I had another doctor appointment. Went much better overall, I think. He said I looked better… less drawn and more animated. I guess this is a good thing. LOL Still not sleeping worth a flip, so he upped my dose on a couple of things.

The Flagyl hasn’t whooped me yet, but I’ve only been at full dose for 2 days now, so it’s still a bit early to tell, I think. On the whole, though things have been better/nicer in the last couple of weeks. WAY less nausea and being off balance. Less twitching. Less overall aching, too. I did have a couple of days of some extreme pain in my knees and upper legs, and some really, really bad headaches, though.

We’ve had some interesting highs and lows in our medicine costs lately. One of mine (Zithromax) and one of the kids’ (Zyrtec, replaced by Claritin).

The thing with the Zith is that it is super duper expensive even in the generic form. At least it is if you have to take it for the length of time I’m having to take it. These TBIs (tick-borne infections) are some really tough bugs to beat and take BIG doses of antibiotics. Whereas most people will take a short 5 day course of Zith, I am looking at probably a couple of months… two pills a day. That’s a lot. It’s like a WHOLE lot. I had some massive sticker shock when I went to pick up the script for the first time. The gal said it would be $400 for a month’s supply. I asked about the generic and she replied, “That is the generic cost, the brand-name is $600.” Oh my!!

My mom bought 14 pills for $100 from Wal-Mart. That was enough to find out if I would even be able to take them (i.e. NOT have an allergic reaction) and to get me tied over for a few days while we tried to figure something out about affording this stuff. A couple of days worth of poking around and we managed to find the generic at Costco for a lot less. We also found that the drug manufacturer sometimes will supply meds for low-income, prescription-drug-plan-LESS people like myself. Sooooo, we’ve applied for that and in the meantime we bought another 10 days worth for $34 from Costco.

Yeah. That much less! I think I know where Wal-Mart is making all its profits now. =/ It’s in the medicines. Both prescriptions and OTC. Here is another example…

Another really good deal I found at Costco was the generic form of Claritin. The kids have both taking Zyrtec for about 6 years. Before Zyrtec’s patent ran out and they released it as an OTC medicine, that meant a $20 co-pay per kid each month. Once the patent ran out, it was about $1.50 cheaper per kid to buy the generic form OTC. Soon after I discovered we could get Walgreen’s generic version for about half the cost, so we switched to that. A couple of months later I found a generic Claritin at Wal-Mart that would be even cheaper. $7.50 for a bottle of 60. That would get both kids covered for a full month… at $7.50! Much better than the $40 it had been, so they got switched to Claritin a month ago.And then in walked Costco and sweetened the deal. I just paid $11.99 for a bottle of…wait for it… 300 tablets!!!! That is FIVE months for BOTH kids!! For twelve dollars!! So the kids’ maintenance antihistamine cost per year has dropped from $480 to $30! Oh my stars!!! =)

Anyway, while we were at Costco, Mike decided we’d buy a membership and he would drive me out (it’s a good hour’s drive) a couple of times a month. We made our first shopping trip last week. I spent $189 and came home with not a lot. LOL

No, really we did get some pretty good deals. Specifically in meats and cheeses. We got 10 pounds of ground beef for $18, a couple of decent sized roasts for another $20, a 2lb brick of Mike’s sharp cheddar for $5, and 5lb of shredded cheese for $11. I also picked up giant cans of diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and spaghetti sauce to try freezing them. (I’ll split them into meal-sized portions and bag them, first.)

Our other medicine news…

Matthew is taking a new medicine to try and help him control his feelings and thus his behavior. He’s only been on it for a few days and the doc said it’d take a few weeks to notice any real effects, so I’m trying to just be patient. LOL

The kids both competed in the Putt-Putt event through the ‘league’ or whatever the school is in. They said that their school split into groups and both my kiddos placed FIRST in their group! Too cool! Of course, they don’t have any idea how that compares to the other schools, so no clue yet on whether they did well enough for a ribbon, but they had tons of fun. That’s right. They BOTH went and had fun.

I’ll say it again… clearer… MATTHEW, the kid who was terrified to even go on the field trips if I went with him and would not go play with the kids or even go to Sunday School class without me… went on a school field trip while I stayed HOME. There were several other schools there and HE HAD FUN! =)

Here’s where I drop my jaw, squeal with delight, and do a happy dance!

And no, the new medicine is NOT an anti-anxiety med and in fact he didn’t even start it until the next day. Meds ARE responsible, though. It’s the antibiotics. No doubt. Antibiotics, of all things, enabled a kid who has lived in perpetual fear and who was downright terrified of being around strangers, especially large crowds of them, to spend all day at a new place packed with strangers and far away from Mom. Amazing!

Matthew and I aren’t the only ones with new meds. Meagan is now officially starting treatment for Lyme Disease, too. She is on the same antibiotics Matthew is taking. My doc said something at my appointment about babesiosis being infamous among the co-infections of Lyme for causing nausea. I’m going to mention that to her doc who when I see her next, because that is the symptom that bugs Meagan the most. Every day since the virus or whatever it was in January that had her vomiting every hour for several hours, she has felt like throwing up at least once. She feels like she is going to collapse a lot, too. I think she’s trying to describe being woozy or lightheaded. We’ll see what her doc thinks about the babesiosis. I know she tested negative through a standard lab, but it doesn’t show up in the bloodwork very often, apparently.

Anyhow, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s babesia causing the nausea. After all, I did test positive for it and I have symptoms of it myself (nausea, severe headaches, air hunger, hot flashes and chills, sweats, and more). Personally I don’t see how I could have passed down only one of my infections to the kids. Seems much more likely that whatever I had/have got passed down to them both.

I’m going to be going in for a consult for Meagan’s behavior soon too, though for much, much different reasons than for Matt. This is more for the ADHD and CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder) that I’ve suspected for years and years but had not been able to get the previous pediatrician to do anything about.

So lots of changes in the air… so far all for the better. We’re feeling better, we’re functioning better, and even better? The docs say it will continue to get better and better. =)

I didn’t get any of my projects done last week, but I might get a chance to work on the secret project for the kids this week. They got their room clean enough finally that I just might get to.

I can’t wait. They’re going to be sooooo tickled! =) I am absolutely planning on taking pics and blogging about it.

Posted: September 13th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, Meagan, kids, the changing me.
Comments: none

Such a bag of mixed news today. Could explain why my feelings are mixed. Or maybe it’s mixed feelings and that’s what makes it mixed news.

The big where-are-the-kids-schooling question has been answered. Mike decided it would be best for everyone if I took a break from homeschooling this year and the kids went to our church’s school. He called today to set things up. Praise the Lord Meagan still has a scholarship, so we will only have to come up with tuition for Matthew.

I definitely have mixed feelings. Of course, Meagan loves the school up there, so she is ecstatic. No mixed feelings for her! LOL Matthew? Yeah, he’s just as mixed up as me, though for different reasons.

Don’t get me wrong… there is nothing WRONG with our church school. Good school, good environment, good teachers, good curriculum, good extracurricular activities, etc. Nothing wrong with it at all. I just don’t like giving up homeschooling EITHER kid… not that I’m losing THEM, just losing the opportunity to teach them. I really enjoy the homeschooling (that is, the way I like to/was homeschooling a few years ago… the last couple of years I have been unable to homeschool to my standards). It stung a little last year when I lost one student, but I definitely saw the special opportunities it opened up for one-on-one teaching. This year it just downright hurts.

It’s not the difference in the kids, either, although there is a difference in how each kid views this change. Meagan, of course, is thrilled to continue on in the private school. Matthew, on the other hand, is less than thrilled. He’s apprehensive at best, and terrified at worst. He has a lot of concerns about going, not the least of which is all the PEOPLE. (He is also not exactly excited about the loss of textbooks and the gaining of small workbooks… the kid likes to READ, and he’s loved reading his schoolbooks.)

The reason this year is so hard on me, is not because I’m losing Matthew this time as opposed to Meagan, it’s because I’m losing ALL students as opposed to just one. I don’t favor one kid over the other, though I’m sure to strangers it probably appears that way because of the difference in the kids’ personalities (Matthew is mega-clingy and sticks to me like glue, Meagan is super-independent and can hardly be seen with me for more than a second before she takes off to do her own thing.)

Homeschooling is all I know. It’s been my ‘thing’, my job for 10 years. It’s been my life. I don’t mean that homeschooling has been more important to me than anything else and that nothing else holds any meaning whatsoever, I just mean that homeschooling… or at least the way I like to homeschool… is a lifestyle. It’s not just what we do did during school hours, it is was the way we live d.

I’m not going to lie and say I’m excited, or that I’m even happy about this. I will say that I gave the decision over to Mike, and I will stand by what he chose. I will even do so without complaining (too much…at least… I’ll TRY not to complain!). I can’t promise I will do this without a couple of bucketfuls of tears over what I’m losing.

No, it’s not the end of the world, and yes there are even aspects of this change I AM looking forward to… like Matthew learning to pray in front of others (they take turns asking the blessing at lunch). I just feel like in the last year everything I knew, everything I did, everything I was able to contribute has been slowly but surely taken away from me. This… the homeschooling… was the biggest contribution to my family and to the world and certainly to the Lord that I was making. It was and IS the only thing I knew how to do even remotely well enough to be considered a *good* thing… and now that’s gone.

With no longer being able to homeschool even, I feel like a complete and total failure in every regard. I mean I knew I was failing at the raising of the kids in terms of discipline and making them feel loved and accepted and so forth, but at least I was training their minds academically decently. I might suck at handling sibling squabbles or chores or hurt feelings or spiritual questions, but at least I could teach them how to use a dictionary or how to do long division. I might not know what to do or how to do it when it came to the “parenting” part of raising these two, but at least I could see how they each learn differently… what they have difficulty with, what they excel in, how they think, etc… and was able to fine-tune the curriculum and teaching methodology to suit their individual needs.

Proverbs 22:6 has SO much meaning to me… so many layers. I believe that each child’s training needs to be individually tailored in every way… that is tailored based on the way the learn, their personality, their spiritual gifts, their talents, their weaknesses, their strengths, their physical, mental, and emotional help… just completely and 100% tailored for them. Train up a child in the way they should go… (pronoun choice and emphasis mine to illustrate what I mean by individualizing everything). This is what I’ve tried to do, and while the private school is a good school and the teachers are good and the curriculum is good… they can’t tailor every little thing the way I can here at home. Not because I am so much better at doing so, just that they have to use ONE curriculum, ONE schedule, and they have several kids. It is perfectly understandable that there has to be some level of standardization amongst the class… whereas here at home I only had two kids to ‘tailor’ for and a vast array of curriculum and schedule options. (Plus, I had the added bonus ‘leg-up’ of knowing each child very personally from the time they were born. lol)

Now it’s someone else’s job. I don’t doubt that they can DO the job, that’s not my problem. My problem is… the teaching was the only job I felt like I could do even a little bit ‘well’. It’s like… my academics… my knowledge… my brain was all I had to give the kids, and now that that is gone…

It just hurts so much.

And also? What in the world am I supposed to occupy my time with now?? I mean, sure, I can crochet, sew, read, learn, etc, but do you have any idea how GUILTY I will feel doing things I enjoy but have no benefit for anyone aside from my own pleasure instead of doing something else I enjoy but that actually BENEFITS the kids (i.e. Homeschooling)?!!

I hate this.

Posted: August 12th, 2008 under Matthew, Meagan, kids, lettin' hubby lead, the changing me.
Comments: none

This post is going to have a little bit of everything, and a lot of nothing. haha I just wanted to throw out a few different things and instead of a bunch of little posts, I’ll do it all in one.

I got Meagan’s denim cowgirl swirly skirt finished finally. Somehow she managed to pooch her tummy out enough while I was trying the elastic on for fit (twice!) that the skirt now falls down to the top of her hips because the waist is so loose. It’s a pretty long skirt to begin with (it’ll be great for winter with a pair of tights underneath… nice and warm), so it looks like she should be able to wear it for a couple or three years.

This past week brought us a first. It’s one of those “developmental milestones”. One of those “growing up moments”. The kind people make scrapbook pages about, although admittedly it is one that typically happens as a toddler, and I don’t HAVE any toddlers…

Last weekend Meagan got a call from a friend of hers, inviting her to go to a daycamp the local library was having. It was going to be from 9-3pm, M-F, so bring a sack lunch, we were told. Mike decided that since it was quite possible Matthew would be GOING to school this year (man do I hate giving up the homeschooling!), it would be a good thing for Matt to go to the daycamp as a way to get used to being off ‘by himself’. So when Mike took Meagan to sign up, he signed Matthew up too.

Well, of course the rest of the weekend he was more than a little anxious, and definitely not pleased with the situation. We went ‘lunch-sack shopping’ Sunday afternoon to get goodies for lunches, and he did enjoy planning what he would pack/take.

Monday morning was liable to be disastrous, though. I told Mike ahead of time that I should stay home and he should take the kids and drop them off, because I figured that would lessen the chance of a knock-down, kickin-screamin, pry-him-off-a-parent fight. So I stayed home and waited for the report of horrible crying and fighting…

It didn’t come!!!

Mike said that Matthew went in and sat down next to his sister (all weekend he had been on her case making sure she knew she had to sit with him and not leave him alone at ANY time…) at a table to one side of the door, while the teacher was at a table on the other side.

No kicking!

No screaming!

No clinging!

No tears!

We got a phone call at noon from Meagan to say “whoops! It’s only till noon, can you come pick us up?” When I got there I found BOTH kids happy and excited and trying to tell me all about their day and what they were going to be doing for the week. The kids had all been put into groups, and while mine were both together (whew!), there was one other kid with them… a girl, even… and Matt was ok with it! He was not only resolved to having to go back the next day, he was EAGER!

Told you it was scrapbook worthy! The kid’s 9.5y and he just went to his first no-mom (or dad or grandma or uncle, etc) activity/event! AND he did it without any histrionics! And it wasn’t even just a quick 30min thing, either. He went in thinking he wouldn’t get to go home for 6hr!

I know he hasn’t been on his antibiotics long, but I can’t help but wonder/think that they had to have played a part. I tried to get him to go to VBS just a month or so ago and the anxiety/fear that caused was WAY more than what he had with the daycamp. In fact, it was such that he didn’t go… at all. He was hysterical just thinking I was going to make him go, there was no way I could have gotten him deposited in his class without a massive meltdown (that would, of course, have been very distracting to everyone else not to mention embarrassing for Matt and me).

Another clue that the meds might be helping some of his mood/anxiety/psych/whatever stuff came last night. He had been playing a video game online and was getting really frustrated. He’d done the same thing the day before and it quickly devolved into a massive frustration meltdown of yelling, hitting, slamming, stewing, etc and I had to ban him from the video games the rest of the day. He did get off the computer, but the meltdown effects carried on the rest of the day and into the night. It didn’t get better until he fell asleep. Anyway. Last night he was getting frustrated and so I told him, “You need to chill out. You’re getting all worked up again, and then I’ll have to pull you off again…”

He replied, “I know. That game was too frustrating. That’s why I’m going to a different site.”

I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped just a little. He not only recognized the frustration, but came up with -and instituted- a solution on his own before I’d said anything to him! He was already loading up a different game when I came through with my warning. Never. NEVER before has that happened. Not once, despite the 5 billion times the exact same situation, with the exact same outcome, occurred.

On another topic… I think I may end up taking Meagan to a GI before too long. She had a tummy virus back in Jan that had he puking every hour for several hours. It only lasted a day or so, but ever since she’s complained of feeling like she is going to puke a LOT. Like every day. She says it is mostly when she eats. She also says her tummy feels full a lot, and then she says she is hungry when she lays down. (????) Last night we each made our own pizza for dinner and they were all cooked one, then the next in the oven. Meagan’s was cooked first. She let it cool while Matt’s cooked, then started eating when I put Mike’s in the oven. She complained about the pepperoni making her feel like throwing up, so I told her not to eat them, then.

My pizza was last in the oven (since I’m the cook… you know how it is…) I had to keep reminding both kids to EAT!! and get ready for bed. Matthew was playing a video game (NOT the frustrating one…haha), and Meagan was just avoiding eating. I let my pizza cool for about 5min, and then settled in with my food and my handful of pills to watch Everybody Loves Raymond. Meagan had still only eaten about half of a piece of pizza… 30min after starting. I told her again to hurry up and eat (and then told Matt again to get off the computer and do the same). Meagan told me, then, “I am! I have to eat it slow or it hurts my stomach.”

Umm… ok? She ate slow, all right. Another HOUR and she had about another half piece eaten. (She basically left the very bottom of the crust of both pieces.) I sent her to bed at that point. She put the other 2 pieces of her pizza in the fridge (I think). I don’t know what is going on in her gut, but this is getting ridiculus!

With Meagan’s skirt done, the next project(s) I have coming up is a stack of culottes for her for P.E. (provided she gets to go to the church school again this year), and get this… a western shirt for Matthew for his un-birthday! It won’t be the first western shirt I’ve made, but it’ll certainly be the teeniest. I made a couple for my stepdad when I first started sewing back in high school. He barely ever wore them because they were “too special”. I’ve warned him a million times since then that since I made them to be WORN, if he didn’t wear them, he wasn’t getting anymore. haha It’s been 15 years and he has not gotten another yet. I wonder if he’s figured out I really meant it yet or not. haha

This is also going to be the wildest western shirt I’ve made. The two I made in high school were not sedate, but this one! Oy vey!! Matthew picked a black fabric with BRIGHT blue flame pattern, and then for the yoke he picked a black fabric with BRIGHT red flames…and gold Chinese dragons! He wants me to put one dragon on each yoke! What a combination for a cowboy shirt, huh? HAHA The pattern calls for something like 1/4 of a yard for the yoke… I bought 1 full yard since he wants a dragon centered on each side. I’m going to have to do some creative pattern placement, I think. haha

Little man was so shocked to learn that Mom could make cowboy shirts and even put those fancy-shmancy pearl snaps on them! HAHA So cute! I went ahead and bought myself the pliers for putting them on, too. I just used a hammer to put the snaps on before, but if I know my son, this will definitely not be the last cowboy shirt I make, so I figured why not? Do it right this time. haha

Posted: August 9th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, Meagan, family, just life, kids, projects.
Comments: none

Attitude. She’s ALL about the attitude this week and I have to say…

I do NOT like it!

She is so sassy, disrespectful, stompy, slammy, tantrummy this week. *sigh*

I have to wonder if she is feeling ‘left out’ in that Mom and now Matt are confirmed “Lymies” and are taking medicines. This past year it’s mostly been her that has had the medical attention, what with her braces/headgear, the ingrown toenail, the monthly IM shots and then the second daily sub-q shot instead, and the pulling of the 7 teeth, etc…

She needn’t worry. Her dr appt is Mon, and she’ll be getting more bloodwork done that day, too. I’m sure she’ll turn it into another huge ordeal. And besides, it shouldn’t be too much longer before she starts treatment for the Lyme, too.

My girl. She is so weird. lol

Cool note for today- Guess what I did?!! No really… guess!

I did FOUR loads of laundry (well the 4th is going now) and a load of dishes and made dinner. All in one day! AND… I even folded the WHOLE load each time without my arms giving out! Woohoo!!

In the last two months I haven’t been able to do more than one thing a day. Like wash the load of laundry, but not fold it. Folding would be the next day or two… Make dinner, but no laundry or dishes. Most days that I’ve managed to do ANYTHING this has been it… food, but no cleaning. Cleared the table one day, but of course that was it for the day. You can imagine the state of the house. You probably shouldn’t (it would be much more pleasant for you that way), but you can.

I hope I have at least this much energy tomorrow too. I might actually be able to make a dent in the housework big enough to notice. Maybe I’ll re-discover our forks, as they all seem to have gone missing.

Posted: July 24th, 2008 under Meagan, just life.
Comments: none

Overall there hasn’t been much blogging going on the last month or two. I think it might have something to do with the fact that overall I’ve been feeling worse and worse the last month or two. Ok, so I’ve been getting progressively worse for months on end. Time to shake things up a bit, perhaps?

Today is Father’s Day. I wish I had more oomph to be excited. Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday. Ditto.

I always have a booger of a time figuring out what to get Mike for gift-giving occasions. Not so much because “he has everything and wants nothing”, but more because he always wants the same stuff, and I don’t like giving the same thing every time. DVDs. That pretty much sums it up. Oh, and summer sausage, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and Hershey kisses. Sure he’d love a laptop and a DVD recorder where he could transfer his VHS tapes over, but we can’t afford either of those.

So this gift-giving occasion, I totally went with the no-thinking-involved Hershey kisses and a Mr. Bean DVD. I’m so uninspired right now.

Now for my mom’s birthday(She’ll be 52 years young. And she’s proud of each one of them. You go girl!)… going with the no-thinking-involved there, too…sorta. I just asked her want she wanted and then did my best. She said she wanted a capri set, but not pink or pastel. So I go to the store and find capri sets… in black (she already has), red (I have, so she didn’t want to do), and pastels. Lots of pastels. Pink, green, blue, yellow, peach… ugg! So off to WallyWorld instead. Found a pair of capri pants in tan, and 3 shirts. Blue, aqua (but dark aqua), and tan. I left all the tags on because she had originally said “not from Walmart”, so oops. LOL It was either that or pastels, ma!

So the cake is in the fridge. Easiest cake I’ve ever iced. The heat here made it literally just ice itself smooth as silk. I did have to encourage it back UP the sides of the cake, though. The icing was pooling so bad it looked like the cake was bulging at the bottom.

Tomorrow will be busy, and I’m afraid very stressful. We’ll have to do the whole cake thing for Mom, but then the bigger problem is Meagan has an ortho appt.

She just came in and told me one of her bands was loose. They were both loose 2 or 3 months back and the ortho was NOT happy. We’re toast tomorrow, what you wanna bet. It doesn’t matter how many times we say “yes, she brushes and flosses, and does the whole nine yards” (we did finally get the whole refusing to brush thing worked out…finally!) and “no, she does NOT wiggle the headgear up and down to get it out”… he still is not happy with us.

So, I’m anticipating him pulling all her metal off tomorrow and declaring it a done deal. Which means, of course, not only are we out close to $3,000, but we’re out that much $$ and still won’t have her bite corrected. In fact, if we lose the orthodontia now, we’ll never be able to correct it, as she only has a year or two (tops!!) left to get it corrected before it’ll require surgery…which the ins. won’t cover and we can’t afford.

With the problems we’ve been having with the Lupron not suppressing puberty, we may well only have a year or less left to grow and get this bite fixed “easily”. Every time I think about it it just makes me sick. We’re soooo close! She is supposed to be in the headgear another 6mo or so. She is 4′ 7″, so only another 5″ to get to 5′. Soooo close on both counts, and it’s seriously looking like both are going to be for naught. Bummer, too, since after her initial catch-up growth we were heading for 5′ 2-3″.

Anyway! I haven’t crocheted much this week, been too tired, and busy with dr appts, blood draws, and phone calls. More of that this week too, as my first dr appt with my LLMD is Tues. Nervous? Yup. That’s a given. Not horribly, though, and I have to say the only explanation for that is Jesus.

I am just going to sit back and let Him run this whole show. I’m just gonna follow His lead, and then I won’t have to worry about nuthin.

Posted: June 15th, 2008 under Meagan, blogging, just life.
Comments: none

Matthew has had a couple of interesting days. He saw the new pediatrician yesterday. She is SO not happy that he has had to be on so much medicine “every day of his life” and so is running some RAST testing to find out what enviros he is allergic to so we can look at “immunotherapy“. We were having to pull out the big-gun words because Mr. Smarty-Words had already started freakin’ out over the whole “vaccine” thing. Having just read about Salk and the polio vaccine in history… he was totally clued in to what would be taking place in the next few minutes.

So this is cool! Maybe she can get him off the massive doses of antihistamine, and the other half-a-dozen things he’s been relying on to keep his asthma and allergies under control. She also signed the paperwork for the Lyme testing without batting an eyelash. In fact, she was WAY cool with it. yea!! So after a couple of pokes yesterday, and then the blood draw today (for which the dr gave him some numbing cream…yea again!!), he was feeling very put-out.

As we left the dr office after the vaccines yesterday, I said something like, “So was it as bad as you thought it would be?” To which he replied, “Yes. It hurt, but it still didn’t hurt as much as giving away the dogs. I still miss them.” The last half of which I had to squint to understand through the high-pitched whine and tears. Poor kid.

After the blood draw today he declared that he hated the age of 9. It has been the worst year of his life, ever! he says. I can kinda see where he would think that… giving up the dogs, getting into big trouble with the police, missing out on a fishing trip with his pastor, and now… horror of horrors… shots and blood draws! Actually, it is likely to get worse for him, as I can not homeschool this coming year. That means Mr. EXTREME-O Shy will have to go to a school of some sort. That is not going to be easy on him.

Even so, personally I would think Meagan has had a rougher year, though to be sure her yuckiness started back at 9.5, so maybe there is something to that whole the-age-of-9-is-the-worst after all. She’s had braces put on, an ingrown toenail cut-out, started monthly OW! shots, had a case of stomach bug that left her puking every 30min for about 12hr, gotten glasses, had a huge abscess from one of those monthly shots that then drained… at school, had 7 teeth pulled at once, and added another nightly shot.

Ya know? Now that I really think about it? I was 9 when I had a slumber party that only 2 girls out of the whole class showed up to, we moved into my aunt’s on-the-market-home and then into an apartment, discovered that homeschooling did NOT mean you didn’t have to do schoolwork, and got my face slammed into the concrete by the girl next door. Oh, and I had two break-ups. One boyfriend moved, handing me off to his best friend, and then *I* moved.

Oh the horrors of being 9!! I wonder if anything horrible happened to Mike when he was 9. Doesn’t matter. I definitely had it worse, don’t you think? ;-)

Posted: June 10th, 2008 under Matthew, Meagan, family, funnies, kids.
Comments: none

Pictures forthcoming…I hope.

Long week.

Friday I was going to borry Mike’s puter to upload some pics of something. I don’t really remember what now. I was too tired, so I went to bed.

Saturday I was supposed to go do laundry, instead I played hooky. Ok, so the van was outta commission while it got a new leg, I mean tire. (FYI, running over son’s bicycle *might* cause a tire failure.)

Monday the son slept all day long (no, really!) due to NOT taking his allergy meds the night before and so having to resort to the Benadryl. Benadryl = snores. Or at least it did this time. He slept till 2pm!

He was just waking up good when we got home from picking Meagan up at 3pm, and then we had to turn around and go to the eye dr. They’d had a cancellation, and so could Matthew come in at 4pm?

So that went well. NOT! Refused to let the dr do the glaucoma test. Even under threat of “I’ll call your father”. UGG

So I spent Monday night and all day Tuesday FREAKIN OUT that the dr would call the cops or CPS or someone because I used the ’s’ word in his office.  You know… s p a n k i n g. Yeah, that one. See! It’s so horrible I don’t dare write it all together because it might get googled.

Yes, I know I am a paranoid nut. It sucks, but I deal. Mostly by crying and praying. It’s a good thing the Lord is gentle and patient…I don’t know how he puts up with my pathetic-ness. (That is TOO a word…I just said so!)

It gets better. Tuesday afternoon we had to go BACK to the eye dr to pick up Meagan’s new gear. Pretty in pink, she is. (Picture forthcoming!!) I just hope she doesn’t take any more basketballs to the face, cause I doubt the insurance will pay for 2 pairs of specs in a year…

Tuesday night was fun, too. After getting the specs, we did laundry. When we got home, Matt asked to go play. Ummm, nope, still have homework to finish. He throws a pencil (and generally a FIT) so I send him to his room.

He was quiet, then. I ASSUMED (and you know what they say about ASS-U-ME-ing…) he was quiet because he was reading some of his series books. He’d spent several hours last week doing just that instead of whatever he was supposed to be doing.

I went to check email before starting dinner. The doorbell rang and I could see it was a couple of the neighborhood kids. This was the second doorbell since getting home from laundry. Like the first, I started to tell this group that Meagan had gone down the hill and Matt wasn’t through with homework…except I didn’t get to. They had come to tell ME that Matthew was causing problems down the hill.

Oy vey! The kid had snuck out the window! No wonder he was quiet. Several phone calls, door-knockings (and no answers… we have to wonder if they were knowingly aiding and abetting by harboring a fugitive of parental justice…), and slow drives around the block later, he finally shows back up with his bike. Of course, by that time Mike had called in to work, and had also called the police.

This kid is bound and determined to turn me grey, I tell you. =(

So today said son toured the police department. He is not to leave the property the rest of the month (well unless his dad or I take him) and if he does and the cops happen to see him, they are going to take him to the department and call us. This is the arrangement Mike set up. Matthew is not actually in trouble with the law, they are doing this as a favor to us. His trouble-making yesterday was not anything more than a pushing/yelling match with another kid, from the sounds of it they were BOTH at fault. The problem is more that he is just flat-out NOT obeying his dad and I and has now taken to just taking off. It’s this taking off that we’re really worried about. If we don’t get this stopped NOW…ya know?

So, he had a bit of a pre-arranged scare with the police, and hopefully that will be enough to keep him from leaving the house/property without permission again.

Meanwhile…back at the ranch… =)

I was without internet here at my puter for a couple of days because I’m blond. I guess. Apparently I had the wrong network thingy enabled…or the cable plugged into the wrong network place thingy or something like that. I just know the puter kept telling me the network cable was unplugged and it SO was not! Thankfully, Bro3 got me fixed right back up after he took Bro4 and Bro5 to their club-thingy-ma-jigger.

He also fixed me right up with one of these, with which we then proceeded to check out money, hair, skin, tongue, Meagan’s bloody band-aid (she had a Lupron shot and bloodwork today), and a tick off one of the dogs. (Yes they are still here…yes they are still covered in ticks as is our backyard…in fact, Matt pulled a tick outta his waistband area last night! UGG!)

It was a Mother’s Day present for his favorite sister. Hey! I KNOW I must be his favorite sister…never mind that we have 4 other really great sisters. I am his favorite. I know because I said so. So there. =)

So we spent a couple of hours checking out gross stuff. Unfortunately, though, we did NOT spend any time whatsoever checking out this. Not that I didn’t try, mind you. I did, indeed, immediately DUMP the entire contents of my purse onto the floor in the hopes of retrieving the hair. Somehow, though, the ziploc baggy which contained the hair WAS NOT THERE! I do not know where it went. I kept it in my purse for weeks. Months, even. I do not remember pulling it out at all, and yet… it’s gone. I am so sad. =(

Also? As horrifically split-ended my hair was (I don’t care if that is a made-up term…I like it!), inexplicably it was looking mighty healthy when my SnowBuddy and I went looking for a replacement for the record-breaker. The closest we came was an ordinary single split end. How totally unexciting and boring.

Best close-up so far? One of my chin hairs. As it flashed across the screen, Bro3 shrieked and cried out, “What was that? It looked like a CLAW!”

(And yes, it was a shriek. Definitely. NOT a manly grunt of disgust. A little girl shriek. I know this because I just said so. I can, ya know, because he’s my little brother. Ok, my YOUNGER brother… by 2yr, 3wks, 6days, and 12hrs thankyouverymuch!)

Micro-mini projects update… penguin and bib both done. Overwhelmed by cool idea/pattern and so now partway through secret project. It’s crochet, but that’s all I’m sayin’ right now. All cubbies re-installed in Matt’s closet. Both clothes rods re-installed. Shelves over clothes rods still not. Going to be tackling the painting of the front hall/entryway next. Same blue/white as the living room.

Posted: May 8th, 2008 under Matthew, Meagan, family, funnies, just life, kids, projects.
Comments: none

So after all the excitement last week, I must say this week is seeming very blah in some ways. That’s ok, though, any more excitement would probably be just too much. =)

Monday morning, Meagan had an appt with the eye doc. She’s going back in glasses. I’m not surprised in the least. Actually, I was surprised she had the 3-4 years without glasses! I was afraid we’d have to out-of-pocket the glasses again in order to get a pair she would wear, but thankfully the state insurance has expanded their selection of frames they’ll pay for. She found a pair she liked, but they were brown. The gal told her she could order them in pink and there ya go! They should be ready in a week or so.

Mike’s prescriptions from the VA came in. Doc had told him he was going to be on a med for lowering his cholesterol. He neglected to mention he’d also prescribed a med for the high blood sugar. Basically Mike was told, “You have high blood sugar.” That’s it. No info on what to DO about it, no info on what to NOT do, nothing. So now I’ve got another project…learn about Type 2 Diabetes, and how to monitor blood sugar. Oy vey! We were going to out-of-pocket the monitoring supplies, since when Mike called to ask about it this morning he was told simply that they would re-check his levels in July. (Nice to mention that, guys!) Then I found out how much the test strips cost! YIKES! Even the cheap ones would run us $20 a week. =( I think Mike is going to call the clinic back and see about getting a prescription through VA. I just can’t believe they would put him on a glucose-lowering med without word one about it and with nary a care about monitoring the blood sugar levels. Makes me wanna scream! >=(

The dogs get loose like oh, I don’t know…every 3 seconds? Ok, maybe not quite that often, but close. They’re both bigger than Matthew, so neither of the kids are really able to get in or out the door without the dogs barreling over them to get out. Brownie, I am certain, has decided the ONLY appropriate place to pee is in the hall. Even if you take him out for an hour or more, once you bring him in… immediately he makes a lake in the hall. GRRRRRRR! Every time they get loose, they bring back more fleas and ticks. We simply can’t afford to keep dipping them, the collars have done NO good, and the drop stuff that you put on their backs eats Butterscotch’s skin up. To top it all off, Matthew REFUSES to obey the orders to STAY IN THE HOUSE and get his schoolwork done. Instead, he takes off the minute my back is turned to go chase the dogs. Not that he can successfully catch them most of the time, mind you… just because he enjoys getting in trouble, I think.

Sooo…I think Mike has finally given up on the fence idea. It was a lovely thought, really. Trouble is that lovely thought, while allowing us to keep the dogs, would also cost us several hundred dollars and several weeks worth of work. It’s really looking like we’re going to have to take them back to the pound. I hate that thought, because being grown dogs it will likely mean they’ll be put down, but I don’t see any other way. Matthew, of course, is NOT happy. Poor kid. =( He loves those dogs. They’re his best friends, and the whole reason we got the dogs was for him to have a friend. I just don’t see any other way. Had the dogs not destroyed the fence, maybe…

In other news… I hadn’t been doing much FLYing lately so Monday I determined to get some things done. I got the last 4 wks worth of school lessons mapped out. That took all day, but at least it is done. We know now, just how much he has to get done each day if he wants to finish up the year the same time his sister does. Of course, had he not been giving us such fits with the behavior, he’d have been done months ago and would be doing the extra stuff by now.

Yesterday he worked real hard all day. He didn’t get everything done because Monday he basically got nothing done due to massive meltdowns, but he did work. Grandma came by last night and we were so pleased to be able to tell her that yup, if he kept working good the rest of the week, he’d be able to spend the night Friday. Then today… *sigh* Well, let’s just say the Friday night sleepover is cancelled. =(

It’s looking like he’ll be headed for the public school next year, much as I hate the thought.

Yesterday I got more housework done than I’ve been able to do in one day in forever. I mopped two floors, got 2 loads of dishes done, cleaned the bathroom, swept several rooms, cleaned off the desk and all living room surfaces, and got all the kitchen counters scrubbed. Oh, and I also managed a shower and 2 lessons in my bible course AND a ladies meeting at church. MAN! I think that was the most productive day I’ve had this year! Today? Yeah notsomuch. I got the ironing done. Oh, and dinner is cooking.

So basically, everything is back to crazy… which is normal.

Posted: April 30th, 2008 under FLYing, Matthew, Meagan, just life, kids.
Comments: none

The Lord was in mission conference tonight, let me tell ya! Woohoo! Have I got news for you…

He called one of our youth to be a missionary. Oh yes. He did!! Praise the Lord!

And now I weep. He also gave me one of the biggest blessings to date…

the one He called?

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That there is this one 5 years ago…waiting to go to the tip-top of the Washington Monument in D.C. (thank you, Bumpa!!) to look out and see the world!

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Yes friends. That’s my baby girl. He called my Meagan! How sweet it is!!

Thank you, Lord, thank you!

Posted: April 23rd, 2008 under Meagan, faith.
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The other night in the shower I had this totally random(??) thought…

“Denim and daisies are like Jesus”

Then I thought of these words:

• Tough
• Durable
• Strong
• Protective
• Simple
• Pure
• Gentle
• Bright

I don’t really have any other earth-shattering anything to report, just thought I’d share that observation. =)

Still working on the penguin, almost done. I am thinking I am going to add a bib for baby, because the penguin’s smaller than the monkey. Anyhow. Should be through soon…I hope.

Oh! Update on the expensive teefies girl!… she had another appointment today. She still didn’t get an A in brushing because there was still FOOD on her teeth… OY VEY! I have been checking her teeth soooooo carefully every night. I warned her before the appt (via a note, as I was busy out of town) to be SUPER careful in brushing when she got home from school. Guess she wasn’t careful enough. ugg. At least she still has the metal, so we’ve staved off losing the $3,000 for another month. She is getting closer to having those 4 loose baby teeth pulled though, since she won’t wiggle them. uggggg!

Ok. That’s all for today. =) Off to throw something in the microwave for dinner.

***update- Found out from Meagan that she didn’t see the note I left till after they got back. Also? She got a B!! She says they didn’t say anything about taking the metal off, either. A B!! Best grade yet. Man! I’m so wishin’ she’d brushed a little better, though. I keep thinkin, could she have gotten an A?

Posted: April 21st, 2008 under Meagan, faith, just life, projects.
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