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