Taking the Scenic Route

I haven’t been writing much because we had to majorally slow down the enzymes because we can’t afford to replenish them until the next paycheck.  Instead of running out entirely in the middle of last week (leaving 3 weeks gap), I have been stretching it out so he isn’t totally without them. 

We did go through him starting to refuse any food, and that seems to resolved itself since I changed my approach. (and stopped trying to hide it in food)  I bought a bag of chocolate chips, melted some down, put dollops of the melted chocolate onto wax paper.  Then I put a dosage of the enzymes (both the Lacto & GlutenEase) in each chocolate dollop (after it was cool to the touch so that the enzymes didn’t get fried), used a toothpick to stir it into the chocolate, then dropped the toothpick in the dollop like a lollipop handle.  Put them in the freezer.  He is very willing to take a chocolate candy even with me telling him it has his medicine in it.  Seems to have eliminated the whole problem.  When I get more enzymes, I am also going to go to Hobby Lobby or Michaels and pick up either a candy or a lollipop mold (depending on what I find) to do this in instead.  Doing it freehand on a pan is really messy and time consuming.

My parents are at the car lot, looking over the vehicle we will probably buy one more time (we test drove it yesterday, among a bunch of others…spent all day looking at cars, Mom took care of the kids for us).  My husband is at the bank seeing if we can get a loan with our bank.  If not, we will have to go to my old bank/my parent’s bank, but it is an hour away and I really don’t want to drive there if I don’t have to.  lol.

Hope all goes well.  If I have the energy to, I will write about our day yesterday.  We learned a lot from Dad about car shopping.  The main thing we learned is that it is best to have somebody like that with you when you are looking at the cheaper end of used cars.  There is not a salesman that is able to push my dad around because he knows so much more than the salesman do about the cars.  It is actually rather amusing.

Cross your fingers for us! 

We think the tv is dying.  No, I have ZERO intention of going tv-free.  Movies, in particular, are a big, big deal in our house.  We watch a movie almost every night on our blockbuster monthly “rent as many as you want” thing.  I think we would all go stark raving mad without a tv in the house.  We will never make good hippies I guess.

It was a floor model at Best Buy back in 1993.  We got it on a great sale, and it was one of our first “big purchases”, paid for with tips we had been saving up.  It is 32″ and insanely heavy.  It takes at least 2 people to move it, often a 3rd to get it through weird spaces.  The distortion on the screen used to be almost imperceivable, but we noticed in the last week we are having problems reading the screen when there is writing and the distortion is getting annoying.  I am sort of sad to see it go.

*sigh*  The prices are good this time of year, but I don’t think we can swing it right now.  I hope it hangs on until January, when we will have the money.  Maybe we can even get a flat screen.  Ahhhh…that would be nice.  Easier to move too.  lol.

Zora has an ear infection, sinus crap & congested lungs.  She feels pretty yucky.  Zane has a cough at night and seems sick in the morning, but by late morning/early afternoon he seems pretty ok, with the occasional cough.  He is saying his ears don’t hurt, but since he doesn’t really do well with understanding what is hurting, we are watching him carefully.  He hasn’t gotten a fever yet (we don’t think, it isn’t worth even attempting to take his temperature until he feels really warm) so hopefully this will pass without too much drama.  I have a bit of sinus stuff going on, but nothing serious.

My house is a disaster zone and the pressure in my head, which isn’t bad when I am sitting, is overwhelming when I try to bend over to clean, so it is just going to stay cluttered for a while.  Zora, in particular, is making a mess far faster than I can clean because her idea of a tantrum is to start tossing things right now (and the stack of Christmas catalogs is adding to her ammunition), and her tantrum are almost constant because she feels crummy.  I need a maid.  Really.  I struggle with housekeeping even when everything is hunky dory and when the sickies hit us, it all starts sinking really fast.  About the only room that is ok is the kitchen.  The floors aren’t good, but the counters and the dishes are in a pretty reasonable state, so that helps.  When the kitchen goes down, it is a lot harder because it makes cooking a huge chore, so at least we have that on the “plus” side right now.

This too shall pass.  It just isn’t a barrel of laughs right now.

Christmas shopping, or the lack of it, is sort of driving me nuts.  There were some great sales on Black Friday and I have a 20% of coupon for Gymboree that I can’t use right now.  I hope there is still a sale going on when the 14th hits and we finally get a paycheck that will signal the beginning of the shopping season for us.  We might be able to get one or two things with tomorrow’s paycheck, but we will see.  At least we know that rent won’t be late.  That is a nice feeling.

eta:  Zane is sick now too.

Life is just rolling along at a nice click.  Our serious cash flow issues are temporarily abated by my mom helping load our (aptly named) “freeloader” card for Walmart/Sams, so we can afford gas and food for the next two weeks and one of our bills being able to be moved to after the paycheck.  Whew!  Thank goodness for the loan, it really helps.  I can make it stretch enough.  Zora has a lightweight coat that should suffice for the next two weeks until payday (unlikely to get super cold, and in a pinch, she is still little enough to use a blanket if necessary), and one pair of non-sandals that was a hand-me-down from Robert’s girl that still fit.  So, crisis abated.  Last summer of no paycheck is still impacting us.  If we hadn’t incurred that debt, we would be just fine, but paying back the loans from the summer and kids growing out of clothes, and our therapy costs going up a bit (because we make more this year…sliding scale) has thrown a wrench into things.  It should loosen soon though. 

I am still struggling a bit with balancing home schooling and housework.  It seems like I can do either one or the other, but am having a hard time managing both at once right now.  Part of the problem is that when I am working with Zane on school stuff, Ms. Destructo is undoing the “clean” at an astonishing pace.  I know this will get better, but housework has always been something I struggled with.  I have a touch of OCD, and I really have had to come to terms with being able to start something even if I am not sure I can finish it to my satisfaction.  Before kids, our house was often just this side of squalor.  I never felt like I could get it clean enough and was so overwhelmed I just froze up.  The depression helped perpetuate the cycle.  Since kids I have gradually gotten better, to where I still wouldn’t be thrilled if somebody showed up unexpectedly, but it usually is just cluttered, not a total disaster zone.  However, I haven’t quite got the balance of keeping things clean while homeschooling.  Zane can’t really self-direct yet, so if I am working on school stuff for him, almost everything that keeps Zora from going ballistic involves a mess to a degree…even if she is at the table.  She loves messing with the school supplies, but it usually involves a lot of dumping and after a bit, tossing items to the ground.  If she isn’t on the table, she is dismantling cabinet contents in the kitchen, dumping every toy, dragging laundry all over the house, or taking apart bookshelves.  Or she keeps bringing me food that isn’t edible (like bags of rice and beans) and gets mad that I won’t open them for her.  It is a little crazy some days.  I know it will get better with time, but I haven’t really got the knack yet.

At the end of ST yesterday (which Zane is doing really well at), while watching the kids play with the hallway toys, I was chatting with the clinical educator for a while about church & SNs (she is Catholic and I found out one of her brothers is an Archbishop working with the Pope…how cool is that) and what a challenge it is to attend church, and the difference in how churches approach SNs (most say that all people are welcome, but very few actually make it actually possible) and the respite care program at our church.  She knew the person who started the respite care program from when she used to work in a neighboring school district and was really pleased to hear the program had gotten off the ground.  She talked a bit about how her church handled some of the issues too.  It was a great conversation.  To this point I had really avoided talking much “church”, but since the program is simply run by churches, but more of an interdenominational and inclusive effort (you only have to have a SN to use the program, you don’t have to be any particular faith, or any faith for that matter, to use the service) I wanted to hear if she had heard anything about it.  (It is a rare thing for her to have NOT heard of something like this, and if you know her well enough, she won’t mince words about her opinion of how a program is run)  So, her having a positive opinion really holds some weight with me. 

On a funny note, when we were wrapping up our conversation and getting the kids herded to the door, as Zane left out the door we did the usual “goodbye” and his response, after prompting him to say “goodbye” louder instead of mumbling was “whatever” as he was walking away.  I suppose we should have been dismayed, but both of us were looking at each other with our jaws on the carpet, she went up to him to get him to say it again, and instead of repeating “goodbye” he repeated “whatever” and both of us laughed and shook our heads in amazement.  It was such an unexpected expression.  I suppose if it continues we will have to work on it, but for the time being I am just enjoying the novelty and self-expression of it.  Wonderful!