Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

While it has been an unplanned minor catastrophe at our house, it really couldn't have happened at a better time. Truly: I wanted to clean out the cupboards downstairs. We needed to put everything into plastic tubs and had just been putting it off. We had been putting it off for months, but we just got our reimbursement check from my daycare account. So we had money to pay the cleanup crew! After 10 years in this house, we finally built a garage. So now there's a place to put everything from the basement. We had been talking about moving some things around in the laundry room and putting a different type of flooring in. Now, we can definitely do that. In fact, we can adjust the flooring in the office area, and truly clean out all toys like we had been daydreaming about. It's practically a blank slate! So blessing always come from tragedies. I'm just paying attention to which toys the kids miss and which ones they don't, so some may just never make it back in.... And...

I have always been okay talking about death. Because it is unavoidable, perhaps because my parents handled my early experiences with it well. I had the privilege to talk to my Grandpa about his feelings about impending death when he was given just a couple months to live. It still remains as one of the best conversations I have ever had. My Grandma was the same way, very pragmatic about the whole thing. Because other family members were "too emotional" in her opinion, she asked me to write up her informal bequeaths, her obituary for the newspaper, and general directions in how her memorial service should run. It didn't bother me to do this at all - not only a favor to my grandmother, but also something I feel is pretty important anyway. So. I try to talk with Roman pretty factual about death too. It's not scary, it's not something to avoid - in fact, we refer to it as going to live with God . And for hard-believing Christians, is there anything better, really? Wou...

So sayeth Roman, when he wanted to play Wii after 7pm tonight & was trying to convince Daddy (with fists clenched and raised voice) that he would be okay. Nice try, bud. We have lots of new terms that we use now like dysregulated , and phrases such as "shrink his world." Our work with a therapist is yielding good results - we're digging deeper with each meeting and Roman is now willing to show where his buttons are. Here's how Tuesday went in our house: We arrange for Roman to stay in after-school care because I have to take Charlie to the doctor. Doug calls school and arranges it. I pick up Roman and the teacher makes an offhand comment, "he was beginning to get worried." The bells begin to ding a little in my head but I ignore them. We get home and Roman has a laundry list of impossible things he wants to do - go to Target, play with a friend, have a large snack just before dinner, the list goes on. I continuously have to say no. Roman gets so angry (...

It's the beginning of National Blog Posting Month , otherwise known as NaBloPoMo. I just like saying the word. This year, I'm going to participate. It means I will post every day for the month of November. If I have nothing to say, I'll post my picture of the day. Which I'm failing miserably at the last couple weeks. Today is All Saints' Day. Means nothing to me because I'm Protestant, but interestingly, my Oma died today. I certainly wouldn't equate her with the saints, but she certainly had influence on our lives. Her memorial will be next weekend, and I'm sure my mind will have something beautiful to say about her in an upcoming post. Today, though, my mind just isn't there. Went over to K-zoo Friday night as she was in bad shape; spent about 3 hours there Saturday; and today, fortunately or not, was with her to witness her last few hours. I left about 1.5 hours before she passed, but her daughters were all there. That is a wonderful gift. So anyw...

I had made a decision to be more cheery in my blog, as I felt I was getting weighed down with all the therapy & speech delay and whatnot. This lasted what, one post? And now here I am, blogging about a downer again. Usually I call my parents, and they rarely call me. This began in college, where I didn't want them calling and interrupting my very independent life, for goodness sakes, and they needed to be available on MY schedule and not the other way around. But I wasn't selfish, or anything. :) Anyway, it just has continued that way. So when my parents call ME, it can't be anything good. Unless we're trying to coordinate a Christmas gift, or something. So my mom calls me Monday night. My grandma (we'll call her Oma) has been admitted to the hospital for a probable perforated intestine (and emergency surgery). A quick glance at WebMD tells me that this is a hole in the intestine which allows the waste to spill out into the abdomen. And commonly caused by cance...

Last week was a tough week, emotionally speaking. Not even me directly, but I took events really hard and personally. A woman at church lost her 23-year-old son Wednesday morning, and it turns out it was a drug overdose. Then, horribly, her second son committed suicide by overdose just 12 hours later. Two sons, 12 hours . I can't even fathom it. Not to mention the fact that drugs were involved with both, and who wants to face that as well? The funerals were today. The same day I heard of that, I received an email from our counselors at school - an eighth grade student's father died in a car crash on his way to work. The mom was visited by police at 8:30am that morning, and after calming down had to come get her only child out of school and tell her the news. Still thinking about that starts my tears flowing. A normal day, like every day. But not so normal. This has struck me so close to home that I am upset just thinking about what that mother has gone through. The two inciden...

I guess Morgan Freeman (I truly believe God looks like him) had me stay home for a reason today. I received a phone call from Roman's kindergarten teacher. And let's just cut to the chase - she's concerned about his apparent immaturity (one of the more immature in class, she says, and was surprised to see he had a June birthday), and she is suspecting an attention issue. We agreed to have a teacher-consultant observe Ro in class. I know I blogged a few months ago about suspecting some ADD in Roman (I can't find it in my archives, though) and the more research I did today, the more I'm pretty sure of it. ADHD, specifically. When looking at the generalities, Roman exhibits everything under "Hyperactivity" and "Impulsivity." Hyperactivity: Individuals who are hyperactive may appear to be in constant motion, perpetually “on the go.” They have difficulty sitting still and may squirm or fidget. They often feel restless, may talk excessively, and disp...

Roman is sick. He crawled into our bed around 5:30am with a fever, his body was so hot. Whenever the liquid Tylenol wears off, up pops his temp again. He's very emotional and not very hungry either, which is a definite sign of things not being right. He's at his Grandma & Papa's tonight and we hope he gets a good night's sleep and feels much better in the morning. Doug and I are tired. These darn kids of ours have us up almost constantly throughout the night. It's to the point that I felt physically ill myself today, lightheaded and just not firing on all cylinders. I grabbed a 15-minute catnap and felt a little better. Charlie is getting better about his wakings; last night was 1:30am but I soothed him right back to sleep; 5am was much more demanding and he got a bottle, then slept until 8am. We don't mind 5am bottles; if he would just sleep straight through until then! In the great food experiment, we've moved up to Stage 2 food which is a little cream...