It's April...

That means that it's now World Autism Awareness month. Obviously this means a lot to me. These boys make life interesting and chaotic and worth living every day. Watching them grow and learn and change, and being there to help them do that, is, well, honestly indescribable.

I know a lot of mom bloggers with Autistic children are starting the month off with posts about what Autism looks like. After all, it doesn't have a look. It's not like some disorders where you look at a child and say "That child is Autistic" or "That child has Asperger's".

On a side note, why is it a child IS autistic and a child HAS Asperger's. Why isn't it one or the other? They are both on the same spectrum, have some of the same things going for them. Afterall, if Asperger's weren't called that, these Aspie kids would be considered high functioning autistic. Then they'd go from HAVING to BEING.

Anyway.....what does Autism look like to us? A whole mix of things, that's for sure. You have all of those "classic" autism things with Izzy. You get all of those social oddities and speech repetitions and "little genius" speak from James. But that's not how it looks, that's how they ARE.

I took Izzy to the store with me this afternoon. I needed to pick up some basics for the week and to get some specific stuff for dinner tonight. I don't usually take Izzy with me, he can be hard to manage, but he's getting better. He loves to sit in the cart, but he's too big to do that now, so I made sure to get a cart he couldn't sit in, that removed the issue right there. I put his hands on the handle, which was low enough for him (thankfully he's a bit big for his age) and I guided the cart, while staying close by him.

We walked through the store to where the dairy is. We've been learning signs, thanks to our extensive collection of Signing Time videos. Izzy doesn't speak. Well, that's not quite true. He speaks very little, and what he does say comes across as though he has a mouth full of marbles. Cheese is one of his favorite foods, so we signed cheese as we were picking out shredded mozerella for home made pizza later this week. A little further down, we needed some cottage cheese. Again the cheese sign, and he put the containers in the cart. We needed a gallon of milk (we go through at least 2 a week) so I signed milk and held the door open to the cooler by our kind. Izzy grabbed the gallon and put it in the cart.

Next on the list was chips (Pringles) and Chicago style popcorn. Down the snack aisle we went. I signed chips, and handed Izzy the containers to put in the cart. We found our popcorn, signing it of coarse, and put that in. Next was Daddy's soda. I don't know the sign for soda, so I used juice. I put that in because it's heavy.

We needed hamburger buns for the pulled pork and a loaf of bread (something else we go through quite a bit of each week). I signed bread for both because I don't know the sign for buns. And apples, everyone loves apples (we easily go through 2 3lb bags of them a week).

All through the store Izzy kept his hands on the handle of the cart, only letting go to put food in the cart and to try to sign what we were getting. Looking at him, you couldn't tell that he was autistic. Maybe deaf because of the signs and the fact that he was speaking. While in the check out lane, he let go of the cart to put the groceries on the belt. Then he did his jumping/arm flapping/squealing thing. THEN you *might* have seen him as autistic, if you were familiar with autism.

My point is that the entire trip to the store was a simple task to pretty much anyone, but to Izzy it's not. It's a time full of extreme stimulation where any one thing *could* be the final thing that adds up to being too much for him to handle any more.

Admittedly, Izzy is pretty adaptable. He was upset to begin with when he couldn't ride IN the cart, but he was content with holding onto it. While we walked by the other customers (and it was BUSY because it's Sunday) no one would have seen the autism, they would have seen a mommy and a little boy at the store on a Sunday buying groceries.

That's very true, that's what we were. A mommy and a boy at the store on a Sunday buying groceries. But we were SO much more. My autistic child was able to walk through the store and was learning and not overwhelemed to the point he couldn't handle it. This little boy was trying to communicate with me, and he was watching everyone else too. He was OK with walking down the different aisles and looking at all the foods.

I will say that I made sure to avoid foods that he would REALLY want (like candy, cookies, and cereal). I kept the trip as short as possible. I talked to/with him the entire time. Telling him what I was looking for, what we were getting next. In my way, I was trying to keep him informed so he wouldn't get to feeling lost or overwhelmed with all that was going on. I wanted him to stay focused on what we were doing, why we were there. By doing that, I was hoping that it help him feel secure, even with so much going on around us. I'm happy to report that this time it worked. Maybe next time it won't, but that's just the way it goes sometimes.

Autism doesn't look like anything, unless you are familiar with it. Another mom of an autie may have recognized what I was doing. I know I do. I was in Barnes and Noble one evening with Jenn. There was a mom who was working with her teenage/adult autistic son about picking out the item he wanted. He was having a very hard time narrowing it down, he kept telling her he wanted to get his thing and also that he wanted to go home. She was in line in front of us and ended up stepping out of line so her son could, once again, go back and look at what he had in mind. Some people may have seen a mentally challenged boy. The way he spoke sounded vaguely familiar to Forrest Gump. However, I KNEW. I saw more than the way he spoke. I saw the arm flapping. The frustration that was so clear on his face. I smiled at the woman. I wanted to say something else, but I wasn't sure what. I've had those same evenings with James. Taking him to pick something out and sitting there for 20 minutes while he made up his mind and changed it and made it up again and all the time getting more and more frustrated because it's HARD to take it all in. James is better able to speak than this young man was, but that doesn't make it any easier for him.

I often wonder what autism will look like as these boys get older. How will puberty go for them? What about dating? College? Jobs? These are all so unknown. I know more and more people are dx'd as autistic (or on the spectrum somewhere) every day. It seems like it's almost an epidemic.

I think part of it has to do with how many different things are classified as autism. I think it also has to do with how people are more willing to ask for help with their children and figuring out what is going on with them. I also think it has to do with how our society has moved from being a hard physcial labor all day to one of leisure and sitting and wasted energy. A child like James, about 100 years ago, growing up on a farm would have worked hard from sun up to sun down. He would have been too tired to get too worked up over much of anything. And if he had gotten worked up, more work would have been given to him. As for Izzy, he would have been placed in an institution as being a dumb mute and left to rot. He wouldn't have been given a dx and therapies and help. Neither would have James.

As I sit and look at our society and how it is now, I see the improvments for those with any kind of difficulty. And I see how so many people are still ignorant and unwilling to accept those that are different in any way. I know every person that drives by my house at night wonders why I have blue lights out front instead of the white ones like everyone else on the block. I know that people wonder why I homeschool my kids instead of putting them in the one size fits all institution that's "normal".

My family is different. In more ways than can be seen. I'm OK with this (usually, even I have my days, as does everyone) and I feel like everyone else should be too. Sadly, they often aren't.

We are told that we should accept everyone for all of their differences. The focus of years past has been skin color. In more recent years it's been sexual orientation and even more recently it's been religion. I want to see people get up in arms about acceptance of people are different mentally. Who are challenged by every day things in some way or another. I want to see the parades for their rights. I want to see the issues talked about on daytime shows and on the evening news. I want to see headlines about the fight to ensure that my children have the same rights, the same chances that everyone else gets.

Sadly, they are pushed to the back, beause it makes so many uncomfortable that it's "easier" to do it that way. Sure, we have laws that say we have to do it, but so many people just DON'T do it. Why is that? Why should I have to explain when my child has a tantrum (or runs away as James did once) in the middle of the store that he's autistic. Why shouldn't it be assumed that something MORE than just bad parenting is going on there?

Stop and ask yourself that. Do you hear a child screaming/crying/carrying on in the store/restaraunt/library and automatically think "If that were my kid he wouldn't behave like that"? Did you ever stop to think that no matter what I have done has NOT helped this child calm down and they are now throwing themselves on the floor/running away beause it's just too much for them to handle? Next time, alter what you think. Put yourself in that person's place (admittedly it's usually a woman, a very tired frustrated sad looking woman) and think how YOU would feel if everyone were staring at you and thinking EXACTLY what you are even though there is NOTHING that can be done.

Today was a success with Izzy at the store. Next time might not be or it might be James, who is "too old" to be throwing a tantrum like that. I don't feel that I should have to wear a sign or explain to everyone that he is autistic and can't handle what is going on that day.

All of this to say this....Autism doesn't look like what you think it should. Autism looks like what it is and for every child who is on that spectrum, it looks different. Don't close your mind, or your heart, to what autism is. It affects so many more than you know, the numbers should prove it if nothing else does.

How do you...

How do you convince a man that it's only a name? If a rose were called a thorn flower, it'd still BE a rose, right? This is the dilema (as a quick side note, according to Blogger's spell check, dilema is spelled *dilemma* Huh.) I'm coming across with Homer and James.

Homer has agreed to Jason adopting the kids, on ONE condition, that James keep his last name. HUH??? He doesn't want to pay child support, as it is he only pays 1/2 of what he's ordered to. I get the impression he feels he's paying for James. Homer has never wanted to claim Jayden as his. I don't know if he's pissed he has to pay support for her, but I do know he doesn't like it.

As far as Jason is concerned, James and Jayden are HIS kids. He's raised them for the last 8 1/2 years. He has done so with little input from Homer, aside from Homer's begrudgingly and unpredictably paid child support. It isn't unusual for the kids to go 2 or more years without seeing him and months without talking to him on the phone.

James has anxiety about his family relations as it is, I can only begin to imagine what it would be like for him to have everyone else in the family to have a different name. I think it would make him feel like he weren't as much a part of our family as everyone else.

Explaining that to Homer doesn't work. He doesn't care about that, he doesn't want to hear about that (or anything else that is ACTUALLY going on with James in any way that makes "his boy" seem less than "perfect" *snort*). All he cares is that James is "his boy" and "his namesake" (not keeping in mind that Homer's father has another son with the same last name) and that James should keep the name because that's what Homer wants.

I admit that I wish Homer would just stop paying support and disappear off the face of the Earth for at least 18 months straight. Then I could get the adoption done because of "abandonment". But he pays support 1/2 ass each month and calls every so often. Damn.

So how do I convince a man that is so self focused that what is best for his child isn't what he wants?

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope your week is filled with less perplexing things than what I'm trying to figure out.

I Really Needed This Right Now

It's such a good thing too. I once read an essay about parenting a special needs kid. I'm sure I've shared it here before. However, I can't find the post (go figure, it was before I figured out tagging I'm sure) so I'm reposting in an easy to find clearly labeled and tagged post. Here is the essay and then I'm going to talk some more.

Trip to Holland
Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this:

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans: The Coliseum, Michaelangelo's David, the gondolas of Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland??" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you noticed that Holland has windmills - and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't go to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

This past couple of weeks has been especially hard for me and James. Yes, I know that should probably be "James and I" but I added James to it as an after thought and instead of just correcting it, I'm writing this drawn out sentence explaining it instead. Yeah, it's been like that.

Going along with the multiple doctor visits for me and the stress and anticipation of the twins upcoming birth and the planning for the kids to go to Wisconsin for a month with their grandmother, we had the meeting to get the results of James' psychological evaluation. I thought those results would bring me some semblence of peace. Sadly, I was wrong. They did nothing but aggitate me even more. It seems that now that I know what is wrong about James, I've stuck myself on that.

The difficulties that present themselves in our day to day lives are not any different now that I have that report than they were before I had it. James has not changed one iota since I was handed that sheef of 19 pages detailing the results of the tests and what it all boils down to.

Sadly, the one that has changed is ME. I am stuck on the things he "can't" do, the things he finds "difficult", and even though they are exactly the same as before, I can't let them go. I am beating the dead horse. I always felt that having that report would give me freedom. Freedom to try different things. To look at it and say "Yes, that is what is going on, now I know how to help him!"

The difficult about always being right is that in instances like this, what we have been doing is the right course of action. It's mind numbing and stressful and makes you wish you could smash your head in to the wall. And it seems to make not a damn bit of difference with James. It's the "right" course, it's the one I knew about all along. It's the one I asked to have verified. I so wanted to be wrong this time.

So now I have to get out of the rut I've stuck myself in these past few weeks. I am so angry and frustrated. Not at James per se, but at what he was born with, how he's wired. I want to scream from the tops of the highest mountains about the unfairness of this all. How it's so unfair to saddle a child with this, and to chain his mother to it as well.

Homer told me "I can't believe he is that bad off." He told me I was lying. That I'm a horrible parent. That I don't know what the hell I'm talking about and that HE could definately do a much better job. I know he's an idiot. He can't even MAKE an effort to spend time with his kids. James calls him more often than not. However, I'm already feeling this way, feeling as though I have failed this child miserably, and I'm only making things worse, and here is the stupidest man on the planet (after Katy's dad of coarse) reinforcing all of what I'm going through.

Jason is as dumbfounded as I am. However, Jason also gets "nice" James. I get the constant mean angry chip on his shoulder I hate you because you are the authority James. So he gets some kind of relief.

I've been told that James will never reciprocate on the feelings. When he says things like "I love you" and "I hate you" to him, they are the one and the same. They are buttons to push to get a reaction. He just doesn't understand the difference. This is through no fault of us trying to teach him, it's just how he's wired. Every time I hear "I hate you" and "you are so mean to me" and "you make my life absolutely miserable" and "you hate me and don't want me" even though I KNOW those are buttons, they hurt because they are reinforcing my own doubts, my own fears and feelings regarding him.

I look at him and his outward appearence is that of a "normal" boy. He's very small for his age. He has no muscle on his body. He's stick and bones. But aside from that, he looks "normal". I know looks can be misleading. However, I want him to BE "normal". He never will. I have to find a way to give that up. That desire. Though I don't think I will. I'm rather certain that it will always be there, in the back of my mind.

There are plenty of GOOD things about James. However, I just get caught up in the day to day grind that I forget to pay attention to them. That I forget that sometimes you have to go looking for them. I need to stop, and look for the windmills and tulips and Rembrandts in James. They are there. Once I can find them, then I can share them with him and maybe they will help him in a way like they help me.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you remember that no matter where you land, with a little exploring, there is beauty in every thing and every one.

Evaluation Results and Going On From Here

We got the results of James' Psych Eval on Thursday. They basically said what I've been saying all along. It's reassuring to have it there on paper, to know that I'm not just making it all up, to have it "proven" I guess you could say.

The report does lay a lot of light on things. But it also brings doubt and many questions. Going on and doing things as we have been, while in some cases is perfectly OK, but in others it's just not going to work. I have doubts now. The report tells me James has difficulty processing spoken word. We kind of knew that before anyway. So I'm left wondering how much I'm saying is actually getting through to him.

I'm sitting here wondering what it is he can do and what he can't do. How are we, as his parents supposed to help him learn and grow? How does this information change everything that we've been doing up until now?

Some of the big questions Jason had for me are things like "How do you emotionally connect to a child who won't/can't give that connection in return?" "How do you keep reinforcing the positive interactions when those are so far and few between because the child is so angry and negative that all interactions with him take on that light?" I don't have answers to those questions. I don't have answers to my own questions. Things like "How do I help him understand the why of things when he asks when it really seems like it doesn't make a difference to him?" "Why should I bother explaining anything to him when all it boils down to is that he just wants a reason to go against what I've asked or expected him to do/say/behave?"

Jason's parents were here for dinner yesterday. James had it out for Jason all evening. He was full of snide comments and hurtful remarks. My understanding is that James doesn't understand the emotion behind those remarks, just the fact that they get a reaction from Jason. How do we teach a child like this to try for POSITIVE reactions instead of the constant negative ones? How do we teach him that the positive reaction is much better than the negative when all he wants, it seems, is some kind of reaction? Jason told me that he was very embaressed by James' behavior yesterday. James got angry/upset and being told NOT to sit on his grandmother the entire time she was here. He really didn't care WHY he couldn't do it, what mattered is that he couldn't.

James feels very starved for attention, or so it seems. He MUST be involved whenever Jason or I are paying any kind of attention to one of the other kids. He becomes very angry/hurt/discontent when he is told that he is not included in the interaction. He becomes irrational. Telling us that we are mean and horrible and that we hate him and that no one loves or wants him. From what I understand, even though these are very "emotional" responses, they are not fueled by emotions at all, but by the fact that James has learned that statements such as those will receive a reaction from Jason and I.

How do you teach a child who feels he MUST be the center of attention at all times simply because he believes that is how it should be to share his time with his parents with his siblings and to do so without pouting and fights and purposely hurting others? How do you teach a child that he can not take his frustration and anger out on his younger siblings just because they annoy him or are in the way of what it is he desires? How do you help him understand that phrases like "It's good you are punishing Izzy because that means I won't have to reatliate against him" and "I hate Jayden, she is stupid and annoying, and I don't care if I hurt her, she deserves it" are NOT acceptable. It seems that as far as he is concerned, as long as HE feels it's ok, then that is all that matters.

James and Jayden were playing today. I think they were wrestling. James held Jayden down and pinned her arms to her body. He then twisted his hands and her arms to the point that it was VERY painful for Jayden. When Jayden came to tell me that this had happened, her arms were bright red. She also had a couple of newly formed bruises on her arms. I told James that he needed to stand in the corner. I showed him the marks he made. I told him that he could not do that. He knows that, because of CPS coming in and out (again, thanks to James) that while we can "hit" him we can not leave marks. I told him that him leaving a mark on Jayden is like us leaving a mark on him and it is NOT acceptable. I don't feel it made an impression. I think he took the info and let it fall off of him like water drops.

To add insult to injury, Homer doesn't believe that James could be so "messed up". Everything I say needs to be taken with a grain of salt simply because I can not be believed. Why would I make this crap up? Why would I state that things are this difficult if they weren't? Wouldn't it make sense to exult the good over the negative? James is a very smart little boy. His wiring in his brain makes him a very difficult little boy as well. My ex has NO clue about it either. His wife runs a daycare. Apparently, that is his base of expertise. NOT raising James on a day to day basis, but the fact that they handle some "difficult" kids every so often. I gave Homer the name and number of the psychiatrist that did the evaluation. I told him that he can call and get the results. That Homer can talk to the guy and ask any questions he wants. That he can get a copy of the report probably. And yet, I have a feeling that Homer still will not "get" it. Oh well, I'll set Homer aside in my worries. His incompetence is no longer something of my direct concern, thankfully.

The positive to all of this is now we have a definitive answer. It's in black and white. We can apply for SSI for James. We can continue to get services for James that he needs. We can take what we have been given and find the ways to make it work for all of us.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope that you are able to take what is going on right now and find the positive in it. After all, without the positive it's just too depressing to worry about.

Uh, Happy Birthday Jason, I Think

I know that's a werid title. Jason's birthday was Sunday the 14th. For his birthday he almost got to have twins! Let me go back to the beginning, shall I?

Jason was scheduled in at 8 in the morning on his b-day. What a sucky time to work, on your birthday of all days! I got woken up to James playing video games. When I dozed back off, he asked if he could use the portable dvd player that is actually Katy's and stashed in my room, I said NO. He went in, took that out, and also took out my DS. He couldn't get that to work, or maybe he could, I dunno. He said he couldn't but I have a strong disbelief in anything he says when he's trying to get OUT of trouble. Izzy decided that since we had locked the fridge (a piece of rope and a padlock) he would take EVERYTHING he could out of the back hallway and dump that on the floor instead. UGH!

I dragged James out of bed and had him clean up the back hallway as his punishment. Izzy, I made him stand in time out, get a bath with no toys (*gasp* NOT that, trust me, he wasn't too happy), sit in time out in the office on the stool, no movies, and no snacks. He spent a lot of time sitting in the crib, he found it appealing for some reason and I could keep a better eye on him as he was in the office with me, or upstairs. James was ok with cleaning up the back hallway once he found out that Izzy was being punished too and said "good, now I won't have to retaliate against him". That kind of statement so bothers me coming from that kid!

About 1 in the afternoon, I started having regular contractions. Keep in mind, I won't be 32 weeks until Wed this week, so contractions, regular ones at that, are NOT good. I timed them a while to see if they would go away. I drank a bottle of water. I moved around. All a big fat not working. Great. They were about 5-7 min apart. At 3 I finally decide I have to call the midwife to see if I should go in. That was a big "Yes ma'am, get your butt in here". I tried to call Jack, he was at work. I called Katie Ann. I called Jason at work. Katie was first because she had a lot further to drive, being up at my mom's and all. Jason still made it here before her. Katie got here about 4 and off we went.

They set me up in triage, which is now roomy and nice, especially compared to how they had it set up at the old hospital. I get on the monitors. Damn, regular contractions! Little ones, but they were there. They couldn't get both babies on the monitors so I was sent downstairs for an ultrasound, that Jason unfortunately missed because he was dealing with my ever so impatient sister.

Side note here. How long did she honestly expect it to take us at the hospital? Why is it that we are there an HOUR and she is already calling us and asking when we will be done? Also, why the HELL wasn't she keeping a closer eye on Izzy? When I got home, my house was much more trashed than when I left!

Back to the main story here. The babies were both doing fine. Jack is head down, but he has his back to my cervix. Abbey is curled up inside the U that Jack makes. They were both practicing their breathing, a very good sign for them. She didn't take measurments to determine their size, that wasn't the goal. She measured each ones fluid and took some readings of blood flow through the umbilical cord. She checked Jack's kidneys. They both had a little fluid in each one. One of Jack's kidneys may be bigger than the other. I see a doc for that later today (with today technically being the 16th). The cords are not around the babies' necks.

I get back upstairs and the contractions are BIGGER. Well crap! So it is decided that I get a shot of terbutaline. That is some NASTY stuff. I also get a bag of fluid. And the Doc (who happens to be the same doc I saw in the office last time) ordered steroids for the babies' lung maturity to go a little faster. The terbutaline gave me some AWFUL side effects, but I was told of them. My cervix is way up high and closed tight, both good things. They got the contractions to ease up quite a bit. I was still having them, but they were much less frequent and much more mild. I was ordered not to stray away from my home town (which rearranged a couple of plans for the week) and to drink enough water to drown a fish. I also had to go back on Monday and get the 2nd shot of steroids.

Jason went down stairs at one point to call his sister and let her know to come pick up the kids and to cally my sis and let her know what was going on. She had called my bro and asked him to come over because she was freaking out about needing to leave to go pick up Alex and wah wah wah. In this time frame, James ran away again. I didn't get Katie's side of that until earlier today (today being the 15th, which I am still on). She called the police. And my bro to come look for James. Thankfully he didn't run too far, and he came home on his own. Our family worker happened to be the one on call, so that worked out for us as well.

Jason came up and told me about James and Katie and that whole debacle. At that point, I am huddled up, shivering and freezing, under a blanket (heated) and a sheet. I start having coughing fits because apparently, terbutaline is also a med they give to asthmatics to stop their episodes. Great, just great. I'm having a hard time breathing well and I need to give Jason the number to our therapist because it isn't programmed in to the cell phone, something I apparently need to remedy. The therapist gets called, James comes back, Audra gets there, things get settled down, thankfully.

Audra has willingly taken the kids until Tuesday evening so that I can have a couple of quiet days of rest. I really need them. I am SO exhausted. I could barely sleep last night. I think the worry of the twins coming too soon and the meds and all of that just got to me. I FINALLY went to bed at 6 this morning, but then woke up at 8:30 because I thought I heard someone come in to our house, and it turned out to be our neighbor getting ready to take his boat out ont he lake. Good grief! I laid around in bed most of the day while Jason cleaned. I told him that was my plan and he was very OK with that. He called in to work last night for today. He felt he needed to be home to make sure I was OK.

Speaking of Jason and myself. Sitting there in the L & D Triage gave us some time to talk. I told him that what he had said hurt me so much and why. He told me that the choice of words he had used weren't accurate. We came to a meeting place at least. Things are definately smoothed over. I did ask him to utilize our family therapist and actually TALK to her. He did that today, while the kids weren't home, so he could speak honestly and not worry about little ears overhearing what they shouldn't. We've decided that as a stress reliever, he needs to stop hiding away and do something active. So now I'm on the search for a punching bag, one of those big ones you hang from a rafter. He'll put it in the basement and when things get stressful, go take that frustration and aggrevation out on the bag. It at least seems like a good idea. I have thearpy. He will have a bag. Ironically, in our mismatched male/female roles, that right there is very sterotypical.

Tomorrow (later today technically) I have an ultra sound and an appointment with a Maternal Fetal Medicine doc. It's just a consult. I see a midwife on Friday. I was already going to start having weekly appointments, but I think now it will become guarenteed to be there every week and I'll get Non Stress Tests (NST's) as well as the every other week or so ultrasound. Right now the hope is the babies stick it out for at least 2 weeks, until I hit 34 weeks. The nurse was impressed that I hadn't needed a terbutaline shot before now and the midwife was VERY pleased at the closed cervix. They also did the fetal protien test, the one that tells if you may go in to labor in the next 2 weeks, and that was negative. I kind of figured it would be, with having scraped a very closed cervix and all.

This week is a busy week. Tuesday is the Maternal Med doc. Jason has Tue, Wed, and Fri off, which is nice. Wed I have therapy that morning. Thur morning I am meeting with the doc that did James' psych profile. HOPEFULLY we will get some narrowing down of what is going on with James at that point. On Friday I see the midwife. Jason's folks are coming up for dinner and they had it catered by my sil. Yum, good food that I don't have to cook! We always get together for "our" birthdays. My birthday is Thur. Jason and I are/will be 32 this week.

Because of my "stay close to home" restriction, I can't go get Katy Beth for her 3 week visit. This makes me very sad because I was REALLY looking forward to the time with her. We're going to set it up so that after the babies come and James and Jayden are with Grandma Linda that Katy will come down for a bit. She had said that she wanted to while they were gone. Hopefully her swim and baby sitting classes won't be taking place at the exact same time.

Well, I'm heading off to bed now. I'm VERY sleepy. I'm sleeping back in the bed tonight, and last night. It just makes me feel "safer" I guess. The security of having Jason right there next to me is soothing.

Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you all have a less chaotic week than mine is shaping up to be!

I'm So Sleepy.

Sigh, it just keeps adding on. Of coarse, pregnancy is like that. You are tired and nauseous and nauseous and tired. Add a bunch of unpredictable moodiness, odd cravings at weird times (the other night I REALLY wanted an omlette and hash browns) and gaining weight steadily and you have the PERFECT recipe for World's Crankiest Woman. Welcome to how it is for dear Jason. Thankfully, he loves me and is VERY tolerant of me.

I keep having dreams of having twins. I honestly don't think I'm having twins however. I think it's more because I can't visualize this baby as either boy or girl, but just healthy and born. The more I think of it, the more I realize that my entire goal is to make it August and give birth to a healthy baby.

I had my first official appointment today. It was with the admit nurse. You get to do the going over the family history, how many times have you been pregnant (this is my 10th pregnancy, jeez louise!), birth control after the baby is born (Jason is getting the Big V for his birthday in June, love ya babe!), etc. etc. etc. Because I'm fat (I don't beat around the bush on that) I also get to do the diabetes test NOW and AGAIN at 28 weeks. An ultrasound wasn't ordered, which made me a little sad.

That being said, there is some genetic testing that can be done between 10 (I'll be 10 weeks on January 14) weeks and 14 weeks, and it involves an ultra sound. Usually, I deny genetic testing because it doesn't matter to me. When the pregnancy is meant to end, it will end naturally in one way (birth) or another (miscarriage) and no amount of test results will change my mind on that. However, as I would REALLY like to see this baby, I'm going to call and talk to them on Monday about doing the testing. It's either that, or invent a "problem". I don't want to invent a "problem" because to me, that just seems to be inviting trouble, know what I mean? My next appointment is on Jan. 27 and I get to see a mid-wife at that point.

In other news, we met with our new family therapist on Tuesday. I need to call her on Monday. I accidently overlapped scheduling with her and Izzy's speech therapist. Melissa used to come on Thursdays, she now comes on Tuesdays and I'm still getting used to the change. I also want to ask about therapy for James and what exactly she intends for our appointments with just Jason and I.

She mentioned "parenting" vaguely. She also said she would come twice a week, once to work with us as a family as a whole and once to work with just Jason and I. Now me, I already have a personal therapist whom I like a great deal. She and I are already working on aspects of parenting, along with other things. To me, it seems rather redundant, and a waste of resources to have Elsa ALSO doing this. I was also told that James would have to stop seeing his therapist because with the new program they would do that with him. So far, no mention of that has taken place. James needs that one on one therapy.

It looks like we are going to be close to snowed in this weekend. Jason is going to need to go to Home Depot or Lowe's tomorrow afternoon to get parts for the lock for the front door however. Our landlord is coming over on Sunday to a pre-run through of the rental inspection. I'd like to have the door done, or at least have Jason working on it when Garry gets here. I need to work on tidying up the office and the storage room. I also need to get to Wal-Mart (crap, it's looking like a family trip tomorrow evening) so I can get a few bottles of natural deoderizer for the carpet upstairs. We need something that will soak through the carpet in to the pad. I had one bottle of stuff that worked REALLY well in the living room. It's somewhat expensive, however it will definately be worth the cost.

I suppose that is all for now. I told James to give me until 7 before he came to bug me about making dinner. We're having pizza bagels. I was thinking of tasty and easy. I can also make some that are just cheese for Izzy. Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope you have a safe, and warm weekend. Oh, if you can see her, say hello to the full moon for me this week as we will be cloud covered as is usual for this time of year.

Where oh Where Have I Been?

It's the holiday season which means busy busy busy. And then more busy.

Baking, shopping, wrapping, cleaning, travelling, gifting, visiting. You know, all that craziness.

I got the bee in my bonnet that I would make homemade breads on top of doing homemade cookies. My in-laws benefited from this, my mom however did not. I was just so tired after getting home from the in-laws that I said "I'm going to bed" and then the next day there just wasn't the time. Oh, we did manage to forget the camera at my mom's house, not that we were actually USING it or anything though. I *think* Jason *might* have taken some pics of the kids as his sis' place, but don't quote me on that, at all.

We've had crazy weather around here. The week before Christmas it was record freezing temps and snow snow snow snow and then more snow. Over Christmas we had RAIN and record HIGH temps. Go figure.

Our van is crying for repairs, however we won't have the money until we get our income tax return some time in February is my guess. We don't drive much, especially now that all the holiday visiting is all done, so she *should* (knock on lots of wood and say lots of prayers) ok until then. We have one trip to see Katy at the end of January and that will be all. I may ask my sister to borrow her car for that trip just to feel safer.

We still haven't done our gifts for the kids. They are all wrapped and under the tree. We were going to do them this morning, however the only kid that is awake at 6 minutes to 10 in the morning is Izzy. They did go to bed pretty late last night. Even Jason is still asleep.

Lately, he has been letting me sleep in, which is really nice, but it totally throws my schedule off. Of coarse, just having him home all day, every day throws my schedule off. He is getting very upset with being home all the time. Apparently, the kids and I are a lot to handle all day every day. Uh, yeah, DUH on that one! Hehe. I love the man dearly, but he was definately meant to be at work. Stay at Home Dad he is not.

James sees the psychiatrist this afternoon. It's just a med check really. I'm going to ask the doc about applying for SSI and if he feels James would qualify. We applied last year, and between the fact that our old case managers left the agency we had been working with for the past couple of years and not having any recent workups of James and all of that, it was denied. The application didn't even have the most pressing issues listed on it as reasons for applying. It was a debacle all around. Now that we are in the more intensive therapy program, and with James seeing the psychiatrist regularly, we are going to reapply.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. I will be back to posting regularly now that the hulabaloo has died down. Prayers and blessings everyone.

It's All Off

It all feels off right now, everything is what I mean. Jason was layed off from work, supposedly temporarily, though they can't say exactly WHEN he'll go back, on Friday the 5th. So he has been home every day since then. That certainly contributes to the feeling of "offness".

This past week I was HORRIDLY sick. I know it's a great excuse, unfortunately, it was TRUE. I HATE being sick. It sucks like nothing else. I have Jason to thank for that sickness as well. I didn't even kiss him and I still got sick! If I would have known I'd get sick anyway, I wouldn't have not kissed him. Yeah yeah, double negative and all that.

I couldn't breathe out of anything but my mouth. My lips got SO chapped from it too. I was sneezing and blowing my nose and just in absolute misery. Blech. I didn't feel like cooking, so the fam survived on either take out or boxed frozen crap. Either way, not what I would prefer to feed them.

I didn't talk to Jenn or Daisy much at all this week. With Jason being home every day, I took advantage and did a lot of sleeping. Oddly, that was a blessing. He does throw off my "usual" computer time during the day however. I'm used to getting up and turning on the comp and messaging on my regular boards and chatting with some friends and then getting to my housework and wrangling of the heathens. However, when I get up now, much too late in the day I might add because Jason is either super nice or just afraid of what might happen if he woke me, Jason is on the comp doing something with one of his games or something like that. Totally throws me off.

I love my husband dearly. I also really like him to have a job. Besides the obvious pay the bills reasons, there is the "get the hell out of my hair 5 days a week" reason. He is going stir crazy being home. He is finding out first hand how hard it is to keep the house clean and get things done with them running around like rabid puppies strung out on meth. Nice image huh?

I digress as usual. Today, he WASHED the bathroom ceiling. He needed something to do while I was ChaChaing and playing a game. He says he's going to paint it with the ceiling paint. I pointed out that I'd like the boys' room to be painted. We'll see how far that suggestion goes.

He's been helping out with craft time and the wrangling of the heathens. I told him to go out earlier today, spend some time alone, away from the house. He put me off. He said he'll go out on Monday. Um, ok. I have therapy at 1:30 so I certainly hope you are either home by then, or you can wait until after I get back.

I got a call on Friday letting me know that James is now in the more intensive therapy program. I know they do other stuff than "just" therapy, however I'm not quite sure WHAT that is yet. We missed his psychiatrist appt at the beginning of the month. I thought that it was on the 4th, turns out it was on the 2nd. Oops. It's now rescheduled for the 29th. I'm going to ask him (the psychiatrist) for a full report on what he believes James' diagnosies are so that I can apply for SSI once again. The first time was an absolute flop. It turns out that at the time I applied, the agency we had receieved services from before was going through a huge staff change and the people who were in charge of our case before left the agency. That means that the forms for the application weren't filled out and turned back in. Well CRAP. That was most of my supporting evidence right there!

It turns out that the closest in depth physio/psycho analysis is about 3 hours from here. It takes place over the period of 3 days. Good lord. I have Larry looking for one closer. When I meet with the young lady on Monday to start the paperwork for the new program, I'll ask her about finding one closer. I don't mind driving an hour or so, but not 3 hours one way over a 3 day period. Ugh!

I'm hoping next week is a little less "off". I'll try to be more faithful to my blog. I still have Thanksgiving pics to post, along with the pumpkin cupcakes from last week. Prayers and blessings everyone. I hope your week is filled with joy and happiness.

Randomness

In order to post every day, I'm going to be doing a lot of random things. OK, I admit that pretty much EVERY post on here is pretty damn random, however the INTENT will be just random. How about them apples?

Jason is reading to the kids. Lord of the Rings. It's what he was reading. Jayden wanted him to read to her. And there you go.

Izzy keeps taking things off of my counter in my kitchen. And coloring on himself with markers. He also got stark naked. He didn't need a clean diaper. Jason went to put his jammies back on him and Izzy fought him off, which leads us to believe that Izzy just wanted to be naked.

James went to his first appointment with Doc. O, the psychiatrist. One of James' meds is out the window, to be taken no more. Another is having the dose changed around a bit. We'll see how it goes with it like that. Larry is going to be working on getting James in to getting a full Developmental Evaluation. It will be an all day affair. Oh fun.

We had shredded chicken for dinner. I made a smaller bowl with Buffalo Sauce. I made a bigger bowl with BBQ Sauce. I never knew there were so many uses for shredded chicken! I'll be making that again. It went over REALLY well!

Tonight, we are going to do donuts again. Actually, after this post is done, I'm going to go find space on the dining room table to roll out the dough. Pics will be taken and posted tomorrow.

Prayers and blessings everyone. Enjoy the rambles!

Mommy, Just Read the Freekin' Book

"How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

"How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly he spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!"

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The version that we are reading is illustrated by S. Michelle Wiggins. I don't know if it's abridged or not. I'm assuming so considering it IS a child's book, but I could be wrong. We've made it to "A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale" which is the 3rd chapter in this version. Now, please let me know if I'm wrong, but where is the Jabberwockie poem? Is that in "Wonderland" or is that in "Through the Looking Glass"?

The title of this post? That is what Jayden said to me, word for word, when I started laughing at the above poem. That poem is one of my fav's of all time. It's absolutely HILARIOUS to me!

To try to espouse the values of reading, and the learning of how, I am currently reading "Alice" to Jayden on a nightly basis. We get through a chapter or two and then it's time to quit. I'm hoping that she understands that by learning to read, she can read all kinds of great books like "Alice". Knowing my daughter, however, she'll just think she can have ME read to her all of those great books.

Jayden frustrates me to no end. She is a smart smart girl. She just doesn't have the drive, the desire to learn. It's not in her. She fights it tooth and nail. I don't know how to light that fire in her. I'm at a loss. I keep pushing her to do the work. She is able, she just doesn't want to. So she stalls and cries and fusses and stalls some more. It was her strategy at "regular" school and why her teacher thought she didn't know nearly what she does.

James is a different story. While he doesn't like the work, he will do it, and does really well doing it on his own. I do need to start working with both of them in more hands on kind of way. Doing other subjects and projects and that kind thing with them. I've been slacking in that area, relying pretty heavily on their workbooks. While I am going to keep using them, I want to start branching out. I'd like to have them learn at least the names of all 50 states by the summer, with James possibly knowing the capitals as well, along with finding them on a map. I also need to start figuring out science stuff.

Prayers and blessings everyone. Enjoy your reading, and sharing the joy of it with others. Kiss your librarian, or at least make sure to tell them a big thank you!

Why Do I Do the Thing That I Do

Why do I share what I do? All about James and my marriage and the financial issues we have and all of that? A lot of that is just me talking to myself. I know that other people read me. I get on average about 85 hits a week. So with figuring all the people I know reading this and me doing all my editing, that's still about 40 or so folks who I only know of through the internet. And I may not even "know" them. They may have found me through some unusal avenue like a Google search. The parts about James I share because I want to let others out there know, who have kids similar to him, or even very different, but still really needy in some way, that they aren't alone. They are not the only one who deals with it all, even though it feels like it some times.

James has been a real pill lately. The video game obsession seems to be worsening. Saturday was the culmination of a week of oddness. He totally freaked out because he was going to have to try a little harder to get the jelly out of the jar and put it on his sandwich. This lead to the usual "no one loves me" and "I'm just a slave to you" rants. This time he added "you are not preparing me for the world!" and "my life doesn't matter to you!".

I honestly am at a complete loss where these ideas come from. We don't have cable, or even local T.V. Everything he watches is on DVD, so I know what he is watching and things like that just aren't in there. This is paranoia from the deepest depths of somewhere unknown.

To top it all off, he told us he hears voices in his head. He said that he memorizes the voices of anyone who has ever talked to him. Then those people keep talking to him in his head. Sometimes he can make them say what he wants, or to stop talking, but not usually. I did a little bit of research, and schizophernia symptoms are quite a bit like what he is going through. Well crap.

I will be calling his therapist on Monday. I know he has an appointment with her this week. I think it is on Wednesday. I'm going to tell her what he said about the voices and hope that she may be able to make a little more sense of it all. James is in therapy so that, I'm hoping, he will at least acknowledge that everyone else has feelings and that he needs to take those in to consideration when dealing with people. Right now, he doesn't. However, his therapist seems to be at a loss as to what to do with James as much as Jason and I are. She can't even begin to get him to talk about feelings in general, let alone how they relate to other people.

Can you feel my frustration? My anger? My hurt? My worry? Most of all, my worry. When James was screaming at me, all I kept thinking was "I need to get out of here. I think I need to call my mom". I went out on the front porch and did just that. James just kept on screaming. You can send him to a different room, a different floor of the house, it won't matter at all, he'll keep screaming once he has started.

My mom suggested doing a spiritual cleansing. I talked to Mom before James told us about the voices. Once his "episodes" are all done, he's "normal" again. Willing to talk to us and that kind of thing. There is no telling when he will have an episode, nor what will set him off.

All of this is just saying "you aren't alone. I'm here going through all of this too." Maybe it will help someone just to know that the isolated feeling they have, especially when dealing with their special needs child isn't so isolated after all. There are others out here, in the big bad world, coping day to day too.

Prayers and blessings to you all. It's now 4:41 on Sunday morning and I have yet to go to bed. Izzy is awake, the little heathen. He has been for about an hour now. I was just getting ready to go TO bed when he got up. Now I'm waiting for him to either pass out or for Jason to get up so I can find some sleep. Katie Ann is coming over later today with her wedding dress and what not, and I want to be more awake than the walking comatose when she gets here. Odds are, it will be Jason getting up when I can go to bed, not Izzy falling asleep, the stinker. I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend. Oh, and I updated the other blog. Added the 1st part of one story, and a rather short spur of the moment it just dawned on me so I had better write it down while I'm thinking of it story.

Made From Scratch

Later today I'll post pics of our home made pretzels. We made them last night, around 10 at night. One thing I have learned about having James and Jayden help me cook, I need to double check to make sure all of the ingredients are put IN to the bowl. I'm pretty sure we forgot the sugar in the recipe. They came out tasting all right, like biscuits, I expected them to be a bit sweeter, hence the belief that we forgot the sugar. We will also be attempting mini popovers later today, and for dinner I am going to try out a potato and mini sausage recipe. To me, the popovers look like sweet fruitless muffins, one of the main ingredients is honey, so we'll see how those turn out.

Brandi over at Mountain Morning is giving away another book. She sure does like to do that! The book is all about things HOMEMADE! I'll be trying to do a lot more of that in the coming weeks and months.

Jason and I have talked and we decided that it would be best for our family right now for me to, once again, take up the mantle of full time stay at home mommy. Jason worries that I may go insane, hell, I'm already there! All kidding aside, I can set up a night a week to run away, either with MF Jenn or to the library or something like that.

This will free up my schedule to allow for scouts for James on Mondays, and trips to Muskegon for Katy, and all sorts of things like that. Oh, and one of Jason's fav things, me cooking home made dinners. And him not being left with the kids by himself, especially now that I'm watching Allen and Jessi three times a week for pay while Jack and Christina's schedules over lap. I need to ask permission from them if I can post pics including their kids here on my blog (not my kids, so I'm not going to assume it's all right, though I think it should be, as no last names are used and other identifying things are kept out of the limelight).

On Thursday we are going to my in-law's for dinner. Why? Well, Jason really wants to go down and spend some time with them. That's why. That sums it all up right there, the whole ball of wax. I can understand that desire, though I usually don't share in it with my own famly. I'm not really sure why that is, but it's just how it goes around here.

Jason is still working on the pieces for our giant map of the U.S. I've gottent through Maine in my flash cards of the state maps for James, and I've completed the state name/capitol ones and Jayden's sight words. James sees his ped tomorrow (we overslept by A LOT for the appt that was this past week, so it was rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon) for a med check. James is happier without taking the Strattera, however the Super Hyper Mode is going to drive me absolutely batty, I tell you! I want to talk to her and see if there are other med options available, or if we can try a lower dose and taking it in the mornings again. I don't want to supress his personality, but I do want him to be able to sit still for longer than 15 seconds. Tonight I told him to go to bed at 11:20 because I was DONE. I just couldn't handle the CONSTANT activity anymore. UGH.

Izzy has his Early On teacher at 11 in the morning. Once he is old enough to go in to the classroom situation, I *think* I will be taking him out of the public school system. He has to be 3 then, and I will see how he is progressing at that point.

I'm thinking this is all for this post right now. It's going on 2:30 in the morning and I'm getting pretty tired. I need to wash dishes tomorrow, try to get my tomatoes replanted (still working on that project), clean up the living/dining rooms, and find my ball of yarn that Izzy hid on me. I'm working on a great blanket that will make a wonderful gift, except Izzy picked up the ball, with the needles stuck in it, and carted it off somewhere. That boy is more and more mischevious as the days go by.

Prayers and blessings and have a wonderful day.

The Longer Post

I was going to come back on Friday and make a longer post, I just got sidetracked by life. What can I say, it happens, especially around here.

I was thinking about death last night, and what it is like to die. No, don't go all freaking out, I'm not thinking of killing myself off, it's just a random wandering that my brain took while laying in bed hoping for slumber to find me. I was wondering where does ME go? Is that the part that goes to Heaven according to the Christians? Then I got to thinking, what makes me ME? Does everyone see their world like I see mine? I mean, out of my eyes and looking at things? I've always wondered what it would be like to be in someone else's head, to be thinking their thoughts and looking out of their eyes. That is what got me back to thinking about death. Do you come back as someone new? I'd like to remember this life if I do so that I can compare them, that's just how I am though.

Jason and I were talking about Merlin the Wizard today. How it is said that he lived backwards and we were trying to figure out exactly how that worked. Jason had no clues and just thinking about it made his head hurt. Me, I think when he was born was actually when he died and he lived backward from dying to birth. So on the first day that you met Merlin, it was the last day that he would know you. His yesterday is your tomorrow. Make sense? Yeah, Jason didn't get it either.

James is going to the doc tomorrow morning. He saw the endo last week. She told me I need to feed him more, and she increased his hormone shot a smidge. Tomorrow he sees the regular old ped. He hasn't had his Strattera for a week. Not from fault of mine, mind you. I called in last Tuesday for a refill because I knew he was running low and the pharmacy told me he had no more refills for that. The triage nurse called me on Thursday to tell me it was ready. I went to Walgreen's to pick it up, no refill, and none in their system. UGH! James is more hyper without it, but he is also in a better mood, happier. Though he does get frustrated with his school work a bit easier. I want to talk to the doc about that, see if she suggests a different med, or lowering his current dose and trying it during the day again or something like that.

I'm doing a new online money thing. I am expediting questions for a site called ChaCha. The questions come in, I rephrase the statements as questions when needed, correct capitalization, find a coordinating category, and send it on to someone who will answer the question. It takes from 20 seconds to 1 minute to do one inquiry. I set my own times for doing it. I'm getting paid for taking some time from the stuff I'm going to be doing anyway, like surfing the internet, reading blogs, and posting on message boards. Every little bit helps after all. I'm also listing more stuff on EBay, at least more regularly. That is helping to pay for homeschool materials and the groceries in the middle of the week when we need them.

Speaking of homeschooling. We started our first major project of the year this week and so far, it has been a MAJOR disaster. I got a poster board, and the brilliant idea that we would cut out the states and piece them together like a puzzle and make a map of the U.S. The problem here lies that the map outlines I had gotten were all of different scale, so when I printed them out, some were too big, like Rhode Island and Deleware, and some were way too small, like California and Texas and Alaska. Jason is going to put the map together for me in PhotoShop, and then I'll be able to print out the states individually so they will all fit together. Apparently, PhotoShop can do nifty stuff like that. I don't know how to use it, so it's Jason's project.

Tomorrow is another shopping day. We will be getting child support. I need to head off to Wal-Mart after James' appointment. We need cat food, Izzy's diapers, paint for the play room, rollers to paint the playroom with, and drywall tape. The drywall tape will actually be coming from Lowe's or Home Depot. I've looked at Wal-Mart and at Meijer for the stuff we used before and they don't have it, so it's time to go to the specialty places.

I know it's technically Thursday now. However, I'll do the Thankfull Thursday post later today. Everyone have a wonderful day. Prayers and blessings.

It Was A Wonderful Day UNTIL

James lost the part of his brain where his mouth plugs in to his brain and the brain THINKS before the mouth vocalizes. It was LOVELY to say the least.

Let me start with the beginning of the day. I get up. Do a little computer work. Give Izzy his regular cereal bar. James and Jayden are off getting dressed, or so I thought. I yell up to James to have him bring me down clothes for Izzy when he comes down to put on his shoes. We had places to be.

James is in bed. UGH. So I get James out of bed. He brought me a t-shirt and heavy overalls for Izzy to wear. It's going to be 90 outside, so that won't work. I ask James to bring me some shorts. He is FINALLY dressed and brings me shorts for the Izz-Man. They don't match the shirt. James starts yelling at me how Izzy doesn't have any shorts that match that match any of his shirts or anything like that. I go up and find something that matches, imagine that. Get Izzy dressed and his shoes on. Get out the door.

We go to The Root Beer Stand. You drive up. Stay in your car. The girl comes, takes your order, and then brings it to you on one of those trays that sit on your window. MMMMM, hot dogs with chili cheese, mustard and onions. Jayden likes her with just ketchup. James is a cheese and ketchup guy. Izzy gets a bag of popcorn, being a non-meat eater and all. James and Jayden had root beer, Izzy and I had fruit punch. I need to remember to not get that again, it tasted funny, the lemonade is much better.

From there we go to therapy for James. We all go back to begin with, to the play therapy room. Leave the kids in the play area while R and I go behind the mirror to watch them and talk. Then R meets with James on his own. Jayden was particularly upset to be leaving the doll house. So sorry kiddo. Once James is done, we swing back by the house. I use the potty (this is pertinent later it's why I'm sharing), I grab James' glasses, which need to be fixed and the overdue library books. And off we go again.

Get to the optometrist and the place is PACKED. It's always that busy. They are one of the few places in town to accept Medicaid. The only state assistance we get is Medicaid for the kids. Thankfully on that part. They fix James' glasses for free. YAY! Off to Wal-Mart.

I pick up some soil for my flower beds, some more herbs for my herb garden. Some perennials for the perennial garden that really disappointed this year. That's also what the soil is mostly for. Plant food, gloves for James, under shirts for James, panties for Jayden, Mt. dew, Cheese, rolls, Pringles, cottage cheese. That was our entire list. I get to the check out, and reach for my wallet and realize "OH SHIT! I forgot it!" I have the cashier, a nice young lady named Robbie, ring it all up and then have Joanna suspend the transaction. Rush out of there to come home.

On the way home, I remember I had left the house WITH my wallet cause I had paid for lunch. The entire trip home I am hoping it didn't fall out somewhere. It falls out when I use the bathroom at work. I was wearing pants similar to the ones I wear at work. It MUST be at home, on the bathroom floor. We get home, Izzy is crashed out in the back, I unlock the door so James can go in and check, and YES! it's there, phew!

By this time, Jason is home, so I leave the tired and cranky Izzy with him. James, Jayden and I head back to Wal-Mart where we procure our beloved purchases. Then on the way home, I realize I didn't buy lunch meat. We were having a no cook dinner. Subs, cottage cheese, and chips. So I stopped at Hardings and hit up the Deli there. It was a nice dinner. The cool felt so good after the hot hot day.

Jason had started filling up the kiddie pool while were gone. Jayden and Izzy played in the water. James thought it was too cold so he opted to ride his bike. Jason stayed outside with them, while I went in to enjoy the cool a/c. We have 2 window units that cool the main floor of the house. One is in our bedroom, the other is in the living room. For the most part, all the rooms get cool, aside from the office because it's at a weird angle off of the other rooms.

The kids clear the dinner table and pick up food off of the floor. Izzy likes to throw food and our kittens like to eat it off of the floor. The stupid animals are having a hard time with litter training as well. UGH, they annoy me some times! I digress. While they were doing that, I informed them that because it was getting cooler out, we were going to go upstairs so they could pick up the play room. It was trashed. Part of why it was trashed was because of me. I had told the kids to take all the toys from the cubby area where the toy boxes were and put them all in the middle of the room in the play room. There were all kinds of things in that cubby that shouldn't have been there. On previous occasions, when told to clean the playroom, they had picked things up and just tossed them there instead of actually putting them away. I wanted to remedy this situation.

This starts the downslide which shall be known as The Hour James Lost His Ever Loving Mind. We all go upstairs, well James, Jayden and I. Jason has put Izzy to bed because he is being a cranky whiny screaming pain. He napped a grand total of 15 minutes today. From the time it took us to get from Wal-Mart to Home the first time. James starts SCREAMING at me because has to clean and he just doesn't want to. That ladies and gentlement is the ENTIRE reason for what took place for the following hour. THE ENTIRE REASON. I didn't hit him, yell at him, scream at him, nor threaten him in any way, shape, or form. He didn't want to clean.

James SCREAMED at me. Not scream. Not cry. Not yell. HE SCREAMED! All caps screamed. He had that high pitched voice the bad guys on cartoons get when they get really worked up and start monologuing like crazy. He was telling me how I didn't love him, how I didn't care about him. How I should be the one to clean up the mess. How I should just throw everything out. How I torture him by making things he doesn't want to do. How I never do anything for him. How he does everything for me. How I didn't deserve to be a parent. How he wanted to be adopted. How he wanted to go live with Homer. All because I wanted him to clean up the playroom.

Now, let me explain a little about the rules in my house. I don't expect much. I have a standing rule that you can be upset at what I ask you to do. You can vocalize your frustration, anger, and upset as much as you want. As long as what I have asked you to do gets done, you can be as pissed as you want. You can scream, yell, cry, throw things (as long as they are ONLY your things), whatever, as long as what I have asked you to do is getting done.

James was screaming at me. I was sitting on the couch up there taking it all. I kept reminding him to pick stuff up. So he'd pick up a toy or two and scream and scream and scream. I'd remind him again, and it would start all over. After 45 minutes of this, I called Homer. I figured I'd let him tell James about it all. So Homer talked to him. Tried to explain that James would have even more rules there because Homer's wife runs a daycare. None of it mattered to him. All James perceived it as, in that moment, as Homer hates me, and he won't let me have what I want either.

By recommendation of MF Jenn I had James get ready for bed. By the way MF means my friend. Katy's step mom Jenn will now be KSM Jenn. This had been carrying on for a good hour. I was worn out, emotionally drained. I couldn't do any more. As it was, I had Jason go upstairs to "relieve" me for a bit. After James had brushed his teeth and gotten his meds, as he was walking by the office I said "Good night James, I love you" as I do every night. That just started him off on another screaming fit about how I was just saying it to make him feel better and yada yada yada. UGH.

I went out MF Jenn to Bennigans. We had a drink a piece and shared an appetizer and a dessert. Neither of us needs either of those things on our own. It was a nice repreive. Here's hoping tomorrow is a calmer day.

To Comment or Not To Comment

That my dear people is the question. See, I can say people. According to my stat counter, I get about 60 hits a week here on this little blog. I don't have that many family members, and I don't keep reading it and posting more that often either, so there are those out there who ARE reading this insanity.

Yesterday I received an annonymous comment. It's under the "The (Not So) Chosen One" post. So I responded to what she, I'm assuming it was a she, said. And then she left another comment. She's right, I don't know who she is, however I would like a name to associate with the comment.

When I read the first comment, I perceived it as she was bashing my husband. When my friend Jenn read it, she perceived as pity for James and his disability. When Jason read it, he said simply "I like James as much as I can like him. Some days that's more than others, however that goes the same for ALL the kids" Which is quite true.

I've never fully explained what James' "issues" are. So maybe it is mis-perception on the part of the commenter about the actual situation. She called it "sad".

See, I don't see my life as sad at all. Trying, frustraing, angering, yeah, those all fit. Joyous, happy, celebratory, yep those too. Hurtful. Enough to make you want to cry yourself to sleep some days. On other days, you just want to throw a party in celebration. Isn't that how EVERYONE'S life goes though?

Now about James. The commenter also mentioned his "developmental disorder". I can see how she could have that mis-conception. After all, I've never explained All About James. So let me do that now. I'll list off the disorders and then I'll explain the, k?

ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disoder), ADHD (Attention Defeceit and Hyperactivity Disorder), Severe Sleep Disorder, SID (Sensory Integration Disorder) Mod-Severe, Mood Disorder NOS (Not Otherwise Specified), Severe Short Stature, Borderline Asperger's Syndrome, RAD (Reactive Attachement Disorder) and he has poor body (all of his body) control.

OK, what does all of this mean. Well the disorders you can look up yourselves. WebMD has a good write up on the basics of both ODD and ADHD. For the RAD, go to http://www.radkid.org/. What you'll find is that with the combination of the ODD and RAD make for a very argumentative and defiant child. Hell, part of the name is defiant. As far as the Doctor and I have been able to figure, the RAD came about from an extended time that James spent with his father where he was fed, kind of, and taken care of, in the barest sense of the word. That's the stark reality of the situation folks, no hiding under the blanket on that one.

James doesn't sleep unless he is medicated. I have really bad insomnia myself, but this is a step further. It's common for kids on the Autism Spectrum to not sleep. Autism? I don't see no steenkin' Autism on that list. Well, no, you don't. You see things that are ON the SPECTRUM. Borderline Asperger's (and the only reason it isn't full Asperger's is because he behaves differently at school and the teachers never see ALL of James) and ADHD are both on the Spectrum. Which means they have aspects of Autism. Sleep disorders, obsessions, ticks (also known as Stimming), and social interaction problems are all there.

James can't be boiled down to a bunch of labels for you to understand him. By the way, the Mood Disorder is a nice way of saying he's suspected of being Bi-Polar. However, a child can't be diagnosed with Bi-Polar until they are a teenager, I'm not sure why this is, but thems the rules. I could sit here all day and write a very long and drawn out post about James and his disorders.

I want to make this clear however. There isn't anything "developmental" in the delay department, in the disorder department, that is going on with James. Academically, Physically (aside from his size), Mentally he's all "developed" where he should be.

There are some out there who would say "take him off the meds, let him be who he is fully". Well, here's the beauty of this, he's MY kid, not yours. We choose to medicate. We have also recently reduced his medications. I don't know if he'll ever be med free, that will be a choice he'll have to decide on when he becomes an adult.

We are homeschooling because of who he is. I understand, from my many years of interactions with the schools, that no matter what they come up with, he will ALWAYS have problems. There will be no "just getting by" for him. I causes him upset and frustration, and me too. Why put both of us through that?

I think that I've just made things clear as mud. Oh well. Just don't tell me my life is sad. Or the situation is sad. Or that James is sad. That's just not the case. Until you have lived a day in these shoes, your perception of our reality will always be, just that, a perception.

And in the immortal words of Forrest Gump "that's all I've got to say about that."

The (Not So) Chosen One

I'm all about equal treatment. The rules should be the same across the board. If Bob can't go fishing, then neither can Sue or Joe. It's that simple to me.

This morning, Jason smacked James. For what you may ask? He left his bowl of cereal on the table while he was going to take care of the milk, which he has been yelled at (by me) before for leaving out. Jason smacked James because he should have "known better" to not leave a bowl that would make a huge mess, like a bowl with cereal and milk in it, out where "Izzy can reach it". I smacked Jason in the back of the head. Then I yelled at HIM.

Izzy is the one who should have gotten smacked, if anyone really deserved it. Izzy is 2 now. He's no longer a baby. Jason said "James should know better". I said "Izzy needs to learn better, you don't get to smack James just because you don't care for him and then allow Izzy to do as he pleases. Discipline goes for everyone in this house, not just everyone except "The Chosen One.""

You don't get to pick and choose your children. It just doesn't work that way. There are many men out there who decided they don't want to be dads for whatever reason. However, when you make a commitment to be there, and you follow through and ARE there, then you need to accept ALL of the children for who they are.

Izzy is Jason's baby. He is Jason's only child, however he is also very much Jason's baby. Jason hates hates hates to see Izzy growing and changing. He laments Izzy not being small (not that Izzy was ever super small to begin with) and cuddly and not mischevious, naughty, nor demanding. He hates that Izzy is beginning to really explore his world and really test his boundries. He's 2 after all.

Jason really does not like James. I understand his sentiment. There are many times where James drives me bonkers, and many other times where I just don't like him much. However, for Jason, I am convinced that it is an all the time thing. Yes, James is the son of another man. Yes, James has serious issues that we, as his full time parents, must contend with on a daily basis. However, it was Jason's choice to be here, to remain involved with me and my children. He tells me he couldn't leave, but that also means he can't leave my children. He can't play favorites to "his" son over "mine". That is something that I will not allow.

Jason's doing laundry right now, and I'm here typing this out. He may not be happy that I shared this with all of the internet world, but at this current moment, I really don't care. I need to let the anger and frustration out in a way that makes sense, in a way that isn't just screaming.

I love Jason dearly. I'm sure there are many things about me that he wishes I wouldn't do, that I would change, or that he could change about me. This, what happened today, has always been something about Jason that I don't like. Most days it is fine. Then there are days like today.

I really want Jason to find some kind of outlet. Maybe I should sign us up for therapy? It's really aggravating to me. When he gets upset and frustrated, he takes it out on the kids. Yes, I know, everyone does that. Lately, it seems like it is a lot more frequent. I know it doesn't help that Izzy has taken to screeching in a high pitched make your nerves crawl way when he doesn't get what he wants or can't get us to understand what it is he does want. And I also understand that James is a rather annoying pain in the ass. And Jayden is a whiny drama queen. I get all of that.

They are not the cause of his frustration. I can pretty much guarentee that. If it's me, he should talk to me, hell yell at me if he needs to. He's frustrated about money. About how he doesn't make enough. I can't make the job market better. I can't magically have the "perfect job" instantly appear for him. Hell, I don't even know what the "perfect job" for him is. He's thought about going to get his teaching certificate. What he keeps being told by colleges is that he needs to get his Masters in education.

He never wanted to go back to school once he finished. He didn't go to get a degree he could use in the future, he went to please his parents. He didn't think about his long term financial stability, he also planned to NEVER have a family, have a wife and kids. Now he is being told, that in order to pursue something that he may very well enjoy, and would have a bit of financial security attached to it, he has to go back.

And in the mean time, he needs to find another job. His current job is great, he likes it well enough. At least he has a job, and that is awesome in today's financial market. However, he's making pretty much as much as he ever will. He'll keep getting a raise every year at his review, however it'll be 25 cents at most. I get more than that on my annual raises. On Sundays, I make more than Jason does because we get $1 premium for working Sunday. While Jason says that it doesn't bother him, he's lieing. The only full time cashier positions at Wal-Mart are over night. I have let it be known that if an overnight cashier position does open up, I'd like it. Jason has already stated that if I were to do that, he'd quit his job, and maybe get a part time job, or go back to school.

The problem with all of that is this, it's what if's. It's not what is happening right now. Right now, our income makes the ends meet on a good month. On a not so good month we are screwed 6 ways from Sunday. While we can try to change the situation, increase the income flow in some way, it's really not working. My EBay auctions just are not selling. I think once school is closer to starting, if I were list some of Katy's old things, they would sell. I also have a box of baby things that would sell well I think.

Everything happens for a reason. I've always believed that. You may not recognize the reason until 10 minutes or 10 months or 10 years later, but eventually it will be made clear to you. With the miscarriage that took place this past November/December, I now understand the reason. We literally can't afford another person to clothe and feed right now. While we would get it figured out, it's a relief (in a way) that we don't have to. There isn't the worry about me taking time off of work to have the baby, or if I would have even kept my job while I was pregnant.

I know that my posts tend to ramble from one thing to another. And they are long. But I get it all out and work it all out and I can go from there. Thanks for sticking with the post til the end.