Bad Mommy?

   Believe it or not, I have a job.  However, I work from home.  Vacations are far and few between.  With two self employed parents, no work equals no money.  Work, however is not the real topic of my post.  It is, as always about my children.

   I have read so many posts, and have seen so many pictures of the millions of things parents have done with their kids this summer.  To be perfectly honest, reading them has exhausted me.  Reading them has also made me feel kind of guilty.  Should I be dragging my kids around from one amusement place, pool, zoo, beach, restaurant etc., or gasp - let them be kids and find ways to amuse themselves?  Yes, my daughter went to Girl Scout camp for 3 separate weeks.  Luckily she loves going, but to be perfectly honest she went because she has ADHD and we needed a break!

   When I was a kid, we got up, ate breakfast and left the house.  We ran the neighborhood.  Some nice Mom (usually mine) put Kool Aid out on the back porch.  Other than that, you stayed away except for meals.  If you went in, you might be given a chore to do, so it was best just to play with your friends.  We didn't go places, except our cottage.  Yes, my circumstances with a disabled sister, were different.  However, I doubt my Mom would have taken us to new and exciting places everyday.

   So, why do I feel guilty?  It is not like we haven't done anything this summer, just not everyday.  But my kids have.  I have a little boy with the most amazing imagination and it has taken him on so many trips out of this world that we have to drag him back to reality.  My daughter has been working hard to earn money to buy an I Phone. She had an amazing three weeks at camp and won a photography award!  I think they are fine.  Me, that is another story.

   So, bad Mommy or not?  I guess time will tell, and a few other people as well!

No, Rachel, there is No Santa Claus

Or is there?
Rachel is convinced there is no Santa Claus.  She is also trying to convince Will that there is no Santa Claus.  Smart boy that he is, is not believing her.  I asked her why she doesn't believe in Santa, and she said he is a myth  (Sounds like something she heard at school) and she saw the same wrapping paper Santa used under our bed...oops!  I told her that I was sorry to hear that she didn't believe, but that the rest of us did.  She said we were stupid and that nobody has ever seen a real Santa Claus. I told her that if you believe you get presents from Santa, but if you don't you get nothing, and that just because you can't see him doesn't mean he doesn't exist.

So, the dilemma is does she get nothing while the rest of us get Santa gifts, or does Santa still give her a small gift with a note attached about believing?

I still believe....do you?

I spent how much on speech therapy?

 My son Will did not speak for the longest time.  At age 2 he only had a few words.  I felt there was a problem, everyone else said give him time.  Still, the concerned lingered in the back of my mind.  I had him evaluated and he was promptly enrolled in a speech playgroup.  Not much happened.  He turned 3 and was enrolled in preschool with speech therapy.  Not much happened, except I didn't have to pay for preschool, because he didn't speak.  When he was 3 1/2, a kind lady from the school district said she wasn't sure if he would ever speak and we needed a $3,000 AAC device for him to communicate.  Oh, and would our insurance pay for it.  NOOOOOOO it wouldn't, nor would we. She decided the school would pay for it. But,  it would be months before we would get it.  So, we devised our own on the nintendo ds using tap to talk.  Words started coming.  We hired a private speech therapist to the tune of $100 per hour (not covered by insurance).  Words came faster.  Faster, faster, faster. The device the school bought sat on the counter and was rarely used.  They gave it to someone else.  He is getting caught up.  When he is older, he will probably speak better than most.

 What's the problem you ask?  He NEVER shuts up.  From the moment he wakes up until he falls asleep at night, his mouth is moving.  His favorite word of all...MOM.  Every sentence starts with Mom.  I've tried explaining to him that you only have so many words a day to use, but that hasn't helped.

So, I am wondering why I spent thousands of dollars on speech therapy just to tell my kid to shut up!

Who's really in charge?

Who is really in charge?  The only thing I know for sure is that it is rarely myself.

We have all heard of the alpha dog, alpha male, the husband and even Charles in Charge.  There are those that believe that birth order also marks a position in the order of the family.  My husband probably thinks I am in charge and I think that he is in charge. In reality we are probably equal-kinda.  Technically, he is older and being the first born in his family, he is in "charge".  I am the baby of my family, but the only survivor, does that change anything?

Let's look at my children.  Rachel wants to be in charge of everything.  She is the oldest child in our family, therefore she believes she is boss.  However, her biological birth order puts her as 3 of 4.  In this house she is 1 of 2, unless you count the pets.  Then there is Will.  He is our youngest, but his biological birth order makes him number 1.  Will and Rachel therefore clash when it comes to "who is really in charge?"  See my conundrum?

So, who is really in charge?

What's going on here?

Well, I have not been successful at blogging.  Big surprise.  However, I  have found a few moments today.

Rachel is away at camp...ahhh, or so I thought.  As I was attempting to clean, I found orange pop spilled on the carpet in the family room and discretely hidden by some DVD cases.  Any ideas who did that?  Little miss camper.  Let me tell you, orange pop does not come OUT at all.  I worked for 6 hours on it before Dave got home.  I knew he would go psycho so I wanted to make it go away.  I was not successful.  Dave now has a  week to think of a long and painful punishment for Rachel.

As I was cleaning that mess, Will comes in from outside.....NAKED.  He is holding his shoe saying it has poop on it.  I assumed it was dog poop, but he informed me it was his poop.  He thought it would be ok to go potty in the woods.  Said woods is full of poison ivy.  In my nice, calm screaming psycho Mommy voice, I managed to convince him to get in the bathtub.  I scrubbed him down with alcohol (he didn't like that) and lathered him up with about a half of bar of soap.  After he was clean and dressed he was given a bag to go retrieve his clothes and other shoe from the poop infested woods.  More alcohol was then applied to his body.  I am happy to say he does not have poison ivy!

Dave laughed when I told him about Will's adventure, but his demeanor sure did change when he saw the carpet.  I am still working on it.

Why?

Why am I blogging?  Simply because I have forgotten how to write.  I have been out of college for 23 years and have quickly adapted to simple emailing and texting!  So this is my review and practice session.

Since I don't really have anything important to say, I will just blog about my family and boring life!

I have 2 beautiful kids.  They are very beautiful when they are asleep!  Rachel my 10 year old daughter has ADHD!  Talk about a trip.  I never know what to expect, so I have learned to expect the unexpected.
Will is my 4 year old son.  He has some developmental delays ( mostly speech) so he is really closer to 3, except that he is really smart.  He just has trouble expressing himself  and yes, using the POTTY.   Did I mention he is a boy?  What a holy terror!

I also have a husband....I love him alot! Umm....what else about him?  I will have to get back to him later.
The rest of my family is rounded out with a very old Labrador retriever, a calico cat, a Maine Coone cat and assorted fish.