May 16th, 2008

We took the kids to the park tonight. We had a great time. It’s getting much easier to take them because we don’t have to protect Nevaeh as much now that she’s getting bigger. She’s very cautious and even if she did fall at this point it probably wouldn’t hurt her as much as it did when she was smaller. She was adorable at the park. She kept yelling “Mommy! Daddy! I see you!”. A little girl who was playing at the park left with her parents and Nevaeh kept yelling “Come Back!!!” It was so cute. She started to get pretty brave and she kept going down the slide by herself. She was being a chicken at first but eventually she was running around with all the other kids

Adrian was good too, he tried to wander off a couple of times but overall he stayed on the equipment and behaved himself. He said hi to a little girl who was playing there but I think I heard her tell her mom that Adrian hurt her one time. I didn’t see what happened so I’m not sure what the deal was with that.

Afterwards we realized it was almost 7:00 and we hadn’t had dinner yet so we ended up going to Burger King and eating. They were pretty good there. Adrian stimmed a couple of times and I saw a lady staring when we got up to leave…oh well.

I’m starting to really swell up and feel a bit crappy now. I’m looking forward to getting this baby out. That’s how you know you’re getting to the end. My feet had deep red marks in them because my shoes are fitting tighter and tighter. I’m wondering how my blood pressure is going to look on Monday when I go to the doctor. I have a feeling it’s going to be high. Hopefully not though, I don’ t have time to be on bedrest or anything so I hope it’s ok.

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What am I supposed to do with this kid?

May 15th, 2008

I am literally ready to rip my hair right out of my head. We get a call today with Sanura screaming like a possessed demon in the background. She was throwing a fit because apparently she didn’t want to work in her reading group today and she threw a book or something. Then the teacher told her to go to the office and she refused to go so they took her kicking and screaming down to the office.

Come to find out, when I talked to the principal….Sanura got a referral yesterday that I had no idea about! She never brought it home and I had no idea. Apparently yesterday she yelled at some kids, when I asked her why she said “because they were yelling at her first for no reason” and I said “what were they saying?” and she said “I don’t remember”

I’m ready to just scream, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I feel so inadequate. We are meeting with teachers and principals and things sometime next week.

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Loving the Nice Weather

May 12th, 2008

I’ve been really enjoying taking the kids outside lately. It’s been so nice out. I usually have the kids doing sidewalk chalk and bubbles and I also saved a section of my flower bed for them so they can dig and play in the dirt.

I’m debating getting Nevaeh a sandbox for her birthday (May 25th) I haven’t decided for sure yet though.

I’ve been doing a whole bunch of yard work. It’s so fulfilling to see the yard starting to look nice. I have a long way to go though! We have a huge amount of leaves in the yard, I swear all of the neighbors leaves blow right up against our fence. I raked a whole bunch today but I have a bunch more to do before I can mow. I did however get to mow the front that you can see from the road so it doesn’t look too trashy but the back and an area of the front that you can’t see from the road is getting pretty long now.

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My Mother’s Day

May 12th, 2008

I had the best Mother’s Day ever! First I got to sleep in which is always nice but with how thoughtful and sweet my hubby is I knew that wouldn’t be all. So once I got up Glen had the kids all dressed and for once I had no diaper to change, woo hoo! Then they presented me with gifts. This year I’ve been really into my garden so Glen had the kids do these cool stones for my garden that had their handprints on them and Glen helped the kids paint and decorate them. He must have had to put a lot of thought and planning into it because I had no idea!

After that Glen went to sleep because he’s been working a lot so I vegged out and watched some movies and spent some time with the kids. Once he got up we went to dinner. It was so nice. Then we went to walmart and Glen got me a shepards hook and hanging plant for my garden. Once we got home he and the kids straightened up the house for me and he gave them all baths and ready for bed.

It was a great day. It’s nice to feel special on days like Mothers Day and my birthday and Glen never lets me down. And since I know Glen will read this I have a little message for him:

Thank you again for a great day. I can’t wait until father’s day so I can pay back the favor of all the sweet things you did for me on my special day. XOXO

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For Tomorrow!

May 10th, 2008

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Today and Random Things

May 9th, 2008

Today around 5pm I decided I needed to get out of the house with the kids. They were just tearing things up, being destructive, and frustrating me. I figured I’d be better off with them strapped into their car seats than reaking havoc on my house that I spent half the day cleaning.

So I got everyone in, not sure where I was going to go. I drove around a little bit and then decided I would run to walmart and pick up Glen some pop. So I went in and grabbed one of the carts that Nevaeh and Adrian could both sit in. I wandered around a little bit and meanwhile Adrian was getting more and more excited. He started laughing really hard for no reason and yelling at the top of his lungs. I could feel stares burning a hole in me but I just kept my head up and walked straight ahead. Every once in a while I would tell him shhh but that doesn’t work.

I have to admit it was a little bit embarassing, I mean…he’s getting bigger now and it’s just not acceptable for him to be yelling. I’m sure I’ll grow thicker skin but right now the stares and the fact that I know I’m being judged isn’t the easiest to deal with. I find myself not going to the park if there are other kids there or going through the drive throughs rather than braving the resteraunts.

After the fiasco at Walmart I decided maybe Adrian had some extra energy to burn off so I headed to the park with the kids. I haven’t wanted to take them because I can’t trust Adrian not to run off but there is one park nearby that the roads are far off from the play equipment so I went to that one. When I pulled up I saw an older man pushing a stroller through the park, I thought “hmm, grandpa must be taking his grand child to the park” Until I realized that he was a homeless guy using that stroller to carry his belongings. He was digging through the park trash cans. No problem for me but it did make me second guess getting out by myself with all the kids but I grabbed up my cell phone, shoved it in my pocket and started unloading kids. He never said anything to us and I figured he wouldn’t but you can’t be too careful. I was coming up with a plan, just in case there was a problem. So as you can see I need to keep my judgements in check and I think I do more so than other people, at least now I do since having my little Adrian. He has taught me so much.

Glen’s grandma sent me this and I thought it was pretty cool:

Another thing I’ve been pondering is the Duggar family. If you aren’t familiar, they are the family who have 17 children and announced today on the Today Show that they are pregnant with #18. They are an awesome family in my humble opinion. They are christian, are not on welfare/assistance of any kind, all of their kids seem extremely well behaved, and they seem to all be happy. People love to judge them and it makes me sick. People just can’t stand people who have different views than them. I’m not saying I would want that many children but they are raising those kids a lot better than families who have one or two kids. They are making some humans who are going to make wonderful contributions to society some day. Just my two cents

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Family Update

May 6th, 2008

Starting off with Glen and I, we are doing really good. I am almost 34 weeks pregnant now and really closing in on the end. I am really anxious and excited. I don’t have too much left to do at this point to get ready for him and I’m feeling pretty good. I am having what I think are heartburn issues but it seems too severe to be heartburn but I bought some heartburn meds (that the doctor recommended) so we’ll see if that helps me.

Sanura had play therapy today, things have been going really well. She hasn’t gotten any referrals or complaints so I’m just praying that keeps up. Glen took her minature black light golfing on Sunday. They had a really good time. Sanura also won a little spike ball from the skill crane and she was way excited about that. Another thing that’s always exciting to her is loosing teeth and she had another one fall out last week.

Adrian is doing ok. He had a physical today and those always interesting to say the least. The first nurse was going to check his vision and started to hang up a chart with pictures on it and he was supposed to name the pictures. I said “ummm, I don’ t think he’s going to do this, he has autism and doesn’t really talk.” so that’s the first sort of awkward moment. Then the second nurse came in

Nurse: Does he ride a bike or trike yet?

Me: No

Nurse: Can he count?

Me: Yes

Nurse: How high?

Me: 15 I think

Nurse: Does he know his colors?

Me: Yes, he can sign all of them and says some of them.

Nurse: Does he have a problem with his hearing?

Me: No, he has autism

Nurse: Does that affect his hearing?

Me: No……

Yes a bit strange…she’s a sweet lady and everything and was really curious about autism and began asking me questions and I was happy to answer. I just hate these physicals where everyone (except the doctor) seems to have no idea that he has autism or what it is. I love the doctor though, she’s awesome. Adrian got really spoiled while he was there, he ended up leaving there with a Spiderman sticker, a care bear, and a pooh bear board book. He also had to get some shots which I HATE but felt that we had to do it. All in all it wasn’t so bad.

Nevaeh is doing good. We’ve been playing outside a lot and she seems like she is always filthy dirty but still she couldn’t be more adorable.  So that’s about it.

Oh, I almost forgot…the clean up challenge is going really well. Adrian has done awesome picking up toys, Its me who needs to work on making sure it gets done nightly.

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Day One Of Adrian’s Clean Up Challenge

May 1st, 2008

He did really good! I just told him he needed to help clean up and he ignored me at first. I did hand over hand with one stuffed animal and one bin that needed to be put back and he started filling up the bins with toys! This may be easier than I thought it was going to be or he was just feeling cooperative tonight!

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The Good and the Bad of Today

April 30th, 2008

I’ll start with the good things. This morning after Adrian got ready for school I took him outside to wait for the bus and we sat on the step together. He put both of his little hands on my cheeks and looked me right in the eye and said “wheres da bus (ch)?” The “ch” is a sound that Adrian is adding to almost all of his words. He either adds the “ch” soud or an “s” sound. So that’s a whole sentence!!!! I was thrilled with that, and then he saw a little bike that we got and he said “bike” and he got down and sat on it. It was pretty cute.

Now the bad…we went to dinner tonight and when Glen got him out of the car he just shot off away from Glen in the parking lot. He didn’t run very far but I felt like I was going to faint. Little incidents like that remind us that we cannot trust him at all he has to be on very tight reigns. It’s a little upsetting because I can’t even take the kids to the park by myself right now. If Adrian got away from me I couldn’t catch him very easily with how far along I am.

As far as our clean up challenge update, I was bad and didn’t do it today. Shame on me, I know! We didn’t get home from dinner (and I had to pick up milk) until 8:30 and that was their bedtime so I got them straight into bed when we got home. Starting tomorrow on that though, really!

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Beginning a New Challenge

April 29th, 2008

I am going to begin teaching Adrian to help clean up toys. It’s one of those things I just haven’t put the effort into and I’ve made excuses for him (and maybe myself because it was just easier to do it myself or tell Sanura to do it) Well today was very frustrating with him and in the long run I know things will be better for me and him if I teach him to do it. Plus it’s not fair for Sanura to have to clean up after all the kids when both Adrian and Nevaeh are capable of helping her with the toy clean up.

So my current plan is to take it sort of slow. I’m going to go in there every night before story time/ bed time and tell all the kids that it’s clean up time. I have a little clean up song that I’ve sung with the kids before so I’ll probably do that also, I know they do that at Adrian’s school too so that will be good for consistency.  Usually when I’ve tried this Adrian will just ignore me and keep doing whatever he feels like. I will probably have to use hand over hand, that is taking your child’s hand and physically put their hand on the toy and put it where it’s supposed to go. I will probably start with only 3 to 5 toys per night and slowly increase the amount that he’s expected to do.

I don’t want to turn cleaning up into a negative thing for him so I want to ease him into it. I’ll probably keep tabs on my blog of the amount of toys and keeping track will help me stay accountable to making him do it daily. Glen and I have talked and have a feeling that this is going to be a pretty big challenge. One thing at a time though and we can get a lot accomplished.  Our goal is to have him helping Sanura clean up on his own, with us just telling him that it’s time to clean up, before the new baby comes in June so the heat is on!

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