Doctors appointment went well today. She’s perfect. Went to breakfast after (one bagel with creamcheese, one order of challah french toast) and then off to school. Had her party on last Sunday so this evening will be relaxed. Miss thing asked for cheese cake cuplettes, and they were a hit. I suspect they have edged out FairyCakes for FavoriteBirthdayCupcake.

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.

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.