Going around the house

Logan has decided to share his bug with me and Brian.  Luckily it seems like it's just a 24 hour thing.  I was totally down for the count yesterday and Brian came home from work about 10am and has been in bed since.  I guess Isabel is next?

Today we have speech, soccer and 2 hours of ABA.  Lord help me.  Last week I totally spaced on speech and just forgot.  I never do that!  They were very kind about the no-show.  I got Logan's new evaluation from the private speech eval.  Lots of room to grow.

I have Logan's parent teacher conference tomorrow and Isabel's is on Wednesday. I'm excited to see what Isabel's DRA is.  I have no clue where she is right now.  They haven't assigned books or reading groups yep.

This weekend Isabel killed it at soccer!  She scored 7 goals and just played great!  She had a fun time.  I had fun watching her!  Poor Brian had to go get snacks for after the game.  I forgot we were signed up this week.

Sunday Brian took the kids to the playground Sunday and they both climbed up to the spider web.

Last night Logan somehow put thinking putty in his hair.  Oh my.  It was a huge mess.

He is now sporting a few bald spots.

Yep, I did

I sent Sir Pukes a lot to school today.  His pedi said it's ok since he didn't have a fever and had 3 doses of antibiotics.  So I sent him to school.  He had a great day!  He had part of his speech evaluation.  They are 'very concerned.'  No shit.

Izzy had been 'looking forward' to her flu shot all week.  I'm not kidding.  I had to reschedule it from yesterday to today and she was disappointed.  I think she was just trying to psych herself up.  About 3 seconds before go time she looked at me with big tears and said she didn't want to do it.  Poor thing.  We held hands and she looked at the ceiling and it was over quickly.  She got 3 toy tokens, so she was happy.  She did walk out of the office with this absolutely increadibly ridiculous limp.  I was quite amused.  She claimed she couldn't walk.  We went to Target afterwards and she somehow miraculously regained her ability to walk without a major limp when I said she could get an icee.

The Pukes

I washed all of the bed sheets, 2 of the comforters and a big blanket.  Yesterday. And then Logan woke up at 3am covered in puke.  And then proceeded to puke 9 more time before 9:00am.  Needless to say the washing machine was running all day long.  Poor little dude.  Strep test came back positive, but his tonsils weren't inflamed.  I'm starting to think he's just a strep carrier.  He always tests positive.  Off we went with amoxicillin and Zofran.  The Zofran really helped with the puking.  He was starting to get really dehydrated quickly.  His lips were pale, etc.  We tried pedialyte but he wasn't having any of that.  He has been able to keep down water, so that's good.

Poor little dude:

He had been up since 3am and finally crashed in his bed at 3:30pm.  I let him sleep until 5 and then we had to take sister to soccer.

He went through 6 outfit changes, 3 sheet sets and a car seat today.

Crossing my fingers tomorrow is less eventful!

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.