Laying It All Out There.

Lately it has come to my attention that I am not at all well liked or received by members of my family, be they by birth or marriage. There has been a lot of critique about how I do things around my house, the choices I've made regarding my children's education, whether I work outside the home, how I spend the money we do have, and other assorted things along that same path. So I've decided to lay it all out there for ya. After all, no one can really know anything until you know the full story, right?

Let me start off with my schedule for this week. Keep in mind that Jason works full time 3rd shift. So that means he has to sleep at some point during the day. We have it set up that he goes to bed between 1 and 2 in the afternoon on the days he works. On the days he has off, that can be pushed back to 4 or 5 if absolutely necessary. He gets about as much sleep a day as I do, which is between 6 and 7 hours. However he has to do it while the kids are at home. He's not a heavy sleeper like I am so it can get a bit wearing. On his nights off, I have him go to bed as soon as he can and then he sleeps through the night until I go to bed around 1 in the morning. He deserves it.

This week I had Monday free, which was nice, but rather unusual. Honestly, the only day a week I get free is Sunday, and on occasions it's Saturday. Though if James gets the scholarship for the art class he wants to take, there goes Saturday mornings. Oh wait, Jason goes to donate plasma twice a week, Wed and Sat mornings. He does that to help bridge the gap with his income STILL being $1.20 less than what he was making before he was laid off almost 2 years ago. The only way he was able to get full time was to go to 3rd shift, which also meant an immediate $1 extra an hour for shift premium, or the gap would be more like $2.20 an hour. While 3rd shift sucks, it made financial sense for our family to do it that way.

This week I have nothing on Tuesday morning until 11:30 which is Jayden's tutoring. Because of the severity of her phonological disorder, she needs a specialized tutor. We get a reduced rate for her tutoring, however it still costs us $30 a week out of pocket. When dealing with a budget as tight as ours is, $30 is a lot of money. We are lucky if we get child support from my ex each week to help cover that. Tuesday afternoon James has therapy at 3. Jason has Tuesday off so after James' therapy, he'll go to bed. I may ask him to stay awake long enough for me to cook him fried chicken (something he and I have been craving) before sending him off to bed for the night until 1 or 2 in the morning (at the earliest). Keep in mind I need to drive to both of these appointments and they both last for an hour and I can not take any of the other kids with me.

In the middle of the 2 appointments we have Bette, who is a parent aide and comes once a week, at 1:30. She'll be here for an hour. She frequently spends her hour here with one on one time playing with Izzy so that I can take that time to do some housework in a different room.

On Wednesday morning at 10 we have a developmental eval for the twins. It is taking place here at home. Because of the special needs of the others, it was highly recommended that we do this, so we are, just to set minds at ease all around. Jayden again has tutoring at 11:30. Because I think the eval and the tutoring will overlap a little, I believe that Jason will have to finish up the eval while I take Jayden to tutoring. Jason will go to donate around 8:30 or 9 in the morning so he can be home in time for me to leave to take Jayden where she needs to be.

On Thursday morning Izzy has the first part of his eval done. I have to take him to the school to do it. It will easily take 2-3 hours. There will be a couple of follow up visits to the house within the next couple of weeks to watch him in his home environment. Then it will take at least a couple more weeks (if not longer) to put it all together and come to a final conclusion and diagnosis. Jason works Thursday night and will head to bed as soon as I get home from that. Usually Thursday mornings are spent at OT with Jayden and Izzy, but it was cancelled because of the eval this week. Next week we'll go back to OT for the two of them at 10, which lasts for an hour.

At noon on Friday Jayden has therapy. As part of her diagnosis it was found that she has quite a bit of depression going on. I also wanted her to work with someone who has experience with working with siblings of kids who are on the autism spectrum, as we know James is and believe Izzy to be. Therapy will last for an hour and again, I have to drive her there and can't bring any of the other kids with me. Jason works Friday night and will go to bed as soon as I get home.

On the nights that Jason works, I wake him up between 7 and 8 so he can get up and take a shower and have some dinner and spend some time with us as a family before he leaves for work shortly after 9. He gets to work about 30-40 minutes early, but he has said that it gives him time to get in to the "work frame of mind". I can appreciate that.

James will be starting OT of his own. The OT that we use is getting the authorization from the kids' insurance so they can set up his first appointment. She has a group in mind for him to come with and hopefully that time will work with our already busy schedule.

James' sensory stuff has been very out of whack lately. He isn't sleeping well, he's overly and very easily annoyed with common every day things. He finds Jayden to be extremely annoying and regularly tells her to "shut the fuck up" and that he will "kill her if she doesn't shut up already". Each time he tells Jayden to be quiet or to shut up, he loses a day of video game time. He is still expected to do his chores, however there is no reward for the day. Jayden processes by talking her way through it and it isn't fair to her to expect her to be quiet for the sake of James. Unfortunately, he will have plenty of times in his life where the stimuli around him will annoy him and he needs to learn to cope. Learning to cope with his little sister talking seems like a good place to start. OT will hopefully help him figure that out.

Are you tired yet looking at my schedule for the week? In what I see as an ironic twist, this week is relatively calm. Next week has even more in it, and the kids' therapies haven't been scheduled yet. Add in a med check with the psychologist, therapy for me, and the unscheduled as of yet therapy for the kids and it's just chock full. Throw in the occasional check up for one of the kids with their regular ped or a doc check up for me and it's almost insane.

Are you looking at it and wondering when I get a chance to run errands? I fit what I can in when I am already out for appointments for the kids. If I need to bring a kid that isn't the appointment, like needing someone to try on shoes or clothes or get glasses fit, I make a trip home and trade out kids. I try to set aside a morning to go grocery shopping on my own. I have Jason pick up things while he's at work already, like milk and bread and dish and laundry soaps.

Our afternoons are spent mostly at home. That doesn't mean we sit around and do nothing, sadly that is far from the truth. We have 2 case managers that come at least once a month. There is also the weekly parent aide. We are looking in to being able to get a cleaning aide to come 2-3 times a week to help me keep up on the housework. I know that our aides will increase once Izzy is in the specialized program.

What? I need help with the housework? Don't I have ALL afternoon to dedicate to that? Yes, and no. With the way the house is laid out, doing any work in the kitchen is very disturbing to Jason, who is trying to sleep in the very room attached to the kitchen, so dishes are out. It's why I wake him BEFORE I start cooking dinner each night. I don't usually cook during the day. That doesn't mean that the kids don't eat, it just means I'm not making hot meals for them. The older ones know how to use the microwave and are allowed in the kitchen one at a time to make their meals. The one at a time rule keeps arguments and the noise level down. Did I mention that Jason usually sleeps with ear plugs in?

Jack and Abbey still, thankfully, nap in the middle of the afternoon. While they do that, I have the kids help me pick up the living and dining rooms. Sadly, almost as soon as it is cleaned up, Izzy comes along and takes things back out and throws them all over. It's not unheard of for him to take things from downstairs and throw them around upstairs or vice versa. Izzy has no real concept of "play" and how to interact with things. He also has no patience to sit there to learn. I can take some time in the afternoon to work with him, but it's not enough unfortunately. It's another reason why I feel a specialized program is the right fit for him.

Oh, and Izzy is almost completely non-verbal. Meaning he has about 3 words he says, but only when he REALLY wants them. His signs that he knows are mostly used only after prompting. A lot of his time is spent crying and throwing tantrums because he simply can't make himself understood or he wants to do things that we stop him from doing, like taking all of the books off of the shelves or throwing things out the window. We had to box up all of the DVD's and get them out of the living room because he would constantly throw them around the downstairs. It seems that the more noise it makes while he does it, the more he enjoys it. He loves to throw his rescue heros across the dining room table simply because they are hard plastic and it's a wood table. It's things like this that also keep Jason from sleeping well.

Jack and Abbey are now at the age where they are not happy being contained in their pack n play or crib. They don't spend a majority of their day sleeping. They want to be out crawling and walking (which Jack is getting better at every day) around. We block off the doorway to the front hallway and the doorway that leads to the back part of the house and let them have free range roam over the living and dining rooms. This requires direct supervision by me. It means I can't be off cleaning the office or using the computer (even to do ChaCha which earns us some extra money) or in the kitchen cleaning or even taking laundry to the basement. It requires that we keep the living and dining room floors very picked up and clean. They have started climbing and have discovered how to get to the books on the shelf and love to take them out and throw them around. Climbing on the tuner and changing it from what is on is fun for them because it gets a reaction out of everyone in the room. We already have the windows usually closed because of Izzy, but with them crawling around also means that fans are not going. Unless we have the individual a/c units in the windows (and it's getting too chilly to do that) it is very stifling in these rooms because of the lack of air flow.

Aside from Jayden's tutoring and the shows that I have the kids watch on Netflix, we aren't doing any schooling right now. The shows they watch are History Channel specials and things like Mythbusters and Extreme Engineering. Jayden has taken a liking to Sid the Science Kid and the one with the reading team kids, I can't think of the name. We will start "normal" schooling once Izzy starts school. With him gone for a good chunk of the day, we'll be able to spend our afternoons with fewer distractions and interruptions from the work at hand. I'm already working out history and geography lessons, how I want to teach them both so it's at their individual level and yet doing the teaching at the same time. I've started prepping James so he knows that part of his reading time will be spent either reading to Jayden, or having her work on reading to him. I'm developing the best way to teach spelling and handwriting without it being a fight. I know James' focus in math this year will be multiplication, division, and fractions. Jayden will work on addition and subtraction. I want to use life lessons that teach science and math and reading, but I also want to do specific science experiments and work on the scientific process. I think we'll focus on natural science, but also touch on chemical science with chemical reactions like Mentos and Diet Coke. This will be the first year that James will be expected to complete a book report. They will both be working on their creative writing skills. They are anxious to learn and to a point, I'm going to let them lead the way. I'll offer the topics and see where they can go with it.

Izzy really likes Blues Clues and has learned to say clue. He interacts with the program. I am uncomfortable having the t.v. on all of the time. Unfortunately, Izzy has gotten destructive to the point that if we don't keep him directly occupied with either a movie or t.v show he really likes or direct interaction with an adult, he "entertains" himself by tossing, throwing, and destroying anything he can get his hands on. This especially includes throwing things at the twins and he has a pretty accurate aim.

Because of the things that have been said, it has greatly affected how Jason and I are planning to spend our holidays. Things that we would normally do, like host Thanksgiving dinner, just are not going to happen this year. Jason will probably have to work that night and I'll probably go to my mom's. At least at her place, while she may not understand the why's and how's of everything we do, she is always supportive and caring. She and I may have our differences, but I know that when it boils down to it my mom is ALWAYS there and it's NEVER conditional, even if she doesn't like who I'm married to, and I know that first hand from my previous marriage.

Our lives may not be ideal by anyone's standards. They may not fit the mold that was set out in front of us as to how it's "supposed" to go, but it is OUR life. We are doing the absolute best that we can with what we are handed on a daily basis. It would seem that would be the best that you could hope for, but it seems to not be enough. I guess the part that pisses me off the most is the fact that it upsets me that so many negative things have been said about me and it actually does bother me. It reinforces the faults that I already see within myself and the people doing the saying have no first hand knowledge of what it's like to be here, where Jason and I are, living our lives on a day to day basis.

I think I have covered it all from A-Z. I am certain I've stirred a pot, but honestly, it's beyond the point of making a difference any more.

Prayers and blessings everyone, even to those that don't like me.

Wow.

It's been forever since I posted and I've really been slacking off with only 1 or 2 posts a month. I didn't post anything at all in March, what was that about!?! So I'm going to update with a bunch of pics. I'm not going to back track their dates. I usually do, but this time I'm not going to. I'll try to include when they were taken in the post, but it will be current so that what pops up will be the most recent stuff and no one will have to go looking for old pics.

July is going to be a busy month around here. James and Jayden are each taking a class once a week. James will be taking an art class for an hour and a half on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings Jayden will be taking a cheerleading class. I am also trying to get her in to a reading clinic at Western. The tuition fee for it is somewhat expensive. I figure if nothing else, Jason and I will "donate" our birthday money to it. Gotta do what needs to be done, right?

I should be getting the results of Jayden's eval shortly. Jason has to go in on Wednesday and do his part of the question/answer game and then we'll have them. I am pretty sure that I'll be told that she has severe dyslexia, which I know already. That is what the reading clinic is for. To give us some help and ideas on how to approach reading with her differently. I've been doing some reading and I have found out that for some dyslexic kids, they don't learn to read until they are teenagers. I hope that it doesn't take that long for Jayden, however I now know a better way to help her with her school work. We'll keep on working on the basic reading skills as well as sight words, and I'll help her with her other stuff by doing the reading aloud for her. I'll also be having James do some reading to her.

I have an appointment next Friday, the 11th, for Izzy to begin the process of an evaluation to see if he qualifies for the Croyden Autism Program. We are hoping that he does. It's a 5 day a week, full school day, all year program. We are hoping that if he can do that for ages 4 and 5, then by the time he is ready to start Kindergarten, we can homeschool him. We are hoping that the day to day therapies will be enough to get him signing/talking consistently as well as get him to sit still and be able to focus on a task for a short period of time.

We have switched agencies so we are getting settled in with a new case manager. We have to have a case manager in order for James to continue seeing Dr. O with Community Mental Health. Dr. O is a psychiatrist and is the one that handles the meds for James. We are trying to get James in to a program that does a mentoring thing. He'd go with the trained therapist 2-3 days a week for about 3 hours on average. They'd go do social things. It'd be a way for James to work on those social things he has such difficulty with in a setting where I wasn't right there to directly and immediately monitor and correct him. Which is something that he is going to need to learn to do.

I tried my meds at a double dose today. The twice a day dose is what is "usually" prescribed. I see the doc on the 8th for a follow up and I like to know what kind of effects I'm looking at before I ask for med increases. I do this for James usually, but it works great for me as well. The difference is ASTOUNDING. I actually had energy. I wasn't put off by the enormity of my tasks. I just hunkered down and worked on it. I got the girls' room almost completely cleaned and reorganized. Tomorrow I'm going to finish that room and then work on the boys' room, the stairs, and the landing area at the top of the stairs. On Sunday it will be the playroom and I see that easily carrying over in to Monday.

Jason has the weekend off so I'm hoping that once I get the boys' room cleaned, he can go in and paint it. We've had the paint sitting in the basement for quite some time, it's just been waiting for the right moment. I also have a wallpaper border to put up in there as well. I want to try to find all the stamps that I was using for the girls' walls and get back to finishing that. I have curtains to make for all of the rooms as well. It seems like a lot, but I know if I just take it one day at a time and focus on the task of the moment it will all come together.

I have been reading the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover. I've just started it. It is making sense, especially the part about the person in the mirror. I'm going to talk with Deb on Monday about some of that to see what she suggests. Having grown up without a lot of direction about money, personal finance, budgeting, prioritizing, and personal responsibility I am a bit lost in this at times. I know that Jason and I have it worked out that I handle the bills and I'm just trying to make sure that things get done. I want to make sure they are getting done better however, so we can actually start making progress toward our ultimate goals. I've been talking with Jason about what I've been reading. One thing I have noticed is that some of his suggestions are out of context for a larger family on a smaller income. The concepts are sound so we'll see what we can do with what we have.

I have energy to "work" now, which is amazing. I am still doing ChaCha but I am making a more concentrated effort on doing it. I'm also listing things on eBay. I'm starting with my maternity clothes. They are in good condition and I know I'm never going to need them again so they are just taking up space. It's also hard to find affordable plus sized maternity clothes. They don't exist but for a very few stores, and then they are rather expensive, especially considering they are meant for a short period of wearing.

James is gone with Linda for 2 weeks. He left this past Wednesday morning. Jayden will be going for 2 weeks in August. Katy will be spending about 1/2 of her summer with us, a fact that she isn't too pleased about. That is because she would rather spend the time with her friends. Thankfully Jenn and I are in agreement that family trumps friends. This also is kind of "make up" for the school year when she has commitments and that kind of thing that allow us to see her about once a month. We'd love for it to be more often but the 1 1/2 hour drive one way is also a bit inhibitive.

Well, I think that is all for now. I'll be back in the next day or so to post some pics. I'm hoping to make daily blogging a habit again. I'll be updating The Journey blog after my appt on Tuesday, or even Monday after I have therapy. Prayers and blessings everyone, I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

This Other Blog That I Do

Technically, there is more than one. I have one set up for James to talk about video games. I am hoping it helps his grammar and spelling and basic english skills. I'm also hoping it helps him get the video game rants out a bit in a format where there are others to "listen" to them.

Then there is the business blog. I'm just getting started with that.

Finally there is the Journey blog. That is the one I was referring to in the title. I realize I've been very lax in posting to this blog. For the year so far there have been less than 10 posts and here it is, the 5th month already. Wow. Honestly, it's been too much "effort". Though honestly, that doesn't make any sense. After all, it's just typing and clicking and that's it. So I'm working on doing it more. All around.

This other blog is my food journal exercise log health rant blog. I needed somewhere I could put it all down in one place. Somewhere that the focus was my health and what and how I'm dealing with it. I want this blog to be about family and my relationships with them. Showing off pictures of the kids and that kind of thing. I don't want the health thing to distract from that.

My goal for the month of May is to post 4-5 times a week on this and the health blog. I would love to post frequently on the business blog, but if I don't have business, then I can't do that. My hope for posting that frequently is that I can sit down and really look at what I'm doing, where I'm going, and where I want to be. Be prepared for a lot of mind numbing posts like "I did 4 loads of laundry and washed 3 racks of dishes today. I knitted for a while. The kids and I went for a walk." Those are the kinds of things that I want to keep track of.

I want to start having recipes on both blogs, food pics too. The ones here will be more family focused. The ones there will be ones that I'm trying as a way to be healthier. They will overlap I'm sure.

The kids are doing all right. Jack is crawling and pulling himself up. He'll be walking before he turns a year old, I can guarentee that. As it is, he walks along the furniture so it's just a matter of time before he lets go. He'll be my earliest walker. Abbey is pulling herself up to her knees and rocking back and forth. She'll be crawling by the end of the month I think. Up to now it seems like she hasn't felt the need to be moving, but something has struck up the nerve in her to do it. They have a check up on Monday so we'll see how they are doing weight and height wise. It's a shot free appt, so that will be nice.

Izzy still isn't speaking. We are working on trying to teach him sign. I've talked to his ped about a lot of things going on with him. We both feel he may be on the Autism Spectrum, though most likely, not very severely. It seems that his language abilities are the most severe of his issues. A lot of his behavior problems directly relate to his inability to effectively communicate his wants and needs. I'm calling to try to get him in to a speech and language clinic at WMU.

I went to an Autism Conference not long ago. I learned some things and it was a nice afternoon. I met a woman, I believe her name was Ashley, from an organization here in town called Parent to Parent. They are all parents of children with special needs. Parent mentors and resource ideas and all of that. I'm looking at being connected with possibly another parent who had a child with a severe speech issue similar to Issac's. I'm also going to do the training to be a parent mentor because of my experiences with James, Jayden, and Izzy. It was suggested to me to try to get Izzy in to a music program of some sort.

This has been something that I've been working with James and Jayden on already. Music theory. I am going to keep doing that and try to expand it to include Izzy. I am now in search of beginning piano books for them. I'm not sure what will work best, and odds are it may end up being different for each of them, but we'll see how it goes. I have the keyboard and the music knowledge myself.

We are applying for a Y-Grant. It will help us get a reduced fee to join the YMCA where the kids can take classes. We are thinking swim for James and dance for Jayden. This summer James will be taking an art class and Jayden will be doing cheerleading through our local parks dept. I am also trying to get Jayden in to a summer reading clinic. I am hoping they can help her break through her barrier and make sense of the letters and how they form in to words.

We are in the final stages of an evaluation for Jayden. I asked that it be done so that we could discover if the suspected dyslexia is actual. I wanted to know if there were any other things going on that could inhibit her learning. I don't think that we will get a diagnosis like Autism or anything like that. With James' eval, Asperger's was the anticipated result. With Izzy, mild Autism/PDD-NOS is the anticipated result. With Jayden, severe Dyslexia/AD(H)D is the anticipated result. I just hope that my intuitions regarding my kids stay on par with what I experienced with James and that I'm not totally off base with Jayden and Izzy.

James is growing well. He's constantly wanting to eat. At his age, that doesn't surprise me. I'm glad to see that he is beginning the typical teenage need to eat. I know that pre-teen and teen boys grow quite a bit. I also know that James is hoping this starts to happen naturally, and soon, so that he can stop doing the hormone therapy. His endo has said that is what will happen. Once he hits the typical teen growth James will be able to stop with the growth hormones.

James wears glasses full time now. He has needed them for a while, but convincing him to wear them has been difficult. The way they feel on his face bothers him, understandably so. He picked out a pair that he really likes and I made sure to pay extra for the replacement warrenty. He is now comfortably reading chapter books. He's read Percy Jackson, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and is working on How to Train Your Dragon. All in the past month. I think we are definately developing a love for reading with him!

This summer for our schooling we will be focusing on reading. We will include a little math and science with that, but it will mostly be reading. The other focus will be social. Working on family interactions. Helping out around the house and outside in the yard. Behavior and attitude. Being a good role model for younger siblings.

One of the things I'm having a difficult time teaching James is being a role model. Because he is such a concrete thinking, he has a hard time understanding how his actions affect others. He also isn't grasping the notion that how he acts toward his brother and sister is how they are going to act toward the ones younger to them. It's very difficult to teach him to think outside of his very small box where he believes that how he acts is in direct relation to how others treat him first. He can't see that he is not actually reacting, but acting first and the others are either reacting to him or mimicing his previous action. It creates a lot of smack my head against the wall moments for me.

Katy has gotten herself in to trouble. For the past few months her grades have really gone down. She has started to alter her perceptions to something much darker and definately unacceptable. She has made herself "mentally ill" in order to fit in more with friends, when in fact there isn't anything wrong. She has a boyfriend that is very consuming of her energy and focus. It's a relationship that is much too, in my opinion, intense for someone who is only 12. She keeps "forgetting" that she is only 12 and really is trying to be much older. This all came to a head a couple of weeks ago. I won't go in to specific detail as to what she did, however it did get her grounded and pulled out of school and homeschooled for the last month of the school year. Jenn felt it was necessary to remove her from the friends and school in order for Katy to refocus on what is really important. This summer when Katy visits, she is going to find out what it really means to be intensely involved in a relationship. The side effects of all of that, of having an "adult" relationship. Instead of lounging about reading all day, she'll be helping me cook and clean and take care of the three youngest kids. This will be all day long.

She had changed her relationship status on facebook, at one point, to married. That is how involved she feels that she is with her boyfriend. I want to show her what being married REALLY is. It's not all fun and games and hanging out together. That's dating. Marriage is responsibility and time consuming. It is about love and respect as well. However a child of 12 (she really is still very much a child) doesn't have the life experience to understand the love and respect part, not really, not completely. She says that she loves her boyfriend, and I'm sure to her that is what it feels like. I remember that kind of love. It is nothing compared to what I have with Jason. I don't want her to get so focused on that feeling that she closes herself off to everything and everyone else that she will experience and meet in the future.

Do I think my lesson will work? I have no idea. I know I'll be talking with her about it, the intensity of her relationship, as well. Trying to explain how it is taking her focus away from her school work and therefore, taking away from her future. Thankfully her boyfriend will be in high school next year, he's a grade above her. While he'll doing school online instead of attending a physical building, my hope is that it will lessen the intensity of the relationship.

Well, I suppose that is enough of a update for right now. That is what has been going on here. Prayers and blessings for everyone.