Happy Easter

It began on Friday as we colored eggs. In CJ fashion - dump the eggs in twirl them around a few times - first with spoon then with hand -"are they done yet?" - set timer to give color time to set. Dump eggs back in carton and off to play with a dyed hand! Last night - make a bunny cake - CJ did all the decorating himself - put eggs in basket and leave basket outside for Easter Bunny. My job begins - up until later than wanted to be. 1:45 a.m. - CJ up to go potty - spots an egg - from in my bed I hear him say , "Look at that! An egg on my truck!" 3:00 a.m. - potty again (CJ not me)! Is downstairs longer than should be - get him back to bed. Is very excited about the Easter eggs he has seen (mental note - the Easter bunny needs to better hiding spots!) 5:00 a.m. - POTTY AGAIN!!! Now he is loudly talking about eggs and wondering what is inside. I tell him, not time to get up yet - choices are to get in bed with mommy and daddy or go to his room. He spends some time in our bed with every few minutes asking if it is time to get up. Finally gives up and goes to his room to play. At 6:15 a.m. - he says he has to get up now. I tell him it's not time, he says, "Oh yes it is!!!" Sits on top of stairs...I tried to wait as long as we could because I knew daddy was not going to get up at this hour. But CJ does not understand why he needs to wait and CS does not understand why everyone can't sleep longer! So CJ and I get up. I don't even get any pictures as he quickly finds eggs - opens them dropping candy and money on the floor. Then he spots it...the Easter basket - and now the eggs are a thing of the past and he just wants what is inside his basket! We do finish finding the eggs that are inside and decide to wait on daddy for outside eggs. Now I am on my second cup of coffee - the day has only begun and with everyone sleep deprived it will be a lonnnnggg day!!! I am off to make sausage, biscuits, and gravy! Then I need to make one more dessert to bring to grandma and grandpas "Easter Party" as CJ calls it! I will post pictures later. Happy Easter everyone!!!!

Spring Break

Well my spring break is officially over! Back to work on Monday! The week went by so fast and...I have nothing done to show for it! No closets cleaned out - the storage a mess - ditto for the den. So what did I do you ask....I ran errands...visited CJs class with cookies and stories....visited with friends (coffee, breakfast, playdate and dinner)....shopped for a new dishwasher with the boys....and sat and watched TV! Things I don't get to do very often. So although I didn't get to house things - i need to remember that it's just stuff! The real deal was getting spend some time with family and friends that I don't usually have!

Back In Business

Well...I' m back in the Tupperware business. All it took was one party and I'm hooked again! I do love a god party, and I do love Tupperware. It is so different from dealing with children all day! I had a party Saturday night at a friend's house - granted it was mostly people I knew which made it much easier. But it got me excited about doing parties again. The hard part is getting someone to book a party. So any takers???? For my dear friends who live far away - I am almost done setting up my web site, so you can have a web party or a catalog party!!! Who couldn't use a little Tupperware??

Hives

CJ had a bad case of hives (AGAIN). They came the day after Little T's birthday party. Because he is breaking out more often, his Dr. believes that the hives are CJ's body dealing with anxiety/stress. We have had allergy testing done, but it has come back negative. So...by Tuesday (the day CJ goes to school) there were still a few hives on his body. I e-mailed his teacher to tell her about the hives and there was no cause for concern. Well...he got sent to the nurse, and then sent home anyway and couldn't go back to school without a note from our Dr. Frustrating to us and confusing to him. The nurse was not at all pleasant with CS over this matter - so we can't imagine how it was dealt with CJ. He was very upset that he was going home and not staying at school. When he and CS pulled into the driveway he said, "Daddy I'm so sorry that I have the bumps." Then broke down. He kept thinking he was bad for having the "bumps". CJ also thought he couldn't play with other children or go to school until he had no more "bumps". Luckily, our terrific pediatrician got a note to CS even on her day off. Now getting him to understand that he was ok with the bumps and could go to school was not going to be easy.

That night was so bad for him. Things that haven't bothered him in a long time were now over the top. For example, getting into the house as a very OCD thing for CJ. There were about 10 steps that had to be taken to get into the house, and if he missed one he had to start all over. It could take us half an hour just to get into the house. This day, getting into the house was impossible for him. In and out, the door open and closed - up the stairs down, the garage no garage. It was so sad to watch him go through this again!! Finally, I told him that we had to get in and that he was going to be sad and that was ok - but we had to go in. He did go in - kicking, and crying the rest of the evening. So now CS and I are both enraged with what happened at school. That night he was adamant that he wasn't going to school the next day because of the bumps. He went to bed exhausted, and I had tried everything I could think of to let him know that it would be ok to go to school. Luckily, Wed. was a new day and CJ got up and went off to school without a hitch - surprisingly.

I understand - the safety of other children and staff members of the school need to be taken into consideration when children come to school sick or with a rash. I just wish the school would have handled it differently. I tried to do the right thing by letting them know ahead of time what they were dealing with that day. We could have gotten a note faxed to them, our ped would have called them, or CS could have run and got the note right away. But the nurse did not believe us and thought that he had a catchy rash. I explained to the teacher and director of Spec.Ed how disappointed we were in how this was handled. Their response, "We don't know how it works at the school you work at, but here we don't take the parent's word on these situations."

I said to my BFF that when CJ was a baby and we weren't sleeping, or his tummy hurt and he just cried, I would think - when he is older it will not be this hard. Now that he is older it is a different kind of hard - being an advocate for your child is hard work. Those things when he was younger I could somewhat control - now there are other people involved, it is much harder. But I wouldn't change it, and I will continue to fight hard for what I feel is right for CJ in every aspect of his life.

Birthday Parties

CJ is not a fan of parties of any sort - but especially of the birthday sort. People he doesn't know, children he doesn't know. Usually a lot of noise, and not a lot of room for him to move. I'm not sure what we did right to prepare him for Little T's first birthday party - but it worked. One of the first things that I think helped was that it was in a nice big room - a lot of space so even though there were a lot of people he could move around and not be crowded. Another thing that helped, we got there early to help set up and decorate. CJ loved being the helper to Miss S with the balloons. It was also a beautiful day and someone could easily take him outside for a little break - which we did. From then on - I don't know. Usually he screams at strangers, but here he stood at the door and welcomed people, "Welcome to the House!" It blew my mind!!! The only time he got upset is when Happy Birthday was being sang - and we can't figure this out. He loves to sing, but has gotten upset at the last few parties we have been to when it's time for this. So CS and he stayed close to the door - and when it was too much they went outside. Maybe it is the noise. He is becoming more sensitive to loud noises instead of it getting better.

Now...in hindsight - we (CS and I) weren't on top of CJ like we usually are at gatherings. We are fearful of him hurting Little T. Little T loves kids and will approach CJ to touch him, give him something, or basically want to play. CJ misinterprets these actions and will try to push her away. He also does this on playdates with one of our playmates younger sister. Anyway, at this party we didn't hoover over him as much as normal - I was busy helping with food and CS was chatting with friends/family that we hadn't seen in awhile. So..maybe we need to just let him be and see what happens. Little T is a tough cookie - but we just don't want family members to be too hard on CJ for his actions as he is still learning how to deal with unwanted attention from children.

It looks like the next birthday party he will be going to will be this summer at the zoo. I think this will be fine, as again it is in a big open space, and we can go outside whenever we need a break. I will let you know how that goes.

Now we begin to think of his own party this year. It is a big deal - 5. Do we have one big party - or two smaller ones? We aren't sure yet...but I am sure the plans will surface here in the future,

Playground Fun