Our world....delivered

I have my MRI tomorrow. My doctor is going to go with me. We shall see how it goes. I'm not looking forward to it but really hoping to find out what is going on with my shoulder.

In other news I'm working on the house. We picked out paint colors for the house and have started taking off all the wallpaper in the kitchen and dining room. We are probably about half done. I have had 2 friends helping me with it so that makes it a bit better! :)

Benjamin went to one of the school options for next year to check it out. He was there for about 1 1/2 hrs today. He was scared when we got there and cried and hid behind me. When I left he had his bottom lip stuck all the way out. His Itinerate Preschool Teacher was with him so I guess that helped a bit. She said he did okay but she had to help him transition and such. Some issues were he doesn't know how to drink from a cup so she had to help him with his drink at snack, and at circle time there were to many kids and it was to loud so Ben just started spinning in circles and tuning everything out. He ended up accidentally kicking 3 kids because of it. This is when I went ahead and packed him up and took him home. He will check out the other choice next week. The school today has the advantage of being an inclusion classroom, whereas the other school is specifically special needs and autism. The other school is a much smaller classroom. If he does go to the school today he will have an associate who will always be with him at school the entire time he's there. So that would help him but still. We aren't sure what decision to make. In good news we were able to get extended year!!!!!! YEAH!!!!! So he will get services all summer. and we even pushed for good ones! He gets 1 hr 3 times a week! YEAH!!!!! This was a HUGE victory.

Ariana is doing good. She is starting to talk more. Walking is still going nowhere. She starts back up tomorrow with her therapy. She also goes to the UofI next week to the orthopedic dept so we will know more then.

Jace is doing ok. He's back to really struggling with his tummy. He's completely off of all dairy again. Makes life pure pleasure let me tell you. He will be referred to a specialist in the next week or two.

Emily is doing good. She has 3 lose teeth right now and she can't wait for them to fall out....especially since she got $20 for the first tooth...damn tooth fairy and no change... :) Em has her piano recital this weekend and she's super excited about that.

Brian is ok. He's working and trying to get situated. He likes his job all in all. He's been a bit grouchy and distant lately but I think everyone is just exhausted and worn out and he doesn't talk about stuff. a man and an engineer. :)

my last final is friday! YEAH!!! I'm so glad to almost be done for the semester! I'm ready to be home for awhile!

Name that Picture

I thought it would be fun this morning to play a game called name that picture. this picture was taken TODAY. this is not an old picture. anyone out there know the answer? :)

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!

I hope that all the moms reading my blog have a wonderful day today!

Things are good here. We've had a bit slower of a weekend. I had my "massage" therapy yesterday morning and then we ran a few errands and were home by noon. We spent the rest of the day at home. We did a bit of picking up, and then just goofed off. Brian burned me a CD of some songs I've been wanting and I did some cutting for a sewing project that I'm working on with a friend. We've been buying our mama cloth and have decided that we can easily make our own for sooo much cheaper and exactly the way that we want them. So we split up all the cutting and each took half. We'll get together next week hopefully and serge them all up! :)
Late yesterday I made up a sour cream coffee cake with chocolate chips and raspberies and we made eggs this morning. So that was our super yummy breakfast with some fruit.
We are going to head into a town close to us this morning and find their grocery store. This town is where Ben will be going to school next year as well.
Anyways hope all the moms have a great time!

shoulder updates

my right shoulder is screwed. that's the short of it. apparently not a single part of my shoulder is in the right place. he said it was a mess. also there is alot of scar tissue which ultimately is going to need to be stripped. he says it's as bad as it sounds. YIKES. so they want to try and adjust my shoulder today, do the traction again, and do the STEM therapy. I'm still really hurting on my lower neck and between my shoulders and back area, and my right arm is still in alot of pain and pretty much totally useless. my left arm is still going numb but like always not near as bad as my right arm. i'm still taking 3 meds for all of this and they don't seem to be doing a darn thing. i'm spending my entire life rotating between my doc/chiro, my new chiro, and my massage therapist. lovely lovely lovely. i'm sore and i'm tired and this has got to end soon. i never imagined how much quality of life could be lost from something like this.
more updates later....

Pain

I have been in 2 car accidents in my life, both of which my right shoulder took all of the impact. I've always had a bit of trouble with my shoulder, and can only use my arm so long before it goes numb and I have to take a break and stretch it out. All in all it's been one of those things I've been able to compensate for and haven't had to much trouble. Then the move. I was sore afterwards but didn't think to much about it. Then my arm started going numb a bit quicker and I found I was taking alot more breaks. Then I couldn't sleep because my arm was hurting me so much. Then it spread to my elbow and my shoulder. By Monday I was hurting ALOT and called the doc. My doctor is a licensed MD and a DC! So he got me in yesterday. Apparently the spine in my neck is completely straight instead of curved AND my spine is slipped over to the side completely pinching off my nerves. he did an adjustment and put me on 4 meds...a pain killer, a muscle relaxor, an anti-inflammatory, and a new med on the market used to calm the nerves. (not like emotional like sensation). I took them last night and was sleepy but ok. Went to bed with no change. Woke up this morning and I could hardly get out of bed at all. I was in incredible pain. couldn't turn my head my arms were completely numb and couldn't even brush out emily's hair. i took my meds and brian drove the kids to school and me to the doc. by the time we got to the doc i was so dizzy i couldn't see straight, had trouble keeping my balance standing etc. he did an adjustment and sent me to another doc for traction. every time my head is pulled straight back away from my body the numbness in my arms go away. brian took me home and i fell asleep on the couch. doc called and i flew out the door. the whole drive there the road and everything was swimming in front of my eyes. by the time i got to the doc i couldn't even think straight. i filled out the first 4 lines of the paperwork and then couldn't even hold the pen. the nurse filled it all out. by the time i got back to the room i literally had a breakdown. my back and shoulders were throbbing i could only take fast deep breaths, i was so dizzy i thought i was going to pass out or throw up, and i couldn't use my arms. called my doc and he immediately took me off the nerve meds. i had the traction and then was sent to a massage therapist who searches out the higher temp parts of my spine and does intense pressure massage there. he didn't want to do a full massage because he didn't want to increase my circulation and pump the meds that were already affecting me horribly through my body even more.
now i'm home and feeling like crap. i'm pretty drugged up and have very limited use of my arms and neck.
doc said it will take days to weeks for the pain to go away and that it will take months to fix it. i've been put on permanent restriction from ever lifting heavy items again, and told this will be a life long thing that i will be battling from here on out. gotta love life.
so anyways typing is getting fuzzy. i'm off to the couch.

final stretch

i'm on the home stretch for this semester. this is my last week of class and then finals are next week. i have tomorrow off and i'm pretty excited about that! :)
we have gotten all of our things from our old house, and have gotten it cleaned up and all of that. we've pretty much finished unpacking here at the new house, just some odds and ends left. i'm hoping to get those things finished up tomorrow.
i haven't done a great job at keeping up with the blog lately but things have been so darned hectic. i promise to get back going next week once the semester is over.

Still alive

we are still here, all alive, all living under the same roof.
by the end of this evening all of our stuff will be out of the old house and over here. so atleast that part of the job is done. then we just need to get over there and clean it and get the keys back to our landlord.
and then the true fun begins. we have to unpack this flipping place. it's a mess and everything has been put into the garage. so now you can barely walk in the garage. and mind you our fridge is in the garage because it doesn't fit in the house. so yeah talk about pure enjoyment.
i have one week of school left and then finals week. i'm so ready for this semester to be over.
so that's about all. i don't have much to blog about, but on the other hand i have tons i could say. if that makes a darned bit of sense.

Back

i'm back online. i've been back online since tuesday night but haven't had time to blog.
i have a line from a song that pretty much sums everything up for you.
"It comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel was just a freight train coming your way."
everything with the move and pretty much my life in general has been a disaster. brian and i are fighting right now more than ever before and after last night and this morning i could really care less if he comes home tonight or if he goes and finds a hotel.

in other news the kids are all pretty good, except for jace. his stomach and bowels are really starting to act up again. we have immediately stopped all dairy and have called the doc to get him an appt with a pediatric GI. i will update more there as i know it.

blogs maybe few and far between right now until i can get all of our things over to this house, get some meals going some day, get clean clothes, unpack, and figure out how to fix my marriage.......

moving tomorrow

we are moving tomorrow. i'm not super excited. there are still so many things that we need to get done. go figure. we will not have internet again until tuesday so i won't be online for a few days. i still have my cell phone so feel free to contact me there if you need me! :)

in other news. mr jace had a heck of a time last night. emily and he were goofing off and of course it went to far. she ended up pushing him down the stairs. he hit his head and back and shoulder, and ribs and left knee. he has a big bump on his head and bruises around his body. we put him to bed in our room so we could keep an eye on him and check on him. this morning he said his head is a bit sore and he's definately got some bruising but he seems ok. if it's not one thing it's another.

this morning was muffins with mom at emily's school. we went to that and it was nice. brian stayed home with the other kids so it could just be emily and i. yesterday was take your daughter to work day and since brian works in a restricted environment emily wasn't able to go with him. so i was able to get it approved for her to come to school with me. i just had my ASL class so she liked that. she has been learning a bit of sign and had fun showing off what she knew how to do. everyone thought she was so cute! she asked me when she could go back to college! :)

other than that not much going on here but the move. i will update on tuesday evening!

Grouchy day

yesterday ended up not being a very good day. the morning was hectic and i was running around all morning trying to keep up. my 1st class of the day got out early so that part was nice! my sign class was fun. my teacher decided to move class outside. it was 74 degrees and we sat in the sun in the grass and had class there. it was alot of fun.
i got home to a hectic house. dinner was cooked..noodles and ground beef. jace wanted to go shopping to buy me a present so i told him to go downstairs and make me one. that made him happy. then he wanted to make me a cake. brian said there was no time. so i went to the kitchen and helped the kids bake me a cake. they ate dinner and then brian took all 4 of them to piano. i went to eat and they had eaten all the food. i couldn't go out to eat because brian had my van and purse and wallet, and the cake was cooking. so i made mac and cheese and waited for the cake to finish.
i ended up laying on the couch watching tv. they all got home and we had cake and then they headed to bed. brian gave me a card signed by him and all the kids.
i was pretty grouchy by the end of the evening and ended up going to bed early.
it's not that i wanted a big fancy present but a touch of pampering would be nice. i had to help the kids with presents cake and such, and had to make my own dinner.
i'm sure my attitude could have used a bit of an adjustment, but you know.
so that was my day.
today is rainy, so we'll see how it goes.

Busy day

today is going to be a beyond busy hectic day.
i have to get all the kids to school.
ari has therapy this morning.
i need to finish part 1 of my research paper as it's due today.
get all the kids from school.
take all the kids to daycare.
drive 40 min to class.
go to class.
go across campus to the next class.
go back across campus to lab.
drive 40 min home.
cook dinner.
rush both kids to piano.
home and kids to bed.
clean house.
attempt to get more packing done.
maybe talk to hubby and watch tv.
bed.
oh and try to remember at some point that it's my birthday and truely i should take it easy and enjoy a bit.
the life of a mom and wife! :)

Benjamin

I just took these and thought they are too cute not to post, even though I've already posted pics today! :) In the last picture you can see the beautiful wool longies he's wearing today! They are his favorite! The 3rd pictures is a closeup showing one of his many Autism hats. He fondly refers to this one as his puzzle piece hat! It's one of his favorites! He wears these pretty much anytime we leave the house and it serves a dual purpose. First it gives him a feeling of being slightly hidden where everyone isn't looking at him and he loves that. Secondly it gives people an answering to some of Ben's behaviors without getting nasty comments (sometimes).

We're Moving

Alot has happened since my last blog. We've been telling our landlord since day one that if he got a house with more bedrooms we wanted first dibs at it. Finally he called saying that he had a 4 bedroom house come available AND that it is quite a bit cheaper than the house we are in now. So we took it! We will be moving n the 26the of April. So as you can imagine we've spent the last few days running around hectically trying to get things organized and decided what things we don't actually want to keep around!

In other news. Emily's piano recital was postponed. Her teacher came down with the flu and was quite ill. It will be made up the beginning of May they are hoping. Emily has her first crush on a boy at school. They are getting together for a playdate at the park this coming Saturday. He doesn't know about the crush, so that's good! :)

Jace is doing good. He had his first speech therapy last Friday and did well. He will be going every week. He's enjoying school and is finally branching out from just having one friend, and has really started talking to other kids in his class in the last week or two. He's got his best friend coming over for a playdate saturday and then has a playdate next week with a new friend! Keeps him busy! :)

Benjamin is doing pretty good. He has his days, good and bad. He's doing well with therapy, and is talking a little bit at school even. His transition and IEP is coming up soon and my head is swimming trying to figure out all the right decisions. It will be quite the busy time.

Ariana is doing good. She's a little stinker. She's turned into quite the little high maintenance drama queen lately. I think she is hitting the terrible two's a year early. The other day she got mad at me and threw herself on the floor on her tummy kicking her little feet onto the floor as she screamed. An hour later that same day she did it again. Ben called me so I got up and left the room and she immediately stopped. As I walked back that way I could see her on her back watching to see me. As soon as she did see me she rolled back over on her tummy and started kicking her feet and screaming. i had to laugh because I thought it was so cute! :)
Here are 2 pics of her from this last week! you can see the sparkle in her little eyes!
The last photo is a picture of all 4 of my children playing the piano at the same time. As you can see they all think this is one of the funnest things known to man! :)

Think Autism. Think Cure. WALK.

Today as our local chapters 1st annual Autism walk. There were over 700 people and there was over $20,000 raised! It was great! We had a wonderful time. We walked, we visited, we went to vendors and booths, and therapy centers. There were local vendors there with gluten free casein free foods and samples and recipes. There was a game room for the kids with prizes, door prizes, local radio station and TV station. We ran into tons of people that we knew and met so many more. At one point Ben starting getting really nervous and lost his track of communication and started flipping out. Next thing I new one of his speech pathologists was right there next to us with a PECS book for him to look at it. It calmed him right down. Later as we were walking through the mall we ran into his lead speech pathologist on the Autism team. Right there in the mall she got down to eye level and talked to him about his airplane. It was great! :) We came home with a bag full of fliers and pamplets and goodies and a stack of business cards, phone numbers, and email addresses. We are going to get Ben started on music listening therapy. He would use special headphones and listen to special cd's twice a day, each CD for 2 weeks at a time. He normally doesn't like things over his ears but as soon as we put the headphones on him and he started listening to the music he completely stopped and stood there calmly in the middle of a very crowded loud mall. It was ready to sign on the dotted line at that point! :) As we were roaming around the mall a man came running up to me calling my name. He looked familiar but i couldn't quite figure out why. His little boy is in Ben's class at preschool, and is autistic as well. Ben and the little boy (don't want to put his name online) recognized each other immediately and Ben even said his name. I was so excited that Ben knew who it was and what his name was! Another friend! We are going to set up some playdates with them, and a few other families as well! All in all it was an amazing day. I have never seen so many people and such chaos, and such love and acceptance and understanding. The whole family settled right in quickly and nobody felt out of place or embarressed. I noticed that the kids didn't even apologize for some of Ben's social no-no's and didn't feel the need to explain it to others. Everyone was comfy! AAAAAHHHHHH home! :)
And the money raised is amazing! For the first walk ever in a small community...WOW
Below is the link to our local news channel with a story and a video from the walk.
Walk for Autism 2008

Time passing

WOW. i can't believe how quickly time goes. 1st of all...Emily has big news! she lost her first tooth today. i was starting to think that it would never happen. she mentioned yesterday that she thought that she had a loose tooth, and i looked and it was literally leaning on the tooth next to it. today when she was picked up from school she came running out smiling, and we knew it had come out. turns out she got advice from all of her friends and pulled took it out herself at recess. she says she "twist twist turn pull" she was so excited! she put it in a little treasure chest! so the tooth fairy begins! :)
then the next thing on time passing. someone asked me how old i was at school yesterday and i drew a blank. i knew that i was either going to be 28 or 29. i literally ended up using my cell phone to subtract it out. 2008-1979 means that i will be 29 in 11 days. holy heck. that means i'm only done with my 20's. in one sense i'm beyond thrilled and in one WOW! i hate people at school saying WOW you are that old, but I HATE people in "real life" other moms and such saying WOW you are that young. I'm raising 4 children, 1 with special needs, paying bills, taking care of a house, keeping up with college, etc I feel as though i'm 80 some days! so i'm not quite sure what to think. i suppose i have 11 days to adjust to the fact that i'm apparently 28 right now since i wasn't quite sure if was going to be 28. heck i thought i had a whole nother year before 29. i guess they say the memory is the first thing to go. oooh did i tell you that emily lost her first tooth?????

so much..yet so little

i feel like so much is happening in our lives, but so little to actually report...if that makes sense. sometimes i feel as though these updates may get boring to some, but it's our constant revolving life and i can only tell it like it is! :)

SNOW. that is the worst 4 letter word of all time. It did this yesterday. YESTERDAY a day in the month of APRIL after SPRING has supposedly already begun weeks after easter. This is wrong, horribly wrong.

Other than the above things are going ok. We are trying to get resituated and back into the grove of things. The kids are getting back into school and piano. Emily has a piano recital this sunday so she's busy practicing for that. She will be performing 2 songs, one of them is a duet with her teacher. Jace won't participate this year as he hasn't learned any songs yet and is working on the foundations still. This last week they did some drum play to work on getting the beat and rhythm down and he absolutely loved this. He also is working on some piano computer games that give him great practice with finger numbers and beat and such! He's really starting to enjoy it as he and his teacher figure out the right combo for him! :)

Ben is doing pretty good. He has his days. Right now he's on a bit of an eating strike and wouldn't even eat mac and cheese for dinner. When he is eating it's mostly fruits, as he loves these to death.

Ariana is doing pretty good. She is getting a bit braver. she's learned how to go upstairs and we are slowly working on teaching her how to go down. Tonight she took only one of brian's hands and walked across the floor! She has only walked up till now if we are holding both of her hands. We can also let go of her for a second and she is standing alone and then carefully lowering herself to her bottom! Slowly working towards walking!

Brian is doing well! He's been put in charge of a project at work and so he's really working to figure it out! He's enjoying his job though and that's a good thing for sure!

I'm doing pretty good. Trudging through these last 5 weeks of school. There's alot to be done and it keeps me pretty darned busy!
Therapys are all going well. Ben now has therapy 4 times a week, Ari will be once a week, and Jace starts this Friday, and he'll be once a week. Keeps me running!
I've made another great new friend and have really enjoyed getting to know her and the kids! We have alot in common, her daughter is 3 and uses PECS and has many of the same speech issues that Ben has so we enjoy chatting back and forth about this. We got together today for our littlest 2 to play and had a great time. Her youngest is a little boy and he's 19 months so he and ari had a great time!

we are gearing up for the Autism walk this saturday and then immediately start preparing for a fundraiser at pump it up on the 22nd. I'm also going to be in charge of a fundraiser called Autism:Time for Change, where will be doing a change drive, and are hoping to get it set up through the school district! Also something happening!

Missing everyone!

Surgeries

My surgeries will be done in 3 stages. I will include links if interested in more detailed info. WARNING the links do contain pictures that the website has chosen to use. They are not clothed so be aware before opening links in front of kids or at work, and no the pics aren't of me! :)

Stage 1. Belt lipectomy
Click for Info and Pics
This phase takes care of the stomach, hips, butt, and outer thigh area. This is the hardest surgery and recovery.

Stage 2. Lower Arm lift, upper body lift, and breasts.
Click for Info and Pics
Click for Info and Pics
I can't find the link for the upper body lift but it takes care of the breasts, under arm area and the area on the sides of your chest wall.

Stage 3. Upper Inner Thigh.
Click for Info and Pics
also during this stage the decision will be made on if I want to go with a breast implant. It depends on how the breast part of stage 2 goes.

so that is the process and I'm so ready to get started. The changes to a body after massive weight loss are something I would have never imagined.

What a week

I haven't blogged much this week. It's been busy. Not having the kids has probably been the strangest thing of my life. On one hand it's been nice. It's been nice having the quiet, not having to run around to 500 places keeping up with their schedules, nice being able to do my homework during the day instead of late at night, nice to be able to do some of my errands and get together with a friend, nice to be able to spend some time with Brian and go out in the evenings. But it's also been weird. We haven't slept in, not one single day. I just keep waking up, I can't help it. The house has been too quiet. It's almost scary quiet. I miss having the kids activities, I've actually been...ooooh i'm almost scared to say it...bored sometimes. I miss the cuddles, the love, the laughs, I miss watching them play, the cute smiles, peeking in on them at night before I go to bed, all those things. In some ways I've gotten alot done this week and in some ways I haven't gotten as much done as I expected. I got alot of school work done, got my errands done, got together with a friend, got a few appointments done, and spent some time with Brian. I did not get the house cleaned and all of those things finished up like I had hoped though. That's okay I suppose because as soon as the kids get home they'll run around here and make a mess anyway! :)

I had my plastic surgeon appointment this week. It's always a bit scary to have to go in there and get completely naked from head to toe. You are given a robe, but as soon as the doc comes in that's gone so he can look and see everything that he needs to see. He said that I look amazing and that I'm done losing weight. He said at this point he wants me to go into maintenance mode. That is the strangest thing I think I've ever heard in my life. I knew I was getting close but hearing those words was like WOW. So until after my 3 surgeries I'm done losing weight. His guess is by the time all the surgeries are done I won't have anything else to lose, but in my mind I'm thinking I will. We shall see. So we are hoping to start my first surgery the last week of May. We will set the official date next week. Then after I finished speaking with him I had to go be photographed again since my body has changed so much since my appointment in January. Talk about uncomfortable. I stand up on a stage in a photo studio with all the photo lights and the camera. Completely naked, turning and moving and sometimes having to get into strange poses, each time moving a small piece of paper with a ruler drawn out on it, taped to my body as she photos. This lasts for about 50-60 pictures. Talk about awkward. Afterwards she showed me my photos from january to now. The difference was amazing. I had no idea that in the last 2 months it had changed that much! It made me feel good! Then the surgeon and I met and got to chatting and BIG news may come from that but until I know more I won't be able to give all the details! BUT I will say that it could change my life!

Other than that there isn't to much to report. I have a big exam tomorrow, and am ready to just get it done. After my exam Brian and I will head to KC and will stay at the Plaza for the night. We will get our kids back Saturday afternoon and will be back here late Saturday night!

CNN special coverage

CNN Autism Special Coverage

Autism Awareness Month

East Central Iowa Chapter
First Annual Autism Walk 2008

Please join us at Westdale Mall on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 from 8am to 10:30am as our local ASA Chapter will be hosting a walk during National Autism Awareness Month.

Our family will be walking at the walk listed above. If anyone would like to sponser us please post a message here and I will get you the links and information!

Thanks everyone!!!