6 years old!

I started this blog back when i was pregnant with Damien. It's hard to believe he is 6 years old. It was a really scary pregnancy as I had miscarried our 3rd baby, little does he know he was actually our 4th. We found out extra early through sono because I went to the ER with horrible pain after a positive pregnancy test to discover I had kidney stones. I had issues the past year and once I got pregnant it got really bad. They finally did pass and it was calcium stones but because of all that I got to see him grow from a 4 week, 5 week, and 6 week sono when he finally had a heartbeat. :) The pregnancy went great though and I was enormous. I ended up doing a 3 hour glucose with him but it came back fine. He was the one that gave me the varicose veins and all that extra weight feeling of shortness of breath. When he came out he was 9lbs 13 oz and 22 inches long. Quite a big boy! He's a skinny little fart now though.

His favorite things to do are play Mario Kart on Wii, he LOVES Hotwheels, and school! He was the smartest kid in his class last year which is crazy from having Dominic struggling so much with his Aspergers and ADHD. We do have issues with his speech and are still dealing with some Speech Apraxia but it doesn't hold him back. We are not as frustrated as we used to be!! lol! His favorite food is Pizza and he can eat about 4-5 pieces! He likes sports and loves animals. He's a great little guy and we are blessed to have him in our family!

Charades Video Fun!

This is a video of 3 year old Damien trying to tell us.......something. See if you can guess what he's trying to say. This is part of our everyday life with Damien since he has such a bad case of Speech Apraxia and tongue thrust. He is very smart you will see and knows we can eventually figure out what he's trying to tell us. The words you hear in the video are about the only one's we hear day to day that he can say. He is however learning sign language at school now and can sign "more" and "drink." I'll post the answer tomorrow! HINT: The very end of the clip is a big clue when he points at me. It actually took us about 20 minutes to figure out what he was trying to say, not 3 1/2 minutes. lol

Damien's First Day of School!

Ok so this one was HARD! I was shaking when I came back in the house. It just doesn't seem right sending him 5 days a week at barely 3 to preschool but I know for his speech it has to be done. I worry since he doesn't talk much yet he'll have a hard time communicating if anything is wrong besides pointing and saying yes and no.

I need to hurry and buy bunk beds and put the boys together because this morning I had to sneak in and get him out of bed hoping not to wake up Mia at 7 am. I woke her though getting his clothes. I'd prefer her to sleep a bit longer than 7. lol He excitedly ate his breakfast then ran for his bag. I tried to get him to potty on the toilet before going but he wasn't going for it. I sent Dominic to preschool for about 6 months before he was potty trained but I was really hoping Damien would train alittle sooner. Hopefully the peer pressure at school will make him give in. His bus came promptly at 8 am as promised and off he went. He should be home around noon.

Putting on his bag. Loves doing it all by himself. Mia loves how it has Spongebob on it.
Waiting outside for his driver to come.
As soon as she pulled up he started walking straight for it. Didn't want to hold my hand or anything. :( Bailey our dog is always a friendly bus greeter.

This picture shows how happy he was getting on that bus and heading off to school!

Ranch Makes It ALL Better

What is it with ranch and kids? Alex loves ranch on raw veggies, Dominic loves the ranch not the veggies. Damien.....anything goes good with it. I could serve cooked greenbeans and Damien would stick his nose up at it. Add some ranch...it'd disappear! Damien dipped all his fries, chicken nuggets and macaroni in ranch making a happy plate yesterday. This only happened because I was making chicken ranch wraps for myself and he eyeballed and begged for it. Silly kid.

First's For This Summer

Damien had his first day of Speech Playgroup today.........

Alex had her first ballgame this season and they won 15 to 14!!! Here she's hit.....

And then she runs!!
This is Mia's first summer to play outside and she is soooooo enjoying it. She loves trying to keep up with all the big kids.
Another first this summer, my BIL left the road as a PO and became a detective not too long ago and helped crack this case. Click here to read! I knew last week he said they were pretty sure they had an idea who the sick-o was and then they announced yesterday they found him.

I'm Not Mom!!

What a Sad Sad Sad week! I have graduated. I should say Dom and I have both graduated. Dom has caused Damien graduate as well and I am so terribly upset. I am no longer "mommy" or "momma." to either boy. I am only Mom. I hate it. Dave is still Daddy or as Damien says, "Dadda". He knows this is killing me so he's asked them quietly (I still heard him!) to call me mommy or momma because I like that better.

Mom just shows that my kids are getting older. I don't want to be a mom. I want to be mommy or momma! For about 4 days now all Dominic and Damien have called me now though is Mom.
:(

Becoming Fairly Noticeable

After church the other day one of the volunteers in the nursery asked if she could speak to me about Damien. We've been having some MAJOR Al Bundy moments going on, constantly pulling his hand out of his pants so I figured for sure it was that but surprisingly it wasn't. It was however his speech that the lady had noticed and she wanted to ask me if I was getting him any help. She works for Early HeadStart and said he could probably get into their program automatically but I let her know that he indeed is getting help from the Early Intervention center in town.

I'm not stupid. I know Damien is WAY behind (9 month speech level) I realize that people see how big he is and that he can't speak a single word. I realize he drools and spits when he does muster anything besides momma and dadda. I know his tongue sticks out a bit more than a normal kid. I guess this would be the first time however I felt like I was put on the spot like I wasn't helping the poor kid. I had some shirts made for Dominic a year ago and maybe I should do the same for Damien to announce that yes I am fully aware of his problems. Dominic has shirts that say "I have ADHD, what's your excuse?" and "I don't act like this at home."

Anyways- I hope I wasn't too defensive. I told her he has Speech Apraxia with severe tongue thrust and it could be years before he spoke any words. She then told me he needed to learn sign language. (sigh) I know she meant well but I hate when people I don't even know try giving me their opinions like I have no freakin clue! Anyone else been there done that?

Kid Transformation

Damien has turned into a completely different looking kid lately. If you have seen pictures of him in the past few years, you know his hair has always stuck up for no reason at all! Everyone thinks it's cute but I hate it! I've tried everything to calm it down. Nothing works!! Well, Dave had some of this stuff as a sample from a friend of mine who is a barber and told me to try it on him. It's like a wax and you use very little but wow.....the difference!! When it dries, it's not hard, crusty or anything. It's soft and when you run your fingers through his hair it goes back to where it should go.

Before (sorry about the baby powder he got into)

After

Do you have any kind of product you must have no matter what? Toilet paper? Soap? Name brand non generic food? Maneuver by Redken will always be in my bathroom from here on out regardless of my cheap frugal ways. A hair miracle I must say. lol

God I Love Him!

The past 2 weeks around here the stomach flu has been lingering. There was the day I had it when Dave came home since I couldn't move without puking. Then a week later Dominic caught it and started puking and then Monday and Tuesday he was home with squirts. Now Damien has caught it. My mom says I'm cruel when I run away gagging as they puke, but sorry I am just NOT a puke person. Dave saves me whenever it comes to anything severely nasty around here.

Tuesday evening when Damien seemed to look sick, I was holding and he started acting like he was lightly heaving. I thought quick to jump up and got him over the ceramic tile when he just let loose. As soon as it splashed on my foot though that was it for me and I started gagging and sat my poor child in his puke on the tile floor so daddy could tend to him. I took off to the bathroom, Alex ran with Mia to her room and Dominic flew in his room so they didn't have to smell/witness the event.

After it was all said and done he brought Damien to the tub, stripped him and put him in a warm bath while making sure I was ok since I was bent over the sink. Then he told me go grab some Vics and put it under my nose so I didn't smell anything and he'd get to cleaning the huge enormous mess on the ceramic tile. While he did that, I put some Vics on and went in to get Mia in her PJ's, plop her in bed and also tucked in Dominic. Then I bathed poor Damien telling him sorry mommy left him on the floor puking. His big brown eyes looking up at me, nodding up and down he said shakily, "yes..." By the time I got him to bed Dave had cleaned up and disinfected the floor. He's thrown up 2 more times since then. Last night right before Awana so I dropped off the older two and told them I wouldn't be able to help for the evening and then early this morning but it was right after milk and we got a majority of it in the trash.

If it wasn't for him, I could not be a mom of many. He doesn't understand how much things like this mean to me when he helps cleaning things I am unable to. He's always really good about helping with housework when he comes home from work but when I'm down and out he is there to really help get me through. Sometimes it's soooo hard and then people say things like "maybe you should have thought of that first before having so many kids." (grr!). I was in so much bladder pain the other night he told me to not worry about the horse and dogs he'd take care of them but I seemed to be better moving around and I told him I'd be fine doing it. He tries to make things easier for me because I think he understands how much I go through day to day. He is my life and I love him so much. I'm happy the kids can see what a great daddy he is. They knew the other night if it wasn't for daddy being there to save the day, mommy would have been sick right there with Damien. lol

Grasping at Straws, Again.

If anyone watched THIS on the Today show this morning, you know where this is going. Damien's Speech Lang Pathologist came by yesterday and we discussed options and treatment of what to do about Damien and his Speech Apraxia. It's getting to the point now where I'm losing hope that he'll ever talk. He'll be 3 in less than 3 months and Mia says clearly the same amount of words he is now. DAS basically is a neurological speech problem where the brain can't tell the mouth what to say. An example of DAS would be ask him a question, he'll say either of the 3 words he has embedded as an answer. Mamma, Dadda, Dis. Most answers is "dis."

This morning as I sat on the couch I caught the beginning of the Today Show's Is Plastic Bottles Safe? I've heard for awhile about PVC #3 recycled bottles as a big no no so I have already made sure that nothing plastic was #3 in our household. However now they are now saying that #1's, #2's, etc can break down being reused/reheated (AKA: Baby Bottles, Sippy Cups, Water bottles) This can cause fertility problems, neurological and behavior problems in children. Let me just say as many already know. I am FRUGAL. I have not seen this as a bad thing till maybe now. A great majority of our sippy cups and bottles.........are Alex's. Yep that's 8 yrs old sippy cups and bottles that have been reheated, reused. I save Sunny D squirt bottles sending the kids milk in their lunches with them. We reuse all Applebees, Carlos O'Kelly, Fridays cups till the point where we have so many we use them for hamburger grease, etc. I save alot of that stuff.

We have ruled out every part of Dominic's social/behavior problems (his Dr. Adhd diagnosis) now except taking out his tonsils and adenoids. I am just so not ready to do something for the sake that it "might" work. We cut red dye 40 out of his diet, limit sugar, give him special vitamins, subjected him to the torture of allergy testing, we do all these things and now here we are given a new option that maybe they are getting more in their drinks then we actually know from plastics breaking down. Damien is smart as ever but the words are just not there. When his brain can't tell him what to say, he pops mamma, dadda and dis out to everything said or asked of him. He converses very well on the baby level of his sister and I think that is why their bond is so strong. Who knows is this plastic deal is really the problem but it becomes to a point where you are so desperate for answers you grasp at any straw. Now this one is presented to us all as parents so we're all going to worry about it. Special Needs or Not.

Spring Break

Keeping the kiddos from killing each other during Spring Break was a difficult task. Keeping the kiddos busy during Spring Break was even more of a challenge. I found oddball jobs that I didn't want to do and had the kids do them. Organization is one job kids love to do so they did alot of cleaning drawers and such. When Monday rolled around this week, I was more than happy to wake up once again at 6 am and usher them out the door to their school buses at 7. One week was enough for me.....and I'm good to go again until Summer. That's a whole 12 weeks I have to keep them entertained and that's always fun!

As the kids get older I realize how much they really do need school and how I would never be cut out to homeschool. Sure we've always done workbooks, projects and other school type things before preschool and during the summer here but to sit them down for 2-4 hours a day to school, I think I may just lose my mind, especially with the bickering!

Other things have been going well around here. Damien has started saying "bee-boo!" for peek-a-boo. They are discussing our upcoming evaluation for next year's services and where we will place him. I have made them fully aware I want him at Early Intervention his first year. His Apraxia and tongue thrust are still so bad that even the director of the center knows he'll fail his eval. He's one of the worst speech cases they've had come through. We can't figure out why he can't talk because otherwise he's a super smart guy. Alot of people will ask publicly "does he have a lisp?" It's not a lisp, it's more that he can't control his tongue and where to put it so he sounds like Sylvester the cat.

Mia has been trying to stand and walk because of how fast she takes off when she can push her weight up with her leg. She's still not walking much, just when she feels like showing off and then it's back to walking on her knees.

The kids had their first soccer game this season on Saturday and we nearly froze to death. I believe it was 30 degrees and a 20 mph wind speed. This swing shift weather is horrible. So we bundled up in blankets while our kids half freezing played their games then got into the car wiping huge loads of snot from each of their faces.

Our schedule this month has been insane. Here's a run down of every week.

• Sunday- Church (2 weeks out of 6 I'm either in the nursery or preschool)
• Monday- Church playgroup 10 am/ Avon orders by noon every other week/4H or PTO alternate every other week.
• Tuesdays- Damien SLP visits 1:30 pm/ Soccer practice at 6 pm(1 rabbit meeting a month)
• Wednesdays- Awana 7-8:30 pm
• Thursdays- Girl Scouts 6:30-7:30
• Fridays- Soccer practice 6 pm
• Saturday- Soccer games 10 am

Toby has been such a little blessing to have around. It makes me so happy to see Dominic connecting with Toby. I'm not sure if it was because he picked him out himself but he talks to him and loves on him all day. He actually has conversations with him. One day I walked in and he was saying, "what's that Toby? Nuh uh! I'm a good boy? Really? Hey momma, Toby says I'm a good boy!" It's hilarious. The 2nd or 3rd day we had him he said, "momma, Vinnie is watching from Heaven and he likes Toby and Jesus does too." Talk about melting a person's heart. We got a special little rabbit for a special little boy.

Its Only Funny When It Happens To Someone Else

Years ago, my friend Jen and I used to joke around about another friend of ours and how she buys all these new things for her house and her kids used to ruin it all. She once bought a set of 3 front room tables which ended up ruined, scratched to death by Hotwheels and Matchbox. We'd joke around saying things like she wasn't paying attention to them, why the heck would you let your kid have Hotwheels on the table, she doesn't control her kids very well if they do things over and over after she said no, etc. Over the years since then, I've found out that well...maybe she WAS paying attention but sometimes you just miss things. But how does that happen?

I gate and lock doors so that Dominic and Damien stay out of trouble but when you get wrapped up in something such as feeding a baby, making dinner, or even when you're on the toilet, sometimes things happen before you realize what your little one has done or gotten into or crap, even escaped. So yesterday when I came in the kitchen noticing I forgot to shut the gate and smelt bleach I felt that instant stupidness of WHY didn't I grab that and put it up higher in case I forgot to lock the gate?!? What was even "stupider" (making up words here lol) of me is I just assumed he had just pressed the squeeze pump, I didn't survey the damage. Well a hour later I did when I was cleaning the table after lunch. I found my 1 GB SD Memory Card sitting in a small puddle of bleach on the table. Enough that when I picked it up gasping in horror the Clorox dripped off of it. I examined it thinking of the 300 or so pics on it and about started bawling right then. Damien just laughed and laughed. He had no idea what he had done but thought it was funny watching me freaking out, rubbing the card with a Qtip and blow on it like I was trying to blow it up like a balloon. I tried all damn day to get it to work. I think I inserted it in the computer about 30+ times and it gives a error saying "insert card" It doesn't even recognize I'm sticking a card in. I have a few good shots thankfully due to this blog but those were pics from all of Oct-Nov. Oh and that's not including all the videos I had made. It's depressing. I begged God yesterday to please just let it work long enough for me to get to Shutterfly or Walmart.com but it didn't work.

So remember what goes around comes around. LOL! I know to expect broken things around here but it makes me sad that it was memories that were broken. I've had plenty of things broke around here (Xbox games, toys, DVD players, dishes, etc) but not something sentimental like this. :( PS: Isn't it just ironic that I posted the "sweet boy" post about Damien getting those pics of us off my memory card and then THIS happens?

Clowning around with Damien

He's such a sweet little boy!

Drowning

I am going downhill again with Dominic and I just found out yesterday that Damien's speech issues may be alittle more serious then what I thought. Right now with Damien and his problems and then Dominic and his, I feel like I'm drowning would be the best way I could put it.

The past week the teachers in Dominic's class have been telling me he's not enjoying school, being difficult, spacing off, etc. Well it's not just at school, it's happening at home too. He's been yelling and fighting more with us, everything is either itching him or too loud, and he's broke out into (as I call it) a goose bump rash all over his chest. I just don't know what to think anymore. The kicker was yesterday when Damien's Speech Path came to work with him. Since Dominic is in school in the mornings I have asked them to come then so he's not distracted. Linda doesn't have any morning slots so she comes at 12:45 when Dominic has just got home. Well yesterday all hell broke loose. Dominic wanted to play with all the gadgets for training Damien's mouth so she told me she didn't mind working with both boys which was fine with me, I just didn't want Dominic in the way. Well he did pretty good until we did some constructive play with trucks and then Dominic started throwing a fit since I asked him to share. Then Damien started screaming "YESS!!" back at him holding out his hands that they were his toys. I was in a daze like usual when they do this at home. Long story short she ended up seeing Dominic flop around like a fish kicking me, screaming, getting ready to bite my leg, etc. I finally put him in his room where he kicked the door like crazy wailing and finally after 5 minutes I told him he could come out if he was good. She asked if he normally acted like this and I told her how the past 2 weeks it's gotten really bad. They normally have spats but they've gotten worse especially him throwing objects and hitting again. She's going to tell him lady at the agency how things have been at home too and see if she wants to come by and observe since she observed alittle more than I wish she had!

Damien ended up yesterday with some new gadgets to help "wake up his mouth" as they put it. They are toys for him to put in his mouth and hopefully it'll help train his mouth how to talk. Don't ask me how because I'm just learning myself. Somehow the vibrations and pokey feels help. I tried biting the therapy vibrator (yep that's what it is!) and I let go after a second because it was very annoying. He however hangs on and bites it for minutes at a time!

It's funny because in public I am in control but at home it's a disaster. I take them all 4 with me all the time with no problems why can't that be the same here? It was a sad moment for me having her see the boys and how they act at home. Now that Damien is getting older and able to handle himself more, his attitude is copying Dominic more and more by the day. He's pushing, hitting, yelling, throwing, etc. I have had more drinks and food dropped on purpose lately just to see my reaction. I'm trying my best but I really feel like things are never going to get better. As she put it "you guys need to be good so you don't put your mommy in a grave!"

Yesterday started gymnastics and the kids were rather excited. I received a phone call from the gymnastics director asking if Alex could be in the 5 pm class instead of the 6 because no one signed up that hour for level 2. So I said that was fine, it just meant I would have to occupy Dominic for 1 hour till his 6 o'clock class and occupy Damien and Mia for 2 hours!!! Oh believe me I made sure I grabbed everything from A to Z and threw it in a tote bag! We did really good in fact about 6 minutes till it was time for Dom's class to end was when Damien started getting antsy by wanting to push the table we sat at making a horrible screech noise across the floor. From 6-6:45 Alex did her homework and then we picked up Dominic. I guess Dominic was crying because he thought we had left him so I'm not sure how much he got out of his class. I think since we watched Alex he thought we'd watch him too but usually I leave to another part of the building since his attention span is so bad anyways I don't want him watching me and not his teacher. Alex did a great job and only struggled a bit since she took a 6 month break. The hardest part for her was the one handed cartwheels with her legs straight but she did an awesome job trying over and over. When we were leaving the kids noticed we had parked near a big leaf maple tree and ran over to pick up leaves. Alex has been scoping out my craft and ladies magazines and knows we can MAKE things with these!! So I told them to pick up all the pretty leaves they could find and we'll see what we can make with them.

Today I am taking Dominic to the Dentist! He is totally excited and can't wait. Then tonight we have Awana. I am hoping to have much more attentive kids this week after I asked the Pastor's wife to tell them NO TOYS or virtual pets and she did so in the sanctuary on the microphone so you'd think they got the point right? I mean they are 5th and 6th grader TnT's who are much more mature then the little Sparks and Cubbies ya know. lol

Dave is on the road instead of working in the office today doing some follow ups in some small towns going all the way to Dodge City even. He will be reluctantly visiting Greensburg. He's had chances to go there before now but it's been a bit hard on him since he used to do service work there all the time and knew a lot of customers before it was totally wiped out by the tornado. His company was affected so much by the tornado that they lost thousands of dollars in business and to help people some they quickly refunded pre-paid money since they couldn't do work at places that blew completely away! So he is taking tons of pictures today and I will post them on here tomorrow for all to see. I know most of the damage is now cleared out though and it looks like a huge field with roads throughout it from pictures in our newspaper.

Damien's appt went well yesterday and I posted about it here. I've been thinking a lot about life and where I want to be in 10 years. I think it's because I just turned 30 this year (ugh!) Does anyone else think that far ahead? Well first with D's job it could take us out of state but I told him if we are still here I want to buy some land so we can build a dream home. We should have our current house paid off before we turn 40. We did buy eight acres 4 years ago to do this and it was sold out from underneath us (long story!) but I want to buy about 15 minutes from where we are now so the kids will still be in the same school district and we'll be close to the highway and it will be a little shorter drive for him. I'm pretty sure I'll be working again by then too since I doubt I'll have any babies around (sniff sniff). and Alex will be graduating in 10 years too! Yikes! Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

More on Speech

Today I have not only a developmental therapist coming over to work with Damien but also the Speech therapist who deals best with tongue thrust. We've actually dealt with her before. I am hoping she is able to help more with getting his tongue to cooperate so he can speak better. I just want him to talk so bad! Say anything!! Man it'd be awesome if he'd hop out of bed one Saturday morning and said "momma, I'm hungry." or "momma get up!" Don't get me wrong he talks to me all the time saying "uh uh! or Yes!" when I ask him a question. But for him to say something without me asking a question like "do you want a drink?" would just be pretty darn cool. We're coming up on 27 months and still at a 9-12 month level on language development. I bought First Signs by Baby Einstein and he still finds signing too funny. He hasn't tried to do it yet and I doubt he will. I'll try to get on later and post what happened on seek and destroy so look there. They are supposed to be showing us exercises to work his jaw muscles and lips. I think one had to deal with blowing water on paper and peanut butter on a cup. I have learned so much the past 3 years having two little ones with developmental issues. I hope someone can benefit from my blogs on our journey. I know when I became a parent I never expected to venture the road of ST, OT,IEP's, and Early Intervention.

Oh...... Now I See!

When I was growing up, I hung out at my Great Aunt's quite a bit mainly because my Mom was great friends with her since they are the same age. At that time, my aunt only had 2 kids (a boy and girl) but they were both much more rowdy then my two sisters and I, especially Cody. My aunt was always hollerin' at them and saying "oh Lordy" and how "she needed a drink" so she'd go to the fridge and get herself some redneck wine out of a box no matter what time of the day! Now I see why! Now with 2 crazy active boys, a few glasses of wine during the day might just take the edge off! lol! Damien has turned into a monster now that he is 2. He used to be a bit crazy before but now he's awful! The pic on the side there? That's a oriental fan he ripped and put on his head.

His favorite past times are grabbing the kids drinks off the table and just dumping them on the floor for fun, getting in the pantry and throwing jars of babyfood and cans on the floor, pulling hair, he took 3 chunks of sheetrock out of the hallway wall by bashing a wood board (extra piece for his bed) into the wall, he throws HUGE temper tantrums now where he throws and kicks everything, he pushes Mia over or pulls her by her feet all around the frontroom floor, he sits on our little dog and bounces up and down, he sits on Mia's head and does the same. Naptime is now nonexistant since putting him in a toddler bed, . I've tried everything (including holding his door for 40 minutes till he cries himself to sleep at the door)he thinks he can just get up and won't nap. So the past month I've got both boys up in the afternoon fighting over cars, trains and TMNT's. I am worn out and frustrated with him! And this whole "lets help him express himself with sign language" well he thinks it's just too funny and won't even try and then screams when I sign to him and won't get him what he wants. I do have a hard time not laughing though when it comes to the temper tantrums. They are just so funny! I can't be the only one who laughs when they see their kiddo on the floor floppin their body around like a fish out of water. But in all joking sense, I would never load up on wine all day to ease my frustrations with the little booger although I really wonder what parenting would be like when tipsy..........

Name 1 Thing You Could Live Without Your Toddler Doing.

Here's mine. Sticking all our toothbrushes down the drain. Thankfully Dave stocks up on the packages at Big Lots for occasions such as this one (they've been thrown in the toilet and fishbowl) so threw them all away and we have new ones...........again. One was so far down I had to use needlenose pliers to get it out. So what does your toddler do?

Argh!

With the loss of sweet Hannah, I feel awful when I post any bit of a pity party on my behalf. There are much more important things in life then what I have to deal with. Getting Rachel and Jess through the days with my small blogger comments has become a priority to me. Although I can never imagine the loss of a child at 5 years, I can say that I experienced a great deal of grief after the loss of our baby when I was 12 weeks pregnant. For someone to never endure something like that and then have it happen is a story itself. Here you are completely ignorant to the fact that things like that happen, you are at the 12 week mark and are safe, etc and then just like that its over. I am so happy that the frogs bring some calm and hope to her and the family. Every frog I see now reminds me of a beautiful little girl. With our loss, March of Dimes sent me a grief package and on it, it says "There is an ancient belief that each entrance of a child into heaven is marked by a falling star....." Around the time we lost the baby according to the sonogram, driving we saw a falling star and it was amazing! We were on our way to the hospital to see my best friend's new little one. We went in the hospital telling Jennifer all about it even Dave was really excited telling her about how it fell! Little did we know that was probably our falling star. But the magic of it all is that we now know that our little one is in heaven, the star was a "sign" and it brings us great comfort. I'm glad the frogs do the same for them.

On to my pity party, while Laura is dealing with daycare woes, I am having the same problem but preschool. Instead of beating my head against the wall, I choose to vent here, that way the kids won't think I'm crazy. We have been waiting all summer for any sign that Dominic will be accepted into the preschool at Alex's Elementary School. He is on an IEP (individualized Education Plan) which is short words means he needs help and the state will pay for his schooling and extra help. Because of his IEP, the school has to accommodate him, he automatically qualifies for a spot. This is great because it will prevent me from going to 2 different schools and I can do room parties or even just visit one school instead of 2. Well it's now August and they still have not given me the smallest glimpse that he is definitely in and what time, nothing. They went through a change of management and it sounds like the person before was guaranteeing spots before they were supposed to. They have no idea if he's going to be in or not. They are saying if not, he could go to the other Pre K program at the other grade school in the district which is in another town but all Highway so not that far away. The bus will come get him and everything. Well while he already has a spot at his Early Intervention school he's went to 2 years, I told them that he may be going to Alex's school but now WHO KNOWS!! It's just getting aggravating because I'm feeling pressure that I need to tell his current school what's going on and I myself have no idea. I chatted with the Head Start teacher who runs the program at Alex's school and she is going to try to find him a spot because even though Head Start is income based, they also accept kids at-risk with an IEP.

Damien's schooling this year will be here at home with a SP (Speech Pathologist) and then next year he will go to Dominic's current school on an IEP. Can my children's education be more confusing??

My interview went rather well with Aubrey's parents. I stressed that once I started, I have no plans to quit again. I also tried to find out if the drive was ok since we are in the country but they didn't seem like they cared. I've only lost one daycare kiddo due to the drive and he actually came here for over a year. So we just wait and see. I hope they choose me out of the 2 providers they are looking at but if not, it won't make me too terribly sad. :)

Damien

It's looking like Damien may have Apraxia. He starts having a home visits from a Speech-Pathologist in August since playgroup has ended. I'm looking so forward to it because I'd like to communicate with him other than asking Yes or no questions to get him to talk. He understands almost anything and everything, he just can't talk. I was really hoping a simple summer playgroup would get him to talk when in fact it did little but gave him time away from me! lol Hopefully we'll start seeing some progress next month. I'd like to hear something else than "dis, dis, dis!"