another rite of passage

I've become the Tooth Fairy.

My little boy is growing up so fast. I get wistful for his baby days when he gets home from school and he shows me the new thing he learned that day.

Where did the last 5 years go?

A trip down memory lane

Its hard to believe I have a son wandering the same elementary school hallways that I did, with the same kindergarten teacher. There have been some changes to the building and some changes in teachers. But it seemed to fade back into the school that I remember last night.

We went to Open House at the school last night. We had to sit thru a short Parent Teacher Organization meeting then browsed through the books at the Book Fair and got to see Keith's classroom, the library, gym, cafeteria, art room, music room, you name it, Keith showed it to us. He was SO excited. It makes me so happy that he loves school.

Today was Grandparents Day and the kids are allowed to go home with their grandparents after recess if they want. Mom said that Keith had such a hard time deciding what to do because he would miss his friends if he went home. :-)

It was a relief to see that Keith has made a lot of friends. I think that's something that all parents worry about. Its so important that their first year of school leaves them with positive memories. I've got my fingers crossed that it continues to be this great!

bitching and moaning

Seems like all I write about are complaints. Well, it is therapy of a sort!

Another rough morning at my house. Keith balked about getting dressed and outright refused to brush his teeth so into Time Out he went. Then begins the screaming, yelling and whining from him that I have to ignore. Do you know how hard that is? I want to scream at him to SHUT UP! It makes me what to rip my hair out. I get so freaking pissed off that he won't do what he's supposed to. How hard is it?? Let me brush your teeth!! Get dressed!! Why is that so hard? Why why why why why?

What I wouldn't give for an easy morning where everyone gets up and gets dressed and ready to face the day with no complaining or problems.

See? Its always the same with me..........bitch, bitch, bitch about the same thing. You'd think pretty soon I'd suck it up, right? And quit complaining. Yeah, sure, then I'll explode.

I was looking forward to next month. Brian was supposed to go to a two day conference with his bosses and the wives always go along to do shopping and such. I was really excited........a couple of days away, retail therapy, maybe the chance to meet up with a couple of friends.......

*POP*

That was the sound of my bubble bursting. The bosses decided that this conference wouldn't benefit Brian a whole lot so they'd like him to stay home and cover service calls. Thanks guys.

It's been awhile

Things are well, hectic in my life. I seem to be running somewhere all the time.

Keith has good days and bad days. He still LOVES school (Thank God!). They had vision screenings a while ago and he was referred to an optometrist. We went and he's pretty farsighted in his right eye. So now he has glasses, which hasn't been too bad. He doesn't really mind them.

Caleb.......oh boy. What a pisser. He is on the go all. the. time. And into something all the time. He loves to play with Keith but he can't always do what Keith is doing and Keith gets frustrated because Caleb won't leave him alone. *sigh* It seems all I say is "Caleb, NO!" The past 4 or 5 days, Caleb has decided to either get up early in the morning or during the night. This morning he was up at 2:20 am. I did get him to go back to sleep with me on the couch around 4 am. This makes for a very tired Mommy on top of this awful cold I've had for a month.

Brian has not been a whole lot of help lately. I don't know what caused the change. He used to do dishes sometimes, he used to do laundry, he used to vaccuum. Nothing now. He gets home from work, eats dinner and watches TV. Right now, I have a FULL sink of dirty dishes. I'm just waiting for him to say something about them. Cause I'm waiting for him to do them.

So far this week, he has not been home before 7 pm. On Monday, it was 7 when he got home. He had stopped at the bowling alley to pick out a new bowling ball that his mother is buying him. I, on the other hand, took Keith to the eye doctor as soon as he got home from school. Which is an hour trip, one way. So I got back around 6:45 and had to find dinner for Keith and I before I had to be at the fire hall at 7:15.

Last night, the boys and Brian had hair cut appointments at 5 pm. So as soon as Keith got off the bus, we took off. Brian met us there. After they got their haircuts, Brian had to go get his new bowling ball drilled. I took the boys home, got dinner, played, got them both in bed. Brian got home at 8:30 pm. Tonight he bowls.

*sigh* I feel like a complete lunatic most days. I have no patience, I'm exhausted, I really feel like I'm losing my mind.

World War III

Yup, its at my house.

So, the therapist was in total agreement about no meds and we now have a new Time Out system. Its hard. Keith, of course, hates it.

Dr. P assured me that it would get much worse before it gets better but he felt that this is not a serious problem and he doesn't think it will take very long for Keith to relearn what behavior is proper. He expects to see results quickly.

I hope so, I really really do.

Life just isn't fair, is it?

Caleb has had a cold for a week or so now and Sunday night I knew it was time to take him to the doctor and have his ears checked. Sure enough, he's just starting ear infections. This is only the second one he's had so I'm pretty happy with that considering by this age Keith had tubes.

Anyway, I was home with Caleb yesterday to take him to the doctor and while I could have done without all of the whining of a sick baby, I miss it today while I sit here at work.

I want to stay home with all my heart. I hate having days off because it just drives that fact home all the more. I. want. to. be. a. stay. at. home. mommy. I want to be able to be there when Keith leaves for school in addition to being there when he gets home. I want to be able to snuggle with my little man whenever I feel like it. I don't want to feel so freaking frazzled at night after I get home from work, trying to get dinner cooked and served, get the kids bathed and into bed, get lunches ready, etc. and have no time to spend playing with my kids.

We could afford for me to stay home......if we sold the house and my car. But it will never happen because my job provides our health insurance free of charge for the entire family. Lucky me, huh?

no magic pills for us, please

In my last post, I did wish for a magic pill to help Keith's behavior. I haven't written about his appointment because I needed some time to step back and think about where to go from here.

The appointment itself was pretty good. The doctor was very nice and spent a lot of time going over family and medical history with me then spent a while examining Keith. He ordered bloodwork which we had done after the appointment and he also gave us two prescriptions. I did take the 'scripts to the pharmacy on the way home and they weren't able to fill one of them because the dosage the doctor indicated does not exist!

I called the doctors office several times the next day and left messages regarding this problem and when someone did finally call me back on Friday, it was not a pretty conversation. I was VERY irritated that they took so long to get back to me and that I was unable to get in touch with someone. *sigh*

Anyway, Brian and I had a long talk and I did a bunch of research on the 'Net and it is our personal belief that medication should be the LAST step not the first.

Keith has an appointment next week with a therapist. We're going to try that route and see what happens there for now. Everything I've read supports this route. My family, I don't think, are going to see eye to eye on this with me but this is MY kid.

And I will try to do my best for him....whatever that may be.

school days

School started on Monday. According to Keith, he has had a wonderful time. He's colored, played with clay, sang songs and had lots of fun. I was so happy! What a breakthrough for us, I thought.

Mrs. A. sent a note home yesterday. It wasn't anything too bad like major tantrums or hitting/kicking just that he refused to finish coloring an assigned page for a while on the first day. And again yesterday. He sat and stared at his paper during inside recess while all of the kids played around him, like it didn't matter. Then he got upset when Mrs. A took the paper from him.

We have an appointment with a pediatrician regarding Keith's behaviour this afternoon. I just want some answers and some solutions. God help me, I wish there was a magic pill to give him and make him better.

I hope he's being good at school today because all he did this morning at home was fight about everything. I knew the first two mornings were too good to be true.

I'm so tired.

orientation and daycare

Today is the LAST day I have to deal with whacko babysitter! Yay! Gonna have a party, gonna have a party! Caleb starts daycare on Tuesday and Keith starts school on Monday. Yikes!

Kindergarten orientation was yesterday. We got to see Keith's classroom, meet his teacher, take a bus ride, find his locker, etc. It was fun! Keith was actually very well behaved. He had trouble being quiet when Mrs. A was talking but thankfully he wasn't the only one! LOL

He seems slightly excited. Its really hard to tell with him. *sigh*

His behavioural eval is on Wed. He's been pretty good the past week. Its when he's been good for a few days that I second guess myself. He really can't be that bad, can he? Bu when its bad, its hellish so I have to keep that in mind. I owe it to all of us to make sure there is nothing wrong.

I'm going to spend Sunday snuggling with my first baby. I don't think I'm ready for this. All the new responsiblities......lunch, library books.....oh man!

Too sentimental??

I've been thinking about my house for a while now. I'm not in love with my house. Its not quite big enough for us. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 baths plus the normal living room, kitchen and one other room that I have no clue what to call. Family room, I guess. None of these rooms are supersized and we have no basement or attic.......no garage only a teeny shed for outdoor storage. Oh and we have the enclosed porch that is STILL under contruction. The outside is finished but not the inside.

So anyway, I've thought before about selling it and finding something a bit bigger or at the least something with a smaller payment. We didn't spend a fortune on this house but the payments are alot for us.

The problem, you ask? The 2.5 acres that we (and the bank, of course!) own are part of the original farm that my grandparents had. I remember as a child sled riding in the field where my house is now. This is HOME! My parents and grandmother live on what's left of the farm acreage so its not as if I let my part go, it would be out of the family.

I wonder sometimes if my sentimentality is endangering my family's financial security.

In memory of Ryan

Almost a year ago, a wonderful friend gave birth to and lost her beautiful son within a couple of days. I'll be thinking of her and her husband and grieving with them these next couple of weeks.

School starts Aug 28th!

But wait, that's only 41 days away........that's way too soon!

Seriously, I'm gonna have a freakin' panic attack here. I am not prepared for my first baby to go to school. He can't be 5 already. Where did all this time go?

I'm going to be a total mess on the first day............okay the first week ...............or two.

I've officially reached my wits end

I am so tired........tired of fighting with Keith....over everything. It doesn't matter what it is. If you tell him the sky is blue, he'll argue with you about it.

The tantrums and screaming at the top of his lungs, I can't handle it anymore. I just want to sit down and cry. No one understands what its like to live with this child. They smirk and laugh when I complain. I don't know what to do with him. Mornings........gotta fight and struggle with him to get up, eat, and get dressed. Afternoons........gotta fight with him to do ANYTHING you want him to do. Night.........gotta fight with him to eat, play NICE with Caleb (this is a new thing...........he will grab Caleb's leg as Caleb is walking by and trip him, Keith will try dragging him around by the arm and he'll push him over.), gotta fight with Keith to get jammies on, go potty, brush teeth and get in bed. EVERY FUCKING DAY! This is my life. I struggle with an almost 5 year old constantly.

What's he going to be like in school? I've been struggling with this lately because I wonder if I should hold him out until next year. The bottom line is I'm going to send him because I don't know what else to do with him.

What kind of fucking mother am I?

Wedding Pics!

Okay, okay, here they are! LOL

The Wedding!

Well, in response to a recent demand (Erin!), I'm finally taking time to write about the wedding last Saturday.

We had to be there at 12:30 so they could take some pictures beforehand. Soooo, we managed to get Caleb's morning nap in but no time for lunch. We were all STARVING before the wedding started. LOL Plus Keith's fighting a cold so he was really mean Saturday morning. I figured it was going to be a horrible day.

Anyway, when we got there amd started to get Keith dressed, his pants were still WAY too short. I mean, it looked like the seamstress had hemmed them more instead of letting them out. One of the bridesmaids and I tore the hem out and the mother of the bride tacked them hem up where it needed to be. There were some other clothing emergencies so they didn't start taking pictures until 1:30. The wedding started at 2:30 so about 2:15, I surrendered Keith to the bride.

What a little man he looked like! Oh my god, where did my little boy go? He did great walking down the aisle. I was really worried that when he saw all those people he wouldn't do it. But he didn't have any problem at all.

A few minutes into the ceremony I hear this little voice......."Mom?" uh oh, here we go. I asked him what he needed and he says "I have to pee!" LMAO. I asked him to wait a couple of minutes. A minute later I hear "mom, I really have to pee!" Brian took him out to pee and he stood there perfectly the rest of the wedding. After the wedding, they took a long time doing pictures so he got grumpy waiting.

Caleb was a little fussy during the ceremony but both of the boys were exceptional the rest of the day! I could not have asked for better children. Caleb never took another nap and we did not get home until after 9pm. No one could believe how good he was being with no nap. :-) He did sleep in Sunday morning....until 11:45 am! I would have been worried if I hadn't been able to hear him move around once in a while. LOL

All that worrying for nothing! Whew!

A couple of things on my mind

Keith is going to be a ringbearer in Brian's cousin's wedding tomorrow. Guess what, I AM TOTALLY FREAKING! I am going to be a basketcase tomorrow. I'm soooo concerned that he's going to misbehave. We went to rehearsal last night and he was up and down on the stage and stairs (the wedding is in a movie theater) sitting, standing, BURPING!!!!, fidgeting, whining, etc.

Please please please, God, I'm begging you, let it go smoothly.

The second thing that's bugging me........
One of my dear friends on a message board I'm addicted to was recently telling us about her job. And you can tell by the tone of her posts that she LOVES her job. I want that. I want to be totally in love with my job.

Do I like my job? ehh, its a job. It pays decent and has great health insurance. What do I want to do? I want to work with animals. That has always always been my dream. Where am I going to be in 40 years? Sitting in the same office. Yup, I'll probably die at the keyboard.

I feel so restless..........unfulfilled........I'm not sure how to describe it. So what am I gonna do about it? Well, I'm going to fill out an application to volunteer at the local animal shelter. Gotta start somewhere right?

busy busy

We had a pretty busy weekend. Now I need two days off so I can actually have a weekend. LOL

Friday night I dropped the boys off at my MIL's for the night so Brian and I could go grocery shopping. hmmm, I wonder if most people take their kids with them grocery shopping? Well, anyway, we don't normally because we live an hour from Wal-mart and the grocery store so by the time you hit both of those places and get home it takes 5 or 6 hours. Uh uh, just not gonna make those kids suffer that long, sitting in carts. So, they stayed at my MIL's Friday night. We didn't get home from grocery shopping until 12:20 am. Ugh.

Saturday morning bright and early we got up to gather up unwanted junk we had around the house to take to the dumpster that the township brings in once a year. 3 pick up loads later, we were done with that project! Really, it wasn't all our junk tho, some was Mom and Dad's. Seriously, it was! We also picked up a lawn mower that Brian is trying to get running. Its just like his old one so he'll be able to use it for parts if nothing else. I took a half hour nap, got a shower, ran to pick the boys up and went to my best friend, J's little girl E's 6th birthday party.

Wow, talk about hot. There wasn't much shade either. Whew! Caleb started getting cranky after about an hour and a half so he and I went home for nap time. Keith ended up spending the whole night with E. Those two are SO cute! They are bestest friends, Keith tells me. :-)

Ahhh, finally some down time, after Caleb went to bed, I just relaxed. Then Sunday there was laundry and cleaning and more laundry. Yesterday afternoon we got Keith's slip and slide out for him to play with then him and my mom got in the pool for a little while. Caleb would have loved to have gotten in the pool. I dangled him down in and he loved it! Hopefully, they will get the pool totally cleared up and we can really use it.

So I'm exhausted today, its just not fair that I have to work 5 days and only get 2 off!

I do not schedule these things!

So obviously, my volunteering at the fire station is a problem for my husband. I have been a member of this fire company since I was 13. Yes, it does take up some of my time. Not a lot, not even 50% of my time is spent at the hall.

However, once a month when meeting night comes around, my husband gets a little grouchy because I'm not home for a couple of hours in the evening. Deal with it! Last night was our monthly meeting and horror of all horrors, there is a class at the station tonight that I really should attend. Its not mandatory or anything but it will give me a couple of more continuing education credits towards my EMT certification. And its only 2 minutes from home as opposed to having to travel a half an hour or more to go to a class, so it really wouldn't look good if I didn't go.

Anyway, I mentioned something about it again today to Brian so I was sure he remembered and he says "I'd rather you didn't go, you were gone all evening last night"

Excuse the fuck out of me?

He has things he wants to do tonight. Therefore, I guess, as always my life is supposed to be over as soon as I leave work. Seriously, I do nothing after work. I cannot do anything outside which is probably why it usually looks like white trash live at my house. I can just hear people saying "take Caleb outside with you". I'm pretty sure these are the people that have no children because if they did, they would understand that you cannot accomplish anything while trying to keep a one year old from wandering into the road, eating grass, eating stones, eating bugs, pulling leaves off the rose bush, getting pricked by the rose bush.

So, too bad for my husband, but I am going to this class, and he'll have to get over it. I'm sorry I will be gone for two evenings but seriously I did not ask them to do this the night after the meeting.

Instead of complaining...........

If I start typing out all the things that irritated me this weekend, I would be here all day. So instead here a few "good" things:

The Best Things in Life

Falling in love
Laughing so hard your face hurts
A hot shower
A special glance
Getting mail
A drive in the country
Hearing your favorite song on the radio
Lying in bed with the one you love, listening to the rain
A chocolate milkshake
A bubble bath
Finding $20 in your coat from last winter
Laughing for absolutely no reason at all
Having someone tell you that you're beautiful
Sweet dreams
Road trips with friends
Watching the sunrise
Discovering that love is unconditional and stronger than time

Finally!

My husband has a job! Its been a long 10 months that Brian hasn't worked. Don't get me wrong, it was great for him to be home with the kids for a while. But its been way past time for him to get back to work. Its been extremely difficult surviving on just my income.

This job just fell in his lap! I've said SO many prayers since yesterday thanking God for this. I'm so grateful.

no surprise visits, please!

I don't generally like it when people just "drop by" my house. Probably because its usually a mess and most of the time I'm not really presentable for company.

We had just sat down to dinner last night when the door rattles a little and in walkes.....my MIL. You've got to be freakin' kidding me! Now, we have a hard enough time getting Keith to sit down and eat dinner. He's forever getting distracted and he just doesn't want to eat and then 5 minutes later he's asking for a snack. Now just imagine the normal chaos of getting him to eat and add my MIL. WTF was she thinking?

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind that she comes to visit. (okay, well, in the very dark recesses of my mind, I do) But please please call and give me a heads up, okay? That way I can say, "oh you plan on coming at 5:30? Gee, that's dinner time, let's make it 6 or 6:30."

The other problem I have with this whole thing, KNOCKING IS POLITE! Do not just walk in my house! Yes, I realize that it does not bug me when MY mother does it. But it does really really really bug me when my MIL walks in unannounced. Actually it just pisses me right off.

The result of last nights unexpected visit? A grumpy 4 year old b/c he didn't want to eat, he wanted to play with Mimi, a grumpy husband b/c the 4 year old didn't want to eat, and a grumpy me simply b/c I just spent three days with the woman and really it was too soon for me to have to put up with a visit. Especially unannounced.

GRRRRRRR!

I survived

Sigh. I made it through the weekend. Don't get me wrong, it was great to be able to go to the race. Let me start at the beginning........Saturday morning.

Caleb cried his little heart out when we left. I nearly told Brian to leave me home. Seriously, it nearly killed me. But he did get over it, as a call home before we got too far away assured me.

The trip down was relatively uneventful. Oh, except for the discovery of a nail in one of the tires. You know, sometimes a nail WILL stay in a tire for 500 miles without making it go flat. Good to know. Traffic was not bad at all. Sunday dawned hotter than blazes. And it was even hotter at the track.........all those people and all that pavement. I made it through without heatstroke. I am SO not a hot weather girl. The race was great! We had perfect seats, no obnoxious people near us, life was good. For a while.

After the race was over around 11 pm, it took us about an hour to get out of race traffic, most of which I dozed away. Then about 20 miles from our motel, traffic stopped. As in, turn your car off, get out and stretch your legs, we're gonna be here a while stopped. We sat there for 2 and a half hours waiting for an accident to be cleaned up. We got to the motel at 3 am yesterday morning. So much for getting an early start home. We slept until 7:30, got on the road around 9 am but wait, we had to get a tire put on the car. That took an hour and a half. So it was around 11:30 before we headed home.

everyone was tired and tempers were getting short by the time we got home at 10:45 last night. I was so thankful to be home. There has never been a better sight. Both boys were in bed but Caleb was up before I left for work this morning so I did get to see him.

I missed those kids so bad, it wasn't really worth the weekend away.

So here I am

Okay, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon. That's me.......always following the crowd. LOL Here's the start of my blog.

So, I'm headed off from work for the long weekend. We are going to NC for the race this weekend with my mother in law. Yes, my mother in law, for the entire weekend. This should be fun.