Sex Anyone? (Warning, if you are lacking a sense of humor, don't read)

The lovely and wonderful Anne-Marie cracks me up HERE.

So, this got me to thinking about another parenting topic: sex. That would be sex with the spouse.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong in that dept. However, how do you keep the sex life fresh, creative, spontaneous, when you a) have to be silent b) you are exhausted and c) your spouse is often annoying right before bedtime?

We have to regroup and figure something out. My aunt suggested we take several overnight retreats away from the children. Ya, right. Doable.........NOT! First, no one wants to watch my children. Second of all, we don't trade with other couples for babysitting or overnighters because my DH has had it up past his eyeballs with other people's kids. I mean other people's precious cherubs.

Just have to ask for your intake here. I walked away from the dining room table last night, to hear hysterical laughter when I reached the other room. My DH is yelling "honey. get in here." OK. this aughta be good. Here is the conversation:

DH: Boys, tell mom what you said.
13yr old: We can hear you guys having sex.
Me: (can't believe I said this)~~ How do you know?
13yr old: We hear the bed squeaking and making rocking noises.
9.5yr old: We hear mom saying "oh god. oh god. oh god."

I think the children are listening with their ear to the wall. I swear I'm whispering during intimacy.

I think I will be celibate for the next 14 years........................

ps..I think this lovely pictures of the giraffes was the only G-rated photo I found on the internet when I searched for "parental sex" and "intimacy photo"......

Differently Abled

Yesterday was hard for me to listen to the school principal. She continued to discuss our youngest son's "disabilities". I really loathe that word. I hate labels. Why can't we just stick with words like diagnosis? Our oldest son had his first football practice yesterday, came home, and was pooped. We felt inspired to watch the movie "Rudy". We own it and watch it atleast twice a year. One of the most inspirational movies we've ever seen, this movie is based on the personal story of Daniel "Rudy" Rudiger (link HERE). And to boot, he shares his birthday with our little girl in Russia.

If you have not seen this movie, please run out and see it.

Anyway, while seeing this movie for the umpteenth time yesterday, I thought "hey, I'm going to print a list of successful people with ADHD, bipolar disorder, Aspergers, etc., for my sons to have." They need to know every day that they CAN! They may have disabilities, they may have to find different ways to complete tasks, and it may take them longer to get things accomplished, but success can and will be achieved.

Here are the lists I have found (all clickable):

Famous Bipolar people Here & Here & Here
Famous Aspergers people Here & Here & Here
Famous ADD/ADHD people Here & Here & Here

I imagine all these people had a mom who told them "You can do it!"

My boys have a mom like that as well. To me they are differently abled, not disabled. I feel constantly referring to kids as "disabled" gives the impression that they are unabled. There is a difference. My boys will know they are abled, differently or otherwise.

A Medical Day

The DH and I went in this am for our LASIK eye surgery consult. All was well, and I'm scheduled for surgery 9/11. My husband will have surgery 2 weeks later. Can't tell you how much we are looking forward to this. Let's get it done already!

Yesterday our oldest son was in trouble. Again. This time in addition to the natural consequences, I told him he has to reimburse me at minimum wage for my time spent on this, and pay me gas money for having to pick him up. On our long drive home, I also let him in on a little adult perspective. I reminded him that his grandfather has some undiagnosed neurosis (a few probably). My father has never sought help. He doesn't get it that lacking social & life skills is a requirement in life. With that, he lost his marriage, children, and now his only grandchildren. There is only so much that people will put up with, and able bodied people have to have the life skills to survive in life, work, relationships, down the road. Later in the evening my son told me "I'm ready for medication." Oh, why? "The consequences are getting too hard." Whatever works. Hopefully he will see it as a gift later that he took it upon himself to get help at a young age, before seeing tougher and tougher consequences handed down.

Then late this am, I took my oldest son to the doc about some meds. We were given a prescription for a drug to calm his moods (bipolar), and will recheck at 30 days & 90 days. At those two appts we will then discuss adding (or not) some ADHD meds.

Please God, let this help....................

The wheels are in motion for our youngest son to get an IEP. The school principal called today and we had a long talk. The Aspergers teacher fell & broke her leg yesterday, so that class is up in the air temporarily. Sigh. Maybe they can get a sub? It would be sad to see those 15 kids moved around into other classes just for a few weeks. Anyway, I need to drop off the psychiatrist/psychologist/PCP reports that I have, which include his diagnosises of bipolar disorder & Aspergers. When we have a team meeting, we will discuss if he will remain in his mainstreamed class with help on the side (at school), or if he will be moved to the Aspergers class at another physical location. Onward...................................

My Girl Elena~~ I can't divulge more about our Russian adoption. All I can say is what I wrote. Thank you for caring ;o)

Meds

After a large consequence being handed down for his irresponsible impulsive behavior, our oldest son is now consenting to meds. In our state, age 13 is the age of consent & medical privacy. He is 13.

Answers to Questions (Failed Russian adoption/ADHD)

Yesterday I checked the Russia data base for our little girl. She is not currently on there. One of her brothers is though, and it states he has no siblings. The database can often be quite unreliable though, or just not updated (correctly or otherwise).

ADHD magazine is something a counselor recommended for my son. She gave me a postcard to send in for the magazine. I know nothing about it. Although, HERE (clickable) is a link to the magazine. Looks neat!

I can't say much about the Russian adoption because there are two lawsuits pending: civil (to get our money & attorney fees back) & federal (to imprison the owners & employees of the adoption agency). In a nutshell, we went to Russia a few years ago, finalized the adoption of a little girl, including court paperwork. We were never allowed to bring her home because it turns out our agency was never on the books with the Russian authorities. They were baby trafficking. Just sickening. We had no clue of course. Alot of red flags were raised during the process. However, we had no clue that our agency was operating illegally. I truly hope they rot in prison, or hell. We are in contact with the Russian authorities, and last we were notified, our little girl lives in an institution with another relative. The "relative" is required to live in an institution, but wanted parental rights of said child. So a judge gave parental rights, requiring they live in an institution together until the child is 16yrs old.

We miss our sweet baby. We will continue to see if she is ever available for adoption (she never was, which was part of the illegal activity which constitutes as baby trafficking, per the FBI). Currently there are no adoption agencies working in our little girl's region, so I don't know how we'd bring her home if she were to become adoptable. Independent adoption is rare, even more rare in her region. We do have a Russian attorney as well as American attorney, so we are covered legally & informationally.

I can still feel holding her in my arms, her tiny little body. I can still hear her laugh. I can still hear her yelling at her friends that we are her mama & papa. I can still feel the breeze on those freezing days, playing with her on a jungle gym in Siberia, Far East Russia. I can still feel that bitter breeze as the day came to a close & she begged for me to swing her longer. I can still hear her shoes running down a hall way to hug me, one last time.

I miss you sweet baby girl. Yesterday I made a birthday cake in your honor. I rode my bike in your honor, since you do not have that freedom, luxury, or opportunity. We will never forget you. I take comfort knowing we will see you again even if it has to be in Heaven. God is watching over you since we cannot. May you be safe & well. I love you.

All in a Day & Russia Baby

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being treated to lunch at the Seattle Symphony. A highschool/college friend of mine & I reconnected at the 20yr reunion. We'll have to stay in touch this time. We stayed in touch for about 5yrs, and then got busy. And busier. And got to only the Christmas card list, and then that disappeared. We're going shopping in downtown Seattle in a few weeks. I LOVE downtown shopping. So does he. This is not a date or affair. He's flaming gay. ;o)

I ordered ADHD magazine for my oldest son. After I noticed much effort to focus, with little success, I feel inclined to help him further. He couldn't deal with a voice prompted phone labyrinth the other day. But he had to be the one to deal with it, seeing as we were in the car using the cell. In our state it's now illegal for the driver to be using the cell, unless you use a BlueTooth. I don't have one. This resulted in screaming and crying from an 8th grader, arms waving around, etc. I think jumping out of the moving vehicle would have been more fun.

The Aspergers teacher called me back. But I was at the Seattle Symphony. I'll have to call her Monday.

We took the kids to the state fair last night. They are at the point where they only like rides. So in the past we've held that over their head to "inspire" acceptable/cooperative behavior until the end of the day. Then we did rides. Well, yesterday we only had a couple of hours to do the fair, so we opted to not do rides. A wrist band costs $22, so that's $66 for all the kids. We just spent $60+ on dinner at the fair, and we are going on a weeklong vacation next week to a pretty neat hot spot in our state (this means throwing down lots of money for that). We warned the kids in advance, for days, that we would not be doing rides (hoping it would sink in and they would have worked it out of their system). Boy was the joke on us! This resulted in much begging, whining, and the like, over riding the rides. Got to the point with our youngest that I told him we could go to the hot car, or I could pull down his pants and spank his naked rear end out in the middle of the fair grounds. His begging and whining and yelling improved at that point. He was still annoying. Hard to have consequences for "annoying".

Next time we will go alone, as adults, and enjoy the fair. Looking forward to it.

Today is our Russia Baby's birthday. We love her always and forever. We will miss her always and forever. I hope the owners & employees of our old adoption agency rot in hell. I know the FBI still has their prosecution in the works, and our civil case is still moving forward (at a crawl). The wheels of justice may be slow, but those wheels will eventually get us to our destination.

Where's Waldo?

So, where's Esther been? all over the place..................

A couple weeks ago I went to my 20yr high school reunion. Absolutely a hoot! Nice to reconnect with folks and catch up. Fortunately I was having a good hair day. This was a gift since earlier in the day, the dog ate one of my sandals I was going to wear that night. ARGH! Fortuneatly I found another acceptable pair at the last minute. In my closet, of all places. Who knew? Maybe time to clean the closet?

My DSL line came back up the day we left town (again). After dealing with 17 employees, Verizon figured out the problem was on their end. Sigh....

The puppy saw the vet for the umpteenth time today. She is still not well on her own. Sigh. We are going "antibiotic-free" for now, to see where that leads us. If she goes down hill, the vet wants to do a surgical procedure and send some workup to a lab. That doesn't sound fun. Or cheap.

The two older boys are getting braces this week. Not fun or cheap either. We are paying upfront so we will at least get a 5% discount. I'll be grateful and not look a gift horse in the mouth.

I took the younger two boys out of town to visit a relative for four days. I managed the trailer at an RV park, all by myself. Thank you very much. We biked, BBQ'd, swam, and hit the local beaches and river. Very fun. After four days, we started out for a one hr trip to hit our second destination, where we would meet up with the rest of the family. Turned into an 8 hr trip due to a broken ferry boat. In the future I will NOT incorporate any ferry into our travel plans, if time management is a big factor. We then camped for four days as an entire family. And there is a first time for everything. I've never personally been in trouble or reprimanded on a trip, by any local employees. I went berry picking for a few hours, leaving the trusty husband & kids at the campsite. While I was gone, they were swinging in the trees. I don't know why. A park employee scolded them, said it's not allowed, or they'd have to leave. nice.

Here's another nice camping story for you. Back at family bible camp in July, after five days, I used the toilet for #1, flushed, and it over flowed. Full tank. I told my DH to come help me (we have several children, their friend, etc., with us. Seriously, he looked at me, said "whenever", and walked away. I thought about killing him. But couldn't dwell on that long, seeing as I had pee to clean. I scooped out cup full after cup full of urine and kept tossing in the dirt. Gross. And I was pissed at my DH for more than 24 hrs. Well, on this trip this last week, I awoke one morning to a strange clanking sound in the bathroom of the trailer. I asked DH what the noise was. He said "I went #2, flushed, and it over flowed. Flooded. I'm using a cup to scoop up all the poop and toss it." I have not laughed so hard to myself in I don't know how long. What goes around comes around. Payback is a bitch. I laughed so hard to myself, I just may have peed my pants a little.

Final camping thoughts. I must rethink our multi week road trip next year. The day I took the trailer down, drove for 8hrs (ferry was out for the day; I had to drive the long way around), plus put the tent trailer back up again...............

This left me beyond exhausted. I'm still having hip & sciatic pain. We will do the trip, but I will only travel a long distance where there is a shared driver (DH). I will take the kids separately by myself, to a nice long trip in, oh, Oregon. One state away. And stay there for a week or two. Quite manageable.

I deleted the knitting blog. I really don't have time for a second blog at the moment. I'll post some random craft pics over here occasionally.

My garden is coming in really well. Really late, but it's coming in. I need to learn how to do a "hot water bath" in lieu of pressure canning. I will have alot of pumpkin to can this year.

Since April, I've been looking for a job with two local school districts. Other than the one interview I had, I have not been called about a thing. Nada. Zilch. I've stopped by the HR depts, called every few weeks, and nothing happens. Getting rather sick of that. So yesterday I called one of the districts to ask what was up. Do they only hire from within? Are they laying off? Am I over-qualified? Are they NOT hiring highly qualified people? etc. etc. The HR director got a good laugh, said they aren't hiring much. Mostly people from within are taking on second jobs, which doesn't leave any room for new hires. The economy sucks and all. The other school district is not hiring, and they actually just laid off several employees in positions I applied for. That's not going anywhere productive for me.

During my daily perusal of jobs on the school district site, I noticed a listing for as Aspergers Assistant in a program called "Connections". Um, my kid has Aspergers; why hasn't anyone told me about this program? So I called Special Needs supervisor in the district. She said kids on an IEP are put into the program, per a referral from the school psychologist. My son sees the school psychologist, and attends two groups weekly that they hold for kids with social/behavioral/developmental needs. I asked if an IEP is driven by the parents? staff? She said it's driven by parents. Why do I need to be the last to know this? So I put in a call to the Aspergers teacher, and our school psychologist to see if our son can attend either the part-time or full day program. I'm not sure how it all works. At least the district will provide transportation since it's not at our designated school. Will keep updating.......

Our oldest son has been to a religious bible camp. Rather a revival. He came home the day I left for a trip without him. While gone, he tried quite hard to convince my DH that we go to the wrong kind of church (community bible church) and that we need to go to the church that sponsors the camp (baptist). My DH gave him ample opportunity to discuss, and we will not be changing churches. However, we told him we are more than happy for him to attend jr high bible study & jr high youth group there. And to boot, one of the leaders lives five minutes from us and is providing transportation! woo hoo! DH looked up our church beliefs on line, along with the baptist church. They have the same beliefs and mission statements. So, he showed our son why we are not changing churches. I will say though that I'm enjoying the new religious child. The Lord is in his heart, and he truly seems like a different kid. He offers to help around the house, is not fighting with siblings, has been affectionate, and is reading his bible daily. AMEN!

Back to the job front, by the time yesterdays conversations took place, I was getting rather sick of our school district. And the thought of working for one. It's never been my ambition to work for a school district. The hours of work was the big huge plus for me. So I got to thinking and decided: I'm going back to college fall quarter, getting my accounting skills updated (Excel & some accounting software), and applying for accounting work after the first of the year.

Then I thought, aren't there any accounting temp jobs where I could still be a SAHM in the summer? Ah, yes. There are! BINGO! So I called one of these services today (Robert Haff Account Temps---an intl organization), and told them all this, and they said:
"sign with us. You can take the computer courses thru us for free. Then you can start working as a temp for us. Since you have a bachelors degree in accounting, you will see that since you've been out of work, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) has not changed greatly. You just have to update your computer skills. Pleasure talking with you."

It was as easy as that.

I'm unofficially hired, and bringing in my tax & employee info on 9/4. That day I will start three online courses with them. And we're off and running..................
I'm still a little shell shocked it was that easy.

No DSL line

Still working with Verizon on getting our DSL line back up. They decided our modem is fine, the line is out.

We're having a good few weeks. Went camping for church bible camp for five days. Now my oldest is off with a friend at another church bible camp. Middle son went to baseball camp this week. Youngest son is recovering from a neck injury. He was riding his bike at bible camp, holding a tennis racket (off to the tennis courts). My husband called out his name, he turned to see, and fell off the bike........with the tennis racket handle powering straight into his neck! Bleck. Big weeping, scabby wound is there now. However, we are lucky it was not worse. No hospital visit involved.

I've had plenty of time to catch up on things around the house (lol) now that my computer is down.

My garden is mostly, finally, coming in.

My 20yr high school reunion is Friday. Sunday I leave to go camping for over a week.

Hopefully next time I post it will be from my home, not the library!

Modem

Our online service is zero at the moment. My modem broke. Will post when back online.