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.

Rain! Inside!

Last Thursday it rained.  It rained really really hard.  Like 7 inches in 24 hours or something.  We are still in an epic drought in central Texas, so this is a LOT of rain for us.  It was so much rain that after giving the kids baths and getting them ready for bed Logan had to be reassured that no, it wasn't going to rain in our house.  I let him know that we are so lucky because we have a strong sturdy house with a new roof over our heads.  So Logan is about to hop in bed and I take Izzy downstairs for her medicine.  I hear 'plop plop plop' and think 'great, the A/C drain is backed up again.'  I turn around and there is water coming down the walls in the playroom!  It's coming out of the light switch, crown molding, etc.  The floor is soaked.  Izzy 'I have GOT to go tell Logan!'  Stop right there baby girl!  Do not move!  IF YOU TELL LOGAN ONE WORD OF THIS YOU WILL LOSE TV PRIVELADGES FOR 3 WEEKS!  Inside my head:  shit man, he just told us he was scared of water coming in the house.  WTF is wrong with you?!

About that time Brian walks in.  Welcome home!  Our house is totally effed!

As I put the kids to bed Brian investigated in the torrential rain.  He moves the treadmill in the study and the floor is so wet that it's squishy.  So he called the roofing company that put our brand new roof on less than a month ago and the guy says he will be out in the morning.

Long story short, the gutters in one area were put on incorrectly causing water to get under the shingles and water to get on the wall.  It was so wet that the brick was saturated.

We had servpro (a professional restoration company) immediately come out and start drying things with some industrial fans and dehumidifiers.  They pulled up the carpet and cut out the pads underneath, cut out the drywall and pulled out the insulation, took off the baseboards and crown molding too.  What a mess.

That wet spot on the brick is the damage.

Upstairs study.

Downstairs playroom.

It took about 4 days of the fans running 24/7 (it was LOUD) to dry the areas.  They also put on some antimicrobial solutions each day to inhibit and stop  any possible mold growth.  Luckily there was zero evidence of any mold.

So the contractor the roofing company hired to put the houseback together started working on Wednesday.  They had hoped to be finished by Friday, but that didn't happen.  They also thought that this was ok:

Does that look like it matches to you?!

Yeah, still not matching.

I mean, I know it stinks that the molding is discontinued and that you have to get it in Houston, but this is my house!  Please don't 1/2 ass it!  One of the dudes genuinely looks shocked that I would want the base boards to match up!  Even they admitted that the molding looked terrible.  So they will come back next week.

Meanwhile, I repainted the kitchen!  Since we had the fans/dehumidifiers going I thought it would be the perfect time to get it done.  The paint did dry really quickly!  Now to try and figure out curtains...  Any suggestions?

My parents came up over the weekend to inspect the damage (not really, they needed to get batteries for the RV in Bastrop) and meet Hudson.  We headed to Fredricksburg and had a fun Sunday afternoon.  German food, the Christmas Store, buying the kids/grandkids stuff...what could be more fun?!  We got some cute new additions for the Halloween village.

On the way back to Austin we stopped for dinner at Salt Lick.  Logan really didn't want to go so he puked all over the car/car seat.  I took him home and got him cleaned up while the rest of the crew ate.  Poor little guy.  At least it was just a 24 hour thing and he was fine by Monday afternoon.

Rain!

I asked him to show me his muscles and told him he had to go to bed so that they would grow even bigger.  :)

It finally rained!  And cooled down a little it.  The high today was 77!  Woohoo!  It's supposed to be back in the 90s the rest of the week, but I'm loving the cooler weather.  Isabel's soccer game was cancelled this morning.  Apparently some a-holes decided to take their truck and do donuts on the soccer fields totally tearing them up.  Nice job jerks.

Isabel actually cried when we told her the game was cancelled.   :(  we told her the game was on (based on the website update at 5:50am) but then we got the cancellation email shortly after.

So we went to Target to get her some rain boots.  I bought Logan rain boots at the 2nd hand store last week and thought Izzy had some.  Turns out hers were too small.  Target didn't have any so I checked Zulily and they has some mermaid ones.  Perfect!

Hudson had decided that he needs to start 'marking' areas of the house.  Awesome.  I've washed my sheets/comforter 4 times this week!  Good thing he's cute.

Hoping to get out and do something outdoors tomorrow.

Doctor x 4

We've been to 4 doctor's appointments in 4 days.  Geneticist, dentist, neurologist, dentist again.  I'll give a 1-3 sentence recap.

Geneticist- recommend further parental testing, but none needed for Logan.  Gave us interesting info about ARVD.

Dentist 1- Will replace 2 caps under sedation on Thursday.

Neurologist-  keep on keepin on.  Don't sweat the small stuff and sucker punch anyone who dares give you 'the look' when out in public.  Also, still on track to transition to mainstream kinder.

Dentist 2-  caps went on well.  No more apples (unless cut up) or hard candy.  Don't let him run today.

Drug cocktail kicking in.

Getting out of the car.

Still loopy.

Crying.

More crying.

More crying.

Lots more crying.

Crying on our way to get Izzy.

I haven't had one of these days since the pre-diagnosis days.  Phew!

So there you have it.  Logan was super loopy until around 2pm today.  Walking like a drunken sailor and overall just a pain in the ass.  Since he wasn't in any pain (unlike the last time he had dental work done) it was really hard to be sympathetic.  I tried to watch movies with him, but his attention span was about 3 minutes.  He's cranky and tired.

Hudson has decided that Brian is evil and won't go anywhere near him.  I had to take Logan early this morning so Brian was left taking izzy to school and putting Hudson in the crate.  He said he had to chase Hudson around the yard to get him inside.  And then he pooped on the floor.  Oops.

We also had our HVAC system serviced this week.  While we were gone our drain pipe overflowed and we had water downstairs.  I fixed that and then the upstairs unit went out last week.  Brian fixed that, but we knew both units needed freon so I called Mr. Cool and he filled them up.  We desperately need new units, but that will have to wait a year or two.  Talk about hemorrhaging money this week!

I'm glad tomorrow is Friday and that there is a cool front coming through that promises RAIN!!!!!!  I don't even care if soccer is cancelled on Saturday.  I just want rain!

On a cute note....school pictures were today and Isabel looked pretty cute.

Minus the side braid.  This was outfit 'testing' last night.