The Aftermath

Christmas has come and gone and overall it was a lovely holiday.  We had a few details floating, for instance since Sacrament meeting is the only meeting when Christmas lands on a Sunday and mom with Scott would be both opening gifts and eating dinner with us, we weren't sure when we wanted to go to church.

Our meeting was at 10:00 A.M. and I believe my mom's was at noon.  Obviously the noon meeting was enticing as it would allow us to open gifts and have breakfast without interruption.  I was strongly leaning towards the later Sacrament but Jane made the decision for us.  We had an opportunity to meet as a family with the Bishop last Sunday and when it was all done, Jane went up to the Bishop to ask him a very direct question.

Every Sunday there's a youth speaker, alternating between the young men and the young women and even though Jane is almost fourteen, she hadn't been given the chance to speak in church.  So she went up the Bishop and asked when she'd have that chance.  So she was given the very next Sunday, Christmas day with the theme being "The Christmas Story".  Decision, made 10:00 A.M. Sacrament meeting it is.

Presents were being opened here, at our house, which apparently caused my older brother a great deal of stress.  On top of Scott's autism, he is severely OCD (that's obsessive compulsive disorder) and he often feels compelled to have and/or do things in a very precise manner.  Scott understood he was spending the night with my mom for Christmas and he was very insistent that our mother was doing it wrong!  You see, mom failed to put the presents under the tree at her house.

Obviously she was confused.  Next year should be easier, this was the first Christmas with Scott spending Christmas morning with us and it was all new.  With a routine set, he'll expect to follow it next year. 

We ended up opening some gifts, having some breakfast (I tried two breakfast casseroles this year, one a sausage, cheese and egg combo, the other a sweet french toast, with pecans topping it, both keepers).  During breakfast, Ean took it upon himself to wildly open as many gifts of his that he could find.  It wasn't as bad as the year all three boys started ripping open anything wrapped, with regardless of who's name was on the package, but it was still pretty bad. 

After breakfast, the kids got ready for church, all three red headed boys were banned completely from the front room and we allowed the girls to play a little catch up and open a few more things. 

Sacrament was lovely.  Usually there's mostly musical numbers but this year there was the usual format of a youth speaker and two other adult speakers with some extra musical numbers.  The speakers kept their topics oriented on the Saviors birth and it was a beautiful meeting.  Jane did fabulous!  She read the Christmas story as it was written from my old children's Bible and then threw in her own thoughts.  She was insightful enough to say that the reason for Christmas has nothing to do with presents, trees and food and everything to do with Christ.  My absolute favorite moment when she referred to the wise men's gifts and blanked after "gold" and quickly ad libbed "and other stuff."

It was awesome.

We went home, changed and finished gifts as soon as Scott and mom returned.  Then it was general chaos as my mother left and I putzed around the kitchen getting dinner together.

Our kitchen table technically seats six, but we manage to cram our seven bodies around it and in a pinch when my mom is over, eight bodies.  With Scott attending dinner, it was very obvious that nine would be way to many around our pitiful kitchen table.  So we ate dinner at my mom's.  She had the ham and would put it in to heat while I provided everything else.  So I made good use of my new crock pot and cast iron skillet.  Please note that if you want the humor in Kent's gift of a cast iron skillet, look up my blog entry titled "Ace Hardware Hell", the irony is hysterical.

We invited Kent's family that was still in town to attend but Kent's grandmother was the only one able.  So filling out mom's table with ten seats, all the boys pinned against the back wall, we had a lovely dinner together.  My mother sets an impressive table, very stylish and it looked just lovely.

Kent's grandmother had a lovely time.  I am afraid I left some major clean-up in my mom's capable hands as I spent a good chunk of time explaining the various art pieces my mom had displayed. 

My mother's artwork is a walk down our family history, with several needlepoints designed and crafted by my grandmother, with some incredible pen and ink pieces by her.  My uncle's oil paints are also prominently displayed. 

It was a lovely Christmas.

So what's the aftermath?  Why, my house that was so meticulously cleaned for the celebration can't hardly be walked through.  It'll take the rest of the kids break to get it ship shape again.

If we can get them away from Transformer movies, books from partially read series and remote control cars.  Wish us luck.

Christmas

This is going to sound odd, since I just wrote about our seventeenth anniversary but this Christmas will be our eighteenth together.  The numbers get muddled when you're married nine days before a major Holiday, because that Holiday is counted at the very beginning.

Anyway you look at it, that's a lot of Christmases together. 

Our first Christmas was actually spent in Vermont.  It was a whirl-wind, affair, throwing together another reception, along with the holiday together.  It was also our honeymoon, spent ever so romantically, in my hometown, because we could only afford one trip and the chance to see my family and celebrate our wedding took precedence.

Luckily Kent fell in love with Vermont.  Unfortunately we didn't have very many Christmases there because it was just to hard financially to travel and Kent couldn't get time off, since he worked retail so many years.  There was one Christmas, the year before Kate was born when Jane was almost two, when we were able to travel.  What glorious memories.  My dad joked with his friends to not be surprised if the house wasn't standing on December 26th.  You see, on top of Jane, there were Malcolm's twin girls that year and somehow my dad could picture the worst with those girlies. 

Amazingly enough, the house DID stay standing, my mom was able to do super fun things, like decorate sugar cookies with three toddlers and we all had loads of fun.

It's hard to mesh family traditions when you're married.  His family did things a certain way, my family did things a different way and somewhere we had to meet in the middle.  We had some years with it all being confused.  We spent many years going up to Kent's parents to open gifts and that was a special time, but as our family expanded it wasn't practical.  We decided after we purchased this house a bit over a decade ago that it was time for new traditions and that's when we started spending Christmas morning at our house.

It made sense since Christmas day was becoming our family day, leaving Christmas eve evening with Kent's family.  It works out well, especially now that my mom is here because we can spend time with everyone without feeling rushed.

The last few years we've had Christmas dinner at our house, but somehow I forgot about having Scott this year!  So we'll have dinner at my mom's.  It's just not possible to seat nine people around our table made for six.  Yes you read that right, I said six.  We squeeze seven, daily because there's no choice, with me always being the one stuck on the awkward corner.  When mom comes, we somehow manage to add her but that's the limit.

So dinner at mom's it is but Christmas morning will be here, mom and Scott will be joining us.  It should be hectic and chaotic and memorable and fun!  This year Christmas is on a Sunday.  I love Christmas on a Sunday.  Just an hour of church with a mostly musical celebration of the birth of our Savior and Lord. 

Christmas was on a Sunday the year the twins were born. 

That was a weird Christmas.  I had given birth via an emergency c-section a mere four days before after being on bed-rest for almost three solid months.  Getting the twins here was an emotional journey, it was difficult and we didn't know if the twins would be ours to raise or not.  It was like a thousand pound weight was off my shoulders when they were finally safe out of the toxic environment that was their womb with it's malfunctioning placenta and sleeping, growing and developing under the care of the nicu nurses.

I had a lot to be thankful for that Christmas.  My little babies born eight weeks to early obviously couldn't come home yet.  Their first Christmas was spent with IVs and feeding tubes, lots of wires that would suddenly startle us with bells and whistles, usually alerting the nurses that someone's breathing had stopped.

Yet there was something special that year.  An outpouring of love from strangers for the nicu babies.  Blankets and homemade gifts appeared for our boys.  Gift bags and stuffed animals.  Those angels made a difficult time just a little easier and I'll be forever grateful for what they did at that time.

I was released from the hospital on Christmas Eve.  I moved very S.L.O.W. that year but we had three other children in need of some special time.  Thank heavens my mom was here to help. 

Thankfully we only had to spend that one year with children in the hospital.  This year has the bonus of the twins finally being old enough to appreciate the holiday without the wanton destruction of years past.  Amazingly enough the tree has remained standing, although the ornaments have been relentlessly rearranged, I don't know if they'll survive.

There's also been an almost never-ending barrage of newly made treasures added daily.  Ean has also discovered what the "blinking" bulbs look like and for two solid days, there was a new part of the tree blinking.  Thankfully he's stopped that.

If any surprises come up, I'll be sure to blog it.  We never know what our family has in store for us!

Merry Christmas!

Seventeen Years

Seventeen years ago at this very moment, I was picking up my wedding dress with my mom. 

Now I didn't love my wedding dress, but with only six weeks to throw together a wedding and until about six hours before, I lived in a different state, it was the best I could do.  My mom, dad and my wonderful Aunt RoseAnn, who surprised me by flying out from Vermont with my parents to attend my wedding had been in Idaho for a few hours.

My poor dad had been through the wringer.  Like seventeen years ago, it was a Thursday, I was married on Friday and my grandfather had died the previous Sunday.  So not even a week had passed and my dad flew to Florida from Albany N.Y. and back again, washed his laundry and flew out to Salt Lake, followed by that long drive to Idaho.  Truly an act of love, since my dad was unable to enter the temple to view my wedding.

I honestly expected him to stay with his mother instead of flying out here.  I knew he loved me but since he could only wait outside the temple, I wouldn't have been either surprised or hurt if that had been his choice but he chose me.

So what does that mean to me?  Well, I didn't know how deeply my dad loved me.  Oh I knew he loved me, but to choose to come to Idaho, it really touched my heart deeply. 

Well and my dad got to meet Kent. 

Kent, I fell in love with him so fast.  Everything was and is right about being his wife.  That doesn't mean my dad and Kent ever really had much to talk about.  Different beliefs concerning life, politics, religion, yet I could talk hours with either man.  So the common denominator was me.

I love Kent.  He's such a wonderful father, caring spouse, funny, so many wonderful qualities, how could I not fall in love.  And he loves me. 

I wish we could spend tomorrow together, but we seldom actually get to spend time together for our anniversary.  Hopefully we'll be able to carve out time for dinner together and if not, we'll make sure we connect this weekend.  The twins can't understand why we'd want to spend time alone without them but they'll just have to not understand.

I do enjoy conversation without talk of bathroom habits, toys, dirt or whatever else the almost six year olds can come up with.  Call me crazy.

So here's to seventeen years, I hope for that and more to come with my sweetheart.

First Trimester Report Cards

We finally got the "official word" on how the kiddos are doing in school.  For the twins, it was pretty anti-climatic, a sheet with pluses and a few minuses for both guys.  Greg needs to work on appropriate emotions and both boys are "a joy to have in class."  Both boys have minuses on "Cleans up activity area" and I mentioned that to them when their teacher leaned over and confessed that all the kids received negatives on cleaning. 

Priceless.

Ean received three "Os", three "Gs" and one "S".  For those that don't remember the system, "O" is the highest grade, meaning the student's work is "Outstanding".  "G" is the respectable "good" rating and "S" stands for "Satisfactory".  Satisfactory being the lowest rating before there is noted concern.  Ean's single "Satisfactory" was received in penmanship, Kent and I aren't exactly concerned and this proves what we knew all along, anything that was noticeably lower then his other grades would be so because he's simply not concerned about it, not because he doesn't have the ability to do better.

My seven year old smarty-pants.  :)

Kate did very well receiving several "A's" and several "B's"  Kent and I have noticed from her work that she's bringing home, she's obviously working her little heart out.  With grading Kate, there is the problem, that if an individual teacher doesn't know how to work her IEP, she'll be penalized academically and this report card showed that.  In the two classes of Science and Social Studies, my girlie had D's.  Both classes are graded by her main teacher and unfortunately this teacher and I have butted heads in the past when Kate was in first grade.

At that time, she expected an extraordinary amount of work from Kate when Kate was still in pre-reading skills, expecting a written report on some mammal of her choice that was far beyond her abilities.  Kate's learning disability wasn't even diagnosed at that time, but unfortunately this teacher leaned towards believing Kate's inability was due to lack of effort.  This of course is non-sense, Kate's an extremely hard worker and we just didn't know at that time, what helps she needed.

So I let Kate know that we knew she was working hard and weren't concerned about the letter grades and I also knew that in a little over a week I'd be able to address those issues at her IEP review.  Thankfully that review went well and Kate now has modifications in how she'll be tested that should better reflect what she's actually learned.

Finally there's Jane, who even though she struggled with getting incredibly behind in her pre-algebra homework, managed to not only pass all her classes but also pulled some decent grades.

I'm very proud of all five of them.  They're finding success, they're learning, they're growing into such neat people.  This is what gives me the most joy in parenting, sharing their triumphs no matter how big or small.

"Don't you DARE write about this ON YOUR BLOG MOM!"

*blink*

That sounds like an invitation if I ever heard one.  Let's backtrack.

Yesterday, I'm in the front room with Kent watching "Castaway" with Tom Hanks.  We're both very engrossed, it's been a while since we've seen the film and really, when I say engrossed, I mean, it took five or seven screams before Kent and I turned towards the kitchen.

There was Jane, yelling "People, PEOPLE.. PEOPLE!!!!!!" We looked at each other, not quite sure what's going on when Jane let out a huge shriek "PEOPLE, THERE'S A FIRE IN HERE!!!!!"

More blinking.  I mean, the smoke alarm wasn't going off and even though we couldn't see the kitchen, it didn't look like an emergency.  Kate was standing there, turned towards, whatever the heck was going on, just watching the show.  If the house was on fire, I think she would be yelling too.

So I got up picturing a possible fire on the counter.  We do have a gas stove and I have a vivid memory of watching my mom cook, while standing on a chair and inadvertently pushing some newspaper into the flame.  I remember a stern lecture and my kids are about as observant as I was.  So really, I was expecting something on fire *on* the counter or the stovetop.

Noooooo.

The flames were licking up from the inside of the frying pan.  They were pretty impressive too, but entirely contained, so I wasn't worried in the least.  I glanced in and noticed a raw egg, apparently about to be cooked and a stack of paper towels next to the egg, and it was the towels that were burning. 

Jane turns to me and utters "Don't you DARE write about this ON YOUR BLOG."

So of course, I immediately called Kent into the kitchen to take pictures and we, of course, expressed how impressed we were with her fire, which was starting to go out at this point.

Later in the retelling at a friends, we asked Jane how the fire started.  She hid her head under a couch cushion.  I asked her if she was using olive oil in the pan, because she's seen me mop up excess oil with paper towels before and honestly, that was the most logical reason for the paper towels being there.  No, she was using non-stick spray, so much for that theory.  Our friend said, from the pictures, it looked like the egg was just dropped in the pan with the towels already there.  It's a puzzler for sure.

And the one kid with the answers isn't telling.  Maybe it's time to mount a fire extinguisher next to the stove.

Greg's Tears

Sometimes there are things that just feel right, like today, I called my mom and let her know the resident "tween" in the house was needing a boost to feel special.  My mom being the intuitive grandmother she is understood exactly what I meant and knows exactly what kind of self esteem boosting the "tween" needs.

Then there's the sister-in-law (as in, we're bother sister-in-laws  to Hill siblings, she's married to one of Kent's brothers) that wanted someone to go see the last "Twilight" movie with her.  I mentioned that Jane would love to go and she's picking her up a little early  and spending some quality time with her.

What a blessing to have family that is involved with our children, understands them, and most important helps them understand what truly incredible individuals they really are.

But there's lots of family that isn't there, mostly because of distance, a portion of course is not by choice since death is just part of the cycle that is life.  Which brings me straight to Greg. 

Oh my Greg.

Have you ever met a child that is just pure in heart.  They're sweet, kind, honest and truly just love with all of their might anyone and everyone that touches their life?  Greg is such a child.  What I hadn't realized is that this love extends to those that should be in his life but due to whatever circumstances, can't.

My little boy came to me today with large hazel eyes welled up with tears asking me if Grandpa was gone.  I told him that grandpa was my daddy and yes he is gone.  Those tears welled up even bigger and threatened to spill right onto his freckled cheeks when he stated "But momma, I miss him and I love him."

Oh my goodness.  I almost cried myself.

I called my mom and let her talk to Greg, I felt that was most appropriate and as he chatted I couldn't help but wonder if his missing his grandpa, who died before we ever knew we'd have twins, was either from all the pictures we have around the house of my dad and realizing that he should be there or if it's from something more.

Truly believing that there is more to life then what we see on this earth and having had extremely special experiences that whisper the presence of loved ones no longer with us, I wonder if there is a spiritual connection between Greg and his grandpa. 

Either way, it was a very sweet moment with my dear boy.

Cooking 101

For Jane that is.  The rest of you are on your own.

I have very strong memories of my mom teaching me the basics in the kitchen.  She really liked to work alone until I was about ten when I started asking for an easy bake oven.  My mom informed me there was no way I was getting one, why should I make little cakes in a fake oven when I could make real cakes in the big gas oven.

I wasn't very happy.  The big oven wasn't pink with little flowers on it. 

What can I say, I as a child of the '70's, when light brights reigned as one of the hottest toys around? 

So cooking lessons began.  It was very informal with me just mixing, measuring and mom giving me hints.  Mom gave me free reign, along with kids cookbook sporting simplified recipes, to create at will whenever I wanted to.  She let me fail.  There was fudge that was grossly undercooked, unintentionally unleavened cake, extremely thin spaghetti sauce along with all seasons of undercooked to almost burnt entrees for the family.

By my early teens I even tackled Thanksgiving dinner almost solo.  Dad let me do everything but wouldn't trust me with actually prepping the bird.  That was the year the bird was seared to the bottom of the roasting pan, dad had to invert the pan and pound the bottom with a hammer to get the turkey out.  It came apart in pieces and there was no carving that year.  Hysterical doesn't even cover this memory.

I admire my mom now because letting go of control in my own kitchen is really hard for me.  It doesn't help that our kitchen is small so if I'm working in there, there really isn't space for more bodies.  I've tried to channel my mother, letting the kids take an active part cooking but that's not always feasible when I'm on a deadline or am preparing food for others.  I leave questionable hygiene and extra kid goobers exclusively for our family eating right now.  Granted with mom working nights by my early teens, she didn't have a lot of choice.

But today, with Thanksgiving prep work on the horizon, I'm choosing to devote time to Jane's culinary education.  She's not excited in the least, truthfully she's happy making boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner.

Which reminds me, Kate's been begging for me to teach her homemade mac and cheese.  Maybe next week...

I Started a New Blog

When my mom moved out here and we were going through her stuff, the little bit of nostalgia that held my attention was the articles that my dad wrote a few decades back.  See my dad worked for the local newspaper, The Bennington Banner, even before I was born.  He had worked all different departments, knew the paper inside and out and from the late '80's to the mid '90's he wrote the weekly "TV guide" column.

He loved it.  I do mean LOVED IT.  He spent hours writing, rewriting, reading to us various drafts and using his family as inspiration for his writing.

It was a dream job for him.  Oh he didn't make much money off of his column, but dad had a love of the movies that couldn't be beat.  We grew up watching movies.  After going to the local theater, the trip home was riddled with discussion on the good and bad parts of the film.  We'd rip the films to shreds covering dialog, costumes, plot and dad would fill us in on various parts of film history, letting us know tidbits that would otherwise be lost in history.

We had a shelf just for movie books where dad would look up a potential film and see if it really was worth watching.  He saved "Tough Guy" for last.  To this day, I'm not sure who "Tough Guy" was, but he was a critic that my dad held in high regard.  He saved his reviews for last and would gleefully repeat every word of his review, regaling how tough guy would rate everything two stars under what the other guys would rate.

Obviously the chance to share his profound knowledge and love of cinema paired with his love of writing was a match made in heaven.

I have spent a few hours drifting through dad's articles, laughing, smiling and getting a few lumps in my throat.  Lets not forget the occasional eye roll.  Dad did write a few droll articles covering electronics.  Why?  Well in his words "It's my article and I CAN."

My mom entrusted me with the first binder of articles after making me swear I'd protect them with my life.  I promptly sat on them for about two years.  This morning I was staring at my blog thinking about what to write when it hit me, a blog!  Seriously, why hadn't I thought of this before?

So I have created a blog to put my dad's work in.  I'm leaving an open invitation for any family member that knew and loved dad to let me know if they'd like to contribute stories about him.

I hope in doing this, I create something that will allow my dad's grandchildren to know him.  He did leave us far to soon.

Public School, the Good and the Bad

My kids are in public school.  It's been a personal choice that, for the most part has worked for us.  Except for the year that I pulled Jane and homeschooled her, the kids have been in public school continuously.  All five have been in the system since pre-school, most going to school by age three.  With the chronic speech and language delays every single one of my children have struggled with, they've all qualified for pre-school extremely young.

Throw in some fabulous teachers at Wilcox, the children's elementary school, that have been stupendous advocates for my children's need, public school has really worked for us.

Now that we're dealing with middle school, we're dealing with policies that make little to no sense.  I will admit that for Jane both seventh and eighth grade has gone much better then that year we pulled her out.  Still, this year I was surprised to receive a letter that my oldest has five absences in one of her classes.  If she gets two more absences, it counts as a truancy. 

Now, Jane has missed a few afternoons from being sick but this was a morning class and she's been to school every day.

Turns out, the school has a policy concerning homework.  Jane had gotten behind in her math homework and had a miserable month playing catch up.  The school pulled her from lunch and required her to attend a class, I don't know what the name is, for homework delinquencies.  It runs for the entire lunch period, including part that overlaps students other classes.

So, wait.  My child was at school. Every. Day.  And she's in trouble for missing homework, so you pull her from class, where she could potentially get further behind and count the missing classes against her???  What kind of asinine policy is THAT??

I told her, she better not miss anymore assignments but I am extremely frustrated there's a policy in place that could potentially throw her further behind and punish her for a situation *vague wave of hands* the school created!

She's caught up now and hopefully has learned to keep up with her responsibilities.  She's trying and hopefully she's getting credit for that.

The good.  I got a call from Ean's teacher on Wednesday.  You know Ean, my wonderful, bright, intelligent spaz that struggles with not bugging the carp out of other people.  Well he was bugging a girl trying to work on the computer.  Usually Ean gets in trouble and suffers the consequences but this teacher took it upon herself to set a goal with Ean to not bug other people for the next four days.  This takes him right to Tuesday, when school is let out for Thanksgiving.

She put a note on Ean's desk to remind him, it says "I will not bother others" with the dates marked, ready to be checked off.  After four days he gets to pick something from the reward bucket.  She also called and talked with me to make sure what she'd done was alright.

Lets see.  She's taken what's normally a negative and put a positive proactive spin on it.  She's helped my son set a goal, that's reasonable and within his grasp.  She also talked to the class and let them know that Ean is working on not bugging others and encouraged them to help Ean.  Which I'm totally fine with because, it's not like they don't know.

Hopefully this works and Ean sees that he can control his actions.  I'd love to have something to oooh and aaah over in a few days. 

Baking Nightmare

A friend invited me to a goodie exchange party.  Bring three dozen of your favorite Holiday treats (she specified cookies or candy) and after eating and talking, everyone will get to take a variety of goodies home.  I usually don't go to social things, partly because I can't justify the time away and partly because I feel guilty for allowing anything to take me away from what I need to accomplish as a mother.

Alright, so the first reason is a cop out.  Regarless, I don't get out much socially but this really sounded fun.  I decided to not follow the instructions, I'm rebel that way and chose to make instead saffron bread.  Lussekatt or the Swedish saffron bun, is eaten on the Saint Lucia celebration (13 December).  An extra curly "S" shape is dotted with a raisin at the center of each Swirl.

Due to the Saffron being the most expensive spice in the world, I don't make lussekatt every year.  But every now and then, I do indulge.  They are one thing that I can easily make that remind me of Sweden.  So I decided that I should make them for the exchange tomorrow.  Even though the Holiday is an unofficial Swedish holiday and is non-existent one in the U.S. I still wanted a reason to make one of most favorite Swedish treats.

I started in the Late afternoon but it was still early enough I would be able to easily finish by bedtime.  My first hitch was being unable to find my tried and true saffron bun recipe.  My Swedish cookbook is missing and I know it'll show up.  It's one of those things that never leaves the house but it's still frustrating to not have it when I need it.  I found a recipe on allrecipes.com and although it's similar, I believe my old recipe is truer to the saffron bread I ate in Sweden.

My second hitch wasn't figured out for another four hours.

Yeast breads are an art form and I've baked enough that I have a really good sense to know how to accomplish what I want with the dough.  Dough that is to hot will kill the yeast, dough that is to cold will not rise.  To much flour will lead to a really heavy, dense and drier bread.  To little gives a dough that's sticky and if it's to light, it won't hold it's shape, leaving flat and unattractive bread.

The Swedish Saffron bread dough is super light and sticky.  Much more so then any American recipe I have tried.  This makes it harder to shape and work with after rising.  However it was reaching the step of shaping the buns that I was struggling with.

My dough would not rise.

Boy did I try.  I had my biggest mixing bowl in the oven, I was turning the oven on to it's lowest setting every half hour and turning it off as soon as it was hot.  This left the oven at the perfect temperature for yeast growth.  The yeast didn't seem to agree with me.

It was very frustrating.  The texture was perfect.  The dough had the right amount of springiness.  It was stretchy and beautiful to look at but it just wasn't rising.  I thought maybe I had killed the yeast but honestly I wasn't sure how I could have because I had monitored the ingredients.  Between the butter and the saffron, I had over twenty dollars worth of ingredients in that bowl, I wasn't taking any chances!!

I even invited my friend Marja over to give her two cents and she agreed, the dough looked like it should rise.  There wasn't anything outward to suggest something had gone wrong.

So I went into the freezer, brought out new yeast and carefully measured about two tablespoons into the bowl.  By careful, I mean I dumped two tablespoonish piles into my palm and sprinkled over the dough.  Then I kneaded the dough for about fifteen minutes to work the yeast in, turned the oven back on and sat back to see what would happen.

Yeah, I had bad yeast because after twenty minutes the dough texture had changed and I could see little yeast bubbles under the surface.  Of course this meant that all my careful planning so I could go to sleep at a decent time was out the window.

So here it is 2:00 AM and finally I am done.  The bread rose, I shaped the rolls although I took a shortcut and didn't put the raisin garnish in.  So they don't look right.  I also didn't brush some egg on them so the buns lack the beautiful shiny coat that's usually there.

But they taste like saffron bread and that is what counts.

I can confirm that my original recipe is better.  So I need to find it before next year. 

Ace Hardware Hell

Kent, very innocent like, approached me last week to ask if I had purchased him a Christmas gift yet.  He was quite surprised when I told him that yes I had but they weren't very big.

Since it's not Christmas yet, I will refrain from writing down what I've already purchased.  I will say I'm very excited about what I found and I think he'll love these particular presents!

Back to Kent.  He smiles, that ever boyish charming smile that won me over seventeen years ago.  Then he pulls from his wallet an Ace Hardware gift card for $25.00 and a computer print out coupon for $5.00 off that has to be used before the end of November.  All for "my" benefit, so I can buy him something for Christmas.

Sounds safe enough on that alone but I've lived with this man, many, many years.  I've watched him agonize over how he'll spend his Ace Hardware rewards.  I've watched him return items he spent over a month deciding to get and then realize he made a mistake and regretting the return.

For those unfamiliar with Ace, it's a conglomeration of not only what you'd expect to find in a hardware store but it also has everything your average redneck could possibly need for a downright indecent good time!  There's tents, sleeping bags, fishing supplies, outdoors man clothes, so all types of hunting gear, guns, bullets, dutch ovens, woman's fashion that would never make a Paris runway and wine. 

The purse I'm currently sporting is from Ace.

The problem is not finding Kent something he'd love, the problem is finding something he'd love without hearing about the literally hundreds of other items he would rather have.

I just came from Ace.  For a half hour I politely declined repeated offers of giving me help (the staff is incredible at this place) and I wandered, priced and debated and DEBATED.  It was awful.

I finally fled for the sake of my sanity and am no closer to purchasing that man I love something from that store that I really am not fond of.   Except for purse shopping of course.

I was about thirty seconds from going to Kent's work, handing him his gift card and letting him know that I would be more then happy to wrap whatever he bought himself.  I refrained.  I'm going to mull this over and discuss with our mutual friend Marja and see what she thinks.

Since she's our camping buddy and I'm leaning towards camping gear, she might have a better idea on what we'd need for our trips.

If nothing else works, I just may go and by the cast iron skillet I spent an indecent amount of time eyeing.  Even if it's not what Kent had in mind, that will teach him for trusting me with his gift card. 

*sigh*

Manly Solutions In all their Ugly Glory

I have a few memories from childhood that are horrifying and startling at the same time.  The source?  My father.  The memories?  Him absolutely losing it over something us kids had messed up and then going into this huge and I mean HUGE production to keep the atrocities of children from happening again.

Gigantic signs taped across the television and VCR come to mind, stating "DO NOT TOUCH: RECORDING" (with recording underlined half a dozen times).  You see, certain things would just put my dad over the edge.  And his effort to keep his world aligned was monumental.

My husband shares this same attribute.

With five children I'm sure it comes to no surprise that our home is a remote graveyard.  From MIA to just down right destroyed, we've gone through a phenomenal amount of remotes.  Unfortunately technology isn't child friendly and more and more electronics are basically useless without the remote.

This has led to blood pressure rising frustrations that in one ugly fell swoop, my husband decided to end it once and for all.

And by ugly I mean what he built, not how he reacted.  Truly I am unsure if I should just show pictures or try to describe the monstrocity.  We're talking worse then the cardboard, aluminum and coathanger tv antennae he constructed and hung in our bedroom suspended from the ceiling.

That bad.

I guess the proof is in the photos.  First here it is, in it's full glory



Wait, that looks....  Did he attach the remotes to that freakishly big piece of wood????  *hitting hand on foreheard*  WHY YESSSSS HE DID!
And here is a close up.  You'll notice the need of power tools to remove these babies.




This is the whole contraption being held by a five year old.



Please note he conviently left room for more remotes.  That's a six by two in case you were wondering and uh, wanting to copy his design.  (insert hearty chuckle)

In case you're thinking Kent is the only crazy one in the house, I lost it this morning, unable to find my dress coat for church.  I threw almost everything out of the closet on my hunt.

Kent found it, right there, hanging up.

So it's a match made in heaven.   Yeah.  

REPRIEVE!

This past week has had a few personal milestones for my children.  The past month has been a little rough on many fronts.  There's been some school problems, some personal problems and some impulse problems, all scattered amongst the brood.

The result is a very long month with very little fun stuff.  Pretty much it sucks for everyone.  The child that's unable to play, the child unable to have sleepovers.  It especially sucked for the child that had no life at all due to being behind in school work.

This week was a turn around.  Finally school work was caught up on!  Some fun was had by a youngster that had been saddled with extra chores and maybe, just maybe that wild impulsive one is figuring out how to contain his general spazziness.

It's been so nice to have life back to normal!!!  This week we've had play dates with friends, a sleepover on Friday night and someone got a special lunch with just daddy today!!!!  I'm thinking everyone is feeling a bit special and loved this week.  I so needed this!!

Ean was the one that got lunch with daddy and I asked him if I could go too.  He very politely let me know that he needed time with his dad and that I couldn't come this time.  I was very proud at how he was able to articulate what he wanted using his best manners.  He's growing up.  They all are. 

I loved Jane calling me after school this week so she could go to the dollar store with a friend.  She's been very grown up in asking for extra teenage privileges like watching a wrestling match after school.

Even the little men have had their moments like making turkeys with mom.  I guess I had a moment to when I scrubbed the kitchen floor to the point you needed sunglasses from the glare.

Weeks like this past week just make want to capture all the precious moments in a memory box.

Or I could just blog them.

If You are Bothered Please Don't Read

Apparently some of my words are bothersome to family members and they would like me to use more caution in expressing myself.

May I kindly suggest that you don't read my words.  Do not read if my frank honesty bothers you.  Do not read if acknowledging my children's shortcomings will cause you worry for them and their self esteem.  Suggesting that I sensor myself will be ignored by all except my husband.  When I am really concerned about content, I read it to him first and ask his opinion.

Believe or not, I try to be discreet and sensitive to most issues I write about.  Anyone that reads this has no idea what I leave out.  My point right now is not to talk about what's not written, but to discuss what is written.

My children have short comings and believe me, I'm aware of them.  I'm also aware of their incredible strengths and the strides and growth we've been privilege to take part in over the years.  Without some reference to the bad, I don't think the good can be appreciated.  The milestones don't have nearly the impact without some knowledge of the journey.

Boiled down, I'm not justifying my words.  I'm not making excuses.  I'm sharing  a journey as a mother of five children with very real challenges.  I share to hopefully give hope and insight to other parents as well as the wonderful feedback I get from those that have "been there" and "done that".

So, if this bothers you.  Don't read.  I am not sugar coating what I say.  To do so would lesson the value of what's constantly being learned in our home.  It's sometimes not pretty.

But it's very real.

Turkeys (and I'm not talking about the kids!)

Let me share some pictures but first a little background. The twins teacher sent naked turkey pictures home with instructions to decorate with your child and to send them back to school by the ninth. So being the uber timely parent I am, the boys did theirs uh, yesterday on the tenth and they got sent to school on the eleventh.



lol!

They do this all through out the year with varioius themes and display what the children and parents make in the hallway.

So with the twins I grabbed about four sheets of scrapbooking paper and cut a pile of feathers, got a bottle of glue out and crayons of course. I then had them sit down and go to town.

David immediately starts glueing feathers like a madman. In all directions, right across the bird. Greg tells me his teacher told him to use CEREAL and I better get some out. Well I know he doesn't have to use cereal but Greg was determined his creative juices wouldn't get rolling without any, so I put some cheerios in a bowl. Honey nut cheerios thank you very much.

So Greg's first action? He made cheerio eyes. His twin stops his feather massacre and peeks over and decides, that's not such a bad idea, so David copies and then glues eyes on his turkey. So basically David glues a gazillion feathers and stops every now and then to glue cheerios like his twin. It was HYSTERICAL.

Greg finished his work with some artfully chosen feathers, six to be exact around his bird while the mayhem that is David's feather offsets Greg's exactness. Really, I love my boys! Their individualness just pours out of them.

Greg's Turkey!!

 

David's Turkey!!

 

The New Scout Master

The new Scout master is absolutely petrified of his new church calling.  Trust me, I know, I am married to him. 

Honestly, I am not surprised that he's been called.

Kent has this ability to not only tolerate the nonsense that billows forth from young men, but he is able to connect with them and mentor them in a manner that I see as a gift from God.  Truly it is Heaven sent.  How many people do you know that not only like to hang out with teenagers but in the end the teenagers are better people because they know them?

Kent is this sort of person.

I strongly suspected that eventually Kent would be back working with young men.  It was only a matter of time.  I just didn't know when.

We found out the night of the Fall Social.  (We refrain from calling it a "Halloween party" but essentially that is what it is.)  It was a grand time with dinner, followed by a trunk or treat for the kids. 

On a side note, I really like the trunk or treating.  Twenty minutes of my time and we're done!   Sure beats dragging kids around the neighborhood.

After the party of over, I was visiting with some friends that I had invited, Melonie and Marja.  One of the Brethren walking by me mentioned that he needed to talk to me soon and Kent too.  Marja, who is an active member in a different denomination, laughed at me and asked what could my kids have broken in the building.

I told her that it was far worse.  That Brother was a member of the Bishopric and if he wanted to talk to both me and Kent that meant that someone getting a new calling.

Flash forward to the car being loaded with everything except children and Kent visiting now with our friends, the Brother that had spoken to me previously starts to approach us.  In a staged whisper I said "RUN KENT RUN".  Since I had not mentioned we were being sought out by a member of the Bishopric, I sort of forget to tell Kent that a calling for one of us was on the horizen.  We were asked inside, found an empty room and the calling was extended.

Kent almost fainted on the spot.

While leaving together, Kent told me that if he had realized what was coming he would have taken my warning to run more seriously.

Kent's worried about the time that will be needed but I believe as a family we will be able to balance it all and most importantly Kent will be able to do everything he needs to do without neglecting his roles as husband, father, and provider.

Blessings come forth when we are called to serve and in the end I think Kent will find a great deal of joy working with the Scouts.

Even if his first instinct was to run away.  

Daddy is a SUCKER

But he can be taught!

Alright, background, we've had a rough go with lying in the house.  Particularly the ten year old and the seven year old but today lets talk about the ten year old.

About a month ago when Kent did allowance for the kids, I had him give me an extra three dollars for Ean's classroom party fee.  Ean remained the one child that I hadn't paid and I wanted to get that done.  This was Sunday, inconveniently right before church but that is a whole 'nother blog post!

Monday morning I forgot to send the funds with Ean and I remembered after dinner that night so I went to my desk to get it taken care of, so Ean could take it the next day.

Gone.

Nothing.

Of course first thing I did was check piggy banks because if it was one of the twins, that's where it would go.  Each only owned a few dollars, so it was not them.  Asked Ean, he said he had his own money, WHY would he take someone elses????  He was very indignant too.

That left the ten year old.

Now we have a long history of lying, denying, especially when cornered, so I decided I needed back up and called Kent into the kitchen before getting the tween.  When both were there, I confronted Kate and of course she immediately went into denial mode.  There was shrieking, yelling, righteous indignation "I didn't take it OKAY!"  My problem is that I have heard it all before and later found out she was guilty.

I was not fooled in the least.  After several minutes, I finally told the child that I was searching her room and the reason I didn't believe her was because she had lied so often in the past.

After several minutes, I did indeed find the missing money and she knew she was caught and we dealt with it.  As a parenting note, we've already had the "Can't trust your word, have to earn your trust again and this can only happen with 100% honestly" several times.

To my complete shock I found out the other day that my tween had her daddy convinced that she innocent that day.  He was snookered, hook, line and sinker.

I am very very glad that I called him that day as back up because obviously he hadn't seen THE PERFORMANCE, that I've endured far to many time to count.

I'd like to note that the moral is, be a united front in front of the kid.  I mean, Kent certainly thought I was maligning his daughters character, but he let it play out and if I had been off base we would have talked about it later.  Away from the tween.

Unfortunately I was right.  Sometimes a mother doesn't want to be right.

Hopefully we're on the road to respecting ourselves enough to make better choices.  It is very hard to grow up.  And daddy has learned a little too. 

Boy Stuff and Nonsense

It's been a while since I've devoted my time to telling just boy antics.  So here we go, in all their glory.

We had the neighborhood Fall Social last night, and Kent was given the job of delivering potatoes the previous night.  Since time is precious, I went with Kent and we took the twins.  In between deliveries we had a chance to visit with each other.  For the most part I stayed with the twins in the car.

We get to one house and David says to me "Mom, I am so verwy small and it's so hard.  I just want to gwow up and be big."  Huge pause  "Like Gweg mom!"

In between chuckles I told David that I wanted to be big like Greg too.  Greg had a hearty laugh and managed to spit out that I was already big.

David, in the most sympathetic tone told me "I know mom, it is so vewy hard."

Kent had a good laugh with that.  He laughed even harder this morning when I was falsely accused of eating all the candy.  There was a lot of candy from the trunker treat last night.  I didn't want everyone to pig out in one sitting but I have no real desire to try to hold a whole bowl full of candy hostage and dole it out a little at a time.  With the sugar fiends in the house, that's a recipe for disaster.  Some one is sure to sneak and pig out and everyone else feels like they've been cheated.

So I carefully divided the candy into piles according to type.  Then I took fifteen sandwich bags and split everything between them.  Obviously they were not identical but they were pretty similar in amounts and types.  That means each child gets three bags apiece to be passed out when I decide it's time.  It's my compromise to get it out of the house in a hurry and not allow the kids to completely pig out in one day.

The bowl that originally held the candy was in the front room, along with a whole pile of wrappers from what the kids ate before going home.  Greg walked into the front room, assessed the situation and immediately turned to me almost in tears saying "Mom, you not suppose to eat ALL DA CANDEE!"

It took a bit of explaining to let him know that I hadn't.

Some of my friends have heard far to many tales about my children, so much so, they love to bring them up as an inside joke.  For example, recently on facebook a dear friend wrote in her status.

"JOB OPENING: there is a job opening with the State of Nevada working with none other then my fantastic husband. The job requires electronics experience. It entails repairing, building and installing electronic devices that measure earthquake activity. The opening has not been announced yet, contact me for more info and if you want to move near yours truly ♥"

Another friend responded  "Call Lisa....Ean is PERFECT for the job!! ;)"

Seven other friends "liked" it.

Then there's the comments we make in response to our children.  Kent walked in through the door, noticed a picture on the window and asked who put it there.  Fingers immediately pointed towards Ean and without even blinking, Kent commented "Ean, next time you tape something to the window, please use about four and a half yards less tape.


I pointed out to Kent that Ean needs more direction then that, like, four strips as long as your thumb.  Kent responded, letting me know that is what he said.  About four and a half yards LESS TAPE.


I tried.  


For the Trunk or Treat I bought the boys some fun shirts and some face paint.  I just don't have the time and resources to dress everyone super cute.  So the twins both had bright red shirts with Elmo faces on them.  My plan, to paint their faced red, spike their hair and call it good.  The guys had different ideas expressing very different ideas for face painting.  I went with it.  Dave had me apply a few things and when asked what he was he promptly responded "I am an Elmo, Jedi, Vampire!"  Then he had me paint half his face black, so I told him he was a chimney sweep.  He added that to the list and for the rest of the night when asked what he was he responded.  "I am an Elmo, Jedi, Vampire, Chimney sweep."


Talk about cute!

Mother's Tears

I have cried my share of tears for my children. 

I'll never forget the relief that washed over me the first time I went to the nicu alone and watched my twins sleep.  Here they were, perfect little bodies, perfect little boys, both alive with bright red hair fuzzed over their teeny heads.  I couldn't help but cry.  All those emotions from those three months of non-stop worry melted through me.  The tears built up and I quietly cried as I realized I still didn't know what God had in store for my babies.  Relief and worry all came in one blow.  It was emotional.

I'll freely admit to being a crier.  I try to not let it get out of control but I'm an emotional creature navigating a difficult road.  The emotions I carry are for more then myself.  I carry the hopes and dreams of five children in my heart.  I have a man in my life that I am blessed to call spouse that stoically fulfills his duty his father and husband no matter how tired or drained.  The weight of the world is on his shoulders and at times my heart is heavy knowing his burden.

When the neighbor dumped Jane as a friend in sixth grade and my beautiful girl sobbed in disbelief that her friend could abandon their years of friendship, the tears flowed freely knowing I couldn't take her pain away. 

Lets not forget the tears of frustration.  Frustration born of exhaustion from lack of sleep and never ending mischief.  I can't begin to count the times I've been a puddle of tears in the middle of kitchen, sitting on some awful mess of flour and spices, looking upward and questioning "Why me?"  I've never felt more inadequate as a parent then when Ean was a toddler.  I couldn't start to meet his needs and the twins as well.  Life was a constant blur of destruction, projectile vomiting and laundry.  I do believe that's the year I went on zoloft.

So today had tears.  Out of respect of my child, I wont' go into details but once more the unknown is in our life.  We will be searching for answers and we don't know what those answers will be.  I can pretty much guarantee the presence of tears.  After all this is my child and that child is so loved.

Time to get on my knees.  If I'm going to cry, I should do so on my knees.  At least then, I won't be alone. 

The Primary Program

Every fall the ward has a primary program.  For those unfamiliar with the LDS faith, ward is the name to describe specific congregations, for instance we are in the "Ninth ward".  Primary is name for the organization that teaches children three to eleven.  Sunday school principles are taught in age equivalent classes while in a larger setting specific skills such as "public speaking" are practiced in the form of giving two to three minute talks in front of peers.

My children love primary, currently we have four of our five in primary.  Our oldest at thirteen attends "Young Womens" and an age appropriate Sunday school with her peers.

The primary program is an entire Sacrament meeting devoted to practiced parts and singing pieces from the primary age children.  I have to say as parents, the primary program can be a great source of entertainment.  The big bonus?  Spending an entire meeting sitting next to my husband without anyone shorter then we are, trying to wedge their little bodies between us.

Since not a single child of ours could be understood before the age of five, our young children on the stage has always been a great source of amusement.  I remember quite fondly Kate at about age four.  She had a one line part, it took maybe twelve whole seconds to say and she had to be spoon fed every few words to get it all out.  Her marvelous teacher did her part but Kate showing some flair decided to add lib and almost a full minute of indistinguishable jabber cheerfully came forth from her mouth.  Not even Kent nor myself could understand her but she was dang cute up there and held every one's attention with her baby blues.

This year, the twins both can speak better then Kate did those many years ago.  They still needed to be spoon fed their parts and I honestly can't remember what they said but the effort was unmistakable and that for me, was the most memorable part.

The leaders tried to really make the parts personal this year.  Someone went to a lot of effort to keep track of talks the kids gave earlier in the year and used those talks to make each individual part.  The end result was very touching.

Kate spoke of her great great great great great grandpa Butler, who was a body guard for Joseph Smith.  Kate described how this ancestor of hers was told by the Prophet to take his family out of his home without delay and to not spend the night there.  With great faith, he removed his family and spent the night at a neighbors house.  That night, as Kate put it, "Some bad men" burnt his house to the ground.  Then Kate expressed how she knew that if she followed the prophet, she too would be protected just like her great great great (really I don't know how many there should be) grandfather.

The absolute best part of this was that Kate's great grandmother, Betty Robinson, came to hear the kids.  It was a huge sacrifice on her part because leaving the house isn't easy for Betty.  Betty was married to the man that this ancestor came from.  That made it especially special for us, to know that, Betty knows, her great-granddaughter knows of her heritage and is learning from it.

Kent's father and my mother were also able to attend.  Unfortunately Kent's mom has been ill the past little bit and coming just wasn't in her power. 

Ean also did extremely well.  In Ean's part, he described a visual my mother used at a cousin's baptism.  My mom dyed some water red and then put bleach in the water.  The water turned clear again.  Ean described how this visual shows that baptism wipes our sins away.

The really funny part about Ean's piece is that, yes, this was from a talk that Ean was suppose to give.  Ean in a huge fit of stubbornness, completely balked at actually giving the talk and Greg gave it in his place that Sunday.

I think standing up in front of all the adults in a filled chapel to narrate what he saw his Mormor (grandmother) do that day more then makes up for never giving the talk in Primary.

Come to think of it, he's still due for a talk sometime this year.

Not Learning From Our Mistakes

For the second year in a row, Jane's managed to bury her head in the sand and pretend that her actions don't really affect her grades.

And for the second year in a row, Kent and I are forced to play hard ball.

So, pretty much it's no life for the child until grades improve.  I also let her know that in the evening,we are now best friends and she will be with me when doing her work.

I had high hopes she learned her lesson last year.  She is really trying to push the "It's to hard" but this is a repeat class for her and she did alright in it last year.  So failing? 

I really really REALLY hate having to be mean.  We already have one child without privileges for lying and stealing, now another one for grades.  Pretty soon only the twins will have a social life.  I'm HOME TOO.  I shudder to think of the state of my family if I was working right now.

So if you need me, I'll be at home.  With my children.  Playing warden.  Until we can all get our acts together. 

Color Me Confused

After a year of service, tonight is the last night I serve as a policy counsel member for Head Start.  It's been a fun year and I've enjoyed giving back to the program that gave my boys so much.

Tonight is also the kids open house at the elementary school.

Tonight is also the night, if I chose to schedule a parent teacher meeting with any of Jane's teachers at middle school, I was suppose to call and schedule an appointment.

Really?

Three schools.  One night.  One me.

Now I'm going to my last night of Policy counsel (without the notebook I'm suppose to return because I have no idea where it's at) pretty guilt free.  I talk regularly with the Elementary school teachers.  Pretty much every time I go to the school, I talk to someone so at least once a week.  And Jane, I haven't talked to her teachers but using the school portal, where I can look up her assignments, I'm keeping track of how's she's doing and the school is tracking her carefully since this is the first year of having the IEP that documents her learning disability.

So to sum this up, all week, nothing except one mad dash to the dentist to re-glue a temporary crown that had come off and of course Jane's Monday appointment with her therapist (for Jane's anxiety).

The three school things on Thursday aren't the only overlaps this week.  No Saturday has a women's super Saturday at church and the kids have rehearsal for the primary program at the same time.  That one isn't nearly as stressful, I'm not required to be multiple places at once.

I feel lame for not helping more with other things.  The book fair/fundraiser was at Wilcox this week.  Yeah, did not help. The super Saturday, was suppose to do a class, the organizer took one look at me and let me get out of it.  I was looking pretty puny from a week of asthma gunk.

Does it get better? 

I didn't think so.  

Stealing and Lying

Once again as parents, Kent and I are facing the challenge of a child making detrimental choices.  Respecting the privacy of this child, I'm not naming names and I ask for no guesses please. 

We've had a repeated problem of stealing.  For the most part, it's been more family things, think food set aside for family home evening.  Snacks in the locked freezer that should last a few weeks are gone in a few days.  When confronted, this child will go from either claiming to be sharing with younger sibs to flat out lying about any knowledge of the missing booty.

Then I will routinely find evidence in this child's room that this child did take whatever is missing.

We've been dealing with this for at least six months and it's reached a critical point.  I'm in a horrible position where this particular child is always my first suspect and I never believe what this child says.  As a mother, I find it not only heartbreaking but frustrating because obviously, since this is a repeat problem, what we're doing as parents is flat out not working.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, actual money was taken from my desk drawer.  Without opening the door to allow lying, I immediately went to this child and let the child know that the money was to be returned.  Even though I refrained from framing the question that would lead to lying, this child chose to lie anyway.  I was confronted with a barrage of exasperated denial.  Tears.  Worse, then those was the sinking in my heart because I was almost sure that this child was the thief.

So I changed my tactic and announced that I was searching this child's room.  This lead to more attitude with loud, "FINE" and "You WONT FIND ANYTHING".

I tried to let this child know that all the lying in the past meant I couldn't trust this child.  It fell on deaf ears as the denial went on.

I searched and oddly after only a few minutes I found money.  Since this child's allowances is kept in a lock box in my dresser, spare bills in the room are automatically suspect.

First there was outrage.  I mean, this child wanted to just be alone, OKAY! 

Then there was yelling.  Everything I tried to say, there was yelling back at me.

Finally we could talk.   We let this child know that there would be no organized play dates for at least two weeks, no sleep overs for at least a month.  More important is the higher standard of work we're expecting in both school and chores at home.  We let this child know that we expect no complaints.  We also let this child know that this wasn't a grounding.  Leaving the house for around the neighborhood after chores would be fine. 

I'm not a huge fan of grounding and really that needs to the ultimate last resort.  There's a difference between taking away organized play dates and putting a child under house arrest.

The final thing that needed to be understood is that we can't trust this child and if anything comes up missing, I will be searching their room.  I am not required to give a reason.  I am not required to weigh the sides of siblings.  I will simply go and make sure missing items are not in that child's room.  It will be this way until trust can rebuilt and that will take some time.

Dang parenting is hard.

The Great Pumpkin Massacre

Hill style of course.

Today had a lot of running around, so since it's two weeks before Halloween, I opted for an easy planning family home evening.  The kids carved pumpkins.

Here's the fun.

Learning to Live with Learning Disabilities

I've been pretty open about my journey with my two girls as we've navigated the school system, trying to help them get the help they need.  This battle continues even with the presence of IEP's (individual education plans) for both girls.  IEP's are legally binding documents that schools are required to follow to meet a child's individual needs.

Sometimes this journey hasn't gone so well.  Sixth grade for Jane comes to mind.  A quick overview, Jane had an IEP until forth grade.  She was then released and her elementary school recognized that she couldn't function in the regular classroom.  Luckily Idaho has a law in place called an I-plan that allows for school to give children like Jane that tested out of special services but would sink in fully mainstreamed classes, the help they need.  The plan was to have her on the I-plan in fifth and sixth and pushing for her to be ready for middle school by seventh.

Several different things happened.  Our school district changed the middle school structure to include sixth grade and since I-plans legally have no standing, it's entirely voluntary, we knew that Jane's sixth year, the first sixth graders in middle school, would be a difficult year.

I want to say that Jane's middle school is notorious for not helping students like my daughter but in reality, in our school district, it's all the middle schools.  The push to put a bunch of tweens and teens through the system is immense.  The classrooms overcrowded and no understanding of Jane's disability existed at this point.  She was mainstream with no back up.

Without going into a debate on whether sixth graders belong in middle school or not, lets just say for my daughter, this environment was detrimental.

Here was a kid that had received extra help since the age of four.  Her disability was not diagnosed at this point but she had a long school file of documented problems both comprehending and recalling.  She had a short attention span, easily distracted and at this point still had problems effectively communicating.  I'd like to point out that her ability to communicate has drastically improved but it's still not where it should be.

So it was really throwing this kid to the wolves.  Her teachers recognized her problems and we talked to all of them, trying to work with them on how to help Jane.  So Kent and I felt like there was a real working relationship with Jane's teacher.  Then the school comes out that in their haste to make this transition to middle school, they actually were not fulfilling Idaho law on how much continuous focus is on the Language Arts.  They switched all the sixth grade schedules making our established working relationships with Jane's teachers, now useless.

It was frustrating for us, for Jane's new teachers and especially frustrating for Jane.

Thankfully the state has changed how they do testing so that both my girls, former IEP kids, could be diagnosed as learning disabled.  Finally a door was opened to legally allow, not only my daughters, but others in similar situations to receive help.

My biggest problem right now that the girls are diagnosed and have IEPs is keeping the exact nature of their disabilities separate.

Kate's a little easier to explain.  Kate scores really low in something called "active learning".  It's the learning we do when a teacher is standing in front of the room, having you open your book and letting you know what the assignment is.  All that stuff done in the front of the classroom.  So when it looks like Kate is spacing off, she's honestly just not comprehending the information given to her.  Throw in low comprehension (especially from written language) and really low recall, learning is just hard for Kate.

Jane on the other hand has a few things going on, including the recent diagnosis of ADHD which is so intermingled with her learning disability, it's hard to figure out where one begins and the other ends.  Jane also has low comprehension and low recall, although there's another curve ball in Jane's learning.  Jane does better reading information but vocal information goes right over her head.

The girls testing were different, due to being in different schools and being different ages, so I don't know if Jane's low vocal comprehension is related to Kate's low "active learning".  There's so much we don't know.

But for both girls, even with the stuff we don't know, the result is the same.  There's a constant battle to keep teachers not only updated but accountable for following those IEPs.  At the same time, there's the battle with the girls, to keep them trying and moving forward.  I don't want either girl to get the idea that their disabilities is a pass from having to work in school.  Quite the opposite, they have to work harder.

It's a struggle personally to know that genetically, I've passed this nonsense onto my girls.  It's because I'm their mother every school day is such a struggle.  That's when I have to turn to the Lord and remember that it wasn't my doing, it was his and he, in his infinite wisdom, has his reasons why.  I hope my girls can learn strength, develop their faith, rely on their Father in Heaven as they plow forward with their particular challenges.

We all have challenges.  The difference with the girls is that we can point a finger and say, look, this is yours.  There are lessons to be learned and lets face it.  When either of my daughters scores well on a test, I know it's because of their tenacity and they worked, I mean really worked to get that grade. 

I hope to teach them that their struggles do not define them but if they allow it, those same struggles can shape them into incredible people.

Lets face it, no one knows their potential.  Not even them.

Forget Careful Discussion with your Doctor

It's the paper pushers that decide what is ultimately best for you, or as we discovered this past week, what's best for our child.

Since getting Jane's official diagnosis of ADHD and understanding that with the obvious overlapping of her learning disabilities medications just might not work for her, I've had a desire to at least try.  Whether we find a medication that works for her or not, we at least know we've done everything in our power to help her succeed.   If something does work, I'd like to know before she starts high school.

So I made an appointment and we went to talk meds with Jane's doctor.  After some discussion of the pros and cons of different meds, I went with his recommendation of Stratera.  This is the one ADHD med that isn't a controlled substance.  It also has the bonus of working extremely well in teenage girls and women.  So the doctor called it in and we went out the door.

I had him send it in to a different pharmacy and I thought I'd better get her insurance information over there and while I was in the neighborhood, I renewed Kate's prescription for "Singular".  Her asthma is doing so much better but if that darn cough started again, I really want a filled prescription in the house.

So I went in and started with Jane.  A red flag popped up for the pharmacist instructing her that Jane's doctor has to send in specifically why he wants Jane on Stratera before they'd issue approval for it.  Faxes were involved and I wasn't holding my breath on how long the process would take.  Went straight home and the amusing phone call from the pharmacy came through to let me know there was a delay on Jane's prescription.

Really?

You mean the prescription I just talked to the pharmacist about fifteen minutes before?

Yes those automated systems are fun!

Anyhoo, the next morning I got a phone call from Jane's doctor and the Stratera was refused.  For ADHD meds, medicaid will only approve Stratera after two failed trials from the "Ritalin" family of drugs and "Ritalin" is the first that needs to be tried because, as a friend pointed out, "Ritalin" is cheap and works great on boys and everyone knows boys are the ones diagnosed with ADHD.

*Sigh*

Obviously our choices are limited because paying for the prescription ourselves simply is not an option right now.  Even with Kent's steady paycheck we're still living under the poverty line, which isn't hard in this recession for a family of seven.

The good news, we'll know really fast if the Ritalin works.

I hope the irony of the state's medicaid pushing the controlled substance for the sake of cost isn't lost here.  I wanted to try the safer drug first.  Silly me in thinking me and more importantly, Jane's doctor, had a say.

Ean's Thinking Outside the Box

Or rather,

Any excuse to use our new found knowledge on how to work a car jack.  Because you know, tires don't blow and shred nearly often enough to work such a cool tool!

Even though Ean has a lot of his dad's quality, he does something his dad would never dream of, Ean likes to rearrange his furniture.   I have a theory on this, I think it's a deep seated desire to have an excuse to inventory every belonging in his room.  Which is easier when all the dresser and desks drawers are emptied on the bed because you're moving stuff.

Of course, Ean is only seven so moving stuff has it's drawbacks, like you have to drag stuff across the carpet if you're to impatient to wait until your mom can help you.

Ean's work desk is rather old and I am not sure if it's pieced together from these oddball end table things we have or if these little end tables are pieces of other desks.  Either way, it's not very sturdy and in his enthusiasm, Ean managed to break the legs.

Can you see where this is going, obviously it'd be easier to fix the desk, if the desk was suspended up in the air.  I mean, logically, this is the next step.

And a single desk obviously needs to be really secure and it could be dangerous so *actual events* lets "borrow" mom's keys, get the jack from the suburban so we can lift the desk.  This could be dangerous, so lets make sure we have the eight foot rod meant to be used so you're not actually climbing under the vehicle.

This is really innovative thinking on his part, if this baby became unstable, we wouldn't want any red headed boys to be harmed.

Then he put a little more thought and decided that he needed two jacks.  What better way to stabilize the damaged desk then to use two jacks, one on each end.  Actually when you consider it all, that's pretty bright thinking for a seven year old.

Of course his daddy caught him and while congratulating him on really thinking this out, he broke the news to him that jacks weren't to be used on furniture, because if we did that, then there's no guarantee they'd be in the car when needed. 

His daddy also let him know that he could fix his desk, even without a jack, although it would take a few days to get to it.

It amazes me how a child that can string all these ideas together, showing really innovative thinking, still misses the mark on his personal communications with his fellow man, so much so that he thoroughly manages to tick people off.

Including his mother.

He's very quick to declare how wrong you are, how you forgot and is uber quick to cast judgment in saying you lied to him over the simplest of misunderstandings.  No wonder the guy has such a hard time with friendships.

So we're working on this.  Slowly but hopefully surely.   He's such a good guy and now that it's not non-stop destruction, he's actually fun and entertaining, he'd be just about perfect if we can get this social stuff figured out. 

And of course, figure out reasons to use the car jack again.

Oddball Day

I feel like I accomplished very little today and yet, I had to run all over the place.  Thankfully most days aren't like this! 

Okay, I probably didn't run "that" much, it just felt like a lot because I only slept about five hours last night.  I know, the big question, why in the world did I not sleep more?   I mean, I have had children sleeping all through the night for over two years now.

The lack of sleep was that autumn nightmare that I call, allergy season.

I simply can't sleep when my nose and sinuses are congested and boy were they last night.  My cheeks ached from all the congestion.  Not a pretty picture nor a restful night!

So my sleep deprived self took the four youngest to school.  Pretty much the kids get a ride whenever it's the twins school day because they walk so slowly, everyone would miss breakfast if I didn't take them.  I really can't see getting the kids ready any earlier either, it's hard enough as it is and last night everything was laid out for them!

I so wanted to take a nap but I had other stuff I have been putting off.  So off I went to Jane's school with a copy of Jane's diagnosis.  I had the secretary copy and put it in her file.  Anything to help her teachers understand her better.

Then there was laundry to switch.

Lunch to eat.

Boys to pick up.

Tried to figure out why David didn't share his show and tell.  Left his teacher confused because Greg got his and it looked I'd sent only one son with a show and tell.  David finally spit out that he just didn't want share his show and tell.  I think he missed what the teacher was saying. 

Message to leave at the office.  You see, this weekend Ean expressed how much everyone teases him at school.  Now, I am sure there are confrontations but for an incredibly bright boy, Ean just doesn't put it together that his need to tease goads people into not liking him and "being mean."  It's really a challenge for Ean socially.  So I had his teacher call and talked to her.

The good news, Ean is really doing well in class.  He's occasionally distracted but overall he pays attention and does his work.  His teacher said she'd talk to the other second grade teachers so they could keep a better eye on him.

After that there was, homework to organize.  Then we had Jane's appointment and Jane hadn't really done her homework for counseling. 

We did get a bonus in counseling, they're adjusting Jane's goals and adding social skills into her curriculum.  I am really excited about this. She's come so far but she is still pretty clueless on both reading other people and self monitoring herself in conversations.  It's made for some potentially awkward moments, but Jane plows forward completely oblivious to any faux pas she's committed and utterly confused by the reactions of those around her.

Then the rush of dinner after a quick trip to Costco.

See, I really didn't do that much but man it seemed like I never stopped moving or calling people.  It probably felt like more because I was so useless this weekend with allergies. 

Unleavened Bread

Or rather unleavened breakfast cake.

Kent's most favorite food in the world is a baked good called "breakfast cake".  It's really a whole wheat coffee cake that his mom made for special occasions when he was a child.  My version of the original recipe is quite a bit tweaked but the result is a lighter, fluffier breakfast cake that Kent loves even more.

Jane's tried a number of times to make breakfast cake and she's done "okay" but it's never as good as I make it.  So she keeps trying.  Actually it would be more accurate to say that her dad keeps assigning her the job of making it.  She will figure out the finer points of baking, eventually.  Her skills didn't help today when she forgot the baking soda.

She blames her dad, see Kent was getting the ingredients out and putting them on the table.  Jane was measuring, dumping and stirring.  Kent didn't get out the baking soda, so Jane never put it in.

The resulting food, and I am using the term "food" really loosely here was more liked a really bad baked pudding.  If the breakfast cake didn't have so much butter in it, it would have been inedible.  Kinda like the pizza crust that was in the microwave to long.

Kent's making himself an egg sandwich for dinner right now.

I have to honestly say that I can relate.  When I was, probably about Jane's age, I attempted to bake a cake from scratch, with the help of my little brother.

That cake was amazing.  It was frisbee like in shape and density.  I could balance it on my finger, dead center and it didn't break or fall to pieces.  It had to be cut with steak knives.

It was a day I never forgot and I never ever made that mistake again.  So I'm hopeful that my dear girl learns from this.

Kent's planning on having her make another one next Sunday.

Apparently this one didn't cure his cravings.

The UnPlanned

Obviously not everything turns out perfectly and accidents happen.  Today was a perfect day marred by the unexpected and it was interesting to note the different reactions from each of our children.

To start at the beginning, Kent's been wearing his cowboy boots to work.  See, without a steady paycheck for the four months before he started his new job, buying decent dress shoes wasn't high on his list.  Aching feet however pushed the need for new shoes to the forefront and Kent decided he'd better invest in something that would be kind to his feet.  The ever expensive "Sass" shoes.

Yes if you have foot problems, the hype is 100% true, they are wonderful but not something we've ever purchases before.  We're such "make do" type of people.

The store to buy Sass shoes is in Idaho Falls.  Not to far away, only about forty minutes from our house but still, it would take up the afternoon.  So Kent decided he wanted to make a day of it.  Bring the kids, invite my mom, bring a picnic lunch, go to the Idaho Falls Temple visitor center, buy Sass shoes and finish it all off with the Holy Grail of outdoors men, the army surplus store.

With the exception of the five year old that avoids pooping if you don't remind him, and he starts "leaking" (the clean-up included tossing the undies and having the child spend the rest of the day "commando" ) everything listed above went pretty smoothly.

Although we did almost have a meltdown with a bunch of boys, the ringleader being the tallest, seven year old red head that fell in love with this crappy $20.00 plastic gun.  Oh boy did the boys covet those guns.  They were everything little boy dreams are made of and they looked like maybe they might even last all the way home before breaking.  They stayed at the store much to Ean's utter disappointment.

Then the trip home.  We knew something was wrong on the way up.  Kent was unable to go 75 without the suburban shaking.  Kent even had me stick my head out the window to see if I could perceive either tire on the passenger side shaking.  I couldn't tell, with the car vibrating, how was I suppose to tell between me shaking or the tire shaking?

So going home Kent was going slow, maybe 60 in a 75 zone.

Just before Blackfoot the driver's side back tire blew.  Loud noise, a slight loss of control as we jerked towed the fast lane, which was thankfully empty.  Kent was able to quickly get control, pull over and break quickly.  For a busy day, there amazingly wasn't any vehicles near us, either in front or back or in the other Lane.

Kate was almost in hysterics.  Talk about panic.  We had to talk her down and repeatedly remind her that YES if was scary BUT look no one is hurt.


Jane was antsy to get out and see but my mom chewed her out (took three chewing outs before she stayed in the car.)

We were on the right side of row, on a highway with a speed limit of 75 and there were tons of semi's and campers driving southbound.  What Jane had trouble understanding was that even though she had sense to stay well away from traffic, if she was out her brothers would pile out and that would be far to dangerous.

Speaking of dangerous, the kids were all chewed out by my mom for wiggling as Kent was jacking up the car.

Hot and dusty, Kent got the tire changed.  I did not like seeing cars zipping past just three feet from husband as he was laying on the road trying to jack up the car.

With all things, it could have been worse.  Just a few weeks ago we were in Yellowstone and can you imagine what a disaster if that tire had blown with the trailer attached?

I had a few drinks left over from lunch, which I let the kids take turns sipping, mostly to give them something to do.  I kept one drink aside for the man doing all the physical labor in the heat.

The spare was low on air but Kent figured he'd make it just fine and we went a bit slower then normal although Kent was regretting his decision when we stopped for air in Pocatello and the smell of hot, smoky rubber hit us.

We went straight home and Kent doused the tire with water to cool everything off, and then he noticed the smoking rubber was really from the tread of the blown tire that had wrapped itself around the axle.  Kent doesn't know how he missed that and we all said a prayer of thanks for getting home safely.

It was while removing the tread from the axle that Ean learned how to work a jack.  Something every seven year old should learn!

So more eventful then we wanted but thankfully not worst.   The only wound we have, is from the cash we need to dip into savings in order to get new tires.

They Are Killing Me!

So the conversation I overheard on the couch the other day went something like this....

David "Mom MOM, Greg's heart is NOT BEATING"

Greg "It's not beating?!"

David "No it's NOT BEATING!"

Me "Yes Dave, it's beating"

David "Oh yeah, it IS beating, You're ALIVE GREG!"

I almost peed from snickering so hard.  We waited so long for those conversations and now they are really pulling gems.  I especially love hearing Greg, who still has a pretty obvious language delay, when he can really articulate his thoughts and feelings.

I get warm fuzzies.


Then there's instances like when I caught David getting into stuff in the pantry, Called him on it and he just backed out of the room, wide eyed, turned and at a dead run and went out the back door.

So busted.

The kid giggles takes the edge off of real life, especially when stuff is uncertain.  We're not worried or stressed but there's a possibility of another job change in the future for my dear hubs.  We waited so long for an opportunity like the one he has now and while any concrete changes wouldn't happen until the first of next year, there is a question mark in the future due to a previous employee choosing to come back and company policy allowing him to do so.

Meaning that if Kent's pregnant coworker comes back after maternity leave and there is four people in the office, one person will be laid off.   There's not enough business to support four loan officers at this office.

Now unlike the cellular business, which often felt like a time bomb that could go off at any moment, this little possible glitch doesn't have me worried.   I have a very strong feeling that it will all be fine.  I just don't know how exactly all the factors will play out.

See, the pregnant coworker's husband is going after a job with a pay increase and she's expressed that if he got that job, she'd stay home.   Ironically it's the sort of job that Kent would LOVE and he's thinking of pursuing it.

I don't know what to pray for.  I don't know what would be best for our family.   So my decision, sit back and pray for our well being, see what happens and have faith.

Oh and laugh frequently at my children's antics.

No Call from the Doctor's Office

It's been a couple of weeks since Jane's diagnosis was mailed out to us, so I found it rather puzzling that I hadn't heard from the doctor's office yet.  So I took the initiative and called explaining that I hadn't heard back.  Only an hour later Jane's doctor called (and he was out delivering a baby when I called!) and said that he hadn't noted any requests for medication so that's why he hadn't called.

I let him know that in my conversation with the psychologist, it was indicated that I needed to discuss with him what would be best for Jane.  The doctor asked if there was anything being done for Jane and filled him in Jane's therapy to help her deal with anxiety.  I also let him know that I want to try some ADHD meds and see if that helps her. 

As her mom, I need to know we've done everything we can and if it doesn't help, there's no "what if" hanging out there.  We'll have helped Jane in every possible manner whether the meds help her or not.

So I made an appointment for next week and we'll see what we try and if it helps or not. 

All this experience with the psychologist and working with Jane has me considering seeing if I could get a referral for Kate.  The poor girl has such anger issues and then there's the compulsive food stealing and eating issues.  We've worked and worked and worked with her but our efforts as parents seem to making only minimal progress.  This isn't life or death and Kate's birthday is coming up in December, I figure next physical I'll bring it up and see about getting a referral. 

The doctor fun continues.  Ean has an orthodontic consult tomorrow morning.  Boy it's worked out well.  I got an 8:00am appointment, meaning Ean will only miss a half hour of school.  Kent would really like to hold off and wait and see what his teeth do but it's my understanding if a kid needs braces, an earlier intervention can really cut down on the work needed.

I also mentioned that I personally would like to hear from the person that is the expert on teeth.

Speaking of teeth, finally, finally, after two and a half years, I'll get my bridge done.  I've had this gap for three summers and I'm so ready to be done.  Finances have always been the reason I've held off but no more.  You see the new dental insurance will cover 50% of the cost and we're not sure we'll have that dental coverage in six months.  So just to be sure and take advantage, we're biting the financial bullet and taking on the cost of this dental work.

The very back molar has a crack in it so I'd need work anyway.  If I'm paying for a crown, I might as well pay for the bridge, since this is an anchor tooth for that bridge.  It needs to be done while the tooth is still healthy too.  So there we go.  The Hill Health Report.  Whew!