three strikes and you're out

It's been a stressful time in my life. I am struggling with my anxiety disorder. I have an unbelievable amount of stress and work (and sometimes at home) and it is taking it's tool (?) on my body. I have been having chest pains and tightening which I went to the ER for last spring and they said "take you meds" which I usually don't because I don't want to be loopy when i am alone with my kids or others. but I have been taking them lately and still am stressed. They tell me my eczema is caused by stressed too and the meds for that aren't touching it lately. so my body is really being affected. I have taken some baby steps to lower my stress for my health's sake.... then there are days like these.

matt's English teacher who happens to teach next door to me brought over three papers with word for word copying. Of course matt's was one of those. we called him down. He had no idea about the one, but admitted to working with the one girl on the assignment. so we told him that was cheating. he said no. after the teacher left I told him how disappointed I was in him and instead of being sorry, he defended himself. infuriating. I'd like to elaborate more, but have to give the kid some privacy...

I'm finally free. my meeting after school is over and I go across the street to pick up the kids. as soon as I open the door Denise is yelling at me because the twins are acting up while crossing the street from Preschool. sigh. I say what do you want me to do? I'm at work. she said talk to them. it worked for awhile last time.

I now get a new perspective of calling parents of students and how frustrated they are. I get it. They are thinking I'm at work deal with it. That's how I feel... maybe that is why God is putting me through this.

Oh and had a shot at another job today. I didn't feel I was qualified, but I think I could talk the person into hiring me. thought about it for awhile but decided not to.

sorry not funny. just therapy.

No Mommy! Not a sub!

I went to drop the boys off at daycare this morning and warned the ladies to watch Noah because he had said he had a stomach ache this morning. The looked over at him and gasped. He was pale green..... I was like man, what am I going to do. The princess of the daycare came over to cheer him up and he put his hands on his ears (he does this to avoid anything- not just noise) and told her to go away. I knew it was bad.

So I sat down and called him over. "Honey, do you want mommy to get a sub today?"

"No!"

confused, I said "are you grumpy or sick"

miserably, "sick"

"Well, then Mommy will get a sub and you and I can...."

"no sub Mommy! I'm too sick!"

He thought I meant a hoagie......

Ironically, my mom bought me a hoagie for lunch and Noah had a piece.

Spirited child

It was always a joke when Sammers was even a tiny baby that he was the "spirited" child. He still is. anyone that has read any of my entries knows that. However, sometimes I feel Noah gets gipped.

Noah is my true "spirited" child. When he was a baby he would stare into a corner of the room and talk and sing [to angels]. He had such a .... presence.... that you could look so deep into his eyes- it was amazing. Mike and I talked about it a lot.

In the last few years, we have seen him develop into such a LOVING child. His heart is huge. He is a truly kind and caring person. The kind of person that is born that way,....

Today he and I were alone in a room. He said "we sure visited Pappy in the nursing home a lot"

I said we sure did.

"why"

well, we missed pappy and went to visit him. do you remember that?

"yeah, I liked visiting pappy"

yeah, I did too Noah. I wish I could hug him right now. and I started to cry a little. the kind of cry that is a lot of tears, not a lot of sound.

Noah said "It's ok to cry when you miss someone"

I said yes it is buddy and gave him a hug. After a few moments he pulled away and looked right inside me and said "when you miss Pappy and want to give him a hug, you can give me one instead."

unbelievable. I am so lucky to have my spirited children.

time to write the book

well, we all know how I procrastinate in writing this blog. It's amazing actually how often I think about things that should be on here and yet don't do it. I have had several people comment on how funny I am and that I should write a book. that just adds pressure. then when I want to document something I think "yeah, but I don't feel to witty right now"

Right now I don't feel too witty. Actually, I'm slightly depressed. My job is killing me. I wish they would just leave me teach. The responsibilities and stupid (sound like my students) paperwork increases every year. This year, so much has been piled on that I've started that strain of thinking: what else am I qualified to do? the answer is nothing basically. hence the depression. so I thought get the heck off facebook and update your blog. maybe you can write a book and QUIT YOUR JOB. I'd love to win Powerball and VOLUNTEER at teh school. do everything I love and thumb my nose at the rest. boo hoo I know. we all should have it so bad.

Mike showed me pics and videos of the twins that are on his computer last night. It was funny. their personalities were so there. He also had an old recording of Matt when he was 4 (the twins' age now) saying he loved me and hoped I had a good day at work. He sounded exactly like Noah. Whcih is weird since we think Sam and Matt have similar personalities.

I have the usual sam antics to update, but I want to spend a moment on Noah. He is a genuine kind person. He has such a good heart. He sticks up for sam who tortures him. He is smart too. way smart. He has been drawing me pictures several times a day. recently he began drawing Mickey Mouse and writing the words Mickey Mouse on the drawing. he sings the song to spell and spelled mouse with a c at the end. (go ahead- sing it in your head. it sounds like M-O-U-S-C) when I corrected him, he turned inside out. I fixed it on the paper and the world came to an end. How dare I change something on his paper? his episodes are getting less frequent, but once in awhile I wonder why we didn't have him evaluated closer...

matt is a sophomore now and playing on varsity. so much fun... I hear them. they're back frompicking matt up so I need to rush....

sam is torturing noah with the smoke detector. they got new bunk beds and sam threatened to push the button. I told him if he did, he would live on the bottom bunk instead of taking turns. a little while later matt comes down and says sam was going "ring ring ring Noah" sam got on the bottom....

gotta go more later

wow. april 19th and Preschool Screening

that's the date of my last entry. I can't be pressured to write on a consistent basis. There is just no more room in my life for any kind of pressure.

I will note that my Dad passed away on may 1st. whew. what a ride. Lewy Body Dementia took us all for a ride. I miss him a lot. so do my kids. the twins talk about him at least once a day. really. They are so smart that their questions are sometimes hard to answer. They're just processing it all. There's a cemetary. Are there dead people there? Do they have legs. Is their heart still beating? Are they in heaven with Pappy? just - you can't imagine. endless.

It's the middle of the night. The only time I am ever alone and it is ever quiet in my life. I like it. Cool.

The other day we took the twins in for prescreening for Preschool. We were all nervous. I had the previous experience of having taken Matthew to Kindergarten registration. He is 15 now and I am still scarred. I considered him intelligent. still do. I went in kind of cocky. Yeah, here's my kid. cute. smart. Here he is. Love him? I do. and I blink and they say he got his lower case b and d mixed up. I'm like "WHAAT?!" and they are like "calm down. that's normal. and fine".... Oh and he mixed up two body parts. What two body parts? Well, his elbow and shoulder. and we asked him twice. "WHAT?!!!!!"

He knew the difference before we made it home. test anxiety for the parents....

So I start filling out he paperwork a few hours before the appointment. Mike is doing summer school. By the time he walks in, I'm not showered and ready to cry.... PACKETS of forms. and tests that I need to give the twins..... repeat after me. 3, 5, 8....... what is your first name...... stand on one foot for five seconds..... ridiculous developmental things..... Sammy does GREAT. Noah did very well also.... with a few bumps along the road. "are you a boy or a girl" a girl. Knock it off Noah. this is serious. Now, are you a boy or a girl. a girl So I give birth to the beginning of test anxiety by saying Damn it Noah. I'll mark it wrong.... Like he gives a crap :)

So we get there and my kids are excelling. the pschologist doing the test is blown away. at first she tries to test both boys at the same time, but they are so quick at the tasks that she bails and sends one out for vision and hearing testing. But before this happens, I see the following things that I'd like to note for when the little buggers grow up and read this. Not that I will ever forget, but if I'm hit by a bus or something, they need to know....

Noah, can you name the color of this bear? red. this one? blue. This one? green. Very good, Noah. He looks at her like there is something wrong with her. The wheels are actually cranking in his brain. I can see the computer saying "working,.... working...." She increases the wheel velocity by saying "which bear would you like to use on the next activity?"

I swear. time stopped. He looked into her eyes and cocked his head and starred. She repeated the question. He cocked his head to the other side. staring. I knew what he was thinking. "ok, Lady, where are you going with this? What do you want? What is the right answer?"

She says "How about the green one?" He's like yeah, yeah that's it- green. She places two cups upside down and says watch me. Covers the bear with one and slowly mixes them up. Then she says which one? again- the look. Like - are you kidding me? He picks the wrong one. She picks up the cup and shows him he was wrong and does it again- slower...... He picks the wrong one again. She looks at me. I said, "Noah" admonishingly. He giggles. She shakes her head. She gets it. It TOO EASY for him. He spiced it up. He was playing with her. Thank God she got it.

Meanwhile she has told Sammy to draw a picture of himself for his teacher. Noah had already done his. Extremely detailed. buttons on the shirt. Name written neatly on the top- spectacular. She turns to Sammers.done, buddy? yep. She takes the pic and barely glances at it. However, I notice it is little more than a circle with a face and a line or two for body and legs etc.... She goes to put it in his folder and stops. Takes it back out for a second glance.....

"Sammy, are you sad?"

"Sad? NO!" He says smiling. "Why?"

"Well your picture has a frown."

"OHHH, that's not sad. that's mad."

"You're mad??"

He actually holds his hand up like stop. and he says "No, not mad" and the hand is there in mid air while he is thinking for the right word.....

"....evil"

"Evil?!!"

Yep he says grinning.

I wonder what kind of referrals we got. You gotta love my kids.

It's all down hill from here....

I was going to do a bunch of mini posts, but I don't have the time to be creative. Sorry to be lazy. I have to rem ind myself sometimes that the purpose of this site is FREE THERAPY to me first and as a method of sharing stories second.

I turned 40 last week. Hence the title of the blog. get it? I'm over the hill. ha ha. However, I embraced it and celebrated quietly. Last weekend was Easter, so we had a late cake for Mike and early one for me. Then this weekend we (Mike twins and I) met Scott and Ann at Renovo for steak. It was so good. Then we went to the playground and enjoyed a very warm beautiful day. peaceful. took long way home to look for elk with the usual results....

Pinocchio Head: Noah has been doing better with his swimming. Not a lot, but occasionally letting go of the teacher and trying. Last Saturday (day before Easter) I let Matt and mike take them and I spent that time with dad, When they were done, they came to the nursing home. I was running my fingers through Noah's bangs and I saw a nickel sized red mark. I said "Where did you get that, Buddy?" I hit my head on the wall at swimming.... Ok, I thought. I can't imagine you swimming hard enough to hit your head on the wall, but ok. whatever.

Later I was running my fingers through his bangs (thinking, hey, this must be a habit....) and was shocked to find it turn a nasty blue brown color and popping out... later it looked like pinocchio's nose on his forehead. Bless his heart. Two nose bleeds and a day and half later Mike says "maybe he ahd a concussion." never occured to us. bad mommy. bad mommy. Anyway, he is cool now and kinda tried yesterday at swimming. Mike said "to hell with this, I can't wait to get him in the river or a lake and throw him in...." yeah, mommy will see about that.

Fleeing the Nest: Matt has been gone all weekend. and has an ear infection and is on antibiotics. He went turkey hunting sat morning with Russell (Peach's friend) did get anything but had a blast. Then went to Ronnies. He's been doing that a lot. makes me a little nrevous, but we all know I'm over protective. However, in my defense, I know what I did as a kid.... So this has been the deal, He goes to R's and they play guitars and then go bowling...then come home and play games or guitar half the night and then (the part that makes me a genius) they have to go to church the next morning. It is awesome. and they don't complain. we recently changed churches and are going to R's church (which is the Lanse Lutheran and Uncle Ron and Aunt mary's) so they now go to the same church.... good boys.

Dad: poor pap hasn't been doing the best. He sleeps alot and recently was diagnosed with Pneumonia and high calcium level. .. Yesterday he was awake and I really enjoyed visiting with him. He talked a lot, but I could only understand about 10% of what he said. He hates the alarms going off. At the last meeting, they told mom that he's no longer a flight risk and may move him to another wing. Oh, I hope so. Oh, and they called and said he fell last night but hit his butt and was ok. My heart is constantly breaking for him. Oh, one funny thing. I was rambling on telling him all this stuff and he is just basically staring ahead and I said "Hey, do you know what today is? It the first day of fishing season!" and his eyebrows shot up and he looked so happy....

Bleu Cheese Please: I personally hate that the funniest of my stories are always about Sammers, it feels unfair to matt and Noah. But that's life and hopefully Jim Carrey will make me some money.... Last night he was begging croutons off everyone's salad and mine had bleu cheese on it. Well he loved it. Figures. Uncle Scott loves Bleu cheese too he says. same inital thing. Scott David, Samuel David..... so I had to go make him his own salad. two pieces of lettuce, 8 million croutons and blue cheese. We all gave him positive feedback... good boy eating a salad... etc.... all of a sudden he got this look. I wish I could describe it. Oh my. worse than the eat the lemon face... just pure.... terror lets say. we're all like sammy! what's wrong? and it's obvious he ate something ...bad. he's just trying to get it down. in his defense, he didn't spit it across the table. Scott looks at us and says, bleu cheese. Oh my gosh, he got a chunk. Because Sportsmans only serves the best, you know, Sysco.... Oh we all laughed. He finally gets it down and takes a drink and looks at me and says "What color was that that I just ate?!"

Update:Pappy and swimming

I'm pretty unimpressed with my lack of creative title for this entry, however, I am happy just to be putting memories on paper (?).

Dad is still in the nursing home. diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. There is constant stress and constant frustration involved with this. We (mom, Sara, and my family) are an everypresent presence there and there is always a lump in my chest as I walk in worried about what I will find. Poor mom has been the recepient of most the bad stuff lately and I'm very worried about her stress level. Today he was very quiet. He didn't talk hardly at all. He sat in his wheel chair with his head hung low, but I knew he was awake to a certain extent because of the way he would shift once in awhile. I rubbed his back for awhile, cried for a little while, and scratched his head. He loves that. I said "Do you like that?" and he nodded. Mike brought the twins in and he perked up alittle but not as much as last night. Last night he was more talkative.

Noah has been absolutely wonderful with Dad. He strokes he cheek and places his head on his lap like a little hug. He talks to Dad whether Dad talks back or not. The other day he told Pappy he was old and Dad thumbed his nose at him! Man that was awesome to see that little piece of his personality pop into the picture.

This morning, the twins had their first swimming lesson. Let me tell you, that was an experience. They've always been polar opposites, but it was really apparent at the Y. Sam, who has always loved the water, but can't swim, jumped in and almost drowned. I almost had a heart attack. I was standing on the edge screaming at the KID who was teaching them. I embarrassed myself. It was only 1/2 hour lesson but I lost years off my life from watching Sam. Meanwhile, Noah has a life grip on the instructor's neck. He finally peeled Noah off and placed him on the steps where Noah basically stayed the entire time. When it came time to leave, neither twin would get out of the pool. Then Mike took them in to get changed and they were running around the locker room naked and refusing to get dressed. We learning our lesson. Next week, one twin will go with me into the women's Locker Room. Mike and I both lost our cool today.

Matt was at Grams this whole time babysitting her new dog Honey. He took Jake and they got along really well. Hopefully Jake can teach her how to be a good dog.... Matt is at the bowling alley with Ronnie and will be staying at his house tonight. We are considering going to a new church tomorrow. I have apprehension. Hate change. but there are rumors our church is closing and sunday School has been basically non existent lately, so I think we need to do something. Out pastor also went to see Dad only once in like 2 months. He said Dad didn't know him or something so he didn't go back. We got one of the NH chaplains to start visiting him.

all for now. need to go wind down. thank goodness it's warm out. It's been a long icy and cold winter. I need spring..... Who am I kidding? I need SUMMER!

Hey Pastor !

It's hard to write this supposed amusing entry coming down from the fact that he just threw a light bulb acoss the playroom and it smashed all over everything.... However, with all the stress of dealing with Dad in the home, we haven't shared a lot of stories lately, so here goes....

Yesterday in church Sam asked me "how much longer". I was already stressed. Noah wasn't feeling well and was snoring loudly and putting my arm to sleep. well, actually beyond sleep- I was in pain.... I said, "Two more songs. Sam"

"Just two?"

"Well, two more out of the book. Two more out of here. not the little songs"

I must've confused him. There was a laul in the service, and Sam yells "Hey Pastor! How much longer?!"

It was worse then when Matt said "I hate Jesus" on Christmas Eve. Matt wasn't even 2 yet. Sam is 4 and a half. The congregation chuckled. I covered my face and kinda laughed although I think it was more shaking of pure humiliation. Tears sprung forth from my eyes like water guns. I took a breath. My arm really hurt. two more songs... two more songs....

When the last verse of the last hymn was sung and the music had subsided. We paused for a moment of silence. I always say a quick prayer then to get me through the week in one piece and out of the mental asylum. The Pastor was walking down the isle and stopped at our pew. In a loud stage whisper, he said, "Hey Sammy. We're done."

I said another prayer.

Lewy Body Dementia LBD

That is what my Dad has. He has gone downhill fast. He has been admitted in two different hospitals in the past month for over a week each. The meds prescribed for Alzheimer's actually caused him damage. We were pleased to find that he could talk and feed himself yesterday. If you are reading this and want more info, please join one of the Yahoo Groups or go to www.lbda.org.