A New Start

Mr and I took some time off school, recently, due to a variety of reasons. We recently sat down to talk about heading back for the fall semester, but started running into all kinds of issues. Apparently, I had been sent too much grant money last fall, and they waited until now to let me know I have to pay that before I can get any financial aid. Then, I have to jump through a bunch of other hoops. On top of that, the availability for evening classes seems to have diminished. Most of the classes I need are either available only during the day, or online. I’ve tried the online classes before, and I simply don’t do well. I learn much better from sitting in lecture, taking notes, and skimming the important parts of the book instead of being told to read 120 pages each week and then do an assignment. The Mr himself was running into similar Financial aid issues.  He decided to start looking around at the various options available, and decided on this private Christian university. Our family isn’t really religious, and we’re certainly not Christians in the areas where we might be considered religious, but this university has an outstanding reputation.

Years ago, when I was a junior in high school, my Anatomy and Physiology class took a field trip to this university. I was so wonderfully impressed and very desperately wanted to attend. At the time, freshmen were required to live on campus, and attend weekly church services, two things I really didn’t want to do. Add that to the fact that it was a private university (meaning higher tuition costs), and I chose to look elsewhere.

After finding out more information regarding this Uni, Mr decided it was the place for him. I hadn’t quite made up my mind, until I actually heard a bit about their nursing program. The things I learned, combined with what I already knew, solidified it for me, and on Monday, 7/8, I applied.

At this point, Mr and I are scurrying to get all our appropriate paperwork together in time. We’re both hoping to start this fall, and can, if everything gets done on time. One of the best parts is, because this is a private and competitive Uni, I don’t have a 3-4 year wait, like I do with the community colleges. If my scores are high enough, and I start my classes this fall, I could start the nursing program in fall, 2014, and could be done as early as fall 2015, if I chose the accelerated program. I’d really like to go that route, if we can make it work with the kids. If it doesn’t, then I’ll be done spring 2016. Either way, my dream is within my reach. With the community colleges, I didn’t have a definitive graduation date, so this is definitely a big plus.

Now, it’s just a game of paperwork, waiting for everything to be processed and passed on to the next stage.

Dinner

The Mr and I are both trying to lose weight. I’m on Weight Watcher’s and spilling what I’m learning from that on to the rest of the family. The kids obviously don’t need to lose weight, just us adults, but I think instilling healthy eating habits is good. We love beef, but it can be a lot of points, even when bought lean. One of the things my parents taught me to do to make beef meal healthier is to do half  beef and half ground turkey. Last weekend we had dinner with my parents, spaghetti with a meat sauce. My mom used turkey as the meat, but didn’t tell the Mr until after he’d eaten it. He actually enjoyed it, so this week he asked if we could do turkey burgers. Last night I made my burgers half and half, and then made a small one for him that was just turkey. He enjoyed it so much, he asked for burgers again tonight, this time just plain turkey for him. I can’t quite make the switch to just turkey, yet, for myself, so I made a combo burger, but the Mr and Princess each had turkey burgers. They just loved them!

I accidentally picked up the Italian seasoned turkey instead of just regular ground turkey, so that may be why I’m having a harder time making the switch. Next time, I’ll make sure to pick up the regular. I think the Italian would work great for pasta dishes, but it’s a bit…off-putting for burgers, in my opinion. Now to munch on a few chocolate covered pretzels before the night is over. Hey, I’m still within my points for the day, thank you very much! Ha ha.

Today was a good day, a productive day to end a productive week. Wednesday we had the meeting with the school district, yesterday we had the last of Goat’s occupational therapy sessions and his second to last speech therapy session. I also picked up his birth certificate yesterday and had our 6 month meeting with our support coordinator with DDD. Today I dropped off his paperwork at the preschool and got everything taken care of for that, picked up Princess, and got a little bit of cleaning done. I need to do more, but I have to clean in spurts or else I burn out and refuse to life a finger the rest of the day.  The Mr and I are going to watch some movies tonight, after Princess finishes her movie, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. We rented Something Borrowed and Red Riding Hood.

Off to do some more dishes (I HATE dishes).

What are you doing tonight?

School and stuff

You know, I’m really looking forward to starting my classes this spring. Yes, I’m glad to finally be back in school, and I mean physically. The Mr and I tried doing the online college thing and, well, it just didn’t work that well. It worked a bit better for him then me, but that’s besides the point. The point is, all of my friends are either people I’ve never met except over Twitter or they live across town and we never speak. I know part of the problem is, with one income, I can’t go out to the bar every week and drink myself stupid. Another big part is I’m a parent. I have at least one kid ALL the time so I avoid hangovers like they’re the plague. I also prefer to spend the money other ways, like fun stuff for the family.
Anyway, my point is, I’m hoping to make some new friends in class. I’m hoping to have people to study with, people who might possibly understand what my schedule is like. Going to a community college, especially night classes, increases my odds of finding students more my age with similar responsibilities. Even if we don’t get together outside of school, it would be nice to have someone to talk to. What I’d really love is to find someone who leaves near us with kids around the same age as ours. That way we could all get together. As I stated above, most of my friends live across town and that includes the ones with kids. My kids never have play dates. I’d like to be able to take the kids to someone’s house, and have them play while the parents, the Mr, and I work on school. Of course, I’m looking for variations of this…them coming to us (though in an apartment, that’s always fun) or even meeting up somewhere like a park or McDonald’s (yay wifi!).
Plus, lets be honest… If I don’t have someone to talk besides the Mr and the kids, I’m probably going to be insane by next Christmas. It’s not that I don’t love my family, I do, with all my heart. Sometimes I just need interaction with other adults.

Alright, folks, I’ve got some homemade biscuits to make. Gotta get some grub in the family. Until next time….

The start of something new

So we had the meeting today with everyone to set up Goat’s IEP for his preschool. His first day is the 17th. He’ll be going to school 2 1/2 hours each day 4 days a week. I have to finish his registration this week, but first I have to go pick up a copy of his birth certificate. I know, I know, he’s almost 3 and I never got his birth certificate. The thing is, I went to pick one up back when he was just born. Apparently the hospital had delayed sending all the info in or something, so the state didn’t have it in the system. They told me to come back in a week or so. Well, with Princess’s birthday, getting ready for Thanksgiving, then prepping for Christmas/Yule I just forgot to head back down. It completely slipped my mind. I’ve known for about 6-9 months that I don’t have his, but I just haven’t needed it. Anything I’ve needed it for, I could use his shot records instead, which is what I did. This time there’s no choice. I have to get his birth certificate.

The next few days will be very busy. Tomorrow we’ve got therapy like normal, I have to pick up his birth certificate, and we’ve got a meeting with our DDD support coordinator. Friday I have to go down to the school to get him registered. This means I’ve got a bit of paperwork to fill out tonight and tomorrow.  The Mr and I have to decide when we’ll be able to get down to the school for a visit, meet the teacher, see the class, that kind of thing. It may be something I have to do alone. The Mr can’t get a ton of time off work, and he’s planning on taking time off on the 17th so we can see our baby get on that bus to go to the preschool together.

I’m really hoping this preschool will help with the defiance and boundary control issues he’s having at home. Some of his behavior issues are happening because he’s a boy with the speech processing of a 2 year old. I just got back from putting him down for his nap. Right before that? I was cleaning my bathroom counter because Goat had gotten a hold of the hand soap and managed to pump the entire contents (about 1/2 the bottle) all over the counter.Yeah, THAT’S fun to clean up.

So the Mr shaved off his facial hair for No-Shave November. This means he won’t shave (except for his neck and/or near his eyes) for the whole month. Here’s the thing…my man is a grizzly bear. Not really, I’m not in to animals, lol, I simply meant that he grows hair very fast, especially facial hair. It’s day 2 and he’s already to a point where he could give me a road rash if he drags his face against my skin. By December 1st, I’m seriously going to look like I’m married to Grizzly Adams. Okay, well it may not be THAT bad, but he’ll most likely have grown his beard and ‘stache back to pre-shaved lengths/thickness. Oh well, it’s for Prostate Awareness, so I’m okay with it. Besides, our favorite radio DJ is partaking, as well. If you are on twitter, give a shout out to @TheDavidDean and give him some beard support.

Until next time, ya’ll.

And here we are…

So last night was Halloween and it was a very big day for our family. It was the first time The Goat, almost 3, has ever gone trick or treating. It was also the first time I’ve had a chance to take The Princess, almost 5, out doing the candy thing. It certainly wasn’t her first time, but it was a first for me as a parent. See, Princess was born in November 2006, so obviously she didn’t go that year. I’m horribly against taking children younger than 2 out unless they have an older sibling. At that point, you’re just trying to use your baby to score free candy for yourself. So 2007 was out of the picture for that.

I was all excited for 2008. I may have been about to pop with Goat, but I was looking forward to taking my little girl out. The added bonus was A)She was going to dress as a unicorn, which is always a win and 2) I was really hoping all that walking would start my labor (I was terrified that I would go in to labor on Princess’s birthday. 2 kids with the same birthday, but different years? Just horrible). That went out the window because I’m pretty sure I had food poisoning that day. Well, it may not have been food poisoning, but I was horribly sick. To this day I’m still not sure how I managed to actually drive her to my parents, who promised to take her and get lots of pictures. She actually didn’t go that year because she refused to put on the costume, it apparently freaked her out. It wasn’t a huge deal, she was 2, not like her life was ruined or anything.

2009 was her dad’s year for Halloween. Goat was only a year old, and you know my stance on that. In 2010 Goat was old enough for me to be okay with taking him, but with his issues (which we hadn’t discovered yet), we could tell it was going to be like taking a younger child. So we let Princess spend it with her dad again. This year, oh this year was all mine. I don’t care that Princess had her costume picked out for 11 months (ladybug), that her dad had bought it for her already, or even that it was his week to have her. He offered Halloween to us and we jumped on it. We picked up a football player costume for Goat, because it’s cheap and when (not if) he destroys it, I’d rather he be destroying something cheap than a fricking $40 costume.  Best part? His costume is a bit dusty, but still intact, while hers started falling apart immediately. The fringe on the skirt part was literally coming off the costume as I was dressing her. This is why I buy the cheaper costumes, lol.

Anyway, I was pretty worried about how Goat would react. I mean, after all, we walked in Grandma’s house where they had a giant, fake spider hanging from the fan and he freaked the fuck out. I mean, even after the spider was gone, he would freak if you tried to take him to that room. Surprisingly enough, once we showed him what to do the first 2 or 3 houses, he actually was a pro. He knew to hold up his bucket, say “Trick or Treat” and “Thank You” and everything. He kept the little foam helmet on for the whole thing, and actually kept up pretty well. It wasn’t until the time that we all decided to head back (after about an hour), that he finally started to wind down.

I’m so proud of my little Goat! Princess did a great job, but she’s an old pro at this. She was really good about showing her brother the ropes, but then she’s always good about that. Thinking about last night makes me all nostalgic. This is yet another milestone that has come and gone. Tomorrow we have the IEP meeting with his developmental preschool. His birthday is next week, which is when he starts preschool, and the Princess turns 5 the week after (yes, a whole 5 days later). My babies are growing up so fast!

I’ll be back tomorrow, got a few other things to cover but don’t want to make this post too long. So until then, cuddle your loved ones hard.

Radio and stuff

Okay, so I do a lot of Twitter…a LOT! I’ve got a few people I tweet on a regular basis. One of them is a radio dj for my favorite radio station, David Dean on KMLE 108. The other is someone who’s known to all the dj at the station. They’ve taken to calling her TwitterKim. Well this week the guys who do the morning show are on vacation, so they’ve got David and Kim filing in. I’ve been making sure to listen the last few days. Well today, they asked me to call in about something they were talking about, which I did. I got to talk to them about costumes and such. It was pretty awesome, I have to admit. It made my morning. Okay, I’m done now. Oh, though if you tweet, feel free to follow me @thatdarnkat .

So The Goat’s weekly therapy ends next week. The week after that he turns 3 and he switches to the developmental preschool. I have to admit, I’m a bit nervous. It’s one thing for him to leave me and spend time with my parents, but these will be strangers who will have my baby boy for 2 1/2 hours 4 days a week. They’ll be picking him up and everything. I’ve stayed home since he was born. I had a seasonal job last year, but the Mr was here. I’m feeling anxious. I’m sure he’ll do great, he’s finally getting to the point where he’s starting to play with other kids. I know this will help him. I know this is what he needs, because it is continued therapy. I just can’t shut off that part of my brain that’s in an all out panic that my baby will be with someone else, where I’m not, for 10 hours each week. The upside to all this is, if I actually get the job with the Mr’s company, I’ll be a bit more prepared to leave him in full time daycare.

I know this post is all full of tangents and such, it’s kind of all over the place. Sorry about that.  I’m not feeling too good this morning and can’t keep my focus. Alright, I’m going to end it there before I make things worse.

A bit about me

Well hey there. I guess, before I start right in on the craziness that is my life, I should introduce myself. I’m Kat. I’m 26, a stay at home mom to 2 wonderful kids, and a wife. I’m going to school for nursing, though it’s a bit slow, lol. Like I said, I’ve got 2 kids, Princess, who will be 5 in less than a month, and Goat, who will be 3 in 2 weeks.  Goat is developmentally disabled, considered “at risk for a future diagnosis of autism”, and an all around confusing but charming boy.  Princess is what her name implies…a princess. Part of that, I’m sure, is she was the first granddaughter.  She also happened to be the first grandchild for all but one set of her grandparents. She’s not a brat (usually), but with young grandparents and some great-grandparents still hanging around, well, she’s been spoiled, that’s for sure.

The Mr and I are a bit of geeks, though he certainly out geeks me any day of the week. I grew up loving books, Buffy, Angel, X-Files, and Star Wars. When we got together, he showed me the joys of Star Trek. I’m a huge bookworm, I can finish a book in a day, if I don’t have anything else to do. My favorite author is Laurell K Hamilton, she writes some amazing vampire/were animal books (not that Twilight stuff, REAL vampires). If you’re not afraid of sex and violence, read her. I warn you, after book 10 of her Anita Blake series, the books get…sexually graphic, to say the least.

Anyway, this blog will serve as a way for me to vent, regarding the every day struggles of having one “normal” child and one “not so normal” child. I’ll also probably talk about the struggles of being a housewife while attending school. If I get a job in the next few months like I hope I will, the blog will include the struggles of balancing everything together. I’ll probably talk about books, movies, and tv shows. I can’t promise I’ll be funny (though according to some of my followers on Twitter, I’m funnier than I realize) or witty, or even have the best grammar, but I’ll be real. This is who I am, and I learned long ago not to try to be someone I’m not.

Monk-ish

Do you remember that show, Monk?  It was about a detective who had some major OCD issues?  Well, it seems my son, Goat, has developed some Monk-like behavior. We have to take stairs to get to our place and every time we come up the stairs, if he doesn’t get to touch every single rail on the banister, he has a serious melt down.  He’s developmentally disabled with some major speech development. The way he talks now is about 6-9 months behind where he should be for his age (3 is 2 weeks). He’s also got some other issues, including being at risk for being diagnosed as autistic later on.

This rail thing is new. Yeah, he’s always liked to touch each of the rails, but it was never a huge issue if he didn’t get to touch them all. This week it’s gotten worse. I don’t normally have an issue with him touching the rails as we climb, except for when we get to the landing before completing the stairs.  That railing is where trouble likes to hide.  It’s got as many rails as either of the actual stair parts, and he seems to slow down, like he wants to savor the landing.  The other day, I was holding his hand and had some groceries in my other hand.  When I wouldn’t let him touch all the rails, he grabbed on to the first one on the second part of the stairs and held on with all his strength (which is quite substantial for his age) while we kept climbing.  About 3 stairs up, his arm completely straight, and down he went, butt on the stairs, almost pulling me down with him.

He’s got a few other things, routines he has to do.  I’m not sure if this is all a part of some bigger diagnosis (like the possibility of autism) or if he’s got a bunch of smaller things going on (ADHD, OCD, who knows what else).  It’s frustrating.  I’ve got a daughter, Princess, who turns 5 in 3 weeks.  Out of the 2 of them, I honestly expected developmental problems from her.  She was 5 weeks early and under 4 lbs at birth.  I EXPECTED things like this with her, was warned over and over that it was a possibility by doctors.  Goat was born full term, no complications during pregnancy or birth.

I’m not going to lie, it’s very trying, frustrating, and a bit lonely. Goat doesn’t respond to discipline, nothing that we’ve tried.  So I’ve got 2 kids that I have to discipline in separate ways. I try not to make a big deal out of the differences, but there are some. Goat may be almost 3, but a lot of his behavior is that of a 2 year old. So while I know how I handled Princess when she was 3, I have to do it differently with Goat.  What works for one doesn’t work for the other.

On top of all this, right now I’m a stay at home mom, so I get no breaks, except for maybe once every 2 months, or so. I’m registered for classes for Spring semester. I’m looking forward to this is so many different ways. Not only does it keep me on the path to one day being a nurse on the labor and delivery unity (fingers crossed), but it will give me about 12 hours to myself each week.  Maybe then I’ll be able to start reclaiming some of my sanity.

By now, I’ve talked your ear off, I’m sure, so I’ll save the rest for another post.