A Homemaking Journey

So, Joshua turned the big 3, back in April. Immediately, it wasn't that he had hit some huge milestone or look how well he's talking or wow, he's so helpful with some simple chores. No...its that he's not potty trained. About three kids ago, I gave up pushing potty training, figuring that they will do it on their own when they are ready. I've learned to deafen myself against the bragging words of other mothers whose children much younger or even the same age as mine is potty trained, even out in public and at night time.

Finally, one morning about a month ago, Joshua announces he's ready to go potty. Yay! He pees! He poops! Woo-hoo!!! Could it really be that simple!? Hannah was like that, but would Joshua do it too?

1st week: We use pull ups in the car and in public. So far so good.
2nd week: We have all bathrooms in public places mapped out. We debate about night time and nap time. He's woken up dry a few times.
3rd week: not getting to the toilet fast enough sometimes, so we have a few accidents. Have a few streaking moments of naked kid in the front yard.
4th week: Living most of life with a naked 3 year old. Accidents galore. He peed in the carseat. He pooped in his pants. One night, he pooped, then fell asleep on the bathroom floor.

I'm not a quitter, and I'm not giving up...yet.
(Daddy Note: Extremely proud of Joshua. For the most part he lets us know when he has to go, and the accidents are more or less from us not getting him onto the toilet in time.)

Gather around, ladies as I make a confession.

Ready?


I can't seem to buy the right kind and size underwear for my kids. I have seven kids and I still haven't gotten this down.


My older girls would be so embarrassed of my even mentioning the underwear woes, so if you know us personally, please don't tell my girls that you read my blog post about their underwear! {smile}


My girls are getting bigger everyday. In fact, my eleven year old daughter wears the same size clothes as me and she is taller by 1/2 an inch! eep!


About a year ago, they were needing some new panties. I keep all my girls in the granny panties. If they want the cute stuff when they leave the house, fine, I pay for grannies until then. I rushed off to Wal-mart to buy some. I really had no clue what size underwear to get them without them along. I went to the ladies section and thought, "Okay, they both wear size 14 clothes (girls), so size 14 should be good."


For weeks after that, my girls were complaining that their underwear were too big.

I told them they needed to wash them more regularly and they'd fit better.


Then they'd complain that their underwear were so big that the only thing keeping them up were their pants.

I poo-poo'd it, hmmm...no pun intend. {giggle}


One time they thought they'd demonstrate just how big they were by putting them on the toddler and tying on huge knot in the back.

Funny!

Still didn't believe them. It's just a ploy to get new panties.

One evening, we were folding clothes as a family. Chloris finally had enough.

She said, "Mom, we really need new underwear! SEE!!!"

She holds up the largest pair of underwear I had seen in my life and I doubled over in laughter on the bed. I couldn't stop. I made my kids wear elephant underwear that I bought them!!!

The next morning we went to Wal-mart and bought the right sized underwear.

When my Maia needed new underwear I made sure we wrote down the correct size before we left the house. My husband and I both double checked the size and felt confident in handing her the package when we got home. {Quit proudly I might add}

WRONG KIND

I bought bikini underwear accidentally instead of the usual ones. She was miserable. Maia has Sensory Processing Disorder and it drove her mad to wear them. They weren't up high enough so she'd pull them up and then end up with a wedgie. She screamed and cried.

I told her to put another pair of her panties on that weren't the wrong kind. She couldn't because they had all been stolen and pooped in by her little sister!!!!!! I give up.

As you can imagine, we had to go get her the RIGHT kind of underwear the next day.

What a pain in the rear end!!! {pun intended}

I'm always on the look out for new tunes to work out to or pump me up when I'm cleaning the house! This summer Stanford University is giving away 30 free summer songs for your IPod or MP3 player!

Free!

Download yours today!

What's in a name? I read last night in Proverbs 22:1 the following about names, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches..."

Naming an animal in our house is just as complicated as naming one of our children. My husband is so picky it's amazing we have seven children with two names each. Over the years we have had our fair share of animals. I'm happy with the names we came up with, but it wasn't without a fight.

We have decided to get two kittens. One is going to be an orange tabby and since that is the kind of cat I've always wanted there was no negotiating on the name- she will be Bianca. The other poor cat's name was argued, voted on, and mulled over all night. After my husband vetoed every name with the exception of Luigi and Spike (Blech) we came up with:

Girl: Mercedes or Valentina
Boy: Garfield

Sheesh

Last night, I sat down and tried to remember all of our animals and their names. Here is that list:

Dogs

Kumba
Duchess
Gypsy
Billy

Cats

Peanut
Cocoa
Sergeant
Belle

Hamsters

Mary Jane
Samantha
Brownie
Pebbles

Guinea Pig

Tommy

Fish

Professor
Zeus
Captain Horatio Hornblower

Birds

Bloo
Liberty
Cocoa
Fiona
Princess John (He turned out to be a she so she is now Princess instead of Prince.)


And just for fun...here are the names of all of our vehicles that had names:

Gardenia (My first car) Mazda GLC
Bob- hubby's first truck
Brutus -hubby's old truck
Hans- hubby's BMW
Jill- the van we've owned the longest
Snowball- the last white van
The Big Black Angus - our black suburban. Oh, and in keeping with the cow theme, our GPS is named Moo-moo

What names have you come up with for your animals/cars?

"...love adeptly and creatively applied, love consistently and abidingly offered, love wisely and enthusiastically held out and always felt, even when you're sad, angry, disappointed, or hopelss. Such love is muscular and magical. It stares adversity straight in the eye and never once blinks. It prevails." Edward M. Hallowell.

I've watched Isaac over the last couple weeks progress, regress, gain ground and loose ground, blow up, cry, play, and scream. I know he's got to be exhausted. The rest of the family is. There has been no rest, no break, no time to breath. If it wasn't some horrible disaster happening in or to our home, we had Isaac, a mass of nerves and emotion causing his own whirlwind of destruction.

I get the most frustrated when I hear people look at my kids and exclaim how they could never have guessed they had autism. This is coming from people that have not visited me in my home, seen our daily lives revolve around one chaotic episode after another, or spent any amount of time learning about our life. Most definately, there are worse off autistic children than what I have. I still run into people who define autism from what they saw on the movie "Rainman". Because my children don't LOOK different from others, they assume life is normal, that I am a bad parent when my kid melts down in the checkout line, or that "that kid just needs a good spank".

What people don't see is the violent outbursts that erupt over a preferred cup at the dinner table, or a rush to check the mail, or being asked to help with a chore. They don't experience the frustration from asking them to do a task as simple as "pour water for dinner" and they have to be reminded over and over and over, until we give up and asking another to do the task. They don't understand the guilt that is fueled by the instinctive comparisson of the autistic child to his normal siblings. They don't understand the desire to love this child as a whole, to understand this child, and to believe in this child, when this is undermined by a destroyed house, exaggerations about an incident, and the blaring obviousness that he cannot perform certain tasks that you think because of his age, he should be able to do.

His learning disabilities make it difficult to move forward with education. We chose to homeschool because the stress caused with him in school was far more disruptive to our home than when he was he was home. Some may find that hard to believe. Many tell me to put him in school so I can get a break. They don't understand what a temptation that is for me. Just as I build up my resolve, this comes and brings it all down. Isaac's ability to learn is through hands on, lots of activity, lots of short lessons and free time. This isn't exactly the way of "normal" school. Conveyor belt schooling will simply not ever be easy for Isaac, at least not in the formative years.

While there are social and physcial limitations he experiences, there are emotional limitations. He knows he is different. He worries about his disabilities and that they affect his relationships. Poor guy cannot understand the fickleness of preteen girls now, that one day they are friends and the next day they are enemies. He wants things to be the same every time, every day, and while some things he can be flexible about, like a quick trip to the store, he can't adapt easily to out of town visits, moves, or interruptions to his play. He hates being yelled at, but sadly, after our frustrations have grown all day long with him, we resort to yelling, which only makes things worse. I know he tries to do the right things, he wants to the right things, but just...can't.

If you watch him, you instantly tense. His muscles are tense all day long. His arms and legs stick out at boney angels. When you touch him, he stiffens even more, as if that is possible. He can't control his body well, so his movements become jerky and fast. It is hard to watch my other children work so hard on a project, and Isaac will accidentally hit something, jerk something, move something and mess up their project. Sometimes it seems intentional, other times it is accidental, but the cries from the siblings say otherwise. It is their frustration at being run over, hurt, sidelined or put out by Isaac.

For the postives in our family, we live for the good moments. A joke that Isaac finally gets right, potty training success, a bright smile, a job done, a note he draws for us, his "instant buddy" status, his nosiness. I admire his ability to have no fear in meeting new people. He's the first one out the door in a new neighborhood to meet new friends, which I suppose people would say is odd for an autistic kid that is supposed to have slow social skills. It is not the meeting people that is difficult for him, but his keeping friends. I can't get him to read much of anything, but he will read anything about dogs. I love that all animals instantly bond with him. I'm amazed at his unfazing energy.

I disagree with Jenny McCarthy's claim that autism is curable. I believe that there can be improvements, but having known some autistic adults, some of those disabilities never leave. We all don't have access and money to the autism programs for behavior, the autistic schools, the dietary supplements or special diets (although I do know that diet attributes to improvements), insurance for counseling, insurance for medicines, or just the testing for autism. When the school tested Isaac for his secondary disabilities (visual problems, motor issues), they didn't really have anything in place that would help with these issues, only the ability to test for the issues. What are parents like me left with? Love. Love for a child that may never be whole. Love for a child that is imperfect. Love for a memory of a short blond angel with a crooked halo. Love for a child that can be so consuming it hurts. I live off of other parents stories so I can find some kind of common ground, knowing I'm not the only one experiencing this trial.

To understand more on autism, go to this site: http://www.autism-help.org/

This is why glue is now banned in our home.

Yesterday was busy. Busier than I've had in a very long time. The morning was full of errands: drugstore, gas station, car wash, grocery store, general store (looking for a dog kennel and chandelier crystal), the vet, another vet (trying to figure out when or who gave Cookie her last shots) and then home for lunch. After lunch, Jesse and Simeon got to go to North Platte with me for our bi-monthly trip to Walmart. This also included a trip to Menards to get a few home improvement things, and score! I found the dog kennel. Walmart was, as usual, exhausting and crowded and I had a bum cart that tended to drive itself to the right and crash into the shelves, or people, or displays. This didn't help that Simeon chose to either ride on that side, walk RIGHT IN FRONT of the cart, or pull it somewhere I didn't want to go. I shouldn't complain. Simeon was pretty good for all those errands. I don't know what is wrong with Menards, but the minute I walk in there, I get an instant migraine. Home again, put groceries away, take some Motrin and lay down to chat with Shiloah for a bit. Ammon brings me an open bottle of glue he was taste testing and I put it on the night stand behind the lamp.
Curtis orders pizza bcause I can't do one more thing. We eat pizza, get some kids ready for bed and I start cleaning up the kitchen. Jesse was sent down to switch loads of laundry. He comes back.

"Mom. The drain is overflowing downstairs."

"Mom. The drain is getting deeper."

"Mom. The drain is spreading to the rest of the basement."

"Mom. The drain is full of water and the cats can't get by."

"Mom. THE BASEMENT IS FLOODED."

Me: ALRIGHT!!! THANKS FOR THE UPDATES. (All of which happened in 1 minute).

Curtis goes down to inspect. The floor drain in the middle of the floor is filling up with water. We're not sure what caused it, there weren't any other back ups in the house or plumbing issues. I try the old fashioned treatments first: baking soda and vinegar. That did nothing but make a huge, foamy mess. Then we tried boiling water. That added more water to the problem. Curtis plunges the drain, that brings up more water. I get a squeegee and start squeegeeing the water to the drain, but with the indention in the floor for the drain, it pushes the water up and over the opposite side of the indention. We find the snake. That does nothing and we can't find anything stoppping up the drain. Finally, Curtis finds some Draino and pours that down. *glub, glub* Nothing.

In the middle of this, Joshua, who just potty trained in the past week, poops his pants. He takes them off, and brings them to Curtis. I don't know if Curtis threw them away or put them in the wash, but he yells for one of the boys to help clean up Joshua and Jesse reports that there is poop on the carpet, and that Isaac stepped in it. AAAHHH!!!! Curtis goes upstairs to clean up Joshua and the carpet. I stay downstairs folding laundry, watching the drain. All of sudden, the water is gone!! Woo-hoo!!!! Draino worked for once! Problem solved and no plumber needed! I finish cleaning that up and then discuss with the boys about going to see Ice Age, since it was the last day it was going to be here in the theater. Exhausted as I was, we decide to go. I was barely able to move any more, so after the final squeegee (we're good friends now...I think he has a life of his own going on under that sink upstairs) I collapse in the chair, and look at the carpet. 5 brown stains now grace the carpet. I blow up, but not really...more like a balloon loosing its air, and so Curtis once again gets the cleaner and washcloths and him and Isaac elbow grease the stains out of the carpet.

We go to the movie. I wasn't real thrilled about it, but the boys had earned it with their hard work on our paper route, so I grinned and bore it. We get home and everyone is in bed, including Joshua, that has been the most difficult baby to get to sleep. I admire him. How sweet he looks in his sleep, how cute and small, and how proud I am of him potty training. As I pick him up, I turn and see my night stand.

Covered in glue.

It was dripping off the lamp, the edge of the stand and almost oozing onto my bed. It was poured all over Hannah's painting (of Monticello, no less..and it was really good), and my book. And he used my favorite socks to "clean" it up. As I leave with him in my arms (I didn't want to loose it at that point...he was asleep, Praise the Good Lord!), I trip on the phone cord the baby pulled down and all the tape in the house is gone, so I haven't been able to get it put back up, then almost ram my head into the cupboard door Isaac left open looking for mouthwash, and then stumble into Joshua's room to place him in bed, and here, in all its glory, in the middle of the floor, sits an open bottle of glue. I about lost it.

Glue is now banned from our house.

That was the last straw after a horrendously long and busy day. Glue sticks are debateable. I have cleaned glue sticks off furniture, carpet, refrigerators, and walls. Glue is evil. I cleaned up the glue. I cleaned up what I could with what little strength I had left. I took a shower and then climbed into bed. I think I read 2 paragraphs in my book and then fell asleep. And today is catch up. Too sore to do much, too tired to barely function, it's been a morning of left over pizza for breakfast and movie watching. And no glue in sight.

Enough already with the Michael Jackson coverage! I have never been a Michael Jackson worshiper and I didn't think the media ever was; does the term Wacko Jacko ring a bell? Now for two weeks all we've seen on all forms of media are Michael Jackson this and that. I don't watch regular TV in my home, however when I go to the gym, it is on those TV's. Every time I login to check my yahoo account, there's his scary mug on the front page.

We've all been asking the question why did he go white for years. Now that he's dead (and in my opinion to gain more news coverage and ratings) the mystery is "really" going to be revealed. I don't care!

I saw a poll this morning on the news:

"Are you worried about Michael Jackson's kids?"

WHAT? Are you kidding me? I was more worried about them when he was caring for them!! Why does it matter if I'm worried about his kids. They aren't my kids and I could never do anything about it...so why point my nose into someone else's business with the media's provocation and invitation?

I admit, when I was 8 years old I thought the song "Beat it" was cool. More than twenty years later I've moved on to more interesting artists whose songs I like better.

I'm sorry that his life ended so suddenly. No one is promised tomorrow and we never know when we're going to go. Instead of dragging this on and on and on...let us get on with our lives so that we can make the best of them instead of being depressed over a pop star who passed on.

I'm done now. Thank you.

We took lots of pictures of our family over the holiday weekend. Today I took the opportunity to look through them, which turn out to be more like critiquing them. A theme I saw more and more in all the pictures of me was how tired I looked. My eyes were so sleepy looking. After looking at Hannah's youthful appearance, even with her too big of teeth and too long of hair she hasn't quite grown into yet, her eyes were always bright and her skin smooth. How fast that youthful appearance tends to flee. While I washed my now short hair today, I thought about why I was so tired.

I'm tired of fighting with kids that fight with each other.
Going to bed too late.
Getting up too early.
Listening to Aristocats for the 40th time this week.
Dealing with one autistic kid that does too much.
Dealing with another autistic kid that does too little.
Cleaning.
Stress from just....struggling: finances, homeschooling, medical issues.

Does this read so easily on people's appearances?

Almost 4 years ago I found myself standing in the cosmetics aisle with Shiloah and another friend. They found me some under eye make up that helped with the tired look, only now I can't find it and am forced to search for it. This might as well be a search for the Holy Grail for me. The make-up aisle is a bit scary to me...what do you do with it all? How do I know what to do with foundation, powder, dust, mineral blush, glitter, and I've seen some women use lipstick as blush...do I do that instead? How do I get rid of the dark circles under my eyes? Hemorrhoid cream, highlighter, or Spackle? Do I wear blue eye shadow or pink? Lipstick: I usually end up getting a color meant for dark skin, not pasty white, which makes me look even paler and a little bit on the evil vampire side. I just stick to chapstick now. So, I just don't go down this aisle. Unfortunately, my favorite store moved my facial wash to the make up aisle now and I'm forced to get lost wandering the make up section, getting side tracked by all the other offers of beauty and colors. This has gotten me to thinking that maybe a little make up might help in the sleepy eyed looks department.

This doesn't help that about 8 years ago my sister told me on my 27th birthday, "Maybe you should think about wearing make up now. After all, you are 27 now." She made it sound like 27 is 87.

Anyway, moving on. I had a point here, when I was thinking about all this and forming this blog post in my mind. Something along the lines of how when you feel like you've been dragged through the trenches of motherhood, not just IN the trenches....How do you feel and look when you have really laughed? Maybe this is the best make up of all.

This week I made zucchini muffins that Simeon referred to as Bikini muffins. Joshua finally potty trained (Praise the good Lord!!), and one day, left on there while we had a discussion about William Clark that took about 20 more minutes, he poked his head around the bathroom door and yelled "I done!". Ammon has learned to hug our legs, give open mouthed kisses (slobber and all), and refers to everyone as Dad. So, when I come home, I get "Hi, Dad!". Hannah put a price sticker on her leg and then announced she is now $12.85. I found a new store full of the prettiest stuff. I watched a bird take a bath. I have a husband who reloaded 232 songs back on my Ipod after my kids reformatted it. These are things to be happy about and I suppose, if you looked at your life, your kids, your husband, your job, you'll find many, many more things to be happy and joyful about. Better than all the make up in the world.

*I'm not anti-make up. Just so you know.*

This past week were all out weeding our garden and Jesse found a fossilized rib bone. Just laying there. I don't know how we didn't notice when we tilled, or if all the rain resurfaced it, but it was pretty cool. We took it to the Wood Gallery here, where they specialize in fossils and petrified wood. They estimated the bone piece to be 40,000 years old. We've also been able to find petrified wood just laying around in our backyard too. Some days, I really wish I was an archeologist. That sounds so exciting right about now.

We've had all kinds of rain so far, so the lake and the river is fuller than it's been in several years. Its been suggested to wait till the end of the summer and then search the areas the water has receded from to look for washed up arrow heads and fossils. I can't wait!