Two days a counting people. Or at least that was the update from the office Count Downers to Santa's arrival this morning. This has really been a fun year for us. The kids are at such a great age for this whole Santa thing (not being Christian the religious aspect of x-mas doesn't even come into play for me, lol!). And I can't even begin to explain how effective threats of landing on the naughty list have been (for the kids, too! ;) If you've never seen it before, consider buying the Elf on the Shelf and revel in this new way to blackmail your kids into behaving!
Besides baking the shit out of my kitchen, my one nod to Christmas tradition is to force my kids to watch Christmas movies every night in the lead up to Christmas Day. A is particularly enamored of the Grinch (cartoon, not live action) and begs for it nightly. J prefers Rudolph or Alvin and the Chipmunks (Hubs bought the Christmas DVD set, how 80s are we??!!). C likes to switch it up, but last night was my night to pick. So we watched my all time favorite Christmas movie, the Nightmare Before Christmas.
Hubs is back from LA. He got in late last night, so I haven't had too much time to talk with him since I had to work today (although I did come in late since I have to close tonight). But I don't have to talk to him to know that while he was out drinking and gallivanting with the drummer from Fleetwood Mac (really!), I was having equally exciting experiences like this one:
C leans over and farts on A's head.
Both laugh hysterically.
J: *indignantly* Ew! That is gross! Mom! Make her stop fawting!
C farts again.
A laughs so hard he knocks himself over.
J: *in a whiny yell* Stop fawwwwwwwwwting, C!!! *suddenly burps, looks surprised, then all three laugh hysterically*
Or,
Picture this: you're calmly shopping in CVS. Your children are distracted by a colorful makeup display, so you are free to quickly browse the aisle when suddenly your youngest son starts screaming bloody murder, screaming like someone has gravely injured him. You rush over to see what the matter is and notice a bright red substance on his mouth. You worry that it is blood, that he may have bitten his lip, when you suddenly notice the bottle in his hand.
He has eaten nail polish.
I repeat, your son has opened up a bottle of nail polish and decided to eat it and now has a tell tale nail polish mustache that incites all people within the relative vicinity to stare at you like you are the worst mother ever
...also, he is still screaming and has drooled nail polish onto your coat.
...He takes after his father.
In retaliation to life in general, I have decided to start following this creed. I hope you will all follow suit and not fall into the trap, as I did, of not giving a cunt suck.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
When It Rains...
So after Monday's insurance disappointment, I received in the mail yesterday a couple of medical bills from August! Apparently BC/BS just paid out their end. Awesome. To top that off, we made an emergency trip to the doctor for A yesterday only to find out that he has a bad staph infection on his tummy. That has to be the worst thing I've ever seen one of my kids go through (and that includes the staples in the head and the time C got stitches in her mouth). I had to hold him down while the doctor drained the damn thing. A doesn't have too many words, but he was in full command of "no, owwie, and 'op (stop)." And that look. The look of," Mommy, why are you doing this to me?" It sucked.
In other news, da Hubs leaves tomorrow for LA for about 5 days, so it will just be me and the kiddos for a while. Hubs gets back next Tuesday, he's home just over X-mas, and then off to Texas to visit the s-kids for a week. He gets back on the 1st and then a few days later I head out the door for Germany.
Also, I think I forgot to blog about C's first concert. C plays the flute in her school band (she begged me to do it last year, so I spent about $400 on that friggin flute and I'll be damned if she gives it up before she graduates from high school!). C was very nervous and attempted many ploys to avoid having to go through with it. But I have to say that on the day of, she was very excited and proud. The band was about as good as one might expect a group of 4th and 5th graders to be (lol). It was a wee bit painful. The concert only took about 20min, and when it was over I complemented her on how well she played and how difficult some of the songs were C replied, "Yeah, I know. I didn't even know half the notes on the last one, so I just made them up!" Ha!
In other news, da Hubs leaves tomorrow for LA for about 5 days, so it will just be me and the kiddos for a while. Hubs gets back next Tuesday, he's home just over X-mas, and then off to Texas to visit the s-kids for a week. He gets back on the 1st and then a few days later I head out the door for Germany.
Also, I think I forgot to blog about C's first concert. C plays the flute in her school band (she begged me to do it last year, so I spent about $400 on that friggin flute and I'll be damned if she gives it up before she graduates from high school!). C was very nervous and attempted many ploys to avoid having to go through with it. But I have to say that on the day of, she was very excited and proud. The band was about as good as one might expect a group of 4th and 5th graders to be (lol). It was a wee bit painful. The concert only took about 20min, and when it was over I complemented her on how well she played and how difficult some of the songs were C replied, "Yeah, I know. I didn't even know half the notes on the last one, so I just made them up!" Ha!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Still Here
Well, work has been as crazy as I had predicted. Last week I left the house every day by 6am and didn't get home before 6pm even once :( To top it off, last weekend was my Reserve weekend, so I was into my 12th day of straight work with no break. Not fun! In slightly better work news, although I will continue to be so busy I hardly have time to breathe, I am going to be heading to Germany for a week in support of this project. I had hoped to be able to take a day or two additional so I could swing up to Amsterdam to see my lil' sis and fiance, but I think I'm going to have to bank on them possibly having time to come down to Frankfort to see me :(
In other news, we had an update meeting with Early Steps today to talk about A's transition from the ES program (0-3 years) to FDLRS, which is FL's program from kids aged 3 and up. This was just a preliminary meeting to get the paperwork started, but I did find out that even if he does qualify for services (which I have no doubt he will) there will be a three month gap from the time he turns 3 in June until school starts in late August where he won't be covered by ES or FDLRS. My ES coordinator is going to try and help us secure some funding from other sources, but I have a bad feeling I make too much money to qualify for any special funding. So there's an extra 3mos of $$ we're going to have to sock away for A's therapy *le sigh* The good news is that FDLRS covers the cost of pre-K and transportation (yes, he will ride the short bus, lol!), so once school starts we won't have to worry as much. A is due for his 6-month eval in Jan, so we'll get a formal assessment then of how he's progressed since he started therapy in July.
In my personal opinion A has made huge strides, but he still has a long, long way to go. He started out with no words and is now up to about 20 or so recognizable words, even more if you count sounds (e.g. he says doo doo for train, ruff ruff for dog, mao mao for cat, teet teet for bird). He still has a very hard time imitating sounds. If I tell him something is yellow, he repeats ee-ooo. He also uses sounds that are easier for him to say to describe lots of things. He calls trains doodoos (he can't say choo choo) but he also calls Scooby Doo, doo doo. He calls everything a truck (guck because he can't say the tr sound) whether it's a car, truck, bus or train. On the positive side, he is definitely trying to use language and those of us that are around him a lot can understand what he needs based upon a combination of his sounds and other cues. For example, if he's standing in the kitchen or pointing at the fridge and says, "Anna mek," I know he's saying, "I want milk." He also uses some signs, although those are pretty infrequent. I plan to start using the Baby Signing Time DVDs again since he seems more open to them now.
Our GF diet has kind of fallen to the wayside recently. It was very hard to get Tim's Grandma (who watches him during the day) to comprehend the idea of the GF diet, and her mistakes made it kind of for naught. No matter how hard I try to keep him on the diet, if she accidentally gives him a cookie or some other "no" food, all that time, effort and money (going GF is expensive!) goes out the window and you start the timeline all over again. Our care plan may change starting next year, so we'll try again when we have a little more control!
In other news, we had an update meeting with Early Steps today to talk about A's transition from the ES program (0-3 years) to FDLRS, which is FL's program from kids aged 3 and up. This was just a preliminary meeting to get the paperwork started, but I did find out that even if he does qualify for services (which I have no doubt he will) there will be a three month gap from the time he turns 3 in June until school starts in late August where he won't be covered by ES or FDLRS. My ES coordinator is going to try and help us secure some funding from other sources, but I have a bad feeling I make too much money to qualify for any special funding. So there's an extra 3mos of $$ we're going to have to sock away for A's therapy *le sigh* The good news is that FDLRS covers the cost of pre-K and transportation (yes, he will ride the short bus, lol!), so once school starts we won't have to worry as much. A is due for his 6-month eval in Jan, so we'll get a formal assessment then of how he's progressed since he started therapy in July.
In my personal opinion A has made huge strides, but he still has a long, long way to go. He started out with no words and is now up to about 20 or so recognizable words, even more if you count sounds (e.g. he says doo doo for train, ruff ruff for dog, mao mao for cat, teet teet for bird). He still has a very hard time imitating sounds. If I tell him something is yellow, he repeats ee-ooo. He also uses sounds that are easier for him to say to describe lots of things. He calls trains doodoos (he can't say choo choo) but he also calls Scooby Doo, doo doo. He calls everything a truck (guck because he can't say the tr sound) whether it's a car, truck, bus or train. On the positive side, he is definitely trying to use language and those of us that are around him a lot can understand what he needs based upon a combination of his sounds and other cues. For example, if he's standing in the kitchen or pointing at the fridge and says, "Anna mek," I know he's saying, "I want milk." He also uses some signs, although those are pretty infrequent. I plan to start using the Baby Signing Time DVDs again since he seems more open to them now.
Our GF diet has kind of fallen to the wayside recently. It was very hard to get Tim's Grandma (who watches him during the day) to comprehend the idea of the GF diet, and her mistakes made it kind of for naught. No matter how hard I try to keep him on the diet, if she accidentally gives him a cookie or some other "no" food, all that time, effort and money (going GF is expensive!) goes out the window and you start the timeline all over again. Our care plan may change starting next year, so we'll try again when we have a little more control!
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