Another Wasted Summer

Every year I tell myself that I will organize my house during the summer. And every year I fail utterly at that assignment. There is so much to do that I end up getting overwhelmed and throwing up my hands.

I did get rid of a lot of the kid's stuff, but it's always much harder to get rid of MY stuff. It's strange because that's all it is - stuff. I don't need most of it but who knows, if I throw it out, I might. Ugh.

Sammy graduated from ABA at the end of June and immediately started a socialization program we had been waiting forever for. While I was glad to get in, I was a bit miffed at the timing. Our whole summer was stretching before us with no therapies and then it was snatched away. It has turned out to be a blessing. Azure goes to help out, and both kids are having a great time.

I am not doing wonderfully on the health front, nothing major, but I'm in constant pain. My arm and shoulder started hurting some months ago. I ignored it, hoping it would go away, and then it became excruciating.

I begrudgingly went to the doctor. The diagnosis is rotator cuff tendinitis. Since I waited so long, now I have to have physical therapy.

I waited another week to call the physical therapist, because I kept hoping it would heal once I was popping 800 mg Motrin three times a day.

Alas, I now seem to have a frozen shoulder. Ever try shaving your armpit when you can't lift your arm up high enough?

This sucks and it hurts a lot. And I'm sure physical therapy will make it hurt MORE. Gah!

But enough of the pity party. I am so good at throwing those, don't ya think?

We haven't been all idle this summer. We have been to the library a lot, although I am the one doing most of the reading.

The children saw a magician at the library. We went to two different story times and we are going to a wild animal presentation on Tuesday.

We've been on a hike and a picnic. We've been to two different parks with water features and we are going to a new one Monday, all of them free.

We still need to go berry picking before all the blueberries are gone. I love blueberries and so does Sammy.

My Grandma is visiting my mother so we will be going down there for a while. Since my Grandma lives in Maine, we haven't seen her in over four years. My daughter lives with my mother so I will get a chance to see her too. Also, my Mom has a pool, a pool! I can't wait to swim.

There are only three weeks left until school starts. An eight week summer isn't nearly long enough, in my opinion. On days the kids are whining, that opinion has been known to change.

When the kids go back to school, it will be a full day for both of them. I need to find a way to make extra money with my time. Are there even jobs out there? Even if there are, do they want somebody who can only work from 8:30 to 1:30 that has to stay home with sick kids and on school vacations? I doubt it. So I need to find a way to make money from home.

I don't have the temperament to do sales or daycare. Could I make this any more difficult? LOL

Life has a way of going on regardless. It's all good.

The Hog Days of Summer

Yesterday was not a good day for my little man. Maybe it's because he had some forbidden dairy. Or maybe it was a combination of dairy and the dreaded red dye 40.

Whatever the reason, he was an utter pill, the kind of kid you want to lock in the back yard. And I did, for about two minutes.

First he decided to "ride" the chair across my Pergo floors. When I said no, he ignored me. Then I had to remove him from the chair and put him in time out. After time out, he started riding the chairs again.

The day went along in that vein until around 7:30 p.m. There were many time-outs and more than a few times the neighbors on the other side of the block heard me screeching.

One of the highlights of the day was when he decided to ask me a question he knew the answer to. This is a habit that I have been trying to break him of.

He does this constantly, all day long, asking me questions that he KNOWS the answer to. While I am grateful that he can talk, I do wish he would do a whole lot less of it.

The question he asked me was if his sister was old enough to drive a car. She is ten and he full well knows she isn't.

Instead of saying my usual, "Why did you ask me a question you know the answer to?", I said, "Yes, we are buying her one tomorrow and you can't ride in it."

And the shrieking began.

We were on our way to a socialization program. It is a twenty minute drive. He screamed for over half of it. The screaming had a pattern. It went SCREECH, sob, sob, SCREECH, sob, sob. Little boys can screech REALLY loudly, an ear splitting sound indeed.

A patient mother, a good mother, would have pulled over to the side of the road and calmed her child down. I, however, was a stressed out, had it up to here, mother. So instead, I conducted the orchestra.

With every SCREECH, I raised my hand into the air. Then for the double sob, I gently lifted it two times in a row. So my hand went UUUUUPPPP, then down, and then made a couple of slight waves.

What the fellow drivers thought of me, I'll never know or care.

This only intensified the screeching, as he was now grievously insulted.

It was not my finest parenting moment. Bedtime was half an hour early that evening.
********************
The grocery store could no longer be avoided this Sunday so I got out some pants and a shirt to put on. They didn't fit.

I tried some different clothes. They didn't fit.

Nothing fits anymore except a few, unflattering pairs of drawstring capris. I need to lose weight. The fact of the matter is, I'm GREAT at dieting, until I get hungry.

Working out has fallen by the wayside. First I had a cold. Then I stubbed my toe so hard, I think I broke it. Then I had, and still have, a horrible tendinitis flare-up. Still, I could walk slowly on my treadmill without too much arm pain; I could. But the old saying, "An object at rest tends to remain at rest," is applying here.

I don't feel good. I am fat and tired and look horrible and seem to be disinclined to fix it. Instead I am whining. Oh, that is helpful!

Maybe someday, I hope soon, I will get my act together.

For now, my belly has its own zip code.

Rhymes with Hex

Azure has asked me several times where babies come from. "Mommy's tummy" was not the answer she was looking for either, blast it all!

I finally told her that the boy part goes in the girl part. Then the boy part shoots out seeds that fertilize the egg.

The look of disgust on her face was priceless. She told me a few days later that she wasn't going to have babies. She might get married, but she wasn't going to have babies.

I can only imagine the shock on the face of her future husband when the honeymoon starts and she says, "I told you I didn't want babies!"

Yes, I know that realistically her attitude will change in about four years. Dammit!
********************
Summer has been busy so far. We go to the park and the library a lot. Sammy has started a new socialization program three days a week. Azure goes with him as they are in need of "typical" kids.

I want to make this a memorable but cheap summer. So far so good...
********************
I forgot to renew my son's medi-cal card. We don't use it for anything personally as it's really not good for anything, but the regional center uses it to reimburse the respite people.

The paperwork showed up in May. I decided to do it that week. Then I put it in a pile and forgot about it until the end of June.

This is not the only kind of stuff I forget. I can't focus or remember many things.

Forty is the new eighty, around here anyway.
*******************

My oldest daughter, Jasmine, took this picture of Sammy. Every time the camera comes out, he strikes a pose.