Sunday check In

I'm behind as always. I will try to catch up on updates the best that I can.

Emily~ She broke her toe. She got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and tripped over something and broke her big toe. Since then the floor of her room has been kept alot cleaner, especially between her bed and the bathroom. :) Luckily it wasn't broken bad enough that she needs to go to an orthopedic surgeon, just tape it up and take it easy. Almost a week later it seems to be feeling a bit better.

Jace~ He's an absolute disaster. Everyone has been shocked over how out of control he's been. Punching, kicking, screaming, and all in all being very physically and verbally abusive. Right now we are on a no tolerance time out policy. He gets ZERO warnings and is immediately put in time out. We are trying to get it under control before the major physical problems begin. We have an appt tuesday to try and get some help.

Ben~ He had to get a new cast put on last week. He was goofing off while taking his bath and his cover partially slipped off. He did well for the removal of the old cast, but was pretty fussy when they put on the new cast because he was still pretty sore. They had to do all of the foot positioning all over again, and it's apparently still hurting a decent bit. We've got another 2 weeks until he gets everything xrayed again. Hoping his cast will come off permanently then! We had his birthday party last night and he had a great time! He got a large Thomas floor puzzle and a bike. He also finally got his own gaming system. We settled on the Leapster 2, and he's absolutely loving it. He spent the entire evening playing with it, and was right back up and playing this morning. His official birthday is tomorrow and I can't believe it's already been 5 years!!!

Ari~ She's almost completely our of pullups. She's been in underwear during the day and pullups at night for 1 week. She's woken up dry every single morning! She's had 2 dirty's in her underwear, and 1 wet in this week. Which is super good! In the last day or 2 she's gone on her own without a gentle reminder, and we've also spread the reminders out to about every 2 hrs so that's super good!

Eli~ He ended up back at the doc last week with a fever and super fussy. Turns out he has a yucky ear infection. Got him started on yet another round of antibiotics and he's doing much better. He had gained a touch of weight, but has now lost all of it again. He's tried some bananas and thought they were ok. Took 2 little finger dips by mouth and then we mixed 5cc of banana with 5cc of breastmilk and GT'ed it. Will try again today! He's nurse's scheduale are all screwed up right now. One of his nurses wasn't able to make the change to the new summer hours that we were needing so she quit. One of his other nurses was having some personal problems and was placed on administrative review so she is no longer with us as well. So right now that leaves us with 1 nurse, for 2 days a week, a total of 12 hours a week. This is a huge change from 7 days a week, 50 plus hours total. The nursing agency is scrambling to get new nurses found for our hours and get them trained. We are also working on hiring a PSA (personal service assistant) who can come into our home and help take care of Eli while we get things done. Hoping this will all happen quickly. His docs were able to get him a rush appt with the pulmonologist, and they were able to get him in on Monday. We've already been waiting for this appt for over 2 months! Super excited to hear what she has to say!

Bob~ He's working. He was off for 4 days over memorial weekend. It was nice to get to spend so much time together as a family. We didn't quite get done what we had hoped as all of the things occured with Eli's nurses on that weekend, so we ended up with no nursing at all. BUT it was still nice to be together, the 7 of us! He had a sick day last week, but after a doc check and some rest he's doing much better.
Car update...it's running, sort of. The parts did get it to turn on and such, but now it needs new tires, AND in the "near future" it needs new CV joints and a few other things. That will cost another 1400. Right now we've already paid double the car and that would take us triple. We can't do it. We are flat broke, and still only have 1 vehicle. Not sure what to do next.

Me~ I'm not the greatest. My headaches have been getting out of control. Ended up at the doc last week. She put me on a daily headache prevention med, a med to treat them once I have one, ran tons of lab work, and sent me for a rush CT. The lab work and CT came back clear, so she's still trying to figure out what's going on. There is an "irregular" spot on the right back of my head where the headaches originate from, but showed clear on the CT. She wants to try the meds for 2 weeks, and if no change she'll be sending me to a specialist. At this point I'm willing to try anything. I wake up with my headache, and go to bed with it. Many days I can hardly move it hurts so bad. The dizzy spells come and go with no warning. The back of my head hurts so bad I can't have it touched or lay with it touching the pillow. Not fun stuff. But as we all know life goes on. Bob is gone 12 hrs a day, and we have no nurses right now, so I push ahead, taking care of the 5 kids and the house.

We get emails and texts asking for updates on my ex. I don't have time to reply to all of them so I'll answer publicly here. The simple truth is this, we have no clue. I haven't spoken to him. He doesn't call, check in, email, nothing. He hasn't sent a penny, told me it's not his problem that I have no money to feed the kids. I can't file the court papers because it's food for my kids, or court papers. Bob is working to support 10 people, and Brian is supporting just 1, himself. Bob and I can't keep up. The kids are all still very upset with Brian. Emily apparently still randomly gets into it with him on facebook. She's done putting up with his lies and his crap. Brian hasn't sent a single card or gift since christmas. He missed valentines day, easter, ari's birthday, and ben's birthday. Rumor has it he's bought new electronics and tickets to an excruciatingly expensive concert in a city very close to us here in kansas. Mind you he can't visit his children because it's to expensive to travel to kansas(where he has a free place to stay). All in all, it's Brian guys. You all know how he is, nobody is shocked by this behavior...well except for his children. If and when anything ever changes I promise to update publicly here, but in the mean time no updates mean no good news. He's the same piece of shit he always has been, and sadly for his children...always probably will be.

Back to MY family....

This week we have Eli's appt with the pulmonologist, his check in with his pediatrician, working on trying some more food by mouth, and thru GT push, and some new therapy techniques. He will also be meeting his new dietician this week.
We have the appt with the family psychologist to get some ideas on how to better deal with and resolve Jace's violence. We have Ben's recheck with his therapist team. Hopefully some new nurse training. And I'm in general hoping to get some more knitting and crocheting done, and some baking!

updates soon. love to all!