Yep....just as I predicted, MAJOR stress ball today. We were supposed to have a contentious meeting with other grandparents, but now got word from our lawyer that there was a custody modification filed as well. UGH! Oh, well, they won't know what hit them. No school today....I'm just a nervous wreak. I did however find a new toy I want to play with starting next week. Its a timeline maker from tiki-toki.com. I bought the desktop app but they have a web based service too. I think it'd be a neat way to do "notebooking" with the kiddo as we can add movies, videos and links to it. I've currently got plans for a science and history timeline. I may even add a literature one later. I think it is something we can build on over the years as we revisit different things in science and history.'' Stefanie

My aunt has a neighborhood named after her. That is where the streets named after me and my aunts/uncles/cousins are. I've even found my name misspelled on a map. But, like I said, it's not a good part of town anymore. *sigh* Stefanie

When I lay down, one of my boy cats will come over and lay across my shoulder and put one leg under my neck and the other across my chest and then put his head against my cheek.... and then he starts kneading..... I call him my kneady kitty. And watch out, he's jealous. If another cat (or my husband) is getting attention he'll come and try to insert himself into the position described above.... Stefanie

I'm out of likes....so I just wanted say, I so agree. Depression would explain the behaviors. As for dad....he could be just as mentally ill. It happens. But I want to point out, if both parents are suffering mental illness it might be best for authorities to become involved. Stefanie

Well, no snow.....I'm not even sure that we got any ice. It didn't rain all night like it was supposed too. But it is cold and wet and nasty out. Cancelled the swimming lesson for today because while the pool itself is heated, the air around the pool isn't....and its in the mid to low 30s. Toddler spent all night screaming. Not sure what happened.....he and the bed were completely dry when he went to bed. He started crying several times through the night and when I picked him up I didn't notice his bed/outfit was wet....but this morning his pjs and bed were soaked.....so, not much sleep for me last night. I'm not even sure how it got so wet since it wasn't a diaper fail. Maybe a sippy cup fail sometime in the night? Thankfully DH will be off early so he can get up this afternoon and give me a nap. Tomorrow I'll be a ball of stress all day, I just know it. School is going to start in about 45 minutes. Stefanie

I would love to live on My Name Rd. Too bad that particular road in my area is in a run down, not good part of town. Other than that, I don't pay too much attention to road names. Stefanie

Hmm....sounds like my schedule, minus the facebook and I get the day moving by 8 usually. I can still find time to school between 11 and 3 pm. So, no excuses. Just laziness and selfishness. Although, it does sound like mental illness could still be at play. Sounds a lot like my DIL and stepson actually.....and they are both mentally ill, her severely. Stefanie

Been slacking the last few weeks. School going okay, well, getting at least 1 -2 things done every day, I just been busy and trying to cut out my own screen time as an example to the kiddo. Soccer started up and we added another activity: private swim lessons because we are getting to the point of no return on her learning how to swim. Still having lots of toddler and his parents stress. Finally had the big showdown part 1. Still waiting for the big showdown part 2.....so, just stress getting in the way of motivations. Oh, and we might take a day off tomorrow if we get snow tonight. We have a 30% chance of getting <1 inch. Most likely it'll be freezing rain and microscopic specks of snow, but we'll see. If we have anything significantly fluffy I'm waking up the kiddo at 3 am. Stefanie

That is one of the foods I used to feed (before I changed because of our store's inability to keep it routinely in stock). No go. Slurries are a no go too. She won't even drink the broth in the tuna/chicken cans. Stickler she is....and she also forms urine crystals too.....I've learned to let it go. She's persnickety about a lot of things in general. Her nickname is a well earned Pretty Grumpy. Stefanie

Do you think you could send the memo to my girl? She refuses to eat anything other than kibble. She even refuses the good stuff like can chicken or tuna. Crazy, stubborn cat. The boys will eventually eat the can stuff, once they get hungry enough and I refuse to give them the kibble but not her.... Stefanie

No advice, but commiseration. My 7 year old is just like this and I need to sort out an eval for her as well. My local OT was less than helpful. Stefanie

I've been missing the last two weeks. It's been very stressful and I really haven't coped well, and of course I'm exhausted all the time since baby is still more or less staying up til 2 am daily......and up and going all day by 6 am. The week before last we were supposed to have a transition point with the baby and his parents. I'm super stressed about them moving to unsupervised visitation. We are pretty sure his mother doesn't want him. She's been hiding something about her mental health and she was supposed to have her doc call us to answer questions and give us an all clear......but the day before her appointment was conveniently rescheduled. So..... Last week we got DD's OT eval back. They won't do anything. They say her coordination, both fine and gross, are average. As far as the sensory eval we got.....they were vague but dismissive. For her energy/attention issues they recommended that I google "heavy work" and for the postural stuff they just recommended correcting her when I see her do it. I really think this has to do with our insurance's attitude and not a lack of a problem. Maybe I'm just expecting too much from a 7 year old to be able to buckle her own seat belt without having to lean over so much she practically falls out of her car seat, still doesn't pull out the belt enough to get it around, and then still can't coordinate enough to push the belt into the buckle without pushing the buckle all the way into the seat so that it won't latch......and she still hasn't gotten much better even though she's been doing it herself for 6 months. We'll look at going to Houston or Austin for a real eval in March. And to start off this week the baby didn't go to bed until around 1 am and woke us up at 2:30 am vomiting. He vomited until 7 am and it is now 10 am and he's still up. Just feeling a bit defeated lately. Stefanie

This is what I'm watching right now....and just what I was thinking right now. But honestly, all the shows have their narratives. The Property Brother's one is not exactly the worst (Flip or Flop). Stefanie

Didn't get much done today. Both kids had their first day back to organized class today. Baby went to Mother's Day Out and we had co-op Spanish. I forgot the big binder of assignments so we didn't get anything else done today. Oh, well, we have tomorrow. Stefanie

Critterfixer It really could be worse. If we aren't at the cap yet, we have to be close. Our plan is weird and the year runs April to April, so we have a few months still. The bigger concern is that for the specific diagnosis, our insurance could wind up not covering it *at all*. The OT has already talked to insurance and they consider sensory integration experimental and won't pay for it. The OT said she'd have to be very careful about how she does the initial report to avoid triggering an initial denial for insurance because it'll be practically impossible to get them to cover it. But, I see so much of my child in the symptom descriptions for sensory issues and there is a long list of things she can not do or finds very hard to do. Sensory Craving - she just gets uncontrollable. Despite years of correction she still every 5 minutes bounces, jumps, runs, etc across my couch. She'll get so bad that she will run across the house and plunge head first into the couch, that is against a wall. I'm really afraid she'll break her neck doing this. She'll just twist and roll across the floor too. Postural disorder - she does the W sit and when she writes/colors she's practically got her head on floor over her work. From my understanding these are classic postural symptoms. Dyspraxia - she doesn't have a problem with ideation, but she can't follow a routine to save her life. Just getting her dressed takes 30 minutes. She'll put her pants on before her panties, take off the pants, put the panties on backward, take them off, then finally get the panties on right, put the pants on backwards...etc. You can also see it with timing. She does mechanically well in soccer in practice, but once she is in a game she can't process/follow all the movement and her reactions have a noticeable lag time, which usually means she can't score or gets the ball taken from her. Discrimination Disorder - When she was 2/3 we had meltdowns over how she couldn't push her leg through her pants or her feet into her shoes. Now that she is 7 we have meltdowns that she can't cut soft foods (enchiladas) with a fork. She also has major meltdowns over putting on her seat belt. Half the time she just can not do it. She can't ride a bike and she can't swim because she never could figure out how to push the pedal down to get the bike moving (she has more than enough muscle mass) and for swimming she can't tell if her legs are straight and/or keep them straight in order to kick and paddle. You can't swim when you are balled up at the elbows and knees. Stefanie

Soror - I hope you hear some good news from the doc. I've released DD from school and have DH trying to get the baby to sleep. It isn't going so good. I'm thinking I might go for a drive with him in a minute. Looking back, I guess we more or less hit everything. We did some Memory work, bible, math, a little science but not as much as I wanted, still haven't gotten history planned (maybe by next week). The only thing we didn't hit was spelling and grammar. Grammar is a light catch up this week, so I only have 3 actual days planned for it....and spelling, well, she's a pretty good speller when she thinks about it, so it isn't the end of the world that we skipped it. Now, if baby takes a nap, I'll take a 20 minute power nap and clean house. Stefanie

Not so great day today. Attention is lacking and I'm letting DD play with the baby currently. I'm tired and kind of sore. Baby is being a cranky butt. I tried to do a walk around the block since the weather is so nice....and baby fell into a fire ant hill. Thankfully, no bites. *sigh* Back to trying to wrangle school work. Got the call back for the sensory referral. Our first assessment is Friday at 1 pm. Can't wait. I really wish we could have made the Wed. appointment, but it conflicts with school for both baby and DD. The down side, we apparently haven't hit our cap according to insurance (BS I say, with tubes and broken jaw/hip this year) so we have to pay the whole cost of the appointment. Stefanie

Day 1 down. It went well. I was getting cold feet last night, but DD wanted to do school today, even now she is asking to do more. I failed to finish streamlining history though. I introduced the new ground rules and showed DD the BIG binder with all the schoolwork planned for the next 8 weeks. She was told the only two rules were that she had to spend a minimum of 2 hours a day on school, and she had to do math every day. Everything else she can choose how much or how little to do until the subject is done. I also introduced DD to the chair moves technique I picked up from a sensory issue book. Worked like a charm. I'm even more convinced that she is sensory seeking with dyspraxia, postural and sensory discrimination disorder. As for me, I'm an exhausted mess. I've gotten 3 hours of solid sleep each of the last two nights. I've laid down about 6:30 am and gotten up about 10 am. I'm going to wear socks tonight and see if it makes a difference (I hate wearing socks to bed) in getting to sleep earlier. We have a huge window in the bathroom, and our room is just cold, so I think that is why I've been sleeping so badly. I was fully dressed (except socks) and under two blankets and still cold. I put socks on about 5 am and felt much warmer falling asleep. Also, still haven't been able to fix baby's bed time.....unless I want to deal with super cranky non-napping baby during the day. Stefanie

Umm...I guess we are. A couple of days ago I was really looking forward to starting. Now on the eve of starting, I'm getting cold feet. I'm sure it is just because it is Monday and we have gymnastics to work around. Stefanie

DVC stand for Disney Vacation Club. It is essentially a time share but instead of buying a room for a particular week, you buy an allotment of points that you can use in a given year. DVC members can rent out their points to non members. By renting the DVC points you can stay at the deluxe resorts. Renting points is generally more affordable than market rates. We personally love Beach Club (the best resort pool and shares with Yacht Club which is non-DVC), but if you have animal lovers, try to get a Savannah room at Animal Kingdom (long bus ride to the parks though) where you can see the giraffes and zebras. Bay Lake was nice, but not our style. Saratoga Springs is also nice, but it is huge. Stefanie

Oh...a must do. Tomorrowland Terrace Desert Party. Tinkerbell comes right at/over you during the fireworks. Stefanie

Rent DVC points direct from an owner. Average price is about $12/point. It is very worth it. Some dining reservations need to be made about 6 months out (Cinderella's Royal Table/Be Our Guest are hard to get). Fast passes can be reserved 60 days out. For the serious planner...try www.disboards.com. We've gone in Sept and November....great weather and crowds were fairly low. October you can do Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and trick or treat (buy tickets early). November you can do the Very Merry Christmas party but it isn't as good as the Halloween party. Stefanie

Yes, everything is a thought process. But the pain/illness distorts the thoughts and the cost/benefit analysis you generate. People going through excruciating pain, emotional or physical, are not capable of rational thought processes, the need to end the pain overrides everything. No one controls all of their thoughts 100% of the time. People suffering from depression don't control their negative thoughts. At the heights of my depression my thought cycle could be something like this: "You don't have any friends, just do everyone a favor and go away. No, that isn't rational, you know better than that. Everyone is going to leave you, might as well get it over with before you can get hurt. Stop, you aren't thinking right, lots of people would miss you. You are a valuable person. No, you aren't, you are a pathetic person." And on and on and on until something breaks the cycle (like having to go to work/school/recovery or your rational come back either doesn't come or comes to slowly. Because TM, no one WANTS to think the things that lead to suicide. Stefanie