Soo...

This blog is so neglected. It's weird. I went from blogging daily on xanga, to here where I blogged consistently at first. Then myspace, now facebook. I did blog on myspace, but I don't on facebook. I guess I just don't really have the urge or drive to write much anymore. I barely even update my facebook anymore. I think some of that is because I have too many co-workers added as friends.

Well, what's new?

* School (for me) starts up again next week. I have this semester and next semester before I graduate in April with my 4 year Accounting degree.

* School for Todd Jr and Luc starts Sept. 7th. Luc is starting 2nd grade at his first year in an Emotionally Impaired class. Todd Jr is starting 6th grade.

* Todd Jr is 10 (11 in October) and he has a summer job working with a friend of mine at her produce stand and out in the fields with her boyfriend picking the produce and doing anything else that needs to be done.

* Luc is 6 (7 in October) and he is going to have ear surgery soon to repair a ruptured eardrum. He has had numerous ear infections throughout his life and he had tubes in his ears at a year old. The past few summers, he has gotten really bad infections in his ears after swimming that caused his eardrums to rupture. Every time that happens, the tissue that grows over to heal the hole gets thinner and thinner. This time, the hole is very large and the surrounding tissue is just too little to repair itself. He meets with the surgeon on Thursday (August 19th) for the consultation.

* Benny is 3. He is so smart and so active! He loves super heroes and dressing up as them. He has a Super Why cape and mask, and he has a new Batman mask that he wears every second of the day if allowed.

* Todd is good. He is getting back into playing out and he is trying to get into another band.

* Work (for me) is going okay. I don't too much like my job, but it is rather easy and it beats having to invest the time it would take to find a new one. Especially since I will be done with college in 9 months, and will then be looking for a professional job in the accounting field. I am sick of retail work, but it is convenient so I guess I'll stick with it until I finish school. I'll have my 2 year anniversary with this company in October.

* I am, yet again, trying to lose weight. As of last Monday, I had lost 5.5 pounds, and I feel good about this week. I will weigh in again on Monday morning.

Will I update again soon? Not likely. You never know though!

Long time, huh?

Yeah. I sign in daily to read the blogs I follow, but I never have much to post about. Todd has to see the urologist again in a few months to see what the changes look like. Luc has been in therapy since September. He just started taking Intuniv last week. He is on 1 mg and it does seem to be doing what we were hoping for. He has been doing better (behavior-wise) at school since the therapy was started. He started going to special education classes since his last IEP meeting, and his teachers are positive about how the medication is affecting his behavior.
I am nearing the middle of my first semester at Northwood. It is hard, and I wonder if quitting is worth it sometimes. I will get through it, but it is a challenge.

So, Luc is now going to weekly therapy sessions and still being evaluated by his school. On top of all of that drama last week, this is the week of drama for Todd (jr). Last Friday, we let both Todd and Luc spend the night at Grandma's house. They came home on Saturday afternoon. That evening, Todd went to the bathroom and kept yelling for me to come in there. The nice mom that I am, I kept saying "Why???" By the time I finally got in there, he was mad at me. He wanted to show me the blood in his urine. Eeew. But, seriously blood in his urine. Not like slightly pink, red.
So, I was unsure of what to do about it. Todd (sr) and I talked about it and decided to wait to see how it was the next time before racing to the ER. The next time, it was the same. He peed normally and then at the end bright red drops of blood. He wasn't in any pain, he hadn't been tackled or anything else that brought internal injury to mind, so we decided to wait until Monday and go to the pediatrician unless something else happened that seemed worse.
We took him in on Monday, but by then the blood had not been seen again since Sunday. He had a few urinalyses done and lab work. We went for a kidney/bladder ultrasound on Tuesday. The blood work came back normal, and the first urinalysis showed blood in his urine. The results of the second urinalysis haven't been called in yet. The ultrasound showed thickening of his bladder walls. So, now I am waiting for a return call to set us up with an appointment with a urologist. He will be 10 in two days. Isn't that a bit young to be seeing a urologist? I mean, I'll take him anywhere to find out what's wrong, but I did a google search just to see what the possibilities are and the only results are involving older men or women who had recent hysterectomies. WTF??

The latest

So, today I took Luc to the therapist. I haven't written about what's been going on with him, but he's been having lots of trouble at school (suspended once already within the first week of school) and the school asked me for permission to have a behavioral analysis on him to see if he qualifies for special education services. They said that they were concerned that he has ADD/ADHD and/or Asperger's Syndrome. My immediate reaction to Asperger's Syndrome was "no way, not Luc". I have seen other children with Asperger's and I seriously doubt that he has that. As far as ADD, I knew that was a serious possibility, but I didn't think he would have ADHD. So, I took him to an outside therapist on my own to see what another opinion would be. Today he was diagnosed with ADHD, dysthymia, and over-anxious disorder of childhood.
I feel sad. I also feel like a jerk that I have seen his sadness and his worry but put it all off as "that's just Luc". He's always been this way, so serious and sad. Always.
Now I feel like I should have known that it wasn't normal. Todd says he isn't surprised, but I am. I wish I didn't feel so guilty. I mean, he knows we love him, but I feel like I failed him.

I feel like I rarely have anything to say, but I guess I'm the only one who reads this anyways, so no real reason to hurry with updates.

Summer has been pretty good. Well, except Shirley getting sick and dying. The garden has been awesome, and I am already making plans for next year. I need a lot more space than I had this year. Everything is growing into everything else. I have two pepper plants that are completely in the darkness of looming tomato plants. I bought some teeny, tiny mums at WalMart on clearance for $.50 each. I built a flower bed just for them, and planted them a while ago. They were small, scrawny, and I just wasn't sure what would happen with them. They are doing great! They are getting bigger and bigger and I know they will have flowers this year. The peonies and hostas I planted may be a whole other situation. I am not holding out much hope for any of them. Which is sad, because I really was looking forward to having them.

We are preparing for back to school. I bought all of the school clothes a week ago. Luc still needs socks. Todd needs a backpack. They both need shoes. That's it. We even started new bedtimes last night, even though school doesn't start for another month. I was saying today that we should probably consider new bed times starting next week, but Todd told me he already started new bed times a few nights ago. I guess when I work evenings and then have homework the evenings that I am home, I just don't know what's going on.

I'm getting prepared for school again in the fall myself; even though I'm not yet done with the summer class I'm taking. It sure is going to be nice when I finally have the degree I'm working for and can be done with school. It's been so long now, though, that I don't know if I will be able to function without some type of learning. Seriously.

Lazy summertime, but getting a lot done at the same time.

How weird is that? I watched tv for about two hours today, yet I still cleaned out the junk drawer, the boys color book cupboard, the shelf above the kitchen sink, the canned goods cupboard, the kid dishes cupboard, the snack cupboard, the top of the refrigerator, and the bulletin board area of the kitchen. AND I cleaned up the garage, cleaned the cement with the push broom, and watered the mums, onions, and the peonies that I hope decide to grow next year. Whew! that was a lot to type! The junk drawer and the coloring book cupboard took the most time. There was so much stuff shoved under there that just didn't belong! I have another box full of stuff for our someday garage sale, and a whole pile of papers that went into the recycling bin.
I use a lot of coupons. I mean, A LOT. I will buy any condiment if it's on sale and I have a coupon that makes it $.50 or less. I should take a picture of the condiment shelf I made today in my garage. My cupboard was so full I couldn't tell what was in there. I have 13 bottles of bbq sauce. Seriously. 5 containers of Miracle Whip. 5 bottles of mustard.
I have a lot of boxed stuff, too, like macaroni and cheese, Hamburger Helper, stuffing, and boxes of noodles. I wanted to organize that stuff a little, but I couldn't make a shelf in the garage because we could get mice or squirrels or spiders or whatever in there. Our garage kinda sucks. So I moved all of the kid's little plastic plates and cups into the cupboard with all of the adult dishes, and moved the extra boxed stuff onto that shelf. I am really happy with how I can see what we have now.
I did a lot of organizing, too. The top of the refrigerator has been a place that everything is thrown. There were about 6 different chargers for various cell phones, camcorders, whatever just thrown in a pile up there, so I wrapped them all and put twisty-ties around them and put them all in a little box in the cabinet with batteries and extra stuff.
I have a 500 word article review due tonight at midnight and I haven't even found a topic much less an article yet. I really should, but I think I may be putting it off until tomorrow. I started my period today, and I feel awful. I never feel like this. I am crampy and grumpy, and all I want is to eat ice cream and chips and onion dip (separately of course) and sit in the recliner watching Clean House. NO KIDS ALLOWED! But of course, that isn't how it is. I'm sitting at the kitchen table with the breeze blowing in the kitchen window, typing on my laptop.
Hope you all have a good night, I think it's going to be an early one here.

I have veggies!!