I Have Some Catching Up to Do!

Things around here have been rough :(

In September, the main company Jesse freelanced for decided they didn't need him anymore. There was no warning. He just woke up one day and had an email and that was that... He had some smaller side jobs, but nothing near what we needed financially. The little bit of savings we had was gone pretty quickly. He's gotten some jobs here and there since then, and got his business website up and running. But if not for the help of family members, who knows where we'd be living. Certainly not here. I don't know how long the help will last, but am extremely grateful for it! We may soon be looking at having to find someone with a spare room who's willing to let us live there for a while till we can get back up on our feet again :'( Jesse is working 70-80 hour weeks right now for very little pay. Which leaves me doing pretty much everything else. At least we have food stamps coming in now so that's definitely helping!

October, we didn't get hardly any school done. The boys were sick. Then I was sick. My anemia got really bad because I reduced my supplements to make them last longer. There is only one type of iron I tolerate well, it's only made (and sold) by one company, and it's not cheap. Between being sick and anemic, my hand/wrist that I strained in September has been extremely slow to heal. I'm still having to wear a brace for most of the day. My chiropractor would probably be able to help, but it's a money issue right now. We ended the month with Jesse not being able to work for almost a week because of having the flu. Sometime in the midst of all that, we found out the place Ethan is getting his occupational therapy is having to shut down :( There is only one other place in this area that accepts Medicaid but it is a lot different. For one, they only do therapy 30 minutes a week instead of the 60 we get now. It's a lot further away. There will be a long waiting list. We can't even get on the waiting list until the current place releases him. His therapist asked me if we wanted her to do the release paperwork so he can get on the waiting list. NO WAY! It's so important to us that Ethan gets as much therapy as he can at his current place, which he's used to, rather than stop there when we don't know if the new place will work out. The therapists at the other place are supposed to be excellent, but Ethan is not the easiest child to work with and I don't know how willing to work with him they will be...

Okay, onto some good things :)

When we've done school, Ethan has enjoyed it :) I jumped ahead a week in the curriculum because he knew what we were covering and was ready to move on. There has only been one day where he couldn't focus well enough to do that day's lesson plan. So I did a review day instead. Gotta love the flexibility of homeschooling ;)

We started a new therapy with Ethan's social worker. It's called Circle of Security http://circleofsecurity.net/ COS is based on attachment theory and is a perfect fit for us! It focuses on what Jesse and I are doing, what our emotional triggers are, and how our relationship with our children is. It's helping me fine-tune things a bit, but Jesse is really getting a lot out of it :) He told me that a lot of what he's "learning" is stuff that I've told him, but it's presented in a way that he understands. One of the main points of COS is that we should be Bigger, Stronger, Wiser, and Kind with our children. It's something I try to keep in mind!

Jesse is taking some time off from worship team. There are good and bad things about this, but right now it's mostly good. Sundays were long, difficult days for me, and his break takes a lot off my shoulders. There were a number of reasons he felt the need to step back for a while and we've seen nothing but good come of it so far :) He talked with the worship leader who was very understanding. I know he misses being on the team but I think the temporary sacrifice has been worth it for him.

Hmmm... I think that's it for now. I'll try to keep up better on here but it's hard with only having one computer! Jesse is taking a few much-needed hours off work to watch some college football on TV (GEAUX RAGIN' CAJUNS!!!!!) so I'm taking advantage of the opportunity to be typing much faster on a computer keyboard instead of the touchscreen on my phone ;)

Day 2

Today I am thankful that Jesse's dad and (step)mom make the effort to get all three "children" and their families together every 5-6 weeks. Usually it's at their house, sometimes (like tonight) it's at a restaurant. But either place, it's nice to spend time with everyone :)

Day 1

Today I am thankful for the mental health services we are getting for Ethan. I really need to blog about the new therapy we're doing (it's awesome!) but I get frustrated over how long it takes to do it on my phone :(

Suffice it to say I have ZERO doubt that God led us to the right place, and we have the best people possible working with us! Bonus - Even though it's a state facility, both our case manager and our social worker are both Christians :D

30 Days of Thankfulness

I REALLY need to do it this year...

Homeschool!

As of today, we are officially homeschoolers :D We planned on starting last week, then Hurricane Isaac headed our way so we decided to wait. Yesterday, well, it just wasn't happening :p So today it was! We did school after breakfast today, but we'll be doing it after lunch instead so I can work out in the mornings.

I'm using the Abeka K4 curriculum for Ethan, but I can already see I will be tweaking it a bit ;) He was so excited about starting school today! Week 1 is very light in what we do (no math or writing), and he was rather disappointed. "What's next? What do we do next, Mommy? I want to write!" LOL So I pulled out his dry erase board and dry erase crayons and let him write to his heart's content ;) I have some workbooks (Abeka 3-yr-old level) for Gabriel to do when wants. Today he played until I pulled out the dry erase, then he "wrote" with Ethan :)

Here's what our schedule looks (will look) like:
Lunch
Potty
Brushing (Wilbarger protocol)
Warm-Ups (from Brain Gym; his former OT did them with him and I'm glad I wrote it down!)
Bible/prayer (taught by Jesse)
Phonics
Numbers
Writing
Art/Music/PE/Sensory activities

I'm excited that Ethan's so excited! I hope he stays enthusiastic :) I know there will be rough days, but I've planned on homeschooling since before we had kids so I'm glad it's finally here!!!

Been a Little While...

I have such good intentions of keeping this updated... When I can get a laptop, it'll be easier. Blogging from my phone just takes longer than I have the patience for most days :p The typing I do is usually posting at www.gentlechristianmothers.com/community but the site is on summer vacation right now ;)

Ethan's continuing to progress with his occupational therapy :) We don't know how much longer he'll have it. The department it's under is in danger of being shut down due to budget cuts :( If it ends up a casualty of politics, there is only one other place that takes Medicaid for OT in this area. And I don't know if it would be worth it... Guess if/when that time comes, we'll make a decision.

His behavioral therapy has been a bit different. The social worker has been doing home visits. She wanted to see him in a setting he'd be more comfortable. It's worked out to be a very good change! She's gotten a lot of new insight and even got to see a meltdown including most of the lead-up. We'll be starting a new therapy this week called Circle of Security. Friday will be our intro meeting about it. I looked around their website some and was happy with what I've seen so far. It meshes really well with our style of parenting, and addresses some issues that haven't been resolved with what we've done so far.

And it couldn't have come at a better time! The last week with Ethan has been the worst we've had for a while :( He and Jesse are on another spiral of feeding off each other's negativity. It's awful to be around... Especially for someone like me who is so in tune with their emotions. Today and Monday were pretty bad. It's really hard to keep myself from absorbing the intensity of those emotions and letting them pull me down too. Let me just say that I have empathic tendencies, and anyone who has them knows what struggles I'm facing in the midst of all this anger and turmoil... I had to partially restrain him today which I haven't had to do in a while. But last night he fell asleep on the couch with his head in my lap... And this morning he and I rough-housed for a long time. It hasn't all been negative :)

On to Gabriel! He is so expressive and cracks me up when he gets going :) He's started throwing toys to get attention. It's not something we can ignore :( We're trying to figure out an appropriate consequence that works for the situation. He went through a short period of hitting himself in the head when he got frustrated, and wanting attention for it. Thankfully that's getting better! It's so hard not to respond when he does it, but that's the only way the behavior will stop. He's 2.5 and acting in very age-appropriate ways ;)

Ethan's birthday and party are this month :) He wants Clifford for his theme. I have a neat cake idea, just hope it turns out like I'm hoping!

I made Ethan a weighted pillow a few weeks ago. It's to put on his lap while sitting to help him sit still. He asks for it when he feels he needs it and has done really well with it so far! I'll try to get a post up specifically about the pillow...

And in other news... The boys' homeschool curriculum came in :) I'm pretty nervous but definitely excited too! Abeka K4 for Ethan (manuscript), and a few of their toddler workbooks for Gabriel. We also got the Abeka bible curriculum. We are mostly happy with it but will be adding some extra lessons as well.

Hmmm... I'm exhausted, so that's all for now! I'll try to be better about posting on this blog :p

From My Husband

My hubby wrote this Mother's Day night and I wanted to share it with y'all...

http://15words.blogspot.com/2012/05/to-all-whose-mothers-day-is-hard.html