4 and 5... The age of lost hearing!

Hi everyone! Boy, it has been awhile since I have gotten to write. So much has happened in the last 3 months! We got the chance to go on a cruise, got to Disney World and made it through pneumonia!! As with every winter, you are bound to get at least one bad cold, ey? Thank goodness there is a light at the end of the tunnel, spring has sprung, at least I think, and the boys are so excited because they are putting in a new park 3 doors down from us! Everyday, rain or shine, we visit the park to see what is new that day. Today was very exciting because the playset was being cemented down!
Zach is doing great, he is growing up way to quickly. We signed him up for kindergarten last week and he got to see his new school. I was very worried that since he made the cutoff by 4 hours that he would not be ready, but educationally, he is advanced. He is doing 2nd grade math and loves to read and write. Emotionally, night quite there! We will see what the summer brings. We have had Zach's Iep meeting and he will be mainstreamed with speech therapy. His speech is improving, but he stutters alot and he can still be hard to understand. I called this the age of "I've lost my hearing and can't find it" mainly because of him. My husband actually asked me to go get his hearing checked, because he will stare at you and still has no clue what you are saying. I told Jay it is called "selective hearing", maybe some of you have grandparents that have that??? I do! Yell "ice cream" and they come running, but tell them to clean up their toys and, well, selective hearing! Zach is great at pushing your buttons though! I think he takes after me. I am not good at knowing when to stop sometimes, and guess what... Zach is 10 times worse! I guess when your parents say "one day I hope you get a child just like you", it works. To bad he is so damn cute, it makes it hard to get mad!
Dan, dan, dan. Well, he would be our pneumonia boy! I do not know what happened this winter, but the OCD problem he has somehow spiralled out of control this January. Dan has become a health nut. He is obsessed with what he eats and has lost 9 pounds since January. He looks great, but it is getting to be a bit much. On the cruise he refused to eat, and it turned into crying fits when you tried to make him. He is so afraid of throwing up, that he has given up all his favorite foods, especially pickles! Those were his fav's and now he will eat only one, once in a while. He told Zach this morning that he should not eat marshmallows because they are not healthy for you. It's like living with Richard Simmons, without the exercising. I will admit though, he can run a lot faster now! How bad is that? We are also trying to decide what to do about school. Danny is being made fun of alot in class. He has been called stupid, slow and they are being mean to him. I took him to a party and no one would let him sit by them. Luckily, he does not fully understand what some of the things that they are saying mean, but as a parent, it breaks your heart. We have been thinking about private school where no one will know that he is "slower". Part of the problem is that he is taken out of class so much for therapy, and having an aide probably does not help him be more "normal". I am hoping that Zach does not have to face the same issues. Dan is a terrific kid though! Somehow, he has fallen in love with the opposite sex, and I mean everyone who is the opposite sex and under 12! He tells me all the time about girls (girgles he calls them, because he cannot pronounce girls) he thinks are so pretty, and he kissed a girl on the bus. Our friends have a daughter in 1st grade and he was so excited to get to go see her because he wants to kiss and kiss and kiss her. He is actually very romantic, he holds doors for them, and lets them go first and loves to hold their hands. What is up with that? I always say, whatever girl ends up with him will be very lucky! He is kinda like that guy from the commercial... "I think your toenails could use a second coat honey" (As the guy is painting her nails)! Now, on the other side, we have Zach... "Hey, get in the kitchen and make me some dinner!" He wins the award for laziest boy on the earth! Of his arm broke off, he would wait until someone was around to pick it up, hmmm... just like Jay and the remote...hmmm! Well, I tell Jay it could be worse, but I guess the birds and bees talk will have to come earlier than expected.
Last week, Zach got a dinosaur from Target. It was from the dollar bin, so you can guess how crappy it looked, but to him it was great. He asked Jay the name on the bottom of the dino, and instead of the name it read "made in China", so Zach thinks that is his name. He brings it everywhere and tells everyone that its name is: Made in China! How do you stop that, it is quite funny! I guess one day he will realize that most of his toys have the same name and then he might believe us, but until then, he loves his "made in China!"
Well, it's late, so I better log off, but I hope everyone is ok and for those moms out there worrying about how their child will fit in school, you are not the only one! There are thousands of us going through the same thing, so buck up buckaroo and here's to a better future! Jen

HOLLY, JOLLY!!! DO MY BIDDING!!!

WOW! Thanks MC for reminding me to get my butt to work and write something! Actually, everyday I sit down and have such a funny story to write, but like every other mom out there... time runs out and I find myself sound asleep on my son's bed with Scooby Doo sounding in the background. I guess the good news since Christmas is that santa finally got the boys to sleep in their own bed, or shoud I say the threat that santa won't visit got them out of our bed. It actually went alot smoother than I expected! I guess the ironic part is that whe we moved we thought the boys would love their own rooms, now they both sleep in Zach's room because he has a captains bed with a trundle. Kinda like a big drawer... just like Sinefeld, where Kramer puts up the Asian men and they all sleep in his drawers! It reminds me of that. What an odd way to sleep? Anyways- I digress. I am not gonna complain, Jay and I finally have some time to talk at night and I can get changed without my kids laughing at my body! That can really wreck your self esteem after awhile when your kids think your c-section looks like a second butt! Well, onto the kids! Christmas was great, the boys got most of what they wanted. Zachy is easy to please, a couple dinosaurs a he is happy, Danny was a little more difficult. He asked for a laptop... a green laptop... with orange keys... do they even make something like that? Well, after cheking out all the kid-type laptops, I could not bring myself to getting one. The screen is 2" x 5" and no green and orange. He luckily forgot about it by January 1st.
School is going well for both boys, Danny got off the bus a couple weeks ago and he was singing "Holly Jolly Christmas" ( from Rudolf) and he was so happy that I asked him what had happened? He said that all the kids on the bus loved his singing because they told him that he should get a singing teacher and some liked it so much that the covered their ears! Oooohhhh Danny! How could I break his little heart and tell him that they were making fun of him? I did'nt. Jay and I did sit down and tell him not to sing on the us anymore. He hs such a big heart and thinks everyone is a good person. I hope that takes him far and dosent hurt him in the end. School seems to be getting better for him though. His writing seems to be improving, you can still tell he has a tremor, but it is more ledgeable and as for speech, the school sent me home a consent form for further evaluation because he is not making much progress with articulation and the therapist has run out of ideas (from what I understand). They want to check for sensory problems with eating. I could save them alot of money and tell them that he eats anything and does not seem to have a problem, but I will let them figure that out! Jay and I feel that his speech has come so far though, so I think our worrying is slowly lessoning. Danny is obsessed with death lately! I guess when I say lately I mean for the last 9 months. We took him to a wake once and as I walked him past the casket he yelled out: "There's a dead woman in there! Does anyone know that she's dead???" That went on until we ran him out of the room and the questions have not stopped since. For some reason he focuses on his grandpa Johnson. He is dead (obviously), and once a week he write's him a letter and he even asked santa to send grandpa down from heaven for Christmas. Poor grandma has to answer 50 questions about him everytime she sees Dan. My favorite question though is: "Did they nail grandpa to wood just like Jesus?". How the hell did you come up with that thought??? Danny has told me that he is never gonna die, so grandpa better find a way to get down here! i told my in-laws that whoever ends "up there" first has to tell grandpa that I have a bone to pick with him! It really makes you wonder how a child with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder thinks? How does his brain remain on one subject, and is there any cure for it? The fact that he needs to wash his hands all the time or play with water I can live with, but the whole morbid death thing... please let this be a short lived obsession!
Zachary is doing great! He is such a smart little kid. Well, at least I think so, but I am a bit biased! He is already adding and subtracting, and he understands Dan's homework better than Dan. I have to ban him from being in the same room as Dan when we do his homework or else he blurts out all the answers. I have now learned to just make a copy of all Dan's homework for Zach. He is a cunning one though. He always finds a way to become lazier and lazier everyday. For example... The other day, he dropped a train on the floor and asked me to pick it up. I said "no" so he dropped another one and pretended like it hit his foot and hurt him. Who came to his rescue? Dan! an ran over and rubbed his foot and said "oh, my poor little brother... is there anything I can do to make you feel better?", to which Zach smiled and said... (you guessed it!), "can you pick up my trais for me?". I just about dropped over from laughter. I guess he is more manipulative than I thought. He does have a smile that eats your heart out though! Everyday he finds some new way to get Danny to do his bidding. Lately he tells Danny what to say to me, usually it is telling me that I am a "goofball" or "cheesyhead" and Danny does whatever he asks. Would you stop if someone did everything for you? As for school, he is doing good. His speak does not seem to be progressing to us. He has begun to repeat or stutter alot, I think it is because he tries to speak so fast that his mouth can not catch up to his brain, or his brain is just not sending the signals down to his face, but that is what verbal apraxia is all about, so no surprise there. I hope he will open up a little more socially before kindergarten, he is very quiet when around a group. But, look how far we've come already... how could we possibly complain. Life is good!
So, sing a little "Holly Jolly" and here is to a great 2008! It can only get better... right!!

Walmart- making dreams come true!?

I guess it has been a while since I have had a moment to write on my blog! Hard to believe it is December and Christmas is only 20 days away! I have not finished my shopping, which is unlike me. The boys are asleep (finally), they have been waiting all day to go play in the snow... finally after school we got a chance and Zach stepped out the door and fell face first into the snow! They both looked like the kid from "A Christmas Story", so cleaning him uo was a task, but the funny part was that Dan's snow pants no longer fit him but I had to still put him in them, so he could not bend his knees or bend over! What a sight... he would try to pick up some snow and fall over. I guess it should'nt be so funny, but I laughed my butt off! Tonight, after they beat each other up for a while (hey- they are 2 boys 12 months apart, it's gonna happen) we were sitting on my bed when Dan looked over at me and said "Mom, did you know that Walmart can make all your dreams come true?". Wwwhhhaaattt? I guess they are watching too much t.v., because he then told me that he heard it on t.v., and I could get all my dreams to come true! So, if anyone out there is in advertising, my son's are listening to you! And as for you, Walmart, I wish to be 2 sizes smaller and win the lottery, I'm waiting... Damn...

ODE TO OUR BORDER PATROL!!!!

Well, it is Monday already, boy how vacation time flies... we are down in Naples, Florida right now, and just got off our cruise ship this morning. The boys are doing great and have been having the time of their lives. They did so well with grandma and grandpa for 3 days while we were gone and everyone down here is amazed and excited about the progress they have made in speech and how physically better they have gotten since last year! When you are with your child all the time you can see a little progress, but you do not realize how much progress they have made. Zachary is swimming all by himself now, and Dan started swimming by himself for little periods at a time. They have been to Sanibel beach, found shells, ran from big man-o-war jellyfish and most importantly... went on their first real deep sea fishing trip. Sadly, we only caught 1 fish, but no one threw up or cried! Yeah for that! As for Jay and my trip to Atlantis... it was amazing and we really had some time to catch up with each other and forget about all the bills, therapy and work. By the way, always put your swim fins on IN the water. We tried to snorkel, and I think I got laughed at by every tourist passing by as I tried to walk down the beach in my snorkel gear! The fishtanks are amazing and the pools...wow! One day we will take the boys there, but no time soon.
Anyways, you are probably wondering about the name of this post. Well, if everyone is sitting at home feeling secure right now, this might make you think, laugh, be frightened, etc, etc. It has occured to me that Jay and I somehow ended up on the 3 minute debarkation cruise! Border patrol is a strange thing. We walked off the ship with our luggage (we only had 2 pieces- yes I actually packed smart, now if I had just packed some long sleeve shirts??), gave in our room keys, showed our passports to customs and walked out of customs and into the streets of America. You may be wondering what is wrong with that? You are so lucky? Well Mr. Border Patrolman, this Bud's for you. Never once during embarkation or debarkation was our luggage ever checked or scanned... never once were we asked a question... never once did I see someone pulled to the side, or a bag looked into. What is wrong with this? EVERYTHING!!! You and I both know that we are not terrorists, but what about the person behind me? What if someone brought something illegal on to the boat? Well, for that blunder, we , as Americans, win the "are we dumbasses?" award. So, thanks for getting me off so fast, so I could sit for 2 hours in a parking lot waiting for my ride, and thanks for not checking my bags, because, hell now I know where my tax money is going, but most of all... thanks for letting in every idiot out there that brought illegal items and fruit with new diseases (keeps our government agents busy) or that little bit off pot they could not live without and lastly, the people who felt that marine life should not stay in the Bahamas! I guess there was one thing about Carnival cruise lines I liked: they enjoy saying "now get the hell off and give me my tip!"
Ok, otherwise, we had agreat time and I highly recomend Atlantis as a place everyone should at least visit once! Happy holidays!

JUST LIKE DAD

I am always amazed with my boys. I know that is a weird way to start, but I really am! It is 9pm at night and we are all laying in mom and dad's room watching scooby doo. Danny has a fascination with Daphny (I think that's how she spells it), he want's her to be captured all the time and he say's she is really pretty. Of course as a mom I say, "but Velma is so much smarter...", that is not working. He still likes Daphny. Zach could really care less about girls, he is more into himself right now! So, we are laying here and Danny starts to ask why boys like girls so much? I think I am saying all the right things: smart, pretty, take care of you and then he replies: is it because they like girls boobies? Uggghhhh. Not my son, not at the age of 5, is he a pig already? Did I raise him wrong? I always think about how well I was brought up and that if I said that to my mom, I would get in trouble. I am having trouble trying not to laugh, but trying to say the right thing, so what do I do? Pass it to Dad! I think this is a DAD area, don't you?
Dad's and son's are a funny thing. Yes, there is some truth to the mother/son bond, but tonight as the boys pretended they were taking their insulin shots, just like dad does, it really hit me how much the kids learn from us. Right now, the big thing is "we are men now, mom"! The two of them think they are just like their dad. Dan want's to go to work like dad, that will make him a man and as for Zach, he told me that he does not want to be a man because he dose'nt want to work. Oh well, there is always one! I have always told them that they never have to leave me, I think Zach is taking that literally. We will see in 20 years! We all wonder what our children will be, and when you have a special needs child you wonder if they will be able to be what they want? I know alot of my friends have that on their mind (the future), but for tonight, they are still our "little men". Good night everyone.

WHEN DID MY CHILD GET SMARTER THAN ME???

Ok, how do I explain what just happened? I guess some background first. My son Zachary woke up sick on friday morning at 2am, he has a barky cough (croup?) and a non-stop runny nose. I sat up with him the rest of the night, but I did send him to school (read past logs and you will know why). He again was up last night sitting on the couch with me watching endless spongebob, which is ok because if you know me well, you know I am a spongebob fanatic... really! Ask me anything, I can answer it. Anyways, I digress. So, of course this morning he is still wide awake and I am crabby from 5 years of no sleep. We decide while dad is out that we will make cookies and then play santa. Playing santa means that I write a long list of toys I want, and they get out all the toys we just cleaned up and put them by the fire place while I pretend to be asleep and then vice-versa. Anyways, the boys decided to start fighting, after untangling kicking legs and punching arms, I tell them to both go sit down on seperate couches. Danny is really good at taking his punishment, except for the fact that he gets the "boo-boo" face and makes you feel like you are taking away his puppy, Zach is another story. He has never once taken a punishment well, there s no punishment that I have found that works on him. So, I hold him down on my lap and somehow he slips though and in the scuddle his arm comes out of his shirt, so I grab the shirt arm and pull on him, which of course makes the shirt pull against his neck. Do you know what he said to me? "if you hurt my neck and I end up in the hospital, I'm gonna tell them you did it." WHAT???? Did he just say what I think he said? I let go of his shirt, he put it back on and I had to walk away. I did not know whether to laugh or be afraid, very, afraid.
When did my 4 year old get so smart? How does that little mind come up with such a statement? Oh, well... if I end up in jail, don't bail me out for a couple days... vacation!
Go Bears.

A 5 YEAR OLD SCHOOL DROPOUT?????

Well, well, well. It is that time of year again, school report cards! If you are a parent of a PDD child, this can be either a fantastic or frustrating time, as I have learned. Dan got his report card last friday. I guess the more I look it over, the better I feel, but it was not what I expected and I even showed it to his old preschool teacher and she was a bit dssapointed too. The grade by numbers, 1 is "can do consistently " all the way to 3 which is "needs a lot of help". I thought we were on top of things and I was expecting 1 and 2's. To my dismay, there were alot of 3's thrown in there. In places I did not expect, letters, self esteem, gym,reading...etc...etc... Yes, I realize that it is better to get them first quarter then fourth, but you almost feel like a failure as a mom, as if you are letting your child down. Do I not read enough to him, am I not working enough with letters? It has taken me since friday to realize that everyone learns at their own pace, and if he does not get straight a's and b's, such is life. My friend put it best: "if my kids writting sucks and they can not do algebra, it is not the end of the world. They will learn to read and write, and not everyone goes to college... it takes all kinds to make this world work!". That helped me alot. So, the moral is moms: Do not put yourself down, you are doing everything you can and we are all making our kids the best they can be. A "c" is average, and there is nothing wrong with averaage!
Now, on to the funny part of his report card! Dan recieved a letter letting us know that he has been absent 7 times, and if he continues on this road of absences, he will end up a school drop out!!! HUH? Is he 5 or 12? I fully understand that some mom's take their kids out for stupid reasons, but he had MRI's and has been having a lot of asthma problems! He does not CUT class. So, the principal and I had a "fun" talk. She understands my side, and tells me she knows I am a responsible parent. Well, I guess not enough? So mom, the moral: Send your child to school sick and then let them send them home, because that does not count as an absence!

This morning, I had the boys in the tub together, as as any mom knows, put 2 kids together in a tight spot and hell will break loose, so after 10 minutes it was so quiet that I walked in wondering what I was going to find? Guess what? Dan was completely bent over the side of the tub, and Zachary was sticking letters on his butt trying to spell his name! Oh, goodness... I put that to an end really quickly! Dan's but looked like an alphabet blackboard, just cleaner! Ok, that was my funny story for the day, sorry I have not written lately. Oh, a note for a special person, and you know who you are... You are strong, you are too good and you will find better! Love ya!