Eli’s special

I’ve basically been in bed the past few days, since around Tuesday night. I managed to attend Eli’s latest school meeting Wed. morning though and today, Saturday, is the first day I’ve been able to sit up for more than a few minutes without feeling worse. Woo, on the mend.

After many evals and meetings Eli’s school has decided he falls in the autism spectrum, specifically Aspergers. They already have some interventions in progress but now they are tweaking them and introducing more ways to help him. I am still very happy with Eli’s school and his team.

OK, getting light headed, back to the couch (don’t want to keep Ben up with my hacking).

6 year molars

They are coming in, up top. And woo for no cavities!

flu

So far no flu’s in this house. Ben said multiple people at work have had swine flu and been hospitalized. I told him if he gets it his ass better not die. If he dies I will leave the kids with his mom adn leave the state.

that time

I have had an abundance of death related dreams over the past couple of weeks. Ben doesn’t want to hear it but I’m starting to feel like it’s my brains way of telling me to get shit together cause I’m gonna die in the near future. I’ve spent the last few hours trying to do just that. Poor Ben, he’s probably going to go crazy having to go through the disaster that is my desk…

no space shopping

The other night I read Anna an old Space book we got from a neighbors garage sale. It’s from 1982, it still has Pluto as a planet and when I was pointing out and naming the planets I told Anna that one wasn’t a planet anymore, she was down right pissed, lol. I’m going to have to go at that solar system picture with a permanent marker and make Pluto disappear.

Anyway, Anna was enthralled with the space book and still is this morning. She’s had me drawn countless planets and spaceships and now has plans to go to space. I asked her this of the planets, “Are you going to visit them all?” To which she replied, “There’s no Mall in space!” and walked away, I died of laughter.

my new hero

Mrs. M, Eli’s Speech Therapist. Eli adores her, she can fix anything and the stars shine for her. She is so involved with Eli, when he IEP team gets together she is the one taking the most notes and throwing out some of the best ideas. Eli has only been working with her since Aug and she’s helped him so much already. Today I was told that she started working on inside and outside voices and when Eli started yelling I just said, “Eli, inside voice.” and he toned down. Do you know how long we’ve been trying o get through to that kid that he doesn’t have to SCREAM? Yeah, forever. It didn’t work every time, but it’s progress already.

I appreciate the comments

I am HORRID at responding to them I am deeply sorry about that, but I want to let you guys know that I appreciate the hell out of all the comments you leave, that you take time out of your day to read what I write and leave thoughtful and supportive comments. *hugs*

This poem was the featured poem of the August shipment of PDY’s Dead Poets Sock Club featuring the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and it’s been stuck in my head a lot lately. I think it may have bumped it’s way up to one of my favorite poems.

Prayer to Persephone

Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be:
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee:
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”

working mom I am not

When Eli was just a few months old I became pregnant with Anna. I was in school when I got pregnant with both. I had to withdraw from the quarter for bed-rest when pregnant with Eli. I returned in the Fall pregnant with Anna. Taking care of a baby, a house and doing homework/studying proved to be too much for me. Ben and I decided there was no way I could take care of 2 of them and do school and then work, so I became a full time mom. Really, it’s what we wanted anyway, we both love having a parent home, I guess we are old fashioned. I honestly have no intentions of ever returning to school and/or work, unless I absolutely have to. It also works out well for me since I’m antisocial and hermit-like.

In the fall of ‘07 I started Perfect Day Yarns because I was having fun dyeing yarn and I had many people telling me I should and that they’d buy my creations and one fantastic woman was willing to put her time and energy into walking me through starting up a business/designing my site. It’s always been a little hard to balance it and the family, I had to do my dyeing after the kids were in bed and the house cleaned up (or on the rare days Ben had off and they took day trips to his moms or the lake, etc). Usually I dyed form 11pm-3amish, this was fine since I’m a night owl anyway and the kids only had preschool 2-3 times a week.

As the kids have gotten older I thought I’d be able to do it more when they are up and around and I can to a small extent, but then I’m preoccupied and unable to check up on them easily and things get broken, spilled or a hurricane hits my living room. I thought once Eli was in Kindergarten and Anna in a closer preschool (5 minute drive instead of 25 minute drive from the last place) that I’d be able to dye during the day. I can not dye at night at all anymore not only because I need to get the kids to school in the morning but because not getting enough sleep is one of the triggers of my IBS. Dyeing during the day has not fared so well because now I am Anna’s only playmate during the day and I have a lot of meetings and appointments to deal with Eli’s issues. After school is filled with homework and flashcards and the usual goings on.

Once the kids are in bed I’m beat and all I want to do is watch my shows and retreat into some knitting then some reading. I know it seems like I am online a lot, but my computers on all day and it’s here in the living room where we spend the majority of our time, making popping on for a few minutes throughout the day easy.

Basically what I am taking forever to say is- I’m not sure I can have my own business. I knew I could not be a mom and work, I do not have the patience to deal with work all day to come home to deal with kids. I don’t know how Ben does it. I’d just want to come home and crawl into a room and be alone, but he comes home, naps for about half an hour and then plays with the kids or works around the house with the kids playing around him. He doesn’t know how I do the stay at home parent job either, lol, so it’s nice to be appreciated. I had hoped, and thought, that being my own boss and working from home would make it doable, plus I loved what I was doing. However, working from home is not as great or as easy as I thought, as you can tell my my long winded post. I also feel badly that my shop goes so long between updates, especially since Eli started Kindergarten, and that when I do update they are so small. Over the last month I have considered closing up the shop. But, I think I’ll give it another year, maybe things will be easier once both kids are in elementary school for half the day and maybe by then things will be a little easier with Eli. I guess, we’ll see… for now, I need to do some shit on the shop site while the kids are enamored with some new (as in from a yard sale) toys.

delicious mermaid

Anna and I went grocery shopping yesterday. She was really good so I bought her a my little mermaid “purse” with arts and crafts in it that she’s been begging for forever.

On the way home:

Anna, “Mommy, this fish (flounder) likes the Mermaids boobs.”

me, “What?”

Anna, “This fish likes the Mermaids boobs. He likes to eat them.”

me, “Why?”

Anna, “Because one smells like bacon and one smells like potatoes. (insert sound that is close to nomnomnom)”

another meeting

We had the meeting with Eli’s school and the Autism Specialist who observed him yesterday. It went well, it usually does, everyone is very thorough and helpful and bounced ideas off each other. Ben went with me and it was nice to not feel like I’m the only one dealing with the school all the time.

With the help of the Autism Specialist they have a whole slew of ideas they are going to work into Eli’s school routine to help him. She recommended they have another teacher or aide in the class permanently to help Eli, to redirect him when the teacher gives a list of things to do since he gets overwhelmed and only really retains the last instruction given. This teacher/aide will not hover over him, but will keep an eye on him and assist when needed. She also suggested he take sensory breaks, be taken in the hall to jump around a bit, take a walk around the school, walk to a fountain for a drink, etc.

A large concern is that fact that he hardly eats, the point of lunch is to eat and socialize and Eli is far too overwhelmed & of course not eating much off anything from 7am to 2:30 pm makes him a little lethargic and isn’t good for concentration throughout the day. He does not act out, he sits and watches and will maybe nibble on something. They are going to have him eat lunch elsewhere with a smaller group. They are also going to have snacks he likes ready available and on days I can’t get him to eat breakfast I’ll send a note in with him and they will try to get him to snack in the morning and will have something he likes to eat on days children brings snacks he doesn’t like.

They had a lot to say/ask I honestly can’t remember a lot of it, but I know I agreed with it all and think everything they have planned sounds great to help Eli. The Speech Therapist thanked me for telling her about how we do letters with Eli. I write a letter on his magnadoodle adn he can tell me the names and sounds of almost all of them. Up until then they had been doing the routine way of letter checking with him adn he wasn’t responding, so they thought he didn’t know his letters. The ST said she wrote the letters on the dry erase board and he knew them all and all their sounds.

It’s so weird to hear how well behaved he is. I told them he was insanely stubborn and they were all shocked adn told me he’s not in school. So, yay, just I get dickhead Eli One of the aides who helps told me how much she adores Eli, how sweet and polite he is (I’ve always said my kids may be bastards but dammit they are polite with the please and thank yous!). The Autism Specialist said he was bright and a pleasure, she was impressed that he knew all his teachers and aides names and his vocabulary is impressive, he’s just wired differently and can’t get everything to come together. They said he is well behaved during all his specials and the music teacher said he has perfect rhythm so they are going to see if there is an instrument he’d be interested in learning or at least set aside some time for him to be with the music teacher during therapy.

Gah, I feel crappy cause I can’t remember half of what we talked about.

I leave you with robot hat Eli cuteness