2005-08-30 Emily

Honestly though, and I might as well be honest here, I am at a loss. I don't know how any child can behave the way she does sometimes, and then be the picture of an angel the next. It is beyond me.

She is immune to everything I have ever tried. Talking, punishing,yelling, even screaming, taking away priviledges, smacking her hand, timeouts...nothing works. She repeats the same behaviors over and over again. Nothing phases her. She might get mad about the consequence for a little while, but the next day, or sometimes even in the next hour, she repeats the offending behavior.

I don't understand how she works, and maybe I never will.

I think outside help in the form of counseling or medication or perhaps both might be in order because, I am at my wits end.

2005-08-30 Packing Plans

I am planning on starting the real packing and what not this week. I will probably start by taking the pictures off of the walls, taking the blinds down, washing them and boxing them, and doing the same thing with the curtains. I have no neighbors here so I can do stuff like that without having any fear of peeping Tom's, or whatever.

Ryun is going to bring up the plastic containers from downstairs, that are packed woth more clothing than should be legal, which I am going to go through, label and donate if necessary. Basically, anything 12 months and under will be going. I may try to sell some of the lesser worn things such as dresses etc at a consignment shop but other than that, Good Will will be getting a lot of stuff.

Anyway, that, along with shopping for shoes for the kids, EI, Katherine's allergy testing and reading, "The ADD/ADHD Behavior Change Resource Kit" is what is going on this week.

2005-08-29 Cats

We really, really love them and are not too excited about this but mainly, I am wondering how I should break it to the kids. I have thought about blaming the doctor but I don't want her to take it out on him, so I am looking for ideas and any suggestions anyone has as to how to break this to them.

Emily, being the overly sensitive child that she is, I think will take it hardest.

Anybody have any ideas on what I could do here?

And, deos anybody want them? Seriously, they are the best cats...very friendly and affecionate.

2005-08-29 Is There A God?

You are Agonistic

You're not sure if God exists, and you don't care. For you, there's no true way to figure out the divine. You rather focus on what you can control - your own life. And you tend to resent when others "sell" religion to you.

Pretty much, in a nutshell.

2005-08-29 Kahlua sounds better...

You Are a Mai Tai

You aren't a big drinker, but you'll drink if the atmosphere is festive. And when you're drunk, watch out! You're easily carried away.

I prefer Sombrero's but this will do.

2005-08-29 First Born

You Are Likely a First Born

At your darkest moments, you feel guilty. At work and school, you do best when you're researching. When you love someone, you tend to agree with them often. In friendship, you are considerate and compromising. Your ideal careers are: business, research, counseling, promotion, and speaking. You will leave your mark on the world with discoveries, new information, and teaching people to dream.

Hmm, I love when that works out. I am the first born and the description is pretty apt.

2005-08-29 Plans

Just thought you would want to know!

2005-08-28 Today and The Move

We ended up going to a house in Rockland and buying a used (but you would never know) oak table and chairs and a hutch for the kitchen. The cabinets in our new place are oak and the set we have now, besides having taken a beating, just wouldn't look right.

We looked at a livingroom set that was for sale in Kingston (someone was re-doing their house) and it was nice, too nice for someone with three young kids! The couch material would have been way to hard to keep clean. We are going to go out again oon Tuesday and look at actual furniture stores to see what we can find.

After we were done, we spent the day at the pool with the kids. Both of my sisters were there and we all stayed for dinner. As per usual, there was a little tension but it almost doesn't even phase me any more. Well, it does but it's too long and boring to get in to here.

I am going to start doing some small things over the course of the next week or two to get ready for the move. I plan on catching up with laundry tomorrow and then taking pictures off of the wall.

I am planning on blogging throughout but, because I have a lot to do, it may be light and spotty over the next month or so. I will probably try to have something up at least once a day anyway.

2005-08-26 House

Here are the details. There are five bedrooms...or 5 rooms which could be used as bedrooms. We plan on using three as bedrooms, one as my office(YAY for a wish list item!) and one as a playroom. Two of the rooms are downstairs and three are up. The livingroom is in decent shape, freshly painted very bright and roomy-like. There is a 1/2 bath downstairs, right outside what will be our bedroom. The kitchen is huge, with cabinets and counters galore (YAY for another wish list item!). The upstairs has a full bath right of one of the bedrooms, which is the room we will probably use for Emily and Katherine. When you walk up the stairs, the landing is huge...almost big enough to consider it another room so we may end up putting their desk out there. There is another smaller room which will be Julia's and the other room will serve as the playroom.

There is a garage out back that Ryun could run American Chopper out of it is so big. It is connected to the electric and even has a phone line. The yard out back is big.(YAY for another wish list item!)...but is in major need of mowing so we have arranged for my father come over with his riding mower and take care of it for us. There is a deck off of the side of the house which we will put our grill and umbrella table set on. It also has this built in bench which is kind of cool.

Anyway, we are very excited. We will have a busy month no doubt, but we are looking forward to it.

Tomorrow we are going to a cookout over at Ryun's grandmother's house so I may not be around much until tomorrow night.

Until then...

2005-08-26 Zoo

Here are some of the pictures I took throughout the day.

A not so camera shy goat.

Emily taking a spin on the Barclay, the pony.

Katherine "milking a cow."

Emily giving it her all.

A closeup of the map detailing the zoo exhibits.

A deer smiling for the camera.

One of the two Asian elephants.

And now for the monkeys...

2005-08-25 HOLY......

Emily is allergic to...a lot of things...

Katherine has officially been diagnosed with asthma and will have allergies re-tested next week.

YIKES!

No but really about Emily...here's the list.

Birch Trees

Oak Trees

Every kind of grass known to man

Weeds in general, and specifically Ragweed

Dust Mites

Cats

Dogs

Peanuts

Soy

Holy Shit (no she's not allergic to it...I just mean HOLY SHIT!).

I was rather shocked by the peanut and soy thing. She has had peanuts with no apparent reaction. The soy thing has got me curious though. When she was an infant, she had a very difficult time keeping the milk based formula down(this girl spit and threw up more than any child I have ever known) so the doc switched her to soy based formula...and she still spit and threw up more than any child I have ever known. So I am wondering, maybe that was a reaction to soy...even though she had the same reaction to milk? Who knows. I think I am going to try and avoid peanuts and soy as much as possible though, for other reasons. Major studies have been done regarding food allergies/sensitivities that have been connected to ADHD. Children that follow a hypoallergencic diet,show substantial improvement in their ADHD symptoms. So, I don't know if I will eliminate altogether, given that she seems to be able to eat them without any reaction, but I may just cut back in a big way and see what happens.

Moving on to Katherine. I mainly brought her because of her constant sneezing. Honest to God I have never, ever seen someone sneeze as much as she does. The doc decided that it would be a good idea to re-test her (the only allergies she came up with before were to dustmites, cats, and shellfish) to see if anything has changed. So, we will do that next week. The other concern I brought up was her coughing fits. They usually occur when she is extremely upset about something and is having a good cry, or when she over exerts herself. Based on that, his examination of her and a number of other things that have been going on, he has
diagnosed her with a mild case of asthma and has prescribed Singulair.

Katherine will be back next week for allergy testing and Em will be back in a couple of months. He also said that depending on Katherine's results, she might need allergy shots and that it was a matter of when not if Emily would need them.

I guess my/our lives were just meant to be spent in and out of doctor's offices. Oh well.

2005-08-25 EI Review

Julia had an appointment with Early Intervention today. Jen brought out all kinds of goodies, including a vibrating rattle that is good for oral motor type things and two special cups that will help Julia drink from a cup without a cover (I personally think she is doing fine with that but what the heck, two free cups...may as well take them!).

She also brought with her all of the paperwork needed to join the playgroup on Fridays. The schedule looks like this:

9:00-9:45: Exploration/Therapeutic play activities

9:45-10:00 Circle and Group activity

10:00-10:25 Hand Washing and Snack

10:25-10:40 Free Pray

10:40-10:55 Art/Sensory Exploration

10:55-11:00 Closing and Goodbye Circle

This seems like it will be a good thing. I think she will like playing with other babies and I will like meeting other adults.

Jen also brought out song card/fingerplay instructions to go over with Julia. We sang The Itsy Bitsy Spider and she loved it! I also have a bucketload of sign language to learn and teach, thanks to Jen who also brought sign cards with her! I told she had all kinds of goodies!

We have officially gone to an every week schedule with Jen which is good. Julia is making a lot of progress!

2005-08-25 Housing and GS

Ok.

At about 10 or so this morning, Ryun called and asked me if I would be interesting in renting a house from a friend of ours who lives in Middlebor, just up the street. I said yeah, I would be so he called. This friend has been trying to sell his house for a while but nothing has gone through (people aren't offerering enough, deals fall through etc). He had been planning on putting an ad in the newspaper advertising it asa rental just before Ryun called. The house has a total of 5 bedrooms, one which we would use as an office and one as a playroom, a huge, newly remodeled kitchen, 2 full baths, a livingroom, a diningroom, a basement (not finshed but good for storage), a fairly good sized back yard, and a commercial size garage. There is also a deck of the side of the house. The only thing that I am not to excited about is that it is really close to the street. I will have to make sure that the kids always go out of the house the back way, which isn't a big deal.

We are going to look at it tomorrow (oddly enough, even though he is a close friend of ours, we have never been to his house...we just see him at everybody else's house!). Nothing is set in stone yet, but it looks like it might work out.

Immediately after Ryun's call, I got an email from Em's Girl Scout leader saying that meetings would be on Wednesday's as usual.

This always seems to happen to me. I get hugely concerned over things and they work out. I love/hate when that happens!