Wow Made It To 50 Posts!

Just realized this morning that last nights post brought me to 50 posts! A real milestone for me. Surprising though, cause it doesn't feel like I've done that many posts.

Rambling thoughts and what ifs...

I figured by now, I'd have figured out the whole blog thing. I have blogs I read on a regular basis, like daily or weekly. I regularly comment on some. I even have a bunch that I regularly read on my blog page.
I have 1 person that follows my blog. And 1 or 2 that have actually commented on it. Not that I really mind so much, because it's more for me that I write, not others. Hubby doesn't read it, nor does any of my family, or friends, because I've chosen not to tell very many people that I blog. Hubby knows, but has so far not chosen to read my blog. Mostly because he knows how I am about things like that. Here's a little known fact: I've had poems published in a couple of anthologies. Used to write all the time. Wrote a good 2 or 3 dozen poems over the course of 2-3yrs. Stopped writing after I met hubby and got married. Just seemed at the time like there wasn't anything else to write about. I really thought about writing again, but can't seem to get back in the groove of things. It just seems like most of what I wrote before just flowed from my fingers to the paper. Now it actually takes work just to write out a few sentences, and even then they don't seem to flow or even make sense some days.
Like a colossal writers block. And it sucks. I used to love writing, it was how I spent most of my teen years. I thought writing was something special that I was good at. And then came the kids, and there was no time to write. No time to think. To dream. To anything.
I even thought for a time that I might write a book. I mean heck, if Jenny McCarthy can multi-task, so can I right? Apparently not. Can't seem to string a sentence together that doesn't make me feel like my IQ might drop 30 points just to read it.
I want to write about how having 2 boys with autism feels. How it feels to have other kids that need my attention. How my day never ends. How terrified I am that my youngest may never live on his own. But when I try, it just seems to come out sounding fake and hollow. Dull and unimaginative. Boring.
My little triumphs are nothing to the real world. Most people wouldn't be able to understand where I'm coming from, why little things excite me. Why an almost 8yo using the potty is awesome. I just can't find the words to describe what I'm seeing, feeling, and dealing with at any given time. I just don't know how to do it. I want to tell my kids' story, and let other people know that it's not all sunshine and roses. It's hard work. It makes me cry or want to most days. The hardest is seeing my son look at something that kids way younger than him are doing, and still not being able to make sense of it. Seeing other kids hurt his feelings because they don't understand why he is the way he is.
Sometimes I blame myself. If I hadn't been in denial, had gotten him evaluated earlier. If I hadn't allowed him to do any number of things, maybe things would be different. Maybe it's bad genetics, bad parenting, bad vaccines. The what ifs drive me nuts.
The hardest day was when they diagnosed him as mentally retarded. Not when they said autism. Autism I can deal with. But brain damage, mental retardation, that I'm not sure how to deal with. What to do, how to do it. I just can't wrap my mind around it. It hurts just to think of it. It makes me wonder what caused it. Was it when he fell off the bed? Or fell at the park? Or was it before that? When he had his surgery at 4 months? Thats the part that kills me inside. The whole what caused it, was it something I did or didn't do? Could I have prevented it?
I guess that's where I stand now. Getting past the what ifs and moving on to the what nows. That's all for now. I'm sure this will make more sense in the morning, or maybe never.

Wednesday, but feels like Monday...

Hubby went back to work today. That at least went well. Had my eye appointment yesterday, which did not go so well. My eyes are ok, need a different script for my glasses, that part was fine. He dilated my eyes, and told me that they should be back to normal in about 2 hours.
Yeah. Right. Not.
More like 12 hours at least. Got them dilated at 3:30, and by 11pm, they were still huge! I looked like I'd done some heavy duty stuff, if you know what I mean lol. Went to bed with a ginormous migraine, and woke up being able to see, but with the same headache. Not cool.
Of course, Wednesdays are guitar lesson days, and Adrian's mom also wanted to hang out. No problem, had another friend pick her up, and bring her down to meet me where the boys get their lessons. Things were busy, but it wasn't too bad. Took her and Adrian home with me, and hung out here for a while. Things are going well, Adrian's taking a nap now, and we're gonna keep him for a couple days (or more lol). I still have the headache from yesterday, but it's not quite as bad. Kids are being quiet, Hub's is playing on the net, and I'm thankfully able to post on here, as my net has been up and down since the crash.
I think I have the problem fixed though, downloaded some drivers and reset my modem, and it's been working for the last couple days just fine. Weather here is nice right now, it's about 40 degrees, and all the snow is melting into huge puddles that the kids of course cannot avoid. It even tried to rain for a few minutes this morning.
Have to wait a week for my glasses, but I will also have a back up pair, since we all know I can't help losing/mangling/destroying a pair. Not too bad, I got a full exam, and new bows and lenses for the original pair, plus my new frames and lenses for about $200. Thankfully I only have to do that every 2 years.
Hope everyone else is doing well, and the weather is fine other places too.

C.diff is Negative!

So now we just need the Health Dept, and the Dr's office to both fax a note to work saying that he can go back to work! Unfortunately, the health dept lady is "away from my desk at the moment", and has been all day. The Dr's office is faxing their note, and faxing the health dept as we speak, to get them to fax the note we need.
All it means is that he'll be home tomorrow too, and go back on Wednesday, exactly 2 wks after he got called off work. It also means that he'll get a 3 day paycheck, which will cover his gas back and forth to work and a few groceries. It's great news, and I've been praying that it would hurry up and be done.
Thank you to all who have been praying for us, and have kept us in their thoughts. It's meant a lot to us.
I'm still reloading my computer, and have lost some of my bookmarks forever, but am slowly getting things set back up the way I had them before. The kids are all well, and I'm getting back to normal, just glad things have turned out for him to go back to work. With my stomach in knots the way it's been, I've been living on coffee, and lots of Monster. Hopefully once he is back to work, my stomach will be back to normal.
Gotta go for now, need to finish loading some more things into my bookmarks, and finish loading my music. Got bored yesterday so I took a break from getting it done.

One Of THOSE Days

Well the good news is that Mikes clear of the Giardia and the Crypto. The bad news is that they weren't done with the test for Cdiff by the end of the day, because of how busy the lab was. So we'll here about that one on Monday.
More crappy news. My computer crashed, and I lost everything I had saved. All my pics, all my music. The only blogs I have still are the ones I saved on here. So I'm in the process of figuring out who all I did read daily, besides the ones on here, and re-saving them. Again. And of course re-loading all my music. And hoping I didn't delete the pics off my SD card yet. Not holding out much hope for that though.
Hoping his test for Cdiff comes back negative, then he can go back to work Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. Today's his last day on the antibiotics too. I'm sure the kids are hoping he'll go back soon too. He's driving us all nuts, and we're happy to drive him nuts as well.
My sis came out this way from Missouri for the weekend. Got here Friday evening, and left this afternoon. We did dinner together Friday night, and got to hang out yesterday for most of the day as well. Wish I'd thought to take pics of the kids while they were here. Got to catch up on all the happenings where she is and got to tall her about all the things going on here in the last 5 mos since she's been gone. I was surprised at how big the kids got in the time she's been gone. The kids were all glad to see each other and played for hours. They even got along for a change!
Anyway, got a lot to fix, so need to stick my nose to the grindstone. If you sent me anything, or sent me your blog addy, please re-send it. Then I can re-add you quicker.

Didn't Sleep Well, Too Much On My Mind

Too much stuff on my mind. Hubby takes in his "sample" today to see if he can go back to work. We can't afford for him to be home for another week, so I'm praying that the meds have worked and he's good to go. Stressful, because he throws off the whole schedule by being here, and is driving me nuts. Also because we need to figure out how we're gonna pay bills and get groceries and everything if he's 0ff for more time. I know that he can take his other week of vacation if he needs to, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that.
What amazes me is that no one else has gotten what he has. I've been obsessively cleaning for the past week and a half, and rearranging and vacuuming like a madwoman. Not to mention mopping and scrubbing everything, and making kids wash their hands a million and one times a day.
I don't do well with this kind of thing. Or pretty much anything to do with the city, the health dept, important ppl that can come and inspect your house, or the ones that can take your kids if you know what I mean. It makes me nervous, it even sometimes makes me physically ill.

For an example, we had a dealing with CPS about 4 yrs ago. We'd had a friend (my best friend) and her boyfriend staying with us. He's not known for his good temper. Caleb is a very difficult child to put to bed some nights. This was before I started putting him and Gabe to bed together. So I'm downstairs with Gabe, and he went up to tell Caleb to quit jumping on the bed and go to sleep. Well, he's yelling, and Caleb's yelling. So I put Gabe down on the couch, and went to see what was going on. I go up, and the boyfriend was coming down. He said that he swatted Caleb on the butt for screaming in his face and spitting at him. I went up and checked on him, and asked him what happened, and he told me a different story.
Caleb told me that he was jumping on the bed, which I already knew, and BF came in and told him to go to bed. He said that he told BF that he wanted mom and wasn't going to bed. BF told him to lay down, and he screamed in BF's face, and then BF backhanded him, twice, hard across the side of his neck. Well, I'd never known BF to EVER hit my kids, because he knew that if there was a problem to come get me. And I didn't see any marks, so I figured that Caleb was being a drama queen and I'd just check it again later.
Yes, BF knew that hitting my child was not appropriate, yes he knew that there would be consequences if there was even 1 mark on him. So I let Caleb sleep in my bed with me, since he was upset, along with Gabe (who at the time ALWAYS slept in my bed). And I went to bed, figuring on checking it in the morning. (BTW BF was asked, and denied hitting him like that.)
So when I looked in the morning, I was totally shocked by what I saw. A hand print shaped red mark, with petechiae (hemmoraging) , his neck looked like it was bloodshot. And he had a finger splint shaped bruise. And guess who was wearing a finger splint because he had hurt his finger at work? That's right, the BF.

So I called hubby, told him the situation, and when he got home, he asked BF if he'd hit him and he still said no. So we took Caleb to the police station, filed a report, and had them come talk to him. He told the cops that he did indeed hit him, and that he'd actually hit him twice. He knew it was wrong, and was willing to leave without a fight. Since BF was on probation, his PO revoked him, and he spent 5 days in jail. What does that have to do with CPS? Well if you report that someone else has hurt your child, YOU are investigated too. Yup, that's right, you are investigated.
So, being the not great housekeeper that I am, and having been called on myself because my house was a mess, I totally freaked the hell out! I cleaned everything, called my mom and mil, and they came over and helped me clean every nook and cranny. The worker came and talked to the kids, at school, and called me to say that she needed to come out to the house.
So, she came, and looked thru the whole house--even the fridge and freezer--and her only concern was that she thought the birds cage needed to be cleaned. Of course I laughed, and said that if I cleaned the cage more than 3x a week, the bird would not stay sitting on her eggs, and that since I was breeding birds, I needed her to sit.
I told her how nervous she made me, and how I felt about spanking and how all it takes is just 1 person getting mad and turning you in for something stupid (ie house was a mess cause everyone was sick) to make you freak whenever something happens to your kids. The whole experience affects me even now, I don't leave my kids with anyone except grandma, and my cell phone is on the whole time. I freak over little bumps and bruises. I get physically ill, and sometimes even to the point that I throw up. During that experience I lost 16 lbs in 2 weeks, because I was so freaked I couldn't eat, or sleep and kept throwing up.
Long story short, the case was closed, BF got 5 days in jail, and a 1yr no contact order on us and the kids. He and my best friend got married, he got counseling, and they had a child. My godson, Adrian. Even though he's had counseling, he will never be left alone with my kids. Even if I'm home, because I can't trust that he won't hurt one of them again.
Well, this got way longer than I intended, and I didn't plan on partially writing my life story, lol, but I just wrote how I felt and what was on my mind. Comment away!

Gabe counted today! And Added!

Yup! For the first time EVER, not including the one time that his teacher got him to count to 3, my boy counted! Not to 3, not to 5, but to 10. We used M&M's and raisins to accomplish this magical feat. Told him if he could count them he could have them. And he counted all 10 M&M's. Then later, to make sure we could duplicate it, we did it again with raisins and mixed fruit. I'd put 2 in his hand and say "how many?" and he'd say 2, then I'd add 1, and say it again, and he'd say 3. On and on til 10. He mixes up 7 and 8. But he's trying! And he was sooooo thrilled that he did it (or maybe thrilled cause of the treats?).
Caleb wrote his first ever paragraph in his own words. He decided that he would write about teradactyls. Below is an excerpt, not spell corrected (yes he did ask how to spell some things):

"I think Birds was alive wen dinosaur was alive. A Bird is telodados (teradactyls). Telodados are big birds and thay die off. And now telodados are fostois (fossils). But because thay are istec (extinct) was a big firey rocks hit ever weir (everywhere) and Now thay are telodados fostois (teradactyl fossils) in the guon (ground)."

Not bad considering how hard he has to try to remember how to spell the words. He is in 2nd grade, doing reading and writing at a late kinder level. He's learning to capitalize and punctuate a sentence. He's also learning that sometimes you should look words up and not ask mom, cause she'll probably misspell it too (case in point: teradactyl. it looks ok to me, but blogger keeps underlining it, so I know I spelled it wrong. Just trying to get this post done before I get interrupted again!). That's all for now, gotta go chase kids!