Matthew update

So today was basically spent with everyone in recovery mode. The boys didn't do much sleeping at their grandparents (big surprise there) and Matthew didn't do much sleeping here and between it all, I didn't do much sleeping either. So we were all pretty much running on 4hrs or less of sleep today. Blech!

I was looking forward to trying to catch up on sleep tonight with just Matthew's calls to help him to the bathroom and wanting pain meds but he has been wanting his meds every 3hrs when they are only supposed to be given every 4. I called the drs to see what could be done and there is a bit of swelling in his fingers. Hard to tell if it was because he'd just been upright eating dinner and not had his arm elevated properly or if it's because there is a problem with the circulation so I'm off to go take a nap just in case I'm driving him back to the ER. Mark's going to check on him in an hour and then I've set my alarm to go off every 2hrs through the night so I can keep checking on him and making sure that with elevation and ice, the swelling is going down. He also has the phone and can call my cell to wake me at any time.

Ahhhh...sleep. That elusive, most sought after dream. Well, it would be a dream if I ever got any. *sigh*


******************WARNING*******************
Another pic of the break ahead....













Not good quality as this was taken with my phone while it was splinted at the ER and we were waiting for xrays. If you've seen the xrays, you can see the break in that weird bulge sticking out behind his hand. Yeah, it was bad.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
Not so long ago people believed in ideologies, systems, and institutions to save all societies. Today, they have given up such hopes and have returned to relying on the individual, on individual freedom, individual initiative, individual creativity.

State of my sink: No clue but I'm guessing not shiny. :(

How not to spend an evening

Well, I didn't say the first thing that popped into my mind 1000xs today which was "Mommy told you those shoes were dangerous" but man oh man did I think it. So here was my day, as I've already blogged, I spent a large part of this day on phone dealing with various specialists for Nico. After he finally took his nap, I told the boys we could go to the homeschool park day as I'm trying to work that back into our schedule. I had to go sign some paperwork for Jonathan's birthday party up at the clubhouse and then we all got into the car to go to the park in town.

We get there and, big surprise, the three big boys hardly wait for the car to stop moving before jumping out and heading to hook up with friends. I get Nico out and start changing his stinky pants. I am in the midst of this operation (which was made more difficult because stupid me was out of wipes and I was using dried out ones from the car *note to self, restock car diaper changing supplies*) when Christopher comes over and tells me that someone told him to get me because either Matthew or Jonathan is hurt. I look up, see Jonathan climbing on something (ok, obviously not him), continue to scan and see Matthew sitting on the ground with a crowd around him. I finish up Nico's diaper change as quickly as I can (not my best job ever, I'll admit) when another mom comes up and tells me I need to get over to Matthew quickly. I start putting Nico's pants on and she offers to take him but he'll have none of that. I go to put his shoes on and she tells me not to bother. Ok, my alarm bells are going off big time now so I grab Nico, his shoes, and my first aid kit and run over. I take one look at his wrist and know that my first aid kit doesn't cover this. His wrist is at an unnatural angle, almost definitely broken and/or dislocated. He tells me it hurts bad and it's dislocated and to please put it back in. I put an ice pack on his wrist and I told him I couldn't do that as it was beyond my skills and we were heading right to the ER. I left the first aid bag and told them to give him some pain meds, grabbed Nico and ran up to the car, calling MIL as I went to get her to head down and take over with the other kids. She showed up and took them all and Nico's seat while one of the dad's helped me carry Matthew over and get him in the truck.

I called ahead to ER to tell them we were coming with an almost definitely broken wrist, and that Matthew wasn't up to walking. I got to the Ambulance entrance and the nurses came out with a wheelchair, took one look at his wrist and called for a splint. They didn't want to move him at all without one. (8hrs later it's just now occuring to me that duh, I probably could have found a way to splint it a bit to make the drive more comfortable) I got him settled and parked the car.

They got him back to the ER quickly and then tried very unsuccessfully to put an IV in. They managed a baby one just enough to get some morphine into him but that was it and it had to be taken out. Over to Xray and we find out that he broke both bones in the forearm at the wrist with one break going through the growth plate as well as dislocated the entire mess. They called in the orthopedic surgeon to talk to us and he said it was going to require surgery to set and a pin to keep it together while healing. He then went to find out if they could the surgery tonight or it would have to wait til Friday. Thankfully, they were able to get Matthew in at 8p for what was supposed to be a 30-60min surgery depending on how the setting went. Mark showed up at the hospital at 8:30p and went to go find me some food since I hadn't eaten since lunch. Hadn't even realized I was hungry with everything else going on. 9p passes and still no word. 9:20p and I'm starting to worry why it's taking so long. 9:30p sees me calling the number on the wall to ask if they've heard anything. She puts me on hold and tells me that he'll be in recovery soon and to stay put. The orthopedist comes in to talk to me a few minutes later and show me an xray of his handiwork. Apparently it took so long because there is still a lot of baby fat at the wrist and the bone wasn't going into place properly and he was trying to avoid having to go in and set it surgically. And he succeeded in that, it just took longer. We went to recovery and were met by a very groggy and bleary eyed Matthew. He had a really rough time coming out of the anesthesia this time with it taking him over 2hrs before he was awake enough and not shaking to be released.

So he is cast up to his shoulder to keep him from twisting it or moving the bones in any fashion with a pin in his wrist. We have him on the couch tonight so he can have his arm up against the back and then on a pillow to keep it elevated and hopefully stable. They are going to be closely monitoring him for quite a while to make sure the growth of his arm won't be affected.

*******WARNING*******
Not for the faint of heart but here are the xray pics. If I can figure out how to transfer the pics from my phone onto the computer, I'll share the one I took of it at the hospital but in the meantime...













Here you can see that things are just not in the right place:




Here's the during surgery photo that they took to make sure everything was back where it was supposed to be. You can see where the pin is (it's not actually that long now, they trimmed it after this was taken):

We are finally home at just after midnight and Nico was still awake at Mark's parents. It's 1am and he's finally down and Matthew is set up on the couch and watching Muppet Show until he falls asleep. Hopefully we can all just sleep in tomorrow. I'm so not up for following a schedule.

Nico's new room???

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/28/giant-pirate-ship-wa.html

So Mark IM'd me this and the only thing I could think of is this should part of Nico's new room at the house we will one day occupy (hopefully sooner rather than later) and that it needed to have Davy Jones or Cthulu somewhere in the picture. It just looked a little too idyllic for Nico the Destroyer but one of those should add the right touch of destruction and despair for the rest of us mere mortals. LOL

Finally got the ASD appointment scheduled

I had to call them and get on their case about it. Shesh! I think it's the hugest waste of time and they are supposedly so hot to trot to get it done and bragging about how quickly they get people in and then don't call back to schedule after the last fiasco and I have to call them. Amazingly she was able to give me two choices immediately and I picked the one I thought would work out best and wow, she was able to give me until Monday afternoon to call and confirm. Gee, all I had asked for the first time. Turns out, as I had told hr originally probably would happen, I was able to call and confirm within an hour because I was able to get ahold of everyone and make it work. I told her that was likely the case but I needed extra time in case it didn't work out smoothly (since you know, if you count on something working smoothly, it won't).

So we have our fun-filled, all day appointment on the 12th. Pray I get someone who is good, understanding, and without an agenda to label all children on the spectrum.

Oh, yeah, and I made some other phone calls to find out the name of the pediatric sleep specialist (that no one else seemed to know existed ) and got Dr. Cohen to send in the referral for that. So now I'm playing the waiting game for that but at least the ball is rolling on the thing that might possibly help. He's back under 10hrs of sleep again and it just sucks, especially since Mark's work is so sucky right now.

What possess him to do these things??? part 4

So his favorite snack is Go-gurt. I can already hear the groans and the "you asked for its" but bear with me here. Normally he gets the frozen gogurt so it's not so messy and he eats it quickly and neatly. Yes, Nico can apparently eat a messy food neatly. It surprised us too. Today however, he got a non-frozen one and opened it himself (resourceful little bugger that he is) and this is what he decided to do after taking a few bites:



I'm still trying to figure out why. What this picture does not capture is his flinging it around everywhere. This was not an accidental "spill" while trying to eat it. This was quite deliberate on his part. Where, oh where, was a water bottle for him to "clean up" with afterwards????

Yep, it's been one of those mornings. I just talked to Mark and he's having another crappy day at the office. I'm starting to wonder if he shouldn't start looking for another job because he and his boss (the new VP that started 6mos ago) just can't seem to speak the same language without an hour or two of pissing each other off first. It's a sad situation. :(

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
I am of the view that the welfare of the world is possible only by following the path shown by the Lord Buddha.

Second Verse, Same as the First

Seems to be the story of my life and Nico's sleep. We are back to under 10hrs a day (boy, I didn't realize how much I liked 10½ *sigh*) and I just got the follow-up call from the sleep behavoralist who consulted with one of her colleagues and I heard "Yep, you are doing everything we both would recommend". She is recommending that I definitely get him into see the pediatric sleep specialist to see if it is a hardwiring issue if there isn't some medical thing that can be done because behavioral training is not working.

And I still haven't heard back from the ASD clinic after the last "Say yes now or who knows when we can get you in" debacle. So I'm calling them up to see what the deal is and calling up Dr Cohen to see if he can get me the referral now to the pediatric sleep specialist since there is probably a waitlist for that so this way we can get the ball rolling there.

Poor Mark, I'm going to continue to be cranky about how much of my life this is eating up, especially since I've yet to hear anything other than 'I think you are doing everything right and have you considered he's just hardwired to not need as much sleep'. Poor guy also ended up staying up with Nico last night as I feel in bed at 9p exhausted. I took Nico with me for an hour but all he did was run all over the place so Mark came and got him at 10p and took over until he crashed around 11p. I'm working on my schedule now and in order to do everything I need/want to do in the morning before he wakes up, I really need to be getting up at 5:30a (I've been doing 6a but can't find time to dress and make-up before waking him at 7a) especially because I need to do meditation and affirmation with the big boys before we wake up Nico and 6:45a is already asking a lot of them but they are willing right now because they don't want to give it up which is good but still.

Ugh!

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
The impermanence of this present life will force you to leave all wealth behind, but by giving it away, you can take it with you as good karma.


State of my sink: Shiny!!!!

What possess him to do these things??? part 3

So no, this is not a messed up lighting shot. This is my couch after the pictured water bottle has been dumped upon it by the toddler. For those counting at home, this would be bottle number 2,365,453,784 that he has dumped on my couch in the last 3mos and number 5,732,629, 438 that have dumped throughout the house in those same last 3 mos. Not that I'm keeping track or anything. Add into that 1 bottle of Palmolive Scrub Busters dish soap, 3 bottles of kids shampoo, half a bottle of Neutrogena body wash, and probably double the number of water bottles in cups (both sippy and regular). However, in the last 3mos he has not dumped one bin of toys onto the floor. Nor has he dumped whole shelves of dvds. Apparently that has lost its fascination when compared to liquid items. *rolling eyes*

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
When we talk about gaining the perfect wisdom of Buddha, we should not think that we need to create qualities in ourselves that are not there already and acquire them from somewhere outside of us. Rather, we should see perfect Buddha wisdom as a potential that is being realized.


State of my sink: Shiny!!!! (Thank you Mark!)

I need this!

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/25/off-switch-needs-key.html
Seriously, between the older boys loving to leave lights on in rooms when they aren't in there for hours (including the bathroom all night) and Nico's fascination with turning lights on and off, I need these installed on every outlet in my house.

Now I just need something to keep him from flushing all the toilets 1000 times a day, some way to keep him from dumping every water bottle in the house, some way to keep him from dumping out all the shampoo (and dish soap if he can find that), and some way to keep him from unscrewing the caps on his sippy cups and dumping those out. Gee, any one else see a patter to this??? He is waaaaaaaaaay too good at unscrewing things in order to dump out whatever is contained within. The funny thing is...he doesn't dump his toys out of their bins or any other safe dumping activity I give him. He only wants to dump what will make the hugest mess and drive me the most nuts. Good think I love him so much cause this new dumping thing is really pretty darn annoying.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
In general, I always state that I have three commitments in life. On the level of a religious practitioner, my second commitment is the promotion of religious harmony and understanding amongst different religious traditions. Despite philosophical differences, all major world religions have the same potential to create better human beings. It is therefore important for all religious traditions to respect one another and recognize the value of each other's respective traditions.


State of my sink: Shiny!

52:12 Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley

Absolutely fabulous book! I've been a FLYBaby on and off for years (since J was a babe-in-arms) but I keep falling off the wagon. I've read the book before but then loaned it to someone and never got it back. I knew I desperately needed to get back to FLYing in all senses of the word so I bought a new copy, started actually reading all the reminders again, and started shining my sink. Well, I just finished the book, my sink has been shiny for a month, and I'm starting to work on my before bed and morning routines. I've also been working on streamlining some of our other weekly things to make scheduling easier on myself. AND today I am taking 3 boxes of stuff to Goodwill as I am starting the decluttering process in earnest again.

Honestly, FLYLady & FLYing are the best things I've ever found for finding peace within and without...and it just starts with shining your sink!

Updated To-Do List

• Curves*
• Transfer EFT @ Curves & KSW (KSW will have to wait til Monday tho since the person who could help me wasn't in today but hey, I tried)*
• Finish catching up the laundry (ok, well, mostly done, there is a load that just finished drying that I won't get to tonight and one going into the dryer but other than that, it's all caught up)
  
• Update Calendar*
• Sort and organize coupons
• School with boys* (Mark got Jonathan's work done, still need to finish grading papers to find out what the other boys accomplished but they are responsible for getting their work done)
  
• Ebay stuff - nope, didn't happen *sigh*
  
• Sort Nico's toys - nope, not this either but I did get started on it
  
• Start writing down FLY routines* - um, nope, but they are in my head, does that count???
  

Sunday

• Home Blessing* - with the weather and other stuff needing to be done we opted out of restarting this this week
  
• Balance Checkbook and pay bills*
• Work on budget for March*
• 2006 Taxes*
• Weekly lesson plans for boys
• Menus, entering WW points, shopping lists for week
• Set-up our online accounts at new bank*

So I didn't get everything done but got a lot and a lot of the important stuff done. Now if Nico will let me get to sleep at a decent hour, maybe I'll have the brain cells to grade papers and work on the school stuff tomorrow. I also did quite a lot of 5min declutters here and there which was good. No one place is totally decluttered but there is small improvements all over. It's a work in a progress and I'm babystepping my way towards it.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.


State of my sink: Honestly, I'm not sure since I've been working at my desk all day. I do plan to having it shining before I collapse tho.

52:11 The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lillian Jackson Braun

A fun, light mystery. Not deep, very easy to follow tho I hadn't picked up on who the perpetrator was until it was revealed so that was nice that it was a bit of a surprise twist at the end. Good if you are looking for something that is fun but not too complex or requiring a great deal of thought. I picked up the series from Freecycle on a whim and this was the first in the series and I'm looking forward to reading the next one. Matthew is reading it as well since it has a cat as one of the main characters. It will be interesting to see what his opinions on it are once he finishes it.

Weekend To-Do List

Have a mild one this weekend as my goal is to actually cross everything off of it with starred items being the biggest priorities. For fun, I thought I'd post it here:

Saturday

• Curves*
• Transfer EFT @ Curves & KSW (KSW will have to wait til Monday tho since the person who could help me wasn't in today but hey, I tried)*
• Finish catching up the laundry (just have the 2 loads I did today to fold and put away but I need to catch up the hanging items and M&J need to do socks and underwear)*
• Update Calendar*
• Sort and organize coupons
• School with boys* (not tons to do but there is some)
• Ebay stuff
• Sort Nico's toys
• Start writing down FLY routines*

Sunday

• Home Blessing*
• Balance Checkbook and pay bills*
• Work on budget for March*
• 2006 Taxes*
• Weekly lesson plans for boys
• Menus, entering WW points, shopping lists for week
• Set-up our online accounts at new bank*

I want Mark to get some stuff out to the shed, install the new over-the-door towelracks since my children seem to all of sudden have an affinity for breaking the ones that actually mount into a door/wall, and fix his computer so I can have access to our movie database and use the cuecat. The boys need to work on their schoolwork and their room this weekend.

AND my exciting piece of news (ok, exciting for me) is that it has been almost a month since my sink was not shining for very long!!!! I think the habit is really starting to "sink" in. ROTFL Now to work on before bed and morning routines and get those more solid. I've been working on them and they are coming together but I need to take it to the next step. I'm also having the boys work on theirs too.

AND I have a few boxes of STUFF that will either get picked up by freecyclers or will be getting dropped off on Tuesday at Goodwill.

Doing the happy dance!

Had my weigh-in and measurement day at Curves today. First off, I made it in 3xs this week! So that's a WooHoo #1! Second, I'm down 5lbs which I'm pretty sure is from this last week and starting WW. So that is WooHoo #2! And I lost a ½" in both the abs and the hips that we are sure are a totally real loss! So that is WooHoo #3!

And when I weighed myself at home on my scale, I'm done almost 6lbs from last Thursday so that was awesome to see! It's so nice when I stick to the points thing and see the results so quickly. And the best part is, I'm not starving! It was hard that first day and I have the occasional time when it hits me, but I've actually been able to really stick well with it so far. So that is WooHoo #4!

Made it!!!

Mark is in the air as I type (I think around Las Vegas???) and we survived the day without daddy. I think I even still have some sanity points left and I yelled far less than usual. Our being more consistent with routines and our use of the PEG board this week has really helped things go more smoothly. Now, I'm not saying there was no raising of voices, just that it was very minor compared to what it's been in the past and that was for the week on a whole but miraculously included today too.

Other wonderful accomplishments for the week:
*Managed to get a lot more school time in with Jonathan including Phonics every day but today. He only has some Art and Music to do this weekend from this week and then some extra Phonics and LA just because we are so far behind in those subjects. Much better than from weeks past!

*Matthew does have catch-up work to do this weekend but it's not nearly as bad as previous weeks. He settled down and did his composition on the day it was due (a major thing for him) so he just has some spelling, music, and literature to do this weekend. A vast improvement from weeks prior.

*Christopher had some problems at the beginning of the week and still has a lot of catch-up from weeks' previous where he said he did the work but when I asked for the papers I was told "Oh, I needed some help on a question" or something to that effect. He has just about dug himself out of that whole for the most part and should be caught up in everything but the math this weekend. For that, he had really needed more of my time and help and with everything else going on, I hadn't been able to fulfill my part of the agreement so since he's just about done with LA, we are working on that at a slower pace and throwing extra math in each week. I think actually the little bit of a break did him good as he is approaching it with a much better frame of mind and some of it seems to have sunk in by osmosis or something. LOL

*Nico is starting to sleep better. I'm sure I'm probably jinxing myself by saying that but his 7day average is now hovering in the 10-10½hr range rather than the 9hr range it was in for a few months. Those were brutal and I'm glad that although his sleep is still not wonderful, it's better than it was in December. Never thought I'd be happy that my child is sleeping 10hrs a day but it's all about perspective. LOL

*I've been starting to declutter again ala FLYLady. My routines are starting to get a foothold and my laundry is just about caught up (except for the pair of pants that Nico has on his head as he runs through the house) and I just need to take care of the socks/underwear and hanging clothes this weekend as well as just stay on top of the 1-2 loads per day.

*I hired someone to come take care of the outside of the house. I just don't have the time right now and I ask every weekend for Mark and the boys to do it and well...it just doesn't get done so I hired someone to at least do the clean-up for now. Maybe I'll just have him come once a month to do the weeding and such to keep the place looking neater. I'd love to have time to do it with the boys. Maybe once we get our routines more fully established, but for now, I just want it done.

*Well, the big boys are on their way to bed and Nico is running amok. It must be 9:30p. LOL

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
I have long looked forward to the time when we could devise a political system, suited both to our traditions and to the demands of the modern world. A democracy that has nonviolence and peace at its roots.


State of my sink: Shiny!

Trying to make it through the day

Mark left last night at 11p for a red-eye to Texas again. One of Laszlo's big clients is having issues making everything work and are blaming Laszlo's software so they are sending him in to see if he can find the problems since they can't be replicated from here. He gets in around 1a this morning after taking another red-eye home. I'm just praying that he can a) figure out the problem and that it's an easy fix and even better not Laszlo's bug and b) gets home safely after going almost 48hrs with just a few catnaps. Moron decided against taking taxis and drove himself to the airport and will most likely be dumb enough to try and drive himself home too.

Of course, we were already having Mike and Rita over for dinner last night so we proceeded with that which meant Guitar Hero had to come out while I was trying to put Nico to sleep. So much for that idea. The second he hear those melodic strains, his eyes got big, he jumped out of my lap, and started screaming at the bedroom door to open so he could go rock out. I didn't get him to sleep til after midnight. Hence, I am a zombie today as I did actually start waking up on time at 5:45a and actually was upright starting at 6:15a. My head hurts and Starbucks is an evil place for not delivering.

My goal for today....Try to get a few lessons done with the kids and keep our afternoon as on track with routine and quiet as possible. Maybe finish folding the clean laundry that piled up last week (I've kept everything up this week) and do the one load I have for today. My sink is shiny with just this morning's breakfast dishes to do after Chris unloads the dishwasher, the breakfast bar is cleaned off, so is my desk. I've been reading FLYLady's book again and working hard to take some babysteps towards reclaiming our house again. I don't think the boys are going to be too happy when mommy says we really need to declutter their room tho. Those kids have waaaaay too much stuff that they don't need or play with and I've been too lenient in letting them keep it all. It's time for a more massive declutter in there. I need to do our bedroom too and Mark needs to do a purge in his office, especially if he's going to have room for all his whiskey. LOL I'm hoping to babystep my bedroom but spend probably a day next weekend on the boys room and just do it with them. Hopefully we will have our routines in place enough that they can maintain it this time.

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
When I look at birds and animals, their survival is without rules, without conditions, without organization...That's nature.

State of my sink: Shiny! With just a few dishes to do but still... Shiny!

Started Back on WW today...

and I'm freaking starving!!!! It's not been that horrible and I figure, even if I do go over my points today, I'm working on getting back on the system so it will all work out but man, I'm hungry!!!

Now here's hoping Mark will get home on time on Friday or I can get motivated Saturday to actually get my third workout in at Curves this week for let's see...the first time ever going 3xs in one week!

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Insights from the Dalai Lama: These days, yogic exercises have become very popular in the modern world...and this is precisely because many people have found that through yoga they can achieve a degree of physical health that leads to better mental health. The approach that is suggested by the lo jong teachings is slightly different, however. They concentrate directly on the development of the mind itself, through the transformation of our attitudes and ways of thinking.


State of my sink: Shiny!!!

I spent how much????

So I usually go to Costco once a month with a budget of $500. I use this to buy movies, stock up on diapers, wipes, cleaning products, snacks for the kids, breakfast stuff, fruits and veggies for a week or two, meat, etc. Trust me, I usually use all of this along with the $250 I had budgeted for the weekly grocery trips. Not this time tho! I only spent $368 today and almost half of that was rarely buy items such as toner for my printer ($50 and it's the wrong thing so it's going back), olive oil ($22), and rice ($15 for a 25# bag since the 50# bag lasted us about 8yrs I think we are okay downsizing this LOL). I admit to being bad and picking up all of the Phillipa Gregory books there since they are normally $16 but I got all 5 for $50 instead. So yeah, wow! And this is after spending only $132 at Safeway yesterday which included $22 for our take-out dinner. I literally have no more room to put anything away in my house! All the shelves in my pantry are overflowing with good food that we like and will eat. I got some more beautiful meat at Safeway yesterday for wonderful prices so we'll be enjoying some of that this week and I need to find room for some of it in my freezer.

All of this is totally thanks to the Grocery Game. We are spending so much less on groceries each week and month, it's amazing! I can't wait to start really working on our budget so I can take our surplus from those items and stick it into savings! WooHoo!!!

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
The key to a happier world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.

I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human understanding and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.


State of my sink: Shiny!!!

Nico finally started speech, sort of...

It's not official because while we could start therapy, we still don't have all the stupid codes to do the eval yet so she did it today and will just bill it when they finally get it all straightened out since we've now been waiting for 3wks to start because the social worker can't get her act together to give them the code and then finally told them last week, "Oh, I need to process that paperwork and it will take another 2wks to get that approved but I'll put him down for an eval on the 20th". Of course, that is a Wedn not a Mon and the therapist is booked solid on Wedn. :roll:

Anyway, Nico was mostly cooperative in just playing and running from room to room, interacting nicely with both of us, and saying some of his words. We also went over what other words and sounds he knows, body parts, etc. He didn't want to do the actual "test" part of the eval of looking at pictures and pointing to specific ones as he had found a princess tea set and was serving everyone cake and tea (sooooo cute!) but he looked at other books and was pointing to pics and showing us what was going on in the pictures and babbling about them. She said that he shows that he can use all the positions in his mouth so it's just a matter of getting him to actually say the words. I have no idea what the recommendation is going to be but I'm guessing he'll be there on Mondays for an hour while Jonathan is at OT so that works for me. The other 2 big boys stay home with Gabriella at that time so they can do their schoolwork while the other two are at therapy.

Oh, and the OT brought up Jonathan's reflux again. He's been complaining tons of stomach aches and wanting to throw up and stuff coming up for a couple of months now. Mark's family are ruminates so their tummies get upset easily and don't settle back down quickly so she recommended some probiotics for him so after therapy, we hit GNC and got some chewable acidopholus and papaya enzyme for all the big boys to take, some 1mg melatonin for Matthew, and some probiotic capsules for me since I'm having problems with reflux right now too. Hopefully that will help get things working better for everyone.

Making it stretch...

and stretch and stretch. So Mark is quite happy that since I started doing the Grocery Game, every time Terri tells me "this is a good deal on meat, go buy"...I do. This week, I had bought some sirloin steak maxpack at $2.99/lb so we could have some nice steaks for Valentine's Day. The package cost me $16.49 and we had a lovely time eating steak that night (well, as much as I could given how sick I was). We still had quite a bit of beef leftover so today, Mark made stew in the crockpot with what we had left. So from that one package of sirloin, we had steak dinner one night, stew tonight, and we just put 2 more stew dinners into the freezer. Gotta love that!

52:10 A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

OMG.... I finally finished this book! Ok, ok, I know, great classic, blah blah blah, but....Oh, man, could he possibly have used even 1/3 of the words he did in the first half???? Seriously, it took me about 1½mos to get through the first 200 pages and I was despairing of ever finishing it because, quite frankly, long winded and unnecessarily wordy when trying to read and get the full depth of the meaning while 4 kids are running amok is not my idea of a good time. It truly amazed me how when he hit the half way mark, he somehow seemed to forget that he was getting paid by the word or something (that's the only way I can explain the first half) and actually got on with the story. At that point, I could see the genius and masterpiece that everyone refers too. The relationships between the characters finally really seemed to coalesce with each finding their niche in the story well played. I'm glad I persevered and got through it for the last half truly was a beautiful and moving story but I still can't believe they were recommending this for an 8th grader to read. Just because they can read and comprehend at a high level doesn't mean this is a good choice for them. I can't imagine many 8th graders not wanting to put the book down well before the 100p mark and scream for mercy. I know I wanted to and I'm well past 13yrs of age. LOL

Why possess him to do these things???...part 2

This is the one I caught on film today. I'm currently almost out of what was once thought to be an almost indefinite supply of highlighters and dry-erase markers because he has decided that it is a ton of fun to find them no matter how well I've tried to hide them from him yet still make them accessible since I need to use them on a daily basis. He goes searching them out, opens the tops, and tears out the writing bit with his teeth!!!! WHY DOES HE DO THIS????

Seriously, what possess him to think that these things are good ideas???? Especially after being consistently told "Do NOT do that!!!" Yet, he continues to not only pursue these things that drive me absolutely spare but go out of his way to do them as often as possible. As a result, I've decided to make a series of posts of the crazy crap this child does that is driving me to the brink of sanity.

Guess where it was...

So the name of the game is "Guess Where I Found This Pile of Stuff?":

*10 small Hot Wheel size cars
*Small pair of scissors (child size)
*a nickel
*connector to toy gear set
*4 pencils
*2 pens
*1 colored pencil
*1 roll-a-round ball
*some weird bullet shaped thing that I have no clue what it was in it's previous life
*a partridge in a pear tree (ok, not really this one but boy, sure seems like maybe if I had dug longer I would have)


And the answer.....
















UNDER MY DESK!!!!!
No, I have no idea how any of that stuff got under there. I spent all day today working on the top of my desk and had to go under it to get out my file folders (ok, yes, technically there is more stuff under there but that was all stuff I had put there on purpose and knew about, the previous list was all the stuff of which I had previously been unaware LOL) and had to pull out all the above in order to get to them first. I'm guessing a small child, approx 35" in height, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a knack for the mischievous who looks an awful lot like this:


might know a bit more about it than I do. He, however, is pleading the 5th.

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
Money has its uses, but it is limited. Among worldly powers and possession, there are, doubtless, good things, but they are limited. However, from a Buddhist viewpoint, mental development will continue from life to life, because the nature of the mind is such that i certain mental qualities are developed on a sound basis, they always remain and, not only that, can increase. In fact, once properly developed, good qualities of mind eventually increase infinitely. Therefore spiritual practice brings both long-term happiness and more inner strength day by day.


State of my sink: Has a bunch of dishes in it since I've been working on my desk and Mark's been in charge of everything else but I've told him, he gets to shine it before he heads to bed tonight. LOL He did a great job last night!

Busy, but good day

Wow, where to start. Got up this morning not feeling nearly as sick as I did the last two days despite Nico getting up every 2hrs last night. Managed a shower (amazing how much better I felt after that) and even some breakfast. Then we packed up all the kids and went to our new bank to set up all our new accounts. Boy, was that every exciting. Thankfully not as exciting as the last time I set-up a checking account. I didn't receive any phone calls or pages telling me that I was pregnant (tho boy, that would have been REALLY exciting, huh?! NOT) Instead, we had the great joy of chasing Nico all around the bank while filling out paperwork and waiting to be seen. Thankfully I was able to do most of the work so Mark was on Nico patrol. After he signed all his papers, he took all the boys over to In-n-Out for lunch while I set-up all their accounts. I'm really hoping that with a bank we can actually walk into our, our days of "You have money, oh, wait, you spent some of it, we didn't mean that you could actually use it, let us take it away now that you've spent some and charge you for the 'privilege' of using it" is over. This way, they should be telling us if they are going to hold our money. I don't mind that they may feel the need to hold a larger check. You would think after 9+yrs with them and NEVER having had a check we deposited bounce and depositing checks from this same person for the last several years for the exact same amount, they'd have figured that it's going to be good and to just let us have it. And some years they would do just that. BUT what really honks me off is when they "give" us the money after we've done all the right things and then they decide a few days LATER to take it back out of the account, AFTER we thought we had it squared away, and THEN they CHARGE us "deposit advance fees" because they are so courteously allowing us the use of our money! We have not been bad customers, we were not constantly bouncing checks or anything of that nature to deserve that treatment. So we are gone. Poof! I'll be working on switching all our auto-debit stuff over this week and pray that we never have to go through all this again. I HATE switching banks!

After that, we came home and managed to get a few little projects done INCLUDING....Mark installed my new harddrive!!!! I now have a 500g drive to fill up with pictures! WooHoo!!! *doing the happy dance* I had basically filled up the harddrive on my laptop so I'm in the process of going through all my old picture folders, deleting the ones that didn't work, and transferring them over to the new drive. Then we'll be able to take that drive (since it's portable) to the machine in the living room and burn things to DVD for back-up. Yeah!!!

Then we dropped all the heathens, um, I mean monsters, no, that's not right either, the um, er, hmmm.....oh, yeah, kids, that's the word, kids off at the Kuk Sool Wan date night babysitting for a few hours. Apparently only one other child showed up so there were just the 5 boys there. Mark and I went out to dinner, ALONE, at the Sushi Bar. Then we went home, ALONE, watched a movie, ALONE, over drinks, ALONE. Wow, that was sort of cool getting to talk to my husband a bit. We didn't even spend the whole time talking about the kids. We did a little but also talked about his work situation and continued to try and come up with names for my photography business. Still working on that. I like "A Mother's Eye Portraits" but he's not sold on it. So we are still going back and forth to find the right thing. Any suggestions?

But now the kids are back. They just figured out that we took all the cords from their room connecting their Wii and DVD players to the TV as well as their DSs. We've been having way too many problems with them bugging for monitor time or just plain sneaking it when things aren't done so they've had everything removed for now and told their is no monitor time for children over the age of 5yrs, M-F. I really hope they can figure out that things need to change and will finally be willing to work WITH us, rather than the constant lip service that means nothing. *sigh*

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
In order to achieve both internal and external progresses appropriate for modern times, having modern education is extremely important.

State of my sink: Not good, being sick does not for a shiny sink make unfortunately. I'm hoping to have that rectified tonight.

52:9 How To Talk So Your Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

Good ideas, a lot more in-depth than the Prescriptions for Parenting tho many of the same ideas. I use many of them, but could definitely use more and more consistency which is something I really want to work on. My only complaint with it is that the ideas are good in the main for older children but not so good for the 2yr old sector (which I'm having all sorts of fun with these days). I do as much as I can with him but still, time-outs are sometimes necessary (they do not advocate time-outs or any other form of what might be deemed punitive in any form). Lots of natural consequences which I whole-heartedly believe in, but even with what I've been trying so far with the boys (and many of their ideas are ones I've been using with them for years), I have not seen these miraculous changes in behavior or attitude that they seem to promise. I do respect and love my children and I do everything I can to show them by my actions that I do tho I do admit that when they push my buttons, I react. Something I've gotten better with but something I definitely need to continue working on to improve in myself (homeschooling has not helped with this, unfortunately).

All in all, not a bad parenting book and definitely was worth the read and something I will definitely be referring back to as I continue to improve my parenting skills and strive to become the best parent to my boys that I can be. They deserve no less of me.

Not again!!!

Matthew was running a fever yesterday and I came down with it today. I spent the day under 5 blankets shivering and feeling like crap. This of course put Christopher and Jonathan in a crappy mood because we missed the Valentine's Day party at the park that we had spent all morning getting ready for. I think Matthew was more understanding because he'd just recovered. Now, true to form, Christopher and Jonathan are feeling cold and shivering under their blankets. Not sure if they have really come down with it but it's likely. The one person not to get knocked out??? That's right, Nico!

In other news, Mark brought me a beautiful bouquet of roses for the day and cooked a lovely dinner of steak, pesto, and salad. Now if I could just get Nico to go to sleep so I could go back to bed.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
All major religious traditions have teachings on the practice of of compassion, love, forgiveness, but the Buddha has become a symbol of nonviolence around the world, a symbol of compassion. All ancient masters teach the same message, but the Buddha's message is not just for humanity alone; it is for all sentient beings. It puts a strong emphasis on respect for all forms of life.

Those who are wise practice love.


State of my sink: No clue. I had it shining all day up until I got taken down by illness.

52:8 A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver Van DeMille

OMG Absolutely brilliant!!! I kept hearing about TJEd and had no idea what people were talking about nor why it was so popular. Then as I continued with educating my own children, I found more and more that the books they were reading, even abridged versions of were ones that I, myself, had never read or had more than a passing knowledge of. "That's not right!" I exclaimed and set off to start collecting classic literature in order to further my own education. I researched various websites to see what was considered a "classic", asked friends and mentors, and started compiling a list. I put my wishlist (which seems to almost grow daily) onto Amazon so I could order a book here and there and I started reading. Then someone said "Have you read A Thomas Jefferson Education? I think you'll like it." So I picked it up and started reading. Talk about an Ah-ha moment! This book truly spoke to my heart about what I feel is wrong with our education system today and how I want to educate my boys.

Truly, I think this should be a must read for everyone, simply in terms of how to better educate yourself and it should be required reading for parents. Even if you are sending your child to public school, simply to open your eyes further and help guide your children through the education process. And if for no other reason than there are wonderful lists of classics in the back: to read to your children, to read with your children, to read for yourself.

52:7 Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister by Gregory MacGuire

This is the first of his works that I've read and I was very impressed. I thought it was a very good retelling and rational explanation of the old story that we are all so familiar with. After reading this one, I'm really looking forward to finishing "Wizard of Oz" and reading Wicked. I'm seriously considering using his works with the originals as study units for Christopher and eventually the other boys as a nice compare/contrast and study of how point of view makes all the difference. I think it would be interesting for the boys to see how the same story can be told twice with totally different meanings based on who you are hearing it from.

Wow!

I had an AYSO board meeting tonight at 7p. I got home from everything this afternoon around 6p and then was on the phone for another 30min so I was basically rushing out the door again. There was no dinner plan when I left. I came home to a quiet house, 4 boys asleep, living room/dining room picked up and vacuumed, and the dishes were even done!!!

I told Mark I need to be away at meetings every night.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
These days, we human beings are very much involved in the external world, while we neglect the internal world...Yet no doctor can give you an injection of mental peace, and no market can sell it to you. If you go to a supermarket with millions and millions of dollars, you can buy anything, but if you go there and ask for peace of mind, people will laugh. And if you ask a doctor for genuine peace of mind, not the mere sedation you get from taking some kind of pill or injection, the doctor cannot help you.

Only human beings can judge and reason; we understand consequences and think in the long term. It is also true that human beings can develop infinite love, whereas to the best of our knowledge animals can have only limited forms of affection and love. However, when humans become angry, all of this potential is lost. No enemy armed with mere weapons can undo these qualities, but anger can. It is the destroyer.


State of my sink: Shiny! Thank you Mark!!!

52:6 Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken

Interesting read. Nothing really too shocking in it but it definitely gives more food for thought as to where this country could be heading. Pretty scary in some cases. Not sure if I want to head for Congress or Canada after reading it.

Happy Birthday my sweet Nico

I can't believe it's been 2 years since our last baby was born and our family was officially complete. It's been 2 years that I'll never forget starting with that moment when I saw 2 lines on the hpt, June 7, 2005. I thought I'd post his birth story here since it's not on my blog:

I called into L&D at 6:30a on Friday morning and was told they were understaffed and not allowing in any new patients and I should call back in a few hours. I seethed by the phone quietly while trying to remain calm. Got a phone call an hour later that my dr had pulled some strings and told them to get me in there and I should go in (thank you Dr Nino!!!)

Got there around 9a, was admitted and assessed. 100% effaced and his head was right there. They started the pitocin at 10a and let me have some breakfast (again, thank you Dr Nino!). Mark and I played games, watched tv, and generally hung out until 6p when I was checked again. I was at 2-3cm and -1 station but they kept losing his hb on the monitors so decided to break my water and do the internal monitor. I got an epidural soon after that was done and it took effect around 7:30p. By 8:15p I was at 4cm, then 6cm and 0 station by 10:30p. Midwife checked me again at 11:02p and I was 9cm and +1 station.

At midnight I was fully dilated and ready to go so they topped off my epidural since it wasn't working as well on my right side. They did such a good job that I could no longer feel the contractions at all so couldn't feel to push. I talked to the midwife and we decided to keep the pitocin going to try to keep gently pushing Nicholas down while I tried to nap a bit and wait for the epidural to wear off enough to push. The midwife and my dr came in around 2a to say that they needed to go do a c/s and see how I was doing. My dr really wanted to deliver him so I told her I'd wait for her and I continued to doze for the next hour. By 3:30a, I was finally really feeling the contractions so we tried a few pushes and things were looking like a go. The nurse got me set-up and I started pushing in earnest at 4a. Dr came in around 5:40a. Nicholas's hb kept dropping when I pushed so they were getting a little concerned and started talking about a vacuum to help get him out (this little stinker was facing to the left instead of straight down and was getting a little stuck tho I personally think he was holding on to my ribs with his toes) but at the mention of the vacuum, he finally made his grand entrance at 5:52a!

No one could believe how big he was considering how small all my others were. 8lbs 7ozs, 21" with an almost perfectly round head and the trademark long fingers, toes, and feet of all my boys.

As I said, it's been an amazing 2 years with him. Sometimes frustrating but so rewarding. This last year has seen so many changes. I've looked back through the pictures and seen how in just the months from May to October of this year, my baby has turned into a kid. He no longer has that soft flyaway fuzz head, but now a full crop of beautiful hair. His baby cheeks are gone and the angles of his face have sharpened just a bit. The twinkle in his eye is still there tho, and I hope it will be there forever.

A year ago, he could only take a few steps before falling down. Now he runs and jumps everywhere, hardly slowing for a second.

A year ago, he still needed help feeding himself, ate in the high chair, wore a bib, and made great messes while eating. Now, he only wants a regular cup like his brothers, feeds himself much neater (for the most part), no bibs and no high chair.

A year ago, he would scream for what he wanted. Now, he uses signs and his few words to tell us. Either that, or he'll go get it himself. LOL

A year ago, he didn't know any shapes or colors. Now he's learning both and trying to count as well.

A year ago, he couldn't walk. Now he takes gymnastics where he bounces on the trampoline. Now he is in a bowling league having a great time. Now he can't wait to do Kuk Sool Wan with his big brothers.

Yes, my little one, you've grown so much in this last year, you've learned so much, you are figuring out so many things. But you still are, and always will be, my sweet angel Nico and I thank G-d for you every day.

Happy Birthday Sweet Nico. I love you so much and I can't wait to see what you learn this year.

Made it through the weekend

But man am I exhausted. I didn't get to bed until 3:30a this morning and slept in until 7:30a and have been going ever since. I woke Nico up at 8a and he hasn't napped either. It's almost 8p and I'm finishing some clean-up and then working on putting him to bed. I've got to grade some papers and so some lesson plans before I can head to bed tho. :(

It was a good day for the most part. My dad and his family couldn't come because my step-mom and brother were sick. My other brother flaked (the bum) and my MIL didn't make it because she invited people to come over to her house today because she totally forgot that it was Nico's party and when she remembered, it was more important to look good to her friends than spend time with him. Whatever. FIL came and presented Nico with his new trike which he loves.

He didn't finish open his pressies from us because he got the Cars Speedway Racer from my mom like 3rd present in and everything stopped for over an hour while he played with that. LOL Then he opened a few of our presents and everything stopped again for his new pirate ship. We went with lots of little $5 and $10 toys with just one slightly bigger one so he can open some tomorrow on his actual birthday. I still need to figure out what we are doing for dinner for him tomorrow night. I ended up not making the second cake for today (big mistake, lesson learned, I ALWAYS need to make 2 cakes LOL) so I'll finish that up tomorrow afternoon and we can have it after dinner. I prefer stretching things out a bit for the little ones anyway.

I did take tons of pics which I'll post when I get a chance in the next couple of days.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
Love, compassion, and concern for others are real sources of happiness. With these in abundance, you will not be disturbed by even the most uncomfortable circumstances. If you nurse hatred, however, you will not be happy even in the lap of luxury. Thus, if we really want happiness, we must widen the sphere of love. This is both religious thinking and basic common sense.


State of my sink: Not shining but not too bad. Still working to get everything picked up and dishes and such done before heading to bed.

Countdown to the Party!

Wow, still can't believe how close it is. 3 days until his Nickness turns 2 and only 2 days til his party. So far all the presents are wrapped, the pinata stuffed and other treats and art projects ready to go, food bought, frosting made and tinted, and cake baked and cooling. Tonight I'll put the crumb coating on and then decorate tomorrow. We are having 7 people spending the night tomorrow and I'm making a huge pot of chili to feed everyone for dinner. Sunday morning we'll make the second cake and the fruit salad and start rolling food from the oven when the rest of the guests start arriving.

The big boys are driving me nuts this week with the never-ending list of reasons why they can't work or they just won't work. Christopher got a "Not progressing satisfactorily" on his report card for math and yet today he is still on the same lesson from Monday that he has spent 3 days this week on. Why??? Because instead of doing the odd problems, getting help to understand the concept, and being able to check his answers, he is coming out of his office every 3min to ask for my help on an assessment question again and he gets the same answer every time of "If you need my help on the assessment for anything other than clarifying instructions or terminology you are not ready to be taking the assessment". Ugh! He always just wants to be perfect on everything the second he is first introduced to it and is constantly refusing to spend any time LEARNING the concepts before jumping in to take the test. It's incredibly frustrating.

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
If a person's basic state of mind is serene and clam, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience. On the other hand, if someone is suffering from depression, anxiety, or any form of emotional distress, then even if he or she happens to be enjoying physical comforts, he will not really be able to experience the happiness that these could bring.

State of my sink: Mostly shiny! Just a few lunch dishes that need to go into the dishwasher after it gets unloaded.

Playing around

Nico had a nice long art session this morning first with ice cube paint crayons and then cornstarch goo. I grabbed my camera during the paint session and was experimenting with some of the different settings I learned about in my class last weekend and then had fun putting my favorite through photoshop and thought I'd share here.

Just cropped, no other retouching:
Run through the poster edges filter on photoshop:

I can't keep up with him!

The number of new and interesting things he gets into on a daily basis is staggering to me. I mean, I've got 4 younger brothers and I grew up with 3 of them at various times in their and my lives. I've got 3 older boys that I've been with practically every moment of their young lives. But Nico constantly manages to come up with things that I've never seen.

So far this morning, he has

*announced that he wanted eggs by bringing out the carton to the living room table. Thankfully, I got to him before the rest of the announcement which usually involves him trying to crack the egg to get the food stuff out.

*drank olive oil straight from the bottle while I had my back turned to grate cheese for his eggs.

*dumped about a cup of fruity pebbles onto the scrambles eggs and is now refusing to eat it.

Oh, yeah, it's been a fun morning. When I told Mark the first two items (this was before the fruity pebbles incident) he just about died laughing. Must be easier to do when you are 1500 miles away from it. *rolling eyes*

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
We should not forget our inner values. By inner value I mean...human affection, or another word, human compassion.


State of my sink: Shiny! (ok, there is the pan from breakfast but that's only cause I came in here to blog about Nico's morning before eating my breakfast and cleaning up)

Wow, didn't know I could do that!

Gee, it's amazing what happens when you start poking around the site here, huh? Now that I know I can change all the colors on my blog, who knows what it will look like from week to week and month to month. You've been warned! LOL

Where to start with today???

I don't even know. It's been so chaotic. I guess I'll just do like yesterday and make a list of what needed to get done.

*Jonathan to speech. Check! This was fun since Chris tells me at 9:10 that there is a light on in my car because a door hadn't been closed properly. I go out to find that yes, my battery was dead enough to not start the car. I managed to convey my desperation (like I needed to be leaving in 5min) to the people across the way who were just getting in their car and after a lot of sign language since they didn't understand English or car mechanics, I got a jump and we were on our way. Only 5min late to therapy.

*Big Boys to Face-to-Face meeting with teacher. Check! Mike got here right on time and we got there only to discover that Jonathan had not brought his backpack that had all the paperwork I needed to turn in. Ugh! I called my awesome brother (yes, the same bum from last night LOL) and he left his sweet girlfriend to watch Nico while he drove it out to me. The meeting went well. The boys are progressing well except for Christopher with his Algebra and Music. Things have been crazy and we were pushing on the Lang Arts instead. Now that we are scaling back on the LA, we will be ramping up the math. He needed some time off from it and is actually jumping into it with a much better attitude so I think it was a good thing for him. He was getting very discouraged with it before but now that things seem to have settled more in his head, he's doing better with it. I also managed to get at least the one concession I wanted in regards to his Lang Arts which is that once he's finished the K12 curriculum for 8th grade, we can use whatever books we want but do literary essays using the K12 model for his LA. I'll try and tie the books into the K12 curriculum wherever possible too but this way they should stay off our back. We will also do some review in the K12 grammar as that is his one really weak area of LA.

*Schoolwork with boys. Nope! After all that in the morning, we came home and hung out with Mike and Rita until 5:30p by which time Matthew had thrown up once, I was desperately trying to wake up Nico, and Jonathan was complaining of stomach pains. Oh, yeah, that meant we didn't go to Kuk Sool either. We needed to be there at 5:30p so um, yeah, that wasn't happening.

In other news, I finally got the call back from the child psychologist in regards to Nico's sleep. She said it took so long to get back to me as she doesn't normally get those types of referrals and her specialty is with kids ages 4yrs and up as it's really hard to do much with them before then. I explained (for the 5 billionth time to a specialist) what he is like and what we have done and are currently doing. And I heard the exact same thing I have heard from everyone. "Gee, you are doing everything I would recommend. It sounds like this is just the way he's hardwired but let me try talking to this other specialist and see if they can help." *sigh* So she's going to try talking to a behaviorist that she works with occasionally to see if he can help but she said that he normally works with 4yrs+ as well so we'll see. She said to try Melatonin and to ask my pedi for the dosage. After I stopped laughing/crying, I told her why that wasn't going to help any. She agrees that the only other thing to do is see a pediatric sleep specialist but I need a referral for that and I have no idea who will give me one at this point. I will be trying to call Matthew's sleep specialist's office to see if I can get the name of the pediatric one so I know who I need to be referred to at least.

Now I need to go make toast and chicken rice soup for my sickies and change a stinkyman. The fun just never ends around here.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
This teaching of the stages of the path to enlightenment came to Tibet from India. Buddhism did not come to Tibet until the eighth century.


State of my sink: Almost shiny! Just a few dishes from a late lunch.

Made it through the day

There were some close calls but we all survived the craziness that was today. Let's review what needed to be done:

*Nico to gymnastics. Check! Of course, we were a little late because his majesty did not want to get dressed this morning. *insert eye roll*

*Schoolwork with boys. NOT! *sigh* Jonathan took 3hrs to take one math assessment and that was it for our school time today. Big boys weren't much better about getting their work done.

*Work samples and paperwork ready for face-to-face meeting tomorrow morning. Mostly done. Found out Christopher has not done any of his music lessons for this quarter. I told him he gets to face the music with his teacher. At least music is an optional class so it's not a huge deal. He's been slacking on his math a bit too, not horribly and he was doing extra Lang Arts during that time but now he's having to make it all up.

*Christopher's Ed Performance test. Check! This has been on the to-do list for a few weeks but I was waiting until he was well to pull it out. Basically, he's almost done with 8th grade Lit & Comp but he can't enter 9th grade classes mid-year so we need to find other Lang Arts stuff to do with him. They wouldn't take my word on what weaknesses he needs to address so they had to test him so they can find previous lessons for him to redo. *insert more eye rolling here* They identified that he is a strong LA person (duh!) but needs grammar review (duh! again). He scored perfectly 8th grade for reading and vocabulary (yep, big surprise there) and they failed to identify his lack of critical thinking and analyzing skills. Maybe I'm expecting more from him than a "typical" 8th grader in this day and age but that's ok. I want him to know that I expect him to live up to his abilities. I'll be talking further with his teacher about our plan of action for when he has finished the 8th grade LA courses. At our last talk, she was going to find the minimal amount of K12 lessons that he needed to do and allow me a fair amount of latitude to work with him regarding critical thinking and analyzing in reading the classics.

*Boys to bowling. Check! Add in a bowling ball to Nico's face, crushed fingers (Jon & Nico), whacked kneecap (Chris), and a couple of ice packs to complete that part of the day.

*Pick up party supplies. Check! Of course, when we planned his party, he was big on Backyardigans. In the past few days, he has become CARS obsessed. So we have a bit of both with a dash of pirates thrown in for good measure.

*Get Christopher to video game survey in the city by 5:45p. Check! Actually got him there at 5:30p. Tried for 45min to get a hold of my "bum with no rum" brother while wondering around downtown SF looking for food with 3 kids in tow. Didn't find any place that met all my requirements easily (ie. Nico would not get us thrown out, the kids would all eat there, and the bill would not give me a heartattack). Found some gorgeous teal/purple orchids and a blue rose tho (yes, I know they are dyed, don't care, they are just beautiful) so I bought those for myself while my handsome young men held them as I pushed the double stroller all over. Got a phone call at 6:15p from Chris saying that he hadn't been needed for the survey so he'd been paid but was free to go. Picked him back up and finally heard back from Mike. He got us free food over at Mel's. Score a victory! Dinner cost me $20 for tip and the kids were able to eat without any of them getting us kicked out. Yeah! We headed over to the Metreon to Penguino for dessert (Matthew had been bugging me for months about trying it) and then home.

*Get kids into bed without killing them. Almost didn't get to check this one off. I outlined the plan for when we got to them in the car on the way home. We discussed it and it seemed like everyone was signed off on it (well, except Nico since we all know he never agrees to any plan that includes his name and sleep together). We get home, I get Nico ready for bed while the big boys bring the party stuff in. This is where the plan breaks down. Chris and Jon argue a bit about their bath while I'm nursing Nico but they finally get in the shower. Nico is not giving up the fight so easily so 20min later I'm still nursing him and hear Matthew yelling at Jon. I hiss at them loudly to quit and just get done what needs to be done so they can get to bed. More yelling ensues which piques Nico's interest and he's down and out to go find out what trouble there is to get into. GGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!! Finally get everyone settled back into what they are supposed to be doing without bloodshed (score one point for me there) and take another 30min to finally get Nico down. Go back out, apologize for losing my temper but talk to them about what went wrong.

Which leads me to now. It's 10:50p, my beautiful flowers are put into the vases and arranged nicely, Nico's asleep in his crib, and the 3 older ones are settled into my room pestering every 2min for me to put on Monk. I'm off to do the dishes and then get some sleep.

Oh, and I heard from Mark. Things went a bit wonky today (or the reason he was out there) and while the deployment and upscaling did not go as planned, it was not because of Laszlo's software so that was good. He did his job, found a few Laszlo bugs, and things seem to be going ok. I can't wait for him to be home tho.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
Buddhists are concerned not only for this life but for life after life, on and on. We count not weeks or months or even years, but lives and eons.

State of my sink: Shiny! (or it will be in a few minutes)

Nico's birthday invitation

Well, it's a long story but the Backyardigans invitations that I was supposed to fill out for his birthday got lost (and then found after I made this and got it printed) so I made these invitations and had them mailed out. We called everyone we were inviting over the weekend since the invitations wouldn't go out til today to make sure they had the details and the invitations can serve as a reminder. I still can't believe my baby is almost 2! As I was looking through pictures for the invitation, it really did seem like just yesterday he was that tiny helpless baby that I had just given birth too. I really don't know where the time has gone to. *sniff sniff*

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State of my sink: Shiny!

Just want to scream

Yep, having one of those days. I was racing around this morning trying to get ready to the grocery shopping after Nico and Jon's therapy because I can't do it tomorrow like usual because we have to be in the city at 6p and I want to get my workout this evening at Curves. The kids aren't listening at all nor are they doing what they know and have been told 1000 times to do. This week is insanely busy (more so than usual) and Mark's company at the last minute (ie. 10:30a this morning) decided that yes, he was getting on a plane at 4p to Texas. They've planned this trip 3xs and canceled all before this and even this one he was told by his boss on Friday to "be prepared to go but don't plan on going". Isn't that a really useful statement??? And this guy is supposed to be some sort of great manager? *insert lots of dripping sarcasm here* Nico is in full maniac mode too which is just making this day so much more delightful. *insert more sarcasm here*

So what do the next few days hold for me? Let's take a look:

*Tonight - Big boys have KSW. I did not do the grocery shopping this morning since Nico ended up not having therapy (some paperwork issue) and since I can't go to Curves anyway since Mark isn't here to watch Nico, at least this way I have something productive to do with him besides chasing him up and down the strip mall.

*Tuesday - Nico has gymnastics in the morning. All the boys bowl in the afternoon. From there we are going to go pick up Nico's party supplies and then Christopher has a video game survey in the city at 6p so I'll drop him off there and then try to feed and entertain the other 3 for 2hrs without losing what little sanity I have managed to retain.

* Wednesday - Jon has speech at 9:30a. Mike and Rita are coming down to watch Nico while I have the big boys at their face-to-face meeting with their teacher at 11a. Bless them for this because I was starting to hyperventilate at the thought of trying to manage that with Nico there and no other adult supervision. Of course, I still need to get ready for this by gathering up all the boys work samples, filling out PE logs, and a few other various recordkeeping tasks. I was going to do those this weekend after I took care of paying the bills but that one hour task took all day Sunday to still not get fully accomplished thanks to my darling children who are apparently completely incapable of sneezing without making sure I know about it. And no, apparently there was not another adult in the house that could answer the 5 bazillion inane questions they had. I was merely delusional that Mark was home and sitting right in front of them. Must have been an acid flashback or something. Oh, wait, I never did acid. Hmmmm....

* Wednesday night - Big boys have KSW again. No grocery shopping to do so I guess I'll be chasing Nico up and down the strip mall for an hour that night. Oh mere words cannot express the joy and rapture this thought brings.

*Thursday - Thankfully we are home most of the day, only going to game night in the evening. I'll be starting work on the cakes that day and trying to get some actual schoolwork done with Jon.

Oh, yes, and if all that weren't enough, Nico has learned how to use all of his push and ride on toys to climb over the gate leading to Mark's office and the boys room. You know, the two rooms in the house with zero babyproofing and filled with the worst choking hazards imaginable?!

Forget Calgon, I want Captain Jack and his rum to come take me away. The kids can go work for Capt Turner on the Flying Dutchman for a few days. Maybe then they'd decide that getting their work done is a good idea. *rolling eyes*

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Insights from the Dalai Lama:
Cultivating an attitude of compassion and developing a wisdom are slow processes. As you gradually internalize techniques for developing morality, concentration of mind, and wisdom, untamed states of mind become less and less frequent. You will need to practice these techniques day by day, year by year. As you transform your mind, you will transform your surroundings. Others will see the benefits of your practice of tolerance and love, and will work at bringing these practices into their own lives.

Generally speaking, it is better to keep one's own tradition. But among some people...there is an interest in Buddhism. Sometimes, because of their individual mental dispositions, they do find much in their own tradition that is effective, but they still want a spiritual practice. They feel a strong pull toward Buddhism, and then, of course, it is their right to follow Buddhism. After all, all religions belong to humanity. What's important is that once we make a decision to follow another religion we should keep in our minds that we must avoid criticizing our own previous tradition.

When I consider the lack of cooperation in human society, I can only conclude that it stems from ignorance of our interdependent nature.

Mischievous people often use religious faith for their own interests and create conflict. We have to look at the real message of all these traditions.

According to Buddhist teaching, there is a very close interdependence between the natural environment and the sentient beings living in it.



State of my sink: Shiny except for the lunch dishes from today.