Feeling Feelings

I’ve cried a lot today.

I woke up in a fog of SSRI withdrawal, I had slept in too long and it was time to feed the kids FAST and get out the door for swimming lessons.  I managed to do it, despite the fog and the rush, we got there only 3 minutes late.  Phew.

After lessons we have a ritual, as we do with everything.  I skipped over the first ritual of where we come out of the family change room and the boys sit in the lockers.  It was hot.  Too hot.

I avoid the woman’s change room at all costs, we end the same time the aquasize classes do. I just don’t think Silas, with photogenic memory, wants the image of showering with 6 or so naked 50+ women in his memory bank.  Just sayin.

We went to the playhouse which is step 2 in the after swimming lessons ritual.  The kids played with another little girl as I gave the count-down.  Every minute must be counted as we prepare to transition.  Silas must know everything that is about to happen or he cannot handle it.  ESPECIALLY moving from a desirable activity to a not-so-fun one.

We got to zero, Isaac got his jacket on first and rushed to the door to push the button (ritual#3).  Silas, hating not being first, slipped from my hands and ran after him.  I tried to pack up quickly and get there before too much of a problem happened.  I heard Ikey make an unhappy sound and I rushed over.  Silas had him by the hood of his raincoat and dragged him to the ground.  “NO NO NO NO I cried, seeing my little baby about to get hurt…again”.

I stopped it and got us out there as fast as we possibly could.  The old woman was glaring at me.  A woman who looks in charge of something important at the pool came rushing out of her office, looking concerned.  The young woman at the desk…they were all watching and wondering what sort of mother….

I let Isaac go ahead as I held Silas back, teaching him a lesson about hurting his brother.  Silas hates it when he’s not first.  It’s become a massive problem in our home and I’m not too sure how to deal with it.  He was SO angry with me.

Isaac got in to the car first and I tried to hold on to Silas while I got all of our things in to the car but he slipped away from me, hurting Isaac again.

Another woman watching….hearing me sound angry with my kids.  The lady who screams at her child to listen to the teacher during swimming lessons drives by in her car…all watching.

I dunno what I was doing.  What I was trying to prove to my son.  He just simply cannot be so upset by not being first.  He needs to learn, I am in over my head with this lesson.  It got Isaac hurt…again.

As I was trying to keep Silas OUT of the car and buckle Isaac in at the same time, I just crouched down to the ground and I cried.  I ugly cried.  In the parking lot.

Silas’ angry tears turned into sadness.  Both boys asked me to stop crying but I couldn’t.  It snapped Silas out of his state enough to get everyone buckled up safely.

I cried all the way home with the boys eerily silent in their seats.

I somehow thought that I got something through to them but once we arrived home, their shenanigans started once again and I absolutely lost it.

Silas and I in his room, me trying to drill ideas into his head that he just. cannot. grasp.  It’s not his fault but drive them I tried.  I tried until I was exhausted and guilty.  He kept telling me he didn’t want to be a nice boy, that he liked to be a mean boy.  I told him he was a wonderful boy, he’s nice, he’s smart, he’s beautiful.  I just didn’t need to yell it so loudly.

Then we did what we do best.  We snuggled.

I think our snuggles could solve world hunger.

After he told me I shouldn’t yell because I might cough.  He was right, he usually is right.

Getting off these SSRI’s have been more emotional that I thought possible.  Feelings feel….they FEEL like something.  It’s not just a painful general yucky feeling.  They’re sharp, they’re heightened.  They’re so real to me.  They’re waking up after being numbed down after two years and they HURT.  Oh boy do they hurt.

I feel…alive.

I sat, tissue ready, and had to wipe tears before even starting to read THIS POST.  One that I recommend you reading.  This woman and I have not met *yet* but we have so much in common.  I love how she can describe her feelings so well.  Her and I have both felt more pain for our children than any one mother should be have to feel.  She’s just as honest as I am but a way better writer.  It’s refreshing.

I bawled my way through her post, describing her feelings surrounding the birth, and the following four weeks after, of her son Amos.  A delicious little boy who has Down Syndrome.  What a lucky mommy she is.  What a lucky boy.  She must let me chew on him soon.

I’m so full of raw emotion and even though it may be HARD emotion, it’s so good.  It’s like after the rain has poured down and the sun is peeking through the clouds.  Not only are those emotions more vivid but so are the feelings that follow, the endorphins, the ups…the HIGHS.

Today, despite the fact that the feelings are hard ones, I’m just embracing them.  I’m enjoying feeling human.

To All The New Mothers

Dear new mothers,

From the moment you know you’re pregnant, it begins.  You’re part of the new mother’s club.

You begin to compare, she’s carrying higher and she’s carrying lower, she’s growing fast and she’s growing slower 

You’ll be jealous of people who are farther along then you and feel better than the women behind.  It’s this constant comparison you feel all the time. 

When the baby comes out you share your stories with mother’s.  Comparing hours, pain and tears against all the others.

Then they start to grow and get fat.  They grow at different paces and you compare all of that!

Sally began teething before your baby did.  But your baby is growing faster than that little girl did.

Playdates begin and with them comes more chatting, about who’s kid is better at clapping and batting.  Who’s rolled over and who has crawled, who has eaten solids and who’s development has stalled.

It’s crazy to make a precious life part of this battle, the constant competition can make your brain rattle.

Soon you become knocked up once again, you did it before Lucy hurrah and amen!!

But as you grow bigger you begin to see, things aren’t as important as they used to be.

You realize it was quite silly to compare all of that, when you see that the second is a very different brat!

He grew faster or slower he cries higher or lower.

So new mother’s you see it all doesn’t matter, who’s child is bigger who’s is much fatter.  Just be glad it is healthy and cute has ten fingers and toes and a cute bum to boot!

 

 

I just was reading Isaac a kids book by Jeff Foxworthy and I just couldn’t help rhyming my blog today.

I was at the pool this morning for Ikey’s swimming lessons and this father was frustratingly comparing his barely 3 year old against all the other kids in the class.  I explained to him that Isaac was almost four and that it was amazing that his kid was even staying with the group and listening.  It was his first class of any sort!  He couldn’t stop it, though, and it was bothering me.

I just wanted to yell out “JUST BE HAPPY HE’S HEALTHY AND TYPICAL!!  YOU FEEL LIKE YOUR KID IS BEHIND?  TRY HAVING ONE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS AND YOU’LL KNOW WHAT THAT REALLY IS LIKE!”

But I didn’t.

I just encouraged him in a way that would make him hopefully shut up.

It was really hard for me when Silas was a baby.  Other than crawling, most everything else came late, or different or backwards.  Nothing was “typical” at all.  The constant comparing that new mother’s put themselves through can get to be so awful.  Seriously, just be happy your baby is healthy.  They’ll all grow up to know how to read and smile and wipe their own bums.  He won’t have no teeth when he’s 20 and he won’t still be crawling.

 

The One That Got Away

For the last year and a bit I’ve had a trusty IUD hanging out in my uteris, stopping any “invaders” from getting at my eggs.  It worked beautifully, as beautifully as I could have hoped.  Birth control, the oral kind, turns me in to a crazy person and all the other options sounded not so much fun.

I believe IUD’s have a 99.9% success rate…

Now don’t get excited.  I’m not having a baby.  There was a baby but it got away.

I looked on my iphone to see when my period was due.  Tomorrow.  Fantastic.  I’m never impressed when it’s about to arrive but arrive it does, always there on the dot to the day, almost to the minute.

Tomorrow arrived but trusty period did not.  I was concerned all day but told myself, IUD IUD IUD IUD…I have the IUD and no babies can be made in this uterus of mine.

Unfortunately when I have a nagging feeling that I’m pregnant, I usually am.  And I was.  That night I peed on a stick and VERY faintly it showed me that little plus sign.  For the first time ever, I saw that plus sign and fell completely in love within seconds.  It was to be born in October, it was going to be scary but beautiful.

You see, me having another baby isn’t responsible.  We can’t afford a bigger car, we have no extra time to spare, what if it has autism too?  Why bring another child in to the world that my eldest son could torment.  Responsible? no.  Desirable? yes.  My mommy heart had not been finished loving people.  As much as it is full of love, it has room to grow, it had a desire to grow.

I took that stick to many people and had them observe it.  Everyone saw that faint faint line.

The next morning I woke up and began to spot.  The tinnnnnieeessst amount of blood but it was there.  I thought it had to be normal seeing there’s a foreign object in a body that’s trying to grow a baby now.  I went to a walk in, waited hours, talked to a very mean doctor.  He told me to go home and wait for a miscarriage and move on with my life.

I cried all the way home.  I knew he could be wrong.  I wanted him to be wrong.

I called a few trusted people and told them to pray.  Pray pray pray hard hard hard hard.  Make this baby stay.  Make it grow.  Make it live so I could love it.

The next day the blood continued, got worse, got harder, but just a little bit.  I was at work and one of the girls asked me if I was ok, I told her the news.  Luckily, she works for my doctor.  He’d been away on vacation for a few weeks but she STILL got me in to see him the next morning.  Bless her bless her bless her.

So off to the doctor’s I went.  I told him the news and that I wanted the baby to stay.  He called the on-call gyno and we made an appointment to meet at the ER that evening.

He was so late.  By that time I was bleeding very hard.  He came in the room and my stomach turned.  Aren’t male gyno’s supposed to be old?  It should be against the law for them to be THAT attractive.  Ugh.  So as I was exposing myself to him and hearing the dreaded “please bring your bum to the very edge of the bed” line, I was mortified.  He took out the IUD and told me I’ve most likely lost the baby.

After numerous blood tests, an incredibly pleasant internal ultrasound and a lot of waiting…I learned the baby was gone.  It was gone, really, before it was even here.  A .1% chance pregnancy was gone.

By that time I really had detached myself from the person who could be in there.  I set myself up for coping with the loss and I feel I coped rather well.  The first week was absolute hell.  I hated waiting.  But as I waited more, it got easier to accept that this baby was probably already in Heaven and I’d never hold it in my arms.

There’s always the relief aspect, let’s be honest.  I was relieved that I wasn’t going to be gigantic at my sister’s wedding in August and that I didn’t have to be pregnant through the summer.  But I wasn’t relieved for the loss, not at all.  The value of whoever was inside of me isn’t greater than the people who are outside of me.  That was a person, just a very very very tiny person.  I mourned who they were and who they may have become.  I absolved myself of any guilt for even having that tiny piece of copper inside of me because I did what I thought was best and…there’s no sense feeling guilty about it.

Now, I’m just kind of numb.  I have a jaded view of having another child.  I don’t know why but now I’m not sure if I want to make any more of them.  Perhaps I feel as though I am broken.  I’m not sure.

Again, it’s not “responsible” for me to get pregnant.  So I won’t.

Brain Health

If you didn’t see yesterday’s post you probably should.  Because it’s a cute little song that Silas and Brent recorded together and it’ll make you smile.  It’s only a minute long.

It’s been a whirlwind of a year for me so far.  Some really crappy things have happened, none that I’m willing to blog about…ya that crappy, and I’m still feeling really really good today.

Was it the sunshine this morning?

Maybe.  Could be the new drug I’m taking kicking in.  Yup, always trying to kick my depression in the butt.  Ever since Silas was diagnosed I just can’t hardly handle ANYTHING.  Paying bills, planning a lunch date, planning meals for the week, filling out forms.  I just have no brain for any of it!  Any little task has been so overwhelming to me.  It’s like the stress and the heartache from the diagnosis changed my brain somehow.

I’ve been very interested in Dr Amen and his work at the Amen Clinics.  He takes brain scans of people and has figured out how to change their brains, healing them, with food, supplements, exercise and sometimes drugs.  I was looking through his case study blog and it really shed light on how even annoying personality traits people have are really just an unhealthy brain!

So I’m going to try to start focussing on making my own brain healthy.  I’ve taken some of his recommendations and tried to apply them but there’s more steps I need to take.  Like hydrating more, no more coffee, cutting WAY back on alcohol.  His case study about a social drinker really scared me a lot.  This man had only three drinks a day, never got drunk, and he was 50 years old with an 80-year-old brain.  He had a lot of the same symptoms as I do.  Not that I even drink THAT much but sometimes I do.  Plus it costs too much money.

Anyway.  I think my feeling better today is that the new drug I’m taking has kicked in.  My Cipralex did help curb the sadness but it didn’t take care of my other symptoms like lack of motivation, poor focus, foggy brain.  That’s where Wellbutrin comes in. If every day I could feel the way I feel NOW, I’d be a totally different person.

So maybe I’m just having an “up” day…but it still excites me.  Because I used to love my up days.  I never get them anymore.

So here’s to some new healthy brain habits.  More water, no coffee, fish oils, way less booze and way more exercise.

 

I’ll keep you posted!

 

PS…who’s excited for the Bachelor tonight!!!??????

Parenthood: don’t sleep with your autistic nephew’s therapist

Smart title.

I don’t know if any of you watch the show Parenthood but I was hooked from the moment I first saw it which was early this fall.  I love how they portray everyone’s family and I can REALLY relate to the Max’s family, the boy with aspergers.

Last night’ episode they lost their amazing therapist.  In perfect Hollywood form, she slept with his uncle who was engaged.  Naughty.  That’s not what I wanna talk about.

Dealing with the loss of a therapist can be really hard to deal with.  We’ve lost 4 since the beginning, the three were only with us a few months so it wasn’t so hard.  There was one who was with us over a year and I seriously bawled my eyes out when she told me.

There’s this strange dance that therapists have to do, they must be professional but they also easily become part of your family.  You fall in love with them and they with you.  It’s hard because you’re paying them to be in your home and help your child, but they end up doing so much more than that.

I really do think long-term therapists are a key in a successful therapy program.  They get to know your child so well and your child trusts them.  I wonder how many non verbal kids have lost a long term therapist and have struggled with missing them or feeling abandoned by them.

Therapists have to come and go.  It isn’t an easy job at all, they don’t make much money and it isn’t always easy to find the hours.  They usually get into it at a young age and don’t do it for long.  It can be a heartbreaking job, going in to homes where the kids aren’t getting the care and attention they need.  So they often don’t last long.

I’m thankful to be working with a company who has long-term therapists.  They get paid more and have a loving boss.  Many of them have been doing it for years.  What’s hard about that, is that when you’re looking for a new therapist, the long-term people have full schedules and you have to try out new people.  You don’t know if they’ll like their job, you don’t know if they’re any good at it…you don’t know anything.

I’m having to do that right now.  After letting a therapist go last week because we found out they weren’t in it for a long time commitment, I was sent about five new resume’s to go through, interview, and hire.  I hate it.  The last 3 people I’ve hired came and went in the blink of an eye.  I’m gunna need some hard-core commitment from these people!!  But it’s something almost impossible to ask.

Watching Parenthood made me cry, as always, because I feel their pain.  Losing a good therapist is like losing a close friend.  I’d hire back the one I lost in a second.

Have you ever lost an important therapist?  How did you deal with it?

Update

I’ve been sitting here fiddling around with my blog.  Dusting off the old bloggy shelves so-to-speak.  I was giddy about the prospect of blogging later in the day when I realized I wont have time and I got to blog NOW!!  Woot.

Since it has been ages, I thought I should give you a point form update on what’s happening in my household.  It’s been almost exactly a year since I’ve blogged here.  That’s nuts.  So here we go.

• Silas is now in kindergarten, half days (thank GOD) with two aids getting full time support.  We are SO blessed in this area, we didn’t have to fight for it at all.  The first lady is there for half the class then they have snack and the resource woman comes in then after snack he gets his next aid.
• Isaac is in PRESCHOOL and loving it to bits.  I’m so happy he’s got his own thing to do now…away from his brother.
• Both boys are in gymnastics at this really cool place.  They go at different times and I’ve seen crazy leaps forward in Silas’ strength and agility.
• I’m working on my business plan right now to open my own store.  I can’t tell you my idea but I’m sticking within the bounds of special needs and I’m SOOOOOOOOOOO excited.  Now to get my laptop fixed that has my business plan on it…things will go faster then I think.  mmmmhmmmmm
• I have a job.  I work at a pub that just got sold to some guy so I hope I still have my job…I’m a bit scared.  I serve tables a few times a week and it’s been nice to have the extra cashola.  It’s fun to get away from the kids too and not have to put them to bed…muuuuhahahahahaaaa
• I had another job all summer working for a farmer every other saturday.  I’d sell her amazing organic produce at a farmers market and then spend all my pay buying local groceries for my family.  It ROCKED.  I hope to do it again next summer.  I’m on a total local, ethical, eco kick.
• I watched Food Inc and I no longer purchase animal products that aren’t from happy animals.  I usually also know the farmers I’m buying from.  It’s super cool, WAY tastier and this way I’m not eating tortured animals that lived their lives covered in their own disease ridden feces.  Cool beans.
• Silas has come leaps and bounds.  When telling people he has autism they typically say “oh I would have NEVER noticed”  Yup, that’s my boy.  His conversation skills still leave MUCH to be desired, so do some motor skills and he’s still often seen spinning an object and will still flap his hands wildly with excitement but he’s 100% in our world, he makes eye contact like a champ, plays amazing with other children, and ya….he’s got perfect pitch too….think I’m joking??

• We have a doggy, her name is Cleo, she’s a basset hound and we love her to PIECES!  We adopted her after she was bred probably every 6 months until the age of three and then dumped like she was worthless.  She has come out of her shell so much and she’s so loving and wonderful.  She’s SUCH a blessing.  She’s staring at me with her droopy eyes right now.

she’s very tired from all the sleeping she does all day.

Anyway, I think you’re well up to date now.  All the major things anyway.  I’m going to get dressed cuz I have to take Silas to Kindergarten and take Ikey to gymnastics.

 

Camping Adventures and Summer Fun

Ah. Hello Today. I still haven’t decided what to blog about, so hopefully it will type itself out. Hmm. Maybe I’ll blog a LeLu and Cootie story to get things rolling. I’m trying to blog the ones I have pictures for because pics are way better. Some of you have heard of the world’s best camping adventure, but if you haven’t or you’d like my take on it here you go! For the record, these are just the way I remember it. It might have happened a bit different or maybe not.

In the summer before grade 11(I think, maybe 12) LeLu’s parents took us camping. I don’t think they really knew what they were getting into when they decided to bring a friend along for LeLu. I’m not normally the worlds clutziest person (although I have my moments), but I spent the majority of that trip hurting myself or doing something rather dumb like spilling food ALL over me over and over. In light of that, I’m surprised that LeLu’s parents actually let me climb Perkins Peak, wade in a river, and use their canoe.

At the base of Perkins peak is a glacier lake that is as cold as Antarctica itself. After climbing a mountain, teenage girls can be a bit, well, stinky. So Other Mom says “Jump in and de-stink” or something like that. So we jump in and immediately get hypothermia and lose digits to frostbite. As fast as we were in, we were out. Apparently that was too fast because Other Mom says jump back in for a picture. So we jump back into lake frigid for another photo op.

I think the funniest thing I remember about our trip aside from casting and catching a Toyota 4Runner on a bridge, is a quick trip up a dirt road to look for grizzly bears. We saw several that week. They are HUGE! Anyways, at one point I was sticking my head out the window and looking back at a grizzly when I turned around to see an aspen sapling right close to the truck. It smacked me in the face and I pulled my head back into the top of the door and then accidentally grabbed the rose bush that was next on the road of “attack Cootie”. Other Dad had to pull the truck over so everyone could finish laughing at me. Including me. Oh and Leah and I may have used the facilities on top of a mountain. Hehe. Its awesome that LeLu can’t see this till after it’s posted.

*I miss that stupid hat*

So, for my portion of the blog I’ve decide to include a couple of my favourite summer activities for pre-schoolers. Easy ones, that are cheap or free.

1. Garley! You take 4 small containers or ziplocks of barley and put a few drops of different coloured food colouring in each. Shake them up until the food colouring is not leaving anything wet. Then mix them together. Put them in a pan on the floor or outside and you have yourself a Garley table. My daughter took a bit to say barley, but Garley has stuck. This is good for a rainy day for you coast peeps.

2. Painting the Deck. My DH thought of this one. He gave my daughter a margarine tub full of water and a paint brush. He sent her out on the deck and told her she could paint whatever she likes. I didn’t think it would last, but she keeps on painting. The best part is that by the time she gets to one side, the other has dried, so we do it all over again.

3. Making lemonade or ice tea or muffins or anything else. I put my apron on my DD and let her help with most of my baking or stirring or pouring. She loves it. It took me a while to get used to letting her help because it takes me way less time and she’s not always very food safe.

4. My DD’s very favourite thing is her pool. You don’t need the huge fancy pools with slides and sprinklers, cup holders or koolaid fountains. The smallest pool is $12.95 at Toys-r-us. That’s the best $12.95 I’ve spent in years. She just brings her bath toys out into the pool and we are good to go for the afternoon. Then I even bring the baby bath out onto the deck and we have 2 bathing beautiful tiny tots.

Tumble Time

Let me begin by saying how glad I am that I started consuming All Bran Buds again.  Remember back in the day when I wrote an ode to All Bran Buds?  Ya I’m feeling the All Bran Bud afterglow right now and it feels gooood.

So we went to go tumble about at the gymnastics place again today.  Oh the fun that was had.  I apologise in advance about the amount of photographs I’m about to make you look at but I assure you that they’ll touch you in a way that only my children (the most adorable ones in the world…right? can.

Alesha (she said I’m allowed to use her name and photos in here…wooot!  She also loves All Bran Buds) came along for the ride (Jennie came too).  Silas is REALLY taking a liking to her which I’m happy about.  They haven’t started working yet, they’ve just played lots, pretty much getting him to like her and want to be with her.  I really think she’s going to be great for our team!!

Anyway, enough jibber jabber…on with the gloriousness of the cutness…okay I know only I think they’re the cutest…just let me gush ok??  Humour me!!

Isaac on the move

it's exhausting getting out of there

awwwwwwwww

Silas and I jumping in!! He's jumping off that high thing...I was too chicken

Ikey taking a leap with random unattended little wobbly toddler whom no one knew who she belonged to.

Alesha leaping with Silas

woohoo!! He's so nuts hey?

climbing through the tunnel!

awkwardly trying to get out of the foam vat...kinda funny.

uuuugggggghhhhhh he's just so EDIBLE!!

mmm mmm mmm look at that bottom lip!

balancing with Alesha

every time we go to leave he stuffs himself in this tiny locker. Weirdo.

There were 25 photos so I parred it down….a little. I just couldn’t choose.  Ugh.

It’s interesting having a therapist with us.  It’s like, I have a staff…WE have a staff.  It’s weird that someone’s job is working with my son.  It’s weird that my son needs that.  It just feels odd.  I’m SO happy that we’re fortunate enough to be blessed with even a bit of money to go towards the ABA therapy.  Once I read Jill’s blog about her insurance company covering NOTHING, I felt bad for complaining about not getting enough for Silas.  I’m happy to live in Canada and I really hope that Obama’s health care plan works our for the best for the people in the US.

It’s 5:00 and Isaac hasn’t woken up yet, I guess we wore him out!

Oh BTW Dumb Nosey Wench Cow Face just knocked on my door and said “hi it’s your crazy neighbour that tried to feed you peanuts!!” then she invited me to a mom’s group tomorrow in the park.  Oh she had the best intentions…doesn’t she?  I think I’ve forgiven her for calling me a fat bad mother and then trying to murder my son…*sigh*.

And mmmmkay I’m really starting to get grossed out by the number of people getting to my blog by googling “naked kids peeing” “girl peeing in bath”  or “little girl peeing naked”….seriously disturbing.  Stop reading my blog freakos!!

How to Potty Train Your Toddler

It seems like one of the most frustrating parts of parenting a toddler is potty training them.  I hear many facebook status updates from my friends who are growling about it.

Potty training is tough but can be quickly achieved through these five simple principles:

1. I have no clue.
2. don’t ask me.
3. I’m completely void of information regarding this situation.
4. I’m scared of this topic.
5. I really haven’t even tried potty training my kids much at all.

See, no problem right!?

Right.

So, since I have two unpotty trained children whom I’m about to rely on therapists to help me train because Silas is a bit of an exception.

Ikey, however, I have no excuse for other than the fact that he’s only two…stop pressuring me dagnabbit!!!  He is very interested in the potty and will spend a lot of his time sitting on it because if he sits on it I allow him to be naked and nudity, along with holding as many spoons, rocks and trucks in his hands as he possibly can, is his number one joy in life.

Today I let him run free after a shower thinking he peed all he could in the shower…like mmm it’s warm…mmm peeee.  I set him up on his potty in front of youtube so he could watch Silas’ ABC obsession in action.  I soon found him in my room, legs spread, head down watching himself wee on my floor.  I brought him back to the potty to find pee in it already!!!  YAY IKEY.  So I praised him like a little puppy dog and did the celebratory walk to the toilet to dump in the pee and let him flush it.  How exciting.

Soon after I found he had peed in there again, he also tinkled on the surrounding floor and Silas’ smushy.  Dang.  Oh well, hit and miss.  We emptied it in the toilet again and he was happy.  Then I noticed more pee in more places.  Perhaps this isn’t fun anymore…on with the diaper.

You might be wondering why the heck I wasn’t watching a naked two year old roaming free with his little pee shooter loaded.  I was doing my hair and makeup…that stuffs important…pshh.

I so don’t like pee on my floor.

I think what we’ll do is check their diapers every 15 minutes and see when they are peeing during the day to optimize success.  We’re also getting the therapists to write a social story for Silas so he’ll be better prepared.  He doesn’t ever want to sit on the potty, and if I make him he’ll go nuts on me.  When he does sit on the potty he is happy peeing and pooping in it, he just never does it.  Ugh.

So, seeing as though mothers LOVE to talk about what THEY did with their kids.  Please tell me what methods you used, what worked and what didn’t.  I will learn from your mistakes and hopefully have a smooth and easy ride down the potty training lane…ya right.

Just Call Me Domestic Goddess

I’m a little late blogging today because I didn’t let myself blog this afternoon until this:

looked more like this:

Laundry isn’t done but blame it on my slow arsed washing machine, not me.  It’s actually a fast washing machine…I just had a lot of laundry.  Shush.

Note all my little notes on there?  I was trying to excite myself about the list.  I love crossing things off the list sooo much but I have an issue, I don’t like being told what to do.  So once I make a list, I look at the list and I’m like “screw you list, you can’t tell me what to do!  Just for that I’m gunna sit on my butt all day and you can cry over here on the table”.  And I do just that.  Then I feel like a big dummy because I just stuck it to myself again and let my thighs spread on the couch while watching my children pick up bits of last nights supper on the floor and consume it.  I’m not joking.

(about the yay bleach thing….shhhh don’t judge me…I haven’t bought bleach in ages and my sheets were looking really dingy…I said don’t judge me…stop it!!) (I may or may not have been overcome with temptation and bleached the crap out of my floors…take THAT germs…ya I know…shhhh…but sometimes I feel like I need a fresh start and we’ve been in and out of the house in bare feet.  Plus I get to pretend I’m Godzilla running through the city and killing everyone in sight…k I don’t actually do that.)

So today I spruced up my list, I took a little pride in making it, I tried to print neatly…hah.  I gave myself some love on it and I set my head to finishing the list.  And I did…minus the folding of a few more loads and the putting away of the clothes.  You see I like to involve my husband in the putting away of the clothes so he can see how many clothes I’ve folded today and then dote upon me…grovel husband…grovel.

I’ve noticed the big problem with my slobbishness is that I’m a perfectionist.  I’m a lazy ass perfectionist who can’t ever achieve perfection so I don’t even try.  Right now shelves are dusty, theres clutter around, upstairs is still a disaster but I’m MAKING myself feel GREAT about what’s clean right now.  Ooooooo it feels goooooood.  Usually I’d clean up this much and then be like “Leah, you didn’t even dust the shelves??  Jeepers who do you think you are?  I can’t believe I still see handprints on the windows…ugh you’re the worst…you’re such a douchebag”.  Not today.  I’m enjoying the goodness and saying “maybe later” to all the badness.  Take that perfectionist brain!  Pfffft.

I love to BBQ, I love it LOTS.  I love it because the food is so much better AND you have less dishes to pile up for the next week do after supper.  I’ve also finally recieved a taste for yams.  I’ve always hated them and their crunchy marshmallow topping.  I’ve realized I like them in forms that aren’t mushed and marshmallowed.  Yams are way healthier for you than potatoes.  They’re a good source of vitamins C, and B6.  Also a good source of  potassium, manganese and dietary fiber.*  So last night I decided to experiment and BBQ yams and they turned out fanFREAKINGtastic.

first I cut them like this, leaving on the skins cuz they’re good for you, and rubbed them with oil, salt and pepper.

Then I stuck those little suckers on the grill…

and voila, deliciousness!!

Perhaps a little too long on one side.  I had them with some sour cream but I think you could have them with pretty much anything you’d like (but please…no marshmallow for me).  I also BBQ’d pork chops (which turned out fantastic too) and some peppers which I often do.  DELISH!  Isaac loves them, Silas wouldn’t eat them if his life depended on it…why would he??…they’re orange.  He takes a long time to warm up to orange foods…who wouldn’t?? ha ha.

maybe soon I’ll actually perfect making yam fries without deep frying them…I’ve failed so many times…*sigh*

Happy Friday, have a good weekend, I love you all.  Don’t forget to start getting used to finding this blog via http://www.informalmatriarch.com.

*taken from World’s Healthiest Foods http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=113