Day 2 Smithsonian . . .

The National Air and Space Museum was awesome. (Other than paying $35 for McDonalds) The Museum of American History is closed for renovation, so they also had some items from America's culture like Dorothy's ruby slippers, C3PO, and Mr. Roger's sweater. It was really packed but the kids were engaged so they did great. When they are older I am sure we will spend much more time here.



A full day and some tired kids . . .

Day 2 The Mall . . .

When we reserved our room for Washington during Spring Break, we had no idea we were going to be there during the Cherry Blossom Festival. I was THRILLED to see the trees in bloom. I really want a Cherry Blossom Tattoo, so it was inspiration . . .

We saw many people of all walks of life. This gentleman must have been a kindred spirit . . .








We must have walked MILES on this day as we traveled along the mall and around to the various spots of interest. Thankfully there were many places to stop and rest and many things to see . . .



Mostly we used "normal" restrooms, but the mall was so busy with all the extra tourists for the Cherry Blossom Festival so they did have some port-a-potty places. The boys had no issue using them, but McCartney refused in true-girl fashion and decided to hold it.

Day 2 Monuments . . .

Here we all are at the World War II Monument. It is massive and beautiful. There is a pillar for each state and an amazing tower for the Atlantic and one for the Pacific. It also includes a large fountain in the middle with water features on each side.






Harrison was really excited about seeing the Lincoln Memorial. He knows a bunch of information about President Lincoln and was really looking forward to seeing the Monument. The last three are pictures of the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Monument and the reflecting pool .
We also saw the Korean War Memorial during day 2. The wall is amazing has has images etched into the war of actaul soldiers from this war.

Day 2 Downtown D.C. . .

The first place we went downtown, after one of McCartney's many bathroom stops, was the White House. It wasn't nearly as impressive as I thought it would be. It actually looked a heck of a lot smaller than I thought it would. On one side, there was a man wearing an "Out of Iraq" sign and singing, it freaked my kids out. On the other, there were many people taking pictures.




Here are the kids in front of the Capital building. It was not very busy and the kids played around the grounds a little bit. The reason there may not have been many people there was probably because they had a sort of rally on the green. It was anti-circumcision and they had signs that said, "A foreskin is not a WMD" and "Foreskin is not a birth defect" and "Circumcision is TORTURE". I found it quite funny.





Here the kids are in Lafayette Park right across from the White House. We spent quite a bit of time standing in front of all the monuments and memorials all around the city while the kids climbed up the stairs and posed on the monuments. . .

First trip on the subway . . .

We spent our entire first day with McCartney asking in her best little girl whiny voice, "When are we going to ride the subway? I wanna ride the suuubwaaaay!" We spent the whole day saying, "Tomorrow darling!" So, day 2 started bright and early with a trip to the closest Metro station to head downtown. The kids LOVED traveling on the Metro. I was amazed at how safe and clean and fast they were. I would so use a subway daily if I lived in a large city. Harrison loved following our journey on the subway map and plotting our adventure. . .

Washington D.C. day one . . .

We spent our first day in Washington primarily in the car. First we drove out to Mount Vernon. The lines were incredibly long, it was pretty chilly and the admission fees were pretty hefty so we looked around and checked out the shops. The area was gorgeous and the trip down the George Washington Parkway as beautiful. We also got to experience the city from across the river. There were all kinds of boats and skulls on the river. I really enjoyed my first look at downtown and the monuments in the distance. Here the kids stand near a large bust of Washington at Mount Vernon.

Then we decided to head toward Arlington and see Arlington National Cemetery. I was concerned that the kids would be too loud and rambunctious after being in the car for so long, but they did really well. I was struck by the pure awe I felt at the number of grave stones. It is absolutely beautiful and yet sorrowful at the same time. We walked up the hill to Kennedy's grave and looked out over the cemetery and they city across the river. After a few reminders that this was a place to honor the soldiers that died keeping our country safe and free, the kids did a nice job of being silent and respectful as the sign says. Here are a few more images from the cemetery . . .






From the cemetery we went back to our hotel and checked in. After a brief rest we were ready for dinner and decided to head toward Baltimore. After eating, I convinced Robert to head into the city and find Charm City Cakes, the home bakery of Ace of Cakes on the FOOD Network. While driving around the city looking for the bakery, we ran into this cute little coffee shop called "Peace and a Cup of Joe". Of course we had to stop and take a picture of their sign.




In the true tradition of adventure, we drove around looking for the street the bakery was on without asking for directions. Truthfully I thought maybe we'd get laughed at for asking where we could find Charm City Cakes. We found it pretty easily since Robert has a fabulous sense of direction. While driving around I fell in love with row houses. I would LOVE to own one of these buildings and I am certain I would paint it a crazy color. . . As you can see we did find Charm City Cakes, but no sitings of Mary Alice or Chef Duff!


We had a great day and the best thing was, the kids slept great!

What a long, strange trip . . .

We have returned from a Spring Break trip to Washington D.C. I was a little leary that everything would be a tad-bit old for my little ones, but it was a FANTASTIC trip! They had a blast, and it was extremely inexpensive since most everything is free! I am working on a daily journal of our travels and will post it later. For now, here's a teaser of us on the steps of the Lincoln Monument . . .

A Tale from Tallil . . .

I received this today from my friend in Iraq. . . touching . . .

Hey,
Yeah its all true and pretty crazy. There are some things I cant talk about because of security reasons. All I remember is standing listening to my Ipod with one headphone in my left ear that way in case something does happen I will know about it. I heard a sound comin from the sky but I thought maybe it was an incoming C130 and then a loud boom with a flashing light. A force pushed me off my feet and I landed about 5 feet from where I was standing back into a table. I couldnt hear anything but ringing in both my ears, my right one more than my left. After recovering I had realized we were being attacked. It was by the grace of god that missile landed the way it did because if it had landed 5 feet in either direction I would have been seriously injured or dead. I pulled/tore the muscles in my right shoulder and have hearing loss in my right ear estimating about 5-10 percent but there is a chance it will be back. I keep a bible in my left inside pocket with a bookmark on Psalm 91 and realize how grateful/lucky i am to be today.

Thank everyone. . . for all their support at such a difficult time because through it all its what we need the most over here. The thank you letters and care packages we get are all greatly appreciated. Words cant express how appreciative we are with all the support we get. It brings up our morale and allows us to keep going....especially when the goin gets tough. I met an Iraqi boy when I went on a tour at the ziggurat and noticed that his shoes were all torn to shreds and barely fitting him as they were about 5 times his size. I made it my top priority to go to the bx and order him a pair of shoes his size. The following day during my only day off I went out to where this boy is with his father selling merchandise to the tourists at the ziggurat and gave him the shoes. The smile on his face just made my day and even my deployment. Its the kind of thing that reminds me we can still do good and that little boy will hold that memory with him forever. I have a photo of him and me together I will send. Thank you again and let everyone know I am recovering fine. Take care and god bless.

He is an amazing man . . . one who will be changed after this deployment . . .

What a difference a year makes . . .

375 days ago we had a case conference to modify Dustin's school day. It was very traumatic and very stressful as we came to terms with Dustin's behaviors in school and the possibility that he could be kicked out for the remainder of the year and put on home-bound schooling. He was being labeld a threat to the staff and the other students. We accepted the modified day - a 2 hour a day schoolday - and he received a 1:1 paraprofessional. At that time we were not sure whether it would even work. We were heading off to vacation in sunny Florida shortly after this meeting.

Dustin's day was increased to 3 hours daily in the fall. He has been doing fabulous and has moved from a room with im and the aide back into the classroom. While she stills has to direct his behavior and his work he is remaining in the classroom with the other moderatel handicapped students. He is not perfect by any means, but MAJOR progress has been made at school. He has even been able to go on several outings that the children go on for their community skills program. He is still extremely defiant, yet they are increasing their expectations and he has mastered many of his objectives and goals set forth in his IEP. That has NEVER happened.

Today we had a case conference that was quite different. We increased his day yet again - this time to 4 hours - and were promised an additional increase next fall if this goes well to 5 hours daily. That would nearly be an entire day for him. We have also been granted paraprofessional hours for this time increase, so he will still have a 1:1 assistant. It was quite miraculous as I sat in that office thinking, wow, one year ago we were at the bottom, and today there IS light at the top of the well. . .

This weekend we head off to another spring break vacation . . . with much better hope . . .

Impulsivity . . .

Usually when I talk about impulsivity, I am talking about Dustin. Today I was the impulsive one. I was sitting on the couch on the laptop, and I looked over at the stairs. We have the grossest carpet on the steps. We replaced it when we moved in in 2000. I was super inexpensive and had this crappy foam backing. It has not held up well. I decided I had enough. I got up and proceeded to rip it off the steps.

I always have paint around the house because I have this thing about buying mistint gallons of paint. If it is a semi-decent color, I will buy it and put it back. With having a duplex, it always pays to have paint around. I ripped up the carpet, pulled up about 3000 staples, and scraped the decrepit foam off the stairs. I painted the stairway walls and laid new carpet. We moved and reorganized our CD cabinet and made one fabulous mess.

After I cleaned up our disaster, and swept the floors (with my wonderful new family addition), I had a wonderful new stairway. It was rewarding. I went from having a crappy, nasty embarrassing hall to a nice one in about 4 hours. Yay!

It is however well after 2:00 am and tomorrow my kids will be up with bells on wanting their Easter stash. . . I'm heading up my new steps to bed . . .

Do you like puppets? . . .

Well, it happened. I had to call the police on Dustin Saturday night. He has taken to running away from the house. It has happened about five or six times since October. The two worst times were with Robert. The times it has happened with me were minor and he came home after a few threats from me that I would have to call the police if he continued to run. I would love to let him run and not chase him at all, but I'm afraid and fairly certain that he would not choose to come back or run a couple blocks and get lost.

So Saturday night about 11:00 I am standing on the corner of our street in slippers asking, begging Dustin to come back to me. He kept running. If I dared make a move in his direction, he ran farther. I had my cell phone and called 911. The dispatcher was less than helpful. I told him where I was and what was happening and he said, "What do you expect the police to do." I informed him that I had a conversation with 2 different officers since this behavior began and both told me to call 911 and both chastised me for not calling prior times. I also told him that he is a 4 year old in a 13 year old body, so technically he should not be considered a runaway but a lost child and the fact he is mentally ill. He said, "Ma'am if you can see him how is he lost? Again, what do you expect us to do about this?" I answered, "Make sure my child is returned home safely." And he said something to the affect that that is not law enforcements job. I began crying and thanked him for his help and proceeded to hang up when he said, "Ma'am don't over react, take a deep breath, I never said I wouldn't help you". Just then a police officer pulled onto our block. He had notified officers all along. Why then did this dispatcher choose to hassle me?

When Dustin saw the car, he ran back to me immediately. He started crying and saying "Don't take me to kid jail." The officers were nothing but kind. They listened to me and chastised Dustin for running. They reiterated that we cannot keep him safe if he runs from the house. Then they gave him a puppet. Great. I know they were trying, but you just rewarded my son for running away. Sometimes it doesn't pay to play the "he's really a 4 year old" card. I sobbed and thanked the officers. I apologized for having to call. They both said that I did the right thing.

Why then did I feel so badly? We are going to be "that family" I just know it. . .

Has it sprung? . . .

Today we made our first trip to Lakeside Park of 2008. The kids were thrilled and Cayenne (the dog) nearly had a coronary wanting to run and play with every puppy around. They had a great time and are nice and tired. You will notice there are no pictures of Dustin because he wouldn't be still enough to take a picture, he found a 7 year old little bossy girl to play with. Her dad happened to be a special ed administrator at a local school system. It was nice to have someone understand that my big, lanky 13 year old want to play "babies" with his 7 year old little girl. He and Robert talked for some time. It was an all-around fun day! Yay spring. . . I hope. . .

Blessings . . .

My mom and stepdad are traveling to Florida. They left Fort Wayne yesterday morning. While they were traveling though Atlanta the weather got ominous and shortly after that a ton of emergency vehicles were barreling down I75. They happened to be going through Atlanta just as the tornado hit. Thank goodness they were okay. In fact, they were totally unaware until later when they heard the news today.

Another trip to the doctor . . .

Last night when I got back home I realized not only had McCartney not gotten any better, but she was really worse. The sinus infections has traveled to her lungs and now she has a horrific cough. That coupled with her asthma makes her sound terrible. We returned to the doctor this morning and found that she has RSV. Great. She was laying on the doctor's table, wrapped in a blankt when he came inot our room. She said, "Dr. D, you didn't make me better!" Poor baby.

So we are now armed with more medication, oral steroids, breathing treatments etc. Thankfully she does her nebulizer pretty well. I hope she makes a turn for the better soon. Daddy sure does not a break. . .

Yay for me . . .

Tonight I went to a parenting class for pregnant girls at risk and for new parents at risk at a local crisis pregnancy center called "A Hope Center". This place is a Christian based organization that strives to give at risk girls the skills and the support to choose to keep their child. I did a presentation about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders there last year at it was a disaster. A girl flipped out because I said something she found offensive. She started hollering at me and calling me ignorant. I cried. I am a comfortable public speaker and crying is not like me. She really upset me. I said I would never, ever do it again.

They have called several time since to schedule me. I have always said no. Last month I was sleeping on the couch and I got a phone call, I said yes because I was half asleep. Crap! I have not been looking forward to it at all. Tonight went great! I was so pleased with my presentation (thanks Kari) and I think they enjoyed it and learned a lot. I think I said "There is no safe amount of alcohol to drink during pregnancy" about 350 times. Only to be rivaled by "My child's brain damage was 100% preventable" which I said roughly 375 times. I will definitely do it again. I am determined to get the word out to women of child bearing age that it is NOT safe to drink while pregnant. Your child should be worth your abstinence from alcohol!

Before I left tonight, Dustin asked where I was going. Robert said, "Mom's going to talk to pregnant women." Dustin had no idea what I was going to talk about and he said, "Tell them NOT to drink alcohol, it made me foolish." It sent me out teary and determined to touch SOMEONE tonight that may choose not to take that drink with their child in the womb.

Worry wart . . .

Something new to worry about. Remember when McCartney was having issues with her legs hurting all the time. I took her to the doctor because she has Spina Biffida Occulta and I wanted to be sure she was fine. The pediatrician did some testing and sent us to the neurologist for a new MRI. Well, I called the peds office about the testing and the nurse said ti was fine. Today I took her to the docs for her illness over the weekend and it turns out the tests weren't fine at all.

McCarntey has an wonky ASO titer. Meaning she has elevated strep in her body. That is an issue that my mom and I both have and we get really nasty things associated with strep. When I was young I actually went into the early stages of kidney failure due to a strep infection. We both have had struggles with erythema nedosa and my mom has been told she will never completely rid her body of strep. Dr. Dillon is pretty concerned about this and thinks McCartney may have some post-streptococcal reactive arthritis. So, more blood work and something else for me to worry about . . .

Icky, sicky . . .

My baby girl is miserable. This is the child who was running round playing an hour after her tonsils were removed. The child who had numerous ear infections, so many that she had some hearing loss, yet we never knew because she never acted sick. She is laying around and sleeping like crazy (well, sleeping during the day, keeping me up at night)


She is taking tylenol and motrin to keep her raging fever at bay. She is also taking sudaphed to keep her nose from acting like a faucet (one with the nastiest, stickiest, green snot I have ever seen) and eye drops because she also has a terrible case of conjunctivitis. Nice.

Harrison has a small tinge of it, and is currently running a light fever and has goopy eyes as well. He is however running around like a maniac so I think he feels better than she does. He is usually the couch potato when he is sick.

Harrison gave me a very good laugh this morning when he came from downstairs with a pair of his jammies on that are too small. They are like those footie zip-up jammies, but don't have feet. He has grown so much over the past few months that the jammies legs are just below his knees. He looks utterly ridiculous. I laughed til I nearly fell over in the kitchen. He has always been really stubby so it is nice to see him sprouting up.

I'm off to wipe noses and hold children down for their eye drops . . .fun times . . .

My boy is growing up . . .

My kindergaren had his first big-boy birthday party yesterday. He went home with a boy from his class and went to a party WITHOUT me! I can't believe it. He was my baby just yesterday I swear.

Last night McCartney crawled in bedand snuggled up against me. She was burning up! She had a fever of 103.8. Zoinks. She kept complaining that her head hurt and no matter how I held her she cried about her back hurting. It worried me. I am not the crazy ER mom, but last night I was close. Finally the Tylenol kicked in, her fever subsided and she slept. This morning her fever is going back up and Harrison just came over to me on the couch and now he feels warm. I'm off to fetch the thermometer . . . send good thoughts our way. . .

My own version of crazy . . .

I am weird. Plain and simple. We have this little bureau in the foyer. Whenever I would tel the kids to go put something on this bureau they had no idea what I was talking about. So I named it. I call it Chester. Now when I say, "Go put it on Chester so we can take it to school" , they know what I mean. No explanations needed.

I decided I am going to name my newly acquired best-friend. . . uh, I mean vacuum. Any suggestions . . .

I thought about Mike, since it is a Dyson.

Maybe George because he "sucks".

Anyone? . . .

Woo-freakin-hoo . . .

I am a crazy vacuumer. I vacuum about 3-5 times a day. Partially because we have animals, partially because of the birds, partially because we have wood floors and rugs, but mostly because I'm OCD. Yesterday I bought a Dyson.

Is it wrong that I love my vacuum more than my husband?

Just kidding! I love you Robert, but I love my vacuum too!

Crappity, crap, crap, crap-o . . .

I hate snow! I'm sick of this crappin' snow. Last week's snow just melted and now I have 6-8 inches of snow in my yard. ARRRGGGGGHHHH!

You gotta have humor to get through . . .

The tide is . . .

. . . . turning? I hope so. Dustin had a super day at school yesterday and another decent one today. Not great, but we'll take what we get! Last night I was knee deep in a project and he was incredibly helpful. He loves to help around the house. He is the best gopher when I'm in the midst of something and it is really helpful. I hope this means he is returning to the kinda-rotten boy we know and love, not the one you'd like to strangle. . . Thanks for all your kind words on my whiney posts lately. You all are much appreciated.

I am looking forward to the primary results tonight. I sincerely hope that tonight will go well for Senator Obama and Senator Clinton will drop out. It sound to me like Bill may see that one coming. . . I am crossing my fingers and toes. I'm ready to get inot the meat of this election and see Obama and McCain begin focusing on the future, and one another.

I got a haircut and color today. It's it great when you walk out of the salon loving your hair! I love having a wonderful stylist who I trust completely. I always sit down and say, "Do what you want." and poof . . . I have a great cut! And at a super resonable price. Nice.

Ever since I started this post I've been singing this . . .