Yet another update...

So, things are better and worse, depending on the particular thing.

We got the boys off the meds and totally on the herbal stuff. They seem to be doing pretty well on the herbal...about the same as on the meds. I think the true test will be once they go back to school next month, although I must admit to some trepidation about that.

As for D and I...He lost his job last month, and only just found a new one this week. None of it was his fault, but it made things very tough and tense for a while. They're better now, though. And, we still have another potential job in the works, one that actually provides a job for both of us. It's an apartment complex management deal, looking for a couple. Provides an apartment, paid utlities, 3 weeks vacation, and a salary. Ideal solution to all our problems, so we're really hoping. Keeps him home, too (as does the job he just found), which is a plus in my book. I love seeing him every day, although if he did have to go back on the road, I'd deal as I did before. But, as horrible as the whole situation has been, one good thing that seems to have come from it is that it really helped our relationship. Having this time together, being able to see each other and talk and just be close has really helped bring us closer. We're doing so much better than we have been.

Tomorrow, I'm visiting a couple of assisted living places nearby. D's father is older, and thinking it might be time. I told D, because he has to be to work at 4:30 in the morning, that I would check a couple of places out and get some info for him. We're not making any quick decisions on that, because if we get the apartment deal, we'll be relocating about an hour away from where we are now. His dad would like to be closer, so we want to wait and be fairly certain of where we're going to be before we move him and try to get him settled somewhere.

My family isn't doing so well, either, at the moment. One of my uncles (well, my dad's uncle actually), has cancer. He's had it for a couple of years now. He keeps going into remission and then it returns. Now he's to the point where he has to have frequent chemo, and he's been told that if he doesn't get it, he will die. This is the only brother my grandmother has left, and she's 80 years old, so this is particularly heartwrenching. I'm very afraid of what may happen to her if he dies. I fear she may fall into a major depression, which at her age and with her health, will be very bad for her. As if that weren't enough, my grandfather's brother had to have open heart surgery...I believe it was last week, maybe the week before. They wanted to inject a dye into his veins and arteries to check for blockage, and couldn't even do that. They immediately scheduled the surgery. He came through it fine, but he needs to lose about 75 lbs and change his diet, and that's just so they can do another surgery to finish trying to fix what's wrong with him.

Writing all this has made me realize...I'm old. lol Sounds silly, I know. But honestly, this made me realize it. I'm sitting her writing about all the people in my family who might die and how I'm looking at assisted living facilities for my (I hope) future father-in-law. This is not the kind of thing young people do. This is what grown ups - old grown ups - do.

Oh, one last little update: Hell has officially frozen over. Yes, it's true: my ex has made his first child support payment in 4 years! It's not the full amount, but it's a start. Do I think he's changed? No, not really. But if he's willing to make an effort, I'm willing to be open minded and see where it leads. I did get a letter a few weeks ago that he was requesting a modification of child support. And I was pissed, trust me. I had every intention of hauling his ass back into court and having him held in contempt and pushing hard for an increase. But now that he's done this...while I doubt he's changed, and I doubt it will last, I'm still going to keep an open mind and see what happens. Maybe, just maybe, he's finally grown up and will step up to the plate.

So, that's about it for now. I'm going to try to post more often now that things seem to be starting to smooth out around here.

Summer's Here

The kids are out of school for the summer, and have been for about 2 weeks now. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm about ready for them to go back. Ok, not really, but there are moments when I would give anything for a little break. D and I took them to Orlando for the afternoon on Friday. There's this really interesting store down there that carries...well, everything. Literally. They have this huge variety of different things, just kind of thrown in there randomly. It's actually quite cool. D could spend days there, I think and never get bored. And now, so could the boys. We stopped and had lunch on the way down. That part was...well, not so much fun. The guy taking our order kept asking the same questions over and over, clearly not listening to us. Then we all went to the bathroom, and discovered no soap in either of them. Think about this for a minute. The same bathroom the employees use...and no soap. All together now: EWWW!!!!

We're spending lots of time in the pool. The kids brought home a little card from school that gets them 2 free games of bowling every weekday during the summer. I paid for a family pass so that I can bowl with them. All we have to pay for is shoe rental, so that's a nice little thing we can do every now and then. And we're hopefully going to get together with a few different friends and their kids at local parks or whatever. We did have tentative plans to get together with a couple of my friends at a lake house belonging to one of the friend's friends. But...the lake is now teeming with bacteria, so no swimming. And if I can't swim in it, I don't see much point to going to the lake.

So...aside from last night, life is getting better. D and I are doing ok, the kids are doing pretty good. I'm trying them on some herbal stuff to see if I can get them off the meds for the ADHD. I am not happy with the meds, I feel it's too intrusive in their systems, and there's just too much that's unknown about what it might be doing to their bodies. I could try switching them to something else, but that's not any better. So, D and I discussed some various herbal remedies and we got them and are now trying them out. In the next day or two, I'm going to stop the meds and just go with the herbal and see what happens. Wish me luck.

Oh, and C got his FCAT scores in the mail last week. He scored above grade level all the way! Even in math!! That made me so proud of him. Knowing that even though he struggles with math, he's still above grade level eases my mind. I think he put too much pressure on himself and then I put even more pressure on him and it just made things worse. Having seen these results, I'm hoping that we'll both ease up next year and he'll do better.

Well, that's about all that's going on right now. I'll try to keep updating, but I have little time to do much of anything these days, with two little boys constantly asking can we go outside, can we go outside, can we go outside? You know how if you say a word too many times, it starts to lose its meaning and not even sound like word anymore? Yeah, the words "can we go outside" have reached that point.

Quick update

The kids...we're getting there. School's about to be out for the summer, so I guess we'll see how things go. D and I had been discussing trying the boys on some various herbs for their ADHD, which I have ordered. I am now waiting for them to arrive so I can try the boys on them and see how they do. We agreed they have to come off the meds slowly, and that if the herbs don't work, we'll put them back on the meds. But I'm really hopeful the herbs will work, and D is confident they will.
We found a few different houses (well, I found them, since he's on the road) that we think will work. One house is absolutely ideal, because it is 2 houses down from my parents. So the kids would be in the same school, same neighborhood, and still be able to see their grandparents on a very regular basis. Doesn't get any better than that. Let's hope D and I can get it. It also would be great because even though D wouldn't be able to park the truck at home, he would at least be able to continue parking it where he does now. No need to find a new place to park.

School's out tomorrow. One last half day and they're free. Which means Mommy is imprisoned. Ok, not really. Actually, I have various plans in the works with several different friends. Hopefully that'll keep us pretty busy and get us out of the house frequently. Between that, and when D gets home, hopefully we should find plenty to do so I won't have to hear a lot of "Mom, I'm bored!" over the next two and a half months.

So...that's what's up right now. I'll come back when I can and keep you posted. For now, things are ok and getting better, so just keep hoping for us on all fronts.

Oh, and just for laughs:

J: Mom, how old are you?

Me: I'm 31.

J: Wow! I'm never gonna be that old!

Thanks, son. I'll remember that the next time you want me to get you a cookie or something:

Me(quavering old woman voice): I'm sorry, J. I'm too old to get you a cookie.

Just....blah

I've been feeling very....blah lately. I don't know that depressed is quite the right word for it, but I suppose it might be close. I have no real idea why I'm feeling like this. I know of a couple of things that have happened that could contribute to me feeling down, but I'm not sure to this extent.

I've kind of started to feel...disconnected from everything, from everyone. It's kind of hard to explain. It's not a completely disconnected feeling, more like...like I'm out of sync with everything. Almost like I'm a step behind, or maybe I'm a step ahead. I can't really tell.

The kids had Spring Break. We didn't go anywhere, just hung out at home. But they got to spend pretty much all day, every day outside. That thrilled them to no end. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The weather is still beautiful; and now that it gets dark later, they are getting to spend a lot of time outside. They love it. Honestly, so do I, but if we could get rid of the mosquitoes, I'd love it even more.

I really have nothing to blog about right now. I felt like I needed to post something, since it's been a while, but there's really nothing to say right now. I feel like my life is falling apart, and I'm just not able to think of anything to do here. I know my feelings are ridiculous and not true, nothing is wrong in my life. I'm just in some stupid funk right now, and I wish it would go away.

No need for the "If all your friends jumped off a bridge" speech...

So, D was home last week. It was a nice time...until an hour or so after we got home. J said he was going in the house to go to the bathroom. After he'd been in there long enough for me to suspect that he might, in fact, be getting into something, I go to check on him. The phone rings, and since there's an extension in the garage, where we were, I asked D to go check on J while I grab the garage extension. When I answer, this is what happens:

Me: Hello?

Woman: Yes, ma'am, this is the ******* county Sheriff's Department. We received a 911 call.

Me: Silence.

Woman: From this number.

Me: Uh...that's impossible. My entire family is out..."

I run up to the porch where J is in the chair and D is standing there looking at me as I come running.

Me: J, did you just call 911?

J nods.

Me: Oh my god, ma'am. I'm so sorry. My 6 yr old son got hold of the phone and dialed it. Nothing is wrong.

Woman: That's ok, ma'am. A deputy will be out to do a well-being check.

I flipped out. D kept telling me to relax, but all I could do was flip out. The deputy came, and he was very nice about it, kept telling me to stop apologizing, but I just couldn't believe J would do that.

So, when I finally calmed down enough, I asked J why he did it. His response: because my friend told me to call 911. So....we don't need to have the "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" speech later. Instead, we'll just have the "Do you remember when you called 911 because your friend told you to?" speech. I think it'll be much more effective.

On an unrelated note, I got into a debate in my mommy groups tonight. It started out as a discussion and ended up as a debate. It was a rather simple topic, and I still don't see why it turned into such a debate. Basically it was about being a stay at home mom when you are with a man who is not the biological father of your children. My opinion was that yes, I would love nothing more in life than to be a stay at home mom with my children, but that I feel very odd about the idea of allowing my boyfriend to support me and my children. I feel a sense of responsibility that makes it hard to think that's ok. It's not a new sense of responsibility, just different, than when I was with their father. When I was with SD, it was a simple matter of they were his kids, too, and it was his job to take care of them. With D, it's not like that. They're not his kids, so they're not his responsibility. If he wanted to take on that responsibility (which, I will grant, in some ways, he does), fine, but it still would feel odd to me. The best way I can think of to describe it is that it feels to me like being lazy. By allowing him to work and support me and my children, even if I am taking care of the house and all, would feel to me like I am being lazy.

The debate began, and I suppose I should mention that I use the word debate loosely, because a woman who is considerably older than I and the other mother that shared my opinion, told us we were crazy. She is 68 yrs old, and of the opinion that a man should take care of women and children, whether they are biologically his or not. Of course, the majority of her argument consists of telling us we are crazy. Another mother got into the debate by telling us we should "get over it". I just find it intriguing that these women have no issue with letting a man take care of them. As I said, I would love to be a stay at home mom, but for me, the way I was raised, I find it hard to embrace the idea of seemingly sitting back and just letting my boyfriend bust his butt to take care of us when we are not his responsibility. I don't know, maybe I do need to just get over it, but it's just how I feel.

And on that note, I'm off to bed.

Oh...where to begin...

So the last couple of weeks have been...interesting, shall we say? We went to an outdoor birthday party last Sunday...and it stormed. Oh, that was fun. Kids banging away on a piñata (one that strangely enough made a metallic clanging sound if they hit it right), while all around us thunder boomed, lightning flashed, and the rain blew sideways under the pavilion roof at us. Yay!

Wednesday was a half day at school, and it was another fun day. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, only an hour and a half before the end of school. I was lucky enough to get there early, and they were able to get me in early. But then...the boys had appointments for eye exams that afternoon. And all that time I saved in the morning...was lost. And then some. Three hours for eye exams. The only plus to that was that their eyes haven't really changed. Which is good, but also makes it all the more frustrating that we were three for THREE hours!

But, the really exciting news is: J is done with speech therapy! They scheduled a meeting for last Thursday at the school, and when I went in, they told me he'd met all his goals, and was graduating from speech therapy. That absolutely made my week. I am so proud of him. He worked so hard and tried so much to overcome the impairment and he did it. He still can be hard to understand when he gets very excited or if he is very upset, but if you tell him to calm down and tell you again, he will. He also will stop and think while he's talking to make sure he uses the right word and says it clearly. It's a technique they taught him to cope with the speech impairment, but he's really taken it to heart and it makes a huge difference to how he speaks.

They are having the World's Fair at school next month. This is something they do every year. Each classroom does a different country, and they do all kinds of little projects to display, and they learn tons of little facts about the country their class is working on, and on the night of the fair, they always learn a fact or two about all the other countries, in order to get a stamp on their "passport". It's a wonderful learning experience, both for the kids and the parents. J's class is doing the United States. His teacher always tries to get a picture postcard from each state. They almost had all of them last year. This year...well, she's going to have quite a few. With D being a truck driver, I've enlisted him to help with this little project. I figure he's the ideal person to help us get a lot of postcards. J's teacher is quite excited at the prospect. I figure J will be excited when he begins receiving the postcards.

Some of my friends at the school and I have been contemplating how to get rid of the principal. The school has gone downhill in a serious way since he took over this year. He's alienating the parents, and doing nothing for the kids. There is a substitute teacher that is terrorizing the kids, the daughter of one of my friends in particular, and the principal is doing nothing to stop it. D has offered to create a website on which we could start a petition to try to get rid of the principal. If things continue, though, I think it may come down to a bunch of parents getting together and just going directly to the school board to demand he be fired.

Well, there's other stuff going on, but I'm tired and my brain just isn't functioning right now. Oh, wait, there is this:

We were at the eye doctor, waiting for them to be called back for their exams. C had found this plant and plucked a piece off of it. While he played with it, it broke apart into several smaller pieces. C held some in the palm of his hand, came over to me, hand outstretched, and said, "Here, Mom, have some weed."

I couldn't even speak, could barely breathe, I was laughing so hard. Then, once I was under control, all I could think was that I hoped no one had heard, because how could I explain that he had no idea what he was saying, and how would I convince someone that he hadn't heard that at home? Thankfully, no one heard. But I will never forget the day my son unwittingly tried to make his first sale...by offering a sample.

I wonder if I can do it...

Well, C & J's friend is back at school this week, after his surgery. I was very happy to see him, and his mom. Her and I have had a couple of wonderful conversations this week. One of which, in combination with other things, have led D & I to thinking about making some very major changes with the boys.

As I believe I've mentioned before, Caroline and I have real issues with the principal at the school. We are not the only ones. It seems there are a lot of parents that don't like him, and even a couple of teachers don't like him. Since he took control, the school has changed drastically, and not for the better. When D & I first began discussing the idea of moving in together, I was adamant that I wanted us to live in this school zone, so that the boys could continue attending this school. Now, I'm not so sure.

The people in the offices have gone from being friendly, happy, kind and always helpful to cold, distant, and acting as though you are interfering with their day by coming into the school. As a parent, I do occasionally have cause to go to the school: a meeting regarding J's speech therapy (more on this later!), the book fair, a question for the teacher regarding homework, a conference to assess how the kids are doing. All valid reasons, in any reasonable person's opinion. But if you come in to this school, they would look at you like you came in and asked what color the sky is.

The kids can't talk in class. Understandable. They are there to learn, to do classwork, and they can't do that if they are chatting away. But now, the dean of discipline has decided they can no longer talk during lunch. Now, parents who homeschool are always told they should send their kids to school so they can socialize. Well...if they can't talk during class, and they can't talk during lunch, when exactly are they going to socialize? On the 5 minute walk to the car?

Caroline and I joked about starting a petition to get the principal removed. It started as a joke anyway. We agreed that with our luck, he'd find out we did it and our kids would be treated even worse. But, when I mentioned it to D, he actually had some really good suggestions for how we can do it and not have the fallout be on our kids. Caroline and I are still discussing and trying to determine if we really want to do this.

Regardless of what we do with that, though, D & I are seriously considering homeschooling the boys starting next year. With as bad as this school has gotten, and being uncertain that any other school would really be any better, homeschooling is sounding more and more like a good option. We can teach the boys on their own schedule, moving them forward or sticking on a topic as needed for them, instead of as needed for the slowest kid in the class, which may or may not be C & J.

Another thought behind this is that I think a large part of C's problem is that he is bored. He is very smart, and I think he just gets bored and doesn't put forth the same effort that he would if he wasn't bored. It's something I used to do. My dad did it as well. So did D. Homeschooling would eliminate this boredom, again because we'd be teaching them at their own individual level.

They would, quite possibly, spend less time in "school" than they do now. All the research I've done so far indicates that most homeschooled kids spend 3-5 hours a day on school related things, as compared to the more than 6 hours that the boys are currently doing, and then still come home and do homework. We would be able to do fun activities that would count as school activities, such as going to the zoo, or a museum, things like that. And we could go on days when everyone else is in school, therefore finding it less busy and more fun for us.

The only real drawback we've found so far is that all indications are that I can't homeschool and work fulltime. D apparently had already realized this, but I had not. I expressed concern that we might not be able to make it on just his income indefinitely, but he says that although it would be tight, we could make it work. I trust him, and I trust his judgment, so I'm going to hope he's right.

So, now, my last hesitation is wondering if I can really do this. Not just if I can teach them the things they need to learn (which I am fairly certain I can; and what I can't cover, D can), but if I can handle basically never having a break from them. Not that I don't love them and love spending time with them. But when they are in school, I get the house clean, laundry done, and some me time. Some time during which I can watch a little TV, read a book, do a word search, play around online, and just relax a bit. That will disappear if I am homeschooling. Granted, they are old enough to help with household chores, and in all honesty, they are probably old enough to do their own laundry (or C is, at any rate). Being a stay at home mom was always my dream, and when I stayed home when C was younger, I loved it. But C was younger. He was cool to just sit on the floor or in his playpen and play with toys while I cleaned up a bit. He took naps, so I had that time to read or watch TV. No more naps, and with two of them, there's always a fight over toys and such.

Fortunately, we still have several months to do more research and discuss it before we make a final decision. I want to make sure we do the right thing. I want the boys to have the best possible education, whether that is from a public school, private school or homeschool. And I don't think that going back and forth between homeschooling and regular school is really going to provide them with the best possible education. We have to decide on one and stick with it for the long haul.

The good news, though, is that yesterday I got a Meeting Participation Form from the school. This is what I usually get at the beginning of the year when we meet to evaluate where J is and what we expect to accomplish this year with his speech therapy. The reason given on this one is change in placement. I'm very hopeful that this means they will tell me he's met all his goals and no longer needs speech therapy. He has made amazing strides over the last year and a half. He still gets overly excited and becomes hard to understand. Or if he cries, you can't really understand him. But in an average conversation, he speaks clearly now.

Things are looking up, all the way around.