Busy, Busy, BUSY!

We've had quite a busy few days. From going to friends house to coming home and dealing with all the laundry and settling in, to getting ready for friend to visit only friend isn't coming. :sigh: Disappointed to say the least. I'm seriously stressed out by friend and her situation, and the fact that she's avoiding us again. Crap happens...no need to be embarrassed, just move past it and concentrate on the now and future. Just thinking about the whole situation has had me reaching for Tylenol for my headaches, my dh for love and support, and meds for my anxiety.

Got some shopping done yesterday and again this morning. Got everything but the food. $ is tight, but we really needed to get a few things (non-food items like toilet paper, soap, laundry detergent, clothing for both kids and shorts for dh). We didn't realize how comfortable we'd become with only one kid....add one kidlet to the mix and things are tight. Not that I'm complaining, Ginny is a huge blessing to our family and I wouldn't know what to do without her. But dh working OT all the time so we can keep up with bills sucks, too. I can't wait for the adoption to be done and over with so we can get some $ back from dh's work and in our next years taxes...we need a few chunks of money to pay Ginny's hospital, ER, ER physician, Lab and ambulance bill from when she had a UTI, febrile seizures and stopped breathing about 1.5 months ago. (up to about $3500-4000 at the last tally).

Ginny has been rather cranky of late. I fed her raisins as an experiment to see if she'd react to them...of course she did, but the next day. Poor kiddo! Gas, diarrea, poop that blistered her little buns....so I think raisins (which are dried grapes, so grapes, too?!) are the dietary culprit. Milk and yogurt and cheese don't seem to be bothering her. I do think, but am not positive, that she's cutting a few teeth, or at least she's acting like it. I've got to find those Hyland's Teething tablets...hopefully they'll help.

Justin is doing well. Papaw send some prepaid American Express cards for the kids so they got some clothes as well as a few toys, books, home-school type items. J got a great calculator/cash register that has a scanner that really reads barcodes, though there's no way a pack of gum is $100- in real life, but it toots his horn for sure! And it's got a teeny microphone so he can use it to yell out "spill in aisle 3!". He's SO into money (Rock N Learn Making Change and Money...first viewed it from our public library.....SO worth it!) so we're using the play bills but his real change and he's put the sticker barcodes on several things around the house and sets up a shop and checks out imaginary customers. TOO cute!

J woke up with some kind of rash on his face and forehead and we can't figure out what it is or what/where he might have gotten it from. It started out looking like acne, but it quickly began to all connect. He hasn't been anywhere to get a hold of poison ivy or anything like that. I'm suspecting a food allergy? We've been lucky to get J to try several new foods in the past few weeks. I REALLY need to start a food diary for both kids. Short of doing an elimination diet for each child and starting with very basic foods and adding a new one a week (which would take forever and J would swear he was starving) it doesn't seem realistic for us to try.

Renewed our membership with PPEA (Pinellas Parent Educators Association) and AEI (Alternative Education Instutute) so we can homeschool J under the umbrella school (AEI). Went to WalMart last week and got tons of school supplies...like 1 subject, 70 page, lined notebooks for 5 cents a piece....we got 50-something of them. They MIGHT last us till the end of next summer. Picked up some flash cards so we can drill J about his addition and subtraction (which he does well), and multiplication (which we're doing okay with, but only with numbers up to 12) and division (which we haven't really started yet). We are pretty eclectic homeschoolers and try different things, different methods to get J interested in subjects and topics. From Brainpop.com and Brainpopjr.com to HeadSprout.com, to a million other free printables for homeschoolers, etc, we keep trying new things until we hit on something that works for Justin, for me, and for our family. Lately he's been asking for playmates, but the one little boy that lives near us is pretty mean to Justin...he smacked J in the face two days ago, acts like all of J's stuff is his and bosses J around. Really cheeses dh and I off, but J takes it for a while then blows up in a tantrum and we end up asking the boy to leave. J is autistic, but high functioning. He's at the social level of a 5-6 year old child (he's 9), and at 111 pounds he's a big, strong boy and likes to play rough (he's got sensory issues and really enjoys being squished, getting knocked around, punching his punching bag, me rolling over him, wrapping him up tight like a "mummy" in his blanket, etc. The rougher the better. That really freaks out other parents as well as the kids. Other kids enjoy the rough play but it's hard to get J to stop or ease up a bit if the child(ren) isn't into being THAT rough or want to stop playing rough. Playing with other autties isn't the best for J, either...I once bbsat an auttie boy and they tended to feed off of each others negative behaviors until I had to ask the boys mom to find another sitter for him. Really, J needs an older kid who's okay with rough play and doesn't mind playing with a kid younger than themself. So....how does this mama go about finding her ds a playmate?!

Dh is doing well with his workouts, still at about 210-213 on any given day. Ran sprints this AM. LOVES his new sneakers. His back really bothered him the past few days because we sat around at said friends house for a few days. He had to take pain meds for his workout yesterday, but once he was done his back seemed right as rain again.

In the meantime, I have to write friend an e-mail, write other friend to play catch up, mail a pkg from an E-bay auction winner, get some groceries, figure out how much $ is coming in and how much will be going out in bills so we can figure out how to put aside $ in case J needs to go to the ped for the rash on his head/forehead. Actually, Ginny isn't sick, but I'd like to get her in for her 1 year well child visit so we can get height, weight, stats, etc. Still no vax's, not until at least 2-4 years of age...want her to have an immune system and be past the "autism" scare stage (18-24 months with the vaccinations).

Oh, and Ginny is a baby BLING lover! Made some anklets for her a few days ago...she loves them and I love that she can't get them off but I can get them on and off easily...this way she can't chew the wooden beads off. :)

Until next time!