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!

Work Stuff and Nitrous Oxide.

Hello. I’m having a great day at work and it’s about to end. This has been a high stress week. Every day I’ve come into work in a sparkling mood ready to more awesome than the day before and everyday I’ve been hit with a huge project or a huge personality first thing in the door that just makes me feel ‘punished’ for being in a good mood. I think Hump day finally broke that awful curse. I’m starting to feel about 90% after my wisdom teeth. For a while I prayed for the sweet release of death but eventually this too shall pass. It made me feel major guilt about taking my high school boyf out the day after he got his wisdom teeth out to an amusement park, where he proceeded to pass out on a particularly vicious roller coaster and then I had to drive home. I didn’t have my license or anything but dude was out of it. I think about how much pain he had to be in and I begged and begged like a spoiled brat for him to take me and he did. I’d have spent more time on that subject if I didn’t remember that he also treat me like crappola after a few years and maybe he deserved the roller coaster ride of hell that day. Fate knew. Oh yes, it knew.

So that occupied my thoughts along with strong feelings about buying some nitrous oxide on ebay. Seriously. Every house should have some of this stuff. IT would make life so much easier. I love that feeling. I felt so good – I wanted them to put a thousand IV needles in my body. It felt wonderful… Wow. That sounded Macabre. But you know what I mean. Life is good with some NO. I may rethink Dentistry as a career.

Wisdom Teeth are so stupid!

I know, it's been forever. Don't ask why I feel the need to apologize for being away from my Blog for too long. It's not like I have a following of internet lovers who live their lives hung on my every entry, but still. I know I haven't been making time for 'bloggin' which means there are many many things I'm probably not making enough time for. Welcome to my life.

First off, excuse me for any crazy insane misspellings or grammar problems with this entry. I'm currently on vicodin every 3 hours and when I mix it with the perscribed, of course, 800mg ibuprofen- things get very fuzzy. I had my wisdom teeth taking out on Wednesday. Shoot me in the face- it freaking hurts like hell. I just want it to end.

Before doing this extraction, I toured St. Thomas More, our Catholic' parish's private elementary school. I must say that I did love it. It was very structured, very smart, very small. While walking through the doors, I turned to my husband and said, 'my one question for my kid is 'does he have less chance of being shot by a gun in a private school?' If so, it was worth the money to send him there. Kindergarten starts out at about 4000 dollars. Yippee. However, adding Religion and values to his day means a lot to me as I think this is the most important thing a person can do for a child- build education and a relationship with God. However, I hope it doesn't push him away from God. I've seen this happen often in this type of setting.

Ethan is doing wonderful despite the fact that I'm pretty sure his preK is full of morons. They've taught him nothing about writing the alphabet or sounds, or phonics. I've had enough. After my surgery, while still numb, I went out to Holcomb's school supplies and bought him stuff to practice. I guess this knowledge will come from me and not his Pre-K. At least being in some type of school environment has introduced him to social skills. We are always complimented on his polite behavior. I just need him to focus.

I blame television and in my rant, I've banned the twins from watching anything that didn't have big bird or Elmo in it. It's funny with your second child, you always try to do better than your first (in my case, my second and third child). So Ethan had television and is quite more attached than he should be- the twins will have little of this.

Ethan has a best friend in our new neighbor, Kyle, and his older sister Hannah. I love them. They are polite and nice and wonderful. Ethan comes home and studies with me for half an hour every day and then out he goes into the yard to play until dinner. He's very happy here.

I know that I should be happy at this point. I have everything I want. A home, Beautiful kids, an adoring husband, a great view, a great career. I am happy. I have no complaints, however, I don't feel like this is our home yet. I don't know why. Richard feels like it is. He's been working his ass off on this house for months and months and it's in such a great condition now thanks to him, but yet... it's too good to be true. And usually when I feel this way. Life comes to a hault. I'm trying to trust that God is leading me down the right path.

Lauren, Shanna, and George and some friends are coming over tonight. The one great thing about this life is the amount of time I'm spending with my friends. We have a bonfire in the yard about once or twice a week and enjoy the hell out of each other's company. It's a blast.

I read Twilight and New Moon yesterday. Both 500 page books each. That's what happens when I get bored.

The painkillers are getting stronger and stronger at this point. I must retire.

So this weekend was pretty great. I spent Friday watching movies with Richard. We saw Righteous Kill and a lot of REBA and a great little show called 'Worlds Trashiest Weddings'. On Saturday, we ran some errands and that night, I met up with Katie at Applebees. There is a reason why I'm never chosen for DD. Because I like to drink. I thought 'sure just one...but I wont' drive for an hour and a half.' Well such a bad idea. But I was okay but the time we headed to M16 to see 'Bride Wars' which was pretty hilarious. I can't wait until it comes out on DVD. Sunday we visited my mother and picked up the key to the new house which I'm a nervous wreck over. There is so much to do. I wish someone would paint it and fill it with my family and suprise me. I guess I'm not dropping enough hints around here.


Florida beat Oklahoma in the NC game. I was bummed as I was rooting for the Sooners but good for the Gators. I just love me some Sam Bradford.

I need to go fill out an email survery that Liz sent me

LAter

"And everytime you speak her name does she know how you told me you'd hold me until you died?"

Well I wanted to post from Miami but no such luck. It just went by too fast and too much to do. There was not a second of "let's rest" but instead "go enjoy the beach for 20 min and then its off to brunch". So I'm posting from the car driving back to pete and marys in Atlanta. I've never spent so much time in a car in my life.

There is much to tell so I will do so in Chronological fashion. The trip down was great. Leaving Ohio at 30 degrees and ending in Miami at 80 degrees is unspeakably awesome. We had to check on Wedbesday and check out the jacuzzi before showering for our cruise. We got to Miami and enjoyed dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. Miami is beautiful by the way. Palm Trees and water and yachts and shopping: the list goes on. I hate bridges so there is an aspect that I hate about all the islands around Biscayne Bay. I just hate islands. The cruise was wonderful. It was fun and sweet anf gorgeous. Spectacular fireworks show at the end over miami.

Traffic in Miami has no logic or reason. People just go wheneverthehelltheyfeel. They don't care about red lights or green lights or laws or police (why should they? The police behave the same way). We were so exhausted when we arrived back in Boca Rotan that a bed at the Best Western felt like the most comfortable thing in the world.

Onto Thursday we reluctantly got up early to marry JoJean and Curt. Richard acted as photographer/witness and I was officiating. Then brunch and then beach time where there was a "sand" incident. I won't go into details but we will probably not be invited back to a Hilton any time soon.

We met up with Peter and Mary after that to prepare for the whole reason for the trip; The Orange Bowl. Excitement was building as we did a little tailgating and drinking. I didn't get to meet up with my Banter guys but no big deal.

Occaisionally during the trip Rich and I would randomly say to eachother "we made it!". It had little to do with the fact that we were in Miami but everything to do with the fact that our favorite team in the world was in the BCS!

The coin toss should have been an ominous sign of things to come. We started with an awesome drive. We scored. It was a great 2 min. The rest of the 58 minutes of game play were devastating. Pike threw 4 interceptions. The Defense could not stop VT's Taylor or the run game. It was like watching high school kids at the superbowl. I started to prepare myself for the loss at halftime. I never thought of losing being an option before that. It hit me like a ton of bricks. We were going to lose this game. And we did.

20 to 7 Final.

An end to a great season. Bittersweet. Hate to send the seniors out on such a note. But they won the Big East and went 11 and 2 and were ranked #12 after the regular season. I love the Bearcats. They did me proud.

Now the trek back home...