Friday & Saturday

I know it is the morning of saturday but I just need to vent.

My Bestie just broke up with me. We have been friends for a year and a half and the relationship we had was not as strong as I thought it was. Apparently she thinks I am a bad influence on her and that my kids are teaching her kids bad habits. Here is the letter she wrote to me on FaceBook - she didnt even have the decency to do it to my face

:(

Noodle. I have some bad news. i chose to talk to you this way because i need to be able to say it all at once and be done with it. please understand.

After you left yesterday I found a few things the kids had gotten into and a princess castle they had broke. Grace of course told her dad and then when i put her to bed last night she said i Hate you, and when asked who taught her that she said Renee....i said when? she said she tells April and Aggie that all the time! i never thought anything of it but im realizing that our combined humor/cynicism is starting to affect Grace and Evans emotional development i dont want them saying things like that and yesterday when you said that April got her attitude from Grace it bothered me because Grace actually got it from Carson i dont know if you have noticed but its not really like i have any other friends or kids for her to play with, so anything they pick up goes around from chase to carson to grace to the girls and back to evan. you have told me in the past Carson says no and he dose cross his arms and get mad at you when asked to pick things up. He did this yesterday after agreeing with me to clean up the toys ,which usually grace will sing a song and do without any fighting so this is not open ended out of nowhere blame. i think the kids just get into too much when their here and its bothersome to me because i can let my kids play in their rooms and they DONT get into anything, and if we leave your kids alone in the bedrooms in my house they destroy toys, peel the decorations off my walls and get into things that i havnt ever had an issue with before with ANY other kids at my place. i dont think you notice but when something happens you seem to blame Grace and awful lot and if she dosnt have the whole story of what happened you think that because shes 3 she should know better when in reality shes only 6mos older than the girls shes not that much farther ahead in common sense that they are. she dose have feelings and i think after talking with her last night that it would be a good idea if you didnt come over anymore. i enjoyed our friendship but i cant put my kids in a position where even im stressed by your kids sometimes and i feel like after you have been around for a day or 2 that im hostile towards my kids and when no one is here they are good as gold but for some reason things that normally wouldnt bother me DO when your here. for example spilling the pop, it was nothing and were tearing the carpet out anyway so its not a big deal but pushing her aside is not the way to handle it and it was the way i handled it yesterday. its a pattern im noticing with myself after hanging around you. Ben and i also feels like our teaching and parenting methods should NOT be up for debate in our own home like for example yesterday at lunch you were telling us pointers on discipline and manners, neither of which your kids have much of you admitted this last week to me. and if he chooses to eat something different its HIS house and he can if he wants you dont share your candies and chocolate and pop with your kids do you? so all in all i just feel it would be best if we just didnt hang out. this has been on my mind for a while now since about April and now you atleast have 2 weeks to find a new buddy to go with you to the concert. i realize this will be upsetting but its how i honestly feel and trying to tell you in person dosnt work because we get off topic and i forget things. i just needed to air it out and explain all at once and get it over with. you now me i could have called or had you over but i didnt want you to think i was attacking you i wanted to be able to tell you where you could take the news in private. ill round up everything thing that belongs to you and delete your belongings from the adds. it will take me a day so ill drop your things by your place over the weekend.

sorry to have offended you or hurt your feelings i just cant hold it in anymore. Ben dosnt want you coming around anymore he dosnt like bantering with you and feels uncomfortable and angry when your here.

Noodle is my nickname. Now here is the back story. When I met her I was in a bad place with PostPartumDepression. We liked the same things, same music, we could make eachother laugh so hard pop came out our noses. She was my only friend and me hers. Her kids were like my kids and my kids were like her kids. We started hanging out slowly and after the nice weather hit I was always there or she was here. When she moved into a new house, closer than her old one, we didnt see eachother alot because she was working on trying to get a job and I had other things to worry about. ie: Chase. Anway, so we started hanging out more often again this April and May and because I am working on my discipline techniques I thought I would give her a few pointers. She had always told me that if she had a problem with something I did or said that she would tell me up front and we could discuss it. I THOUGHT she would do that, apparently she lied to me about that. I called her and asked her to call me and she wrote me back on FaceBook again. Here is the reply.

Im sorry but No, i cant call you. My decision is not open ended and is NOT up for debate. Please DONT come over and try to catch me at home, i wont answer the door. Lets just leave it at this. i dont want to be ambushed about my decision.

So not only does she hurt my feelings but she also does not let me defend myself or my kids. My mom asked me if this was the type of friend I wanted. As Im sitting here thinking about it, NO its not.

Almost Friday

Thank goodness it's almost Friday. I dont think I could handle one more weekday this week. Chase has been a holy terror every morning for the last week. I am thinking that he hit a growth spurt and now we need to adjust his meds accordingly. On Tuesday he got into one of the girls stuffed animals, a monkey stuffed with little foam balls. Apparently, there was a hole in it, so he decided to make a bigger hole and then he proceeded to empty the balls onto the floor of his room. When I went upstairs I just about yelled at him, he just looked at me like "you're the one who left me alone for too long mommy, and because of that I decided to do something to keep me occupied", I calmly asked him to stay in his room, told him that he was going to spend the rest of the morning, until school, in his room and that he was to eat breakfast in there as well. I went downstairs and dealt with the other three kids and asked Chase to come down and make his lunch. When he came down he started running around the house screaming and playing with the other kids and I just kept begging the kids to stop, of course they didnt listen and mommy just about went nuts.

On Wednesday Chase was just not listening to me at all, it wasnt as bad as Tuesday but still a bad day.

Today Chase was not listening (yet again lol) and I had a migraine so of course I was already in a bad mood, well I had had enough and I ended up yelling at the kids (all of them) and I put them all on a time out. I had asked them to clean the living room before they got to eat breakfast, I think the boys picked up one toy and put it away and then they were running around being crazy, the girls were still in bed so I thought it was the perfect time for them to clean up. Apparently not. So, I just sat there watching the boys, asking them to clean, begging them to clean, refusing to feed them til it was clean. At that point the girls got up so I asked Carson to grab the girls. They all came back downstairs and then all four of them were running around, the time was ticking away, it was almost time to leave to take Chase to school. I reneged on my earlier bribe. I had to have them eat breakfast, I couldnt stand it if I didnt feed them. I then asked Chase to finish making his lunch and while he was dicking around YET AGAIN I told the other three to get into the van. Bad idea on my part. Chase was taking too long, all of a sudden I hear the horn go on the van, April was in the front seat pretending to drive lol. Cute but not so much. As I was going upstairs to go to the bathroom before I went outside (stupid mommy again) Chase ran outside and screamed at the kids that they need to get out of the van, but then hopped into it himself. I ran downstairs and yelled at them to all go on a time out. I told Chase to make his lunch or he would go to school without one, the other three were on a timeout on the chairs outside while I stood watch over Chase to make his lunch and so I could see the others while they were on timeout. Then Chase was finished so we went outside to get in the van and Chase started running around so of course the other ones wanted to run around too. Well then I got really mad, my face went red, my jaw clenched and I screamed at the top of my lungs, I would be surprised if my neighbors didnt hear me. I told them all to "get in the goddamn van", "all of you are grounded off your bikes", "no baseball", "you all suck" etc etc......

I drove to the school angry and I sped, cut someone off and came to a fast stop to jolt the kids. Chase got out calling me a "twathead" as he got out, ran across the front of the van and tripped. Well me being a mommy (even tho i was super mad) jumped out of the van and ran to see if he was ok, he was fine, I kissed him and told him that I was sorry and that I love him and to have a good day at school. The fire sizzled out. I was no longer angry.

When the rest of us got home I was cleaning and asked Carson, April and Aggie to help me clean because we had a visitor coming over. They didnt want to help so I sent them to their rooms to stay out of my way so I could clean and not trip over any of them. They all fell asleep for a bit. I got the house cleaned and when they woke up we had lunch and our friend came. After that the rest of the day was good.

june 6th

Scott came home on Friday. He was in the field for the last 10 days doing what he does best, fixing things electrical. I enjoyed it when he came home because I had missed him alot, but I do not enjoy that now I am back to sitting around and making him do everything. When he is away I do everything, from laundry to bathing the kids to cooking dinner. When he is home, I do next to nothing, I may do a few loads of laundry, possibly cook dinner once in a while and bath the kids maybe once a month. I hate being lazy but it is so easy for me to just sit back and let Scott do it all. I have stopped pretending that I am getting better, I figured out that the only reason that I wasnt getting better was because subconsciously I was pretending to be happy so that everyone would stop pestering me about everything. Now, I have finally let my doctor and councilor know that Im done pretending. We are now in the midst of yet another med change and I am getting to the bottom of everything with my councilor. We are going to hit it where it began - in childhood.

My mom is my best line of support at the moment, she has been through what I am going through with Chase, with me. I talk to her at LEAST once a day, sometimes twice, and we just discuss how I am feeling about things, how things are going with me trying to get the school to develop Chase's IEP (individual education plan), and how things are going with the other kids. She had four kids really close together as well. I tell her more than I tell Scott sometimes.

Me

I am 29 yrs old, have been married since 2004 to a wonderfully sensitive man named Scott. We have four kids and one dog. Scott is in the army so we move around alot. One day we are hoping to move back to Borden, which is only 2hrs from our parents.

I have 2 sisters and 1 brother. I dont talk to my younger sister that much, or my brother, but I talk to my older sister quite a bit. She loves my kids, doesnt want any of her own but she loves my kids. She is going to school to become a nurse!

I dont talk to my younger sister that much, but when we do talk its only for a bit. She is going to school to become an actress. She has been out west and now she is in Alberta.

My brother is a 6yr sober addict who lives in a dorm with his girlfriend who he has been with for 2 yrs. He is going to school to be an electrician like my dad and has lost a few friends to drugs.

Scott on the other hand has one sister and she still lives at home with her parents. His dad is sick but refuses to take the medication prescribed him and his mom wishes that Scott was a mamas boy LOL.

My kids are my life and if anything ever happened to them I would pretty much fall apart. I will stick up for them every chance I get and nothing is going to come between them and me.

I also treat the dog like a son LOL. His name is Jake and he never barks, bites or runs away.

The Twins

April and Agnes were born in 2008. We did not find out that we were having twins until our 20 week ultrasound. I must say we were quite surprised by this, when the technician told me there were two tiny heads in there I began crying, she asked me if I wanted my husband to come in and of course I said YES. When I told my husband it was twins and two girls as well he just about fainted.

There were no complications in this pregnancy until about the 30th week, after we moved from Gagetown to Petawawa, when I thought that I was in early labor. We went to the hospital near us and they took my stats and decided that they couldnt take care of both me and the babies if they were to come then, so they carted me off to North Bay, where they gave me the nitro patch to stop the contractions. I was there for 5 days. It was hell, I was there by myself as my husband had to stay with the boys. After I got home I called my mom and she and my dad came and picked up the boys and took them to their house until after I had the girls.

At 34 weeks and 6 days my water broke. I told my husband and he asked me if I was sure because we had already had false labor once. He asked me if I peed my pants LOL, I told him maybe but I dont think so. I got up from the chair and as I was walking to the bathroom the fluid was dripping down my legs but I made it to the bathroom and as I sat down the rest of the water broke. I yelled at my husband to come and help me, so I hopped in the bathtub had a quick rinse off as my husband was getting things ready in the van, we hopped in the van and made it to the hospital only to have them keep me there for over 6 hrs while waiting for Ottawa to call them back and let them know if there was space for me and the babies to stay. After they got the okay they called the helicopter and ambulance. I was airlifted to Ottawa and my husband could not go with me, so he had to drive there, thank god it was only 2hrs away LOL. As soon as he got there they took me to the OR and he was dressed in his hospital greens (which were actually blue) and after they started the spinal, which hurt like hell, the babies were born.

April was 6lbs 2oz and 18in long.

Agnes (Aggie) was 4lbs 15oz and 18 1/4in long.

They had to stay in the NICU at Ottawa General for 10 days. April was eating fine but Aggie decided to be a little bugger and not eat, they had to put a ng tube in Aggie to get the food into her belly. After we brought them home everything was fine for a few days. Then Aggie got her days and nights mixed up, she would sleep during the day and be up all night, April would sleep at night and be up all day. Needless to say I didnt get alot of sleep. Scott (my husband) was away for a course, he was suppose to be gone for 5 months. Well, about a week or so after he left, I had my breakdown. I was at the drs office and she was worried and asked me to check in the hospital for a few days, I told her that I needed to go home and feed my four kids. I took off and she called the police to come and take me in, they called it resistance.

Anyway, I was there for 2 days and they started me on Luvox, I was on that for about 2 months, then I went back to the dr and she asked me how I was doing, well it wasnt all that great. She started me on Effexor and we ended going all the way up to 150mg a day and it was working for a while, after that we added in WellButrin, and that worked for all of 6 months, then we tried Cymbalta and again it worked for awhile but we had to go all the way up to 120mg and I am still on the 450mg of WellButrin, the other day I decided to stop pretending and told the dr that it wasnt working, so she put me down to 90mg of Cymbalta and the 450mg of WellButrin and she added in Zyprexa 2.5mg. So far that is working, but with all the added stress with everything going on with Chase, I may need to go up on the Zyprexa, we will see, it has only been about 2 weeks.

Carson

Carson was born in 2006. He was a good baby, he loved to eat, loved his brother and was on track for everything.

He was born at 39 weeks and 4 days. He was 9lbs even and 21in long. There were complications with the pregnancy and delivery. I had too much amniotic fluid where he was roasting, so it allowed him to move around too much and when I delivered him the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. They took him away immediately and I didnt get to see him for 3hrs after he was born.

Carson has a bad temper, when he gets mad he throws a fit. He flails himself on the floor, screams (high pitched) at the top of his lungs and throws things. He can also sass like the best of them. He also likes to lash out at his other siblings.

He started tantruming when he was about 2 1/2, that year was the year everything changed for him. First, we moved him from the only place he could remember, then his older brother Chase started school and mommy and daddy brought 2 babies home.

It keeps getting worse and worse. I am working on ignoring him and for the most part he gets that I am not going to give in. There are days when he will cry for so long and so hard he tells me "I cant breathe I cant breathe", of course he is kidding but he seems to think it will make me go to him and give him what he wants. He is also a little OVER dramatic, like say for instance, he isnt going to his room, either my husband or I (usually hubby) have to carry him up the stairs to put him in his room, he will scream and cry and say things like "ow your hurting me" or "stop it, your hurting me". Things like that are ok at home but I am afraid that he will do it in public and someone will believe him over my husband or I and possibly call FCS (Family and Children's Services) on us.

As for everything else he is smarter than a whip. He started JK this year, the 2010/2011 year. He has never had any school problems at all, the teacher keeps telling me what a pleasure it is to teach him, always says how smart he is. He took the Brigance test last week and scored 92/100. For his age range the average score is 84/100.

Brigance testing is : Early detection of children with developmental-behavioral delays and disabilities.

Chase

Chase was born in 2004, he was a perfect baby, hardly cried, always ate, was walking and talking early on. There were no complications with the pregnancy or the delivery. I delivered him at 37 weeks and 4 days. He was 7lbs 13oz and 19in long. He walked at 10 months, and started talking about 9months old. He was always a happy little boy. As he was growing up I noticed that his attention span was short (and me having ADHD I knew the risks of at least one of my kids ending up with it) and I took him to a pediatrician to get him tested, he was about 3yrs old at the time. The pediatrician told me that it was because he was still a toddler and not to worry about it. When he was 3 1/2 I took him to the optometrist to get his eyes done and we found out that he has a lazy eye and he will need glasses soon. As the months went on, the eye and attention got worse.

He started JK in 2008, and started having trouble at school, he was acting out, not listening and he never did his work. I let it pass as it was the beginning of the year, but as weeks went on it never got any better. SK came and it was 10 times worse. He actually ended up punching a kid in the face. I took him to the Dr. and the Dr. referred us to another pediatrician who specializes in ADHD in young kids. She had us take a test and send all information in to her. By the time we had it all sorted out it was Grade One time. The Dr. put him on VyVanse, the new drug for ADHD. We went back for a follow-up with her to see how Chase was handling the medication. He had lost 10lbs when on the VyVanse. We put him on Strattera but it didnt work very well on the low dose, so we put him up higher and his behaviour got even worse. I told the Dr. everything and she put him back on VyVanse but on a lower dose so as to stop him from losing weight. We kept him on the Strattera and added in the VyVanse and it was finally working. So now he is on both and they were working up until about 4 weeks ago, when I believe he hit a growth spurt. Now we are going to need to up the doses, which I am fine with, as long as it continues to work.

I was told by his teacher that he was not handing in his homework, he wasn't reading to me either. On his January report card, he got alot of S's for satisfactory. He only handed in 67% of his homework. I asked the school for an IPRC (Identification, Placement and Review Committee) so we could get him tested (psycho educational assessment) by the school board to see if he had a learning disability. Well the principal refused to set up a meeting and so I went higher up the chain. The school trustee ignore my pleas for a test to be done. I went back into the school and told the principal that I wanted the IPRC soon so that we could get an Individual Education Plan (IEP) in place so that Chase could start succeeding at school. Again I was refused the IPRC. I then went behind the school's back and set up a private Psych.Ed Assessment that we had to pay for out of our pocket. Thank god for insurance, the test costs $1250, the insurance covers 80% of $1000, so they cover $800. Therefore we needed to come up with $450 to cover the rest of the cost. We ended up getting it funded by a volunteer lady who does NOT work with but works FROM Parent's for Children's Mental Health. She was really nice, she volunteers and fundraises for these exact purposes.

We got the results back and it ended up that he DOES have a learning disability. He hears what is being said to him but he does not comprehend it, so he cannot work to the best of his ability. I got lots of suggestions to help him succeed at school this year and for the rest of his school years. Now that I have the results I asked the principal for another IPRC again, and was put off yet again. All I want is to go to the school and get the IEP started with my husband, my supports and myself. I would like him to go into grade 2 with the knowledge that the teacher he gets knows his problems and has the IEP so that we can get Chase back on track. I know he is smart he is just delayed a little with his auditory processing.

For Chase he will need to use a calculator all the time for math, so that he doesnt have to print it out in long form and lose interest. For reading he needs us to read to him first and then he reads it back to us, which is working out awesome. He has gone up 10 levels since January, from level 1-2 to level 11-12. Also, he needs everything to be printed out for him, computer or teacher written, so that he can read it, not get lost and do the work he needs to do. We also need to allow him to use the computer to type things out ie: homework for school or just to practice typing so that he learns how to read a word right away and not have to think about it.

All in all I am happy that he was finally diagnosed with an LD but a little sad that the principal and school support councilor didnt listen to me and that I had to go behind their backs to get him tested.