ZQs school is going through a huge expansion effort which includes moving to a new property. It will be lovely to see the kids in spacious classrooms. I am eternally grateful to that school. ZQ has grown so much and it is in large part to the wonderful group of kids and staff at that school.

Mum made it for Cali’s 5th. We managed to throw a great party and get in some special though extremely busy times. The kids miss her terribly.

Karate kid party for Elite Toma this weekend. We have rented the movie theatre. Can’t wait to see it.

Last weekend EQ was very sick. I stayed up with him all Sat night watching his fever of 103.5. It broke about 6am & thankfully bq took them in the afternoon for haircuts and let me nap.

I went to see Sex in the City with Joanne & Rosemary on Sat night. (before bq called me home in a panic) We had a cocktail first & got all dressed up. It was a fun evening. I enjoyed the movie. Thought it showed the darker sides of motherhood pretty well, I have so been the mother of the eternally screaming kid that has locked herself in the bathroom just to get a break to cry myself.

The basement is still not recovered from the flooding. I have completely lost all motivation to do anything more about it. The dehumidifiers are running constantly and it is still musty down there.

The kids are still enjoying gynastics and Mary is back from having her baby. We haven’t met him yet. AQ will miss Sino though.

The boys moved up a level in Elite Toma and are doing well. Cali still loves it.

I have done a lot of work this year building my portfolio and getting ready to start working. I won’t be able to do much until AQ is in school full time though.

I spent the day with the class Mom for zqs class today. We put together a flash slideshow & disk of all the pictures she took throughout the year & gave a copy to each of the parents. ZQ loved it so it was worth the effort. He is such a memories boy, loves to go through photos and keepsakes remembering each detail.

I am very tired. Guess I should hit the covers. I am waiting for Mum’s pictures to upload but at only 32% done I think it will be all night before they are finished.

Can’t believe I only have 2 weeks left of girlie time. I will miss it.

• Keep your basement clean so that you know what you have down there. Which leads into NEVER EVER keep anything you care about in the basement AND cinder blocks are your friend for stuff that you do… for example- safes that contain passports and ssn cards and childrens bonds and all video tapes of your kids.
• Always check that your sump pump works, you never know when it might come in handy…
• NEVER EVER run insulation to the ground in the basement - I mean really people! The ground is a good insulator WHY WOULD YOU NEED IT???!!!
• Insulation ran all the way to the ground soaks up water from flooding and in 10 years that can give you 2+inches of mold behind your walls!
• furnaces do not like to be under 16 inches of water
• niether do freezers or DVD players or hairdryers or gymnastics equipment….
• 16 inches of water is enough to make a futon float around your basement
• wading in 16 inches of almost frozen water for an hour trying to start a sump pump & rescue important metal items we own is enough to bring on hypothermia
• you CAN celebrate having 7inches of water in your basement
• 16inches can result in weeks worth of work - yes I left that open for lude comments
• side mirrors and sign posts do not mix well
• HEATED side mirrors are EXPENSIVE and ridiculous
• new tires are expensive too, especially when you just replaced them recently
• there are some things alcohol can not make better (though perhaps I just wasn’t drinking enough of it…)
• 2inches of mold scrubbed and stirred up makes small children sick
• cleaning in chemicals for 2 weeks makes ME sick
• there are not enough hours in the day
• getting time to sit and vege is a privaledge I do not know well enough
• getting time to work on things for MYSELF is also a privaledge I would like to get to know better
• washing machines can run pretty much 24/7 & there will still be stuff to wash
• we own enough clothing/towels/sheets to cover every square inch of my bedroom floor by at least 4 times over
• stuffed animals are a PIA
• you can have a roaring screaming fight at 1am over a stuffed animal in your driveway when your entire house is turned upside down and you have a trash pile to fill a dumpster at the end of your driveway. And you can laugh hysterically an hour later at the obsurdity of the entire thing.
• the apple did not fall far from the tree and sometimes I need to remember that my husband is not TRYING to be a PIA, he is just made that way (reminding myself to converse with him as I would ZQ is a good idea)
• the trash guys will get mad and ring your doorbell if you leave too much trash at pickup time
• I don’t think the trash guys like picking up contractor bags filled with soggy, moldy insulation
• If you put out a tonne of trash for the trash guys the entire neighbourhood thinks it is a good idea and decide to follow suit.
• insurance covers JACK SHIT
• there HAS to be a special place in hell for insurance adjustors
• there has to be a special place in hell for the jerk that designed heated side mirrors too! He probably did it in his spare time and is really an insurance adjustor for a living!
• when you get on a roll of bad luck it really is like a snowball
• 3 hours of sleep a night is NOT ENOUGH
• living on 3 hours of sleep a night is still not enough to get everything cleaned back up
• NEVER EVER say “wow I think I am finally caught up” It will bite you in the arse
• 4 year olds know more than you think! When asked to close the door last Saturday morning AQ closed it and said “Why are you having sex?” as she did… oops
• knee deep water on my driveway washes away my garden
• ducks swimming in your yard actually looks pretty cool….

Turns out I just have a tiny chip on the bone and the swelling is pusing on a nerve. ER DR did exactly the same thing to himself once so was able to tell me that it hurts like an SOB and will do for a while.

Note to self, next time call no-one tough it out then sit with ice on it when kids go to bed and all will be well.

AQ fell and hit her nose at gymnastics on Tuesday. Smacked it on the boxspring. The fall looked so awful from the viewing platform upstairs that I rushed down with my heart in my throat convinced that she had broken a bone in her face. Turns out that she just gave herself a bloody nose but she was heartbroken that her coach had broken her trust and not caught her. So I had to take my little broken hearted babe home. I figured she was tired too as we are still battling whatever bug it was that attacked the family, so we took a nap together and when she woke up she was a new person and ready to forgive her coach and go back to gymnastics on Wednesday.

AQ and I have been making the most of our girl time and going for walks at the lake and goofing around together. It is so nice to get time to enjoy how funny she is without having to battle it making anyone else crazy.

Today at gymnastics aqs coach was trying to get her to look in a certain direction instead of at her. So she placed a large foam block where aq should be looking and said “here pretend this is Miss Mary.” So aq walked up to it and slapped it upside the head! It was so funny!

OK I have a washing pile that is just EMBARRASING to get to and yes my neighbour did see AND comment on it last night… sigh. “I never saw a washing pile this big before” Lucky her with her 1 kid to take care of!

So tired of having stuff fall on my feet every morning when I opened the cubboards I begged/bribed bq to make shelves next to the basement stairs. He spent Saturday making them. SOOO NICE!!! I know at least partially they got done so quick as he was sick of stuff falling on him too…

We have had a couple of weeks of illness in the family. Everyone but ZQ has been sick. I hope he manages to stay well! I had to clean bedsheets & blankets non-stop last weekend and then this week it has been explosive poop week. EQ named himself “Explodo-bear”. It has been rough. Today bq enquired as to whether eq and aq have solid poop yet and aq replies “Oh yes daddy. This morning I had a frozen poop.” Aparantly if the poop is not diarearh it must be frozen. lol. She is too cute.

We managed to get to the Big Apple Circus despite everyone being sick. We had a good day and thought everyone was all mended (big mistake). The circus was great and watching zq enjoy it is just awesome. He is so cute to watch. Of course eq was getting ideas… zq turns to me at one point and says “hey those acrobats are brothers. Eq and I could do that.” So my boys would love to join the circus… hey why not?! I would love to too!!

OK back to mound of washing … sigh

ZQ has been seeing all kinds of specialists and everyone is in agreement that aspergers is our culprit. He is going to see an OT once a month and the school psycologist and help with his reading until he is on track. I have been reading nonstop all recomended books. It is amazing how much I read that I say “wow this is zq”. So many recomendations came through for a gluten free dairy free diet so I gave up and decided to give it a shot. In 2 weeks I have witnessed amazing changes. He is more focused and has less meltdowns. He has been eating NONSTOP which is pretty amazing for a boy who hates to eat and I swear he is even growing!! He has had a couple of meltdowns but life is definetly much improved.

So what to feed a gluten free / dairy free kid… omg it has been a challenge. Turns out he loves sushi. So I taught myself how to make sushi and he has been eating that for lunch. He can eat almost an entire roll! He has been eating egg based desserts for breakfast and sometimes just scrambled eggs and protein smoothies. He is even eating the gluten free waffles I made. He says that he feels much better and doesn’t think he ever wants to eat pizza or anything else with gluten again. I was thinking about his eating and when he stopped and up until we introduced things like bread and pasta the babe was a fantastic eater and he did fail that one celiac test so I guess the Dr did know what she was talking about. It’s a real shame her bedside mannor was so terrible or we might have started this a long time ago.

ZQ EATS!!

Cali and I have been walking in the woods together in our brief spells of free time. We saw a snake at speedwell lake the other day. I managed not to scream and even took a picture of it for her. I would like to not pass on my phobias to her and I think I did pretty well.

Tuesday was just crazy hectic. I did the school run then went to get my drivers licence renewed. Then went into school to make up with zq. He didn’t eat his breakfast that morning and I was worried he wouldn’t make it through the school day and I made him upset worrying about it. He was so glad to see me and was very grateful I appologised (the secretary was not impressed and was a real bitch about it). He was on snack and was eating his sushi and was very proud of his unique lunch. Then aq and I went to trader joes and picked up gluten free ham, food colour free salmon and the likes. We had a picnic in the parking lot, went for a quick walk in the woods then picked up the boys. Gracie came over and she and AQ played upstairs while the boys and I rushed through homework and feeding. Then it was to soccer practice we go. Gracie came with us and played with aq on the sidelines (WOOHOO! aq is so annoying on the sidelines when she gets bored). Dr F called and asked if we could do eq’s physical that night instead of wednesday as he was working late so eq and I ran straight from soccer to the Drs office. I then had to come home and make lunches and clean my wreaked kitchen!

Eq enjoyed his outing with me. He was very cute. He asked for more time with just me and I really hope we can get it. I enjoy my little guy 1 on 1 soo much. He grew 3 inches since last year and is still on his curve for weight, has never changed, 50th percentile for both height and weight. He hasn’t been into the Drs surgery for a while and they couldn’t believe how grown up looking he has gotten.

OK I am going to add some pics to this. A sample of zqs lunch, the henna tatoos I gave aq and I recently. ZQ happily eating!

Ema and her lovely family came to visit early Summer. It was fabulous getting to know her sweet babes. I even got to have them without the Mummy guard dog a little which was extra fun. G got along so well with my boys and Mia and cali just dissapeared together. It was really sad to see them leave.

We then went for a week in Dewey Beach with the Shades. Lovely to spend some time with them and a really fun vacation. Despite my fracturing my pinky toe & bone in my foot! Aysema and I got out to go dancing a bunch which was really fun and we had tonnes of fun in the sand with the kids during the day.

Then Mum arrived. We had a weekend alone in the city which was a blast. EVEN though she made me walk to ground zero with a hangover on the hottest day of the Summer!

We then spent much of the time just hanging. We drove up to see cousin Adam for a weekend for birthday parties so Mum got to see nowheresville PA for a weekend.

EQ quickly started calling Goupa his house lady. He is so lucky he is cute that one!

The last weekend Mum was here we went to the city for the day & went to the MOMA which happened to be the same day 100s of thousands of Portiricans were celebrating Portirican day in Times square so Mum really got the NYC experience with 100s of thousands of half naked drunk people crammed into TImes Square. Adam and I took her shooting for the day which she loved. Then being a long weekend the Monday we went to a Yankies game in Yankee stadium with BQ.

Then it was back to school & crammed schedule!

AQ is in gymnastics twice a week. The boys once. The boys are in Elite Toma twice a week. Soccer practice once a week and game on Saturdays. Plus driving Zq back and forth to school.

I signed off paperwork to have zq fully tested. I am pretty sure it is aspergers and have thought so for a long time now. I will be glad to get the right kind of help and am very glad for the choice of school we have him in. The school psycologist is great and really helpful. I hv to get the family some help in learning how to better handle the challenges. But we will get there. It is still early days and we are on the right track so I think we will get it figured out. I will be really displeased if they simply misdaignose him with ADD and recomend drug therapy as I am certain any ADD traits he has are symptoms that come with the bigger problem which drug therapy will simply mask not fix.

AQ entered in a “future star” talent search (as in she will get the opportunity to join a modeling/acting agency if she wins) last night. She won her age group and won most photogenic. She was so thrilled to win her competition she went to bed with her trophies! She was so in her element on stage. She requested that I do not go on with her. For her age the parents have to come incase the kid gets nervous to which I laughed and said she doesn’t know the concept of nervous. She waltzed up there did this little cutsie wave then answered a few questions & blew the audience away. All the way throught the mall to the even everyone was stopping and admiring her & saying how completely adorable she was. So who knows maybe she will be the next big screen actor in hollywood! Least she can pay her own way through college if she does When she won the boys stood up and applauded her it was very cute. They were thrilled for her.
The boys have their first real soccer game today and are THRILLED about it. They have to learn not to steal the ball from their own team but otherwise they are pretty good players.
After the first soccer game I said to EQ “Did you like soccer?” to which his reply was “Of course mum, I’m the athletic boy.”
The boys also earnt their first attitude stripes from Elite Toma (the karate they do) this week. You should have seen their grins as they came running out to show me. They had to work hard for it too so it is extra cool. Elite Toma is proving to be a very good choice for this family. They are really listening and trying to help out around the house because of it. I am seeing about starting aq this week as now that I know how our schedule works I can make it for the earlier younger class for her & she REALLY needs to learn to listen.
Our gymnastics coach finally gave us a time for the boys which is 8am Sunday mornings. Thanks for taking away our only sleep in! Sigh. Zac really needs the physical aspect of it though so what can you do. Already after just 2 weeks off his right side has started to tense up so I know we are doing the right thing by getting him gymnastics lessons.
The boys are doing well in school. Zq is struggling a little but getting the help he needs so I am ok with that. Eq actually has a friend of mine’s mother for a teacher. He is going to have to work this year! He asked for extra math homework & she gave him a weeks worth and he did it in one night so she said “well it looks like I am going to have to find harder math for you” She keeps in touch via email and I am really enjoying having the close contact with what goes on at school. Elijah is not getting away with diddly this year either!
Bq is still away in florida.
OK we have a soccer game to go to. Must get showered. 8am on Sunday!!! I just can’t believe I have to get up tommorrow!

As I was about to take ZQ to school on Friday morning. I see the baby bear on our deck having a good sniff of the bacon grease smelling kitchen mat. He was so close I could have patted him should I have opened the screen door - which of course I was not willing to do!

We had smoke fest 2009 on Saturday. BQ wanted to try out his new smoker so we had a bunch of people over and bq made more food than you have ever seen. It was a very pleasant day.

Poor AQ has to have air time for her wounds which she is not enjoying but she is being very brave about it all. We have to see the Dr twice a week to watch for infection but it all seems to be healing. Very pussy and grosse but healing.

ZQ got his water board project done and it looks very good. He should be proud.

Ema arrived safely in the country with kids in tow and now has to battle the constant thunder storms while she tries to sight see around NYC for a couple of days. Good luck M!

I am hoping to actually have the house back in shape after the weekend before they come out this way but dreams are free right?! I spent all night folding the washing that didn’t get folded Friday night as I had to clean up the kitchen after bqs practicing. At least we have clothes in the drawers for now.

On Friday night my dryer broke. I got BQ up to try and help me fix it and he said it was unfixable. “congratulations you have to buy a new one now you know why you have to check the pockets before you wash clothes!” So I sent him to bed and proceeded to pull apart the part he said would not come off and fixed it myself. It took 2 hours but the boys had baseball uniforms that needed drying for the morning so I had to get it fixed! I am glad I didn’t have to get a new one! Turns out the beads that zq collects at school had gotten lodged in the dryer vent area. I kindly asked ZQ to remember to put them in the basket I gave him to put them in.

Well aq is having air time and I have a workout to do before getting eq and taking her to the Dr. The days are so full. I can’t wait for school to be done. EQ is done on Friday and ZQ done Wednesday next week. WOOHOO!

Baseball is done this Saturday so that will help ease up the schedule too.

AQ kept telling me that she didn’t want to go to the hospital because she didn’t want people to think I was a bad Mummy. Which of course made me cry. BQ got very upset when it happened and was screaming at me (men r so hopeless with stress). Later when I had her dressed he wanted to talk to her and she was scared of him. I told him she was scared of him because he made her feel like it was her fault. So he gave her a cuddle and said “it is not your fault it is Mummy’s fault” which brought on more hysterical cries and she said “IT WAS NOT MUMMY’S FAULT EITHER IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT!!!” BQ replied that “some accidents are unaceptable mummy should be more careful” and she replies “No, my mummy is a good mummy, it was an accident.” I am of course crying while I type this.

While I was getting together ZQs stuff to take him to school AQ kept looking up at me sobbing and saying “It’s ok Mummy, it’s not too bad. I don’t want you to feel bad Mummy. It was an accident. Please don’t feel bad”

I have so many things to be grateful for. Grateful that I knew what to do. Grateful that it is not her face so I have to look at what I did every time I look at her. Grateful that the timing worked out so that I was able to get her to the hospital and not have to worry about what to do with the boys. Grateful that she is going to be ok. Loads of Dr visits in our future but she is alive and not still in the hospital.

Dear boys were so good. ZQ came down to see if she was ok. I said that if he wanted to really help Mummy out he could try cleaning up the bacon grease off the floor so no-one else gets hurt, which he did while I finished up with AQ. EQ came over when I had her settled and timidly asked “Do you think it would be ok if I ate the bacon now?” Then divided it up between them all, not forgetting AQ who still wanted the bacon she was so excited about. It was gone in seconds.

I called Mum when we were home and settled (while I was scrubbing bacon grease off the floor). I gave the phone to AQ at one point and she said “Mum, does she know?” Checking with me if it was ok before she told her then proceeded to say “YOUR DAUGHTER spilt bacon grease all over me and burnt me really bad”

I can’t believe how brave she has been and how much the honey helped her not to be in pain. I love my little girl. I am so glad she is ok. I hate visiting the ER, seems I have been there WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too often! Broken arm (the 2nd one we went straight to the surgeon), the mushroom incident, cali’s incident when she turned blue as a baby, my lovely trip there…. waaaaaaaaaaay too often.

So I am giving thanks for my gorgeous children. As much as I complain about how much work they are and how my life has been ENTIRELY consumed by them, I wouldn’t change it for anything!

On the Friday night we set up a tent in the backyard and stayed up by the firepit till 11pmish. BQ read to the kids in the tent. It was a lovely night tho all were tired for her actual birthday!

EQs head light broke so I rewired it. I spent the entire time listening to “MOMMY YOU’RE BREAKING IT!!!!!!” then an amazed “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FIXED IT MOM YOU’RE THE BEST MOM EVER” boys of little faith! They don’t think I learnt anything growing up with toys that got broken by my brothers?!

EQ had a baseball game in the morning of AQs birthday. So we all went down. We tried to have dinner with Charlie & Gracie afterward but AQ melted down and said “I just want to sleep here on the table” so we didn’t even make it to the cake stage. I took them for a drive then AQ woke up a new person.

She went out and shot for the remainder of the day. The kids love the airsoft guns. AQ was so funny!

We spent the rest of memorial day weekend biking, kayaking (in the river behind our house, now that I have cleared back to the river amazing how much use we are getting of it) and shooting airsoft. Was a very nice weekend.

EQ is super tired and is currently arguing with aq. sigh. maybe they will sleep when we go to pick up zq.

Turns out 6 stings is enough to get an allergic reaction out of me and I have to take an antihistamine as my throat was swelling. So I went to bed feeling as high as a kite (antihistamines knock me over). I woke this morning feeling like I have a really bad hangover (no I was not drinking as well).

WHO GETS A WASP CRAWL UP THEIR PANTS??? Seriously! I need some good luck!!!

I can’t help but laugh when I run through my thought process. I can’t believe I was willing to let a wasp sting me just so I can enjoy a little much needed time with my husband! lol

I went to the Dr about the lump and he feels that the lumps are just fibrocystix which are menstral related but I have to get a ultrasound and mamogram just to be sure. I am so relieved. I had a feeling it was period related but I couldn’t help being a little scared too. He said there was no real reason that they know of why they just appear on some people and some people just have them all along. He did say lay off the coffee to which I responded “so switch breast tenderness for caffine headaches…. um I don’t think so. So long as I know it isn’t going to kill me I will tolerate sore breasts for a week a month!” He looked at me like I was nuts. Which I am so I guess that is a fair assessment.

BQ got bite by a tick a little more than a week ago. It has turned into a NASTY rash. I am pretty worried. He has been on an antibiotic for a couple of days and no improvement. If it does not improve by tommorrow I am making him go back. It has deep bruising under the skin and an area of about 12inches is completely swollen. Aparantly wood ticks (the big ones) can carry a nasty baterial infection and unless it is caught early can kill you. As we caught this early I am hoping it will be ok. He doesn’t have the flu symptoms yet so I guess we just have to wait and hope the medicine works.

When I picked zq up from school the other day his teacher stopped me and asked if there was anything going on at home as he has not been able to focuss at school. I said well, Popi is in the ICU and bq is in PA with them. But I am thinking to myself that the kids had not much registered the grave situation Popi was in. ZQ blurts out VERY upset that “Daddy has already lost one Daddy and I don’t want his other Daddy to die it will be awful” So this whole thing has been affecting him very much indeed. We spent the night cuddling and talking about illness and how Popi was probably going to get better from this one, that it will just take time. Turns out he had heard about the swine flu and was worried that was what Popi had. Poor wee man. I have to remember to keep a closer watch on him, he doesn’t volunteer his worries.

Popi is out of the ICU but still in hospital. He is moving in the right direction but it will take some time.

Yesterday I was in AQs bedroom cleaning the windows and I see the bear on our driveway so I pick up AQ and we rush downstairs to get a look. I step out onto the porch (as he is pretty far down the driveway at this point) and we watch him for a while. He goes off, attacks the neighbours trash cans, tries to get down their birdfeeder and is being generally naughty when I look down and discover his paw prints all over my porch! Just minutes before we stepped out onto the porch the bear was up there! I so do not want to open my front door onto a 300 pound black bear! I have to train the kids to look out the door before they open it now. Especially as this is our double tagged guy which means he has had 2 bear/human incidents and the next one means he has to be shot.

Dishes to do as I left them last night. The list of chores never ends!