2-3-2021 Journal Entry, aka Therapists and Doctors

I went to therapy.  I cried before, during, and after therapy.

I had my telehealth doctor's appointment and he classified me as "severe major depressive disorder" with a side of new PTSD from Scott's death.  He said it may take a couple of weeks to get the insurance company its prior authorization, but he'd give me something similar in the meanwhile.  He said I've proven to be difficult to treat since I have been ineffective with 4 classes of meds.

Billy went out with his "person" tonight for the first time.  They couldn't go to church (waiting on background check), so they got to know each other going to pet shops and GameStop.  Next week, he'll start going to youth group.

Express Lane 7/4/17

Billy called wanting to come home. Actually had decent communication with ex. Had the house to myself for a while!

Express Lane 7/2/17

Sent Billy to his dad's for two weeks. Hunted and hid rocks for our "rock group." Kimberly's 15th birthday!

Express Lane 6/29/17

Moms are here for Kimberly's birthday. Quote du jour when Billy punched Arrena for messing with him: "it was acid reflex!"

Express Lane Hump Day

Ex wanted to send a stranger to pick up Billy. "No" set off name-calling, threats, Arrena's texting fingers of fury.

Express Lane Wednesday

My 12-year-old son found my hidden donuts: "Somebody's been stress eating in here." pic.twitter.com/x2zZrweIUV

— Robin Davidson (@Robin_Tweets_) June 22, 2017

Express Lane

I know I haven't posted in a long time and my posts have been few and far between.  Maybe one of these days I'll have gads of spare time and will update you on my life.  I have no idea who even keeps up with my blog besides my husband, my mom, and my mother-in-law.  Hey, y'all.  Anyway, I had the idea to do a new blog series that hopefully I can keep up with (fingers crossed).  I'm calling it "express blog".  You know how you go to the grocery store and get in the express lane that says "20 items or less"?  This is the premise I am going to use.  My express blog posts will be 20 words or less.  Maybe I should start a Twitter account, though I swore I never would.  I will likely throw in a few longer posts if the muses demand.  Maybe this concept will help me get in a routine of writing daily.

For example, today's express blog might go something like this:

I couldn't handle the crazy meltdown, so Billy went to respite at the residential treatment center.

Maybe in the future they will be funny or pithy, but not quite feeling it today.

My son can melt my heart even when he's causing heartache

Today my son was supposed to meet a new psychiatrist.  That turned out not to be a problem getting him out of school due to his being suspended yesterday for punching his teacher in his junk.  Yeah.

So, we had a psychiatrist we liked who had him pretty stable and had seen him through two hospitalizations.  But, my ex, who barely shows up and has no clue what's going on, despite being provided all the testing and documents, decided to throw a wrench in everything.  We've been dealing with custody issues in court for a year and a half.  The only straw he could grasp at was to claim I'm overmedicating the children.  He never got a second opinion, as he told the court he needed time for or went to any doctors' appointments or even spoke to any doctors... until he called Billy's psychiatrist and told her he disagreed with Billy's ADHD meds (that he's been on for 4 years) and that he had 50/50 decision making power and he wasn't going to give him the meds anymore.  The doctor understood the situation and sided with me, but felt she couldn't legally prescribe the meds anymore and furthermore didn't want to be in the middle of this argument and quit being his doctor.

I'd hoped the court stuff would be done in December, so our primary care physician gave us three months' worth of meds and I'd hoped we'd get it settled and could go right back to her.  But, court proceedings were continued and i tried to go back to our PCP but was seen by another doctor in the practice who lectured me about it being my responsibility to find a psychiatrist and only giving us a month's worth of meds.  I'd found some leftover meds of a lower dosage from when we upped the milligrams a few months back to get him by in the meanwhile.  Even 10 milligrams difference, we can tell there's a huge change.  Children's Mercy only takes patients who also have a physical ailment.  So, i set up this appointment with a doctor that had been recommended to us by our insurance liaison.

There was something about the guy i didn't like, but it boiled down to him saying he couldn't take Billy as a patient unless we had sole custody or Billy's dad not only signed authorization saying he was ok with the treatment but actually came to the appointments and participated in the treatment.

Our lawyer had his dad in for a deposition a couple of weeks ago and he denied ever telling the psychiatrist those things and said he believed the only thing wrong with Billy is ADHD, though ironically, that's the meds he didn't like.  He admitted he's never gotten a second opinion, gone to any of their appointments, or contacted any of their doctors.  Yet, he's ruined all of Billy's chances to get treatment.  He claims to be concerned about the meds, but this has left Billy with no one to monitor his meds since August.

Billy has 9 more of the low dose ADHD meds.  Even if the case were wrapped up tomorrow, we couldn't get in to a doctor that fast. His other meds, antidepressants and antipsychotics that keep him from self-harm and violence against others will run out, respectively, in March, April, and May.  If nothing happens to intervene, his behavior at school will deteriorate as will his grades, he'll likely start threatening or attempting suicide again, or start more violence towards others and we'll end up with another hospitalization.

Needless to say, I've been angry and upset ever since.  Fury at first, then sorrow.

Billy brought me a coloring page of the Incredible Hulk and had written on it, "you're as strong as Hulk.  Don't be sad."  On the back, he'd drawn a diagram where no pills equaled unhappy face and unhappy face equaled both of us.  Then he wrote off to the side "we don't want that, we want this."  Below, his diagram showed unhappy face does not equal us and smiley face equals strong.  He also brought me a drawing of "supermom."  He told me that even without meds, he'd try to be good, even though it's hard (though no amount of mind over matter can power through bipolar disorder).  He hugged me and it made me cry that he was trying to cheer me up when I'm fighting for him.

Waiting

(written 10/28/13)

Need. To. Rant.

Waiting.  I'm tired of waiting.  If it was just for me, that'd be one thing, but this is my son, who has special needs who doesn't understand waiting, nor does he have the ability to wait.

Waiting.  Since he was an infant, I have been struggling with his tantrums, his oddities, his differences.  Now he's 8.  Eight years of waiting and trying to mold him into a good young man, a contributing member to society.

Waiting.  For almost four years now, we have been waiting for doctors and counselors to help us with him.  To head off major problems like suspensions, expulsions, injuring others, and self-injurious behavior.  Four years and all of those major things have happened anyway.

Waiting.  Tired of waiting for doctors and counselors to stop acting self-important and start helping my son, we started seeking evaluations and were put on months-long waiting lists.

Waiting.  Waiting for the school to recognize the problem that we had seen all along.  Day after day of destructive and violent behavior and time spent in the recovery room with the behavior interventionist or being sent home because they can't handle him, yet refusing to assess him for special education, even with a doctor's recommendation, and calling his behavior "average" when they are forced to assess him.

Waiting.  Waiting for evaluation reports to be sent and for assessment testing to be completed.  Waiting for the verdict of what they are going to do with him.

Waiting.  Answers to simple questions that no one wants to respond to.  Listening to people back-pedal and explain and skirt around the issue and refuse to acknowledge me.

Waiting.  The state's finding that the school was not in compliance with state law after a two-month investigation, which brought out lies and covering up.  Findings that will not likely help anything since what's done is done and there's not much they can make up for.

Waiting.  Two months before appointments were available with a new psychiatrist and a new therapist, who will hopefully be able to help more than the others did.

And meanwhile, in the midst of all of this by people who decided at some point in their life that they wanted to help children yet have lost the focus somewhere along the way, there's a little boy who is lost.  A little boy who doesn't understand why he is the way he is.  A little boy that feels unliked by his peers and different from the other kids, made abundantly clear by isolation inflicted by the school.  A little boy that is so anxious about making mistakes that he won't even try.  A little boy who is so frustrated with it all that he has asked numerous times to be checked into a hospital so someone can fix him.  A little boy who is so depressed that he often remarks that he wishes he was dead or that he wants to kill himself and a couple of times has been prevented from grabbing knives to do harm to himself.  A little boy that thinks he is all alone and no one else understands or has struggled like he does.  A little boy who has to try five times as hard as the next kid to pay attention and learn and comes home exhausted from the effort.  A little boy who learns differently and processes slower but is expected to keep up with the status quo.  A little boy who can't even enjoy birthday parties or theme parks or entertainment centers because it's too overwhelming for him.  A little boy with a hyperactivity problem that is expected to sit still all day and had his recess taken away long-term last year.

Bureaucracy and covering your own rear end.  That's what it's all about.  Not about this little boy that has been on crisis mode.  When did the school become this way?  And it's not just him.  I hear stories from other parents who have been fighting the same battle.  There exists a parent advocacy group just because this happens so often.  And even aside from special education, the stories I hear from my daughters about what goes on at school, the lack of teaching, the kids in crisis that no one seems to care about.  Little girls who are not little girls anymore, but exposed to sexuality and violence and drugs as young as the fourth grade.  Having to explain to your daughter what a vibrator is because her 9-10 year old classmate said she was using one and being afraid to allow what used to be an innocent slumber party because fifth grade classmates decided to experiment with homosexuality after their parents went to sleep.  Girls that are so confused that they are cutting themselves and contemplating suicide and experimenting sexually and getting pregnant as early as age 13.  In schools where rapes can occur during school hours.  Teachers yell at them to "shut the f*** up!" or laugh along with other students at special needs' kids and don't defend students against peer bullying, despite all the attention called to the bullying problem in this country.  I know there are good teachers out there (one example) and we have known some excellent ones, but they are outnumbered and fighting an uphill battle.  And in most cases, the problem is lack of parenting.  It just makes me sick.  I know we can't shut ourselves off to the world, even if it feels like we should.  But, how long, Lord?  How far will it go before you return?  I wonder if we are better or worse than it was in the days of Noah when God was sorry He made man and destroyed all but one righteous family.

We are waiting, Lord, for your return.  Anxiously.

A Broken-Hearted, Weary Mama

I'm staring at this blank screen with all these thoughts and feelings and yet I am thinking of a word that is seldom used to describe me...speechless.  I am usually capable of spilling my feelings via the written word much more aptly than by saying them out loud.  And yet, here I sit, not knowing where to start.

My son is on my mind.  He's been on my mind constantly for...well...I can't remember when he WASN'T on my mind.  I've written previous posts about him here and there and everywhere and even more.  We're right in the middle of evaluations at this point.  I quit his psychiatrist because he was condescending, offered no practical help, and the things he said didn't hold up when I researched them.  I had planned to stay with him until we had another recommendation, but when they tried to charge me $50 to write a prescription, I had had enough.  Our primary care doctor is a wonderful Christian man and is covering Billy's meds until we find a new psychiatrist.

We finished K.U. Med's testing and they concluded that he did not meet the criteria for autism (though in my heart, I really believe he does) and suggested he may have something called intermittent explosive disorder.  Again, people are only addressing the behavior, but if the behavior were the only problem, we'd have figured out something that would have worked over the course of the past several years.  WHY is he acting out?  There has to be a reason, a cause.  They recommended cognitive therapy, told us that blood work should have been done every year with the meds that he has been on (which we were never told), and advised us to monitor Billy's spacing out because it could be seizures.  We have been to two evaluation appointments at Children's Mercy Hospital and go back next week for a parent-only meeting to go over their results.  I am praying that this evaluation will yield more help and answers than K.U.'s did, but in case it doesn't, I've already been in contact with M.U. and we'll drive to Columbia for more testing if we have to.

In addition, I filed a complaint with the state about the school not complying with my request for an IEP and that is pending.  Since Billy's behavior has continued into the school year and I am not backing down, they are beginning evaluations for an IEP now.

I am thankful for meeting a couple of wonderful ladies who have autistic sons and have been encouraging me and giving me pointers and direction.  I also contacted MPACT, which is a parent advocacy group.  I have communicated with them via email and will be speaking to a representative on the phone tomorrow.  She has already given me great suggestions and gotten me spurred into action and organization.

I began compiling folder after folder of paperwork: Billy's daily school behavior sheets, his 504 plan, communication between me and the school, evaluations and diagnoses records, schoolwork that I did with him over the summer that showed his deficiencies academically, etc.  She also got me to request further records from the school.  My records are now about six inches thick.

In my research and compiling records, I was looking for behavior sheets we had filled out for Billy's former counselor to prove that this has been a long-term problem.  I couldn't locate those sheets--I am afraid they may have been lost when our basement flooded.  So, I had the idea to look through some old emails to friends and family to see if I could find any record of Billy's behaviors there.  What I found surprised me.

You see, I had deluded myself into thinking that around the age of two Billy had started acting out and by age four, he was totally out of control.  Apparently I was living in a fool's paradise.  In my memory, he had been a sweet baby.  I already knew I had a faulty memory, but I really missed the mark on that one.  I also recalled that he had been "slightly" behind his sisters developmentally, but that it was negligible and chalked up to being a boy.  As he was the third child and a difficult one and my job at the time sucked the life out of me, I didn't keep a baby book or a record of his milestones.  I found that he wasn't crawling at nine months (I didn't figure out when he actually did start crawling) and that he was barely stringing together simple phrases that were unintelligible at two and a half.  Following are some excerpts from these emails:

January 2006:

he is such an unhappy little baby and we don't know why.  he is so hard to get along with and really wears us thin.  he cries so much and about the only way to keep him happy is to carry him around all day long, which makes it hard to get anything done.  even then, that doesn't always work--he still fusses.

he has come upon his milestones a lot slower than his sisters, remaining my "baby" longer than they did. 

a few months ago, i had tried to do the "cry it out" things with him because he always had to be "put" to sleep.  you had to rock him, bounce him, feed him to sleep before you put him down.  and usually it was in the bassinet in our room or in our bed.  but, it didn't work.  he would scream for hours!  so i gave up for a while.  about a month or so ago, we tried it again.  at first he cried for a long time, but he finally gave up and fell asleep.  the next night, he cried a little less and the next night, a little less.  there are still some nights when he might cry for 45 minutes to an hour, but more often than not, he will only cry for a few minutes or not at all.  however, this only works at night.  during the day, he'll scream forever.  a couple of weeks  i was so frustrated that i was sitting in the floor crying.  i had had my fill of Billy and it didn't matter if i held him or not, he was still throwing fits.  i had reached my breaking point with him, so the safest thing to do was to put him in his crib and walk away.  at first i did it just so i could walk away and get a breather, but then i became determined to break him.  the more he screamed though, the more it frustrated me and i couldn't even bring myself to go in there.  i was sure that he would eventually wear himself out and go to sleep.  and he goes to bed on his own at night--what's the difference?  no, he screamed for 2 or 3 hours.

about the only way i get ANYTHING done is i have "stations" around the house.  i'll put him in his crib or in the floor in his room to play and i will stay in sight of him and clean in that room, folding laundry or whatever.  when he gets tired of that and gets frustrated, then we move on.  he has his exersaucer and playpen in the living room, a portable high chair in my office area, his full-size high chair in the kitchen, and my bed and his swing in my bedroom.  in all of these places, there is a stash of Billy's toys, so i don't have to carry toys with me around the house.  but everything is on his schedule.  when he's done, it doesn't matter if i am done cleaning the kitchen or writing an email or folding laundry, it's time to move on.  and sometimes he is just done playing and i have to rock him to sleep.  sometimes i can get a few minutes free by putting him in the playpen with his bottle.  i am hoping that once he gets crawling and walking, he will become independent.  

November 2006:

Billy will be 19 months old on the 15th.  he is a handful.  he is into everything, screams pretty much all day, he's a tough guy that likes to beat up on anybody and everybody (the girls, me, the cat...), yet still a mama's boy that won't allow me to leave the room without him or he descends into another screaming fit.  he tries my patience.

Billy is being a monster.  he is screaming incessantly most of the day.  he drives me absolutely insane.  he follows me around the house all day and if i don't do exactly what he wants or sometimes i think he doesn't even know what he wants, he lets out these blood-curdling screams.

April 2007:

Billy is not getting along with the twins and is bullying the baby too [his cousins that were staying with us at the time], so it is CONSTANT fighting and screaming, hitting, biting, scratching, pushing down the stairs, etc.

September 2007:

he enjoys having mama all to himself all day [with both sisters at school], but he is a pain because he wants all my attention and he follows me everywhere.  well, that's not entirely accurate--he wants me to carry him everywhere.  he apparently can't walk from one room to the next.  if i don't pick him up and carry him, he has a major meltdown.  he is talking more.  there are words that anyone can understand, but then there are words and phrases that only mama can translate.

October 2008:

Billy was acting out horribly!  Billy was downright demonic!  he was out of control.  he screamed and kicked and said he hated me.  he threw a can of pop at mom's wall, dumped perfume on her bed, knocked her earrings all over the floor, ran out in the street, etc.  i couldn't handle him.  and i was losing my temper big time.  i was stressed enough and i already felt like a burden to mom then i have this wretched child destroying her house, making it worse.  i couldn't control him.

November 2008:

Billy started calling me names.  i'd try to tell Billy to do something and he would ignore me and do his own thing.  he was acting up and when i would correct him, he'd throw a fit.  he's like a preschool terrorist.

I can't believe that I forgot all this and had this picture in my mind of a content, happy baby.  Reading these broke my heart, thinking that my son has been unhappy his entire life.  Both I and the school counselor have recently asked him what makes him happy and I am devastated to hear him say that he doesn't know or "nothing."  What is wrong and how do we fix it?

Last night, I was invited to come to our church's prayer group so they could pray for me.  I shared about Billy and was touched to listen to them call out our names at the throne of God.  One thing that really struck me was when someone said something to the extent of "God doesn't make mistakes."  Billy is not a mistake.  God made him who he is for a reason and a purpose.  In all these years of dealing with this, I have rarely let myself think of Billy's future.  For one, it's all we can do to manage here and now.  For two, I'm scared to think of Billy continuing with the same problems into adolescence and adulthood.  What kind of life will he have?  What kind of trouble will he get into?  What kind of harm could he inflict on himself or others?  I can't allow myself to go there.  But, thinking about God having a purpose for Billy made me realize that Billy does have a future.  Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  I'm not going to worry about his future, but I know that God has a plan for it.

The prayer team also took time to listen to one of my "theme songs" as of late: Lord, I Need You.  One phrase stuck out at me--a different one than what I usually hear loud and clear: "And where You are, Lord, I am free."  Billy is anything but free right now, but I know who can set him free.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

(Originally written March 2013)

Oh wow, where do I begin?

This blog post will not be creative or clever or humorous.  This blog post is about me and my life lately, which has most definitely not been humor-filled.

So, after about four years of having my depression medicinally controlled, I recently had a relapse.  I've also been having panic attacks and I finally admitted I needed some therapy regarding my ex-husband trying to strangle me, so they diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder.  I have put on a lot of weight (not sure how since I don't eat much and have IBS) and have been living with physical pain for the past few months that has been getting increasingly worse.  My doctor has been trying to get my GERD under control and finally sent me to a specialist.  They did an endoscopy and placed a monitoring chip in my esophagus that recorded 233 reflux events in 2 days.  That impressed the unimpressable specialist, so he sent me to see a surgeon to consult about having a Nissen Fundoplication surgery.  I'd never heard of that before, but it's a surgery in which they wrap part of your stomach around the lower part of your esophagus in order to clamp it closed and prevent acid from coming back up.  If they are able to keep it laproscopic, it is a few days in the hospital and a two week recovery.  But, if they have to do open surgery, the recovery is six weeks.  My reflux has been so bad that I have aspirated numerous times on the acid, which is both extremely painful and thoroughly frightening.  However, the surgeon I consulted with told me that I was too overweight for that surgery and recommended a gastric bypass. Not only do I not want any bariatric surgeries, but my insurance won't cover them.  So, I guess my only other option is to lose weight.  My husband and I have started using Weight Watchers three weeks ago and so far, I have lost 7 pounds, so I pray it continues to help us.  Along with going to see the GI doctor, I have been trying to make the rounds, doing what my doctor has recommended.  Tried to see a OB/GYN about possible tubal ligation syndrome and some painful cysts, but her bedside manner left something to be desired, so putting that on hold temporarily and will seek out a better doc later on.  I'm also going to a psychiatrist and therapy for the aforementioned issues.  They changed my medication and that made things really interesting.  I had an allergic reaction to the new antidepressants and broke out in a rash and my hands swelled and went numb.  Another med I was given caused dizziness.  I felt like I was walking around in a narcotic fog.  I felt unsafe driving or going to work.  Between my extreme joint pain, the dizziness, and the depression, I felt like I could barely move.  The new meds seem like they are helping, but it's slow and I have been weepy in the meanwhile, which I hate.  I get really frustrated with myself that my body betrays me.  Everybody has stress, so why do I bawl and get migraines and have panic attacks when I am stressed?  Lately, I have felt like I am barely able to take care of myself, let alone my family, or have the strength to do my job or perform my household duties.

Arrena, my oldest, is 12 and in the 6th grade.  I have long considered her trustworthy and responsible.  However, the growing pains of starting middle school have been harder than we thought.  Things are different than when I was her age.  We didn't have texting and internet or social media.  So, I needed some time to think and pray and determine what the rules would be for her.  In the meanwhile, the rules were: no boyfriends, no texting/talking to boys on the phone, no boys on the internet.  We got her a cell phone for Christmas, primarily for texting her friends.  The rules of the cell phone were no boys, no deleting conversations, and mom had free reign to look through the phone.  One day, a friend called me to report some suspicious content on Arrena's Facebook page.  One of her friends had posted something about her having a boyfriend.  I confronted her about it.  At first, she tried to lie to me about it, but finally admitted this was her second boyfriend.  Much crying and talking and apologizing, and I made her break up with her boyfriend in front of me and didn't let her go to the Valentine's dance at school.  I thought that would be punishment enough.  A few weeks later, her sister ratted her out that after breaking up with the boy in front of me, she renewed the relationship until she decided he was cheating on her.  Her friends were telling her that her mother would never know.  As punishment, I took her phone for a week.  The following day, I went through her phone and found that she had another boyfriend.  She was talking to her friends about texting a boy, but I couldn't find any text conversation with a boy because she had deleted it.  I found cut-and-pasted conversations in her notepad, talking about "love."  I had known she had a crush on this boy and had asked her a few days before if they were "dating" and she told me no.  It turned out that she had hidden him in her phone under a girl's name.  It's not so much about the "boyfriend" because at this age, it's little more than a title.  However, we know from culture that "things" are happening faster and faster these days.  I want to protect my daughter which is why I have rules.  It's not as much about having a boyfriend as it is about breaking the rules, and lying, and sneaking around, and being deceptive.  So, this time the punishment had to hurt.  I took her phone permanently and grounded her from phone, internet, social media, sleepovers, and extracurricular activities indefinitely.  I think quitting drama club hurt her the most.  She started off defensive and angry.  We talked about how I cannot MAKE her obey, but that she has to decide whether or not she wants to follow Christ and what Jesus wants her to do.  She asked me if she had to break up with him.  I told her that judging by the last time, I couldn't make her do anything, but that she should figure out if she wanted to live in disobedience and what being Christ-like meant.  After a few days, she came to me and told me that she had ended the relationship.  I am not sure how to trust her or how long it will take to repair the broken relationship.  She has been complaining to everyone who will listen about how unfair the indefinite grounding is.  I'm sorry, but since when did these PRIVILEGES become RIGHTS?  Some days I really think about switching to an Amish-like existence.  I think it would be better for all of us.  And apparently her dad is criticizing my punishment behind my back, all the while telling me that he agrees and doesn't like her friends and doesn't believe she should be on the internet at all.  Nothing like some cooperation in parenting and undermining my authority.

Kimberly is 10 and in the 5th grade.  She has been having attitude issues for a couple of years.  I have been concerned about her mental and emotional health for a while.  She doesn't sleep well and was having some crying spells.  She followed her sister's suit this past year in going through puberty and that ramped everything up about 30 notches.  She went from being mama's girl and a touchy-feely kid to being mean, hateful, and not wanting anyone to touch her.  I tell her I love her and she says, "whatever."  I ask her what she's up to and she says, "what do you care?"  I try to hug her and she flinches like I'm diseased.  She used to crawl up in my husband's lap and begged me to marry him and now she treats him like something she stepped in.  And it's not just us.  I've caught her screaming at her brother that he is a freak.  She mouths off to her teacher.  And she tells off fellow-students. And before I even finished writing this blog, I discovered by accident that she'd been looking at pornography on the Internet.  Then I found out that she was contemplating cutting.  She not only told a friend of mine and admitted it to me, but apparently one of her friends reported it to an outside agency that reported it back to the school, so the principal pulled me aside.  She is now on a mild antidepressant.  Then her sister squealed on her, as payback, that she had a boyfriend too.  Talking with her about these things initially improved things.  The other day, she was throwing attitude at my husband and I and when I spoke to her, she started questioning her faith.  She said that she's glad it works for me, but it doesn't work for her.  She said that if God is real, He doesn't care about her because He isn't helping her.  This breaks my heart more than anything.  I know how hard life is and I can't imagine doing it without having God to help me, without having hope.  I don't have many expectations for my children as they grow up or any high and lofty dreams.  The one thing that I want for them is to follow Christ.  I want them to grow in his love and to be Christ-like.  I don't want them to struggle through life and make life-changing mistakes.  And I want to see them in heaven someday.

I've written about Billy's issues before.  He's 8 and is in the 2nd grade.  We have been dealing with his behavior issues for years.  He has been going to a psychiatrist and counseling for 3 or 4 years.  We have been arranging and rearranging medication for him as things work and stop working.  They never wanted to pigeon-hole him, but the working diagnosis is ADHD, ODD, and severe mood dysregulation, although his symptoms could also fit Asperger's, which we have long suspected.  We have had our fair share of problems with him.  Primarily his misbehavior was at home.  He occasionally would act out at school or church, but mostly, he saved his meltdowns for us.  He has jumped out his window, tried to run into a highway, threatened me with scissors, called 911 for the heck of it, screamed obscenities/threats/hate, and threatened to hurt himself, among other things.  When he gets really worked up, we have to hold him down for about 15 minutes and he seems to reset.  He obviously has sensory issues and we know that certain situations will overstimulate him and cause problems.  As this has been going on for so long with little change and he has become more and more violent, the counselor has recommended that we look into in-patient treatment for him.  This is not something that I want to do.  He's my baby and I can't imagine turning him over to strangers.  He is a mama's boy and I am afraid of how he would take it as well.  I will do whatever it takes to help him, but I pray that it doesn't come to that.  This year, he has started really acting out at school.  Numerous times, I get phone calls while I am at work from the school to come and get him.  He has been suspended once so far, if you don't count all the times he has been sent home early.  They have made accommodations for him over and over.  I have tried to get him an IEP or get him into a special ed program, but they don't want to test him yet so close to the end of the school year, and with so little data since he has only recently been acting out at school.  In the meanwhile, I feel like we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.  He is running away from the staff, biting/kicking/hitting adults, throwing chairs, knocking over tables, totally out of control.  And it is usually over small things.  The other day he punched one of the support staff in her stomach.  I'm thankful it wasn't the vice-principal, who is pregnant.  They had to evacuate his classroom one day because he was on a rampage.  I don't know where we go from here because it sounds like the school is at the end of their rope.  I am afraid they are going to expel him and then I don't know what we will do.  When I talk to his dad about it, he blames us, the school, the medication, the doctors, etc.  He thinks we need to send Billy to him, that he needs more time with his dad (even though he goes months without seeing them of his own volition).  I sent the kids there for spring break and Billy's first day back, he was out of control at school again.  His dad thinks I should quit my job and homeschool Billy, even though he is not paying child support and when he does pay, it's an insulting amount.  I completed paperwork for evaluations from Children's Mercy and K.U. Med Center to try to pin down a diagnosis because right now, we are not trusting his psychiatrist.  When I try to research his diagnosis, I have trouble finding it and what I do find says the opposite of what he says.  We quit going to the counselor because he quit counseling Billy and switched to family counseling, which obviously isn't doing Billy any good and wasn't helping anyone else since Kimberly refused to talk to him.  I wonder how much longer we have before the violence at school becomes a criminal matter.  How long til they start calling the police when he hits the adults?  This has to be controlled before he is big enough to do damage to people.  How long will the school drag their feet before they acknowledge that he needs special education classes?  After two months of asking, I finally put my IEP request in writing.  I got a letter that they will contact me within 30 days, which is very close to the end of the school year.  I'm trying to fight for my son to have his needs met and be in a safe environment and not a drain on the staff, but then sometimes I feel like I am defending myself to them.  I feel sorry for him, that he is constantly in trouble, but what are we supposed to do???

When it rains, it pours.  Can't have one problem at a time.  And the world doesn't stop because you are struggling.  You have to go to work, you have to go to the store, you have to go to church, you have to keep going, while people all around you have no idea the turmoil that is going on inside of you.  You smile, you say "fine" when people ask how you are,  you put on the perky persona at work since depression doesn't sell.  Yet all the while, you feel like life is crumbling around you.  Why doesn't everyone else notice?  Why can't they feel the pain radiating off of you?  Why doesn't the world stop spinning?  And then you look around and wonder what is behind all the masks you see.  The cashier at the grocery store, the customer at work, the crazy driver that just cut you off--what private pain are they hiding?  And so you keep smiling, not because you feel like it or necessarily because you want to hide your pain, but because you want to give a tiny ray of hope to someone else who might be hurting.

Adventures in Dentalwork, Billy Edition

Before Smile:

Wow. What a long day. I'd rather have surgery myself than do that again. Literally.

As a mom, you realize that you would gladly walk through fire for your child. You'd rather have the surgery than to watch your "baby" go through it and not be able to help. And, just like a mother, you feel guilty for the whole durn thing because we all know that no matter what, it is always all your fault.

Today my six-year-old son had major dental work done. Nine teeth pulled, three crowns, two fillings, and a therapeutic pulpotomy (whatever that is).

I've known Billy had teeth problems for a while now. Here's where the guilt part comes in. I was a tired mom of three and I let Billy go to bed with a sippy cup even though I knew better. He has not been an easy child, so in order to keep him calm and save my sanity, I caved. My husband says I cave any time Billy is involved, but I am trying to be better. In the beginning, I didn't get his teeth fixed because I didn't have the money. Then, I hoped that the baby teeth would come out on their own. But, since he seems to be slow at most everything, he didn't lose his first baby tooth until a couple of weeks ago, two months before his 7th birthday. His teeth got worse, he started having pain, and we found out he had three abscesses. It was time to get it done.

The financing was something else altogether. The cost of this was astronomical and I tried calling insurance companies and other dentists and oral surgeons to find another option. But, the long and the short of it is that dental insurance doesn't cover general anesthetic and medical insurance will only cover dental expenses if there is an injury. With Billy's special needs, there was no way we could do this extensive work without general anesthesia. He would never have allowed them to come near him with a needle, let alone all the work they needed to do.

They originally scheduled him for noon, but changed it to 1:30pm. He was not allowed to eat anything after midnight--a long time for a little boy. He could have sips of water until 9:30am. I had to give him about half a spoonful of yogurt in the morning to take his meds with, since he can't swallow them whole. The dentist's office called in the morning and said they were running behind, so he was pushed to 2pm.

We had decided not to tell him about the surgery until the day of the surgery. We weren't sure if he could handle hearing all that. We didn't want him freaking out for two weeks. So, the night before, I told him he wasn't going to school, that he was going to the dentist to get his teeth fixed. He asked if they were going to pull them out and I said yes, some of them, but that they were going to give him medicine to make him go to sleep while they did it. He seemed to take it well.

We got to the dentist's office a little before two. Since this is a pediatric dentist, they had a couple of video games in the waiting room and Billy amused himself with that for a while. He brought one of his little stuffed bears and had fun dropping it from a little window at the top of a climbing/slide play area. We waited for a long time. It occurred to us that we were not going to get done in time to pick the girls up from school, so I called the school to arrange for them to stay at the after-school daycare.

Eventually, the anesthesia nurse came out and gave him some medicine to drink to make him sleepy, got his weight, and filled out paperwork and went over the risks with us. She kept checking on him because he was thumping around like boys do and she was afraid he was hitting the floor. She asked him if he was sleepy yet and he kept saying no. We finally asked him to come sit by us because we didn't want him to fall. He sat on my lap and played games on my phone. I started noticing that he was wobbling and he almost fell off my lap. I asked if he was tired and he said, "No, this medicine doesn't work. I'm dizzy, but not sleepy." Scott put him on his lap, but he wanted mama back. Then he protested being held, period. He did not think he was incapacitated and didn't understand why we wouldn't let him get up. I put him in the chair next to me, but he jumped up and tried to run. He stumbled and bumped into a tiki statue (their decor is jungle), jumped up before I could reach him and ran again. He stumbled again and this time, he went head first into the wall and started screaming and crying. He'd hit his face and ear and now has a light bruise under his eye.

He couldn't be consoled after that. Not only had he hurt himself, but he still didn't understand that he couldn't get up. He fought being held and we wrestled him. He kept screaming that he wouldn't hurt himself again, that he was okay. He argued, "I AM in control of myself!" Then he started talking funny, not finishing his sentences. He was still fighting us, but he could barely talk. The dentist came back out and heard what was going on and felt so sorry for him since he had hurt himself. The anesthesiologist came out and basically told us the same stuff his nurse had said. It was a good thing he didn't say anything new because I could barely hear him over Billy's wails.

Scott carried him back and as soon as he was laid on the chair, he was quiet. He had a hold of his bear and they had Rio on the TV above his head. They put a monitor on his toe and put a mask over his nose and mouth. They had him inhaling nitrous and an inhaled anesthetic. I held his hand and the anesthesiologist talked to him as he drifted off and let go of my hand. It was very hard for me as a mother. I have been under numerous times, but this was the first time I have watched this done. Usually it's done behind O. R. doors or if I'm the patient, I am asleep and have no idea what is going on. But, watching my baby laying there limp and hooked to machines was awful. I don't know how parents of sick children do it. This was just dental work and I was near tears and nauseous. The anesthesiologist was basically breathing for him, squeezing the bag to try to get him through the second stage of the anesthesia as quickly as possible. Apparently in that phase, the vocal cords can slam shut and cause him to not be able to breathe. I was worried that this would be a problem since he was crying so long, the mucous can cause this. It was frightening to me to see his chest rising and falling, his cheeks inflating with every squeeze of the bag. But even more frightening when the anesthesiologist took the mask away to gesture as he "talked shop" with my paramedic husband or to squirt nasal spray into his nose. He seemed to POUR that spray into his nose three times. Overreacting mom felt like they were drowning her baby.

When they put the breathing tube down his nose, I couldn't watch. After they did that, they took us to an office they had set up with snacks. We waited rather impatiently and I knitted furiously. Scott went to get us some food since we hadn't eaten all day and it was now about 4:30pm. He hesitated, asking me if I would be okay. I assured him I would be. I called my friend Elizabeth because I knew a fellow mom would understand how I felt better than my medically-minded husband, God love him. About 5:45pm, we figured we were not going to make it in time to get the girls from daycare, which closed at 6pm. Scott didn't want to leave, but I couldn't get a hold of any of my friends to ask them to pick the girls up for us. As Scott was getting ready to reluctantly leave, the dentist came in and told us that they were done. She told us he was doing well and reiterated what they had done. She said they were going to take him to another room to recover and they would come get me to see him.

Scott left to get the girls and a few minutes later, they came and got me to take me to Billy. He was curled up in an exam chair with a Toy Story blanket over him, the nurse keeping the hand with the I.V. under the cover to keep him from pulling it out. He was breathing with his mouth open and the first glance at his bloodied, tooth-deficient mouth was pretty heartbreaking and scary. They had warned me that most children cry coming out of the anesthesia and that some kick and thrash. Boy howdy! I lost count of how many times the nurse and I saved him from hitting the floor. He cried, he whined, he kicked, he thrashed, he rolled, he banged his head into the chair and yet he was still asleep. The nurse and I sat on each side of the chair and kept grabbing the flailing body parts to keep him from hurting himself or us. Occasionally he ended up in my lap. At one point, he flung his arm up over his head and hit me across the face. The anesthesiologist stepped in and said, "Billy...how are you doing?" At the sound of his name, Billy opened his eyes and turned his head to face the doctor. But, it was obvious he still wasn't awake yet. The doctor left again and we continued our vigil. I talked to him and crooned at him, but he didn't respond. His first words were, "I don't wanna wake up!" Then he started crying, "mama." He also said he was scared several times. He asked for a clock. When I asked why, he said he wanted to see what time it was. He said, "I want Scott!" I told him that Scott would be back soon. He said something about the dentist, but I couldn't make out if he said, "I want to go to the dentist," or "I don't want to go to the dentist." All the while, he is still kicking and fighting. I'm not sure how many injuries the nurse sustained, but I got kicked in the jaw at one point. He tried to pull out his I.V. and we had to stop him from hitting himself in the head with his own fist. Then he said, through tears, "I want to go home now." I told him he could go home as soon as he calmed down. He had said he was thirsty, so we gave him a blue popsicle, which he sucked on a bit. He asked for his socks and shoes. The nurse said he could go, so I asked him if he would promise not to kick me if I put his shoes on. I was getting enough without the shoes. He had been kicking Scott in the waiting room before with those shoes and Scott could attest to the kicks being more forceful with them on.

It wasn't easy juggling him, his popsicle, his bear, his jacket, my purse, and my knitting bag. My phone battery had died, so I asked the receptionist to call Scott, who said he was about ten minutes away. I lugged Billy out of the office, down the elevator, and to some comfy chairs by the front door to wait. By this time, it was about 6:30pm. Billy whimpered a bit and kept asking to go home, but he finished eating his popsicle and laid in my arms.

When Scott and the girls arrived, I tucked him into his carseat. He smelled the McDonald's the girls had and asked for fries. I told him he couldn't chew them but that we would get something when we got home. He fell asleep in the car on the way home. When we got there, Scott carried him in and we laid him on the couch. I gave him half a dose of liquid Lortab and a Pediasure. He tipped it back and drained it! He was thirsty and hungry. I gave him a pudding cup and he scarfed it. We giggled at him because he shoveled it in as fast as he could and had chipmunk cheeks. He also ate some Jell-O and drank some V8 Splash. Then he laid back and watched TV for a little while. After being tucked in, he only got up once, crying that his tummy hurt. He ran to the bathroom, but was nodding off on the toilet, so I tucked him back into bed. Poor little guy! So glad it's all over!

UPDATE: I kept him home from school Thursday, but he seemed so good all day, I wondered if I should have sent him to school after all. In talking to him, he doesn't seem to remember anything between playing games on my phone on my lap and watching TV on the couch.

After Smile (taken the day after surgery, so he looks pretty tired):

Update on the Little Prince

My last post was one of desperation. I have to say that things didn't get much better after that. Billy's tirade lasted four or five days. One particularly bad day, I took my phone, walked out onto the porch, shutting the front door on the sound of Billy banging on his bedroom door, and sat down to call a close friend and cry. We talked for a while and one thing she said to me was that she was not an advocate of institutionalizing children, but she was afraid that in this case, it might be necessary. I was NOT pleased to hear that.

My husband had worked the night before and as he works 24 hour shifts, he was sleeping that morning. When he woke up and found me in a state of tears, snot, and raw nerves, he said I should have woken him up. He said that we might have to think about hospitalizing Billy. I immediately burst into sobs and wails, saying that's what my friend had said and I couldn't imagine such a thing. How could I send my 6-year-old away to strangers? He's my baby! My husband helped me count my blessings to calm me down and urged me to call our counselor to see what he thought.

When the counselor called me back and heard the tale of woe, his response was that if we didn't get him under control quickly, we might have to send him to a residential treatment facility. We met with him and I cried in his office. I knew that I would do whatever was best for Billy, even if it meant sending him to some in-patient treatment, but the idea of it ripped my heart out. Our counselor urged me to harass the psychiatrist's office every day until we were able to get an earlier appointment. He said he was not able to make diagnoses, but he was leaning towards Billy having bipolar disorder, as well as some OCD, which would require some other meds (which would hopefully bring the situation under control without having to send Billy anywhere). We, personally, have long thought he might have some mild autism, perhaps Asperger's.

The psychiatrist's office was able to get us in last Wednesday. Since our counselor works some days out of the same office as our psychiatrist, he had met with the doctor and discussed with him the problems and his observations before our appointment. When I came in, he asked me some questions and then asked me if we were willing to go to a stronger medicine. It carries more risks, but we are at our wit's end and we don't know what else to do. The counselor who has been at this for thirty years doesn't even know what else to do at this point. And it has to be better than sending him to a facility. So, they took him off his afternoon med and his antidepressant and put him on an anti-psychotic. The doctor is not willing to change his diagnosis yet or label Billy as anything, but the meds that he put him on treat autism, bipolar, and schizophrenia. My ex-husband's family has more than enough bipolar and schizophrenia to go around, so it is entirely possible that one or more of my children could inherit these problems.

So, we've started him on half a dose. When his body gets used to that and he overcomes his sleepiness from the meds, we will bump him up to a full dose. We are praying that this makes a difference for him and that he will have little to no side effects from it. He did not behave well Saturday, when I hosted a friend's baby shower. But, he has been pretty good yesterday and today, so we are praying that this continues.

One blessing to come out of this was that I visited a new Sunday School class last week and met a woman who has a son with mild autism. He was placed on the same meds and she swore by them. So, when the doctor suggested them, I had already heard of them. And it is nice to have someone to talk to who knows what we are going through.

Our next step with him is to get him a dental appointment. He has needed some work done for a while, but it was either that we didn't have the money for it or that we had hoped he would lose the baby teeth soon rather than wasting a fortune on teeth that may fall out in a month. However, he has a couple that are really causing him problems and look really bad. My husband also believes that if his teeth were fixed, he might eat more and might be better-tempered. However, I am not sure how we will get him to hold still for the work I foresee coming. If they come near him with a needle or a drill, he will flip. The insurance company said they would cover sedation if the dentist gets pre-authorization and can show reason why it is necessary. I had hoped for a little bit more of a concrete diagnosis for Billy. I mean, they might be more likely to approve sedation for a child who has autism or bipolar disorder than a child who is just diagnosed as ADHD. ADHD just doesn't adequately cover Billy.

If his eating doesn't improve after his dental work, I am going to take him back to our primary care physician. I worry about his physical health as well as his mental and emotional health. He hasn't gained weight in more than two years (he's always been very skinny), he's almost seven and hasn't had even a hint of a loose tooth yet, and he complains about stomachaches all the time. He doesn't sleep well either, but I assume that has more to do with the mental and emotional issues he has.

Please pray for my little guy. I feel so sorry for him. But, I also feel sorry for the girls and for us because we all suffer with this.

It's Spanish

Billy’s mouth gets him into more trouble than he can handle. His mouth writes checks his rear end can’t cash, so to speak. He has picked up some bad words along the way. One of the words he gets in trouble for the most is the three-letter word that also means donkey. The other day, my husband told Billy, “muchas gracias.” Billy heard the end of the second word and said, “Ooooooh, you said a bad word!” No matter how many times Scott tried to convince him, Billy was sure that he had just violated the rules. Scott insisted, “It’s Spanish! It means, ‘thank you very much’!” Billy would not be persuaded. Yesterday, Billy called me a ‘dumbo.’ We told him that wasn’t a nice thing to say, to which he replied, “It’s Spanish.... It means ‘flower’!” Well, we know he's not a dumbo!

Dead Animals...

The following events happened a few months ago, but I am just getting around to writing about it...

At the back of our house, there is a hole in the roof's overhang. I am not familiar with all the terms for parts of the house, so forgive me if I am unclear. A bird decided to build her nest up there, much to the delight of the neighborhood cat, Jude, who likes to sit on the window ledge, waiting for the opportunity to snag the bird as she flies in and out. He is patient and hopeful, despite the fact that I have repeatedly urged him to give it up, pointing out that the drain spout somewhat blocks his reach of the opening. He's a very optimistic feline. Well, the day came that the baby birds hatched. We found egg shells littering the concrete stoop and the manic shriek-like chirps of newborns could be heard far and wide.

My kids like to play with a couple of children that live a little ways down the block and they were all happily playing outside when the commotion started. All the children, en masse, rushed in the house, one of them cradling something in his hand. They were beside themselves and all talking at once. The story, when I got them to calm down enough to be coherent, was that they had found a baby bird that had fallen out of his nest. They had told the little boy not to touch it, but he had anyways, and now they were sure that the baby would die. They begged me to help it. They were ready to care of it themselves. Kimmy even went so far as to put padding into one of their dollhouses. However, I found out that it is against federal law to keep a wild bird. Okay, now I like animals, but honestly, if the children hadn't been there to beg and plead in near hysterics, I would have likely left the animal to its natural fate. The neighbor children also ran home to their mother to ask for her assistance. I immediately went to the greatest expert known to man: Google.

Apparently it's a myth that touching a baby bird will cause its mother to abandon it. The article I read suggested trying to put the baby back in its nest, if it is easily reachable. I grabbed the step ladder and gingerly took the funny-looking, floppy little thing (gotta say, I wasn't crazy about touching it at all) and with 5 children and one mom looking on, I attempted to return the infant to its nest. This was easier said than done. The hole was large enough to stick about half of your hand in, but way more difficult to stick it in when you are trying to hold something. And there was the added complication of a nail jutting out into the hole. Great real estate, mother bird! Finally got the baby in there, but I couldn't reach far enough to get it back from the hole or get it up into the nest. I worried that it would wriggle out again.

I was right. The kids came back a little later, with the bird again. The article I had read before suggested putting it in a padded shoebox and then calling the Audobon Society if you can't put the baby back in its nest, or the Humane Society. I put it in a shoebox, then tried looking up the number for the Audobon Society. All I could find was a P.O. Box number. Well, that won't do any good--would have to write them a letter!? So, I called Animal Control. The guy there said, "Um...I don't know...sorry." Then I called the Humane Society. They said that I should call a nature center and gave me the number. The guy there said no, but that I should call a "rehabilitator" and gave me the number to one. The rehabilitator that I called said that she has never had one speck of luck in rescuing baby birds. She suggested that I just let it die. Easier said than done, when you have 5 very excitable children looking on. She finally suggested that I put the baby back in the hole, push him as far back as possible with a stick, then put grass and leaves in there to keep him from rolling out again.

When I went to get him out of the shoebox, however, there was blood around his head. I think it was coming out of his mouth. And he wasn't as full of life as he had been before. I think the second fall may have caused some internal injuries. I decided he would probably die and even if I put him back in the hole, his mother would push him out when he was dead. So I stuck him up there, poked him back with a stick, and placed leaves and grass inside to keep him from rolling out. Then I kept a sharp eye out. The neighbor kids went home and my kids came in the house. I knew mama bird must be back because I started seeing grass and leaves hanging from the hole or falling down to the ground. Apparently she didn't appreciate my decorating skills! When I checked a while later, the baby was on the ground again and this time he wasn't moving. Before the kids could see, I put him in the shoebox again, and hid it in the trash dumpster.

My kids never asked about the bird again. They assumed that since they hadn't seen him on the ground, he was fine. The little girl down the street came by the next day when my kids were gone and asked about it. I lied! I told her he must be fine because I hadn't seen him. I hate lying, but I couldn't bear to tell them that he had died! The girl's mother called me a few days later to ask me about it and I told her the truth. But, to this day, the kids think that the baby bird had a miraculous recovery and lived a long, prosperous life!

Billy had a rather different experience with animals. On his 3rd day of preschool, he dissected a fish. He came home, telling me all about it. I thought he was making up a story. I mean, whoever heard of dissecting animals in preschool? That's just silly! I asked his teacher about it and she said that they had, in fact, dissected a fish. They have pet fish in their classroom and the kids were having trouble understanding what parts a fish has and if they are like people, etc. The teacher decided to buy a whole frozen fish and take it to school to show the kids. She said she had hoped one of the other teachers might be more into it than she was, because she was a little squeemish about it. They weren't. She said she just decided to suck it up and do it because if she didn't act scared, the kids would be fine with it. She let them each practice scaling it and they looked at the insides and the gills and even cut its eye out. She has a picture up on the board of Billy holding the fish's eyeball with a caption that says, "Billy said the eye felt nasty." Billy thought it was great! A couple of weeks later, they played with little dead squids too. Gross!

Arrena also had a dead animal experience. We were walking through the park and she was riding her bike. I saw something on the ground, but before I could make out what it was, she had run over it. Thwump, like a speed bump. Kimmy started screeching and Arrena skidded to a halt and looked stricken. Apparently she had run over a baby bird. Kimmy was calling her a bird killer, but I am convinced that it was already dead. Whether it was dead or not mattered little to Arrena, who felt terrible about running the poor thing over. She looked so forlorn, hanging her head in guilt and saying, "I'm a bird killer." Billy, of course, wanted to pick it up and examine it. He probably would have taken it to school to be dissected. I'm betting Miss Kristalyn wouldn't have appreciated that one little bit.

A Bunch of Comedians...

My kids are funny and I am afraid I have only myself to blame for it. I never thought I was that funny, but people often tell me that I tell stories in a very funny way and my mom is always after me to write them down. The kids think I am a regular stand-up comic. I tell them one funny joke or do one impression and they expect an hour-long routine. The most common phrase heard around here is, "Tell us something funny, mom!" Now my memory is bad and I am a little slow coming up with quick witicisms, so I can't just pull them out of a hat. They apparently think I should. Now I have a line of successors...

First in line for my comedy crown is Arrena. Today when she got out of Boys and Girls Club, she was in a very silly, giggly mood. We were discussing the hole in the armpit of her club shirt. She said that all of them were like that, adding that they were delicate. She giggled and said, "I don't even know what 'delicate' means!" We all laughed at her. A little while later, we saw an ambulance and a fire truck on the side of the road, but no obvious fire. She asked why a fire truck would be there if there was no fire. Before I could get my answer out, she came up with one of her own. She said, "Maybe if they had trouble picking someone up, because they were really fat--like dad--" (at which point, we all burst out laughing because it was said so nonchalantly, like it's a common-known fact that her dad is HUGE {he's overweight, but not THAT big}, then she continued without missing a beat) "--they would call the firemen because they are strong and muscular." Muscular. At age 8, she is admiring the build of firemen???

On to Kimmy...ALWAYS a contender... Yesterday, I asked her to go outside and tell her sister it was time for dinner. She whirled around and spat, "Slavery is OVER!" Overreacting much?

And last but not least, we have Billy. Not to be outdone, he is often funny without intending to be. We were walking through the park tonight and saw triplet toddlers being pulled along in a vehicle that can be described as a cross between a wagon and a train--one "car" for each of the little boys. Billy asked if we could get one of those. I said that we don't have any small babies anymore to use that. He said, "When I get big, I'll marry you and we'll GET some babies." Ooooo-KAY! While I love that he loves his mama, sometimes he is a little bit too oedipal.

Oh, and last night he really surprised me. He has a plush lion that has a pull string that plays music. He's had it since he was a baby--it was a crib toy. He calls it "Blueberry". I asked him if he wanted music. As far as I know, he hasn't played with it in quite a while. I pulled the string and he said the music was from Pinocchio. I stopped and listened because I had never paid attention before. Sure enough, but that little bugger was right! It was "When You Wish Upon a Star". I asked him who told him that and he said no one. I said, "Well, how did you know that?" He smiled and said, "I just know that!"

Kids...

Sweet Billy

My kids and I have a little tradition. When one of us has a loose eyelash, we blow it off our finger and make a wish. I am not sure where that came from. I don't remember doing that as a child myself, but I must have picked it up somewhere. The last several weeks, every time Billy has a loose eyelash, his only wish is, "me wish my mommy had a brand new car!" I thought that was so sweet for him to use all his wishes for me and not for himself. And so observant for him, at age 3, to understand that mommy NEEDS a car!

Silly Billy

Billy has been struggling with speaking for quite a while. He is very smart and observant. He understands words and he can string together sentences, he is just unintelligible a lot of the time. He can't pronounce words correctly or articulate. He gets very frustrated when people don't understand him and often quits, saying, "Nevermind." His sisters and I often translate for him, but sometimes, even we can't understand him. I took him to a screening and subsequent speech testing and he is in a severe at-risk category, so they are putting him in some speech therapy. Today, he was trying to tell me something and I wasn't understanding him. He has gotten to where he often says, "Look in my eyes," thinking that will make us understand him. This time, he told me to say it with him. I tried, but wasn't getting it. When I finally got it, he said, "You need to listen to me when I say something. Allright? Allright. Thank you." It was so funny coming out of a three-year-old. He cannot grasp the concept that it is HIM. He honestly thinks that we are just not listening to him! Poor baby!

Kids Say the Darnedest Things, Part 1

Tomorrow we begin our vacation. We will be camping for three days in Oklahoma at my family reunion, then we will be having a party for Chris' foster parents who are leaving in a couple of weeks to be missionaries in Canada. I will likely not have time to blog in the next week and a half, so on the eve of our departure, I was thinking of some of the funny things the kids have said recently and thought I would share them with you.

Billy likes for me to sleep facing him when he is in my bed. If I turn away from him, he either runs around the bed and gets on the other side or he tries to twist my neck around so that I am facing him again. The other night, I had stepped on one of his toys on my way to bed and was limping and muttering and didn't feel like accommodating his sleep preferences, so I turned my back on him. He began twisting my head around, so I turned around and tried to find a comfortable spot. I heard this little exasperated voice in the darkness: "Stop moving!" I laughed and then explained that I wasn't happy with him because he left his toy out and mommy stepped on it and hurt her foot. He said, "Mommy cuckoo!"

Billy's latest drama is to hand me his empty sippee cup and throw his head back across my lap and moan, "Me dying, me dying, me dying."

Kimmy, always a source of amusement, was scratching daddy's back the other day. She turned to me with a look that was a mixture of the melodramatic and pure orneriness, and said, "I'm going to need a shovel, some disinfectant, and some oregano." Along the same vein, as we were driving to Pizza Hut to eat another day, she said, "If they give me a picture to color, I'm going to need a jar of honey, 100 red ants, and the cover of nightfall." (Arrena tells me she got these lines from TV, I think from Hannah Montana.)

Somehow we got on the subject of surgeries I have had. The girls asked a lot of questions, especially about the time that I had to go to the emergency room after Kimmy was born because some of the placenta had been left inside me. Several days later, Kimmy said, "I'm sorry, mom, I left my purse in there! I got my keys, my wallet, my phone, and my driver's license, but I left my purse in there." When we asked her about the keys and driver's license, she said, "When I was a bean, I had a little bitty car." She added, "It was a very friendly place in there. My only friend was the heart. When I played checkers with the heart, it always won because mom kept moving my checkers."

Kimmy loves to watch Animal Planet. The Ugliest Dog Contest came on the other day and Kimmy was appalled and offended. She said, "Dogs aren't for fashion! They're for pets! How would they like it if there was an ugliest person contest?"

And Arrena, not to be outdone, had a couple of funny moments of her own. She told me that, "Dad acts like that TV is a lullaby." I was puzzled and asked her to explain. She said, "Every night he comes home and lays down on the couch, turns on the TV, and falls right to sleep."

Tonight Chris and the kids were watching one of their much-loved crime reality shows and they were telling about a group of thieves who broke into a business to rob it. They didn't know that the security guard was watching them on the surveillance cameras and calling police and directing the police with every move they made and every direction they went. Arrena looked at us and shook her head in disgust. She muttered, "They should have put bags over the cameras." Chris cracked up with a look of surprised disbelief on his face and I said, "We're going to have to keep an eye on this one if she's figured out the smart ways to commit robbery!"

Well, that's a wrap for this amateur night of comedy!

(P.S. For those of you who have my blog delivered to your email inbox, I added a couple of pictures of the girls' first day of school to that blog post after it had already been delivered to you, so you might check those out!)

One of THOSE Weeks...

Well, to start off the tale of woe, I haven't been able to use my drier all week. I had been hearing this strange sound in the living room late at night and when I went towards the sound, it stopped. I finally found out that there was a growing hole near the baseboard by the front door, so obviously there is a mouse chewing a hole in the wall. I was ticked off. I hate mice and I pay for exterminators, yet I still have numerous pests! But THAT is a whole other tirade! I went and found some mouse poison packs in the garage and threw one in a corner of the garage behind some stuff which is in the vicinity of the backside of the wall with the mystical growing portal. Well, a day or two later, the hole hadn't enlarged any, but there was a stench in the garage, as of that of a dead mouse. Well, I went to put some laundry in the drier in the basement and it came out with the same stench. Thought it was a fluke, so I did another load and it came out the same way. No stench from the outside, only inside. Great. Dead mouse somewhere INSIDE my drier. And of course, Chris claims, "I'll take it apart tonight and find it," but never does. So, I have had to hang everything to dry--clothes, underwear, socks, towels. And since my fabric softener is in the form of drier sheets, you can imagine how stiff everything is! I was going to use my mom's drier, but it rained a couple of days this week which meant Chris took my truck instead of the motorcycle.

Then Wednesday night, Kimmy complained that she didn't feel good. This is an EXTREMELY common complaint with her, so I didn't pay much attention, except my usual, "Go lay down, then." I guess after I went to work, she threw up twice. When I got home, she and Billy both had a fever and Billy was shivering violently and suffering from gads of diarrhea. It's been like that ever since. I thought Kimmy was better because she kept her dinner down Thursday night, but she threw up again this morning. She is complaining that it's unfair for her to be sick because she missed going to the library Thursday (even though I picked up her summer reading prize pack for her as well as an armload of books), going to the zoo today (even though we have a membership and go often AND I brought her home a gift from the zoo's gift shop), and might miss out on two of her friends' parties tomorrow if I'm not convinced she's better. Arrena has been a TREMENDOUS help to me. It's been a little difficult with one in one bathroom and one in the other, both crying for mama. Kimmy even accused me of paying attention to Billy and not to her. Arrena, meanwhile, has been trying to disinfect the house--I can't tell if it's so she won't get sick and miss out on everything or if it's to gain allowance money or if it's just to help me out. Regardless, she has cleaned and helped with the two sickies and even got them some animal masks at the zoo today before she got one for herself. Let's hope she doesn't catch it now.

Today while we were at the zoo, I got a phone call from the school board. Our daughters have been in Derby schools the last two years. We lived in Derby district, even though we were technically in Wichita. I didn't like the neighborhood school--we had lived in that neighborhood when we first moved back here and it is a hotbed of crime and drugs, etc. We got out of there as fast as we could. Even though we were living across the highway from that neighborhood, we were still in that district. I didn't want my kids in those schools. I hear the schools are good, but I didn't want to have to tell my children that they can't go over to any of their friends' houses because I don't know if their parents are crackheads or dope dealers or whatever. Children in that neighborhood run unattended in the streets at an early age. So, we transferred to Pleasantview. It was approved the past two years. But, we moved out of Derby district and into Wichita district. However, Derby enrollment has been down, so they adopted an open enrollment this year where you could get an out-of-district waiver and still be approved to go to Derby schools. The girls are used to the school, have friends, and I have been pleased with their progress and the programs. I didn't think it would be a problem to get the waiver because there is supposed to be a hierarchy of preference--first, children in that neighborhood; second, children not in the neighborhood but have been at the school previously; third, other children out of the district that have never attended that school. Since Arrena has two years in and Kimmy has one, I assumed we would get preferential treatment in the process. We got the call today that Kimmy has a spot, but not Arrena. They offered another school for Arrena, but I said that I would not split the girls up in two different schools--that's stupid. They said the only way they could stay together was to go to one of the schools in the bad neighborhood. I said absolutely not, out of the question. I talked to Arrena's friend's mom, who is a teacher in Derby and she said she was told that they didn't follow the hierarchy, they just drew the applications out of a pile at random. That's great, teaching our kids that it doesn't matter if you work hard and put your time in. And this teacher didn't even get to have her child at the school she works at for the third year in a row--they can't even get it right for the teachers! I am so mad about this! And you can imagine that the girls are really upset about it too. There's been a few tears today over it. And with ten days left until school starts, I don't even know where they will be going to school! I guess it will have to be in Wichita, but I am not 100% sure which school is in our district. UGH!

As if all this isn't enough to drive someone (me) bonkers, Chris is in one of his "woe-is-me" pity-party attitudes. First it was that me and Arrena and her friend ate at the zoo and we didn't think about him enough to bring him some food (he told me he was going to grab something before he came home). So, I babied him and got him KFC for dinner. But, then he whined because he likes to go out riding his motorcycle on Friday nights and he didn't have a babysitter. This ticked me off. First off, just Sunday, he told me that he wasn't going to go out on Fridays anymore, that he wanted to spend the time with the kids. Second, two of the kids are sick. And there he was, trying to decide who he could call to watch them so he could go out. When he figured out he had no one, he sulked and pouted and talked about selling his bike because he ONLY gets to ride it back and forth to work. Waah, waah, waah! So, I said that if I could, I would get off early so he could go. But, as luck would have it, volume was too high tonight, so I only got off 40 minutes early (which is still nothing to sneeze at around there! And certainly better than the extra hour we were threatened with). While I was at work, he texted me on my breaks to see if I was off yet. When I texted "no" back, he replied with, "I knew it." When I got home, he had gone to bed and when I went to tell him I was home, he acted pouty and sulky again. I usually go to the store Friday nights, but I came straight home for him for NOTHING! Now I have to figure out when I can go, which will probably have to be tomorrow morning, which sucks! I guarantee he will probably get on that bike as soon as he gets up and leave me to take three kids, two of them sick, to the store. And what's worse is that the high tomorrow is forecasted to be 100 degrees--lovely weather to be loading groceries in and out with three children in tow! ARGH, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. He has been on my nerves a lot here lately. And now I guess I get to sleep on the couch since both sickies are flanking him in our bed, likely a maneuver on his part as revenge on me for what? Going to work? Not storming out of work so he could go on a BIKE RIDE? For not allowing him to call my mother to babysit in the middle of her working eleven days in a row with no day off? It's all my fault somehow, I am sure. Do men get PMS?

Okay, needed to blow off that steam! I'm all better now....