I suck at blogging and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! :)

December 8th

Happy Birthday to my sweet, tiny love! I can't believe she's already a year old!!

I didn't know how much I could love a little girl till I met her!

Giveaways... for fun.

I'm digging this giveaway. My kids have a Sonic right next to their school and every friday, if they have done well in their behavior folders, we go for a treat! I'd do it everyday if I could! :) This might make that possible. ;)

http://www.twoofakindworkingonafullhouse.com/2010/11/sonic-guinness-world-books-wacky-pack.html

http://www.sonicdrivein.com/home.jsp

Simple Woman

My good friend, Leah, uses this format on her blog occasionally. I like. I steal. :)

FOR TODAY
Outside my window... is a bunch of garbage pouring out of my neighbor's trash can. She moved last week, but the people next door to her (one of whom works in the neighborhood office) have decided to put their garbage in the can... even though service has been discontinued and isn't being picked up. The maintenance man from the neighborhood has also been seen dumping trash in the can/on the ground around it. It's in our leases to have your own trash service. Some people just suck.

I am thinking... about chocolate.

I am thankful for... a hubby who took his 3 year old son to Chick-Fil-A an hour ago for a Daddy-Sam date.

From the learning rooms... Therapy was good today. I shouldn't have let Sam have a sip of my Dr. Pepper right before he went in though. :)


From the kitchen... Cookie Exchange this weekend. Making 13 dozen (whoa!) Michael Jackson cookies. That's not really hteir name. I just haven't come up with a good enough name yet, as they are my own creation. :) Half black, half white and full of nuts.

I am wearing... some new jeans, a black camisole and a floral button up.

I am creating... a housewarming gift for my friend. It's still in the bag. I need to get it out and finish it. :P

I am going... to pick my kids up from school in about 30 minutes.

I am reading... Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

I am hoping... to stay within our budget and not have ANY MORE broken cars. EVER. At least till January. Sad I missed out on going to Houston to place flowers on my mom's grave last week due to stupid broken cars. Maybe before Cmas... we shall see..

I am hearing... a band I was recently introduced to, playing on youtube. Mumford and Sons. Go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KCg_QEHtkY Not my favorite song of theirs... but the one I like best has a "naughty" word. :)

Around the house... *ignoring*

One of my favorite things... is my hubby, who just came home with half a cookies and cream milkshake for me. :)

A few plans for the rest of the week: Christmas party tonight, Date night tomorrow (Harry Potter on Imax!!), Cookie Exchange on Saturday! YAY!

Here is picture I am sharing...
Our TARDIS gingerbread house. The boys wanted to do Hogwarts. I didn't have it in me this year. So we went with simple. :) See the Dalek, k-9, and adipose? :)

A quickie.

Busy day. Can only stop long enough to share a few photos from last week...

My awesomely silly friends and I dressed up for the opening of HP:DH. It was a blast. My cheeks hurt from laughing so much! And we had random strangers coming up asking for pictures with us. So fun!!






I spent the next day curled up in bed, puking my guts out. Yay. Too much partying apparently. ;)

We've been really busy lately. Just life in general. I don't expect them to slow down anytime soon, but maybe after Christmas. :)

Oh yeah, my friend Kelly (The other in Quidditch gear) made our robes. She did awesome!

Recommendations....

First, this one. Brought to you today by the number one. And made of win.

1.


Okay, so I only had one. I actually have more... but Maggie just found her brother's halloween candy.......

Slacker.

Fo'sho.

We've been a mixture of really boring and really busy lately... so just when I think I have some down time to write, there's nothing going on...

Should probably update...

After the last post, Sam was x-rayed the next morning and the nickel was still in the same spot so they put him under general anaesthesia and got it out with a little scope. (Guess how many times I had to spell check anaesthesia?) :p
He came home and crashed that afternoon but was back up and at 'em pretty quick! Glad that's over. Now I'm paranoid about any little thing on the floor, since Maggie is crawling like crazy.

Maggie is crawling like crazy. Almost walking... pulling up to stand against the furniture and all that. It won't be long before she's walking.

We are dealing with some other things with Sammit right now. Not just a little unpleasant. Hopefully this will pass quickly...

Halloween was good. For some reason, this year I just wanted to get it over with. I really stunk STUNK stunk at taking pictures so I don't even have any pictures of our awesome costumes! DUH!!! That was dumb. I'll have to see if I can abscond some from some friends.

But here's a few that I did get:

The culprit

Exhausted after a night in the hospital

Ike's soccer team (He's a natural goalie!)


We went to two Trunk or Treats this year. At the first one we all dressed up as the Ghostbusters characters. N and the boys were the Ghostbusters, Mags was Slimer in a frilly green thing I made, and I was Dana/Zuul in the orange dress with the crazy hair... I'm totally bummed that I didn't get a picture of us... Boo. At the second one, N couldn't go with so I just let the kids wear whatever they wanted... D was a cowboy, Ike was a vampire, and Sammy was a "Sammy". (He wore a silly hat of Ike's and whenever anyone asked what he was, he'd reply, "Yeah, I'm Sammy." :) My little girl was a derby girl, complete with bruises! :) I have to live vicariously.



I went on Ike's first field trip with him to the pumpkin patch. Guess which kid is mine. :)



And I won tickets for SeaWorld's Howl-O-Scream on the radio. :) N couldn't go with us (He's been busy lately, can you tell?) So I took the four kids by myself. It was really fun and we had a good time.




I can't believe it's already November. This year has flown by and it's hard to believe my sweet little girl will be one a month from today! Here's a few more pics from her photo session! She's my angel.

It's two a.m.

And I'm blogging?

Can't sleep. My three year old is currently in the hospital awaiting surgery in the morning.... because the little dink swallowed a flippin' coin!!

*sigh*

I just got home from spending 6 hours in the E.R. with him, and my hubby just came and took over. I had to come home since Mags is still nursing.

I took Big D out to sell popcorn in the neighborhood, and while I was gone he had gotten into the coin jar and swallowed one. And started vomiting, and gagging, and crying.

So I took him to the BAMC. (Brooke Army Med Center)

Yay.

Poor little man is super stressed out though. The X-ray experience was not a good one. I think the one dude bruised his arm. The coin ( a quarter?) is stuck in the esophagus... right next to the "air part", so it could get lodged in there. They were about to send him up to the Pediatric ICU when I left, to be observed over night, till he has surgery in the morning.

*sigh* again.

I need to go to bed.

My poor little dude. :(

Hot and Spicy Hydrangeas with Popcorn in the Fridge While I Play Soccer with My Girl.

Let's see....

My OCD tendencies are telling me the easiest way to do this is in list form, so...

1. The fridge broke. Thankfully it was an easy fix and we only had to go one full day with all our food in the cooler.

2. I made a cake. :) I won't go into the details of this one, except that who knew hydrangeas wilted so quickly!?! :P

3. The hubs and I stayed up late one night and made salsa and boogied to some Depeche Mode. We should do that more often. :) This was a huge batch! We still have two big jars in the fridge.

4. The big D has been selling popcorn for cub scouts. I really don't like fundraisers, but this one is relatively easy, and last year he made a lot of moola towards camp and stuff. So it's all good! :)

5. The two bigs started soccer this last week. I am not haapy about the way it has been organized. The school sent out letters of interest two weeks ago. We sent it back saying we were. We got a note last wednesday saying there were games already scheduled for last Saturday. Sheesh! Thankfully, a few parents stepped up to coach, but it still SO unorganized! And the games are all way across town. Sigh. Gotta love private school/charter school sports. That said, my Ike Ike got put in as goalie (for our little 4 person kindergarten team) and was a natural!!!! It was so funny!!! And totally worth it! That boy can goalie! LOL!!! I took some video... I'll try to post later.
6. Magsie got her pictures taken. First professional ones... cause I'm a slacker momma. These are some previews the photographer (who is awesome!) sent! :D YAY!!!!






Love!!!!

Tow-Mater... and other things.

Continued from the previous post. :)

Of course, we could always be characters from Disney's Cars...

Daddy already thinks his little girl has Mater teeth. :)

Although, this guy could also be a contender.

LOL!!

These two fellows were recently found around the house and I thought I'd share. The spider was in the garage. We also had one, of same size, upstairs in the linen closet. Ran right across my foot. *shiver* I love hurricane season. :P



Yay! Snakes! :)

Boys will be boys. :)


And I got a flat tire last week while taking the boys to school. Apparently, in true Halloween fashion, it was a bone. Yes. A bone. Ew. And the kind people at Walmart taped it to my keys so I could keep it as a souvenir. Or so that I could see for myself. There was no need. I already believed them. :P

Momma knows best.

If only Texas actually had fall. I guess I'll just have to settle for 75 degrees in the morning. I hope it lasts! :)

So, here it is. The end of September. The time of year when I start thinking about... yep. Halloween.

HALLOWEEEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Primarily, how I will decorate my house, and how I will dress up my kids. Too bad they don't always agree. :-/

I have the BEST idea for this year, though.

We've thought about things like... The Hitchhiker's Guide characters... or Dr. Who... but we are geeks. And not many others are. So... we don't think very many people would get it. One year I went as Bellatrix and Nathan went as Dr. Who. Most people got who I was, but no one got him. Figures.

There was, however, no mistaking us last year... :)

Heh heh heh....

So. This year... I think we should go as

*drum roll*

Ghostbusters!!!

The four boys can be the ghostbusters, I can be either Janine Melnitz (the secretary) or Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) , and Mags would be Slimer!!!! LOL!!!! No fairies around here!!!!

So whatcha think???

Should we be these ones:

or these ones???

Heehee!!!!! Now if only I could convince them that they don't need to be Iron Man and Mario. :-P

An explanation.

Sammer had an appointment at the therapist this morning. It went well, and was also very eye opening. I'm surprised by how much I am learning, and I am so glad we didn't wait to find help for him or wait to have him tested.

I am writing this post because lately I've felt frustrated at the typical reactions I get to his behavior. And, yes, maybe I am attempting to justify certain things, but I... I don't know. Every time he does something, and people around us cringe or give us funny looks, I just wanna go into this long diatribe about how he is being treated for this and that, and he's working through his "issues" blah blah blah blah. But I guess I feel like, if people knew him, and knew how to react to him, maybe ... I don't know.

So I'm blogging ... not to excuse behavior, but just to tell you why he does it. (I will be sharing this, you can bet.)

Sam's sensory integration issues revolve, primarily, around his proprioceptive responses and his tactile ... dysfunction. For example...

Today at his therapy there was another child there at the same time. This little boy is probably about 10, and is often there the same time as us. Cute kid. Sam likes him. This boy was sitting on one of the swings and Sam tried to get past him to the tunnel. This boy was swinging pretty hard and Sam, misjudging how to get by, was promptly thwacked in the stomach by this wooden swing, complete with 10 year old boy, and sent flying about 4 feet. He laid, on his back, there for a minute. Everyone in the room, waiting for his response, held their breath. Sam said, "Whoa." And stood up and went over to the tunnel. That was it. If it had been any of my other kids, or any child without proprioceptive problems, there would have been wailing and screaming. Sam didn't register how hard he'd been hit. He doesn't register when he gets hurt, and he says "oww" for things like... being brushed with a very soft hairbrush down his arm. His emotions and reactions don't always match what is happening to/around him. This is part of why he craves "deep pressure".

I asked the therapist about whether or not this was related to his constant need to be headbutting, pushing, running into, "hitting" (I put that in parenthesis because his intent is not mean), or jumping. Part of the reason he is in therapy is to stop this behavior. If there is another small child around, and Sammy goes up to that child, gets right in their face, smiles, babbles, and then bonks their forehead, it's not because he's trying to be mean. It's his way of connecting and I KNOW this sounds like I am justifying his behavior, but I know he is not a bully. He likes other children, he just doesn't know how to connect with them. We are working on that. Good thing we are doing it now and not when he's 14. I'd hate to see him thunk the girl he likes on the head... what feels like a shove to us, to Sam, may be like a gentle tap.

At first glance, Sam would seem hyposensitive... his need to be jumping, slamming, etc. and yet he is extremely hypersensitive to certain textures, movements, and sounds. Some of this may be inner ear related... he hates to be upside down. It throws him off completely.

Another part of Sam's problem is his auditory perception. If you ask Sam a question, his usual response is, "yeah". Not because he means yes, but because he knows an answer is expected of him, but doesn't necessarily know what you are looking for. If Sam is in an enclosed space, his closet, the ball pit or bean pit at therapy, the blanket box in our living room, his language is SO different. He answers you with "sentences" and his vocabulary improves vastly. We are planning on getting him some noise cancelling headphones for places like church or where there's loud noise/crowds.

Sensory integration (processing) disorder is all about "finding your place in space". When Sam goes to a playground, he doesn't jump right on the playset, he will circle it and try to figure out how it works, where it goes, where he is in relation to its pieces. Once he does, though, look out! When we are at therapy and he is participating in activities that over stimulate him, or are un-structured, he will look for things that organize him. Help him to regroup... placing the colored tabs into the slots, doing a shape sorter, things like that. His therapist said that it shows how well he follows his own cues, his ability to understand when it's too much and to go and find something more structured to help him regroup.

Our school district, after one meeting with him, wants to test him for ADHD. I explained my frustration about this to Sam's therapist, and she said that she, also, hates labelling children, but that those labels often lead to more assistance for that child. So be it then. I'll let them test him, but I already told them I won't medicate him. I have my own reasons, maybe for another post. :) Sam's therapist agrees with this, and is an advocate for altering diet, detoxing, and, obviously, therapy.

Imagine how hard it would be if you couldn't process when you were being hurt, if the sounds in a room stimulated you to the point that you couldn't speak, if being around a group of people confused and stressed you out so much that you felt the need to crawl inside of a tunnel (literally).

We are doing our best.