Anxious Mom

It’s The Illness That Wouldn’t End…

It goes on and on my friends,
Someone started coughing,
Not knowing what it was,
And I’ll keep on coughing for ever just because…

That’s my bastardization of the Lambchop song. I never watched the show, but my cousin used to sing it to annoy me, so I know it.

My cough does not want to go away. It’s not bad enough to go to the doctor, but it’s enough to make me feel yucky and drained. Thank the lord for some Mucinex, which gives me a little relief even though it makes me feel weird for whatever reason. Cold and allergy medicines do me that way.

I’ve been busy because that’s how we roll. (And I’m not contagious, crud just takes its time moving on from me.) I’ve been helping out at the girl’s school, doing project stuff, chauffeuring (a word I will apparently never learn how to spell, because I always get the red squiggle under the word and have to go back to fix it), etc. The usual.

New Year, New Little Man. It has been pretty obvious that he is starting to go through puberty. Tiny little mustache, slightly deeper voice. Plus he’s much moodier than normal and has been rather aggressive. We’ve had The Talk a few times (because no matter how thorough we think we are, more questions come up, so don’t think it’s One and Done, parents of younger kids) and my husband recently asked if he was interested in girls yet, but the boy said he wasn’t and that it was gross. A recent check on his phone revealed otherwise. I was not ready to see “Hot girls” and “girl boobz” in his search history. Where’d my baby go? All these other baby-faced sixth graders, and then there’s LM.

So, yeah, he’s interested. And he feels bad about it because it means he’s growing up, which he doesn’t want to do. Adolescence, such a tough time. I wouldn’t go back there for anything. He said he likes a girl, but won’t tell us who it is because he’s embarrassed. If I were a betting person, I’d bet that it’s the girl who he texts a lot and invited to his birthday party who has literally the exact same interests as him, but I’m not saying anything.

The New Year has brought us a slightly more bizarre version of Baby Girl. More bizarre to me, anyway. She gets obsessed with certain things, and now one of the things is lions and other wild animals from the African savanna. She can tell you a million little factoids, which is neat, but the bizarre part is how she walks around pretending to be an animal. Not surprising, but bizarre nonetheless when a child walks on all fours, growls, pounces on you, and bites you. This is what happens when you have a pet lion cub who is learning how to hunt and you’re an antelope, even if you didn’t realize you were an antelope. ~~I think we’ve moved on from the body organ obsession now.~~ (Never mind, it’s back.)

She also really loves hyenas, namely spotted hyenas. The zoo we went to didn’t have any hyenas, so we’re looking into nearby zoos that have them. Her school is having a masquerade ball, and she wanted me to make a hyena mask, so I did. I imagine it’ll stand out a bit from the other masks!

We met with the girl’s teacher and teacher assistant this week to discuss her progress. Everything is going well for the most part. Her teacher said she’s coming out of her shell and getting more comfortable with her classmates. She said BG seems interested in talking to more kids aside from the couple she bonded with early on, which they’re excited about. Unfortunately, she is talking a lot when she shouldn’t be, so she’s had to put her head down a few times. Her teacher said she doesn’t want to get on her much because she’s happy she’s comfortable and talking so much and doesn’t want her clamming up.

BG is also showing she’s getting more comfortable by being difficult at times. My words, not theirs. When they ask her to pick up her toys at centers or complete her work, she’ll tell them no and that she’s done. Yikes. They aren’t sure yet of her reading level because she shuts down and refuses to do more or answer questions to show she understands what she’s reading. Same with writing, which has improved greatly, but when she’s done, she’s done. Again, they don’t want to push her too much. They can tell she’s close to boiling over. She has liked her teachers from day one, but her letting her guard down is how we know she’s absolutely comfortable with who she’s around. Double-edged sword.

They had a lot of positive stuff to say overall and seem to really enjoy having her there. I’d hate to see how she would’ve done with LM’s kindergarten teacher at his old school. She complained constantly about him talking or squirming in his seat. I can only imagine how many meltdowns BG would’ve had at this point. BG’s class is very laid back and they get a lot of opportunity for moving around, as kids that age should.

After the meeting, I talked to BG about these things. No talking when the teacher is talking or when you’re otherwise not supposed to and when the teacher tells you to do something, listen and try your best. Her response:

“Well, when I grow up, I’ve decided I’m going to be a kindergarten teacher. And in my class, we’ll play all the time, talk when we want, plus I’ll hire someone to come in and clean up messes so the students won’t have to.”

That child.

Here’s some fun news — my husband and I are on for a cruise again. We’re going for a 3-day cruise on Valentine’s Day weekend. That Monday will be a holiday, so the other grandparents will have the day off to help as needed, plus the kids won’t need to be taken to school. If we plan any future trips together, we’ll have to make sure we do the holiday weekend thing, since that makes things easier.

We thought about doing something different. Trip to NYC or Las Vegas. My husband was taken aback by my itinerary, which scheduled practically every waking minute and noped out. Taking a bus from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon and hiking and seeing it for the first time would’ve been awesome, but I’m definitely looking forward to the R&R. Hopefully my crud will be cleared up by then.

What’s new with y’all?

Repost: That Time I Broke My Ass

From a few years ago…

I am a very clumsy person. I’ve broken several bones, had more sprains than I can count, and often have bumps and bruises that I have no idea how I got.

Me + doing anything more than walking = disaster.

Okay, maybe it’s not that bad, but close.

When I was in the eighth grade, I had the opportunity to go on a skiing trip with the rest of the grade. What fun! I had never been skiing before, plus a guy that I liked a lot in my class was going on the trip, so I knew it would be an awesome time.

After we got there, I went through the thing they had set up for beginners and by lunch time, I was ready to go down the intermediate trail. So I went down it a couple of times and built up my confidence.

My confidence built up quickly. Too quickly.

The third time I went down, I decided to go down fast. So down the hill I went in a straight line. About halfway down, I realized that I was going too fast. I knew that if I didn’t start slowing my ass down, I would going to crash into something or someone at the bottom.

So I turned my skis inward to try to slow down. Except I turned my skis in too much so that they crossed to form an X, and I lost my balance. Not good. I did sort of a front flip, landed hard on my butt, and rolled down the hill.

It felt like this:

But probably looked more like this:

The bad: it hurt like hell and I couldn’t move for a few minutes, plus the guy all the other girls swooned after saw it.

The good: said guy was very concerned and practically carried me back to the lodge. And some petty girls were jealous, not that they bothered checking on me. I was told that a couple of girls tried to fake accidents later, but their wipeouts weren’t as successful as mine as far as getting the guy’s attention went.

The next day, my butt region was so sore that my grandma wouldn’t let me go to school and took me to the doctor.

“You have fractured your tailbone,” I was told after the doc checked out my x-ray. I was told to take it easy, no softball (and tryouts were the very next week), and that I should sit on a little cushion to stay comfy while it healed up.

So after the weekend, I went to school with my cushion. I didn’t think anything about it until a friend snatched it up and exclaimed, “You got hemorrhoids?!” during homeroom. Heads turned.

I explained to her that no, I did not have hemorrhoids and that I had fractured my tailbone.

“YOU BROKE YOUR ASS?!!!!” All of the heads turned. The teacher threatened to send my friend down to visit her dad (who was also a teacher) if she used that language again.

You would be amazed at just how much interest that pillow got from the other students. Quite a few of them wanted to sit on it to try it out, and one kid offered me a buck if I would let him sit on it for the whole day. And to think, they thought I was the weird one.

After the ass breaking, there was the foot breaking after hopping a fence at Carowinds and landing wrong. Eighth grade was not the best year for me and my bones!

So, what embarrassing accidents have y’all had?

Anyone Find My Lung?

So, I ended up with bronchitis, and it has been kicking my ass. I’m talking coughing-spasms-till-you-pee-yourself. TMI? Probably, but thank god for pads. I think the worst is over now, but knowing my history with bronchitis and my lovely asthmatic lungs, I probably won’t be at 100 percent for a while. (But is anyone really at 100 percent from January to March/April when the flu and colds and stomach bugs are going around? I’ll have plenty of company, I’m sure.)

Wanna hear what my sympathetic child said to me not once, but twice while I was at my sickest?

“Could you stop breathing, please? I don’t like the sound you make when you breathe now.”

Image result for you want me to die gif

Tonight the girl suggested putting on her noise-canceling headphones while I listened to her so she wouldn’t have to hear my funny breathing. I told her to just take the book to her dad.

We were supposed to be on a cruise ship a week from Thursday, but that isn’t happening. I can’t remember if I already posted about this or not, but we had to cancel due to some health issues with my FIL. I’m really down about that because a break would be so damn nice and welcomed, but it is what it is. Silver lining, I won’t have to worry about hacking up a lung on a cruise ship (because I doubt I’ll be back to normal by then), nor will I have to worry about BG, who is becoming the Anxious Kid to my Anxious Mom.

And before I sound like some asshole worrying about a vacation when someone else is having health issues, let me say that he’s doing well right now. And he and MIL insisted it would be fine for us to go. It’s just that if a health issue comes up, it’s not like we can get back easily to get the kids. If we were in the U.S. and could easily catch a flight, it would be a little different. And we may do something like that next month, since MIL is insisting we need to get away, though I’m not sure how much of that is about us vs. about her getting some extra time with the grands lol.

You’d probably think with all the sick time I’ve had that I would be blogging or catching up on reading, but nah. I have been reading some books, though. I read a John Grisham book to start off the year. And then I binge-watched Unbelievable and the two seasons of You on Netflix over the past sick week. Unbelievable was incredible, and I see why everyone is obsessing over You. I wasn’t expecting to like it, but it hit me right in my guilty pleasure feels. I spent the two days after that reading the two books the show is based on. It is so not the kind of thing I would typically watch or read, but it hooked me.

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I need something else to read now, preferably something that isn’t making me cheer on a nutso serial killer.

What up, people?

Brain Dump: Week of 1/6

It looks like the lice have been eradicated from our household. (KNOCK ON WOOD.) The girl is the only who got them, and hopefully the rest of us won’t either since I treated all of our heads to be on the safe side. BG got treated twice and will again tonight. The men-folk are none too please about having their hair checked every day and getting treated, but oh well. Better to be inconvenienced than pass anything around.

School started back yesterday, only LM couldn’t go because he got sick on Sunday. Great timing, kid! My husband took him to the doctor yesterday morning and the doc things he has an upper respiratory thing going on. I started hacking my head off yesterday afternoon, so I guess it’ll make its way through the house. Boo.

We didn’t do anything for New Year’s Eve but did hit up the zoo on New Year’s Day. It was BG’s first time going, and she loved it for the most part. (Until she got burned out and had a meltdown in the penguin area, which is my favorite.) We spent a lot of time looking at the lions, but despite her little lion obsession, I think her favorite thing was the King Cobra, which she called adorable. That fucker was huge! She sat there for 20 minutes staring at the thing. LM and my husband made their way around the rest of the reptile exhibits while she stared, and I tried to avoid looking at the creepy thing.

(BTW, she said if the King Cobra got out of his aquarium type setup, whatever it’s called, he would totally be best friends with her and want to hug her. We had to have another talk about not touching things like that if we were to come across a snake or whatever outside.)

We spent the rest of the week cleaning out shit. The living room, game closet, books, and LM’s room. LM cannot stay on top of keeping his room remotely tidy at all, so my husband and I were both fed up since he made zero progress over the break. My husband bought 10 huge totes and took them in. LM was upset, of course, but we let him pick out a few of each things he enjoys, like his Transformers and Nerf guns, with the promise that if he can keep his room clean then he could earn stuff back eventually. We filled up 7 of the totes, which is crazy. We plan to do the same with the girl’s room this weekend. LM told me today that he likes his room better without so much stuff in it, so that’s good.

Do y’all remember me commenting on the Pac Praying poster my husband bought LM for Christmas, how I thought the label was for Pac-Man Praying and was super confused? I’m sure most of y’all figured out that it referred to Tupac. While we were helping LM with his room, he opened the poster to hang it. The look on his face was priceless when he saw this:

Image result for tupac praying poster

“Oh wow,” he said. Wow, indeed. That’s an odd choice for an 11-year-old boy. I tried to suppress my snickers.

“I just had to get it for you,” my husband told him. “Where do you want to hang it?”

LM hemmed and hawed long enough that my husband realized he didn’t want to hang it. “You don’t want to hang it? You don’t like it?” he asked.

“I do like it,” LM said. “But it’s so weird.”

My husband looked offended. “Why is it weird?”

I started laughing. “Look at it!” I said. “He isn’t wearing a shirt and has his eyes closed, praying. That’s a bizarre poster choice.”

“Well, I thought it was cool,” my husband said, somewhat offended. “I guess I’ll just throw it away.”

“No, don’t throw it away!” LM exclaimed. “I’m grateful for it and all. I’ll just keep it in my closet it for now and hang it when I don’t have friends anymore.” He was dead serious, too, which made me laugh even harder.

How has the start of 2020 gone for you so far?

Last Day of the Year Brain Dump

Hello, last day of the decade. (You’re either #TeamDecadeIsEnding or #TeamAnnoyinglyYetPerhapsCorrectInSayingThereIsAnotherYearToGo, and I’m the former.)

As far as 2019 goes, things were pretty good. On a personal level, I made some progress on my weight. Lost 40 pounds, but gained back 10 unfortunately, but I’m ready to keep working on that. That is probably the extent of my personal wins for the year, off the top of my head. I didn’t make much progress on the writing front. I had a short story published, but that wasn’t exactly what I was shooting for in 2019. Oh well.

I’m going to try to minimize distractions in 2020 to help with that. I don’t even care if I publish anything in 2020 so much as whether I actually make progress on some writing projects that I desperately want to finish, but have sucked at sticking with. And in minimizing distractions, hopefully I’ll read and blog more than last year, too. (Writing is writing.) I’ve deactivated a few social media accounts, but am keeping Instagram. I took the Facebook app off my phone, so I’ll only browse on there when I get on my desktop. And by doing that, I’ll reduce the mindless scrolling and seeing all the nasty posts that bug me, huge positive.

My other big goal for the year is to implement strategies from The Explosive Child in my parenting. Baby Girl’s meltdowns aren’t as extreme, but they still happen frequently. Little Man’s behavior is worsening. So what we’re doing now — at least with LM — isn’t working too well. Time to try something new, and I’ve read that the strategies in The Explosive Child work fabulously with oppositional kids. It will take some time and a lot of work on my behalf to change how I react to these stressful situations that come up, but if it helps make any improvement, it’ll be totally worth it. (Here’s a link to some of the strategies used with that method if anyone wants to check it out.)

Improvement is the name of the game in 2020.

In other interesting 2019 things, we got Baby Girl figured out.

As most of y’all know, she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder back in June. That was (and remains to be a relief), knowing what’s behind some of her behaviors. Ditto with the boy. She also had her tonsils out after being diagnosed with sleep apnea, and while we haven’t seen as much improvement in behavior as we were hoping for (or progress with speech), she is mostly sleeping through the night, so yay!

And I think that about sums up 2019. I thought my last brain dump of the year where I reflect on 2019 would be longer, but it’s not. Not a whole lot about the year really stands out. It was full of answers for the kids, millions of doctor and therapy appointments, and some good times as a family. It was probably the busiest year we’ve ever had in terms of being on the go, so maybe things will slow down a little in 2020. I may do a post reflecting on the decade later, which should be more interesting.

What goals do you have for 2020?

Have a Merry Christmas and an Itchy New Year

Did y’all have a good Christmas, for those of you who celebrate?

Ours was nice. Since the parents/step-parents adjusted how they do things this year, we only had one place to go on Christmas day. That made the day so much more relaxed and enjoyable! The kids loved the gifts we got for them and were both sweet and well-mannered all day. (The other days is a different story lol.) I was so relieved that the girl didn’t have any meltdowns, and I’m sure things being less rushed and stressful for her helped a lot.

BG’s favorite gift was this giant lion.

Learning about lion and other large felines in general is her current thing, plus she almost always picks out stuffed animals when she buys a toy, so she was overjoyed to get this. Santa brought her that, a ball hopper with a lion on it, and a Teen Titans tower. We got her some other cool stuff, including a Power Wheels, which her dad probably regretted in five minutes after getting hit with it.

LM got some cool stuff, too, including the new Star Wars Fall Order video game he begged for and some LEGO sets, so he’ll stay busy for the rest of Christmas break.

My husband picked out this poster for LM. That is not a praying Pac-Man poster, as I originally assumed and was confused by. I’m sure most of y’all would get it right on the first try.

My husband won for most thoughtful gift this year. He had my favorite recipe of my grandmother’s printed on a cutting board for me. Looooove. He also got me a blanket with the kids’ pictures on it. One of my favorite gifts my stepmom got me was a pair of Blue Q socks. I so love those socks, and these suit me perfectly:

She got me a shirt that said “I’m not peopleing today” for my birthday, so she’s doing her part in helping me avoid people.

We got one Christmas present that we didn’t want at all. Baby Girl has been scratching her head for a couple of days, but I checked and didn’t see anything the first few times. I thought maybe this was another thing she was developing, like chewing on everything or licking stuff. Well, I checked again yesterday and saw some damn nits in her hair.

Oh. My. God.

I panicked because we’ve never had lice before and ew, fucking ew, fucking ew. None of the rest of us have anything in our hair, although a) I don’t trust my husband check me and b) I bought kits for everyone, so everyone’s hair is getting treated anyway. When I went through BG’s hair, I found an actual lice bug and cleaned out nits. It took over an hour to go through it all, and she has short hair. After doing a little research on it, I’m assuming she must have picked it up within a couple days before Christmas (probably at the gathering we went to, instead of school like I originally assumed) since what I found was relatively little. I used the ridiculously bright flashlight LM won at a Chinese auction to go through her scalp multiple times, too.

Now I’m itching everywhere. I was fine this morning when I woke up until I saw BG, which reminded me of the infestation, so I itched again. Yuck.

Y’all itching now?

Happy holidays.

Week 51 Brain Dump

The girl recovered from her hand injury. Pretty sure she played it up a bit, and she was none too pleased about doing her makeup work, but she’s all good. And two days after taking off her bandage, we had to put it on LM because he had a hell of a freak injury.

My husband and son were out Saturdaydoing their play stuff when I called to check on them. My husband said, “LM slammed his hand in a door. I’ve gotta go” and hung up. I was thinking that sucked, but didn’t think too much of it because that shit happens sometimes. I slammed mine in the bedroom door a couple days prior, and it hurt like a son of a bitch for a little while but was fine.

Yeah, no.

He called me back a short time later and told me to meet him and LM at the ER and that LM might lose a finger.

Holy fucking shit.

I dropped off BG and got to the hospital. When I got there, they were moving LM from triage to a bed in the bay to be examined by a doctor. The doctor came in quickly, and I got my first look at the finger, and it literally looked like someone picked up the top of his finger and moved it to the side.

The doctor asked us to step outside the curtained area. He told us that it didn’t look good and that we should expect for it to be amputated.

Holy fucking shit again.

My husband told me that looked good compared to how it looked early on. He said the finger was at almost a 45-degree angle and looked like it was barely hanging out.

HFSx3.

The doctor had a radiologist wheel in an X-ray machine, and then we found out that as bad as it looked, he wouldn’t likely lose the finger. Apparently the top joint of the finger was badly dislocated, and with the deep lacerations on both sides of the joint, it just looked like it was barely hanging on by a thread. Whew. The doctor numbed LM’s finger as best as he could and put the joint back in place. Watching that poor child go through that was just awful. He kept it together much better than I could have. He went to the ortho today, and everything looks reasonably well, He just has to keep the splint on for a while and watch out for infection.

Tough little dude for sure.

That is LM’s second injury for the year. A few months ago, he was doing a zipline when the seat popped up and hit him right above the eye. He had to get liquid stitches for that one. Hopefully he’ll get through 2020 without any breaks or stitches.

Can y’all believe we have less than 10 days until Christmas? Craziness. We still haven’t gotten our Christmas cards ready. This week is gonna be kinda wild, too. The girl has her therapy appointments, there is a field trip, a class party to help with, plus the boy needs me to make something for him to take to his party. (Which his teacher says is super secret and not to tell anyone, haha.) I also have my baking to do.

Crockpot Christmas crack
Non-crock Christmas crack
Andes chocolate bark
Chocolate dipped Oreos
Chocolate dipped pretzels
Chocolate peanut butter crisps
Strawberry cupcakes
Chocolate cupcakes

I need to do it all on Wednesday, so that’s gonna be a busy — but yummy — day.

We’re doing Christmas with the MIL on Sunday. And hopefully we’ll do some Christmasy stuff this weekend. Ice skating is out with LM’s hand (and it’s probably best for the rest of us to avoid anything that could cause a trip to the ER), but we need to go see Santa, do Winterfest, see Christmas lights, and start our movie marathon. And crafts. I’m glad the kids will have a couple days off school before Christmas!

I love how Baby Girl’s brain works. (Most of the time.) She had a question on a worksheet last where she had to shade the two objects that belonged together and cross off the one that didn’t fit in. One such question had a doctor, a pickup truck, and a box truck. I’m going to color the image to make it look the way she originally had it.

She made the box truck into an ambulance to make it and the doctor go together. I told her I liked how she thought and explained what the teacher was going for, but she acted like she had no idea why the two vehicles would belong together lol.

I had to stop writing this post to go somewhere, and I feel like I had more to write for my brain dump, but I’m blanking. Maybe I’ll do a Brain Dump Part 2 later. Maybe not. Have a good week!

Our Week/Girls Night

So, first things first — my FIL is home and doing well. Yay! He’s going to be on the mend for a few weeks, but he seems to be getting around the house good all things considered.

Second — our Thanksgiving was nice. Since my dad hosted his the Sunday before, my other stepmom held hers later, and my MIL didn’t host, we had our first ever Thanksgiving at home. Let me say, I really hate the circumstances that led to that. But, it was probably my favorite Thanksgiving since my grandmother passed away. It was nice to take our time throughout the day cooking and cleaning and getting everything ready.

My dad fried the turkey we bought, so we only had baking and all the sides to worry about, and we had a ton of stuff. My dad and stepmom joined us, as did my SIL, and dinner couldn’t have gone better. Even BG ate some of what I cooked this year. I don’t know if my husband would go for it, but I’d totally be on board for not leaving the house for Thanksgiving every other year. It was so relaxing. We usually have three places to go on Thanksgiving, and it’s rough, especially for BG, as it leads to lots of meltdowns.

With the kids out of school three days, it was a pretty easy week. BG and I had a Girls Night out on Tuesday. She came up with the plan on Monday night and was so damn excited that she could barely sleep. She woke up early gushing about our Girls Night, talked about it through breakfast, and even told the principal. When I picked her up, she asked if it was time for Girls Night and we headed over to the movie theater for a matinee of Frozen 2.

As excited as she was, I had my suspicions that it might not end well. She was so worked up over it that I thought she might crash, and I was right. We had to leave the movie halfway through. She said it was too loud and she thought it was kinda scary. I tried to get her to stay, but she was getting more and more upset, so we left to go to Target, which was next on her itinerary. The plan was to let her get a small treat. After half an hour of searching in there, the lights were too bright, she didn’t know what she wanted because there was too much stuff, and she was almost in tears again. I was able to get her calmed down and had her choose from a couple of toys I thought she would like, and she did so we left to go eat pizza.

The pizza place had an arcade, and it was noisy as well (and the noise-canceling headphones were nowhere to be found), so she nibbled at a piece of pizza and wanted to leave. She told me she just wanted to go home instead of getting frozen yogurt, which was fine with me since she clearly needed to wind down. We came home and I ran a bubble bath and she played for a while and was able to chill out.

BG later told me that it was the best Girls Night ever. I was surprised since she was on the verge of a meltdown more than once and things didn’t go smoothly anywhere we went, but all she saw was the two of us doing something special together, which is all that mattered in her eyes. ❤

The rest of our weekend should be pretty easy. We’re going to visit a friend tonight and then do stuff for my birthday tomorrow. The house is still clean, amazingly, so we’ll have a chill weekend!

How was your Thanksgiving (or week if you don’t celebrate)? I promise to catch up on my reading soon!