Mis Queridos Hijos 9/30/07

Mis Queridos Hijos,

Tino: You received your progress report for the first 6 weeks of school. You received all As except for the B in Science. (That's o.k., because your mother was always challenged in that subject as well.) Everything you have been studying in Science so far has been helping you earn your Science belt loop in Cub Scouts. You continue to bat 3rd in the lineup on your baseball team. Your mami is clueless regarding things like baseball lineups, but everyone else in the stands tell me that being #3 in the lineup is a good thing and you are one of the power hitters on the team. You have a beautiful swing. You even have a great little ritual that you do each time you go up to bat. It's really cute. Hopefully I will be able to video tape it before the season ends.


Mateo: You went to pre-school on Tuesday and Friday. You still miss Sarah and BEG for me to pick you up before lunch time and nap time. On Tuesday night when it was time for bed, I couldn't find you or Sarah anywhere. You were hiding from me (in the dark), in my dirty clothes hamper. You guys were hiding very quietly. The only thing that gave you away was the flashlight's light coming from inside the hamper. It has been almost 3 weeks since you decided to cut your hair. You are very concerned that your hair isn't growing. Your hair still isn't even long enough to put gel in it and style it. I think you learned your lesson and next time you will wait for the barber to cut your hair.


Sarah: Your homework this week with Ms. Erika, the behavior therapist, was to practice saying "yes" and "please". There have been quite a few meltdowns, but we will work our way through this. You went to Kindermusik with mami. You loved dancing with the scarves and also wanted to sing the "Rumble, rumble, rumble in the jungle, jungle jungle" song over and over again. This week when I showed you a picture of Aunt Anne and I asked you who it was, you said "Cindewewwa". I tried to convince you that it was your Aunt Anne and not Cinderella, but you wouldn't listen to me. Now every time you walk by that picture, you get so excited and say "Wook, mami . . . there she is . . . Cindewewwa."

Love you,
Mami

Ideas needed PLEASE

I have a son. To keep it anonymous, I won't mention names, but will give you a hint that his name is often confused by little kids or the hard-of-hearing gringos as "Potato". This particular child is very rambunctious. He is very busy. He keeps me alert and attentive at all times. He is also very smart. Except for when it comes to one thing. When he gets in trouble . . . big trouble . . . as in time out/go to your room/pow-pow for you trouble . . . he literally gets the pee scared out of him. The kid will be 4 in December and he still has accidents. This happens at least twice a week. And I am SOOOOOOOO OVER IT! How do you get a kid to stop peeing their pants? I'm completely open for ideas here.

Date Night

I just got back from date night. Date night was on Wednesday nights, but then I had to go ahead and mess everything up by getting a new calling to be Bear Den Leader in the church tri-pack . . . and church scouts meet on Wednesday nights. So change of nights AND change of venue. Since I am no longer an employee of the Y---, we don't get the perks of reduced family membership. And we don't exactly have an extra $100+ floating around to pay for a membership. (Let's get priorities straight here . . . ya think if I had some extra money I would actually choose the ritzy gym membership over cable t.v. OR satellite?) So, Cristian and I now will be having our Zumba date nights on Tuesday nights . . . at the "ghetto" gym where I get FREE membership since I am now an employee there.

There was this lady there tonight that made the mistake of blurting out loud that she had eaten 3 . . . yes THREE pork chops before coming to class. And my dear friend Gisselle (a.k.a. the Zumba instructor) took it upon herself to make sure that pork chop lady worked off those 3 pork chops she had eaten before class. Let's get one thing straight . . . I DID NOT EAT PORK CHOPS before going to class. Neither did Cristian . . . neither did the other 50+ people that attended the Zumba class. There was only ONE pork chop lady in attendance, but the ENTIRE class had to PAY for her eating habits. I can barely walk. I can barely breathe. I'm surprised my fingers can even move enough to type. Every bone and muscle in my body is SORE. We got our BUTTS KICKED. But it was a lot of fun . . . AND I burned more calories than I have eaten so far today. Maybe I will be able to fit into a bikini before the cool weather hits after all. Thanks pork chop lady!!!

Day of Rest ?!?

Several months ago . . . April-ish, I was released from my calling as counselor in the Primary presidency. I also gave my two-month notice that I would not be returning as a member of the PTA Board . . . nor would I continue to be CubMaster and Den Leader in our community Cub Scout pack. All of this was in attempt to get my life in order . . . try to have some time to BREATHE, etc. etc. I love the way that my Branch President said he was going to give me a little break. As he put it, he was giving me "an opportunity to come to church, enjoy the meetings, not be commited to being highly involved in any church calling, etc. " Somehow that ain't happening. Yesterday was supposed to be the Sabbath day . . . a day of rest and I am absolutely EXHAUSTED. In fact, if I didn't have a 2 and 3 1/2 year old running rampant in the house, I would probably crawl back in bed and not wake up until tomorrow morning.

Yesterday, my church day looked something like this: Play the organ in sacrament meeting . . . (yeah, just a sneaky ploy to get the Ramirez family to church on time or almost on time since we are ALWAYS LATE), teach the 12-13 year old Sunday School class, play the piano in Relief Society, teach the Relief Society lesson . . . and have a member of the primary presidency wait patiently until there was a brief break between R.S. announcements and opening hymn to ask me if I could go play the piano for Primary while they were practicing for the program. YIKES! I believe there are about 5% of the members in the branch doing about 95% of the work. What happened to spreading the wealth? Don't be afraid to jump in and SERVE. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Bear Den is in charge of decorations for the pack meeting. Translation: Heidi the new Bear Den Leader for the church tri-pack needs to run around town trying to find big boxes and spray paint them and turn them into a stinkin' train for pack meeting on Wednesday night. Yeah, that was the one BENEFIT of being CubMaster in the community pack. I could look at the themes for the entire year and delegate decorations to my Bear Den on the EASY MONTHS. And give all the creative, artsy-fartsy months to people that don't have an impairment of that creative side of their brain.

Also, word is getting out at church that I teach piano lessons. BIG MISTAKE. There was a very nice elderly sister that gave FREE piano lessons for the last 10+ years to whoever wanted them. Apparently, since I also know how to play the piano and teach piano lessons and am a faithful/active church member, it is my "duty" to teach every kid/youth between the ages of 6 and 16 how to play the piano FOR FREE. Not to have an eye for an eye mentality . . . but what are they going to give me in return for teaching their kids? Scrub a toilet, mop a floor . . . take care of my kids on the days I teach Kindermusik and get PAID to teach piano lessons??? What part of I do these things to help bring some extra cash flow into my household do they not understand???

Time to go scrub a toilet . . . or put the kids down for a nap . . . or give me a timeout since I am in such a p---- mood. Ta-ta for now!

Mis Queridos Hijos 9/23/07

So I am TOTALLY stealing . . . I mean borrowing an idea from Celia. I met Celia in Blogland. I've never met her in person, but I feel like I know her. She is super duper funny. And I check out her blog every day just so I can get a good chuckle. Anyway, she is starting to do a weekly update of her kiddos for family history purposes. Awesome idea, so I am going to do the same. Thanks Celia!!!

Mis Queridos Hijos,
I am going to start to document or recap the main events that happen to you each week.

Tino: One of the pitchers from the Washington Nationals organization came out to help you and some of your teammates with pitching on Wednesday night. You were reluctant to pitch your first game yesterday, but you did it! You were AWESOME! Although you were disappointed that you gave up some runs, YOU DID YOUR BEST and that is all we ask. You are one of the power hitters on the team and you have a lot of potential as a lefty pitcher. Mami and papi are certainly proud of you!

Mateo: You went to your second week of preschool. You are still going through Sarah withdrawal. You miss your little sister while you are away at school. Both nights after pre-school, you cried when we put Sarah to bed because she was going to miss you so berry berry much. You snuck into her room, got her out of her crib, closed her bedroom door, and gave her strict instructions to play QUIETLY so mami and papi wouldn't hear you. After playing with her for over an hour, you helped her get back into her crib, turned out her light, and came into mami and papi's room to report to us that you had been taking good care of Sarah. On Friday, papi picked you up from pre-school and took you back to Oracle. You told me all about the big lake that is in the backyard of papi's work. You also saw Daisy the girl alligator that lives in the big lake. You had fun visiting all of papi's co-workers and you even ventured off on your own a couple of times to explore. Papi found you in the kitchen both times you ventured off . . . trying to get some soda out of the fridge.

Sarah: You had your appointment with Early Steps. You qualified for more services . . . speech, OT, and the special needs pre-school. You have a lot of specialists and professionals that are going to see that you get the very best treatment and care necessary. Early intervention will help you in the long run. We hope to help you succeed and be a happy little girl. You missed Mateo when he went to pre-school, but you enjoyed all your alone time with mami to read lots of stories and play with your toys.

Love,
Mami

WonderWorks

Last week was Tino's 9th birthday. We went to WonderWorks. WonderWorks is the big upside down building that is on I-Drive (for all those that have ventured to Orlando on vacation). We lost our Disney park privileges almost 1 year ago when Cristian went back to Oracle. BUT, the good news is, we have now found a substitute for EPCOT. Tino's favorite place to hang out at Epcot was in Future World where they that have all the interactive exhibits, displays, etc. WonderWorks is equivalent to the Future World in a G.A.T.E. student/math/science enthusiast kind of way. Tino was in 7th heaven. He wanted to stay there for 8 hours. We compromised and stayed for 2 1/2 hours. Mateo and Sarah divided their time among the bubbles exhibit and the space exhibit. Since they would not relinquish the space suit and let anyone else have a turn, they had a good time posing for all of the European and Japanese tourists.

P.S. Ever since our hard drive crashed and we lost ALL of our digital pictures from the last 2+ years, I haven't been using the digital camera because there is supposedly a way we can retrieve the "deleted" pictures off the memory card. I'm going to start posting some of the pictures that go along with my blog entries over the last couple of months.

Delegation

There are certain chores that I have inherited throughout our 12 years of marriage . . . and certain chores that Cristian takes care of. I take care of laundry, mopping floors, cooking . . . Cristian irons, scrubs a mean toilet, does all the outside landscaping, takes out the garbage, etc. And then there are those jobs that we haven't officially discussed and decided upon, but for some reason or another they have been delegated to either myself or DH.

I have been the lucky winner of disposing of rodents. Perhaps it is because in one of my areas on my mission, our neighbors had a pet pig. And said pet pig attracted little friends . . . or a little bit on the bigger side friends. Each morning, I would be awakened by a pouncing on my chest . . . which would then go down my stomach, legs, etc. I always knew that it was a little too heavy to be a mosquito . . . or even a little mouse. I was always afraid to open my eyes to see what exactly it was that would climb through our bedroom window every morning and pounce on me . . . and continue on it's merry way. Until one morning I opened up my eyes . . . to see exactly what it was. Yeah, not such a great idea. I was completely horrified. As earlier suspected, it was heavier than a little mouse . . . it was a stinkin' rat. I guess that mission experience prepared me for my job in marriage to dispose of rodents. When we first moved to West Sacramento, our house was built on what was an empty field and farmland for years and years. So of course we had the joy of uprooting several THOUSAND or maybe MILLION mice when our neighborhood was built. I got the pure joy and pleasure (NOT) of disposing of the mice that got caught in the traps . . . whether they still be alive or dead. Fun times.

After moving to Florida, I discovered that Cristian doesn't do green tree frogs or lizards. The green tree frogs REALLY GROSS ME OUT, but somebody's got to take them back outside to Mother Nature. Tino is freaked out also by green tree frogs, BUT he will do lizards. Last night I put him in charge of getting the little baby lizard out of our house. He had a little bit of difficulty catching the little critter, but he finally caught him and took him back outside. This is what our closet looked like after Tino came to the rescue. Thanks Tino for a job well done! And baby lizard, next time PLEASE don't mess up our closet. (This mess certainly couldn't have been attributed to Tino trying to catch the baby lizard could it?????)

And she . . . . QUALIFIED!!!!!

O.K. the bad news is Sarah qualified for more services . . . and the good news is she qualified for more services. I have had that motherly instinct for a long time now that something just isn't right with my baby. At least we will be able to start getting some more answers. Once again, she regressed significantly since 3 months ago in all areas: Gross/Fine Motor Skills, Self-Help/Adaptive Skills, Social/Emotional, Academic/Cognitive, and Expressive and Receptive Communication. Her major areas of concern are: behavior and expressive communication. There is a definite developmental delay in the area of social/emotional skills.

She will continue with once a week hourly sessions with the behavior therapist. She also qualified for one hour/week of Speech/Language therapy and 45 minutes a week of Occupational Therapy. She also qualified for the special needs preschool. We are still waiting to find out if she will go 2 days a week (minimum time) or the entire 5 days per week. And yes, thanks to Mom University . . . or perhaps my background in education . . . I called it on the sensory processing. The results that I received by doing a screening on the internet for anything on the autism spectrum or PDD came out right on with the specialists' screening today. On the Chat-M, there are 25 items. In order to be recommended for further evaluation she needed to score positive on 2 critical items. She scored on 3 critical items in addition to having an additional 6 "red flag" items on the screening. Although today she was only screened and did not receive an in depth evaluation, she definitely shows many characteristics and behaviors of children that have PDD or autism. She will be seen in 3 weeks to get the full evaluation. At least now we will start to get some answers. I've been bawling my eyes out the last couple hours. I know there was something wrong with Sarah and that there has been something wrong . . . so I didn't expect to have this reaction. What's up with all the tears? I have no idea where that came from. I guess it's just hearing the words come from someone else that make it a little more real.

Early Steps

Tomorrow morning Sarah has her follow-up appointment with Early Steps, the early intervention program run by the state of Florida. I am HOPING and PRAYING we can find some answers. Not only for Sarah's well-being, but also so I can have hope of someday being permanently off prozac.

I am going to insist that she be evaluated for autism and pervasive developmental disorder. Also, I think there might be a sensory processing disorder in the mix. Delayed speech, a seizure that came out of nowhere, walking on her tiptoes, NO reasoning skills or understanding of cause and effect, tactile/sensory issues, behavior issues . . . is there anything else I am missing? I am trying to review my notes so that this visit can be as thorough as possible. Let me know if you can think of anything else.

Hopefully by tomorrow afternoon I will be able to share the good news that she has qualified for speech therapy and some occupational therapy. Wouldn't it be too awesome if we could also qualify for two hours per week of behavior therapy instead of just one??? Send a prayer or two to Florida.

Squishy Eggs

Mateo has had an egg allergy since birth. We think it might have something to do with the modified Atkin's Diet I was on while pregnant with him. (This could possibly be the same reason he is so sensitive to peanuts and has a peanut allergy as well.) Anyway, he is finally outgrowing his egg allergy. We have started introducing egg-based products back into his diet and his skin doesn't have a major eczema outbreak. For the last week he has been asking me for squishy eggs for breakfast "because that would be so special". So, day one I made him scrambled eggs. Wrong answer. Those weren't squishy eggs. Since then, I have tried over-easy, fried, and as many other variations of eggs I could possibly think of. Although he ate them, they were not "squishy eggs". This morning he asked for squishy eggs for breakfast again. Emphasizing the fact that it would be "so special" if I made that for him because he loves "squishy eggs" so much. I told him he would have to show me how to make squishy eggs since I didn't know what they were. He found the small pot for me. He told me to fill it up with water. Then he told me to put the whole egg inside the water and not to break it. Mystery solved. If Mateo ever asks you for a squishy egg, he wants a hard boiled egg. You should have seen the look of excitement on his face when his mother FINALLY got him his "so special, squishy egg" for breakfast.