What....

What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Parenting Help

Carson is in some sort of awful phase. At least I pray a hundred times a day it's a phase. I hope I'm not a horrible parent whose caused this. I wonder all day if I'm too lenient, too strict, something? He spends his entire day arguing, fighting with Nathan and us. He will hit or grab Nathan's arms and sometimes even do a little soft smack to us. It's hard to be patient with this. I'm trying, really trying. I am so sick and tired.
He keeps getting out of bed. He's running around the house. We are putting him back over and over and not giving him attention by talking at all to him. We just keep putting him back. He's coming right back out over and over and running from us. He's laughing and claiming he's going to lock us in his room and all kinds of crazy stuff. I put him back about 20 times and each time I took a toy from his room. Now Greg is doing it and he's probably about 15 times now.
Is this a phase, his age, my parenting? Is this going to end? How do I deal with this? Any ideas? How do I end this? We do time outs, we take away toys, we let him earn things for good behavior. I don't know what else to do.

Put down your cup so milk doesn't come out your nose while you are laughing at this

Funny Child Moment
Today was my nephew's birthday party. My sister's house has a pool so it was an outdoor pool party. To get to the bathroom you have to go up a big set of stairs and into the house and through the kitchen. So after all but very close family and friends left, the rest of us were around and a little boy was doing the pee pee dance. He of course didn't want to dry off and go up the stairs and such so (and I'm sure some of you will be shaming us all) my uncle showed him to just go to the back side of the pool (it's a big above ground with a deck) and pee outside in the grass. So Carson then says he needs to potty so I told him to go ask Uncle Mike to show he the 'outside potty'. Carson has never even heard of the concept of peeing anywhere but a potty, but he was willing to just go with the idea. So Uncle Mike showed him a spot. Then he proudly came to tell Daddy that he pooped. Oh yes, my son crapped like a dog in my sister's backyard. I'm laughing my butt off just typing that out.

Nathan's balancing act

This boy cracks me up that nothing seems to deter him from doing anything he wants.

Judgement day

I had to drive somewhere today so starting the new meds was put off until tomorrow morning. Prescriptions always say not to drive on them until you know how they affect you so I didn't want to start today.

So.....tomorrow is judgement day. A special shout out to Tammy for calming me down some about trying something new (yet again).

Prayer or cross your fingers or whatever it is you do, please.

one or the other

Yesterday's appointment with the new psychiatrist was just so different that I don't even know how to take it. We were there an hour (not waiting, but with him, talking). He seemed to listen and asked lots of questions. I left there feeling very hopeful and then of course as time has passed, my negative side is creeping in. I've pretty much decided that he's either fantastic or a quack. I don't think there is any in between. So please pray he's on the fantastic end. He asked my family and I to look over a couple of medication options to try and to call him back with what I thought. I will hopefully be starting a new medication on Thursday. I'm nervous after the whole Abilify thing. (Can't remember if I blogged about that.) I just want this to work.

That boy is his own tornado.

Today while I was in the bedroom trying to fold some laundry, Nathan decided to step away from his playtime with Carson and go make a huge mess. He got the huge bag of the guinea pigs bedding and the jumbo bag of timothy hay and spread it all over the floor in the living room, hallway, Carson's room and even Carson's bed. I vacuumed and vacuumed and finally the vacuum broke. It will no longer suck and just blows the stuff all over. So Greg has to take it apart and try to see if it's clogged somewhere or what. The carpet is only somewhat clean.
That boy is so in love with being messy.

Strawberry Peanut Butter M&M's

Seriously? Is anyone else disgusted at this candy idea?

Today is awful

I'm so depressed. This is ridiculous and I can't wait for this new doctor's appointment next Monday. Please God let him be able to help me. I am just getting worse and worse. On my 1-10 scale (5 being normal, 10 being crazy enough to think I could fly or something and 1 being suicidal thoughts), I'm a 1. Scaring myself and I shouldn't have let my mom leave today after their visit to see the boys.

Why can't I be on that other end, at least the 10 sounds kind of fun. (just kidding- sort of)

He shouldn't have noticed

Carson just warmed my heart and made me sad at the same time with the same sentence.

"Mommy, I just saw your smile."

Should a barely 4 year old notice that his mommy smiled and now that it is a rare look?

An example of my brain's babbling

I read an article today that listed 10 things to do in order to improve your sleep. I read these all the time and let me tell you, if you've read one, you've pretty much read them all.

Today's article listed one thing that I've read before, but that always makes me laugh.

'If your mind is racing, write down what's on your mind." Now, I'm assuming that this is supposed to mean that you write things down and then your mind lets you move on and forget about it so you can sleep.

Oh, thus one of the many screwy problems with my mind. This is another opportunity to explain the oddness that is my brain.

This does not work for me (and yes, I have tried). If something is on my mind and I write it down so I can get to bed, my mind does not 'let it go'. It doesn't have to be a worry. Most nights, I'm not really worried about anything. My mind simply wanders.

A little example of my brain's inner workings... say I am thinking about something funny that I saw on TV. It's stuck in my mind, so I get up and write it down, (like all the articles suggest). I crawl back into bed and get comfy and my mind then begins it ridiculous quest.
'Hmmm that was a yellow pen. I wonder where that came from. Why even make a yellow pen? It's hard to read. It is pretty though. I bet I got it in a set with some other colors that I wanted, or maybe it was left on my desk by a student and just became my pen. Remember when 'Johnny' was playing with that gold fish bottle opener/keyring during class and I took it and told him to get it at the end of the day and he never asked for it again and I found it in a bunch of my desk stuff a year later? Why do teens insist on having stuff if they don't even care when they lose it? Kids have too much stuff nowadays. My kids have too much stuff. I think I'll actually be happier when they are older and their stuff costs more, because at least then it's smaller and I won't need so much room to store all their toys and keep them organized. I wonder if Carson's hair will darken or if he'll still be blonde when he's older......

It goes on and on and on. My psych asked me once what I worry about at night. I told her it's not really worries, just weird thoughts and that for instance one night I was up forever trying to think how to spell a word (no I don't remember what word it was). She said, "you should have just gotten up and looked it up and then you could have gone to sleep". HAHA Obviously, she does not suffer from brain babble.

Smart Mouths

When I taught in South Carolina, the orchestra room was next door to my class (well sound-proofed, thank goodness). The orchestra teacher was a much older woman, very tiny and thin with gray hair. She looked like a sweet grandma, but she was darn crazy and hilarious. She was a hoot and her students new that if they worked hard that they could be silly at times and she was okay with that.
She split her days between the middle school and the high school, just like I did.
Well, the high school made a new rule and sent out a memo to the teachers asking them to announce it in all their classes.

The rule: You cannot say "crap" or "sucks" anymore. They were considered foul language.

She announced this to her class and one of her students yelled out, "This crap sucks!"

She replied with, "No, it's this shit blows!"