Goobie's Afterschool Snack

Real conversation between me and Goobie-kins:

Me: Goobie, what are you getting into.
Goobie: A snack.
Me: What snack?
Goobie: Tostidos scoopy thingies. (He gets that word from my husband)
Me: Don't eat a lot of that junk. (I don't normally buy this stuff .. it was for a party .. this is leftover)
Goobie: It's not junk, I am putting cheese on it.
Me: That doesn't make it not junk, that makes it junk with cheese on top!

The Forgotten Blog

I keep forgetting to blog! I really do not mean to forget. So what does a typical day for me look like?

I wake up and try to eat, but Butterfly always tries to take my food unless she is downstairs with her daddy. I do what I can online in the morning while also derailing all of Butterflies attempts to kill herself. What is it about toddlers that they will always find the most dangerous object in a situation? Seriously, you can put a toddler in a swimming pool full of foam cubes (Butterfly likes to play in one of these foam pits at gymnastics) drop a single vicodin in there and guarantee that said toddler will find it.

Anyway after lunch is naptime and I could probably blog then, but half the time I need a nap too and the other half I try to do things to work on my business or work towards getting Witchlet enrolled in virtual academy. Almost done with that last task ... and that will of course mean no more naps for me. I will need to be devoting 5-6 hours a day to teaching Witchlet. Goobie-kins will still go to school. I am only planning on this for the remainder of this school year. She is just on different levels for every subject and it is not working out well for her to be taught at the same level for each subject. It seems she will do better with this in Junior High and High School where she changes classes for each subject and we can sign her up for classes based on strengths and weaknesses. We are actually going to start her doing 5th grade math and 5th grade spelling words and try everything else at the 6th grade level. She must achieve an 80% on the test to go to the next subject so the system automatically ensures that she is learning something before moving on. It will be interesting that is for sure. I will try and keep everyone updated on how it goes.

Chaos caused by school

Each day Witchlet and Goobie-kins come home with homework .. for Witchlet it is a lot and for Goobie, he just has trouble sitting and focusing once his ADHD meds wear off, which is about the time he leaves school. This means I can be spending even as much as 5 or 6 hours helping kids with homework while trying to get dinner done and take care of Butterfly.

So today I did something that I am sure someone will say is irresponsible .. the kids came home and I asked to see the homework. Then ... I sent them outside to play!!! I decided we will work on homework later. Seriously kids NEED to play. This isn't just a want for them, but it is necessary for good health and in my opinion it makes them more able to learn. If they do not get finished, oh well. It makes very little sense for a child to go to school 6 hours and then do homework for 6 hours.

Week of chaos

This week is total chaos!!! Yesterday Witchlet had a game to cheer at. She really loves cheering, but some of the girls on her squad do not work well in a team. Yesterday however, those girls did not show up, so it was a great game for the 8 girls that did show up.
This evening I have a consultants meeting for my business, which is going rather well for the most part. Tomorrow I also have a training that I have decided to go to. In order to go I have to miss a meeting with my cloth diapering group, but that's ok. I still plan to take Butterfly swimming before the meeting. And after, Witchlet has cheer practice after I get home from the meeting. Somewhere in there I am also supposed to cook dinner! Which reminds me, I need to come up with something quick, easy, and not messy for my kids to eat at my mom's house tonight so the kids can eat there but not make a huge mess.
Wednesday isn't too bad .. just an appointment with my midwife ..but I really have to get my house spic and span clean and get some shopping done for my party on Saturday. Thursday is cheer practice again, more cleaning, more preparing .. same for Friday and early Saturday .. and then Saturday evening is my party! Oh this party, that is a business thing. Basically trying to show some of the fall product line and hopefully get some future bookings and some sales.

Behind again!

I meant to come home from Sweden and post about the last couple days and the flight home .. but it just didn't happen.
I came home and immediately got involved in training myself as an Independent Consultant selling cookware. I am having a lot of fun with that I admit .. plus it gives me the ability to have an income without giving up my days with Butterfly and the activities that Witchlet and Goobie-kins are involved in. Plus the risk getting involved was pretty non existent. I wanted the cookware anyway and this way I got it at a lower cost and have already recovered all I have spent. Also the parties are fun!

Royal Castle

This is the Royal Castle (Kungliga Slottet) in "Old Town" (Gamla Stan) Stockholm located on City Island (Stadsholmen).

When you first enter the Castle you are in the church. Here are a couple pictures of that entrance. Unfortunately, this is the only indoor location that we were permitted to take pictures.

The Swedish flag flies high above the Castle as can be seen from this Courtyard picture.

The castle is guarded by the Royal Guards (Högvakten). We missed the Changing of the Guard ceremony, but hope to go back on Friday to see that. Despite that we did get to see this performance by the guards at the top of the hour.

Despite this not being the official Changing of the Guard, these guards did infact change.

Swedish Traditions - Kräftskiva and Fika

These pictures were taken at Kräftskiva. That is a party that takes place in August in Sweden where people eat crayfish that has been soaked in brine and cooked in dill. Traditionally there is a lot of alcohol involved too but we did not have much at this party. Butterfly is up for any custom that includes her eating! She also likes to hang out with her cousins. Witchlet and Goobie-kins had some fun in the playroom as well.

Here is Butterfly all ready for Fika. Per Wikipedia: Fika is a social institution in Sweden, it means having a coffee with one's colleagues, friends, date, or family. We went to Fika to celebrate Butterfly's great-grandmother's 87th birthday. Butterfly really enjoyed this because there was food!

Butterfly also really liked this nifty seat I bought for her to use whenever high chairs were not available.

Skansen

The ferry ride to Skansen. Finding parking can be very difficult so it is often better to use busses, subways, and ferries.

These lemurs were very cute, especially the baby lemur.

Goobie-kins had fun pretending to be an ambulance driver, while Witchlet took a turn at the swings in the little ride area of Skansen.

What would a trip to the zoo be if you didn't pet a few animals?

And see a reindeer? There were actually lots of reindeer. We think this must be Comet.

Butterfly with her uncle, Niko. She is asking him to take her back to the binky tree!

And here is this binky tree!!! There were thousands of pacifiers strung up on trees in Lil Skansen. Butterfly loves her bink-a-binks!!

Well if uncle Niko wont take me back to the binks, then Maybe I should ask aunt Mona!

Since no one took me to get a new bink, maybe I can convince mommy to give me some ice cream by giving her a kiss!

Some vacation fun!

The last few days have been pretty good. Butterfly is finally sleeping at night, which means I am sleeping at night.

Friday we took Witchlet and Goobie-kins to a Museum where they do science experiments. It was pretty fun and there was some yummy food there. There are even a couple rides there and we rode one that reminded me of a smaller version of Power Tower at Cedar Point.

Saturday we took the kids to a place called Skansen which is partially a zoo and partially a historical place. They have a lot of the historical buildings of Sweden there and then there are a lot of animals. The interesting thing about Skansen is the number of animals that you are free to touch if you choose. A lot of them will come right up to you and some of them roam pretty freely. My kids especially liked seeing the reindeer. Butterfly spent about 5 hours that day in our Ergo Baby carrier. That thing was probably one of the best investments I have made. After that we went to a Kräftskiva. This is a crayfish party. I love shellfish, but I could not have any of them because they were first soaked in brine, but I was able to eat some of the shrimp. After the party we went to my sister-in-laws for a little while, which was really nice for the kids since they could play.

Sunday we went to a Fika for my husband’s grandmother’s birthday. This seems pretty similar to a tea party, though maybe more casual, not that I have attended many tea parties. I saw a couple people I had not seen since my wedding and met some new people. Butterfly was in fact very much a social butterfly there and Goobie-kins had a really good time. Witchlet did well in the beginning though after awhile it became a bit overwhelming to her and she sat on my lap for a bit.

Today we are registering Butterfly as a Swedish citizen (she will have dual citizenship) and then going to the Royal Castle to see the changing of the guard and then visit a couple museums. Hopefully this evening I can get some pictures of what we have done and post for everyone to see.

Vacation? Relaxation? Not in my life.

So we have not had a particularly busy couple of days, but it sure feels like it.

Yesterday we went shopping for some groceries. This takes a very long time when you do not know the language and need everything translated for you. We got home and my MIL made dinner. Salted ham, potatoes, and a cucumber salad. So I ate some of the salad and the potatoes, but salt is NOT my friend. I had already had a ton of salt Tuesday night and then again there was a lot at lunch on Wednesday. My whole body is swelling. My wedding ring no longer fits and I had to use soap to remove it as it had already left a welt on my finger that has cut open. So I decided against the ham (ok I snuck a few bites because it DID in fact taste good .. and it was there on the plate). So because of this today I am even more swollen and it is making my fingers ache. Also Butterfly chose to not go to sleep until 4:30 am. Have I mentioned that at 4:30 am it is light out in Sweden? This caused me to not get right to sleep and I ended up sleeping until 1 pm.

Sleeping until 1 sound good to you? Ah but we had plans for today that we could no longer keep because we were not able to get ready in time. Witchlet was really upset by this. Now I must admit that her reaction was much more controlled than it was before her new meds, but still she was not happy and everyone knew it. We ended up going to a park to play and I think all kids had fun there. My SIL brought our niece and nephew as well.

Then we come home to figure out dinner. Again we have the salt issue. It seems that most meals here are prepared with A LOT of salt and this is causing me extreme discomfort. At home I cook things fresh most often and adding salt to anything is very rare. So I had thought we would be getting some fresh chicken and some vegetables as well as some tomatoes that we would slice along with the mozzarella I bought yesterday. This seemed perfect, but apparently my MIL had other plans. Pancakes (different than the ones we are used to in the US, they are good but not eaten with syrup here) and some soup from a package. Well checking on the soup we learned this has 900mg of sodium per serving which is approximately 1 cup. That is extremely high considering I am on a low sodium diet. I made a comment that I probably should not have and said “this is why I hate leaving home” and he took it to mean nothing here is good enough for me. That was NOT what I was getting to. There are plenty of foods in that grocery store that are just fine for me. However, I feel like I have no choice at all over what I eat or what my kids are eating and that is hard for me, ESPECIALLY since there are food issues. I have tried to explain this but feel like I am not understood. My husband is feeling like I am rejecting his home country when I am really only rejecting this diet that I fear might kill me. My veinous insufficiency puts me at a higher risk for blood clots so aggravating it AND causing my blood pressure to increase with the salt when I need to sit in an airplane for about 12 hours (another risk factor for blood clots) in 11 days is not a good idea. At this point I am just feeling like I should just not eat anything at all and say nothing about it because the stress of the fight is no good either.

Airports, airplanes, and kids

Of course traveling with children brings about much chaos. We get to the airport and through security and almost immediately the kids start to fight. At this point my husband realizes he has left his charger for his laptop at home. So I call my mom and send her to my house to get it and have her bring it to the airport. Our flight has been delayed for an hour. Joy.
My husband has his charger and just when I think we cannot handle another minute in this airport, we get to board. We get Butterfly's car seat installed and everyone else boards the plane and we are off. 20 minutes later we are at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. We eat lunch and then get to where we need to be to board the plane. Here there is a lot of chaos. My kids start to get irritable and panic. This is when I am so thankful that my friend Lynn convinced me months ago to get an ergo. I totally love my ergo. Again we get on the plane and get everyone settled. Butterfly falls asleep within minutes of takeoff. A little later they serve dinner and Butterfly is still sleeping. When they are about to clean up I decide to wake her so I can get some food in her. BIG mistake. Waking her meant she decided she was not going to sleep again until an hour and a half before the flight lands in Amsterdam. In other words she did not sleep until just before they served a light breakfast. She did not eat. I must say that Witchlet was a perfect angel on this flight. Goobie-kins was talking so much though that he was making me want to test out my abilities of parachuting. Are there even parachutes on those planes? Could I survive the minus 72 degree outside temps if there were? For a good couple hours Butterfly fussed and I am sure that if she was not so damn cute that the other passengers were ready to toss her out too. Thankfully she is cute and they let her stay.
After a couple hours in Amsterdam we board the final flight. This one is with KLM. Major difference between this flight and the other flights. This time the crew checked out the installation of Butterfly's seat. Making sure that it was appropriate for air travel, installed securely, they gave me the required belt for a lap held child in case we decided to take her out of the seat. Now we had her out of the seat many many times on the trip from Detroit without this safety belt thing, but the people on KLM wanted to be sure I had safe options. They also gave us a special flotation device for her since the ones on the plane are too big for a baby. Overall I felt the KLM crew did many things that made the last part of the flight easier. I would LOVE it if we could be with them on the long trip across the ocean. And of course, Butterfly fell asleep before they served sandwiches. By the time I got to take a few hour nap, I had been up almost 24 hours.

How my summer failed ... and the successes I did not expect

So when I decided to quit my job at the beginning of summer vacation, I had this plan of how our days would go. Breakfast, cleanup, play time, lunch, cleanup, fun activity, nap, dinner, evening activities, house cleaning bed. That was my schedule. That schedule has actually happened maybe 2 days out of 2 months.
I forgot to take into account doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, laundry, cheerleading practices becoming more frequent, baseball games getting rescheduled because of rain, zoo trips being canceled for heat, birthday parties to attend, hours spent on the phone with insurance companies, billing specialists, and government agencies.
Lately I have been feeling like I am failing miserably as a stay at home mom. When I worked, I would do something good and my boss would send me an email of appreciation. I would help a co-worker and hear thank you. I got tons of positive messages about what I was doing. I quit my job and then the hard work began. I was with kids day in, day out, and for 19 of those days I did not have any help. No one says thank you when you change a diaper, wash some dishes, shop for groceries, spend time on planning that grocery trip to maximize your money with all the rising costs. It is hard to feel good about things when you hear all the fighting, complaining, and dont hear the postives to counter it.
Last night I had really bad insomnia because I had all these cheers going through my head. Witchlet missed out on early cheerleading practices. Well she went, but because of a scheduling conflict she was practicing with the senior squad and since this is her first year she is a junior cheerleader. The squads do the same cheers .. but they have different movements. This has caused her some confusion and I said that I would put my high school cheerleading skills to use and work on reteaching her. Thus the cheers in my head. So I got to thinking about the smile on her face when she gets it right after I have spent time working with her on a cheer. It's her success of course .. but that smile is my reward.
Goobie-kins loves the computer. He will sit in front of it for hours if we let him. It isnt just the games though. He likes to use the different programs and see what they do. He created some artistic picture using paint and he was so excited about it. When he wanted to show it to me my first thought was the laundry I needed to be doing. But I took the time and went to look and he had a picture that he had made and the words said "I love my mom" (I think something might have been misspelled but that was the message) My heart melted in that moment and I hugged him. Another success.
Then there is my little Butterfly. With her every day brings new things .. at least new to her. Every day is filled with lots of smiles, happy giggles, her happily babbling to anyone who will listen. Isn't a happy baby a success for her mom? I mean if I was really failing, she would not be this happy all the time, would she?
Those are some of my big successes, but I have had little successes too. I got to taste green peppers that I grew in my garden and tomorrow I get to try a tomato that I grew. I have planned how I will do my garden next year too. I pulled off a really good party for the kids, which was a lot of effort but then I realize in the big picture not so important. Next year I wont do so much. I did quite a bit of yard cleanup from the junk that the previous owners left behind.
So my perfect summer schedule went right out the door .. and now we are heading overseas for 2 weeks in Sweden. When we return, I do have to get on a schedule in preparation for school starting, but I think that once Witchlets cheerleading is over, I want to be very careful about not overbooking the calendar.

The present my husband did not know he gave me

Yesterday was my birthday and it got off to a pretty rough start. Things did get better as the day went on. My husband got me some books as I really like to read. One of the books is "I was a really Good Mom before I had Kids" and I have already finished reading this book. Let me tell you, this gift was more than a book. Reading this book may have been one of the best things I ever did .. for me! In reading it, I learned how unnecessary a lot of my stress is and how much of it I put on myself. Of course it wont mean an instant transformation to a low stress life as a mom. I have to reprogram myself .. but it has made me realize that doing things for me, saying no, and not doing everything for everyone does NOT equate to me being a bad mom, bad wife, and overall failure. Lately I have felt so stressed. I have this list of everything that needs done and I put the responsibility on me to make sure it all does, but it never all gets done and then I feel guilty. I feel guilty for taking the time to post to my momma groups .. I am in 2. I still do it, but everytime I am left feeling guilty. Why should I? Those wonderful women, along with a few other friends and some family members are my support system. When I am reaching a breaking point I can always count on one of them to make me feel better. I have decided I will never feel bad again for taking the time for those friendships. They are so worth it.

Why I hate my birthday

Today is my birthday. Every year I keep thinking this year will be better .. but it isnt. When I was a kid, there just wasnt enough money for all the b-day. Being the oldest, I had to be the one to wait for b-day presents that came a month or 2 late.
As an adult, I have been fired on my birthday (not because of anything I did, but because someone's friend needed a job, nice eh?), had pets die twice (a couple years apart), among other things.
So this morning my kids forgot my birthday, all they did was fight for hours, causing me to be late getting out of the house. I got to the license bureau to get my license renewed and their computer went down just as I got to the counter. I was told to come back Monday. Well my flight is on Monday. This means I dont have a valid license for 18 days! I got back home to more fighting. I now have a million or so things to get done and I dont feel like doing any of it. If I dont do it then I have wasted money on plane tickets and my husband will be angry with me for ruining his trip home.

A week of chaos

I am behind in my blogging! You are shocked, I know. OK so really anyone who reads this probably expects this .. but anyway ...
I have a whole week of things to report. Last Friday I took my children to Chuck E Cheese (a place I despise) for my nieces b-day party. That actually turned out well .. only 144 missing tickets with no other catastrophe. Of course these would be Witchlet's tickets and she was only on day 2 of her new meds. Ahhh .. no fun. But it was not too terrible as my mom was very sweet and gave up some wonderful tokens so that the tickets could be won again.
Then comes the joys of preparing for travel. We have not even gone anywhere yet and I am fully exhausted. I made a spreadsheet of everything that needs done. Spreadsheets are my saving grace. I would totally fail without them at just about anything I do. I have been shopping for things we need .. and I keep thinking I am done .. and then think of something I forgot. Over and over again I do this. Then there are the meds. I take meds and Goobie-kins and Witchlet take meds. Normally this would not be a hard thing. Get letters from docs about meds. Simple right? No. Why you ask? Because July 1 was a change in insurance for me. Old insurance covered everything no questions asked. New insurance is not as easy. They want you to try this med before that med .. etc etc. Except I already tried first med and had side effects .. bad ones. So then the insurance realizes this is pre-existing. They say they have no record of previous insurance (funny that they had this last week when I called about approval for my sons meds). So anyway I have to call the old insurance and have them fax this over. Interesting thing .. I had old insurance for over 4 years through my previous job. I never had to call them until I quit my job and got new insurance. New insurance I have had less than 2 months. Several calls into them and several hours on the phone. Anyway I find out tomorrow if my meds are straightened out. There was a problem with one of Witchlet's meds too .. and that I think gets cleared up tomorrow.
Tomorrow I also need to contact the BMV. Now I keep trying to do this. I spend a bit of time on hold and the call disconnects. I tried emailing .. no reply. Basically I have an issue with my license and car insurance. If I can get something straightened out on there I can get much better rates and I would like to save the money .. but since my license expires and my policy expires all in August (of which half of it I will be out of the country) this needs to be done now. And then there is packing. This is not something I have ever done for 3 kids. I have never taken any of them on a commercial flight. With all the security regulations though about what I can bring in carry on and what I cannot, this is stressful. I need milk for the baby. I know I can take formula but she does not drink that. I also know I can take breast milk .. but she no longer drinks that either. So can I take whole milk? I dont know. I know I can take juice .. but in general I dont really give her juice. I guess I try it and hope they do not take it from me. We are trying the tetra packs.
There has been a lot more chaos than this .. and someday I may write about it .. but for now, I think I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day .. and I am sure that there is chaos lurking there.

American Idols

Like every other day of my life, yesterday was busy .. only to complicate things, we had tickets to go see American Idols Live. We wanted to leave town by 4:30 so that we could hopefully get to the Arena by 6:30 as it started at 7. Did that happen? No way! In my chaotic life, absolutely NOTHING goes as planned.

Before I could leave I had to install a car seat in my SIL car. Why? Can't she do this? The answer is no. She would put Butterfly's seat in forward facing and I extended rear face. Also I insist on solid installs .. and this is not likely to occur to my satisfaction unless either a. I do it myself, b. a carseat tech does it, or c. someone as equally picky as me does it. None of those 3 would include my SIL, who is otherwise really good at caring for Butterfly. So this took awhile. And then of course Goobie-kins may be 8 but he is small so he is in a car seat too. For the short trip with SIL, I did let him just use a booster though because I really did not have the time to install the radian. Believe it or not, he prefers to have the 5 point harness. This is because with the boosters he has a hard time getting himself buckled .. yes he IS that small.

So back to the Idols trip. Anyone who has ever driven in Michigan knows that Michigan is just one huge construction mess in the summer (year round in some areas). So basically the part of 75 that runs through Detroit (you know only the MAIN part of 75 in Michigan) is not simply under construction ... it has been blown up .. seriously mounds of dirt almost as high as the overpasses .. in other words, you have to go around .. through detours. This definitely slowed down our progress towards that 6:30 goal. So we arrive and get into the parking garage and we get directed ALL the way up to the top.

We walk quickly across the tunnel bridge to the Arena, by this time I seriously have to pee. We get inside and we are going through security as the announcer comes out and does the show opening stuff. The door is not far from where we need to go to get to our seats and there is a bathroom right there!! So I say something to my husband about going .. somehow he and I were not on the same page. I thought he was waiting for me. I come out of the bathroom and cannot find him .. so I look all around and then think maybe he went to the bathroom too .. wait there a little. Then realize he went without me. I was pretty upset by this. It is halfway through Chikezie's first song when I go through the curtain to where I need to go to get to my seat. There is NO light AT all .. very steep steps that I have to go down (and due to a tumble down some steep steps during my pregnancy with Butterfly I fear steep steps even in good lighting) and NO railing to hold. The steps are 2 sizes .. a big one then a little. And we had great seats. Not on the floor .. but 2nd row pretty close to where the centerline would be for the hockey games. The downside? I had a lot of steps to get down in the dark. I start to have a panic attack. One of the ushers decided she would "help" but she went flying down the steps with her little light that illuminated them for her .. but I could not keep up. I was about a 4th of the way down when the song was over and we got some lights and I was able to get down and to my seat.

I was upset and my husband instantly knew it. He had misunderstood what I was saying. This does happen with some frequency when you marry someone from a different culture who has a different language. It did not take me long to forgive as he was very sincere in his apology and really just misunderstood. The concert in itself was really good and I really enjoyed it. At the intermission I asked him to get me a soda and he did .. and brought me a snack too. Edy's Dibs are quite yummy if you have not yet tried them.

After the concert, we stop at the souvenir table and buy some teddy bears for the kids. Then we get to our van and I have to pee again. I was seriously considering using a cup that was left in the car from Red Lobster. But thought I better not. So it takes forever to really even move at all in the parking garage .. or should I say on top as we were not yet IN the garage.

We get down one level and then this woman gets in front of us and by the way she is maneuvering her vehicle I can tell she is stupid. Finally we go from not moving much at all to making some real progress. We are happy about this. I look at my husband and I said at some point this woman in front of us will stop when she does not have to. She will hold everyone up .. I can just tell. So down on I think level 5, maybe 6 .. there is someone selling T-shirts to people as they drive by. GRRRR .. I seriously have to pee at this point! A car stops. Sure enough ..she does NOT go around .. she stops. My husband was trying to be polite and it started to look like she would go around but she was acting indecisive .. so he went around her ..and it was not long at all after that before we were out of the garage. But all down the street were even more people selling these shirts and lots of people stopping for them. SLOW!!

So anyway, remember that construction? Well we remembered which way we came from and wanted to return the same way .. however there was a lack of lighting and we could not see street signs well so we figured we would just follow the signs to 75. So we are going down a road called Rosa Parks and find the sign to 75 .. says to Turn left. So we do. Then it says Turn left again .. and then again turn left. At Rosa Parks .. turn right. We were going right back to where we came from!!! We had to turn down a road called Fort. Why didnt it just have us turn on Fort the first time (there was a sign there that said to go straight .. so we followed the signs)? The only answer I have to that, it's Michigan. I learned long ago to not expect logic when it comes to driving in Michigan.

It was over an hour before I got to use a bathroom and 1 am before I made it home. And lucky me, I had to get up early this morning to get Witchlet to gymnastics camp. No time for a nap today, and tonight is Bears b-day party at Chuck E Cheese. CEC on a Friday night = Pure Chaos!

Kids, activities, and an extra child.

So all this week, Witchlet has had gymnastics camp. This means I get up early, make breakfast and pack her a lunch and get her to camp by 9 am. Then I have the stuff I needed to do at home, appointments with doctors, lunch for the other kids, naps, and picking her up at 3. To complicate things Goobie-kins is in baseball and the first several games we rained out. His team already plays 2 games a week but now they are playing 3!! I also had my niece, Bears staying with me on Tuesday and Wednesday because her parents were remodeling her room as a birthday present to her. On Wednesday the kids wanted me to take them to the zoo. I had to stop at the zoo to pick up Bears birthday present after an appointment on Wednesday and learned 2 things. 1. The zoo was packed that day!!! and 2. I would have to park about a mile away and I really did not want to walk that with 4 kids! So I compromised with them (sometimes you can do this) and said that since we have a zoo membership and can go anytime, why dont we take this extra money I had in my pocket (I NEVER carry cash) and go to the movies!! Now I rarely take my kids to the movies .. so for them this is a major treat. So my husband kept the baby home while I took the other 3 kids to the movies and we saw WALL-E. Very cute movie. It has so far been a very busy week! And of course .. it isnt over yet.

Billing Issues

So Witchlet had some appointments to clarify her diagnosis at the behavior health center. These all occurred in June and I was waiting for results for what felt like forever. Finally I find that the billing department put a block on my account not allowing me an appointment because I owed $462. Now my insurance had already told me they would pay most of this so I called to find out why it was not paid. They said the claim was never submitted. So I call the center and ask why it was never submitted. They said most insurance wont pay for testing. So I said but mine said they would, please submit it. They refuse. Tell me submit my bill to Insurance. So I do that. Insurance says that bill does not have any of the information they need and not only that it does not even have the logo of the center .. (basically it looks fake .. I agree with them on this). I call center and again request they submit the claim because their statements look fake and insurance wants something that looks official .. they refuse. I talk to the doctor herself (she is getting increasingly concerned about my daughter and asks if there is anything that she can fill out to help so we can get around the billing department). I find a claim form online. We discuss the feasibility of me paying the bill and submitting the claim form to be reimbursed. I pay the bill and send her the form through email. She filled it out (this is the exact same form that billing department refused to fill out) and I mailed it myself. Why was this so hard? I have no freaking idea. Some stupid policy about not wasting time on a form that most likely wont get paid. However they wasted over an hour on the phone with me arguing about a form that took the docter less than 2 minutes to fill out.

So now we have a little bit better understanding on what is going on with Witchlet and last night we started her on new meds. Hopefully these help her out. I know life it very hard on her. She has had so many traumas and now has little control over herself. Her father is not exactly very supportive of her .. and at her age she is seeing this so clearly (and the tests confirmed this). So in therapy she will be working on gaining that control of herself and in feeling safe. The feeling safe part is really hard for her.

Just another day

For the most part today was uneventful if you discount the storms and tornado warnings and such. A day with no chaos at all? IMPOSSIBLE.

Anyway I thought that we had averted a day without crisis but after dinner Witchlet asked to go talk to one of her friends .. well it turns out all the girls in the neighborhood are at a slumber party and she was not invited. She is heart broken. So now we are planning to let her have her own slumber party 2 days before we leave for Sweden so that maybe by inviting these girls to a party .. she will get invites in the future.

Midnight Drives

So last night my ex called and he was arguing with my 11 year old daughter and wanted me to come and get her. I will admit she can be a pain .. she has been through a lot and does have some mental issues that we are trying to get a diagnosis on so we can treat them. However, he never deals with her. He just sends her back home whenever it gets hard. So last night at midnight Butterfly and I go on a trip to pick up Witchlet (I have not called her that in years actually but it used to be what I called her :P ). The reason I was taking Butterfly is that she was refusing to sleep and my husband needed to work today so he needed to get to bed.

So anyway, she is screaming before I get out of our driveway. 10 minutes later I decide to stop at the only store that is open along the way and buy a new sippy and a drink for her. They do not have the kind of sippy cups that she likes and the one I choose is not good enough. She screams at least 15 more minutes of the way to Witchlet's father's house .. which btw is close to an hour away .. though it wasn't quite so long since it was night time and no traffic.

So I don't really mind picking up my daughter. It does really bother me though that whenever things get hard my ex gets all immature and decides he does not want to be a parent anymore. He actually said yesterday that he does not care if he never sees her again. WTF? This is not the first time he has said that .. and what kind of person tells an 11 year old that he does not want to be her father anymore?

3 weeks alone

I know I have been terrible about blogging. I really do mean to blog regularly .. at least once a week .. but I just have not figured out how!!

My husband left on Father's Day for a business trip that took him back to his home country for nearly 3 weeks!! At the same time Butterfly started getting extremely mobile. She is everywhere. I am constantly chasing her down. The older 2 kids have a ton of activities that keep me going all the time. And this house is just a lot of space to clean. I also have not been caught up with laundry since we moved here. I am 3 loads away though!!! Yay!!

Once the laundry is caught up I really need to spend some time on the garage. Basically I would like a really nice clean organized house to leave behind when we go on vacation in August. I also need to start preparing for that too.

Right now I am focusing on getting my cloth diaper stash up to par and then also looking into becoming a pampered chef consultant.

Double Birthday Party!

Why is having 1 party for 2 kids 3 times more work than having 2 parties for 2 kids? The past week ... ehm 12 days has been total chaos .. and I have been planning this party since like December! But alas I was working 3rd shift and had gotten behind on my cleaning .. so yeah had to catch that up (almost succeeded) plus this is my first year with a big yard .. wow didnt know how much work yardwork can be. Oh and then there is the whole cake issue. What do 8 year old boys and 1 year old girls have in common? Not a whole lot. So I had my heart set on doing a butterfly cake for my little Butterfly on her first birthday. Can I compromise on that? No way!!! So anyway my 8 year old son totally was not thrilled with this idea. But I convinced Goobie-kins that a Bee would be a great idea for him (Thank you Thank you Thank you for releasing the Bee Movie recently!!!) but then I needed something to tie it together and now we get a flower. So yes I had to make a butterfly cake and a bee cake and a chocolate flower cake and a mini butterfly as a smash cake ... BUSY. But .. ah there is a catch. One of my bestest friends ever was coming and bringing her husband and her little Buttercup. Her husband and her little Buttercup cannot have gluten which is in almost all cakes .. except of course for the special gluten free ones .. so I baked an extra cake and had part of it for him and cut out another little butterfly of gluten free cake for Buttercup and decorated that too. All that work and I got this display of sugary confection that was pretty much torn to pieces by kids and of course by my little Butterfly. Buttercup however was much more dainty with her cake and left absolutely no mess. Ok so really her mom and dad fed her ..

So anyway there was a lot of fun and of course anytime you get that many kids together (was it really only 5 big kids and 2 one year olds?) there is a bit of fighting .. but everyone survived and some even would say they had a pretty good time. The Swedish meatballs I made seemed to be an obvious hit .. there were none left, much to my 11 year old daughter's dismay and the hamburger miniatures disappeared too.

Now for the aftermath .. my house that I worked so hard to get mostly clean? Yeah not so clean anymore .. and Butterfly was diagnosed about a month ago with difficulty digesting processed foods and sucrose .. so lets just say diaper changes have not been a joyful occasion .. as a matter of fact .. it is bad enough that I am temporarily being not so earth friendly (and not so friendly to my bank account) and using disposable diapers. But I think if you look at this pic you will agree that Butterfly thought it was all worth it.

So today I take a break .. a MUCH needed break. Tomorrow the chaos starts again and now that I am not working, I hope to blog about it all .. though right now I cannot guarantee that. Being a SAHM is seriously busy work .. I work more now that I don't have a job .. but it is all worth it I think .. well so far .. ok so I only have 12 days of experience .. but I do love my kids and I am looking forward to spending a lot of time with them this summer.

Win a free ergo

Ergos are really great baby carriers. They do a wonderful job of distributing the weight of a child so that a 22 pounder feels almost weightless!!

Win one here!! Win a Free Ergo Baby Carrier from Along for the Ride

Slumber Party Chaos

My oldest child (R) turned 11 a few days ago. So I decided she could have a few friends stay the night tonight and that we would have a little b-day party. By little I of course mean that there are 20 people in my house.

It took forever to get everyone eating dinner ... I put a tarp down on the floor for the kids to sit and eat on to protect my carpet and they were more interested in playing with the tarp than eating. Eleven kids sitting around the tarp eating tacos or lettuce for the ones that do not like tacos and one 9 month old (almost) throwing bananas from her high chair at anyone who gets close enough. Much fun. A lot of noise. WHAT WAS I THINKING???

So anyway .. 1 girl decides not to stay because she is afraid to be away from her mom. Another girl cannot stay because she has a b-day party tomorrow and one more the parents do not think she is ready. This IS a good thing. R has never even had a friend stay the night .. how was I to handle this group. The boys (2 of them) were not staying .. so now I have a group of 5 girls, my son (A) and my 9 month old daughter (M). A decides to go stay at my brothers because he cant handle 5 girls! Can I please come too???

Overall the party was a success .. the girls are all asleep .. my husband is asleep .. I will stay awake all night as I am used to this. I work 3rd shift. Besides that M keeps waking up which is odd because she sleeps through the night and she has been up 3 times already. I just need to get through a pancake breakfast and the kids going home and then I can sleep .. I hope.