it's been a hell of a year(s)

My goodness! I haven't posted since 2016...what!?!?! It feels like a lifetime of things have changed in the past 5 years. Three years ago my husband Tom became horribly ill. For a long while we didn't have answers we just watched as his body detoriated. If I'm being truly honest as a family we thought this mystery illness was going to kill him. After about a year and a half of doctor's appointments he was diagnosed with Diabetic Autonomic Neuropathy. He's on medicine now to regulate everything within reason but it's still not enough to make him a full fledged functioning member of society like he once was. As a family we've all learned to deal with it and have adjusted our lives accordingly. He was so bad at one point that it prompted my parents to buy a house out here in Missouri to be closer to us as back up. I seriously have the greatest parents ever. In this time we've also embraced our calling as a hobby breeder of pomeranians and nigerian dwarf goats and I may be biased but they're the coolest animals in my book.

the (almost) daily struggle

Oh hey there blog! I guess we should see each other more often!

I've been in a season of change the past two years...moving to a new state, dealing with other people's poor choices and the affect it has had on my life and the hard question of after 17 years together, will we even stay married? It was hard and it was awful and there were times when things were so uncertain and so, so bad that you just needed to pray and be still and let the events unfold.  But God in His sovereignty has carried us right through. I wouldn't say it's completely over but definite progress has been made, hearts are changing and that's really all you can ask for at this point. I count it all to His glory.  

As that season of life is calming down we are being thrown right back into helping Carter. I really don't even know what to call it to be honest. We're the family with the little boy who is hard to understand and violently flies off the handle at the slightest thing when you least expect it. The little boy who you never quite know what the right answer is and you wonder if you're parenting him all wrong. He's also sweet and cuddly. He loves when we have one on one time and he can share things he enjoys with me. He recently started Cub Scouts and loves it, this brings my heart joy. He can play Minecraft with the best of them and by golly he's mastered the touch mousepad on the laptop with expert precision. He read me not one but two books today without any help and I could feel my eyes welling. Often I wonder if God gave me him to change me and not the other way around. 

Today was a particularly hard day for him. When his teacher called me around 4:15 and left a voicemail that she was calling to explain "the incident" my heart immediately sank. They were trying something new today and were in the classroom for a longer period of time then normal. Carter began to get restless. His teacher asked him to go to his station when she noticed he was beginning to wander around the room. He instead went over near the faucet and began hitting a tub of something and she told him if he did it again that he would need to sit out for five minutes. Of course he did it again and he was sent to another room to wait out his five minutes and cool off with out all of the classroom distractions. Carter is cooled off, he comes back to class and immediately has a melt down because he realizes that everyone has started the new activity without him. At this point he's then sent to the Principal's office to cool off again and he didn't get to complete the new class activity with everyone else. 

After last week's shenanigan of disrespecting his teacher I thought he would have a good week this week. He had all positive comments yesterday and got 100% positive on the Class Dojo App! The schedule change today and him becoming restless is what did him in... he decided to act out and it went downhill from that point. We are working on a possible IEP reevaluation and a Behavior plan which is in the paperwork stage at this point. 

Tomorrow is another day for progress and I pray it's a good one.

Thing One, Thing Two, Thing Three

Hannah hates math, she takes after me. Otherwise, she's doing well in school.

Carter hates sight words for obvious reasons. Since he has a speech delay words aren't really his friend. I thought he was going to flap his hand off or punch me in the face when I asked him if he could pronounce "the" when I pointed to his paper with a pencil. It's amazing when reviewing sight words he flaps his hands and get SUPER aggravated but ask him to count and he whizzes through it easy-peasy. He recognized and then said the word "like" and I nearly cried. Brains are interesting things. 

Friday, Amelia's classmate had lice. That stuff terrifies me; I haven't and don't want to deal with lice. 

After work today I got a call from the early childhood special education department. I knew it would be coming now that Amelia was in the school district.  Amelia has "speech concerns" and they want to do more testing. They will do further testing on her speech but also any other delays. I was glad to get the call but now I'm having visions of Carter cropping in my head and hoping it will be different for her. 

I guess we'll see what the next 90 days will bring as they have 30 days to contact me to set up testing and 60 days to complete testing. 

I'm glad she'll be getting the help she needs and I'll try to ignore this ball of terror in my gut that there might be more issues. 

granny

It's weird how simple things can trigger a memory. My Granny was a cleaner. She always kept her house clean-no clutter. But the floors.


THE. FLOORS.


She would walk across any floor, didn't matter where she was, if something was in the floor she'd bend down and pick it up. Every. Time. Even when she was so far off her rocker and didn't want to get out of bed because she was having a bad day with her health. She'd wander out to the living room see something in the floor and pick it up. We always just stared at her like really Granny, you feel awful, leave the piece of paper in the floor. But she wouldn't. She always kept on with that paper. I used to roll my eyes and think she was nuts when I was younger. Now I look back and appreciate her tenacity.


I was sitting on the couch last night looking at my floors. They're disgusting. The dog chewed paper, wood, plastic...you name it, he's chewed it. Carter chews paper and between the two chewers the floor shows their evidence. Gross.


I started to think about Granny and how she'd roll over in her grave if she knew my floors had so much debris.


I had the kids clean the big chunks of chew debris and toys and clothes and what ever else seems to get drug out but is no ones fault because we have elves in our house that make a mess and it's never the kids fault. Is this just at my house? I vacuumed. The vacuum broke because if you want your vacuum to die send it to my house. I took it all apart and put it back together and it worked. I continued my task and my floors look awesomely clean now.


I'm thankful for Granny and her OCD-floor-debris ways. She taught me to keep on keeping on.

you did what?

Amelia's had a fever off and on all weekend beginning Friday evening. Saturday she was starting to feel a bit better late in the evening after some tylenol and began moving around the house more and playing with her sister. Phew.

Hannah and I sit down to watch Treehouse Masters and I notice the dog is not around. I thought oh he must be laying under my bed upstairs. Time passes and I still think gosh he hasn't been around lately so I call him and start whistling because surely by now he needs to go out and relieve himself. Silence. I call him and whistle louder. Silence. I send the girls upstairs to see if he's hiding under the bed. No dog.

I can feel the panic creeping in. Where could he be? I whistle and call him again. Nothing, no jingling tag, no scratching at a closed door nothing.

I look at Amelia, "you didn't let the dog out earlier did you?" As I remember telling her a few hours ago to keep the sliding glass door shut so none of the animals escape. She hangs her head low and in the saddest voice ever.  "Mommy, I'm sorry I let Baxter out earlier. He ran away from me when I let him out." Hannah and I look at each other. Panic has sat in.

I yank open the back door and begin feverishly yelling his name and whistling. Silence. I don't see him anywhere. I run upstairs calling the dog, whistling, checking every room. He doesn't come.

Finally, I grab my keys and head outside. Calling him and calling him. I get in my car roll down the windows drive all through the neighborhood. I don't see him, I don't hear him. He's gone. I'm praying that I find the dog. Thinking the worst. He is a puppy and if someone found him they would probably keep him because let's face facts; people are dishonest especially when they think they won't get caught. I start wondering why no one has called since he has a collar? Will they take him and have his microchipped scanned? Is he dead in a ditch? Why isn't he coming when I call? Why would Amelia let him out and then not tell anyone? Why wouldn't he scratch and bark at the back door? Why? Why? Why?

I finally get back to our street and the dog is no where to be seen. I see Tom with a flashlight walking towards me. We both say almost in unison, "He's gone and never coming back." "Someone has him."

We all pile back in the house; Hannah sobbing.

I check under the bed to make sure one last time that our precious boy is really gone. Baxter is staring me in the face. I call his name and I can see his legs move. I call him more and he starts to army crawl out from the middle of the bed. By now all the kids are crowded around as we wait for the dog to appear. We give him lots of belly rubs and kisses and are so relieved that he was under the bed the entire time.

Amelia and I had a long talk about lying, telling the truth and what to do if the dog does get out and you need help to get him back. Oh and her fever came back. I'll need another weekend to recover from this stressful weekend.

school days

Praise God, the kids are doing marvelous in school.

It's always a little nerve wracking when you have one going into Kindergarten where they're expected to act more like big kids and less and less like little preschoolers. Then add one kid starting preschool where she needs to act like a preschooler and listen/obey and *gasp* take daily naps. I'm glad to report everyone seems to be buzzing right along and falling in to step.

Hannah is making friends and has become the student council representative for her class. Yesterday, she was on the morning announcements at school. Carter was so excited to hear his sister on the speaker. I'm super proud of her!

Carter has surprised me the most with his overall change in attitude towards school. He now comes home everyday and shows me his folder. Then we work on any homework which he gladly does. No fighting like last year. He just overall seems more responsible and I am loving it!

He has a little work to be done still with his letters and the way in which he holds his scissors. He's been letting me help him and that has delighted my heart.

Amelia Jane...she's a little spit fire. She "tells stories" or as I like to call it lies. Not just innocent make believe things but weird things like "My teacher gave me a shot today." "Right there" and points to her arm. My favorite "story" was before school started. "When I start school, I'm going to go over to the door, turn the door knob and sneak out. Then they're going to have to look for me and I'm going to be sneaky." Like, really? Where does she come up with this?

My favorite Carter story of the week was just yesterday. We're walking through our garage and he says: "Oh Mommy, I have something to tell you as you know." "The first thing I have to tell you is my two girlfriends; they got in trouble because my one girlfriend hit my other girlfriend and that's bad." "The second thing I have to tell you is that I didn't poop my pants." "But, I kept my underwear in my book bag just in case."

He currently adds "as you know" to nearly every sentence. He also was sick Friday and Saturday hence his poop his pants comment. 

Prescription Savings Cards, what?!?!

Have you all heard of such a thing?

I never had.

Tom's diabetes and neuropathy pain prescription co-pays have crippled our budget. I went along with him to the doctor this last go-round to ask if there was anything they could prescribe that would be less costly. The doctor looks at me like I have five heads and says aren't you using the card? Um, I'm using my insurance card? He says no, the savings card that will help pay all or most of your co-pay. What??? No I'm not and I'll take ten please ;) So suffice it to say we are now going to be able to afford medicine once again. Hallelujah!

I never thought we'd be those folks you see on commercials talking about how they can't afford medicine and we totally became them. I don't know how they expect people to fork over $500-$600 a month (or more) on just prescriptions.

If you too are using prescriptions that cost an arm and a leg try to get a savings card. They will be offered by the manufacturer of the medicine you're using. Good luck and hope this helps others!