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Today… Oh today.

23 June 2009 By Leave a Comment

It was pouring this morning, thunder & lightning, the whole nine yards. We cuddled in bed (all of us) and watched Titan A.E. and then Michael got up and made breakfast.

Around 11 we made it out the door and to Best Buy. Michael got his phone this morning (he bought the 8gig that dropped down to 100$ – more on that later) and is in heaven. He’ll be fiddling with it all night I’m sure :-) He opted to get the “old” one instead of the new one as I told him if he did, he could spend the rest of what he saved on a tattoo book he wants to update. The author has a deal that he’ll send a check back if you return the old version to him, kind of a rebate for having purchased the original version. Yep, I bribed my man.

Then we dropped him off at work and went to therapy. Then on the way out the kids were horsing around and Dorian slammed Malachai’s arm (around the elbow) in the sliding door of the van. Poor kid. I spent five minutes trying to pop an instant cold pack which wouldn’t pack, so I spent ten minutes driving home with a wailing child. Called ahead and had an ice pack waiting on us. He seems OK now – gave him some ibuprofen for the swelling and he flipped through the new bento book that came. He’s on the computer now. Guess he’s all right :-) Dorian felt awful.

I have to go make dinner. I have garlic-ginger lo mein on the menu (it was a hit last week) but I didn’t defrost the chicken and I have two pot roasts that need to be made in the fridge. I think I waited too long though (which I did yesterday too) as they should have gone in the crock this morning. I forgot I wouldn’t be home at 1 to put it in. Tomorrow maybe… that leaves something for tonight though.

Tattooed a little yesterday. I like shading with the rotary better than the coil machine. Eshiva has the skully I did on her arm – silly girl. I love that the stencils make her so happy.

Filed Under: Art, Food, Mishpucha Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Updatey Goodness

28 May 2009 By Leave a Comment

Hi!

Where to start…  we went to Orlando this past weekend. Sorry local gals – we went up in one car and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get away so I didn’t even bother posting about it. I will be uploading pictures at some point, so expect a photo spam post.

We hit Animal Kingdom (something we almost never do), MGM (excuse me, Disney’s Hollywood Studios) & Magic Kingdom. We were up early enough to see them *open* on both Sunday & Monday. Not. In. Years. It was a real treat for the kids. We left around 2 PM on Monday and were home around 6PM (hit those rain storms headed up and back).

We’ll be back up in Sept or Oct, the boys want to stay at Wilderness Lodge – we’ll see. That will depend on if the work I am expecting comes through and a few other things as well. It’s their birthday trip, so I usually try to keep them in on the plans and such.

Tuesday morning we had M’s IEP. All is well. Again, we won’t know until the year starts if he gets his aid in the classroom for next year, but I hope so. Some goals were met, some are the same and we added some new ones. His speech went from being a profound delay at last years IEP to a mild, age appropriate delay. Whoo Fucking Hoo Mal! Our private speech gal is going to have her work cut out for her to keep him as a client, but I love her and she’s really awesome and I attribute most of his success to her. She said his /r/ sound really, really needs work ;)   I hope she can find a legitimate reason to keep him. He performs well in the speech room, but not as well outside. I think that alone means he should keep it up.

Tuesday night he was supposed to read a story he wrote at Barnes & Noble. I have video. It didn’t go well. He was all ready to read, went up there, and froze. Poor kid. I sat with him, and tried to convince him to read. No go.

Wednesday I got my hair done. My girl went in at 8AM for me! She is a peach. I was done by 10 and we went to Target (aka that vast time suck) and bought a box storage thing for outside for my new seat cushions, a couple of fans and some misc. other things we probably didn’t need at all. Wed afternoon is therapy with all the kids, where they act like animals and irritate the fuck out of me. Then we had dinner with my moms twin brother, his wife and their daughter. We almost never see them (they live in Reno) and my dad is still livid he didn’t bother to come out when mom was dying (and by the time he was going to come out he told him not to bother, there was no time and we’ll see you at the funeral in a few days. Fucker.). I told my Gram not to expect me to rearrange my entire day for family who doesn’t really want to see us again as I had to break a promise to Dorian to make dinner at a reasonable time.

Today I have been working, just dropped Fish off at work, and I am uploading pictures from, well, all of May. I’ll be making a few photo posts later on. It’s going to take all day to upload.

Our fence is complete! They will come out tomorrow or Monday to inspect it. It’s pouring now, so I can’t go enjoy it lol We’re having a party on Sunday, so just in time! I hope it doesn’t rain :( I think I “scheduled” it in between rain storms lol

Dor has his first sleepover weekend after next, so that’s exciting. We need to go get him some PJs and a gift to take with him.

And I think that’s everything!

Filed Under: General, Mishpucha Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Therapy

7 May 2009 By Leave a Comment

*Sitting at therapy – stewing :(
*Need to hit post
*Need to publish May news – late again
*had two kids here examine my tattoos and ears. Kids don’t bother me.
*moved moms day picnic to another park.
*did I mention I’m tired?
*need to bring fabric in from garage

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Dorian

26 March 2009 By Leave a Comment

I actually have a couple of (unrelated) posts to make, so please bear with me.

We had Dorian’s IEP on Monday morning. Usually this is fast. He really only has an IEP for speech so it’s not the long and drawn out process Malachai’s can be. It went well. Last year he had speech (IIRC) twice a week for 30 minutes, and this year he was dropped to twice a week for fifteen minutes, and Kendra (the speech gal at school) said she was willing to drop him to once a week if I was ok with it. I vetoed that because I am not ok with it, what good is 15 minutes once a week? So twice a week it is.

The teacher mentioned his fine motor skills and that he could maybe use some help. What? Where did this come from? It mainly came from his handwriting. Let me tell you, my handwriting is attrocious. I go from having easy to read block letters or messy scribble to well formed cursive and back to scribble in the same sentance. My hand hurts if I write for too long. It cramps up and I just don’t like doing it, which is funny because I have notebooks of writing fromt he stone age. I also have notebooks of typed up (on a typewriter!) things as well.

So… I spoke to Malachai’s OT and she suggested having him evaluated instead of giving me random advice.

No problem. I phoned the doc this morning, told the referral lady what I needed and why (and that my other sons OT suggested a full eval) and she said it should be ready by 5. I am going to pick it up in the morning. Sometimes my doc office is convenient. Other times it sucks.

So, I might be trekking out to therapy more than the twice a week I am already out there (Mal gets his ST & OT back to back twice a week). Fun fun fun!

I have some Mal type queries in my next post…

Filed Under: Education, Medical, Mishpucha Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Updatey Goodness!

3 February 2009 By Leave a Comment

I haven’t updated in a while… lots to say! Let’s start with the good news. I sent this email to family a few days ago:

Just spreading a little fantabulous news, Malachai had his therapy evals last week, and he is done with PT! This is amazing, because not six months ago he would fall over standing still. No joke. Now he can balance on one leg so long he can’t count that high (ok, maybe he can, but it’s a long time!)  He is still in speech and occupational therapies, but those are improving too. They will re-evaluate him in another six months. Maybe in the next six months he will learn how to sit in, and stay in, a chair ;)

Not only is therapy going well, but he only missed one word on his spelling test today (out of ten words) and he has been helping me read Coraline at night. His speech therapist suggested I talk to the school and see what kind of literature we can tie into his daily work to keep him interested. He reads like crazy for her, not so much for me. Apparently, I just hadn’t picked the right books. We’re reading The Tale of Despereaux next (Dorian’s choice). I think I will be moving a bunch of books down the shelf for Eshiva, and finding some more appropriate books for Mal & Dor.

Speaking of Dorian, he is doing basketball after school once a week and he loves it. I think we’ll continue to do it once it’s up. It runs in five week sessions and he started last week. I looked into the local rec center for something for both the boys to do, as our PT suggested Mal do some type of sport. I don’t know what, but we’ll find something. I think they are looking into karate (ok, I am pushing karate) but I am not going to push it if he’s really not into it. We were also thinking bowling, but the PT specificaly said sports that work the entire body. We need to increase (and maintain) his muscle tone, as it’s significantly “below age level.” Eshiva is going to be taking a dance class once a week in the mornings, and she is uber-excited about that. She wont stop talking about it, in fact.

Shivie is a little chatterbox, and thinks she’s a princess. She recently discovered dinosaurs (and I wish we lived closer to DC, because there are no decent dino exhibits around here that I can find) and barbie. She turns four on Feb 10th and woe be unto you if you try and tell her she’s three.

Everyone else is well. Dad and Michael and still employed (yay!) and I am still getting enough work to buy fun stuff by freelancing (also yay!). Michael and Sara are looking into the SAT and making plans and doing all that fun 17 year old stuff.

Ah… I think that wraps us up! I’m sure there is more, but it’s daily stuff. I was just so excited about Malachai! He is still having troubles, but there is a light.

and I posted this to PM’s yesterday:

Michael was given written notification today that the therapy place we go is closing on Friday.

Fucking economy.

They are going to try to farm everyone out to other locations, and we may be able to keep our OT if the other place she works can fit him in (and if they take our ins and if it’s in a reasonable drive). Our ST was an intern.

What really stinks is I really, really like our ST, and WTF giving us one weeks notice?

I know we can find someplace else (hell, maybe the place a few blocks down the street takes our ins and offers what we need) but this still stinks.

and I posted this today as a follow-up:

Yay!!! Our rockin speech gal called me up this morning and told me that she interviewed this morning at a place that is even closer and they are working their hardest to absorb all of the speech therapists AND their clients AND keep the same schedule!

She gave me the number of the new place, and I left a message around 10AM. She phoned me back around 5:30, apologized for it taking so long to get back to me, and told me what was going on. They do take our insurance, and are working to have the approvals transferred to them from our current place. She is hoping to start Monday!

We see Courtney tomorrow and Thursday and I am just thrilled it sounds like we won’t have a lapse, at least here.

I still need to find out where the place our OT works is located (she was split between the two places I guess), if they take our ins, and if we can fit in over there. I really like our OT as well – not like I like our ST, but she is awesome with Malachai. I’d hang out with our ST, not so much with our OT.

But wait, there’s more! We’re adopting a new puppy!

So, we’ve been thinking about getting a companion for Malachai for a while now. Therapy dogs are quite expensive, and the “free” ones take a lot of paperwork and legwork. No doubt they don’t deserve it, but it was more than we needed. It’s not like we were looking for a seeing eye dog or anything, you know? So, we found this little guy! We’re picking him up either Thursday or Sunday.

He’s been there for a year! I can’t imagine why someone didn’t want to take him home, but I am glad they didn’t! We drove down to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday and went back to meet him. He is so friendly, and energetic and playful. He jumped up on Eshiva, but did not knock her down. The gal who showed him to us said he gets along with all the other dogs/cats in the rescue, have never bitten anyone, and is healthy. Apparently he was purchased from a pet store, and then got sick. He had demodectic mange (yes, just like our Yorkie) but his fur is full and thick and I didn’t feel any scabs or anything on his body. They said nothing about meds or anything else, and he is neutered. This is good, because Sasha is so sick, putting her through surgery to spay her would be too taxing on her immune system (so says the vet).

He is a year and a half old, and is the perfect size. Yay!

From the rescue site:
More About Patches/Atos: Patches was purchased from a puppy store. He is a sweet fellow who is good with other animals including cats. He is waiting for a forever home with lots of playmates or toys. Walks in the park or just around the block. Nice yard to play in but not totally necessary. Patches loves his toys!

Oh, he’s a beagle/basset mix. Cuteness!

Anything else? Probably not. I am sticking with good news right now.

Filed Under: Medical, Mishpucha Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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