Friday Night Leftovers

The week of birthdays is over. I think (hope) that my mom and Is.aac felt adequately celebrated on their special days. Both were quiet affairs with little fanfare, just the way both liked it.

The big boys have been thrilled to eat so much cake over the last week. Oh man, do they both have a sweet tooth when it comes to cake!

Now I need to switch gears and get ready for the big boys' birthday next month!

~~~

It's time to buy all the boys new shoes. I printed off a shoe size chart off the net so I can get an idea of what I'd need to get, and well...I was shocked.

Ja.son was wearing a size 9 wide (toddler) shoe. According to the chart, he really needs a 12! Oops. Jack was no better. He needs shoes 2 sizes larger than his current ones. Only Sh.awn's size was somewhat close. His current shoes were only off by a half a size.

One of three isn't too bad, now is it? Sigh.

~~~

Tomorrow, I get to go on a girls' night out with some friends. We're doing an afternoon movie and dinner. I am almost giddy with excitement!

Giddy!

~~~

We're taking pictures next Saturday! I can't wait.

~~~

Work continues to kick my butt. Grades were due this week, which is always a stressful time for me.

Plus, there are a few issues that have popped up that have left me pretty uncomfortable.

One in particular has left a bad taste in my mouth. I was asked told to "tattle" on another teacher. From a union standpoint, that is a big time no, no. From a personal standpoint, I struggle with the idea that my leader has asked me to do something knowing full well that it is highly frowned upon. It is unethical to ask me to work and collaborate with my colleagues with one breath, and then turn around and ask me to police the very people with whom I am expected to work.

I haven't done what I was asked to do yet while I work on a way to address my concerns in a way that won't backfire on me (which I suspect it will). But, I've been asked about it three times, so I'll have to do something soon.

Not fun. Not fun at all.

~~~

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Friday Night Leftovers

I hate that I keep getting lost in my head. Do you guys do that? Keep thinking the same things over and over for days until you finally come to some sort of ... conclusion (even though it doesn't exactly feel like an end) and the thoughts fade away just as quickly as they arrived?

No?

That's just me?

Alrighty then. I guess there you go. I'm a nut.

~~~

This week is a crazy one for us. My mom's birthday is Sunday. Is.aac's birthday is Wednesday. I am once again left unprepared for either birthday. Neither of them have any ideas for what they might want or do for their birthdays, which I hate. I wish they'd both just say they want to do xy or z so I don't have to try to read their minds. Grr.

~~~

iPhone 5 - yea or nay? Thoughts? I'm leaning toward nay. I think. Maybe.

~~~

The great toy purge 2012 is underway. OMG do these boys have a lot of junk. They don't need it. They don't play with most of the crap anyway. But they are fighting me at every opportunity! Listening to them would make you think that I am getting rid of their best friend.

Jeez. I've bred hoarders! lol

~~~

Sh.awn is going through this "only mommy can do anything for me" phase. It is wearing me out. Only I can take him to the potty. He'll only let me get him in bed. He doesn't want Is.aac to have anything to do with him if he can help it. Sigh.

Mostly it is at least okay, but this week has been rough. He's been whinier than normal and has been a lot more demanding of my attention. The clincher was this morning at 5 am when he started calling for me. I rushed in there, which I have to do because he has been known to need our help in the middle of the night, only to have him ask if he could get out of bed. Gah. I got him settled, got back and bed, and finally fell back asleep for him to call me again at 6. I went in and settled him. By then it was too late for me to go back to sleep before work.

Sh.awn was able to go back to sleep, though. So NOT fair!

I am not a morning person on the best of days. Get me up two hours earlier than normal, and I am not a happy camper. Just saying.

~~~

Highs and Lows of the week:

• Work issues are frustrating me. - Low.
• The CDC gave my grandmother the go ahead to travel and reduce her meds dramatically this week. (This is after they backtracked and said she couldn't stop taking them like they said she could after they failed to get a sample for retesting.) The whole thing was causing her to be quite depressed, so I hope this will lift her spirits some. - High.
• Ja.son's night terrors are back. - Low.
• The boys continue to be rock stars and all around amazing. - High.
• I found outfits for the boys to wear for pictures in two weeks. - High.
• I've started planning for their 5th birthday party! It's going to be a Matchbox Cars party. OMG. How can they be nearly 5? - High.

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Always More

It's Saturday afternoon. The boys are all in quiet time (which frankly is no longer quiet exactly and more like time). I'm sitting here enjoying the calm. Man, it's so nice to just be for a bit--to not feel like there are a million things that need to be done right! this! minute!

I long for these moments.

~~~

Earlier, I watched my neighbor herding her two boys into the car for yet another exciting weekend. I had a pang of jealousy as I watched them go.

I don't know how she does it. She's a teacher, too. It's likely she's just as tired as I am by the time the weekend comes, but she is always moving with her brood, always on the go at every opportunity.

They do so much while we are on the other end of the spectrum. Her FB page is filled with descriptions of their escapades. We don't do camping trips or street fairs or other such things. Sometimes it feels like we don't do anything at all. Our wild adventures entail trips to Target, crafts or playing in the backyard.

And while our lives aren't the same by any stretch of the word, I still worry if we are doing enough for our boys. It's harder to get my trio out and about the way she does. At least that's what I tell myself. But on days like this, I'm left wondering if I use that as an excuse to just not do. Why is it so much harder for us? Other people manage to do those things, right? My neighbor certainly does.

I get that "the grass is greener" mentality is always dangerous. I also know that the boys are far from deprived of fun and enriching experiences (hello playing in the mud today!).

Still, I just can't shake the feeling that I should be doing more (always more) to give them the best childhood I can.

I hate that feeling like I haven't done enough, that I am failing them in some way.

I can't let them down again.

Sigh.

Bye, Bye Curls

Well, his curls are gone. The last link to babydom has now been clipped away...

Sniff, sniff, sniff.

I can't tell you how sad that makes me. He's growing so fast. My heart struggles to keep up with him.

It was so hard to make that first cut.

All smiles after his cut is done.

Hamming it up for the camera.

 

 

A little glimpse of the sides.





 

Friday Night Leftovers

If you can believe it, I made it through the week without a single kid getting up the nerve to ask about my eye. lol. Here's hoping that it will be faded drastically by Monday. It does make me feel really self-conscious!

~~~

On the plus side, I had the perfect excuse to get some new sunglasses! Apparently I have a weakness for expensive things. Ahem.

~~~

Jack's hair is getting crazy, yet I can't bring myself to cut away his sweet little curls. It is time, though. So, a goal for this weekend is to get the deed over and done. :-(

~~~

I booked photo mini-session for early October. I'm hoping that we'll be able to get some nice 5 year old photos of the big boys. Maybe a family photo for a Christmas card too, if we're lucky.

Holy heck. They're going to be 5 at the end of next month. OMG.

~~~

My mom and brother have had the official negative reading on the whole TB scare. Thank goodness. They will have to go back to get a repeat skin test in November just to ensure that their last exposure didn't infect them, but I think we all know that that test will be negative also.

Not a single other person outside of my grandmother's siblings tested positive. (Again, it's thought they were exposed when my great-grandmother had TB when they were kids.) None of the siblings had positive x-rays. Such good news.

~~~

I have a student who is trying so, so, SO hard to do well this year. He was literally a hairs width away from expulsion last year, so this is a HUGE accomplishment.

Myself, two of his teachers, and the counselor took him to lunch today to recognize his hard effort to succeed this year. (Seriously, the change has been amazing.)

The boy just ate up the attention and beamed the entire time we were gone. I know he had fun and appreciated every moment.

Watching him while we were out simultaneously filled my heart while it made it ache. He comes from such a challenged home life...he should have family that takes him to lunch to celebrate his hard work. There is not even really someone who will notice what he's doing at his home.

I hope that he is able to remember the feeling from today when he is tempted to just throw it all away and give up.

~~~

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My Children Are Out to Get Me. Again. Still?

We are an accident prone bunch. With all of these boys around here, it almost can't be helped. Someone is ALWAYS getting hurt, tripping over something/someone, walking into a wall, getting a bruise...you name it, someone is doing it.

Fine. I'll confess. Usually that someone is me.

Much of the time, it is not really all that big of a problem. The injured party sigh I just shake off that moment's pain and move on (to the next one). I've even gotten pretty good at anticipating their moves before they happen, which has saved me from plenty of injuries for sure. Still, there are times when I don't quite act fast enough or they catch me off guard.

There was the time that I got a head butt in the chin that ruptured my eardrum.

There was that other time when a toy was thrown and I SWEAR it broke my foot.  There wasn't time to go to the doctor, so I can't really say if it was broken for certain, but I could hardly walk on it for what seemed like weeks..

I've had pulled back muscles and strained neck muscles from lifting and playing with the boys.

There was a broken toe when I kicked the wall rushing to quiet a screaming boy in the middle of the night.

It was bad enough at one point that I used to joke that my kids were out to get me.

There is only so much bobbing and weaving a person can do before she is ultimately caught. This weekend was my time. I fell prey to yet another injury--a chin to the eye.

Believe it or not, this thing is already 4 days old. It was
much more prominent on Monday morning.

I am now sporting a nice black eye. (this is a horrible picture of me with no makeup, but you can see the initial point of impact and the nice black under my eye)

It's been fun at work this week. The kids aren't quite sure what to think of my bruise, and they are not sure enough of me yet to ask. I've found it's pretty funny to watch them try to skirt around the topic to see if I'll volunteer any information. I haven't yet. Lol.

I almost don't want to explain it and let them think what they will. Maybe it will up my street cred some? ;-)

I don't know, but I do know telling them I got beat up by a 4 year old is not going to do it!

Weekend Leftovers

The latest on the TB drama: They sent my grandmother to the ER yesterday so she could try to produce a sputum sample. (I swear I am never going to think of coughing in the same way after this whole ordeal.) Of course, she could not. The nurse listened to her lungs, which sounded fine. They put in a call to the doctor in charge of her case. (I think this her case manager at the CDC, but I don't know for sure.)

Now, they are saying because there is no way to confirm or disprove that she has an active case of TB due to the lack of sputum (WTF?!!!?), she will be forced to stay in isolation and take the medication for a total of 8 weeks. That would theoretically make her no longer contagious if she actually did have an active case of TB. And if she didn't? Well, she would only be forced to take the minimum course of drugs.

I mean...come the fuck on already! The whole thing of not being able to confirm that she ever did have TB in the first place just pisses me off even more.

The medical world drives me insane sometimes.

Or a lot of the time.

~~~

School continues to kick my rear end, but we are definitely getting into a groove again. It has been hard on us all to get up early, I have to admit that. At least two of my boys share their mother's aversion to mornings. Ahem. The third boy is an early riser but slow, so he doesn't really help matters.

We all enjoyed the lazy days of summer, that's for sure!

~~~

Therapy has completely switched over to our new therapists. The change has been remarkable. Seriously. While the only one it really affected was Sh.awn (both of his therapists have been changed), him being happier when we go has made the world of difference in us all.

He asks to go to "school" every. single. day. now. Every day.

His OT is quirky but sharp and willing to learn (and apply!) all that he can about Sh.awn. He has listened to what Is.aac and I had to say and has a plan! for how we can move Sh.awn forward from this plateau he's been on over the last year. So exciting!

Sh.awn's new PT is pretty amazing, too. She has an amazing skill at redirecting him and making him think that what they are doing is his idea. ;)

~~~

Other Highs! and Lows:

• I cut the big boys' hair yesterday. They both did so much better than they had in the past. Maybe we are moving beyond the days of teary/hysterical hair cuts. High!
• We went to the park today. The boys had a blast. High!
• Therapy. HIGH!!!!!
• This is a three day weekend. So needed. High!
• Jack is still not walking without holding my finger. I am trying not to stress, but hell if I don't want to have to take him to an 18 month appointment and have her throw Early Intervention out at me again. We only have one month left... Low.
• He is well past the minimum word count for 18 months, though. He just doesn't talk a lot. When he does, he is spot on. High!
• Due to a change in the pay schedule, I ended up getting paid two checks this month. Boo Yah! (Am I the only one who gets paid once a month? Is this a teacher thing?) High!!!

~~~

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