Anywhoo, yesterday I defrosted three packages of chicken legs with the intention of making this. Obviously, based on that sentence I didn’t do it. So I made it today. Let me preface, we’re not a strict paleo-eating household, but I can get behind the diet in theory. I <3 bread. And butter. And heavy whipping cream in my coffee. So full-on paleo is not going to happen.

So I set this up around 3 PM. I changed the recipe a bit. I left out the tomato paste. I used the greens from some leeks I chopped months ago and froze (and not enough). I used more chicken stock. The recipe in the iPad app did not call for white wine like the one on the webpage does.I used a little more fish sauce than it called for. I layered my chicken legs and turned on the crockpot and walked out the door.

But wait. We walked in the door around 6:45 and it smelled delicious. At seven I pulled the lid and it smelled better. I drained & removed the chicken to a container (less clean up as I knew I’d have leftovers) and put the leeks and broth and garlic into a pan and took my immersion blender to it. I boiled it a little more to thicken it a touch. I gave each of my kids two chicken legs, about 1/4 cup of the gravy and tossed a bowl of strawberries on the table. Dinner was devoured.

My oldest is making dessert smoothies now and looking for spinach to toss in there with it. I <3 my kids.

The internet is a wonderful thing. This week alone we’ve looked up naked mole rats, Harry Potter costuming, replaced a broken toy, and a handful of other things. We also got a new-to-us kids-sized game table from our local FreeCycle which the kids are loving.

There is something to be said for hanging out with your kids though, even if it’s just watching a movie or eating dinner or some other daily drudge type thing.

So, it probably won’t be another month until you hear from me again, but it wouldn’t surprise me either. I’m having gutters installed today. I’m talking to Dad about replacing the drywall in the front room, laying some new carpet and some other misc. household improvement items. I want to put up some real shelves too – get rid of the bookcase shelves. I just told Michael, if I can’t do the entire room at once, I can do a small part, right? Hey, a million pennies is 100,000 dollars, right? You gotta collect those one at a time.

In ten years we have moved a handful of times, and always found ourselves back in South Florida, in the home we are in now. We’ve been through two major illnesses, two deaths. We’ve seen so much more happiness – babies being born, grades being graduated, events being celebrated.

I am not really feeling over philosophical today. I am not reminiscing. I find myself looking forward, which is, I suppose, a good thing. In the past six months, Dor has been able to go play on his own, help look after his siblings, help around the house more. It’s a goodness. We picked up a cheap phone for him yesterday, mainly because he is off in the neighborhood on his own and doesn’t always hear when we shout for him. When I was ten I was all over too, with no phone, but times, they are a changing. Yep, growing up.

I lied. I guess I am waxing philosophical. Ten years down, another seven or eight to go before it’s time for college. I just sent two off to college… the next eight years will fly by. I need to stop, slow down, and cherish them. I bet you do too.

We had an 8:30 AM appointment, which we arrived promptly on time for. At 9:30 AM we were led into another waiting area to wait on the x-rays to be taken. Around 10 we were taken back for the x-rays. They did Dorian’s first, then took Eshiva to yet another room for hers, and something like 15 minutes later did Malachai’s x-rays.

While they were doing E & M they were cleaning Dorian’s teeth. Michael stayed with Eshiva while they checked over her crown and whatever else they did. They finally took M’s x-rays and led us over to the other side for his cleaning. Dor was wrapping up, and then we waited another 10 – 15 minutes for the assistant to come to M. The entire time there were two assistants standing around doing abso-fucking-lutely nothing. o_O

The gal tries to clean Malachai’s teeth. They only had mint. No one in my house likes mint. Mal and I especially. It burns. It hurts. I don’t have a word for it, but it isn’t comfortable. So I am trying to keep his mouth open so this lady can clean his front teeth at least and he is biting me, but not hard enough to really hurt. I finally gave up.

Dorian has no cavities, he’s a-ok, just gotta come back in 6 months for another cleaning. Oh, did I mention they didn’t fucking clean his teeth? He still had tartar and crap all over them. I am going to see if my dentist will see him. She gets mine squeaky, even with the braces on.

Malachai has a cavity so bad in one of his lower teeth they need to remove it. WHich means they need to remove the same tooth on the other wise. Plus a filling in an adult tooth. Fuck. They don’t do sedation dentistry. They give out a cup of Benedryl (oh, excuse me, a cup of Diphenhydramine – I’m not an idiot doc, it’s fucking Benedryl), which makes my kid bounce off the walls, not relax. He can’t be gassed b/c it screws up his already screwy sensory issues and I refuse to have him papoosed. So I called the ortho, who is amazing. I got the name and number for the dentist she takes her special needs kid to and in a few short weeks I will be shelling out 110$ plus 33$ per x-ray for a consult about having the above work done.

This is the third time they have suggested I pull teeth, by the way. What is going on that the only solution is to pull my kids teeth out?

Eshiva needs a crown replaced, because it fell off. Yes. You read that right. It fell off. How did it fall off? I have no idea. My bet is that it wasn’t on well to begin with. She also has three cavities. The soonest we could get in for that work? December 27. Yep. But I should feel free to call back, every couple of weeks to see if there is an opening.

I will be calling the insurance to find another dentist, but thanks for the overwhelming lack of help.

I grabbed my purse to use the restroom and apparently I have walked out of that office enough times that the first thing the counter gal asked was if there was a problem.

Maybe if they didn’t treat us like we don’t have a clue and treated my kids with some respect and acted like they could handle special needs I wouldn’t have to storm out so much. Hell, today I’d have settled for being seen on time.

Dad & Sara took Michael up to Stetson this morning to move him in. They left around 4AM, arrived around 8AM, saw the shuttle launch around 7:20AM, and Michael phoned me around 10AM and told me he was moved in and Dad & Sara had left. Super condensed, yes, but accurate.

Sara is bummed she isn’t moving on, but she can’t see that she is. Just because you are going to a local school and living at home doesn’t mean you aren’t moving on with life. It means you are moving on in a different direction than your twin because you are a different person. Next semester after she gets straight A’s she might apply to UF and move out too, or she might stick out her two years and finish her AA and get guaranteed acceptance into any Fl state school.

I posted to PMs that I cannot believe I have two kids in college. Mine, but not mine. I remember taking them to 8th grade and signing them up for 9th grade and I feel like it was yesterday. I remember getting the call that they were born.

My bio kidlets are in K, 3 & 4 this year. Where does the time go? I feel like I have stood still in many ways myself. I’ve been in my own holding pattern for the last eleven or so years. Maybe it’s time for me to break out too. Dance class, acro class, guitar lessons… I might need to dig out some time for myself to do something.

Last night I put all of our monthly bills and expenses for each pay period from now until January 6 down on paper. I proceeded to flip my shit and look into shutting things off. I then realized I don’t have much to shut off and looked into other things to do.

I’m calling AT&T today to see about dropping our plan down a level. If it won’t cause my contract to reset it will save me 20$ plus taxes a month. I looked into turning our DSL down, but it would only save 5$ and cut our speeds in half and isn’t worth it to me. I looked into turning off the house line, which would save me 13$ but would make my DSL go up 10$. Not worth it. We’re locked into DirecTV for another however long, which is no big in and of itself. We pay that and not rent, so…. we win. I’m running out of options here.

The last guitar payment is in September. The last fridge payment is in October. We owe camp 390$ by mid-August. Mrs. P’s starts in August and is a partial payment that month but is 185$ on the first starting in September. Then 520$ in recital fees by the end of October.

I need to start selling myself, or at least my wares, to make ends meet!

I’m thinking of selling my snack bags and other small, easy to sew items on Etsy.

All this and I’m still spending it like it’s water. I picked up some chore cards (Etsy, of course) for the kids. I decided it’s time for them to get weekly allowance (and not Bank of Mom allowance, but real cash allowance) and gosh darn it, they’re going to earn it! I got this set, and this set, and this set, and two of this set. I did not get the personal growth set or the blank set or the reward set. There are enough in the other sets that don’t apply to our home that I can flip them over and make my own. I’m also making my own board to hang them on. Why Jenn, why not make your own cards too? Easy. These already have cute clip art on them, are laminated, ready to go, and every other time I’ve tried to make my own they go ignored. Don’t worry. The kids paid for these themselves and will have to replace the money out of their own pockets too.

I’ll let you all know how it goes once they arrive and get implemented.

Yesterday was the first real day of summer vacay for us – all school classes are over, recitals are completed, graduations are finished. Yesterday brought us speech therapy (every Monday and Tuesday morning until the end of summer, when the schedule changes back to after school), yard work, the gas station, the bank, gifted testing, lunch, the library, visiting some friends, guitar class and dinner at 8!

Malachai was tested for gifted yesterday morning, and the school psychologist (who has observed him briefly but I guess never worked one on one with him) said she sees why he has/needs an aide in class. I am kind of relieved to tell the truth, because at his IEP we were having a hard time explaining that yes, he does great in class… because h has an aide! She also said that while he definitely passed the testing, he would have done much better if he could have stayed focused and on task. So, my all over the place son passed the gifted testing even without an aide to redirect him to stay on task. He continues to baffle me, but in a good way. Perhaps he will build that time machine when he grows up… right after he is done being a stuntman for the newest summer blockbuster action flick. Having a “special needs” child who doesn’t “show” or “present”  as being special needs is a challenge in and of itself. We had some friends over, one of who works with autistic kids every day and he said if we hadn’t told him, he never would have known about Mal. That makes me so happy on the one hand, but on the other hand, it does make it more difficult for us on his bad days when he absolutely presents with all of his symptoms, and usually all at once. So hearing how well he is doing, and how far he will go just makes me smile all over.

Dorian finished his first guitar book yesterday as well. Apparently he has quarter notes down (um, all he plays is “Turning Japanese” so duh he has his quarter notes down!) and played some new songs yesterday. Maybe we’ll get something besides Iron Man and Turning Japanese now. One can only hope. I think he said they did a Beach Boys song and a Beatles song.

Eshiva had her recital on Saturday. No pics, as they were supposed to be prohibited (which didn’t keep an ton of asshole parents from taking bright ass flash photos of their kids on stage, grrrr) but we’ll get a video sometime soon (it was rolled into the cost of the recital fee). E did a beautiful job. In fact, the entire recital was awesome. One of the groups did a shortened version of “Oh Industry” (I love this and have never seen a bad performance of it), and another did “Hard Knock Life”, really the entire thing was great. The babies were cute, the middle range of kids were trying their best and the older girls were all amazing. All but the littlest did the finale. They did “Thriller”! Very cute.

We all hit the library yesterday. Esh had a one hour book reading thing and made a couple of book marks. The boys picked out books to check out. Dor got WWII books and a couple of novels (Time Warp Trio and Lucy’s Ghost I Think), Mal got GooseBumps and one other, Esh got an awesome book about different phoenixes, a baby book about tickling a duck and one other. I’m pretty stoked about being at the library twice a week. The kids signed up for a summer reading program where they get prizes and I told them we’ll keep track of what books they read and we’ll get them a prize at the end of the summer too. The boys go today for a craft class. I think today is an aquarium.

Camp starts next week, Wed – Fri for them, so I’m hoping to pick up some work. I’ve got a logo in the works, and a site that I am waiting on some info for, but nothing else on the horizon right now. It might be the perfect time to start tattooing again. I have some ideas for my lower legs now, so it might work out well.

I was busy remembering stuff yesterday and I want to remember it here too, so bear with me please.

Oh, funny. My mom used to call me Jenniter. Don’t ask. So, the kids were playing janitor today (don’t ask) and I hear Eshiva in the background and I swear I heard Jenniter, not janitor, and it reminded me of mom. So I am telling Michael about this and I say she used to call me Jenniter in the drum, and I have no idea. …He says no! There was a liquid draino type product called janitor in a drum. So yah, my mom called me a cleaning product (which is funny in an ironic kind of way if you think about it) and I suspect I have a new (old) nickname lol Now that I think about it, when I call Gram she still calls me Jenniter too. Funny stuff.

One of moms friends sent me this:
When mom was in Israel she wrote profound poem that I often quote.
“be patient
Peace will come
And when it does
It will be like
A tidal wave upon humanity”

I want to do that One Step on my leg and I am thinking about incorporating this, but I see it as pictures not as words… like a traditional peace dove flying over a horizon with a big wave washing up on the shore, but the shore will be something to symbolize humanity, not an actual shore. I need to think about it for a while. I just see the two ideas tying together really well.

For the rest of you, school is about to end. Malachai got a citizenship award and perfect attendance, which pissed off Dorian who did get gold honor roll but not perfect attendance (he was all of 30 seconds late one morning. So was Mal, hence the irritation). Malachai’s G&T testing is this coming Monday, so we’ll see where that goes.

Eshiva “graduates” VPK on Wednesday night. She’s registered for K and will have her placement “exam” sometime in the summer to see if she knows her letters, numbers, can read, add, etc… I am kind of hoping she has the same teacher Mal had for K because she was awesome.

Dor goes into the gifted class again next year, mainly because he did awesome on his FCAT (he missed one in math and three in reading, go Dor!) if I understand correctly, but also based on his performance in class this year. From what I hear the teacher he will have is a good one as well. No clue who Malachai will have, as it will be primarily based on how he does on the test on Monday.

I totally had a whole awesome post I wanted to make but I am kind of wandering today.

Hi! I’m Jenn! For those who don’t know I live in South Florida and I’ll begrudgingly admit I love it here. All three of my kids are Floridians, but I am from the DC/Baltimore metro area. Love it, it miss, don’t wanna live there. My mom died a few years ago and I inherited my brother and sister and father. The twins are off to college next year! They graduate June 7. Michael is headed to Stetson to do something involving computers and cinematography and Sara is staying local and transferring out later.

My bio kids are doing great (because face it, the twins are my kids too). Dorian is honor roll this year and is staying in the gifted classes for 4th grade next year. He’s way into his guitar and I wish I was as cool at 9 as he is. We just got him a new bike as an early birthday present because he outgrew his a while ago. He’s probably going to outgrow me by the end of the summer.

We had Malachai’s IEP this morning and his aide got approved and funded for next year (which means his is a definite) I just need to write a letter requesting s/he be put in place during language arts and not any other time of day. They also recommended gifted testing for placement next year so we’ll be getting a call about that over the summer. His IQ was scored at 128 in 2007, so they based it on that. Apparently at 130 he would have def. gotten in. Then they asked if we were on free or reduced lunch, and since we are the score is lowered to 116 to get in. I got a little vocal – that’s kind of fucked up, yah? Why lower the bar because our income is a little lower than someone else? Meh. It is so more economic groups are represented, but… affirmative action anyone? Just because I’ve got less money than someone else doesn’t mean we go to the museum any less and doesn’t mean my kids aren’t as smart as someone who has more money. I just think it’s a fucked up way to measure who gets into the G&T program. It’s something I can’t articulate the right way, so I hope you get what I am saying. Why lower the smart bar because of income, ya know? That ranks up there with making tests easier so more people pass them – which Fl has done repeatedly and I think that’s fucked up too. Ooo I’ll step off my soapbox now. So, the boy is smart, but needs redirection to stay on task. I’m hoping we can wean him off of the aid before he gets to jr. high.

Eshiva is trying out for company dance on Saturday. I still don’t know if we’re doing it, but I am obviously leaning towards it. She “graduates” from pre-k in June and I think it’s a joke that they have a whole graduation thing. We missed the K orientation last night, but it’s just to go over the curric, which we know. I still need to drop off the papers to enroll her. Her world is dance and school right now, she loves them both.

The office gal tried to corral me for PTA next year, but since it involves talking to tons of people, I’m not sure sure. I might sign up for something easy to do that doesn’t involve calling every parent in the school.

I have been busy in my garden. We’re also pricing gutters for the house, expanding the driveway, extending the back patio, doing some interior work, it never ends. I am amazed our house is still standing some days lol All it takes is money, right? And we all need more of it. We got three quotes for the gutters. I am leaning towards the middle quote, although the base quote is the work I originally wanted done. OTOH, I could put them up my damn self, but what about hurricanes? *shrugs* I finally set money aside and I’m getting my hair done next week. Don’t know what yet, but it’ll be back to red, maybe some blue, black, purple, whatever. I’ve been able to put money into savings for both us and each of the kids each check. I plan to have at least a grand by the end of the year and I want the kids to have at least 100$ each by the end of the year. I think we can do it unless *knock on wood* something comes up.

My gram isn’t doing too well, but she’s hanging on. I spoke with her today and she kept going on and on about wanting chickens and fresh eggs and she doesn’t have a coop but she could keep them on her back porch because it’s screened in. I don’t know if she really wants chickens or if she’s going senile. I’d love chickens, but we can’t have them in the Springs She keeps telling me she is 83 and she’s tired. I said your 83! You deserve some time off to rest. It’s sad I have a better grasp on a world without my mother than I do on a world without my gram.

So that’s what we’ve been up to! Summer is almost here. The kids are in camp 3 days a week and we’ll be touring Florida as often as we can on alternating weekends. I want to show them there is more than the fishbowl I like to live in. I’m thinking St. Augustine, Tampa, head out Alligator Alley and see the other coast, maybe go camping. I haven’t decided yet. I wanted to get up to Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, but that might be next summer. I think we’ll give driving trips a try a little more locally this summer and see how they pan out.

I think that’s it! I just thought I’d jump on the train of filling ya’ll in since I haven’t been posting as much as I’d like to.

and a little bit extra, Eshiva tried out for company. We had no music, no head shots, no resume and no dance rehearsed. I think she did ok. I have no idea, as I couldn’t watch, but she wasn’t crying

Came home, cleaned the kitchen, ranted for a bit. Michael left for work and dad went with me to Whole Foods and Home Depot. Picked up probiotics for Malachai . I’m a little worried about his gastro-issues. He is always gassy (seriously foul gas) and only has a BM every other/every third day. He isn’t in pain though. It’s probably his dairy and carb intake, but… the boy lives on dairy and carbs. Autism and GI problems go hand in hand. Mal only sees his normal ped. We don’t go to the neuro anymore, never had a developmental ped, no gi docs. We see the nutritionist once a year, but she is mostly there to make sure he gets a varied and complete diet and isn’t deficient somewhere. So here’s hoping the probiotics work! I also picked up some digestive tea for my dad, which I hope he uses.

After WF we went to Home Depot and ogled fridges. Remember last month when we had to empty and defrost the fridge? It did it again. I give up. We got this bit of love. They didn’t have the one I had chosen in stock, so they marked this one down to the lower price. Yay! It’s still about 600$ more than I had planned on spending. Boo It was also 10% off plus we’ll get 20% back from the state for buying an EnergyStar rated fridge. Yay again! It wont get delivered until May 1, so thankfully we have the fridge in the garage to move the dairy & meat to. I don’t think we lost too much. It’s inconvenient, but it could be worse.

Also picked up some sod to cover a bare spot in the front yard and bought a tangelo (honeybell!) tree (impulse buy). Got home and Michael vacuumed out my car (the sod made a huge mess) and dad and I cleaned out the front yard area. I planted Eshiva’s shrub after that. I’ll need Michael to help me dig some holes for the trees.

Um…. dinner time? We need to clean some more. The party is tomorrow. The boys are excited! Me too