May

May, well May happened, I just don't seem to remember much....Other than the most important thing...Autumn and Emma were STILL SEIZURE FREE!!! Actually Mother's Day was in MAy and Dan and th ekid sgot me a new laptop! WOOHOO!

OK, this pic was taken the end of April and just didnt' get downloaded till May...Oops. But its' wicked cute...Piper, the cat that doesn't care for people, lays next to Owen while he works on the couch..Awwwww! He gets alot of "Pet Therapy" at home, lol.

This is Dylan's invention...a absence seizure detecting cap so parent's can see when their chidl has one and not miss them. The lightbulb really works when you use the switch...he borrowed it from Owen's Electricity kit, lol. He got an A+ on it!

Owen watching butterflies hatch from their chrysalis...this was REALLY cool. It was a truly exciting morning...all 10 ended up hatching! Owen won the prediction: D

April

April found us with GORGEOUS weather in NY. Unseasonably warm, it is was very welcome! We built a dog run for the dogs and reclaimed out backyard. They decimated the lawn. And so we planted new grass...ans used child slave labor to break up the hardened sod..bwahhaha..work child work whil eI take pictures of you slaving away!! bwahahaha!

Here's Autumn weilding a pick axe, which she loved doing and showed massive upper body strength!

Here's Owen in front of the Frog Bog habitat for his tadpoles Rex and Yoda...and yes he has dirt on his nose, lol.

Owen doing his work in the tent I set up in the living room as his reading nook. Emma was allowed to come in and supervise because she just laid there. Greta was not allowed because she dug in the blankets and messed them up and Bailey breathed too hot, lol.

Owen in front of the shelf with the caterpillar larva. Another Science unit, turns out Owen is a HUGE Biology/Science buff. For three months now Dan gets a daily, detailed morning update on how the tadpoles and butterflies are doing, lol.

Our only medical mishap was Dylan's mysterious bug bites all over his chest and in a line on his back, to which he had a bad reaction and some serious, persistant hives. Autumn and Emma remained seizure free in April!

March

So March came and Science found us exploring dinosaurs, extinction, and fossils. We made some pretty cool "fossils" of our own with homemade clay, plastic dinosaurs and shells from my bathroom decor, lol. And Owen excavated his own dinosaurs, which he thought was alot of fun.

Dinosaur stuck in ice...

Owen freeing a dinosaur...

The end of March brought an emergency veterinary visit for poor Miss Emma who instigated Big Bad Bailey, who had enough, and a fight ensued. Emma ended up with a couple of stitches under her armpit. She healed fine, and NO she hasn't learned to not mess with Bailey and continually instigates and won't leave well enough alone. But doesn't she look pathetic?

A graphic shot of the two inch slit in her pit from Bailey's teeth...OUCH.

Emma and Autumn remain seizure free in March! WOOHOO!

February

I totally did not write every day. Or weekly. Or even monthly. But I had a good excuse...I was extremely busy with daycare, homeschooling Owen (which is going swimmingly!), and taking four college courses myself (English Comp II and American History I online, and Teaching in the Diverse Classroom and Child Psychology..and I got A's in each class and had a 4.0 GPA that semester!). So I'll update by month and do the highlights in pics (because really I don't remember anything that happened during those months anyway, lol). Autumn and Emma are still seizure free in February.

Here is Owen getting ready to put together our Electric ping pong ball cannon. It was missing treads on the wheels though so it didn't shoot the ball properly: ( Bummer.

And here are Owen, Autumn and Dyl getting ready to eat our Chinese food lunch, an end to Owen's Literature book that week Ping.

First Day of Homeschool

For a first day this went well. It worked out that I didn't have any daycare kids today so Owen had my undivided attention. The first thing we did was drop off our paperwork for our Intent to Homeschool and IHIP. Which means we started at 8:30. We did a Math pre-test first, he got a 89%, his mistakes were careless mistakes. And I realized he needed more practice on his basic math facts so that his 2 digit addition and subtraction went quicker for him...35 problems took him 27 minutes. We did a page of math facts for practice and then played Chocolate Chip math which is more math facts practice. Math took us 2 hours total.

We moved on and did 3 pages of language arts (nouns, and proper nouns), a phonics activity sorting the two different /oo/ sounds (as in book and moon), spelling word practice, 3 pages of writing (complete sentence practice), and read Stone Soup and he did a writing activity that went with Stone Soup. We took a break for lunch. Then we tried to do a listening activity but turns out the library forgot to take the protective case off of the CD that went with the book, so we took a short trip to the library to have them unlock the CD case. Came home and did our listening activity and then a half hour of Hip Hop dance aerobics for gym(OMG I am so tired!LOL I think I need to invest in some kid excercise videos so I don't have a heart attack!LOL). Then he did his chores and now he has free time and is waiting for the computer.

He told Dan I was his favorite; ) He's going to give his Dad a complex, lol.

Owen drawing on the white board....

Our school area.....

Bus Chase

It's the first day back to school after a long break. I was a little worried Autumn would be hard to get up for school (not that she usually is, normally she does a great job) but she'd been sleepign in till 10 and not going to bed till late. But she was dressed, ate breakfast, packed her lunch and was ready to go by quarter of 7. But I run down the checklist because her zarontin hasn't had time to take effect and she's out of it in the morning, spacy and forgetful...Did you brush your teeth? Oops, forgot.

My next question was"Did you take your medicine?" But I didn't get to ask her because then the dog threw me off my game because she had a huge pee accident on the way out to go potty @@ REALLY GRETA??!! Your 3 years odl and have been housebroken FOREVER. I swear it was so cold last night that she went out and came right back in without peeing @@ So Dan and I are moving laundry over so we can toss in the snow pants that had fallen off the hook at the bottom of the stairs that the dog peed on@@ and sopping up and cleanign the little bit that hit the carpet. NOW I'm gonna be late. So I grab my coat, coffee and keys and Autumn and I head out to the bus stop. We made it on time but we no more than pull up to her bus stop and she tells me she forgot to take her medicine. So I drive around the block , back to home , she runs in and takes her medicine, gets back in the car and back to the bus stop we head and I'm praying we haven't missed the bus but it's REAL close. I can see her bus stopped and we are a block away, just as I pull up, the bus leaves @@

That's OK, I'll just follow it to it's next stop Autumn and you can catch it there! So there I am chasing the bus in morning traffic (man I really needed some good chase music!LOL), it turns off the main road and goes up up a wine-dy hill, turns around at the top and starts back down and then stops at a house. So Autumn grabs her stuff and gets out, but before she gets to the door of the bus, it pulls away without having seen her...so she hops back in and I'm yelling at her to hurry up and get in before we lose the bus! Luckily it stops at another stop at the bottom of that wine-dy hill, and another bus is blocking it...Autumn gets out and runs and this time makes it.

I've now lost 25 minutes of my morning chasing a bus down, AND now I have no time for a shower before I take the boys to school and my daycare baby arrives@@ By the time I get back from bringing the boys to school, my daycare baby is already here. Dan was good though and allowed me to take a quick shower before he headed off to bed, lol. Nothing like the first day back to school after a long break!

Birthday Fun

So for Autumn's Birthday I took Autumn and her brothers ice skating. This was only Autumn's second time, and the the boys' first time. Autumn did great only fell a couple of times. She was excited because she saw her teacher from last year, and a friend from school. Dylan picked up on it pretty fast, he fell alot but he did awesome. It was too cute, there were two little girls following Dyl ALL OVER the ice rink. I don't know if they liked him or thought he was a little kid who needed help. I missed a great picture of it because I was laughing too hard...he was practically RUNNING on skates from these girls and the little girl is following behind him, LOL. He hasn't reached that liking girls stage yet, lol. Owen never really got the balance thing down and fell alot but was a trooper, he ended up using a construction cone for support.

The Birthday Girl

Action shot of Dylan

Owen

Happy 12th Birthday Autumn!!

Twelve years ago yesterday, on Jan 2nd I awoke to my water breaking three weeks early with my first born. The contractions hadn't started, so I wasn't concerned. I sent my husband into work. Then I called the doctor. Then I called my husband (he hadn't even gotten in to work yet and we only lived 10-15 minutes away from his work, lol) to tell him he needed to come back home because the doctor wanted to see me. So he came back home and we went to the OB/GYN. My contractions had just started, nothing bad. He was a nice old guy who checked me and said yes that was definitely your water but your not really effaced and only 1-2 cm dilated. Go home,  labor a bit, he gave me a run down of what I could do and what I couldn't do, and said go to the hospital when your contractions are 5 minutes apart. We went home, I called my mom and cried I wasn't ready to have my baby that day, I wasn't prepared, I had no car seat, no stroller (so much for calm and collected, lol) and all of a sudden I got violently ill. Something wasn't right, I had Dan take me to the hospital. By the time I got there the nurses took one look at me, took my blood pressure and rushed me to a room to change into a gown and get an IV and magnesium sulfate started ASAP. My blood pressure had skyrocketed between the time I was in his office and the time I got home and I had pre-eclampsia.

The nurse told me to breathe. I complained I didn't know how to breathe I hadn't gotten to finish my Lamaze classes. She told me that was silly, everyone knows how to breathe. I breathed. I spent the next 8 or 9 hours in a fog. I remember once after a couple fo hours a nurse scolding Dan who was sitting on the loveseat watching football, that he should be over with me holding my hand, helping me...I remember opening one eye looking at her and telling her sternly, "He's fine. Right over there." I am not a touchy feely person, I certainly don't like to be touchy feely when I don't feel good, lol.

Around dinner time my Mom, my sister, and my best friend Liz arrived. They didn't want everyone in my room, I was too sick. They did get to come in eventually and see me for a few minutes though. They had just finished giving me my epidural and I was still sitting up. I only heard about it afterwards, but my friend and my sister were freaked out, I was swollen and huge...like the Stay Puff marshmallow man huge. And the nurses' seriousness was alarming. When it was finally time to push around 10 that evening. They cleared the room and said only Dad could stay. I told them my Mom was staying. I feared Dad would faint during the delivery. I don't know if it was because I was a first timer, or the epidural was high or if it was because they spent so much time trying to stretch me around her tiny head before they did an episiotomy but it was two hours of pushing. When she crowned the delivering doctor says "Look at all that HAIR!" My mom drops me mid-contraction goes down to the action end, and squeals so loud my sister and friend heard her out in the hall, lol. Dad facing the non-action end says "that's OK, I'll look at it after she's here." When she was finally delivered, they ask Dad if he would like to cut the cord. Dad says, "No thank you." like they were offering him a beverage or a snack, lol. My mom got to cut the cord. After havign six children of her own, this was the first birth she had ever witnessed.

"Hey New World, WAZ" UP?!"

Aunt Kim checks to see all her Toes are there. Check out all that dark hair!

Dad holds his new bundle of joy.

Mom hold her new new baby girl...so hard to believe she was once that tiny and now she's almost bigger than me!

I LOVE IT! Muppets play Bohemian Rhapsody!

Homeschooling Bug Hits Again

It's that time of year again...after the first term report cards come out and someone's grades are abysmal even though we spend an inordinate amount of time doing work that should have been completed in school, in addition to regular homework, and then the extra help reinforcing what they learn in school...the reading, the money counting, the addition and subtraction facts, multiplications facts...and then the special education meetings. It always leaves me wondering WHY I send them in the first place.

Autumn does fantastic in school, she has a 504 for her epilepsy, so she can take any tests she misses due to seizures, and so that the teachers make sure she has all the information she needs and hasn't missed any due to absence seizures. She thrives in school though, high honor roll, always has been (even when the seizures were uncontrolled). This is a kid who couldn't remember taking a state vocabulary test last April when she was in 5th grade, right at the height of her seizures...and she missed the reading comprehension part somehow...either was seizurey and missed it or they did it on a day she was out due to a seizure. I don't know. They brought her to the library to finish taking the reading comprehension portion. She had no recollection of the test at all. The librarian was shocked, told her she got an 11.2 on it...Autumn was horrified "That's AWFUL!" ...the librarian explains "No that is REALLY, REALLY good, it means you scored as well as an eleventh grader in the second month of school would have on that test!" She was at the end of 5th grade. And she can't even remember taking it, lol.

Dylan is doing fantastic. This is his first year with no extra help for anything. He is performing at grade level for everything and loving school. He does great in math. In everything. He puts 110% into everything he does, he loves every part of school, especially his friends (and this was a kid I was worried he was autistic when he was a toddler!), had an IEP for speech/language issues, needed readign, writing and math help in the early years.

Owen however, has always hated school. I have yet to find what motivates him. His teachers have not found what motivates him. He does worse each year instead of making progress. They think he has ADD-primarily inattentive type. I've had him tested for allergies-he's allergic to everything basically. I had his lead tested, that is fine. I am having his vision looked at again to see whether the 4th nerve palsy is affecting his ability to do well in school and whether or not we can fix it with vision therapy. I am taking him to a therapist for behavioral therapy (although he has no behavioral issues, he just can't stay on task) for the ADD. Because I refuse to medicate him. I will also talk to her about the school refusal issue he has going on. We get him there without a fuss, then he comes home "sick" but he isn't really "sick" @@ Someone on the show we were watching mentioned homeschool in passing, Owen says "I want to be homeschooled!" I asked him why. He says," So I can spend more time with YOU!" as he bats those big brown eyes at me. A few days later I asked him what I thought he would learn in homeschool, he said he didn't know. I asked what he would teach if he was his teacher,"well the kids would go to lunch and recess, and special, and work on the computers if they are done with their work..." Sounds exactly like what they do there now? His teacher is nice enough, and feels horrible Owen doesn't love her class and school...he likes it, he just doesn't love it or enjoy school period. She's at a loss though, she read them a story, he couldnt' write 5 sentences about it, she asked him verbally to tell her, he told her he just didn't remember it. How can this be? He can tell me every detail of a Star Wars movie? I read to him, I ask him questions he can tell me. Can he always write about it...no, writing throws him off, he has to  concentrate too much on the letter formation of each word I think he forgets what he was going to write. He can write me 5 sentences on the computer, it takes time though as he hunts and pecks for keys.

I don't know...I'll see what they offer at his 504 meeting, If they can't offer to do anythign mor ethan they have already been doign for him, if htey dont' offer to cover vision therapy..I think I'll pull him. How much worse could we do?

P.S.- I'm editing this for spelling errors and Owen comes up to ask if he can be finished eating lunch (Sure...if you ate waht Dad asked you to eat." Autumn comes and asks me if she can watch TV while she is waiting for me to take them ice skating for her birthday (Sure...I am just going to finihs this and hten get dressed.) And Owen says REALLY EXCITED, "It's about Homeschooling ME!" (No, I'm not goign to homeschool you.) To which he replies, "Oh well I read it said I wanted to be homeschooled." OK yeah it did mention that in the middle of a paragraph of tiny print...and the school is telling me he can't read at grade level??@@ And I am worried he is havign trouble tracking words/seeign with his eyes @@

News Year Eve Funnies from the boys

First, earlier in the day, Owen asks me if he can use the tattoos he got in his stocking. Sure! "How many can I put on?" He asks with a twinkle in those huge brown eyes of his. As many as you want, I tell him, fighting the vision of him coming down looking like he has "sleeves". Have Autumn help you. So I return to starting lunch and I am browning hamburger meat and I get that RUT-ROH! feeling...I forgot to tell him NO TATTOOS on your FACE (well Autumn was helpign him so she'll know better, but just in case I run to the stairs and holler up for them and as he comes downstairs and I am telling him no tattoos on your face, his hand goes to his face and he says "Oh OH!" Alas my mom radar was off a few seconds and I couldn't QUITE prevent what I just KNEW would happen, lol. Oh well...they are temporary, it'll come off eventually@@ But I had to ask Autumn when she came down why she put a tattoo on his face, turns out he had his partner in crime Dylan help him instead @@

I am browning hamburger meat for sloppy Joe's for lunch We are all eating dinner last night trying to decide what we should do as a family New Year's Eve. Autumn wants to watch her Harry Potter movie...no too scary for the boys. Everyone wants to watch a movie but we need to decide on which one...as we are naming the DVDs we own that are possibilities, Dan in his need to tease suggests his favorite...The Bourne Ultimatum (which he's probably has only watched a MILLION times or more)to which Owen quips "So you want to watch The Boring Ultimatum?!" I can't figure out if he's wicked smart and does that on purpose or what but OMG it was priceless!

Then Dylan says he wants to stay up and watch the ball drop.This is really late for our kids who are in bed by 9 at the latest, usually between 8 and 8:30. So around 7 we put in the agreed upon movie Alvin and the Chipmunks, watch that, then watch some America's Funniest Home Videos, and then the beginning of Night at the Museum while we are waiting...by this point Dyl and Owen are sound asleep, despit ethe massive candy consumption. About 5 minutes to midnight we switch to Dick Clark and try to wake the boys up...Owen didn't even bat an eye open. Dyl opened his eyes but you could tell no one was there and he went back to sleep. Dan keeps hollering at him to wake up, he didn't want to miss it and Dan doesn't want to hear him complain in the morning how he missed it...Autumn is shaking him. I was like enough already leave him be! So he sleeps through the ball dropping, and when it's all over I pick up Owen to bring him up to bed and Dan picks up Dylan and Dylan wakes up wide eyed and exclaims, "But I wanted to watch the ball drop!!!!" @@ LMAO! Dan set him down and put it back on for him (we DVR'd the last few minutes for him, lol).

New Year Resolutions

Sanity is Priceless's New Year's Eve Resolutions:

1- to blog/post something daily on Sanity is Priceless.
2- to edit and spellcheck for typos before I post

This year on Sanity is Priceless we can look forward to:
1- Watch my Christmas Club Account grow. I ALWAYS vow to start one of these and never do and am always cash strapped come Christmas.
2- The Hot Spot Watch. Dan always complains that I can't seem to have a flat surface without cluttering it with junk. I haven't figured out the specifics of whether I should pick 3 or 5 of these spots, and post daily pics, or pick one spot a week or month to work on.
3- Epilepsy Awareness/Support: I'll be highlighting some topics on Epilepsy Awareness/Support.