bad week

well, this was an "ice-cream w/ cherry on top" week. well, no; not really.

I picked up a bug from work last weekend, I have two prime suspects in mind, and am fairly sure what I had, neither requiring antibiotics, merely time flat on my back in bed since monday...time I really didn't have to be flat on my back in bed.  But there I was in bed feeling like a ton of bricks landed on me.  Meanwhile, we find out on Monday that Bub has grown/developed/advanced enough that he doesn't "Need" summer school.  Yayee for Bub, but boo for me and Joe.

We are freaking out.  what the eff are we going to do for 3 months?  no horse riding all summer.... no school... no little friends to expect to see...  no bus ride...  no packing lunches/breakfasts in the am w/ momma... no ritual of getting the backpack and jumpsuit... more...

so I'm in bed half dead and freaking out.  Joe is struggling to occupy a very intent on being contrary Zber, and a Bub who misses seeing momma doing the momma stuff around the house.  I stayed in my room so they wouldn't get sick from kissing on me.  It seems to have worked. so the house is a disaster.

Living room before I got sick

Kitchen before I got sick

Living room Saturday nite

Living room saturday nite

Kitchen saturday nite

I worked Saturday night, and wasn't tired this morning yet, so I tackled the dishes and made french toast.  Joe helped get the kids dressed for church and we went.  disaster.  we made it 1 hour into the service.

Bub was angry that Grandma didn't bring HER Ipad...his wasn't good enough. (Grandma didn't think we would make it since I worked last nite)  Z didn't want to sit still, and kept screaming "no" at every attempt to do something quiet.  Joe was not feeling well.  I had been up for 21 hrs at that point.  we left.  didn't have the power to keep at it.  neither the packet of starburst Grandma fed Bub nor the sensory soothers I was doing to Bub seemed to be helping, and Z was jealous both of us were focusing on keeping Bub from crying/screaming.  So we left church.  All I can say is, I really tried.

I stayed up until 4 today so Joe could start on mowing the lawn, it's been so rainy (thank God for the rain!!!) that he hasn't been able to get to it, and we have a wilderness on our lot that I am heartily ashamed of.  It was so bad that Joe decided to borrow his parent's tractor mower rather than even attempt it w/ our push mower.  well, a belt broke just as he finished the front lawn, so tomorrow while I sleep, he will be purchasing a new belt and attempting to fix it so he can finish the lawn...but in the meantime we are forcasted for more rain in the next day or two.  So the wilderness continues.

My hope of starting a container garden this week will have to wait until at least Thursday.    meanwhile, maybe I can get the house back up to snuff.  maybe. 

I passed out around 4pm today, and got up around 11pm.  Now I'm just trying to motivate myself to NOT go to the 24 hr Whataburger and stay home and start cooking some stuff so Joe can feed the kiddos some good food for the next two days I work and not feed the kids nuggets and hotdogs.  lol    But I really want a cheeseburger and onion rings.  I really suck.  lol

Nite, here's hoping for a better week.  :)  At least I got the kitchen cleaned up this morning. 


nubs

She sleeps all nite now

If I haven't mentioned it yet (I get this and my FB postings confused sometimes), Joe and I converted our overlarge walkin closet into Zbear's new room.  It is awesome.  She doesn't wake up around 3-4am anymore because either Joe or I snorked loudly in our sleep (to be honest...it's prolly ME that wakes her up...I am a wrecking ball when I sleep....Joe occasionally has to run away to the couch cuz I'm all over the place....)

Well, she just loves her new room, she likes to play in there by herself...Bub keeps trying to sneak into her room and steal the toys we have decided to make exclusively for Zbear.  Bub has toys he WILL NOT SHARE.  EVER.  TOUCH ONLY IF YOU WANT TO BE HIT.  yeah.  yayee autism OCD rituals based on toys.  Joe and I want to be equitable w/ our kids.  We will never be fair.  It will always be impossible to be fair when their needs and levels of expectations will always be SO incredibly different. (I will not kid myself about the differences in my kids...not gonna do it...)  So to be equitable, we have decided Z will have 2 or 3 toys that stay in her room, and that Bub can't play with unless she brings it out of her room for him to play with.


Now this resolve is kinda hard, because Bub and Z are starting to enjoy the same kinds of toys, but in different ways.  Bub still really enjoys toys appropriate for 18+ months, but then he also enjoys toys appropriate for his our age group (7 y/o), but he still has some toys from when he was 2 y/o that he will not let go...they are too important to him, the elaborations he sets up with them are too ingrained into his self-ness, I have replaced these toys several times w/ exact replicas as they got loved-on too hard (or covered in poo...sometimes cleaning is not a viable option.....)  So he's grabbing her age appropriate toys and doing his elaboration thing with them, Z is not getting what he is doing and does her deconstructionist act on his elaboration which then ends in multiple kids crying, small toddlers being picked up haphazardly and bounced on the couch, and a 7 y/o banging some portion of his body against the wall.   We like to avoid these activities when possible....  So we pretty much keep special toys in the appropriate rooms and have only generic non-attachment formed toys out in the living room and attempt to keep the siblings out of the other's room.  Not an easy task.  Sometimes Bub wants Z in his room, but then he changes him mind abruptly and she gets upset when he's pushing her out.

we stay busy while they are awake....can you tell?  But so far the new room for Z is working out splendidly.  We have a child-free bedroom once more and are pretty happy about it.

Happy December!  Nubs

displacement

I am guilty of displacement today.  I didn't want to think about the funeral, so I focused on getting Bub to Therapy on time (we didn't, but the 9:30 people no showed and Bub got moved in...prolly cuz we prepay 2 weeks in advance....) and getting Zbear to her 12 month appointment at 15 months....yeah...lets just say we've been having some scheduling issues lately....

Now I find that Zbear is 31.4 inches and only 21.5 lbs.  She's underweight for her age and her length.  I'm very depressed about this.  Her NP wants me to start adding nut butters to her diet.  I'm scared to try what with all my food allergies and sensitivities and Bub's milk allergy.  So I'm taking a deep breath and going to get some almond butter on monday....after I get some sleep.  Also, Joe and I are debating whether to put her BACK on formula or maybe try adding malted to her soymilk.  I'm thinking we're going to go back to formula...I feel terrible.  She eats really well.  I give her lots of variety. WHO would think MY kids would have concerns w/ being UNDERWEIGHT?!?!?  Bub is a stick, and it looks like Z will be too.  Why do they get my recessive genes?  *sigh*

Z has now completed her polio series.  Next series will be Hib I think...Still deciding.

Then after getting the zb'er home and in for a nap, got ready and went to the funeral.  It was very sad.  that's all I'm going to say about it.

So afterward, I displaced my upset-ness by making dinner, then going to a choir practice that I just realized I got the performance dates wrong and will only be able to be in the production by the biggest finagling I can acheive, and then went to the library.  Found a new book on Autism and newer/researched therapies.  I think I may review it ....SEE, I'm doing it again.

then instead of dealing w/ my sadness, I did the dishes, convinced Bub that he had to clean his butt-butt after pooping, (washed my hands....), and cleaned my refrigerator because I forgot/didn't get around to cooking a chicken, and it went REALLY bad, and since I'm going to be doing more displacement here in a min by cooking several meals to feed my little fambly during my next rotation, I didn't want to put yummy food into a fridge that smelt horrible.  You know the movie Labyrinth?  the "bog of eternal stench"?  yeah, that was my fridge.   409 is my friend.  :p  Plus I'm getting laundry done.

But really, I know what I'm doing, and I know what it is.  But knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it doesn't really help you deal with it in the end...it just seems to make the anxiety about it bigger.

I' haven't had that many people that really meant a lot to me die, the few that have were 100s of miles and years distanced, Not someone I spent time with every week.  But I'm not trying to come out as a caloused person that wasn't close to her dead relatives...it's just that I was really young when they died, or that I was never close to them to begin with...the one exception to that was my Tetka, but I hadn't seen her in years, and then when I tired to call to keep in touch with her,  her English vanished, and my ukrainian is pretty much non-existant,  then her hearing went, and when she died, it was like she was already a memory.  (does that sound awful?)
It's kind of scaring me how hard I'm taking this.  And I did realize he was important to me before all this happened, I know I griped about special requests, but I always did them because beneath the bluster and the drunk sailor impressions I knew it meant a lot to him.

I'm getting all morose again...better displace and make some enchiladas (w/o cheese) and meatballs and brisket.

Nubs.

bunk beds!

Here it is!  the bunk beds we BOLTED to the walls and then strapped down the mattresses to the frames to keep Bub from using it as climbing materials to the ceiling. 

Climbing!

So how do I get to the top?

Oh!  that's how!

hey!  the ceiling fan is gone!

Bub's new look-out!

Nubs!

Last Friday

Well, last Friday started as a normal day.  I got home from work, retrieved the babbling Zber so Joe could sleep a little longer before the get to school routine started.  Then Z was in such a good mood (after the diaper change) I decided to let HER wake up the bub.  I don't often do that since Bub is very protective of his room, but I thought it would be cute.  So Z tackles Bub in bed and he's giggling about it, and gets up to get to the fridge to make himself a choco-silk and I notice my poor boy is covered in HIVES!!!!

What the????   It's all over his arms, legs and back, and around his right eye!  It was all red and puffy and itchy looking.  So of course the Nurse takes over, gets his temp, makes sure he's not having any resp distress and that his throat isn't swelling up (not an easy task to get him to open his mouth so I can look when he'd rather play w/ my penlight which is lighting up his throat).  His vitals are fine, so I go retrieve the benedryl, which is the ONLY medication he will take without me having to hide it in soda. call Joe to watch Zber and toss him in a baking soda bath.  (I know oatmeal would have been good, but with his skin like that, I'm not chancing any gluten cross-contamination).  poor guy.  the hives stayed with him until Saturday night and we were dosing him w/ benedryl every 4 hours.  Needless to say, he did NOT go to school on Friday (crap, I just remembered I forgot to send a note to school w/ him today...)  I wish I would have taken pictures of it, I did think of it, but I decided not to put Bub thru that indignity, poor lamb.

So after Bub is semi-comfortable and Baby Einstein is playing, Joe and I go to his room to try to figure out what did that to him.  I know it wasn't a food infraction, b/c the behaviors weren't there, plus we know what we feed him, and for the timing of that reaction it had to have happen at home and not at school.  The only thing we could figure out was that maybe there were flea eggs in the carpet from the last tenants who DID have a dog (we found lots of dog hair when we did the initial pre-move-in scrub) and now that it's spring they hatched and jumped on Bub.  He has some scabbing, but it looks more like scratch scabs than bite scabs.  I know when Shada was a puppy and she got fleas, I reacted the same way to them before I got the apartment flea-bombed and Shada on Frontline.

So Joe calls our wonderful Landlord and gets permission to rip out the carpet and put in linoleum.  yayee!  we had to wait till today to get it tho, (finances...) and we got a great deal from Philips Flooring on Judson.  Here are some before and after shots.  :)

No carpet

 (We still don't know what that green stuff is....)

 Pretty  ookie, huh?

Here's the laminate we chose, its a full piece

 Begin the installation!

 Go Joe Go!

 Of course Zbear has to explore too!

 

Yayee!  Finite! 

We are thinking we are going to paint his room a yellowy-orange, but we need to get permission first.  Also, we are going to retrieve the bunk-bed from Grandma's house and bolt them to the wall so Bub will have a safe climbing environment and his bed off the floor.  we had to remove his bed-frame because he was taking the mattress off and using the bedframe as a ladder to the ceiling fan...not a fun thing to walk into and discover....  we also want to remove the ceiling fan and put in a flat ceiling light, and since Grandpa is a licensed electrician, we shouldn't have any problem with that, woo hoo!

Nubs!