Household Project Update

So here's what I've been up to in my spare time:

The girl's bedroom. Kind of hard to capture in pictures, but just imagine a very small space with two very large lofts. Both girls seem to be very happy with the arrangement, though. And I'm getting a lot less whining about whose stuff is cluttering up the place.



The green side is Little K's, of course. I have a little more work to do on the curtains when I find time, but they're functional for now.





This is underneath Big K's bed. Both girls have a chair, a dresser, hooks for bags and purses, a lamp, special quilts on the wall, and all their miscellaneous junk. Essentially, all the stuff that they can claim as theirs. Community stuff is on community property. Books, for example. I find it interesting that Big K likes her curtains open, while Little K keeps hers closed.



Here's the front porch project I mentioned awhile ago. Most of the stuff came from Pier One and IKEA. I'm waiting for some red cushions to go on sale, but other than that, I'm about done.



And in my ongoing battle to declutter this house, I'm working on getting all the outgrown kids clothes ready for a consignment sale in October. I figured I'd better start early if I wanted to have a fighting chance. I've used at least 250 hangers so far. This picture isn't all the clothes. I've taken over J-Man's entire closet for the coats and pajamas.



And here's the pile of other junk besides hang-up clothes. Yes, that is an overflowing bin of shoes you see there. I can't wait until October and these piles leave the house. Then I can start in on the bookshelves.












We started a light school schedule last week. I told the girls that we were going to use the "boil the frog" approach to starting the school year. Maybe that way it won't be so painful!

The husband's garden is coming on strong. We've had plenty of squash, beets, carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, beans, and finally, tomatoes. We spent a couple of Saturdays doing some canning, and it looks like I'm going to need to start freezing soon. In an unusual spurt of energy, I also managed to bake a batch of bread today. Crazy!

Waaaaay too many doctors!

This week, I've visited the offices of (drum roll please) the Orthodontist, the Neurologist, the Therapist, the Psychiatrist and our Primary Care Physician. Thankfully, we have tomorrow off. But next week we start up again with: the Orthodontist (again), the Vet (because the cat needs to get in on the action, too), the Primary Care Physician (again, but for me this time), and the therapist (again, but not for me this time). I've decided to reschedule the appointment with the Neuro-ophthalmologist on Tuesday, since he's not going to tell me anything that I don't already know. "Yes doctor, that's right. I still can't read that eye chart."

On Tuesday evening, just to add a little spice to the mix, the social worker is coming for our two year post-placement report, which needs to be in Russia in September. Can I tell you how much I'm looking forward to chatting with her about how things are going around here? I told the husband that I'm not going to go to a lot of trouble to clean up the house for this visit. I figure I can just tell her that the bulk of the mess is a result of not being able to put that addition on like we'd planned, since we're pouring all our money into therapy.

On a positive note, we came away from the psychiatrist with some medication for J-Man. We'll start it tomorrow evening at dinnertime. I'm praying that we'll hit on the right medication, or medication combo, very quickly.

And before I sign out for this evening, I must take the opportunity to wish my sister a happy 30th birthday. Yes, that's right, she's 30. THIRTY! I'll call you tomorrow to see how your day of pampering went.

Hopeful

That's how I'm feeling this morning. Our appointment last night went well. J-Man has been diagnosed with a long list of disorders, but underneath it all the testing psychologist felt that he has a desire to please and there is the abiblity to think coherently. We just have to get his brain to start firing properly. Now, I am not a medicating kind of person, but this child does not stand a chance unless we can get his brain chemistry staightened out. Both of the psychologists at the meeting last night said that therapy is useless right now, and we will discontinue until we are able to see the psychiatrist and get medication started. Which we will do ASAP. So, during the break, I'm off to therapy to work out some of my own junk and hopefully learn to be a better mom for J-Man. Should be interesting.

Weekend Aftermath

I've just finished up a weekend alone with J-Man. So watch out, I'm going to vent. I can't stand to stay at home with him for an entire day...he'll drive me batty. So that means that I'm going to take him out in public where I risk embarrassment, humiliation, or worse.

Let's start with keeping track of him in stores. Have you ever taken a 2-year-old into a china store? Now imagine that he's bigger (like, say, 5) but still acts like a 2-year-old. He will touch and break anything. He dances and spins wildly in the aisles. He runs into people and things. He wanders off. Add to that, that he would go home with ANYONE because he thinks I'm a big, bad monster and anyone else is sure to be nicer. He's a cute little boy, and this really concerns me. He either has to be in a shopping cart where he gets no exercise, or my hand has to be on him at all times, making it very difficult to shop. Now, I want to know, what is wrong with putting this child on a leash? How is this different than putting him in a cart or hooking my finger in his shirt collar? He would be able to walk, and I would have my hands free. But no, social conventions don't allow that. Never mind that its for his own safety and my peace of mind. Someone would post a cell phone video on utube, I would be labeled "bad mother of the year", and social services would break down my door.

Now how about his mouth. Do you remember the oldest character on The Golden Girls? The mother (Sophia) who had lost the part of her brain (stroke, maybe?) that censored what came out of her mouth? That's J-Man. He will point to someone in a store and, at the top of his lungs, "Hey, that guy looks like a girl." "Hey, why doesn't that guy have any legs." (ironic, right?) "Hey, that guy is fat." Why does it always start with "Hey"? Just to make sure everyone in the store is looking and listening?

And how about the temper tantrums? The therapist has given us a technique to deal with these, which we use effectively at home. It involves physically restraining J-Man. Oh my, that's a no-no. We've had to cut several trips short so that I could come home and deal with a tantrum. Judging eyes just don't let me properly handle his issues.

And, of course, he has no cause-and-effect thinking processes developed in his brain. So we deal with the same crap every time we go somewhere. Over and over and over. It does not matter what consequence he receives, it does not matter how much we review appropriate behavior in stores, it does not matter if I bribe him. He is unable to put it all together. Here's a small example. J-Man was watching TV in the living room on Saturday while I was somewhere else in the house. I heard a loud bang and then silence. He had crawled up on the arm of the couch, fallen over backward, and whacked his head HARD on the piano. I think he may have been knocked out for a few seconds. I can't even tell you how many times I had to tell him to get off the arm of the couch for the rest of the weekend. A hundred, maybe? No joke. Frustrating.

So that, in a nutshell, was my weekend. I'm looking forward to a meeting tonight with J-Man's therapist and the psychologist who did J-Man's comprehensive testing. I'm hopeful that we will develop a plan to improve things around here.

Household Projects

My project in the girls' bedroom is coming along nicely. The used IKEA loft did finally go together after quite a bit of work and assistance from the husband. I don't think the previous owner could ever have had that thing put together. So there are now 2 lofts in that bedroom and not much room for anything else. I used some very cheap sheets (thanks again to IKEA) to make curtains for the bottoms, so now each girl has her own little fort. Little K has chosen to put in a saucer chair, which takes up most of her space. Big K is still thinking it over. I don't really care as long as they keep the mess behind the curtain. Kind of like the Wizard of Oz, right? This is a good time of year for these reorganization projects, as all the back to school stuff is out in the stores. You can find some neat things that you wouldn't find otherwise.

While I was sewing curtains, the husband spent his weekend stripping and refinishing the bench from our front porch. Which now means that I have to spend a little bit of time finding some other stuff to put on the front porch so that the bench doesn't look so lonely. I have a couple of trips out and about planned for this afternoon to see what I can find. Fortunately, outdoor furniture is on sale now, since summer is almost over, you know.

In other news, I had planned to start school yesterday. But I decided that there is too much going on in our lives for the next couple of weeks, and I was feeling too stressed about it. The girls and the husband are heading out to go camping for a long weekend anyway, so I couldn't have gotten in a complete week. Behind before I even start. Oh, well.

And for those of you who may or may not be interested...I saw a neurologist this past week who thinks that I have a spinal fluid build-up which is pressing on my optic nerve and causing my vision loss. He's going to do some other testing to rule out anything else first, but it looks like I'm headed for a spinal tap. Yee haw!