The Puddles

So the kids had to clean the house on Saturday while Mom worked in the office.  Daddy was supervising.  The day started off well.  Ainsley is helping daddy with pushing down the trash.  She came in my office and asked that I take her picture.  Afterwards she told me that I could now put it on facebook. I told her that I wasn’t on face book.  She said, “Well, when you get on facebook you can do it!”

By lunch time the house still wasn’t clean and the kids had gone from helping to being action figures. It slowly degraded from helping to playing.  When Dad left to get dinner for my birthday, I spent the next two hours cleaning the house.  So in less than 2 hours, Ainsley, Ben and I were able to accomplish something that they were not able to accomplish in 8 hours.  But in the end, it was clean and that is what counted.  

The kids decided to have a slumber party this week in the living room.  They set up there sleeping pallets and felt the need to have umbrellas at each of their spots. It was sweet.

By the end of the night, Chris put the younger two on the couches and Madie had to go sleep in her bedroom (there was a disagreement between the siblings which resulted in Madie going upstairs to her room).  The night was still fun and they did a fairly decent  job cleaning up their stuff!

This is Dad. He is supposedly “talking” to me while he is also focusing on whatever conversation is happening on his phone!!  But we love him anyways!!

“Mom, you can only feed me soft foods now,” declares Ainsley.  She is so proud of her tooth, but hasn’t worked up the nerve yet to pull it out.

Chris and I went to see the pediatrician on Friday.  After waiting for an hour and a half to see the doctor (and locked in a tiny room with an unmedicated husband was hard), we finally got to talk to her about Ben’s ADD testing.  This is what we learned:

1.  Ben is a medically complex kid.

2.  Ben has ADD.

So we didn’t learn anything new, but we at least have an official diagnosis so that the school will give Ben accommodations in the classroom.   He is really struggling this year.  We are starting out the year and his progress report said he had two B’s (barely B’s) and the rest were worse. Most of his grades were poor due to incompletion, losing the assignment, neatness, etc. The worse grades were because of this.  We had a conference with the teacher.  She didn’t know Ben’s history (I just assume the staff knows about Ben’s medical issues).  That conference happened a while ago. There is a long story between that conference and today, but the result is this . . . I don’t think we have convinced her yet that we want to be a team with her working to help Ben.  We don’t hate her. We don’t want Ben to come off easy.  We just want a learning environment where Ben will thrive .   She doesn’t like that he misses school for doctor’s appointments (frankly, neither do we).  We just can’t help that.

So hopefully we will have a meeting next week to start set up a 504 plan for Ben.  I have high hopes for a great meeting.  In the meantime, Dr. P. suggested that we add fish to his diet (or fish oil pills) and try giving him melatonin at night to help him go to sleep (he really struggles with this).   We can’t give any medicine for ADD(none of his doctors will sign off on this). All we can do is set up an environment at home and school that will help him succeed.  So game on!!

Ainsley for several days has set up the coffee table as her desk. She didn’t want to take her desk down until I took a picture of it.  She even set a Dt. Coke on the table, so that it was authentic.

Ben’s

“You will be singled out for promotion.”  Poor Ben could go for a little promotion in life.

Madie’s

” You will step on the soil of many countries.” I can only hope for wonderful dreams such as these for Madie.

Ainsley’s

“You need to delegate more responsibility at home and at work.” Seriously.  This child doesn’t need any more encouragement to get her siblings to do her work.

Mom’s

“You are a practical person with your feet on the ground.” Chris says I should switch with Ainsley.

Dad’s

“Good news from afar may bring you a welcome visitor.”  I wonder who we shall see soon?  We always love visitors.

I took Ben to his annual physical exam on Monday.  I know that he sees doctors all of the time, but no one looks at his entire well being except at the annual visit.  They see his heart, his kidneys, his g.i. system, and recently . . . his ankle, but not the whole of Ben. At this visit, she was concerned about Ben’s . . . for lack of  better words . . . temper tantrums.  He has a tendency to get really frustrated during homework or with friends or with situations or with sisters and it is like . . . once he gets to the mountain top, he doesn’t know how to get back down.  We talk to him about stepping away from the situation and taking deep breaths, but he really needs to learn to do some of this by himself. We won’t be there all of the time to help him.  So we are starting with the counselor at school to work with him. The problem is that everyone gets stressed and freaks out, but Ben’s stress causing very adverse reactions on every part of his body.

And then Ben didn’t do well on his eye screening, so now we must go to the doctor’s office to get his eyes checked.  Luckily, I work for a great optometrist so I’ll take him there.  But still, it is yet another visit.

Madie went to her appointment yesterday with Dad.  They checked the growth on her ear (it grew back since the removal of it last May).  The doctor said we could just watch it. Yeah!  He thinks it is a cyst and that if it doesn’t bother her and it doesn’t get out of control that we can let her have it.  I’m guessing that Madie is just going to live with it knowing her.  She would rather ignore the fact that it is there.  Works for me this time.

We have one more appointment on Friday.  This one we get to go without Ben. Chris and I will meet with the pediatrician for our final review on all of Ben’s ADD testing.  If the result is “Yes, he has ADD”, then we can go to school and request accommodations for Ben in class (right now his teacher won’t make any significant moves without an official  diagnosis).  Just one more thing. But that will be the final visit for a while.

As long as no one gets sick!

Original plan: Spend all day at Girl Scout camp getting some inspirational training. (Not very glamorous. But it would be a day to myself outside at a camp.)

Change of plans: Canceled training at camp. Too many days away from work due to this week and next week’s doctor’s visits mean I needed all day Saturday to play catchup with work. The plan was to shut the doors to my office while Chris ran the house and the children.

What really happened: There were people who were in need last night and most of the day today.  Translation . . . I spent the day by myself trying to work, do housework, and be the “mean” mom to three children while they attempted their chores.

I don’t mind giving for the Lord.  Now if only God could add one more day to the week or at least a few hours each day  to help me make it to the end of the week. I would be forever grateful!

I’ve tried negotiating with the Lord before and it has never gotten me anywhere.  But it certainly doesn’t hurt to try again!