Updates Galore

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.