in a day or two.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to can with a missing part of my canning paraphanalia. It seems Holland has absconded with the metal insert for lifting the cans out and keeping them directly off the heat while bathing. He seems to be doing a lot of this lately (gosh, big surprise there!) I was talking with my sister on the phone tonight and my cordless went dead. I ran over to the only phone with a cord in the house and picked it up. No dial tone. I looked to make sure the curly cord was pushed in all the way and waited for it to click. Nothing. Then I noticed that the phone jack is completely empty and there is no phone jack cord anywhere around. Another experiment somewhere in the house is enjoying the use of that phone cord.

A Good Laugh

2009-08-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

I found the funniest blog. It must have been because I can get so annoyed at my super-hero husband and needed a good laugh. What amazed me is this blogger has only been blogging since July 30th of this year and already has 14,000 hits! What?!? I've been blogging over a year and really, nobody is interested in my boring life? She and her husband are newlyweds. Maybe that's why it's so funny. She's already annoyed and they've only been married since March. But go check out her blog. It's called "My Husband is Annoying." Pretty fitting, huh? I thought blogging about all the crazy things my kids do would keep people coming back for more, but apparently I need a husband that speaks in an Irish brogue and wears the same sweater over and over. Just 5 minutes ago I realized the mouse I was using on my computer was not the mouse that was there yesterday. Holland has been in the garage reorganizing boxes and he actually set up our old computer, booted it up (where is there an outlet in that place?) and had done a switch-a-roo with my mouse. He gave me the old decrepid mouse with the roller ball that doesn't work. I made him switch it back because I didn't know how.

Oh, I wanted to add, while I was writing this, the blog hits on "my husband is annoying" went up by a thousand. My hero.

Here's To Your Health

2009-08-18T18:10:00.001-07:00

My favorite speaker at the Camp JAM was the Naturopath doctor from Portland. He had a really cool name, too. Tyler Keliiheleua. He talked about how diet can affect a child with an autoimmune disease and since I have two kids that fit that bill, I perked right up.

Here are some common inflammatory foods to avoid: refind sugar; refined wheat; pasteurized dairy; grain fed animal meat; vegetable oil. Some of these are obvious to avoid for just being unhealthy, but I never thought of foods being a cause of inflammation. He also said chew your food 32 times! Yes, that's right. It should basically be liquid by the time you swallow it. I've tried this and it's weird to chew that long. But it also aids in digestion because your stomach acids don't have to work as hard to break down foods. You're also supposed to drink less (or not at all) during dinner. This also hampers the acids from breaking down food and keeps it in your system too long. He suggested drinking a glass of water with 1/4 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (which I ran and bought at Trader Joe's today) 5-10 minutes before your biggest meal. People with autoimmune diseases have trouble breaking down proteins especially and the cider vinegar is supposed to get those juices flowing.

Some common foods that reduce inflammation are: wild cold water fish; organic spices like ginger and turmeric; leafy greens; Extra Virgin Olive Oil; lemon; cilantro and parsley; garlic; water; dark berries; herbal tea; flax seed/oil; and walnut (and walnut oil). He said he would email out some smoothie recipes that used some of these things. I'm curious how he's gonna make a leafy green smoothie that my kid will drink.

The healthy oils are: walnut oil; flaxseed; coconut; grape seed; extra virgin olive oil. He listed the bad oils and I asked about Canola. He said he didn't include it because it falls somewhere in the middle. You don't have to cut it out entirely, but the good oils should be used more often anyway.

The last thing he mentioned that I found interesting were Probiotics. I've been giving Holland that in a pill form, but he was talking about something that was a live culture and had to be kept in the fridge, so that's something I'm going to have to investigate more.

So there are my tips on how to have a healthy gastrointestinal system. Don't forget your fiber!

Camp JAM

2009-08-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

We got back from Camp JAM (Juvenile Arthritis Matters) yesterday and I'm still downloading pictures to share from our amazing time there. The time and effort (and volunteer hours!) that went into planning this is mind-boggling. When we arrived, they had our main meeting room decked out in a Hawaiian theme. We got our cabin keys, a map and "treasure hunt" and had our picture taken and each child got to pick out a brand new backpack. After having a little snack, we used our treasure hunt clues to find different areas of the camp. At several stops the kids got to pick out a treat. At one stop we got new water bottles; at another they got Leis. It was a great way to find our way around. After unloading everything (we had to use a wheelbarrow to get our things to the cabin) we met back in the dining room for dinner. Hamburgers, potato salad, fresh veggies. Our first meeting was at 7 and all the counselors, staff and volunteers were introduced.

Then the most amazing thing happened. They introduced an older couple who had donated money to make this camp possible. They had all the kids affected with JRA come up to the stage and as each one walked across, they handed the woman a flower. After all the kids were on the stage, each child was presented with a gift bag filled with a handmade quilt that ONE WOMAN made! I think half the moms were crying or ready to cry! Each quilt was different. Each quilt suited the child's age and gender. I was so amazed. I'll have to get a good picture of the quilt and post it. All the pictures I took were indoors and it was dark, so not very good focus.

On Saturday the kids were grouped by age/grade and went with counselors while the parents were in meetings. Our morning session was "okay" because I spent most of it interpreting for super-hero. I didn't think that our sessions would be that involved. This one was on stress and the one on Sunday was so much better. They brought in a naturopath doctor and he talked about anti-inflammatory foods and what foods are best for people with autoimmune disease (which actually benefits 2 of my children!) Saturday afternoon we got family free time and the boys got to go fishing; did archery; rockclimbing; had sno cones; watched part of a movie and Romania played shuffleboard! While super-hero did that with the boys, I went with Egypt to a bouncy house then took her swimming and we met up for the sno cones. The day was jam packed with fun. After dinner on Saturday, we had a talent show that all three kids participated in. Romania sand (or rather recited) "The Alphabet of Nations" song; Egypt sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and Holland balanced a pen on his nose and then the audience started singing "Take me out to the ball game". After singing songs around a campfire and eating s'mores (see how much we did??), they brought in a woman who was a fire dancer. She had these small bowls that she lit from the firepit and swung them around. It was totally dark and was the coolest thing. She said she practiced over a year with beanbags before trying it with fire.

Sunday's session with the Naturopath was so informational. That was almost my favorite part of the camp (sno cones might be a close second). After packing up our cabin, we met one last time for goodbyes and each camper got a special "JRA" pin. The kids are already looking forward to next year.

World's Weirdest Cat

2009-08-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Actually both of my cats are weird. LuLu will walk right up to a new person in my house and get right in her face. She even walked on someone's shoulders that was sitting on my couch. LuLu also likes to bite my ankles when she wants to be fed. Fancy has been kinda quiet. She'll wait for LuLu to finish choosing which bowl she's gonna eat from before chowing down. They both like to chase each other which is still evidenced at night when we forget to shut them in the bathroom. The other night at probably 3 in the morning, I heard them running up the stairs and all of a sudden, they were racing over our sleeping bodies. That's the only time they do it - when we're lying in bed asleep. Fancy also likes to chase little Beanie Babies. Egypt has this small rabbit and we throw it and that dumb cat chases it like she's a dog. We started throwing it over my bed to watch her race over it.

But the weirdest thing that Fancy did was find a mitten and tear it up. That wouldn't be weird, except when she started chewing on this very nice mitten last winter, I put it in Egypt's drawer so she wouldn't destroy it anymore. The other day I noticed that the mitten had found its way out of her drawer and was on my floor. Not wanting it to be mangled further, I put it in a wooden box with little wooden drawers in my room. There's 6 drawers about the size to hold CD's. Yesterday I found it on my floor again. I thought one of the kids was probably going through my things again and just shoved it back in the drawer. Well, this afternoon, there it is AGAIN on the floor! I looked at the wooden drawers and there was the mitten drawer pulled open! That crazy cat could smell that mitten and opened the drawer. Makes me want to put a hidden camera to the drawers and see if she does it again. You'd think catnip was rubbed all over this thing.

The kids really want a dog. Now I can say we have our dog.

Our Week at the Lake

2009-07-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Fish

2009-07-19T15:07:00.001-07:00

Click on the screen to feed my fish

We Live For Danger

2009-07-09T20:56:00.000-07:00

I believe my family will single-handedly support all the ER and urgent care doctors in our area until our kids have grown and moved out of the house. They can send me a nice fat thank-you with a check for helping them out. If you haven't guessed it yet, we had another incident here. This time with Holland. I guess it was about his turn in the rotation.

I let the boys have a neighbor friend over to play in the back. They were all about the Bionicles and having a war. Boys. Whatever. I really hate to let Egypt go out with them because it just means that I have to ignore all my inside jobs. The bothersome ones like cooking, cleaning, reading blogs. She usually just bothers them and then they get mad at her. Today seemed fine. That should have been my first clue, huh? She and Romania were jumping on the trampoline and Holland and his friend were swining on the zip line. All of a sudden, blood-curdling scream. I ran to the kitchen window to see Holland racing up the steps with blood on his head and hand where he was holding it. What now???

Egypt has an affinity for rocks. She's collecting, sorting, moving them. And she for some reason threw one at Holland and hit him in the head. It was a huge rock, too! He had a nice size gash with lots of blood. I got my sister and neighbor involved and after lots of debate, decided to take him to Urgent Care rather than the ER or do something myself that would cause an infection. I am unhappy to report that the old geezer did NOTHING! I'm not kidding. He looked at it and I'm sure was thinking what is this woman doing bringing him in? What is the big DEAL? He said the only reason to do stitches was if it was gaping or wouldn't stop bleeding. I really didn't think they would do stitches, but I thought they'd super glue it. He said "no, super glue is never necessary." What? I told him my nephew had his head super-glued and he poo-poohed that. Then being the uncomfortable, overprotective mom trying not to look dumb, I told him about how Egypt had her hair tied over her gash from falling off Holland's bed. He called that, ready? "parlor tricks". I just didn't even know what to say. He said head wounds always heal beautifully. Well, that may be, but he didn't even clean it. He just sent us on our way. It's still bleeding just a little so I'm just going to clean it with a bit of water and put some Neosporin on it.

Printables

2009-07-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

I've been scouring the internet for help with meal planning, grocery lists and cleaning schedules trying to get my house and life in order. I used to print lists from organizedhome.com or get cleaning tips from flylady.net (shine your sink!) but just wasn't finding what I wanted. The pages weren't the full size of the page and it bothered me that it wasted so much ink to print that. Then I found this great website called WorkingMom.com. Finally a site that was helpful. I was able to print off a customized grocery list just by checking boxes and the things that weren't on the list were easily added and grouped. What I liked was it had a master list of things. You check a box or add to a box at the end of that category and magically it prints out just the items you wanted. Other lists I've found just had a huge master list that you couldn't edit and my eyes went all blurry looking at all the items that I didn't need but were still listed. I still like OrganizedHome.com, they have a great idea for a household notebook that I might implement, but for a printable grocery list, try the workingmom site.

She's Square!

2009-07-09T14:57:00.000-07:00

How does a child measure 43" and weigh 43 pounds at the same time? I took Egypt for her follow-up to the cortisone injection and when she was weighed and measured, I just had to laugh. She's like a square. I think she's above 75th percentile for height, but not sure about weight.

I was able to leave the boys with my sister for the appointment. It just makes it sooooo much easier not to have to take everyone. The room is small, and there's just too much temptation to be flittin' around the room. He said her knee looks fine and also checked her jaw again. I'm real nervous about that one. I feel like it could sneak up so fast because it's such a subtle difference he's looking for. All's well and so we have another appointment in three months.

A 4th to Remember

2009-07-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

Wish I could say it was going to be a good memory! Every year we go to my in-law's cabin for the 4th of July weekend. When we didn't have kids, we'd spend the night. There was more room when it was just 8 adults and 6 kids. When our three came along, it just got too crowded. We just planned on going up Saturday so the kids could swim and Holland could fish. It was supposed to be in the 90's, so it was perfect for a lake swim.

I, however, get cranky when it's hot. And there's no air conditioning in the cabin. And I get cranky when it's hot. Did I already say that? Yep. It was hot. I was down on the dock for awhile, pulling Egypt in and out of the water in her "hoop" (inner tube) and watching Holland desperately trying to catch a sturgeon off the dock and seeing Romania fly off the boathouse roof into the water. Things seemed to be going along fine until the crawdad races. Yup - they have crawdad races every 4th of July. The kids catch the crawdads, name them and then put them inside a circle underneath a plastic cake lid. The first to reach the edge of the circle is the winner and moves on to the next round. There was a bit of a problem with our craws. Holland caught about 8 of them and chose the three that our kids would use. He put them in his tackle box and brought them up to the cabin. Unfortunately, he didn't close the lid and they all got out. So about 15 minutes before the races, we were all scouring the deck looking for these guys. Only one was found - Holland's. The other two didn't seem that upset. Usually people have extras that they bring up. Sure enough, through some wheeling and dealing, both Egypt and Romania got their own crawdads. They named them "Sticky" (Egypt's), "Fire" (Romania's) and "Hunter" (Holland's). Then through some awful twist of fate, Sticky and Fire raced each other. Fire won and went on to race again. In another cruel twist of fate, Fire and Hunter raced each other, which had the potential of having a nasty outcome. I was standing on the edge cheering them both on and Holland kept moving inside the circle. He was all tense and moody and every time I touched him he jerked away and yelled at me (real fun when you're in a crowd of people). Finally, I pulled back on his shoulders to move him out of the circle and he kicked me in the shin.

This was not going to be a good day.

Without going in to all the awful details of slingshots, exploding children and missed dinners, we left at 6 and didn't even get to enjoy the potluck for the adults or the pizza for the kids. One thing they need to plan better is they always have the adult potluck at the same time as the kid's dinner. There's no way we can leave the kids by themselves so we have to trade off going to eat. But we didn't even get to do that. We came home, had sandwiches and cereal and I put all three kids to bed, not even caring that they didn't see fireworks.

I'm going on strike next year and we are staying home. No more stressful days spent with people who don't understand us.

EEG

2009-07-02T17:54:00.001-07:00

Last night I had to keep Holland awake two hours later than normal and then wake him up two hours earlier than normal. He had a "sleep-deprived" EEG at Emanuel this morning. I got less sleep than he did and I was ready to fall asleep during the test. We got there at 8.20 and checked in and then were told that we weren't expected until 10, but they would do their best to get to us as soon as possible. Well, I couldn't keep him awake. He fell asleep on my shoulder, drooled and snored for 45 minutes. The tech came and got us about 9.45 and it took about 15 minutes to mark his head, clean it and attach the probes.

He was hoping for Holland to stay awake for part and sleep for part. He asked him to blink about 10 times in a row and then he had to breathe like he was blowing out candles for 3 minutes straight! I could tell he got dizzy and since he was so tired, he sometimes forgot to blow. We had to remind him to breathe! Then he put this strobe light over his head and explained that he would be flashing the light and to just keep his eyes closed and relax. At first the strobes were slow. It would blink about 10 times and then stop and then start again a bit faster. That happened about 8 times and by the end, he was laying there just smiling. It made me sick to see it blink that fast and it looked like he enjoyed it. Crazy. Maybe I should put a strobe light in his bedroom and that would calm him down!

For the next part of the test, he was just supposed to lay there and hopefully fall back asleep. He struggled for a bit because after seeing the strobe and breathing hard, he was more awake. He did fall back asleep and it was interesting to watch all 22 probes on the computer screen. If he snored, a few of them kind of perked up and the tech would bring up a box and type in "yawn". He also moved a bit and a few fell off and had to be reattched, but he didn't wake up until the end. After his head was cleaned he tried to sell the technician some rocks he had in his pockets. He looked like he belonged on a dude ranch. His pockets were stuffed with rocks organized into little plastic baggies and loose rocks in the other pocket. He told the guy "50 cents a bag. Want one?"

Happy Adoption Day!

2009-06-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago today, we signed papers that completed our adoption of Hunter. I was looking for a picture of us at the courthouse with the judge, but can't find it. That was before digital pictures, so who knows where the hard copy is. But he's three months here, the same age when we finalized.

Every year we celebrate his Adoption Day with a special treat. He can choose something fun to do or a special gift. One year we went to Bullwinkle's to play and this year he saw a skateboard marked 60% off (gotta love Fred Meyer's clearance sales!) I think the first couple years when he was really young, we just went to parks and I got him books. I think I was going to do that every year - a book. But as is typical with me, I start a good plan and never finish it. (See yesterday's post for evidence of that).

Workboxes

2009-06-24T13:13:00.001-07:00

Here I go with another attempt at being organized. Don't you do that? You start something thinking it will help you simplify things and then it's either too complicated or you forget to do it. That's me - I forget to do it. I have notebooks with behavior charts; cards for chores or a calendar for schoolwork. Hopefully this time, this method will stick.

My sister found something on a Yahoo homeschooling group about something called "Workboxes" based on Sue Patrick's book. The idea is neat - you organize all your child's work into plastic bins and when they're done, they just proceed to the next task. Great. But my house is not that big and I don't have a separate area that I feel I could dedicate to that many boxes. I'd start to feel like we were a warehouse. So this mom came up with a brilliant idea of putting all the work into one plastic box and she put hanging file folders inside. The blogger on Ruby Slippers School posted her idea and had great pictures to show how she did it. Each time the child finishes a task, s/he puts up the velcro picture and moves on to the next file. This has helped greatly in answering that tired old question, "how much more school are we doing?" and I can point to their box and they can see what's left. Since I am doing more light school during the summer, I wanted to add some chores that they could do as well. I haven't made a separate system for that yet, but they so need some consistency in that department. That might be in the works. But I laminated pictures of certain chores they needed to do once they finished so many files of work. (this link shows you what it looks like, but I found it at walmart for $25 and on amazon it's $40!) And I stuck trampoline breaks, or playing outside or reading with me in there, too! We used it for the first time last week and it worked so well. They got done with their work quicker, Egypt has her own art projects to do and then we were able to plan out other things like going to the park or a cooking project in the afternoon. We took the week off this week for Vacation Bible School, but plan to start it up again next week. Gotta keep those brains fresh!

A Memorable 40th

2009-06-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

Who would think that I would be in the ER - again - on my 40th birthday? Or that I would have a migraine to go along with that? Super-Hero took the kids to church so they wouldn't miss out on their new classes. But during Sunday School, Holland told his teacher he wasn't feeling well and he was shaking all over. They came home and then my mom called and told me to have super-hero bring the kids over so I could rest. She called later to see how I was doing (still had the migraine. Hadn't heard from the on-call dr. for medicine). She told me that Holland was shaking really bad and complaining of things crawling on him. This wasn't the first time I'd seen that. He has woken in the middle of the night screaming that bugs and spiders are in his room or are crawling all over him. I reassure him that there's nothing there, but he doesn't believe me.

So we went to the ER to have him checked out. They did blood work and all his levels were within normal range. The ER doctor called our physician to ask what to do. We ended up reducing the dose on one medicine and omitting another medicine altogether. He thought maybe the two were interacting and causing the trembling and hallucinations he was experiencing. Last week I had made an appointment with this doctor to discuss his current doses and see if we needed to change anything. He is, afterall, 10 and hitting the age when hormones are going to kick in. After speaking with him and examining Hunter, he believed he was having seizures. The word didn't even stick when he said it. I didn't understand. I thought the medicines he is taking were reacting, but he said after talking and looking back on his history of meds that the medicines were not the cause. They actually could have been preventing the seizures. It turns out that two of the medicines he's been on to treat Bipolar were actually anti-seizure medications. So if he in fact is having seizures, the medicines were actually helping to prevent them.

He faxed in a request for an EEG up at Emanuel (it's like a second home now) and I made an appointment as soon as we got home. July 2nd. 10:15. It will be what is called a "sleep-deprived" EEG. They want to monitor brain activity and the best way is on less sleep. I'm thankful that we got an appointment so quickly and Holland will be happy that there's no poking involved.

Speaking of poking, I almost forgot one of the best things that happened last night in the ER. If you follow my blog at all, you know that my mom pays Holland $5 every time he has blood work done. In the beginning it was me and about 4 nurses trying to hold him down to draw blood. It was awful. My mom had the brilliant idea of paying him each time to see if he would calm down. Since money is his "love language", it worked like a charm! So we're sitting in the ER room and the doctor said they were going to do some blood work and he got this look of terror in his eyes. He was already upset and jumpy and hearing the words "blood work" did not go over well. He asked gramma if she would pay him for having the blood work and she said yes. She gave him the $5 and he asked since he was in the hospital if he could have another $5 afterwards. She didn't have it on her, but assured him that he would get the money. When our phlebotomist came in (not a nurse, a phlebotomist!) and she heard the story of the payment plan, she took $5 out of her pocket and gave it to Holland! He had the biggest grin on his face. He'll never forget getting 5 dollars from the "grandma" at the hospital!

Hard Work Finally Pays Off

2009-06-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

It's been about 9 months since starting the gluten-free lifestyle for Holland. So many recipe experiments gone bad and some successes. He had a blood recheck for his gluten levels to determine if they're still low. We want to be able to introduce gluten-free oats (he lived on oatmeal before being diagnosed). I got a call from the doctor's office yesterday and it finally feels like all my hard work has paid off. When we started, his levels were in the 120's; the first blood level check he was at 31, so a huge drop. Now he's at 19! We're going to try oats again and hopefully his levels will stay low enough for him to tolerate it. He's worked so hard - put up with all the bad tasting gluten-free food. Now he can eat a big bowl of oatmeal that will be doctored up with brown sugar and cinnamon!

2009-06-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

I'm turning the big 4-0 this year. On Sunday, my mom surprised me with a concert to see Andre' Rieu. She made a little crossword puzzle that was supposed to give me clues to figure it out. After finding parking and making our way up to the nosebleed section, we got to enjoy the wonderful orchestra and tenors. All the gals wore these amazing dresses, but it was so hard to see anything, even with the big screens. You just didn't feel connected to the performers. Then during intermission, an usher came up and asked if we were together (we were sitting in two rows). I asked if he was going to let us move down closer. There were so many seats even in the two sections below us. He then gave us tickets to the floor! We got to sit in row 9 for the rest of the concert. It was amazing to be up that close and see the costumes. We even had balloons fall on us towards to end. It was a great early birthday gift.

Let Summer Begin!

2009-06-13T09:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Romania's last day of school. I took him to the bus stop as usual, but then about 10.15, I packed up a picnic blanket and Holland and Egypt and headed out to the school for an afternoon of games, food and fun. The weather was kind of chilly when we first got there, but by the time the day was over, it was a little too warm. Plus there's no shade, so you're stuck being hot.

The kids did different games that the older kids put together and rotated from station to station. Then they had a BBQ that the local phone company hosted. They brought out big grills and guys to cook hamburgers and hot dogs. After lunch the kids got ice cream and we did a little cleaning in Romania's classroom. The kids got their yearbooks and signed them for each other. By the end of our 4 hours there, Holland was so wiped out. He wore totally the wrong clothes and was hot the entire time. When I said, "Can you believe it? You're not in 2nd grade anymore!" he answered, "that was a long time to be in 2nd grade."

But I already have stuff planned for this summer. We have two church camps we're attending; a week at the cabin and three days at a family camp for children with JRA. The kids are so excited about this. It's completely free and they have tons of activities lined up for the kids. I also get to work in doctor appointments and a little school. I know. Give them a break, right? Wrong! There's a couple reasons why I continue to do "light" school through the summer. First, Holland especially, needs to continue or he would lose too much by the start of 5th grade. Second, they would all kill each other and just sit and watch tv all day. In my next couple posts, I'm going to show you what I've done to make our school time easier, more organized and more fun for the kids.

Busy Day

2009-06-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

Today was spent mostly at the hospital for two doctor appointments. I somehow managed to make an appointment with Holland's gastroenterologist and Egypt's rheumatologist on the same day. Even at different times! I never could have planned that so carefully if I had tried. After dropping Romania at the bus stop and then quickly gathering some distractions and snacks for the hospital, we drove up and had a valet park our van. I tell you. Whoever invented that was a genius. How easy is that? You drive up to a curb. A nice guy gives you a little ticket and goes and parks your car.

Holland's doctor was even on time. Just gotta give him more Miralax and some rice bran. He's not having stomach aches, but doc said he's still backed up. Ugh. He asked if Holland had any questions and he actually remembered that he might get to start eating oatmeal now. We have to get blood work done to see where his gluten levels are at. If they're still low, we can introduce real oatmeal - the catch is it has to be gluten free. Betch'a didn't know there was such a thing as gluten free oatmeal? Well, Bob's Red Mill has it. No fake oatmeal (none of those tasty Quaker packets). I don't even think those are real oats. Gluten free oatmeal actually looks like what real oatmeal should look like. The taste is a little different and it takes longer to cook, but we doctor it up with brown sugar and cinnamon.

So after seeing this doctor, we go back to the valet, get our van and drive over to the next office building (the main hospital) and I went one time around the parking garage, found no spots and then drove up to the next set of valets and handed over my car again. What's great about this is it's complimentary. We got another parking stub and walked into Diagnostics to wait until our check-in time. My parents met us there and my dad took Holland so he wouldn't be stuck at the hospital all afternoon. They ran some errands and got lunch. We got Egypt checked in and then the nurse got us to do all the vitals and talk about the procedure. I was sure she'd be more scared than last year because she was 3 1/2. The nurse let her pick the flavor for the mask (bubblegum) and then the doctor came in and I signed a bunch of forms and he talked about the risks. He was fairly certain it would just be the one joint, but she had been complaining of her left knee hurting, so he said he'd check that while she was out. The whole thing lasted less than 10 minutes. I was in the gift shop buying her some books when the doctor came in and said it was over. We got to go back to the room and be there when she woke up. She almost sat straight up and we had to lay her back down. She got a popsicle and a wagon ride to the car.

We have a follow up in four weeks to check the joint, but so far, it looks good. The doctor said "just a quiet afternoon" before she went in. Then he kinda laughed when he said this while watching her bounce around the room. It didn't take her long to want to run and play. She makes a horrible sick person. It's very deceiving :-)

Rheumatologist Today

2009-06-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

I took Egypt to see her Rheumatologist today up at Emanuel. Our last appointment was three months ago and we are supposed to come in more often to check her mouth/jaw, finger joints and just to see how her knee is holding up. She was so goofy today. I'm glad that the doctor enjoys that. She wore this Horton Hears a Who elephant mask from a game she has. She kept making elephant sounds. Holland was not amused at all until she said something like "elephants make poop!" Then he started cracking up. It has been one year since her first injection and she will finally be needing her second injection next week. The doctor said he could only fit two fingers under her knee while trying to press it down and today he could fit his whole hand. She also continues to have a longer femur on her right leg and was actually bothered when he tried to bend her leg while she was laying on her tummy. She complains so little that it's surprising that her knee is so bent. I think she just keeps getting used to not being able to move it and doesn't complain about the pain. So we are scheduled for next Monday. Glad it's sooner than later.

Then on the way home, to top off the morning, I got a ticket for changing lanes in a construction zone. If you know Portland, it's one big construction zone. Super-Hero has a little sign at his office that says "There are two seasons in Oregon: Winter and construction". I didn't even know that there way anything going on. I only drive this road when I'm going up to the hospital. Totally felt like a trap (I saw two other people getting tickets at the exact same spot as me). There are no workers, no trucks, no signs of anything happening. Yup. Looks like construction to me. I emailed Super-Hero to drive over there tonight and look for those mysterious signs that I missed.

Busy Two Weeks

2009-05-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to post about anything the past week and a half. Super Hero had shoulder surgery on May 21st and I've barely had time to do anything except take care of him (drive him around), cook, clean and do school with Holland. The last post was about our jet boat ride on the Willamette and that was the day after (I post about the important things) his surgery. We totally needed a break and he just slept all day anyway. I realized how much I depended on him when he couldn't help out. Getting the kids dinner; getting them to bed; cleaning up at night. I'm totally exhausted and he's still pretty much out of commission. He has to have physical therapy every day for three weeks to make sure his shoulder doesn't freeze up again. And a few days I had to drive him (and bring everyone else in the process) because he was taking Percocet. You know what they say "do not operate heavy machinery". Crud. That means cars. So we'd pile in the car and drive dad to his appointment.

He went back to work on Thursday (which I thought was too early). He's still very sore, but he's itching to get going on some projects at work and felt he needed to get back. The day he had his post-op appointment, Holland had an appointment with a neurologist; Egypt had an eye doctor appointment and he also had a physical therapy appointment. That was one crazy day. We found out that Holland is getting migraines. We're supposed to try getting him more aerobic type exercise. I told the dr. he's really 'busy' but she said he needs more "sweat" activity. We did walk around a park only one day this week. But at least it was once. It's just too hard with Egypt in a jogger stroller. She wants to walk/run/play and Holland is complaining he's bored. He also might be getting the migraines from stress. Did you even know kids could get migraines from stress? I'll be sure to eliminate all that stress for him. Right after I do that for me. I had a migraine that lasted 16 hours one day. I literally felt I couldn't drive to pick up Romania from the bus stop. But who's gonna do it? So, you just suck it up and do what you gotta do.

So if you noticed that Egypt had an eye appointment the same day as Super Hero and Holland, you probably figured out I was a driver short for that. I had to get my mom to take her for her 3 month check up. This appointment takes a little longer because they dilate her eyes and look more closely for the infection that can result from the JRA. She's fine - just nearsighted which he said not to worry about until she's school-age.

So I am really tired from all this activity. All I want to do is sew. I have people that have asked me to sew them ruffle pants or make a head scarf - and I haven't had time to do it. I'm assuming people with jobs outside the home totally ignore their kids. How else would they do everything? As a tribute to trying to do it all (or just the laundry at least), I turned one of my good white T-shirts pink today. I save a whole load of red laundry to do together and forgot to pull out a white shirt that I wore under a red sweatshirt. See? One person just cannot do it all. But now I have a nice pink T-shirt to wear. I really didn't want a pink T-shirt.