Bless their hearts

They tried.  And they tried to rationalize, deflect, etc etc.  We called them out.  We had our point taken.  Turns out chatting with the assistant director of special education for AISD at a parent support meeting the night before you have a meeting scheduled can result in, well, results.  We will see what happens in 3 weeks.  It was very emotionally taxing.  That's all I'm going to say on the interwebs.

After the long long meeting Brian and I were both spent.  Brian was planning on working from home, but ended up just trying to regroup.  ABA got cancelled, which was sort of a relief.  Logan and Brian hung out while I took Isabel to the pool. 

Everyone was starving when I got home and I realized that we had no food in the fridge.  Oops.  So we made due with a smorgasbord of stuff.  Not too bad and everyone (at least the kids) was full.

We have no plans this weekend.  Amen!  Even Isabel's soccer game was rescheduled from Saturday to tomorrow night.  Is it wrong that I just want to head to Houston and get spoiled by my parents?  Probably.  It has been a long few weeks and it looks like it will be a long road ahead.

At least we have our AMAZING Halloween village to gaze at!  My dad did a fantastic job and I really can't thank him enough.  All of my brain power was taken up with Logan's stuff so I called him one day literally to ask about how to plug things in to an outlet.  No joke.  Anyway, it turned out absolutely amazing.

I love to volunteer, I love to volunteer, I love to volunteer

This is what I keep telling myself.  Fake it till you make it, amiright?!  So I think I may have overdone it this year.  I was so excited to not be going back to work.  In the end, after much agonizing about what to do, it ended up being out of my hands, which I sort of appreciated.  While we will certainly miss the extra income, I feel like this is exactly what needed to happen.  I can focus 100% on Logan and Isabel's educational needs.  Since they both have special needs, this is incredibly important to me and Brian and I am so very fortunate to have the opportunity to stay at home and do all I can for them.

With that being said....I think I overdid it.

I'm doing Meals on Wheels (love!!!), room parent for Isabel's class, co room parent for Logan's class and treasurer of Izzy's girl scout troop.  Throw in the taxi to gymnastics, soccer, and therapy 5x's per week and it is A.LOT

A was hoping to get lots of help from other parents in Isabel's class.  It's always the same 5 people who volunteer.   I get that people work, etc, but you can volunteer to do one thing.  Just one!  And you don't even have to miss any work to do it.

Funny story.....and I'm only posting this because it is funny, not for any type of sympathy.  I am absolutely fine and the appointment was no big deal.  (I PROMISE mom and GGB).  So I have an appointment today way way way up North.  Almost to Brian's office.  It's for 2 procedures.  I asked Brian if he wanted to meet afterwards for lunch.

So I am waiting for my 1st appointment and I get a call.  "kiker nurse" shows up on my phone.  Mild panic sets in.  I answer and it's about Logan.  His mouth is hurting (more on that later).  'Ok', I say.  'I'll be there with some ibuprofen as soon as I can, but just so you know I'm up North at a doctor's appointment.'  So 1st appointment happens with no drama.  2nd appointment starts and it is drama from the start.

Nurse:  Have you taken your medication?
Me:  What medication?!!!!!!
Nurse:  tell me names of meds they were supposed to call in.
Me:  NOOOOOOOOO
Nurse:  blah blah blah
Me:  WHAT??????
Nurse:  (looking down), Um, I'm sure it will be ok
Me:  (I am secretly freaking out thinking I'm going to get vaporized or something)

So procedure starts.  All ok.  Doctor making small talk and then pain.  Oh shit.  Pain!

My Psyche:  Hold your breath!
Me:  No!  I'll pass out if I do.
Psyche:  DO.IT.  I command you.
Me:  OK

And I faint.  And then almost puke.  Fun times ya'll!

UGH.  So embarrassing.  And the fist thing I say is 'I have to go give my son Ibuprofen!'  They're like.  Ummmmm, why don't you calm the eff down and lay here with the door open until you stop sweating so much that you're creating a swimming pool on the floor.

Didn't know excessive sweating is an after effect of fainting.

 So all is fine and I make it to Logan's school about an hour and a half after the initial call.  No lunch with B though.  :-(


Logan's Teeth Drama:
As I posted before Logan has some wonky teeth.  He has a ton of caps, etc etc.  We went in to the dentist because the face of one of the caps split.  Apparently this is just cosmetic and there is nothing they can do about it.  Fixing it would make the cap weaker and it's not recommended.  But while the dentist is poking around he notices that Logan has what looks to be a very infected molar.  Xrays confirm this.  So we get the tooth extracted a couple of weeks later under sedation.  Sedated 5 year olds are hilarious.  Anyway....it was very infected and almost loose.  The dentist managed to get the spacer put in too.

This week we notice that Logan is starting to pull away in pain as we brush his teeth.  He has a massive canker sore right above the area where the the tooth was extracted.  We called the dentist and they wanted him to be seen to make sure it wasn't infected or a dry socket.  It's not.  Just a really bad canker sore.  We have some gel to put on it and a peroxide mouthwash.


Logan's Speech Drama:
Everyone I talk to knows that we've been trying to get Logan speech therapy at school for years.  Turns out he hasn't even had an official evaluation.  Say whaaaaa....  Yep.  Talk about ball being dropped.  So we have a meeting to sign consent forms to have him evaluated next week.  Yeah, a meeting to sign consent forms for evaluation.  Ridiculous.  This meeting was originally scheduled for October 9th.  Um, no.  We have all seen Logan's sudden and significant speech regression and it is scary and things need to be done ASAP.  There has been lots of other crap going on, but I'm not going to get into it here.  Most of you know about it.

So now in addition to 5x's per week ABA we are also doing private speech weekly as well.  Poor little dude has so much going on.  I'm sure he needs OT again too, but we just can't make it fit right now.

Isabel's Non Drama:
We are squeezing in gymnastics and soccer for Isabel.  She LOVES gymnastics and is quite good at it.  She wants to go more than once a week.  Sorry kiddo.  No cando!

Soccer just started back up and the team got clobbered the first game.  The girls are really out there to have fun and it's fine with me.  I love that Isabel always has a smile on her face when she's running.  Everyone comments on it.  It's so cute.

First Girl Scouts meeting is this weekend.  Isabel isn't super gung ho about it, but I committed to being treasurer when the leader was in a bind and we're sticking with it for at least this year.

School is going well for her.  She started homework this week.  So far it's been pretty easy.  Hopefully it stays that way!  First spelling test today.


Happy Friday!

School

The fist week of school

Logan:  had a very, very hard time with this transition.  I'm still trying to gage his needs this year.  It's been difficult.

Izzy:  amazing time.  She loves her teacher.  Loves school, etc etc. she's one of a kind.

Izzy has been reaching out to me about 'people who's brains work a little differently than ours.'  I told her this when  she asked detailed questions about Logan.  We've talked about including people into your friendship circle who might not be able to talk about how much they want to be friends or who sometimes just don't know how to be a good friend.  She was awesome and totally 'got it.'  She realized how hard it was for Logan to make new friends and how she would try to include people in her group who maybe weren't the best at making new friends.  I was super proud.  We also talked a lot about empathy and what it means.  I honestly (100% serious) feel like if you have empathy you are well on your way to being a fantastic and meaningful human being.  I honestly feel like empathy is our greatest asset as human beings.

Anyway, I will attempt to update this blog as often as possible.  But honestly, if you want to know what's going on....call.  I know it's outdated, but just call.  

We are very VERY overwhelmed with taking care of our amazing little autistic boy that we just can't update this little blog all the time. We always ALWAYS appreciate respite care. If you can provide any, we are so very appreciative! 

We have friends, and my parents who come any time they are needed, but even just and hour or two or so very much appreciated!  Thank you to my little village who helps us continuously!

Optimism

I haven't blogged since January?!  That's crazy!  Life has been, well, life.  Very busy, hectic, fantastic, frustrating, awesome.  Sooo, I'll give a few updates.

Me:  I worked 20 hours a week in the lab sequencing all of the DNA.  It was good.  There have been many organizational changes and I think everyone is just sort of hanging on and trying to figure out what's next.  I feel like there are some great opportunities ahead for the lab, but there are always growing pains too.  Working was nice and the extra money was nice, but I felt like I was straddling the line of working mom/stay at home mom.  I would drop the kids off at school and fight traffic to get to work.  I would leave work and have enough time get a few groceries and then pick Logan up.  I was Isabel's room parent this year and luckily I had a lot of help.  The last few weeks of school were very stressful and it was the only time the entire year that I wished I had some more parents stepping up.  I don't know when teacher gifts/end of year parties/etc etc got so stressful, but they have.  It's sort of ridiculous.  Logan had 5, yes 5, teachers to get gifts for.  I know gifts aren't mandatory, but I feel like I definitely needed to do something for these people who spend so much time with my son.  Isabel just had one teacher, but I was in charge of the whole shebang.  I think everything turned out fine.  Isabel's teacher's best friend lost everything in the floods and she is hosting her family until they can rebuild.  So I helped coordinate donations, etc.  It was a great opportunity for me to go through things and donate them as well.  I'm in super cleaning out, paring down mode.  Anyway, there were a lot of duties for me at the end of the year.  Between that and trying to tie up loose ends at work before I broke for the summer it was a little stressful.  I may or may not be going back to work in the Fall.  It's still TBD.

I am really enjoying my time with the kids this summer.  I appreciate it SO much and am really looking forward to our fun travels ahead.  I am a little stressed about the airline flights.  Not because I'm going solo with the kids, but just because of Isabel's allergies.  If it weren't for the allergies I would be home free!  Well, traveling with little kids is always sort of a challenge, but it wouldn't be life-threatening!  I am sooooooooo looking forward to sitting in the cabin with some delicious coffee and just breathing in the fresh air.  The older I get the more grateful I am to have the amazing opportunity to sit with my family and just breath at the cabins.  It gets better every year!

Isabel:  Finished Kindergarten like a boss.  She did amazingly well and finished out the year with stellar marks.  She is ready for 1st grade!  She is a HUGE helper.  She can be super moody/crazy, but we are going to try a trial off of her one medicine that is known to have terrible behavioral side effects.  She's been on it for 3 years straight, so I'm sort of excited to see if the change will make any difference in her behavioral...uh....ticks.  She continues to excel in all things coordination/sports related.  She loves her dance classes and soccer.

Logan:  Finished Pre-K like a boss!  He is doing really well in his summer program and even asked me when he could go back today (Sunday)!  He is the sweetest thing ever.  We are doing very intensive ABA therapy 4 days a week.  This is after his 8 hour day at school.  He works HARD.  He is making great strides and just wants to please you.  He will do anything (and I mean anything) for attention.  :-)  He is the hardest working kid I know and will still give you the biggest hug and kiss at the end of the day.  I am so very proud of him and how far he has come and how hard he works.

Brian:  Working like crazy. 

Hurricane Force Winds

So I'm constantly in a battle with this little blog.  I think that's why I don't post much anymore.  I want to overshare and treat this space as a sort of journal, but then I also realize that I need to respect my husband and children's privacy.  I also sort of feel like if I share a lot on this blog that it gives people an excuse not to pick up the phone and see how things are going.

But, I really want a little place to document my struggles and triumphs in life.  And just life in general.

Right now things are humming along.  I ran my 6th marathon in Houston a couple of weeks ago.  It was sort of awesome.  I had piss poor training this cycle and sometimes only got my 1 long run in during the week.  I hate excuses though.  I was proud of my time 5:30 flat.  Proud that I took this 35 year old body that has the scars from 3 c-sections over that finish line.  Proud that I took the time to talk to that woman at mile 23 who had just gotten a divorce and who so desperately wanted to beat her ex husbands marathon time and when she realized it wasn't going to happen gave her some inspiration that just finishing a damn marathon is enough.  It's about YOU not him.  We ran together for a bit, drank a sip of the free beer together and then I had to call it.  I had to get a move on.  She ushered me on with tears in her eyes.  So I stopped.  I went back and gave her a hug and told her that she was about to be a marathoner!!!   Who cares what her jackass ex husband did?!  She could do it!  And she did.

So I wrote that little blurb about the marathon....oh, 3 weeks ago.  Forgot to try and find pictures and post it.

Since then things have been fun!  Logan is still doing an arduous ABA schedule.  Isabel had indoor soccer training for a couple of months.  I pulled Logan out of martial arts.  It just wasn't working out.  Hopefully he'll get in his teacher's Jiujitsu class soon.  Izzy is still doing dance and Girl Scouts.  Her outdoor soccer season actually starts this week.

Logan is doing pretty well in school.  We've had a couple of meetings about getting his speech evaluated again.  They did and he still doesn't qualify for in-school therapy.  I'm still pissed about this, but I've tried.  His teacher is fantastic this year and I'm very nervous about next year.  His teacher has assured me that he will do everything he can to get Logan with the right Kinder teacher for him.  The principal at the school is on a medical leave of absence for the rest of the year.  She is absolutely amazing and is one of the main reasons that the school is so highly rated and so well known and sought after....even more so than the newer elementary school in the newer section of very expensive homes.  I hope that gets well and is back next year.

Logan seems to excel at numbers and counting.  He's still very hit or miss with almost everything.  Some days he'll count things up to 30 and will identify most letters.  If you ask him to do these thing though, he will usually tell you the wrong answers.

Brian and I recently watched the Temple Grandin movie.  It was fantastic.  So bittersweet.  We both just watched with our mouths open and were like 'Ho.ly shit.  That's Logan.'  If you get a chance to watch it (it's on Netflicks!) you should.  Claire Danes plays Temple and she knocks it out of the park.  She did so well that I'm really shocked she wasn't nominated for awards.  Anyway, I HIGHLY recommend you watch the movie, especially if you know Logan.  Or really anyone with autism.

Isabel is doing great in Kinder.  She is learning to read and likes to insist that her books sent home by her teacher are too 'babyish' and 'easy' for her.  They aren't, but I can see why she gets bored with them.  She still loves her art projects and has recently started writing sentences and stories, which is adorable.  She got her DARS scores back and is ready for 1st grade!  :-)  She spelled all but 2 of her 32 sight words correctly.  Brian immediately wanted to know which ones she got wrong.  Turns out we hadn't had those on her wall and hadn't been practicing them.  Oops.  Anyway, she did great and we aren't worried about her academically.

We are really working to get her off of her Singular.  The emotional side effects are so nasty and she's been on it for over 3 years straight.  It stinks.  Hopefully we will start to wean her off in April or May and see how the Summer goes.  Fingers crossed she can get at least a few months break.  She actually has an asthma/allergy appointment tomorrow.

Brian and I were able to get away last weekend to San Francisco!  We had an amazing time.  It was the most fun I've had in 3 days in a long time.  I saw some silly commercial that said something like 'vacation brings out the best part in you.' Or maybe it was 'if you're not happy on vacation you're a miserable person.'  Something like that.  Anyway, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.  Being back in Northern California felt so good.  We got in Friday night and headed over to Mark and Chelsae's house.  They have two cats, so I was fully expecting to have to bag it and head to a hotel last minute.  I took allergy pills beforehand and started taking inhaled steroids, but I was fine!  It was almost like I wasn't allergic to cats!  Brian, poor Brian, did not fare so well.  He was a trooper though.  We stayed up until 1:30am talking and catching up.  I had been up since 4:30am and it was 3:30am Texas time before we went to bed.  Saturday morning we headed out to Berkeley to catch up with Larry and Guillermo and have breakfast with them. We gave sweet Nadia a pat and then headed back over the Bay Bridge into the city.  It took us 40 minutes to cross the damn bridge.

After getting back into the city we headed over to Fort Point.  That was about a 2 1/2 hour haul with traffic.  I'm glad we went though, we had never been.

Saturday night we checked into our hotel and got ready for dinner.  I showered and put on a dress and high heels.  The elevator was a little sketchy, so Brian suggested we take the stairs from our 5th story room.  Um, ok.  So down we went.  As we were heading into the lobby from the carpeted stairs I felt myself falling.  I grabbed the railing as if my life depended on it and ended up turned around with my feet about 6 stairs up from my head.  It was sort of like I was in my own little hurricane or hurricane force wind storm.  It was all slow motion.  I didn't dare let go or I knew I was going to do somersaults down the stairs.  I, of course, got up and laughed it off and strutted out into the streets of San Francisco like the boss I am.  The next day I noticed that I actually had a nice blister on my hand from gripping the damn railing so hard and a lovely bruise on my knee.

After shaking it off we were planning on eating dinner at this place in North Beach known for their seafood.  They didn't take reservations for less than 4 people, so when we got there the wait was 2.5 HOURS long.  Uh, no thanks.  So we headed a couple of feet up the street to another lovely Italian joint and waited just an hour for some good Italian food.  After dinner we headed to this beer bar Brian wanted to go to.  It was fun, but I was getting super tired so we headed back to the hotel shortly after.

Sunday we got up and went for breakfast at the famous Yerba Buena.  It was so fun.  The tables are communal, so you basically sit in any open seat, even if it's a teeny tiny table and you don't know the other couple sitting there.  We sat down next to a couple from Houston.  Small world.  They were very lovely and we enjoyed chatting with them.  After breakfast we did the touristy Fisherman's Warf stuff.  Then we had chowder in bread bowls at Neptune's Palace.  How is sourdough SO freaking good in SF?!  We headed over to Dan and Meredith's house after lunch. 

Meredith is probably the world's best hostess.  Ever.  We almost got in a fist fight over her trying to give us their brand new bed to sleep in.  They actually got a new bed the night before because 'Allyson and Brian were coming and our bed was old.'  They won and we claimed their room.  She invited all of the Moms over from Mom's group 2005.  Including Donna!  It was awesome.  I loved seeing all of the kids so grown up.  They all looked the same, just older versions.  I can't say enough how amazing Sunday night was.  Even though I rarely talk to most of the Moms anymore I know they would be there for me and my family if we ever needed anything.  Preben made a homemade Danish (he's from Denmark) and it was heavenly.  I could have eaten the entire thing.  Mer made cupcakes and homemade chocolate mousse.  And Shepard's Pie.  And meatballs.  And sausage.  And stuff for the kids.

My flight was too early Monday morning.  I really wanted to stay and extra couple of days.  I had a terrible nightmare about Izzy Friday night, so I really missed the kids Saturday and was feeling homesick, but by Sunday I was feeling better and ready to relax some more!

Brian stayed in SF for work the rest of the week and made it home late Friday night.  We had a fun weekend celebrating one of my best friends' birthdays, so it was a nice way to cap off a fun couple of weeks.

My parents are also officially hired as babysitters.  Not only did they take awesome care of the kids, but they cleaned out the garage (if you've ever seen our garage you know what a huge task this is), cleaned and vacuumed out my car, did laundry, shuttled the kids around and there was a damn pot roast in the crock pot ready for me!  Amazing.

It's Been a Short Minute

Yeah, haven't blogged in a while.  Life has thrown us unexpected challenges and opportunities and I've just been really busy.  I have been meaning to step back in and document a few things, but it just never happened.  So here I go.

Iz:  Continues to be a sassy 5 year old.  Loves princesses and dress up.  Currently learning how to read and write.  She's doing awesome at both of those.  Her report cards have been pretty stellar grade-wise.  She's shown great improvement on her behavioral marks this past 6 week period.  She very rarely gets the dreaded 'writing in the folder' anymore (it was a weekly or twice weekly occurrence at the beginning of the year.)  Watching your child learn to read has got to be a top parenting moment of all time.  It's so much fun.  Oh, Izzy is a freaking Lego master!  She LOVES legos and can do pretty much anything put in front of her.  One of Brian's secretaries accidentally ordered two of these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sets so she gave one to Izzy.  Izzy knocked it out in less than an hour!  I love Legos, but do not love that they don't have many geared towards girls.  I know, I know, girls can play with any of the Lego sets, but most (not all) 5 year old girls are drawn towards pink, purple and sparkles.  With a side of princess.  Grandma and Grandpa gave Izzy a lot of the princess Lego sets and she finished all of them over the break.  She's in the process of redoing them.  Izzy is also in the beginning stages of coding, much to Brian's delight.  There is an awesome website for elementary school coders www.anhourofcode.org  Check it out!

One of the biggest most notable achievements would have to be that Izzy has perfect attendance so far. Let me say that again PERFECT ATTENDANCE!  For a 5 year old with life-threatening allergies and severe asthma to have perfect attendance is almost unheard of.  I credit this with having an amazing allergist.  I am so glad we switched from the big, shiny, fancy, I-won't-come-see-you-in-the-hospital-even-though-you-were-at-my-office-yesterday-and-now-you're-in-the-PICU doctor at the Children's Hospital, to the no frills, crappy linoleum floor doctor down South.  She is a little gem.  She also trained at the best allergy hospital in the country.  So there's that.

We haven't had many play dates because life has been busy and hectic.  More on that later.  Izzy does Girl Scouts, dance and is currently doing soccer training in the off-season.  It sounds ridiculous, but she's doing it with her team and it's really just and excuse to get out and run around with her friends.  Maybe she's learning how to kick the ball harder too?  Who knows.  All I know is that she loves it.

Logan:  Logan is making progress.  We decided to increase his ABA therapy to 3-4 times/week.  It is very very VERY draining on everyone.  Usually there are tears.  Sometimes by Logan and sometimes by me.  At first I was lukewarm on ABA, but as we are setting more goals, the more I see how beneficial it is.  I am very excited about his newest set of goals.  They are things that Brian and I just can't articulate well and when we see the goals written out and defined we both go 'aha!!!!  THIS is what he can't do and needs to practice and learn.'  Logan continues to surprise most people when they learn his is on the spectrum, but the older he gets, the more I see the need for therapy.  He is doing less hand flapping, but more open mouth clenched hand stims and rolled hands when excited.  I'm sure that needed to be hyphenated somehow, but I don't have the brain power left to do it.  Logan's school progress reports show that he has strings of good days and then strings of bad days.  This is in line with what we see at home.  Luckily over the Christmas holidays he had overall mostly good days.  It did help that his biggest calming environment was watching Grandpa's trains in the train room and he had almost unlimited access to that.  Academically Logan is right on track.  His coloring has shown great improvement.  At the start of the year his pictures would be just a few lines scribbled.  He now makes an attempt to stay in the lines and is working hard on writing his name.  Currently the plan is for him to start in a regular Kindergarten class next year.  He does have hours set aside for an aide every day, but they are minimal.  I have a feeling the hours will need to be adjusted as the year progresses (if not in the first week.)  It is very hard to picture him in a Kinder class with 20 students and 1 teacher when currently he is in a class with 5 teachers and 16 students.  Our lead ABA therapist also has a child on the spectrum so we are learning from him what we need to fight for in Logan's ARD's and his IEP.  

We pulled Logan out of martial arts last week.  He was very disruptive at the last class he attended.  He had a few really good classes, but then a few bad classes.  I was going to give it one last shot and see how it went last Monday, but when I asked him to get ready he told me he didn't want to go and honestly, I wasn't in any shape to fight him on it.  It was also very hard on me to watch him at martial arts with typically developing kiddos.  I had a constant internal 'come ON Logan' in my head.  It took all I had not to get up, go over to him, and physically show him how to do it.  Fortunately Logan's preschool teacher is a Jiujitsu instructor and started a special needs class on Saturdays.  I cannot wait for Logan to start.  His teacher had shoulder surgery over the break, so Jiujitsu is on hold until February.

Brian:  Continues to work between 60-80 hour a week.  Rock star Dad when he's home.  He's also Mr. Fixit and can fix almost anything (with the help of Google sometimes).

Allyson:  Working part-time since early November.  I am so grateful for the opportunity to put my skills to work (and get paid!) while being able to take off of work while my kids are out of school.  This is a temporary assignment, but I truly appreciate the opportunity to be sequencing DNA again and the opportunity to learn about the newest technologies.  Trying desperately to juggle work, housework, shuttling to soccer, dance, etc, working out, but mostly ABA therapy.  ABA sucks the damn life out of me.

Detoxing since the holidays.  I drank way too much wine in that 2 week time.  Can't wait for post-marathon beers though.  I've been dreaming of how good that will taste.  Oh yeah, running the Houston marathon next weekend.  Should be super awesome with my completely half-assed training cycle.  Although I did manage to get 3 twenty mile runs in.  Sometimes (often) those long runs were my only runs for the week.  Still getting up at 4:35am to make my spin classes though!  That keeps me sane.

Hudson:  Has stopped pissing on our bed!!!!

Overall:  Christmas was pretty awesome.  I loved that we got to spend time with my brother, sister in-law and nephews from China, my sister from Florida, my Grandma from Montana and my brother in-law and sister in-law from California.  Making memories in my parents' new home was fun.  Not enough Pinochle playing!  We will have to make up for that in Montana this summer.  We went to Moody Gardens and saw the aquarium and the cool iceland exhibit, the Children's Museum in Houston, Santa's Wonderland in College Station, and the Children's Museum in The Woodlands. So much fun!!!!  We really appreciate Gramma and Grampa taking us on all of these awesome adventures!

Brian and I are really going to attempt to make date night a priority.  The odds are stacked against us to make our marriage work.  I mean, deceased child, child on the spectrum, child with life threatening illness?  All of those dramatically increase the divorce rate.  We know this.  Our lead ABA therapist has insisted that we go out as a couple.  He even told us his girlfriend (who works with kids on the spectrum) has offered her babysitting services.  We are going to try and have a date night once a month.  We can do that, right?!

Four cold grandkids.

Yoda.  I mean, Ethan.

Iceland exhibit

Moody Gardens

Whoa!  Logan is excited.

Obligatory Texas flag picture.

My cutie patootie nephew.

GGB apparently liked the show!

Jenn.  Again.  Christ.

Cookie making assembly line.

Super excited about his Zombie Survival kit.

We are not normal.

Chinese fashions.

Jenn just can't take a damn picture.  Typical youngest child.

Thanks Jenn.

And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse

Logan:  Happy F***king New Year.

And I married him.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

We had a fun weekend!  Brian and I had a date night on Friday and went to dinner with other parents in Izzy's class.  It was nice to chat about the sometimes ridiculousness of Kindergarten with other parents.  Especially nice as it was report card day.  Isabel did fantastic academic wise.  I was actually really surprised because she's not actually reading yet.  Behaviorally she has a few things to work on.  No surprise there.  Logan did very well.  He's having a great year and I really love his new teachers.  We have his ARD in 2 weeks, so we'll know more then.  Our main focus/dilemma is whether or not we should hold him back.  It's too early to tell right now (I think) but it's definitely on my mind.

Saturday I set my alarm for 4:15am to get ready for the 1/2 marathon I was running.  It was a very small race, but a nice time up for marathon day.  It's been a long time since I raced and this one boosted my confidence.  I picked off 26 runners and had 1 pass me.  That 1 still pisses me off.  I started off slow (like I always do) and picked up sped.  I didn't have any timing devices, so it was hard to gauge my speed.  I usually run with at least 1 device, but I'm almost over my phone data plan for the month and didn't charge my Garmin.  I also ran completely without music.  I think it helped my pace. My unofficial time was 2:18, which I was very happy with as it was a hilly course.

While I was running Isabel and crew were busy with a soccer game.  isabel scored 3 goals!  I came home and after a nice long bath passed out for 2 hours.  I was so tired.  Izzy was tired too.

Brian worked until about 3am Sunday morning and then again for about 3 hours after the kids got up Sunday morning.  After he finished up what he needed to do we hit up Chipotle (it's been way too long) and thence our way downtown to a performance of 'Don't be Afraod of the Dark' by Ballet Austin.

The show was great!  It was just 55 minutes and very entertaining for the kids.  Logan really loved it and clapped super loud after each song.  Isabel loved the dancing portion where she could see the ballerinas (a lot of the show involved black lights and props).  She kept saying 'I can see the people holding sticks'.  She was onto their tricks.  She also saw a promo poster for The Nutcracker and asked if she could see that.

After the show the kids fell asleep in the car so I had Brian pull into the grocery store so that I could get groceries.  I'm making dinners for families this week and really needs ingredients.  When the kids woke up we agreed to go to the pumpkin patch near our house to get carving pumpkins.  It was late and the kids were super grumpy so we told them it would be quick.  We pull up and there is a full on carnival going on.  Ugh.  So we get it ur pumpkins and tell the kids we're leaving.  Logan is fine but Isabel decided to whine and whine and whine about how she 'just wants to go on one ride.'  No dice sister.  So being the super mean parents that we are we haul her in the car and drive off.  As we're pulling away she whimpers 'goodbye fun carnival.'  So dramatic.