Koala Update



Remember in my last entry that whole ‘Ask God and you shall receive?’ Well God came through in a big way just like I knew he would. I’m so thrilled. Richard has some promising prospects in the exact field and exact company he wanted to work for, and he may have to start a bit further down the ladder than he wanted but he graduates in 2 months and when he does- he’ll be working his way up. So – it’s really been great for me the past couple days and I might get this damn cranky koala bear off my back very soon.

In the mean time, we are preparing for Mary and Peter’s wedding in 1 month in Atlanta. I’m wicked excited about it. Lauren has graciously and wonderfully offered to watch the twins for the weekend, proof that I’ll probably have to actually give my next child to her, and we will be taking Ethan with us. So Richard is best man at Peter’s wedding. It makes sense. If my husband and I hadn’t eloped – Peter would have undoubtedly been Richard’s except that instead we lied and told him we were visiting a friend in the hospital and he got to babysit Ethan for a couple hours while we ran out into the night and eloped in a shack in the country (IT’s a long story- I’ll tell you later) So it was kind of like Peter got to be Richard’s best man. He did entrust our child with him during those sacred hours when I became Mrs. LE- well you know. Richard is terrified of making public speeches. I mean he would rather fight the giant Ant in ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ starring Rick Moranis than to make a short speech dedicated to his best friend. I absolutely love Mary and they really are perfect together. I think they will be very happy. Mary is like the quintessential wife. She’s going to be peferct. She’s a great cook (Supposedly makes a mean truffle… Although I have yet to taste it but I’ve heard stories) and she’s up at dawn every day just so she can have ‘a few moments to herself.’ It’s not anything like me where I roll out of bed 15 minutes before I have to be on the highway and yell at Ethan to get up, and I don’t care if his pants don’t fit and don’t forget to brush your teeth, ‘come here and let me brush them right- DON’T SWALLOW THE TOOTHPASTE! YOU HAVE TO SPIT SON, SPIT! Let’s go you can sleep in the car.’

So Peter and Mary. They love the joke where every time I see them- I insist they name their first son Paul.

Britney in Columbus is happening next Thursday. First off- I’m so excited I could scream. It’s not that I am so crazy about Britney. It’s not that really at all. It’s that I was never allowed to go to a concert until I started 9th grade and the first concert ticket that I ever got the pleasure of owning was to Britney Spears. She was new, still playing fairs basically (and Kings Island where I saw her) and Lauren and I got tickets. The problem was that it fell on the first night of the Varsity football game and because we were cheerleaders – Friday nights were strictly for Varsity football games –nothing else. Well Lauren and I made up a serious life or death excuse to miss the game. The other problem being that another girl on our squad won the ‘Britney look alike’ contest at the mall and she got free tickets for 4 friends so she was taking the rest of the cheerleaders with her so they had to come up with excuses. That was the year that there were no freshman cheerleaders at the first Varsity game of the year. I don’t know if the coach ever figured it out but I will say that Lauren and I had better seats than Emily (who I love and won the contest) so it made whatever punishment that was inflicted on us totally worth it. We, by the way, bought our tickets from a band member who refused to miss his first halftime marching band experience.’ Oh boy did he miss out being just a few rows back from one of the biggest stars in history albeit whatever kind of trailer trash she turned into – it didn’t matter. We always win with Britney.

So a Britney Spears concert has always held a special place in my heart and I get to go again with Lauren again… and it’s like 10 (holy crap!) 10 years ago when we saw her for the first time. The first concert. One of the greatest memories I have… and my life has come full circle. Forgive me if I shed a tear… Will we wear matching outfits again? I can’t say for sure… but it will be awesome to a maximum amount.

My boys are doing great. Maddox and Mason are such little cuddle monsters. I love them. Other than that- it’s pretty boring. Ethan had had 2 bad reports from school in the last 2 weeks. Since he started school (3 years ago he’s been in a structured school environment in the morning and day care in the afternoon) he’s only had 2 bad reports total and now this. I’m so upset with him. So yesterday he had a ton of homework that I dropped on him and he wasn’t allowed to play with Kyle, watch TV, have any snacks except dinner, and a promise of no birthday party if he gets another this week. Hopefully I got through to him.
(On a side note with Ethan – we still have not had a Tball practice. His first game is next Friday and he doesn’t even know what a base is. It’s rained every single Monday since Tball season started. This is already going to be awesome- I can tell.) I’m so sick of rain…

Curse Recession...

I am so very sick of recession business. I finally land an awesome job and I think we’re set right? Well I’m supporting my husband right now while he wraps up college (for maybe the millionth time). And I feel so much pressure and stress. I’m fighting with the owner of our home who wants to raise rent next year because ‘times are tough.’

Listen, times are tough for me too okay? I feel so much stress right now that I feel like there is some sort of not cute but cranky koala bear attacking me every second of the day and it hisses at me ‘Recession! REECESSSIIION!’ Oh by the way – it makes it much easier for my husband to find a job. (sarcasm)

I’m a religious person right. Ask and you shall receive and GOD has always come through at the most wonderful times. And I’ve never felt like I was alone. I still do not feel alone but I’ve been attending Mass (I’m not even Catholic…yet) every week and praying for him to get a job. PLEASE help! I’m sending up my SOS signals. So this is my blog prayer that God is listening and waiting for me to jump on ol’ Blogger and ask for his help.

It’s not like I don’t realize that there are so much more needier people than my family. We’re so blessed and we abuse those blessings in so many ways, and I know there are more worthy people of help – but I’m hoping that someone up there is listening to me graveling on my knees and first asking that I keep my job as others lose their income around me and also that Rich finds … something. I don’t know what is going on anymore with him. This summer will be a year he’s had off taking care of the boys and he’s done a wonderful job but I need his help and I know he wants to help me but I’ve sent out about a thousand more of his resumes than he has.

I told him last night ‘you’re about a week away from working days at Wendy’s and Nights at McDonalds.’ I wonder if they would actually let someone do that? Conflict of interest maybe? Would you get confused about your burgers? I guess the round and square patties would help you out.

I am such a laid back person even my blood pressure is abnormally low but I am starting to really feel it from all sides and it’s so not in my personality to stress about things like this. I mean we’re already in the thick of it. It’s either going to work or I’ll teach my kids to sing for money outside of Great American Ballpark.

I’m reading Marcus Luttrell’s book about Navy Seal Team 10 and Operation Redwing. It’s a very sad book but I will say that I think it’s really eye opening about what those guys go through on foreign land and especially during this war. It has a strong message about the liberal media staying out of the way of the military and how much of a hindrance it is for our soldiers to be scared of every step they make for being crucified by the media and then by their own branch of the armed forces. Also after our politicians decide to send them to war- they should stay the hell out of it. It’s just a great book with an insane look at Navy Seal Training and what you go through and wow… It’s amazing. No wonder they are the most elite force in the world.

Well Mr. Mason had his Early Intervention appt today. First off, I am relieved because I thought so long that I was being over protective and everyone said ‘he’ll learn when he learns…’ or ‘it’s because he’s a twin’ or ‘it’s because he’s a preemie’… all these excuses that I didn’t need. I needed to know what was wrong and how to help.

These are the results of his tests in months. This is what the age he seems to be at rather than he is. His real age is 18 months.

For cognitive skills: 10-11 months.
For physical and gross motor skills: 16 months
For physical fine motor skills: 19 months
Communication skills: Receptive Communications 7 months Expressive 9 months.
Social Emotional Skills: 23 months!
Adaptive Skills: 11 months

The delayed areas that they will be working on is adaptive skills (I have to learn what this means?! I’m not sure) and communication skills and also cognitive skills. They tested vision (but we know he’s nearsighted and will get glasses at age 2) and hearing was fine.

The used the Battelle Method (Which I haven’t researched yet but I will).

She said that I should definitely ‘baby sign’ with Mason. She said that he really is laid back and most kids who are where is are very frustrated and cry a lot because they can’t tell you what they want. (Mason doesn’t point to things or cry) He just stares at people. She said he’s very happy one of the most laid back babies she’s ever spent 2 hours with.


The whole time he was running around, throwing balls (He loves to throw balls and has a GREAT arm!!!) and would sit with them for a while and play but didn’t obviously the whole time. He almost seemed so active it was like a different baby and I’m starting to realize what is going on at our house. It was confirmed when my mother in law calls and says Maddox is repeating so many words after her and is very happy and tried to dress himself with her help this morning. I think what is really holding our boys back is that we are not concentrating on them as individuals. We think of them as a whole. I NEVER in a million years thought that I’d be a parent who did that with Twins because I can understand the need to be different instead of cutesy but through the evaluation – I kept saying …but his brother… and his brother doesn’t…. and Mason is the brother who… and it was nearly impossible to keep Maddox out of our conversation.

So clearly Maddox and Mason need some time apart. They both seemed to jump leaps and bounds with single attention. I’m sad that we’ve just been so busy with three kids – we’ve really been treating the twins as one – not paying enough attention while we dealt with Ethan or one other twin. So I think this realization of what is going on will help us very much. It was an eye opener.

Thanks for reading if you got this long.

We’ve decided to spend 30 minutes a night with them apart. And also one gets to stay up an hour later than the other during the week (alternating of course) so we can give individual attention for a while. During the weekend, we are going to separate them for a few hours and do different activities. It may seem drastic but if they are in the same room we are treating them like one. Its very difficult not talk to both of them instead of ‘Maddox do you like your food?’ ‘Mason do you like your food.’ ‘Maddox loves Elmo’ ‘Mason loves Cookie Monster’ Even if we did that every sentence it STILL would confuse them.

They also have their own jabber language that they use when no ones around. That’s holding Mason back as well.


Well this is a long enough entry.

Out

My kid and Sports...

I know- I fail at bloggin’. (Hear my tribute to last night’s Academy of Country Music Awards show in there?) Anyway- I suck- it’s been 2 weeks and I just have ignored you.

So my eldest son was supposed to start Tball practice tonight but because of the rain- they cancelled. I’ve been pumped about this for months… maybe years? So it’s kind of a let down but after a long Monday at work- I’m a little relieved to get to go home and bake some homemade (tollhouse ready made actually) chocolate chip cookies and watch Everybody Loves Raymond. My husband is so sick of this show as I am of his damn NCIS.

Back to Tball- it’s always been a dream of mine to have a son and a beautiful son (Both accomplished over and over x3) and to have him play baseball because I love little league baseball. I always have. I never got to play sports because we were poor growing up and because my mother didn’t own a car. The only sport I did was cheerleading because I could ride my bike 2 or 3 miles to the city park 2x a week. The softball fields were on the other side of town and it took considerably longer to get there. And I’ll admit- part of that was that I was a little ‘too girly’ for softball. I couldn’t take my purse onto the field and when I swing a bat- I tend to turn in circles like I’m in ballet class.

Anyway, I was particularly jealous of girls who had parents in the stands rooting them on… so proud to see them. Parents who took them to away games. (I either missed away games or begged some girl who didn’t like me to let me ride with her parents and if I timed it right and a caring mother heard me, she’d let me despite that fact that her daughter thought of me as the weird girl who bought her uniform at a yard sale on Gray St. (True Story). So this is my childhood experience, although limited, with sports. In middle school I was a little more involved and did cheerleading in High School once my father took custody and cared a little bit better about what I did with my life.

So I always imagined I would be there rooting my sons (or daughters, if that had been the case) with a sweatshirt with ‘so and so’s mom #3’ embroidered on it. Or screen printed. Or whatever. So now I finally have a son who is of sports age. He’s played soccer and I coached his team. It was a disaster. My son hated soccer. Something about all the running and not enough food and tv. It really made me mad and Husband would say ‘You can’t get mad. He’s just 4 years old. If he doesn’t like it – he doesn’t like it.’ It baffles me how a child, A BOY for goodness sakes, could not enjoy running and having teammates and competing.

Clearly I’ve done something wrong. He’s soft. He only cares about spongebob. He thinks he’ll marry Miley Cyrus. He doesn’t like sports? I’m hanging onto this hope. Last week a neighborhood kid and I decided to have a Cove Circle Kickball game. This sounds like fun. We started off with small numbers but by the 5th inning- we were having a great time. George (Bestie’s Husband) Came to help us with his professional kickball skills and it was a good time.

MY SON, however, whined whenever someone got him out (or anyone out for that matter as this was unacceptable to him and mean) and he pouted nearly the whole game. Talk about frustration. THERES NO CRYING IN KICKBALL I kept shouting. How does this kid not love the thrill of this? He was the youngest on the field (er...cul-de-sac) but still… I don’t understand. What have I done not instill the joy of athleticism in him like I always dreamed?

The good news is that I have two more sons to work with and Mason’s only 1.5 but he’s got a hell of an arm!