My big man , , ,

Check out this picture. Harrison is getting SO old. I amazes me how big they get so quickly. Each and every day I look at him and think it can't possibly be true that he has grown into the child in front of me.

Halloween fun . . .

We had the Harvest Party at our church last night. My kids are so funny. They wanted to dress up as Rocky and Bullwinkle. We got lots of laughs. After this picture was taken they decided they wanted to switch costumes. So McCartney was actually Rocky and Harrison was Bullwinkle.

Give me a break . . .

Dustin has been out of the hospital since Monday morning. He has had a great week. Now, remember that your defination of "great" and mine may be different. Great for us is no therapeutic holds, no crawling around on the floor biting our ankles like a dog, no pretending to pee on his peers like a dog, no "meltdowns, no agressiveness, and he has slept through the night since Tuesday. It does not mean we have had perfect behavior, he is still impulsive and has to be watched. "Great week" for us means that we can actually enjoy our life and our family without wanting to pull our hair out.

Which brings me to school. . . (Oh I so hope that his teachers aren't reading this blog) Dustin gets a behavior card to bring home everyday. It tells us whether he had a happy-face day or a sad-face day. Tuesday through Thursday had an OK in the middle of the faces. The comments were things like, "kicked a student in the hall" and "ate candy he was asked to put in his bookbag". Whoop-de-doo. This is the child two weeks ago who was out of control, running out the building, doing all the behaviors above AND and threatening to spray 3 or more adults with a can of Lysol. . . yes my child was wielding a can of Lysol like a weapon, my life is so fun. Anyhoo, today we got a note that while changing his clothes after gym he pulled down his pants in the boys bathroom and shook his butt at the other boys. Okay, you have to understand Dustin has had this same note sent home about 15-20 times in he last three years since he has been in a regular school. GIVE ME A BREAK. This is a problem. Hmmm . . . it doesn't take a rocket scientist to stop this behavior. . . DONT LET HIM CHANGE WITH THE OTHER BOYS. You are setting my child up for failure by allowing him into the bathroom with all the boys in the class. Duh.

We are gonna have some issues at our behavior plan conference coming up. Artivle 7 in Indiana says that you must change your environment so that my child can succeed. You need to change your program to benefit the needs of my child, and having him change alone is not that diffcult of a thing. Okay . . . vent over . . . I feel better now.

My little star . . .

If you live in the county, you may have received this flyer to promote Taviano for Sheriff. As anyone who reads this blog knows, we are supporting her campaign and volunterring for her. Tina called me one morning this summer at about 7:30am, while I was still sleeping, and asked if she could take pictures of our family for promotion.

I ran around getting the kids up, doing their hair all in about 100 degree weather in about 15 minutes. This was their favorite picture and they choose to use McCartney for the cover of the mailer. (And the best part is . . . my gut is covered by her head LOL)

Isn't she adorable? My little democrat. . .

My friend . . .

My friend strep returned this week. If you read this blog at all you'll remember that we have a hate-hate relationship. I had strep in August and it kicked my butt heavily. I ended up in the hospital for a short time on morphine. This time I got it early and I didn't end up too bad. I was at a church function Monday evening when my throat began feeling horrible. Luckily Tuesday I got into the doctor and got a shot and some anitbiotics. I was out the whole week, which sucks for the paycheck, but I am feeling tons better now.

Dustin is doing well. We had arough week with medication. He began shoing signs of EPS from the Geodon. EPS is a nasty reaction to some psychotropic drugs. We have been down this road before. Last time it was with Trazadone. It was so severe that he began having terrible hallucinations of demons coming to get him to take him to hell, his tongue swelled up and the muscle contractions were so severe they looked like seizures. We spent 3 days in a regular hospital that time. This time I caught the EPS early in a visit last Saturday (before anyone at the psych hospital did) and they pulled back the medicine hoping it would level out. With benadryl and some time it did and we got to keep giving the Geodon. The doc added another mood stabilizer last night, and he is terrific. He is happy, smiling and definitely not drugged up. I think he may get to come home tomorrow. So now we are on Statera, Geodon and something else. NOTHING he was on went he went in. It amazes me the amount of medication they can choose from.

McCartney has adouble ear infection and crabby . . . I'm off . . .

Weekly woes . . .

I haven't blogged all week. The fact that I have been so incredibly busy may have something to do with it. Where do I begin?

My son with FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) was hospitalized again on Monday evening. His impulsivity had grown to an alarming rate and with all the med changes his doctor had done over the past month, his psychiatrist thought it was time to re-admit Dustin. They took him in as an emergency admit since all the beds in the children's unit were full. That is not a prime situation for Dustin as too many kids (all with issues) do not make it easy to get much accomplished.

He has not had a real good week, which I am thankful for. I know it sounds funny, but I want them to see the true behaviors we are dealing with. The school sees horrible behaviors as well, and with the number of kids on the unit, I think they have been seeing those also. When we admitted him on Monday, his doctor made the comment "Have you ever considered residential care?" I freaked out. NO! I will not institutionalize my child. He is a 4 year old in an 11 year old body. He doesn't get consequences, behavior modification rarely works and NO I will not lock up a child I made a commitment to when we chose to adopt him! I would have loved to say all those things, but mostly I just cried and told him I could not do that. Robert was quite upset when I told him about that conversation and agreed that it was definitely not the time for residential care. I was glad that we are on the same page.

Today I went in for family therapy and for his treatment planning meeting. I kept hearing the therapist saying "he's making bad choices" and "you need to do the right thing". He can tell you what choices are the good ones, and he can tell you what the "right thing" is but HIS BRAIN IS BROKEN. He cannot equate the situation you talk about with the situation at hand. I pretty much told her that I was tired of the expectations being too high; that he cannot function in that manner and he probably never would. I explained that I feel only about 30% of his choices are defiance, and the rest are chemical and impulsivity. In treatment planning we visited the same issues. The doctor heard me out and agreed to some extent. He said that we should have no expectations when it comes to behavior, which is so very true. He began talking about residential care again and I emphatically told him I would not revisit that subject and that I would tell him if it was ever the right time. I told him I would *NOT* do that now and he should not mention it again. I totally respect this doctor and his opinions, but this subject is closed. I was so proud of myself!

Hopefully this weekend will help Dustin to calm down and give the new meds some time to take effect and see if they will work. We shall see . . .

Success . . .

Guess what I did last night? I took a shower in my very own new shower! Well, that kinda sounds like the start of a Foley instant message . . .LOL . My shower is complete, and better yet, watertight. Woohoo. I have always considered myself the handy one in this marriage. In fact, a few months after Harrison was born I can recall sitting in the dining room fixing something with my drill and Robert washing dishes about 5 feet from me. Harrison was watching me and Robert said, "this child is gonna be so confused, you with the drill and me washing dishes." Robert turned out to be quite handy in fixing the bathroom. He did almost everything himself with a little help and direction from a couple people. Now he's in for real trouble. . . I know he can fix things, so he's gonna be quite busy this winter around here! Best of all, no more baths for me!

This whole Foley thing honks me off. And the worst is the comments about the Democrats holding on to it until it was hurtful to the Republicans. If that was the case wouldn't they have used it before the last presidential election? And even if they did hold onto it, the other side would've done the same. That's all I'm saying.

Friday night was quite eventful around here. We had just gone up to bed about 3:00 when my nieghbor's beagle began barking madly. He would not stop that howling beagle bark. Then my dog started in her kennel downstairs. I heard shouting and when I got up to look out the window I saw police officers running to my house. The street was crawling with police cars and I hadn't even heard a siren. Robert threw on some clothes and headed downstairs. Then I saw the officers dragging a man to their car and hand-cuffing him. When we went outside we found out that he had robbed a convenience store around the corner, shot the clerk as he tried to run away, driven the car to the front of my house (iwth the cash register still in the back seat), and tried to escape on foot. The officers found him next to my house hiding in my shower box! Zoinkes! The officers spent a short time looking around our property for the shotgun he had used and did not find it. He probably chucked it somewhere, but now I'm paranoid that my kids will find it somewhere nearby. I'm glad we went to bed just before all this, had he seen we were up he may have tried to get in our house.

Off to watch the Colts whoop on the Titans. . .

My social deviant years . . .

I posted a few months ago about a website my friend developed as a scrapbook for all of us who hung out together to post photos of "way beack when." He called it Fort Wayne Subculture. At that time I think there were about 100 of us and there were about 900 photos. Now there are about 250 members and about 2000 photos.

It's actually been really nice to reconnect with old friends, some whom I haven't seen in about 15-20 years. I have met some old friends out and emailed others and chatted about the directions our lives have gone. There are always those comments posted that say "anyone heard from him?" and "I sure miss her" and the inevitable "I wish someone would direct her to this site" Well, last week the local paper, The Journal Gazette, ran a story on JR and Heather and their work on the site. It brought tons of new people to the site. You can read the article here if you are interested.

We are also having a "class reunion" of sorts in December. I can't wait to see everyone again. Man . . . I need to lose about 50 pounds by then. LOL

Monday Musings . . .

Wow, what a weekend. Not good mind you, just interesting. Let's take a look . . .

Robert and Dustin were sick Friday night. They both slept all afternoon into the late evening, thus Dustin was awake most of the night. Dustin awake and everyone else asleep makes for a disasterous situation, so I was awake most of the night. Harrison woke up coughing horribly at about 6:30 am, just as Dustin went to sleep again, so I was up and fully awake at 7:00 after doing a breathing treatment for Harrison.

Saturday was slow moving, but I had this gnawing urge to purge unwanted items from my house, so I went to work. I clean out all the kids clothes that no longer fit them and brought down the fall/winter stuff from the attic. Fun. . . not so much. I think I made more of a mess than I had before.

Saturday night Iw as supposed to attend a hog roast for Tina Taviano, my choice for sheriff, but my mom was sick so I got stuck at home with the kids while Robert had fun. About 10:00 pm I went to take a sleeping McCartney into the bathroom to potty before I took her up to her bed and I sat down on a stool while she was doing her business. As I plopped down, I prmptly fell throught the floor (no fat jokes here). Apparently, my old metal shower stall has been leaking from underneath for quite sometime and the SIX inches of flooring rotted clean through to the basement. Did you read that? SIX INCHES of flooring. You see this bathroom and my utility room was built on an old outside porch. Apparently someone thought it would be a good idea just just keep adding wood to the floor to build it up to meet the back of the house. The SIX inches of flooring was so wet it felt like mashed potatoes when you put your finger in it.

Histerics begin! Saturday night I spent a couple of hours destrying my floor to see how far into the bathroom the rot went. I had giant gaping holes in my floor and could like right into the crawlspace under my house. Not a good thing. Thankfully Sunday my uncle came over, gave me some direction , volunteered his plumbing services and we began to put together a plan. My house is terribly old and thankfully they used very thick very hard old hickory for floor joists, so I don't have any structural damage. It's actually gonna be a pretty easy fix with lots of elbow grease and sweat. Robert is home today tearing out the shower and bad parts of the floor. He did find that the bottom of the shower was about 4 inches of cement that had been tiled on, so I now own a sledgehammer. Positivity? Well, I will now own a brand spankin' new shower and have a beautiful new flooring. I may post some pictures of the bathroom damage, but then again I may not ever want to remember what it looked like again.

Sunday my Colts won a hard fought game. The last play nearly killed me. I thought it would never end. It a good thing there is rot in my living room because I would've went through the floor there too with the way I was jumping up and down. Here's how it went down . . .
How the Jets moved downfield on their multi-lateral, multi-fumble final play against the Colts:
• 3rd-and-3, Jets 32: (Shotgun) Chad Pennington pass short middle to Leon Washington to Jets 40 for 8 yards
• Lateral to Brad Smith to Jets 37 for minus-3 yards
• Lateral to Laveranues Coles to Colts 44 for 19 yards
• Lateral to Pennington to Colts 37 for 7 yards
• Lateral to Justin McCareins to Colts 35 for 2 yards. FUMBLE
• Fumble recovered by Brad Smith at Colts 33, to Colts 37 for minus-4 yards. FUMBLE
• Fumble recovered by Coles at Colts 40, to Colts 27 for 13 yards
• Lateral to Nick Mangold to Colts 27, no gain. FUMBLE
• Fumble recovered by Colts CB Jason David at Colts 34, to Colts 39 for 5 yards (tackle L.Washington)

Whew!