Update

Things have been busy for sure so I have been neglectful on the bloggy front.


Thanks to those who have inquired on how we are here in Loo Loo Land!

· We took a trip to visit family up north in November. The kids traveled well, which is always a plus! Miss Fabulous had a visit with Grandma and Paw Paw while we were away since the Dad was staying behind to finish some work on the floors here at the Loo Loo Ranch. Miss enjoyed time as the only child and swimming in the hot tub!

· The school seems to be getting a clearer picture of Mr. Man and Miss Fabulous and seem to be meeting their needs well this year. After Mr. yanked out clumps of his hair in frustration during a meltdown the school started making accommodations in handwriting and homework. I have been really impressed with this since he did not melt down at school but at home regarding school; they still saw it as significant. And that equals help!

· The speech teacher called me following some testing she had done with Miss. The testing was to get an overall view of Miss’ abilities academically. I went to the school for a meeting with her and she showed me the results of the testing, which were on the low side and therefore qualify Miss for continued help via her IEP. But she wanted me to see why Miss’ scores were low, because she clearly “was not feeling motivated to do her best.” For instance Miss correctly identified infantry as a vocabulary word but was not able to identify the colors red and yellow or apple. The only thing that surprised me is that my 7 year old knew what infantry was! Both the teacher the speech teacher and the IEP coordinator have indicated that they have Miss’ number and understand her lack of motivation at times. Rolled into that she has some areas, which are clearly not strengths for her such as word tenses, and she is getting help in those areas as well.

· We are still dealing with homework tantrums.

· Mr. Man was sick last week with an ear infection, sinus infection and viral tonsillitis. His temp was 103.2 with both Motrin and Tylenol. Poor guy!

· Miss still visits the school clinic when she is not happy about something in class. They usually send her packing with in 2 minutes once her temp is negative.

· Lil Bro is doing awesome in school and life in general.

· Big Sis is doing well too, we have had to revamp our at home schooling schedule. I guess it is typical to have adjustments when you begin schooling at home.

· On a sad note my kitty cat who is 17 years old and who I raised on a bottle because his Mom and litter mates all died, has bone cancer. The tumor is located on his rib cage and is aggressive. Right now he is comfortable and that is our goal but in the next few weeks that will likely change and we will need to make the humane choice on his behalf.

Keep on keepin’ on!

Homework Headaches

Thanks for all the comments checking in on me!

Overall Miss Fab is doing well and is obviously stable at the moment.  However, she is digging in with both heals regarding homework.  Despite getting A's in math on her report card she maintains that she does not know how to do the work.  One  minute she can count money and the next she has no clue.  She wants us to do the work step for step for her.  In the past this gag worked pretty well for her.  She is very believable and as a parent your natural instinct is to help the child.  Unfortunately she is clearly manipulating the help and now that we have our ducks in a row and clearly understand her level of ability it is time for her to get to work.

She is going into full on rages, ripping up the papers with her aggressive erasing technique and flat out refusing to move forward.  After an hour and a half for 5 problems and a full on rage I decided that we would give her 10 minutes to get the work done or Dad would take her to school the next morning and explain to Mrs. Teacher why the paper looked the way it did and why it was still not complete.  She was clearly torn.  She did not like the thought of him coming to class and talking to Mrs. Teacher but she also did not want to give in and do the work.  She completed one more of the math problems and it was done correctly but refused to do the last problem.

Dad took her to school the next day and asked Mrs. Teacher if Miss Fab knew how to do this work and she was confident that she did.  He explained what had happened etc.  The teacher said that Miss refuses to answer when she is called on sometimes and sometimes she does not complete her work.  Dad explained in the past that it had been determined that was willful behavior and having to do work during recess time had encouraged her to get her work completed in a timely manner.

We have a conference scheduled with Miss Fab's teacher on Nov. 9.

Mr. Behavior Guy was not all together helpful yesterday.  He seemed to talk out of both sides of his mouth saying one thing one time and another thing the next time.  He started falling back on "I'm using this method and that method" regarding homework help and trying to determine which method works best.  The Hubs and I were perturbed and explained numerous times that we were confident that Miss understood the work and she needed to do it.  He would agree with that but his actions didn't support that.  It was disheartening because this guy has been coming to our house for 2 years, once a week to work with Miss.  He has seen her in a full on rage many times, he has watched the manipulation she uses and still she can convince him that she doesn't know something that she does know.  What chance do with have with a teacher?  None.

Ultimately the suggestion was to work the homework through with Miss on a separate piece of paper and then have her redo the work on her actual homework sheet to turn in.  This way she is still having to accomplish the work independently and she can not maintain that she doesn't understand it.  The consequence within the "method" is that she has to do the work twice if she isn't willing to do the work independently the first time.  We are going to give it a try.  If she refuses to do the work independently the second time, having the answers and the work right in front of her from the first time, then it is clearly willful and we are to stick to her not moving on to anything else until she does it.  We are in for some lonnnnnnnnnnng nights.

On a positive note the weekend went pretty well.  The Hubs and I took Mr. Man and Miss Fabulous camping, in a tent this past weekend.  Big Sis went to Grandma's for a visit and Lil Bro got the weekend to himself with Nana. 

                                                     Miss took this picture of Mom and Dad.

They fell asleep, you would have thought they were rowing!

It was a really nice experience for the kids.  And Mom made it through too. 

Dad was in his glory!

Traveling with a paper cup

On the heels of the BIG tantrum (thank you all for the feed back by the way) I decided to take the crew on a road trip to Virginia.  We are currently in a hotel in South Carolina and so far so good.  Other than the 4 year old member of the crew wetting his pants twice today despite frequent potty stops, some of which did involve emergency pull overs with a paper cup for a potty.  Boys are convenient that way.

We left at 9 am and arrived to the hotel at 5pm.  We immediately jumped into the hotel pool and got our energy out.  We then went to eat dinner and the crew is currently laying down in the hopes that they will go to sleep.

Miss Fabulous is at home with Dad as her last week of camp should be a rip roaring good time with a big party on Friday and Daddy could not join us on this trip.  But we are bringing our cousins in VA back to FL with us so a good time shall be had by all.

As I am typing the littlest loo-loo crew member is in sleepy land.  The medium size loo-loo crew member is going to join him quickly from the looks of things.

The Hubs got to register the kids for school today for the first time ever.  We found out their teacher assignments and Mr. Man was placed with the teacher we requested, which is great!  She is a teacher that Big Sis had at one time and she knows Mr. Man but more important he knows her which makes him more comfortable right off the bat.

I submitted the evaluation that was done on Miss Fabulous to the principal and requested that she place her with a teacher that would be a good match given her needs identified in the report.  I said more than that but you get the idea.  We do not know the teacher that she has been placed with but we are hopeful that this will be a good year for Miss to grow and blossom as a student.

Big Sis begins virtual school on the 9th as well.  We have already had the chance to meet with her teacher and we are loving the curriculum that is offered through the virtual school.  They use the K12 curriculum and Big Sis was placed in the advanced courses so she and I will be busy. 

Well here we go, on the road again!

Pictures

Cruisin'

Alas we have returned to reality.  Thunk!

Boy that reentry is not easy when you have come to accept that every time you leave your state room the bed will be made and there will be a new towel animal waiting for you upon your return.

Man!  We had to like make dinner and junk tonight!

But ... the little ones did excellent here at home with Dad and Grandma.  My Fabulous Miss M is gearing up to give me the business for the next few days make no mistake about that, but they did very well while I was gone and that will make leaving again more doable!  Go me!

The cruise was an absolute retreat and spending that time with my 11 year old girl who will have out grown me in a blink was priceless.  She gets lost in the shuffle around here because she is capable and Mama has a lot on her plate.  I try to address it often, that I notice it and want it to be different.  And I do what I can do to make that happen.  I try to set aside time with her in the evening as many nights as possible but the reality is I am tired and worn out from the day and probably less fun then I'd like to be.

So making sure that she has this one on one time with Mama is important for both of us.

The Nanster needed time away too.  She is very good about backing us up and allowing either me or the Hubs to get done what we need to.  She is very dedicated to our brood and this was our way of saying thank you to her.

I will be posting more pictures of the trip soon.

Intentional Parent Plan

The attachment challenge has become more of an intentional parent plan over here in loo loo land.  Today was awesome.  Miss M who is fabulous as always was a bubbly happy little person today who was oh so happy to see that Grandma had come for a visit.  I counted at least 6 hugs from the time she came home from camp until bedtime.  They were all real and warm hugs the kind where you don't want to let go.

We had our reading time together in Junie B Jones and laughed as always.  Miss has a little trouble comprehending the story if she is reading it because it is such a struggle but I kind of review what it is about in a fun way and she really enjoys it.  I love reading with her just the way I always loved reading with my Mom.

In other BIG news I am going on a cruise tomorrow and will not return until Monday.  I am taking Big Sis and the Nanster with me and Dad and Grandma are going to hold down the fort with the 3 younger kids.  I have lists up and meals ready and planned so they should be okay.  Dr. Psychiatrist and Mr. Behavior Guy are on stand by to help if Dad needs them, but I don't think he will.  He's got this.

Big Sis is so looking forward to this time with Mama and so is Mama!  I will have photos to share and likely stories to report as Lucy and Ethel head off on a cruise with a kid in tow.  Should be fun!  I hope everyone else  has a great weekend too.

Dinner Out

The Hubs went fishing yesterday.  He caught the biggest fish of them all.

So my BFF Nanster and I took the kids out to dinner.  Nan and I have a theory that we are really Lucy and Ethel, but we aren't sure which is which.  First our waiter was a well meaning little guy but completely discombobulated.  He took our orders but when we noticed everyone around us getting food we thought perhaps he had not put our order in the computer.  hmmmmm?  He scurried around to scrounge up our food and in the process of dutifully refilling our drinks he knocked my drink into Nan's salad.  Poor wet pants Nan and poor doofy waiter guy who assured us that in 7 years of waiting tables this is only the 2nd time that has ever happened to him and he isn't even lying.

I think the same angels that shut the lions mouths for Daniel must have clamped my jaws shut too because how I refrained from calling him on that load is a mystery even to me.  I thought what an amateur!  I have a kid healing from RAD she can convincingly lie about something that you saw her do to the point that you must at least question your own sanity and vision.

We don't go out much and when we do it's always like this.  If the kids do well, as they did last night, then we get some goofy family with problems sitting right beside us or a hyperactive waiter who spills stuff on us.  Other peoples lives must be pretty boring!  hee hee

We made it!

The day went very well. Mr. and Miss M hung in there without any major incident. It was interesting to watch both of them deal with things that came there way and to see them use the skills they have learned and to see where the right medications have given them the needed help to stabilize and bounce back.

The look of anxiety, what is this going to be all about?

We even survived Lil’ Bro’s Mickey Mouse ice cream head rolling off his cone and into the floor beside him. That was not a magical moment but we did manage to get another scoop of ice cream.

We drove like the wind at the speedway!

We had lunch at Lady and the Tramp - Tony’s Restaurant. It was a really nice meal and all the kids enjoyed it and behaved. The kids were thrilled with the parade and the marching band that played outside. In fact when asked what her favorite parts of the day were Miss M explained, “I liked seeing the princesses, the parade and the marching band and I liked eating.”

The carousel ride was nearly a problem but we made it through and at any rate we got to go round and round for 32 seconds after standing in line for 45 minutes. Totally worth the wait – NOT!

When asked what was his favorite part of the day Mr. answered, “Shopping!” Now that’s a boy that’s been raised right!

The Hubs and I discussed the day and it is never easy with Mr. and Miss but for them they did great. Our last ride of the day was the riverboat ride. It was a difficult wait in line. Mr. was crumbling, Miss M cried, then there was the fake tarantula issue, Big Sis had a “why do these kids have to ruin my life” moment, but all and all we came through it okay. MP3 player, magic gum, replacing certain little ones more strategically and voila we survived.

Miss M did not want to be in this shot, she was having a moment.  Not a problem.

Hooray, all smiles!  (Notice the shirt?  We felt it only fair for folks to be warned in advance.)

At that point we knew that the little ones were toast and it was time to move toward leaving. We headed to the front entrance, stopped by a shop so that Lil Bro could get his goodie, Big Sis had to potty the second we arrived so she and Nan went and took care of that, Lil Bro had a melt down because he wanted a $72 train set to which Mom said no, Big Sis bought a stuffed Dalmatian dog because heaven knows we do not have enough stuffed toys in our house, kissed The Hubs and Big Sis who were going to stay on at the park, we headed for the tram, we headed the wrong way and then had to figure out how to get to where we needed to be, we got to were we needed to be and then got on the tram, we sat down happy to finally be sitting and Nan asks “Do you have your keys to the van?” Nope. Who does? The Hubs. Where is he? In the park. Where are we? Now circling the globe on a Disney Tram with 3 kids who have had enough of this good time.

We got the keys from The Hubs via the help of Disney staff. Got back on the tram and … The Fabulous Miss M has to potty right this very second. I told her that I understood and that as soon as there was a potty Mommy would take her potty. “But I have to pee NOWWWWWWWWWW!” Roger that but Mom does not have a potty. “But I am going to pee my pants and I don’t want to pee my pants.” Just do the best you can. “But I feel a drip!” It will be okay. “No it won’t you will be mad at me if I pee my pants!” At this point tears are welling up in her eyes and she is hanging on to that slippery slop by a finger nail. I told her that I would not be mad but even if I were mad what would that mean? What would Mom do if she were mad?

She just looked at me blankly as if she didn’t know. Her brain was in another place and time I think. No one gets punished around here for peeing their pants and they never have so what is going on in that head? I dunno but that question brought her back to reality. She held it and as soon as we got off that tram Mama hunted down a potty and that kid went and went and went. I was like high five for holding that kid o!

They were looking forward to some pool time at the motel but our trip around the globe had clearly stole our time. The stomachs took over and they all made the choice to get in the pool in the morning instead. I cannot begin to describe what a level of progress this is. No one had a melt down over this issue. They all ate their dinner (I use that term loosely) and then fell asleep on Mom’s bed.

The room was a nice set up and I could not believe how cheap it was, really good find. It wasn’t the Hilton but it was clean and awesome for an economy hotel. Miss M and Big Sis had bunk beds and Nan had the single bed next to them and the boys slept in the big bed with Mom and Dad.

It was an awesome day and many happy memories were made! Thanks for sharing it with us!

It's A Small World After All - Disney Here We Come!

I love that ride and so do the kids!  And Saturday we'll be on it!

We decided to cash in on our give a day get a day tickets.  Sure this is one of the busiest weekends to go to Disney World.  Sure it's going to be 91 degrees tomorrow.  Sure I had to board the fur babies because we have not all stayed over night away from home since Miss M was 3 years old.  Why are we doing it right now just a few weeks prior to school being out for the summer?  Because ...

my Bipolar child is stable at the moment.  She is handling things not going the way she would prefer they go.  She is being patient with her moody brother who is on the autism spectrum.  And we have missed these windows of opportunity before and regretted it.  So the Hubs and I pow-wowed on the matter and he agreed to do it now.

We are leaving early Saturday morning and checking into our hotel, that's right the Loo-Loos on location baby!  The room was a great deal and has a kid fort with in the room that has bunk beds and a single bed so the two girls and Nan will be sleeping in there.  We have lunch reservations at the restaurant with the Lady and the Tramp theme.  The Fabulous Miss M is going to lunch dressed as Tinker Bell, oh yes there will be pictures!

We have sunscreen and juice boxes and we are ready to roll!  Here's hoping we have a happy out come to report!

Each of the kids helped pack their bag with their clothes and such in it and each kid is responsible for their bag.  I think this is probably the best age for them to go as a group - 10, 7, 6, and 4.  We are go for lift off!

More Photos of the Weekend

Here are some more cute photos of the campers weekend.  Yes that is my husband up a tree. 

The little kids looked at the pictures from the weekend and Miss said she would like to go, Mr. not so much.  She seems a bit braver these days and in fact said, "I'm not scared any more."  So we will probably be trying a family camping trip soon. 

I'll Leaf You With A Thought

Here is a cute photo of my blog assistant.

Here are some shots of the tile floor as requested.  The Hubs did a good job!

Tile with no toys on it.

Tile by the front door, pardon the boo boo on the wall.  There are only so many hours in a day and it's on 'the list'.

Here is naughty Daisy where she does not belong.

She thought if she acted sleepy I would let her be.  It did not work and she was still sent packin.

Here are some pictures of the kids playing in the leaves up North.