Recovering Noah

Is it possible for one's children to drive you to the brink of insanity? I mean, I'm beyond the point of locking myself in the bathroom with a pint of Ben and Jerry's "Imagine Whirled Peace". I am fully contemplating stashing a spoon in my purse,driving to Walmart, marching to the frozen food aisle, flinging open the doors containing the Blue Bell, and copping a squat right in the middle of the formica floor. And it's only 10:30 in the morning.

PLEASE HELP ABBY'S FAMILY!! Does everyone follow the Riggs family blog ? If you are not familiar with this amazing family.... check out their blog. They are a diverse family and full of love. They have 4 biological children, 2 children from Guatemala, and a beautiful daughter from Ethiopia. One of their Guatemalan children, Abby, was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. Bless her little heart. She is precious! Abby has some pretty intensive chemo treatments 1-4 times per week for the next 5 MONTHS.... This means lots of time at the hospital, lots of time needing to be spent helping Abby.... a lot less time for making meals and cleaning houses, etc...You can read more about what is going on at the Rigg's blog . So many of us who do not live in the area have wanted to help but haven't known what we could do. WELL HERE WE GO! We are trying to put together meal plans to serve this family during this difficult time to relieve some of the stress. We want these precious parents to be...

Not a whole lot to report here. We started back to school on Monday. Our first day went a WHOLE lot better than last year's - except that Noah still thinks that glue is meant to be eaten. Hey, at least he's not sniffing it. Gotta keep positive here. Anyway, this homeschooling thing.. sometimes I think I've got it under control and sometimes it just kicks me in the butt. But, so far, so good. Of course, we're only on day 3 and we didn't actually do any schooling today because we went to OT and then decorated the house for Sim's birthday. Of course, by decorating, I mean crepe paper and banners from The Dollar Tree. Because, obviously, we're a classy bunch. The kids are going to make birthday cards out of dried beans for Sim. We're doing a shape theme this week and they're going to make square patterns out of the beans. And then we'll have a whole lot of fun practicing our math skills as we pick up all the excess from the floor. Ba da bing, Ba d...

I think I might be raising a future Al Gore here. The environmental activist part - not the whole aspiration to be President of the United States part. Poor Eli. I'm pretty sure this blog has ruined his chance of establishing a future political career. You know, what with the crazy mother and all. Plus, it's come to my attention that one of the requirements of being a politician is that you have to wear a comb over. And, knock on wood, no son of mine will ever be sporting a side part. Unkept nails and dirty ears, yes. But a side part? No. I think Eli is blossoming into a tree hugger. I couldn't be more proud. Except, of course, when he woke me up at 12:30 last night to inform me that he no longer needs a night light because night lights waste electricity. I'm not kidding. He woke me up after midnight to tell me this. Darn that Elmo and his Sesame Street Loves the Earth video. You, too, Jack Johnson and your groovy little beach voice and songs about Recycling. And then E...

Okay, I must be ancient. I am sooooooo far behind the times. I have decided to claw my way into the modern age by signing up on Facebook. I don't actually remember how I found out about it, but my oldest friend, Kirsten had her first baby last week and posted all the pictures on the site - which meant that I had to get with the times if I wanted to see the pictures of her precious little boy. If any of you got a flurry of Facebook activity from me today - that would be why. I just don't get it. It's like speaking a whole new language. I.Really.Truly.Do.Not.Understand.It. Seriously, this is not my thing. I mean, I sent my first text message just last week - and that was in response to KK sending a picture of her newborn on my phone. Do you have any idea how long it took to send that text? 35 minutes. It took FOREVER for me just to write "OMG!!!" because I didn't know where the exclamation points were kept on my phone. Please remember that I got through my ent...

Okay, so I haven't actually spent the entire last two weeks just sitting on my butt watching the Olympics. I've actually watched them while standing up, folding laundry, cooking supper... Hardy har har. No, seriously, while I admit to practically OD'ing on all that is Beijing, leotards, and anything involving goggles, these last two weeks haven't been a total wash. For example: I spent half our weekly grocery money at the Scholastic Book Fair at our local library - where admist all the Dora books, Fancy Nancy Books, Disney Princess Books, and everything that is sparkly and pink... my little three old decided that out of all of them, she just had to have this... That is the one book that she just couldn't part with. Clearly she is surrounded by too much testosterone. She also wants a shark theme for her birthday. Last year, while we were waiting for Nandi's adoption paperwork to go through, I had all these visions running through my head of having tea parties a...

Dear Michael, I can call you Michael, right? I just wanted to say what a thrill it has been to watch you achieve your goal of winning 8 gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I was there every step of the way. Well, except for the 400m freestyle relay, because my husband turned the channel for five minutes (literally five minutes) to watch some ridiculous news show and we missed it. However, I was able to watch it numerous times on Youtube before NBC yanked it off. Well done, Michael! Well, done. I am very proud of you. It has also come to my attention that you are going to receive quite a bit of endorsements - including a $1 million dollar bonus check from Speedo. That's wonderful news, Michael. You deserve it! However... I think it's time to let you know how much anguish you have caused me since the beginning of the Olympic games. You see, as one of your biggest fans, I made it a point to stay up late every night in order to watch you swim. This resulted in many things... ...

I know I haven't been blogging much lately - but I'm still here. I'm gearing up for the start of school and furiously trying to get Noah's lesson plans done. It's a serious time-killer because I have to rewrite everything from his various curriculum. Remember he doesn't talk. And he answers questions by pointing to choices. And we're teaching him to spell so that he can point to a letterboard and spell out answers. And with CP, his body doesn't always cooperate with his brain. Needless to say, it's exhausting. And having to plan lessons is exhausting, too. I'll give you an example. We're doing Apologia Astronomy this year. That's just a fancy way of saying that he'll be studying the solar system and learning all about the planets and stars. But is there anything better than seeing the look on people's faces when you tell them your 6 year old "severely autistic" child is taking astronomy this year? I think not. So, anyway...