I should not say it . . .

I have been blogging for nearly 6 years. I have gone through spurts where I blog numerous posts daily to only posting weekly. Sometimes I think no one is reading these and I should just stop and other times I don't care who is reading because I need this place to vent. Sometimes I worry about saying too much and other times I think I need to be honest for others who are going through the same thing. Sometimes I think what I am writing is falling on deaf ears, and then I get a fabulous comment that makes it all worth it.

Today is a day I really should not be blogging. I have a lot of things I really should not say.

I should not say that sometimes (especially after a weekend where he ran out 3 times) that I really don't want to be around my child. I should not say that it is hard. I should not say that I blame his birth mother for mucking up his whole existence and sometimes I hate her for it. I really should not say that although I love him to pieces and would not ever change the fact that we adopted him that I wonder what our life would've been like had we not.

I should not say that I hate my house. I hate plumbing issues. I hate the fact that we live paycheck to paycheck. I should not say that although I love my job and feel it is my calling that the pay rates SUCKS. I should not say that I envy those who do not have to worry about money and paying bills.

I should not say that I really want to crawl into bed and sleep for about 5 days straight. I should not say that I couldn't care less if my children eat chocolate cake for breakfast and wear the same clothes to school for 5 days if I could just sleep. I should not say that the husband should take care of things so I could just clock out for 5 days and do nothing. (mostly because then he would want a turn!)

What should you not say?

Again? Seriously . . .

I am sure you are sick and tired of hearing about our trials with the running. Personally I am tired of living with it. I feel like I need to document it, so if you want you can totally skip this post, however, we did get a very big gift this morning in the shape of a possible "community" that I will talk about too.

I woke this morning with an awful migraine. I used to LIVE with migraines from the time I was 10 until about 10 years ago when I went on a preventative. I went from having 4-5 a week to having maybe one a month. I have been having them with much more frequency and I hope it is stress related or linked to my back injury. I really don't want to go back to having them so often. Anyway, I stayed in bed to try to sleep off the migraine and Robert and all the kids went downstairs.

About an hour later Robert burst into the room and said he had to chase Dustin because he took off again, in his underwear. I could hardly believe it. This was the third time in as many days. I got dressed and headed downstairs.

We have a new set of neighbors that live next door. Until now we have only seen glimpses of them since they moved in during the winter months. They have a boy who visits every other weekend who is super polite and a really good kid who comes over to our yard and plays with my littles. I knew that any parent who had a child this pleasant had to be "good people". The mom was standing at my door when I came downstairs.

She told me that he husband and son were helping Robert chase him. She said she could tell we were stressed and that she wanted to help. She asked if her son could help entertain Dustin some days. I told her that she needed to rest of the story and she said she understood. She said, "I can see he is not normal, honey, he is running in his underwear!" We laughed. She said, "Honey my son is 22 years old and has a passion for helping others. He works third shift and I know he would help you out by playing games with your boy." I nearly started crying. This family really knows nothing about us and they were concerned about us. She was concerned with our stress level. She kept saying, "we need to get YOU some help." It was sweet. They said to come get them every time he runs.

The best part is that this family is african american and Dustin has always been extra-respectful to african americans. When he came to us he was fearful of them due to his prior family's misconceptions, and we have worked hard to change that. I think his initial fear has turned to cautiousness.

They caught Dustin at the end of our block. Scarily, he was trying to walk off the path that heads directly to the riverbank. They hollered for me and I walked my underwear-clad child home.

This is tiring. This is embarrassing. Perhaps we have a community who is willing to help, we can hope.

Rough day . . .

Today was not good. Dustin was off from the minute he got up in the morning. I tried loving on him for a bit this morning, but he was combative. I knew it was going to be ugly. When I left the house to go to the fabric store he took off. He was unseen for close to an hour. Usually when he runs he is easily spotted as he juts all over the neighborhood. Today he hid. We called the police after about 45 minutes. They had to chase him and tackle him again.

At least this time he had clothes on.

I don't know how we are going to make it through the summer.

Finishing the porch . . .

I decided last week that I wanted to paint the trim on the porch. I chose a soft sage green and an even lighter color of the same swatch. What a pain! I have about 60 feet of railings. Ugh. I finished on Thursday evening and I had some touch up to do today.

I deiced our old table needed some love. I went and picked out some outside fabric and considered making a tablecloth. I knew it would drive me nuts if it was always hanging crooked. The kids play on the porch a lot and I knew it would be crooked a lot so I thought about making on that is fitted.
First, I brought the table inside. I laid the fabric out upside down and flipped the table upside down on top of the table, on top of the fabric. I cut about 4-6 inches from the edge of the table.
Then I pinned the fabric around the circle so that I could sew a channel in it.
I tucked as I went along so the channel was pretty uniform.

I put elastic in the channel and sewed the ends together making something that looks like a giant shower cap.
I used the remainder of the fabric to cover two outside pillows I had already. I simply sewed an envelope slip cover and tucked the old ones inside.

Cute huh?

Thoughts for Friday . . .

What is with all this rain? I am about done with it and my grass is going to reach my armpits before I get to mow it.

Dustin ran out again yesterday. This time he was fully clothed. Robert chased him on our moped and he finally came over to him. Robert took him to Dairy Queen for complying. I hope we havn't started something, but he already runs out so maybe this will help. I have a feeling we are gonna need stock in ice cream.

I signed Harrison up for tennis lessons. We have never really done anything like this with the exception of a horrible experience with T-ball. We shall see if he likes it.

I signed McCartney up for gymnastic classes. She is the klutziest kid on the planet. This should be interesting. She will however rock the leotards and the hairbows!

I finished painting the trim on my front porch this week. What the heck was I thinking? That was a lot of work. It did however give me a break each night from the children and my porch looks great. Sorry hubby.

My crazy summer starts in a few weeks. I will be doing 2 field trips each day with the exception of Wednesday mornings. That means 9 field trips a week! Fun times. Busy, but still fun.

EPS . . .

I was asked after the last post about EPS. EPS is extrapyramidal symptoms. It is a reaction to anti-psychotic medication. The first medication Dustin had a reaction to was trileptal. He broke out in a massive rash. He was fine in the morning when we sent him to school and within an hour or arriving he was covered in a rash from head to toe. The nurse said you could actually watch it grow. It was freaky. This was after about a week on the medication. It is unclear as to whether the reaction would've gotten worse and developed into EPS. We gave him Benadryl immediately and for about 5 days after and he never took it again.

The next reaction was to Trazadone. After he had been taking it about 4 weeks he began to have problems with him bottom jaw. I thought it was simply a tic and had become a habit. Within a few days he was slobbery and talking funny. He complained of a sore throat and he talked like he had strep throat. A cough started so we gave cough medicine. That Thursday at school (he was attending an alternative school on the campus where his former psychiatrist was) they called the psychiatrist over to the school because he was complaining of his neck hurting. At this time NO ONE told me this was a group of dangerous side effects called EPS. They just said he was having a reaction. The doc gave him Cogentin and said it would get better.

By Friday he was a bit better physically but he was very paranoid and very distracted. He kept looking up to the place where the ceiling meets the wall. He was not sleeping. The p-doc visited with him at school again and upped the Cogentin, still leaving him on the Trazadone.

By Saturday morning we were in deep. His neck was so wore he could not move his head downward. He was constantly looking up. He was displaying Dyskinesias, Akathisia and Dystonia.

Dyskinesias are movement disorders and can include any of a number of repetitive, involuntary, and purposeless body or facial movements like :

• Tongue movements, such as "tongue thrusts" or "fly-catching" movements
• Lip smacking
• Finger movements
• Eye blinking
• Movements of the arms or legs
  

He was doing ALL of these. He had no idea he was doing them. He was clueless. You could tell him to stop and he would just say what and keep doing it.

Akathisia is an extreme form of internal or external restlessness. It may be a complete inability to sit still, with an urge to be moving constantly. I think this was why he was unable to sleep. I have been told that this can lead to suicide because it is so unbearable.

Dystonia is a muscle tension disorder involving very strong muscle contractions. These uncontrollable muscle contractions can cause unusual twisting of parts of the body, especially the neck. The condition can be extremely painful and can affect any part of the body, including the eyes. He would be totally okay then he would look like he was having a seizure. He would just start jerking his shoulder or his leg or his arm. It was frightening.

It was so bad, my mom came and took him to her house so we could have a break. While there he started have awful hallucinations. He was saying that "they" were coming from the ceiling. By about 9:00 at night he was screaming and running saying that the demons were coming to get him. He was pointing and screaming. At this point he had not slept in about 56 hours. My mom called scared. I came over and we took him to the ER. They admitted him and we removed him from the Trazadone. It took 3 days in the hospital and lots of shots of Geodon to dope him up while his body recovered.

He has had a few other instances of this reaction. The first time he had the reaction I called our current psychiatrist (who was new to us at the time) and told him that we had this happen before. He called it EPS and had me immediately remove him from the med. He told me that if we ignored the reaction it could be very dangerous. One time it happened in the psych hospital and I noticed it while visiting. Two other times we had recently had a dosage increase and reverting to the old dosage worked to stop the EPS. He has a very touchy system and dosage increases have to be done very small. I am thankful that our psychiatrist understands this and is super careful.

Scary stuff.

Thank Goodness for meds . . .

Shortly after we came home from Florida we had to remove Abilify from Dustin's medication regimen. I have never thought that his Abilify was particularly helpful anyway so I was okay with it. Our state-sponsored insurance in Indiana is FABULOUS. I have very little to complain about in that area of our lives. The kicker is that a portion of psychotropic drugs need a prior authorization. Meaning that your doctor has to provide documentation that the meds your child needs once or twice a year is necessary. It is a tedious process for the psychchiatrists office who is already receiving payment at a reduced rate. They will not cover two meds that do the same thing without a bit of difficulty.

Dustin's system is very sensitive when to comes to upping dosages on medication. He develops EPS very quickly and it can be life threatening. For this reason, he is on Chlozaril and Abilify. Both are anti-psychotics for his schizophrenia. I did not think dropping the Abilify would make a huge difference.

Boy was I wrong.

Last week we went back on the Abilify at a half dosage. I had a bit leftover from a previous refill. I wanted to try going back on it since we were having such a HORRID time of it lately. I wanted to see if it was a typical cycle of rotteness or if it was truly the lack of Abilify. Within 2 days we knew the verdict. He was back to "normal". He basically stopped the UGLINESS we had been seeing and reverted back to the normal ugliness that we are used to dealing with. He has stopped yelling and has not had to be restrained since we restarted it. I couldn't be more pleased.

Robert took him to the doctor last week and they are going to begin the process to get it approved. I am thankful for a doctor who is willing to do this. I am pleased that his behavior is changed a bit for the better. I know this means he is feeling a bit better in his own skin too.

Just like chemo can cure a person's cancer, psychotropic medications can be lifesavers.

Bathroom redo . . .

Wednesday afternoon I came home from work and walked toward the kitchen. I stopped in the dining room to talk to the hubby and I felt a "plunk" on my arm. I happened to be directly under our upstairs bathroom. We have had major issues with that bathroom over the years and have had to rip the ceiling out a couple times so now we have a panel up there covering the hole. I ran upstairs just to make sure the water had not been left on, but no such luck.

At this point there was just a small little drip forming on the panel, but I knew it was not good. I unscrewed the panel and it dumped a couple cups of water on the floor that had been storing up there. Oh no.

Thanks for the power of facebook, I had just found out that a friend was a plumber and has his own business. I messaged him and he said he would be out on Friday morning. I stuck a bucket under the drip and tried to forget about it. Since it was coming from a supply line it was pretty consistent, but it was not very heavy.

Here's where my OCD comes into play. I could not sleep. I kept thinking that the supply line would just let loose and flood the downstairs. So I laid in bed thinking of projects to do! When I was pregnant with Harrison we had some problems with that same bathroom. The floor around the toilet had rotted and had no DIY skills back then. I took a 3x3 foot piece of plywood and simply put it on the floor. I didn't cut out the bad stuff, I just went over the top of it. So there was a little step up to our toilet. It has bugged me for years, but I have never wanted to attempt fixing it. Until 5am on Thursday morning, then I could think of nothing else! (my mind is a scary place! LOL) When I get something in my head, it must be done and done NOW.

I decided that we (my husband loves me!) would take on this project Thursday after work. We would, remove the trim, remove the toilet, rip up the current floor, place the bad spot, re-vinyl the floor, and reset the toilet. Easy peasy! I figured if I screwed anything up I would have a plumber there the next morning to fix it for me.

I would've taken before pictures, but I just couldn't bring myself to show you the nastiness of my bathroom. This is bad enough. You must remember I live in a 120+ year old fixer upper.


This was after the trim and old floor was removed. I had already patched the floor (a huge piece of almost 2ftx3ft). I was about 1/2 way into the project at this point and just past the "What the heck was I thinking" part. I made a template of the entire floor with newspapers. I have neer done this, but I have seen it on HGTV (my old favorite show Decorating Cents) and filed it away in brain for future use. Note to self: next time don't skimp on the tape.


Then I took the template downstairs and laid out the vinyl remnant I got for half price (woot). I traced around my template with a marker and cut the vinyl with an exacto knife (scissors work too). I then took vinyl upstairs and simply laid it on the subfloor. I did have a cut some areas a bit more carefully upstairs, but all in all it only took about a half hour to install the vinyl. I love the no-glue Dupont vinyl they stock at lowes. This one was originally 11.28 a linear foot and the rolls are 12 foot long. Really inexpensive and super DIY friendly.



I had some white quarterround trim before, but I like it chunkier. I simply used 1x3's. I did not even miter them. I will caulk and paint them later. I need to refresh some wall paint in certain places too.


I still need to caulk around the tub, that lovely blue monster is my fabulous cast iron tub. It really needs resurfaced, but she is a beauty!

While I would love my bathroom to be perfect with awesome materials, that is not my life. For instance, that awful vanity really needs a home in the dump! I have realized that I can only do so much and I find ways to make do with what I have and what I can afford. In the end, I think it turned out fabulously!

On to the porch . . . the husband doesn't know it, but he's gonna help me paint . . .

Blow out . . .

Tonight was a bad night. I came home from work and immediately started mowing the grass before it rained. Dustin had to go get his every-two-weeks blood work and he was in a foul mood. Robert took him and he came home in a worse mood.

I came in from the yard work and took a quick shower, then began to work on dinner. Robert started the dishes and asked Dustin to dry them (which is ALWAYS his job) he refused. He refused. He just stood there staring at Robert. He calmly said, "Come on. Grab your towel and dry the dishes bud." I came out of the shower and he was standing there with his arms crossed and a foul look on his face. I said, "It's okay, I will dry them for you since you are grumpy." I thought he could use a break and adjust his attitude. He flipped the heck out!

He began kicking at me and trying to run from me. We have a 2/3 door in the kitchen and I pulled the lock closed. I asked him to take of his clothes, which typically stops him from running. He started flailing and kicking me. I had my hand on the waist band of his pants because he was trying to run out the back door. He was twisting and hurting fingers. I asked him to stop. He was out of control. He was hitting and trying to hurt me. Typically he doesn't really try to hurt me, he just flails. He ran to where Robert was and started hitting and kicking him. I was trying to get him in a hold and I couldn't really get a grip on him. I got him to the floor and got him into a bit of control. I asked him to go sit on the stool and settle down and he tried to hid between the wall and fridge still screaming at me. He ran into the laundry room and was throwing his sister's shoes at me. I stood my ground and gave him the "stink eye" and he stopped. He is still pretty afraid of me, so I think I still have the upper hand. He settled down after about a total of 15 minutes from start to finish.

The whole time he was yelling, "You hate me" and "You don't want me to live here" and the ever present "I should've said no!" (talking about when he said he wanted to be adopted to the judge) All this because I decided to dry the dishes for him because he didn't want to.

I have dealt with lots of fits and many, many restraints of the course of life with Dustin, but this one was U-G-L-Y. It kinda scared me. I could still handle him because although he is as tall as I am, he is scrawny and I am a big girl! I don't really recoil when he hits me (except when he slammed his elbow in my boob! OUCH! which I think was accidental) I have worked in daycare for 21 years and I have had my fair share of being spit at, kicked, hit, etc. But he was actually trying to inflict harm tonight and that is new.

I am tired, and my boob hurts! My back hurts and my hand hurts where it got twisted in his waistband. The sucky part is that within about 5 minutes he is fine. Once he is calm he thinks all is well. He holds no grudges. He thinks that once he is over it everyone else should be too and that is disconcerting. I hate it.

He wanted to hug me about 6 minutes after he was hurting me. I struggle with telling him no and explaining that people don't want to be around people who act like that and understanding that is how his very childish mind works. Do I hug him and reaffirm that I still love him no matter what, or do I say "later" and explain why? Thoughts?

Our miracle . . .

Harrison and my mom, his Nonnie.

We celebrated my baby boys NINTH birthday on Friday night with a trip to our local Japanese hibachi place. I was thrilled when he picked that particular restaurant because we hadn't been there for a while. I had had a rough day and it was perfect end to an otherwise craptastic day. He is a joy. He is our miracle child. I love my boy!

For those of you who don't know our story, I had tried to get pregnant for several years. The reason I have a son and a daughter today is due to an eye exam. You see, my husband went to get an eye exam since we had brand spankin' new insurance (which we had not had for many years). While there, the optometrist noticed a problem with his peripheral vision. She suggested we go see a neurologist. I thought she was crazy. A neurologist? We ignored her recommendation for several months. My husband began noticing that he really was struggling with his peripheral vision and thought we should schedule an appointment with an actual ophthalmologist. We did, and he said, "You need to see a neurologist right away. I think you may have a brain tumor."

We of course freaked out. It just so happens that ALL the neurologists in Fort Wayne are in the same group and they did not take our insurance. We scheduled an appointment in Kokomo (about an hour away) for the same week. He did some tests and said he thought that Robert had a tumor on his pituitary gland. An MRI confirmed it later that week.

The next week we were in Indianapolis meeting with a neuro-surgeon. It just so happened that he was the pioneer of the surgery for this particular problem that allowed them to remove the tumor without opening the skull. It was pretty amazing. Robert was his last patient. We had the man who pioneered the surgery AND his man who was taking over his practice as his doctors. We were blessed. The surgery was scheduled for the following week.

I remember standing in the doctor's office and telling him about our difficulty in getting pregnant. He said that since the pituitary gland regulates hormones it was likely that while Robert was creating "swimmers" they we probably not fertile. He said it that was our problem, I would be pregnant by Christmas. I was pregnant by August. The removed two tumors the size of walnuts off Robert's pituitary gland and he had a quick 4 week recovery.

It was a blessing that all this happened at the perfect time. We had new insurance which had awesome coverage. The surgery cost nearly $200,000 and we ended up paying $100 out of pocket. We were irritated with the neurologists in our city not being covered and we ended up with the best man in the country to perform the surgery. AND we got our babies out of the deal!

It matters to this one . . .

I have to force myself to stay away from the post I spoke about earlier in the week that was posted on Babble about it being okay to drink while pregnant. I want to rip my own head off my shoulders. But the most wonderful things happened this morning.

I receieved a comment on that post from a mother who also respectfully disagreed with the author. She is an adopted mother. Here is part of the comment she left for me. . .

I was actually directed to your blog from Monica's post. I love reading her blog but I must respectfully disagree with putting the word out for others that it is OK to drink during pregnancy. The reason I am here is that I have an adopted son whom I have always thought had problems related to his birth mother's extreme use of crack cocaine during the first trimester (she was incarcerated during the final months--thank God!)
...

Apologies for the length of this post. I appreciate the knowledge that I know this blog will provide. I have been looking for something like this for a long time. So, although Monica has lost a reader, you have gained one! Thank you and I look forward to becoming a regular reader.

Absolutely made my day! Welcome Sue!

Yearly IEP . . .

Yesterday I attended Dustin's yearly IEP meeting. I expected it to be fairly uneventful and for the most part it was.

There was one thing that disturbed me about the meeting. Dustin's para-professional ( his 1:1 aide) mentioned that she would like us to address the poking issue. Dustin tends to poke people when he wants their attention. He drives my mother nuts with it when he first sees her, but a couple firm redirections and it stops right away. He no longer pokes me because I don't allow it.

I turned to Dustin and addressed it. She said it was "real bad". I told her I knew what she meant and that he used to do that to me but I put a stop to it. She said, "How?" I wanted to say "Because I am the adult and I told him no in no uncertain terms to touch me like that." but I was kinder and told her I just put my foot down about it. Then she began to talk about all the ways he touches her. She said that he rubs her arm and her shoulder. She said he likes to put his arm around her when they walk down the hall and that he rests his head on her shoulder when he doesn't want to do work or when he is in trouble. She also told me that he tends to pet her shoulder when he is done eating and is waiting for the lunch hour to be over so much so that he gets food on her clothing everyday. This apparently has been going on for a LONG time and I was never made aware of it. The teacher had no idea how bad it was either.

I was appauled. I turned to Dustin and raised my voice giving him the business right there in the assistant principles office. I told him that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES is he to touch her again. I said, "She is not your friend, your mother or in your family. You are her job. She is your boss and you may not EVER touch her." She began back-peddaling saying she was his friend. I said, "I understnd you care about him, but you are not friends. He needs to treat you with the respect of an authority figure." I was fuming angry.

I am not in any way insinuating that she was being inappropriate. She was frustrated with the behavior as well. But OH MY GOODNESS allowing that behavior to continue for all this time is just unacceptable. We have had many conversations with the staff about attachment issues and getting "too close" to others outside of the family, and she didn't think telling me this was a good idea? For all these years?

Seriously. Should I even have to have this conversation?

All I know is it better stop. No hugs. No "petting" no touching her period. The kid has to have limits. Boundaries have not been set and it will be difficult to fix that, but it better be done.

Anyone else think that this could be part of the problem we are seeing at home with some attachment issues? Him not wanting to "live in this house" and him always saying, "I wish you didn't adopt me" are coming from something and I am wondering if it is partially from the attachment he feels with her. Ya think?

You must be joking . . .

Unfortunately she is not.
I was directed to a blog about a week ago by the lovely and talented Mamapundit and I have enjoyed reading Monica's posts. Today she posted an article for Babble in which she says drinking occasionally while pregnant is okay. The Girl Who has lost this reader forever! For all that is holy, spend one HOUR with my son and tell you you want to take that risk for your precious babies!

Her premise is you COULD drink a bit while pregnant and you COULD get a perfectly fine child. My premise is, you COULD stab yourself in your pregnant belly and your child COULD totally be fine, but why would you take that chance?

She says "Come give me The Business. Or save me from The Business I'm about to get from a lot of folks." I gave her the business. It was respectful too. (shocker I know!) Head on over and do so, of course if you have high blood pressure you may not want to read all the other commenters. I kinda threw up in my mouth a bit.

Just a thought. . .

Probably not something that is of supreme interest to others who read this blog, but I feel like venting here so I will.

While I think that what the special forces troops accomplished in finally finding Osama Bin Laden and while I think he is a horrid man and really needs to stand and answer for his crimes, I find it distasteful that we as a country are rejoicing in his death.

I got into a conversation on a friend's facebook page about this. She had posted a quote from Pope John Paul II who was recently beautified. It said, "Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil."

This actually puts into words what I was thinking tonight. While I am pleased that this part of our history has been concluded, I find it a bitter pill that we are rejoicing in a death. It is not sitting well with me, even within myself. I have no problem celebrating our troops and their accomplishment. Something within me just gives my spirit a check that we are celebrating a death. But I suppose it is also why I am anti-death penalty.

I was asked "What is odd about celebrating the death of a man who wants to kill you ALL and your children???" And I answered, "The celebrating part." I am not celebrating. I'm not mourning, but I am not celebrating.

"We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Just a thought, I welcome your opinions, they will be respected.

Avoidance . . .

When life gets hard I craft. I don't do anything in depth or fabulous, but I feel the need to create something. Life's been pretty rough and I needed a creative outlet today. I planted some more flowers, and got the garden planted after doing the entire front yard, the front bushes and the lawn of the vacant house next door last night.

We ran some errands tonight and Robert got a new mouse pad. He had been using a really crappy freebie from the National Guard that Dustin got when he was talked to by a recruiter from school. If you missed the rant that happened after that incident when my special needs child was told "He can aim good" you can find it here. I use my laptop on a cute little drop leaf end table I got out of someone's trash. I do not have a mousepad, I decided to give the old freebie a second life.
Here's the mousepad (you can tell it is thin, I am not certain a thicker one would work. I picked out a birdie fabric that I got in a fat quarter clearance pack.


I think that spray adhesive would work well, but I have a long history of bad luck with spray adhesive so I don't even have any on hand. I figured I would try to sew it on and see what happened. The presser feet fed the rubber backing through nicely.


Here was my first row. You can see I pinned the fabric at the edges.


I did 3 rows of stitches all the way around the edges and the fabric still moved around a bit in the middle so I did a row of stitches down and across the center. I then ran some fray check around the edges. I am not sure it was necessary, but I did it anyway.


There she is. Brand new mouse pad for Momma! (and an outlet for the crazies happening around here)

Ugly . . .

I need some help. Since we have been home from Florida, Dustin has this immediate ugliness that rears it's head when he is asked anything. I not even talking about a chore. It can be something as simple as "Hey Buddy! How was your day?" He responds with a nasty, spit out comment. He is grouchy all. the. time. I have no idea how to deal with it.

Perhaps it is because he is on a "short leash" due to the Great Underwear Incident of April 2011 . Perhaps it is the bedroom switcheroo. Perhaps it is the medication change where we dropped a seemingly unnecessary medication. Perhaps it is the addition to his "family" with the fake baby at school. All of these things happened recently, but I am fairly certain this was happening prior to all this.

I think it could be the let-down after a particularly good vacation where he was separated from his siblings each night while they were at grandma's. He got pretty much full attention and got to do things he really enjoys daily. I think he may be bucking the system of normal. Hey, if I could live at the beach everyday I would too! I think this combined with be a TEENAGER is really messing with his hormones and his attitude. School has been particularly bad recently as well.

Yesterday we decided that playing with his Nintendo keeps him occupied and happy so we would allow him the break he needed to play it and keep busy. I don't know what else to do right now. He has to re-set himself somehow and get back into his routine. Lord knows I cannot do this through the summer.

I have to get past this ugliness somehow.

Burning Desire . . .

I have a desire. Maybe lots . . .

A desire to sleep through the night without children's knees in my back.

A desire to not have to have my child 2 feet from me every moment he is home and awake.

A desire to sit down and enjoy a dinner without getting a new fork, another napkin, more drink, and without saying "Keep your hands out of your sister's ear please."

A desire to spend an evening at home without constant chatter.

A desire to sleep as late as I want and wake without people poking me in the forehead and asking me for food.

Just once.

:)

Choosing . . .

Obviously it has been a little rough around these parts lately. Last night Harrison had a meltdown at the book fair at daycare. It was ugly. He was tired because he did not sleep well Sunday night. McCartney was grouchy and angry. I took a step back and realized the stress in the house is affecting us all.

I need to be the adult and pull on by big girl panties. I HAVE to make this change. This morning was good. The kids all slept well and they were pretty pleasant. I changed my attitude this morning and things went much more smoothly.

I know that sometimes it's hard to live with kids like ours. I know it gets to us. We have to cut ourselves some slack, but the time comes when it is our job to change it up. Today was my time.

Will tonight be good? Who knows.

Will I do my darnedest to make it better by changing ME? Yes. Because we all know I can't change him.

I can only control myself.

The GOOD does come with the BAD and the UGLY . . .

I have been complaining a lot about Dustin and our life lately. I dawned on my this morning that I have not really been portraying him fairly. It is of course annoying to deal with these issues every day, but there are those positive times peppered in there as well.

Today is a gorgeous day. I got up early when I really wanted to sleep as long as possible. I took the littles to Lowes Build and Grow and found some lovely clearance annuals. I came home, planted them and power washed the front porch and siding. It has definitely lifted my mood having a springy, clean front porch.

While I was working, Dustin was fabulous. He is usually very good if given jobs constantly. As long as I can find something for him to do that he thinks is essential then he is happy. I can usually switch his mood by asking him to do something for me around the house even if it is picking something up off the floor. He helped me clear the porch and squeegie the windows, then we helped me put all the stuff back.

I am thankful for the GOOD today.

Oh hell no . . .

Dustin was very off today. He was irritated that there was no school due to Good Friday. He hates having his schedule messed up and he hates missing school even more. Both of those things made him very on edge and looking for a fight.

He irritated everyone around him today trying to get a rise out of them. For instance, after seeing one of those annoying Aflac commercials on TV, he must have said "Aflac" 300 times while we were all trying to concentrate on something. Ignoring did not work. He kept it up for about 10 minutes. It sucked. Trying to keep a child like this on a "short leash" is not fun. I have a wicked headache from all the issues today and I hurt my lower back trying to restrain him twice today. (I hurt my back a few months ago getting out of the car. You know you are old when you hurt your back getting out of a car.) Needless to say, we did not make it to the Good Friday church service this afternoon.

At one point, he ran into the other room (which is connected by a large arch) and said, "Moooomm. Commmmme ooonnnnn." and when I looked at him he was holding a bat in one hand and hitting it in the the other. It would've looked pretty threatening if you didn't know that it was a collapsible, plastic bat and that he couldn't hit the side of a barn with a missile. He did take a swing at McCartney, but she just tried to grab it out of his hands. He went running into the kitchen, still holding the bat yelling, "Help me Mom! She's gonna hurt me!" I had to hear about how he "doesn't want to live here", that he wished he was "never adopted", and he wants to go to "kid jail" for about 30 minutes while I fixed dinner. The whole thing was ridiculous.

He got his pills early, maybe he just needs a good night's sleep.

Shut up.

I can hope can't I??