Hello

It's March. It's been craziness here lately. I am reaching a point where I am closing out old goals and to do lists, thanks in part to a minor basement flood, and it hit me. If this is the year we get organized, complete projects and I find myself with a smidgen of time where my brain isn't bombarded by the things to do what am I going to do with myself. We started working on eating better, and cleaning out the crap out of the house. I sat on that place where you pin all the pins and time seems to fall into a black whole and I realized once again, I am losing the focus on me. It doesn't do anybody any good if the one who keeps it all together can't keep themselves together. My children are my life, but I don't want them to be my whole life. I want some part to be me, not so and so's mom/wife/granddaughter/sister/daughter whatever. I want somebody to be like hey that's Jessica. Really how do mom's keep their own identity? Is it harder for stay a...

As I walk in the hallway to that room I am all to familiar with I hit the doorway and stand taller, walk in and sit in the middle of the row of chairs, strategically as I can see everybody else in the meeting at all times. I could be in this room for either one of the older two boys. Welcome to an IEP meeting. Damian is the oldest, and he will always be the child I worry about it. It is simple, he is not good with relationships and he has a hard time regulating his emotions in a healthy way. He is on the higher end of the Autism spectrum, ADD, high level of anxiety, dyslexic tendencies, struggles with holding a pencil or silverware the correct way, has an IQ at the level of an 18 male, is good in math, inquisitive, factual, kind, and everything in between. He is starting puberty early, he noticed his voice is changing, and as I hear him laugh in the background I can hear the deeper voice coming. His numerical age is 11, his emotional age on a good day is 8, a bad day 6, IQ wise he is...

Sometimes it is a fine line on this journey between being a mom and being an advocate for my boys. I tend to do very well with giving others advice, and drag my feet when it comes to Squeaker. Part of me was hoping he would outgrow it, like all of sudden he would just be normal. He might become normal, he might catch up but the fact of the matter is, he is almost 5 and gross motor testing came back and he tests like he is three. Three. He will not be ready to start school in September. He won't be ready. The process begins for him. We will start extra therapy.  He will go see a Neurologist in April. We will hopefully see a Pediatric Ophthalmologist. We will have another IEP meeting. He will go to summer school. He will start Kindergarten in the fall of 2015. He will be my happy go lucky child. He will be the one everybody adores. He will be the one I worry about until the results come in. What if he has my pseudo tumor, what if it's not a pseudo tumor and it's a real ...

The title says it all. In essence this is exactly what you would expect this to be about. However, I am not going to discuss what sparked me to write this. Instead I want the message to be clear. I want the words to be clear. Whatever side you sit on as your opinion there is one thing that is clear, when you return hate with hate, there is no winner. Violence does not solve violence. Burning cars, gunshots, businesses that close early, board up their windows and pray when they return they still have what is their life in tact does nothing but cloud the very thing people are trying to fight for. If you want to fight for equality, then your message needs to be from a rational place. You can not stand up and say you can't and judge people, and then do the same thing yourself. How do we teach our children to be better people? How do we show them to do right? We teach them by doing. Returning hate with hate will only teach our children to do the same. Returning anger with anger wi...

Hey, So my dear friend and fellow Admin has been dying to learn about couponing. I don't claim to be an extreme couponer, but let us start with some of the basics and some of my favorite things. I will do a gift post if you all want that one too. Places to get Coupons: Store flyers and sites Sunday newspapers Facebook Pages Websites for the Brands Online coupons ( like Ibotta, and Savingstar) Other couponing sites ( I will share some of my favorites later on here) Important terms: BOGO- By One Get One Manufactor coupons- Coupons from the company themselves Store Coupons- Coupons from the store themselves Stacking- Using a manufacturing Coupon and a store coupon together for the same item Now please remember this is just the things that I find most relevant. I don't invest a ton of time into these things, and the more you do it the easier it gets. I just wanted to get your feet wet in this adventure. Tips/Tricks Most sales, go on a schedule, every six to eig...

I live in New England. Welcome to the season where I suffer from road rage due to tourists parking and doing whatever they feel they need to get the picture of the fall leaves. I love the way the trees look at the peak of season, with the colors so bright and the leaves so plentiful. And then they fall. And then they fall. The change of the season seems to be more symbolic for some than others. I watch the leaves hit the ground, the trees begin to look lonely, and the cold, the cold air is coming. The irony in the change of the season is symbolic to how a person feels when depression kicks in ( at least to me). The cold does me in. The longer hours of darkness. The inability to just get up walk out the front door and go somewhere. I'm going to pretend at least a few of you read these things regularly ( like you know when I post something) and say you will know I had a baby this summer. The chances of me having post partum depression was pretty high since I had it with Squeaker....

Yesterday was Pregnancy and Infant loss day. For those that follow my pathetic little attempt to be a mommy blogger you will understand why this day is important to me. For those that don't here is the backstory. On Halloween of last year was my ultrasound to hear the heartbeat of Mini Thor. Only it didn't go so well. They couldn't find his heartbeat. They told me I was carrying an empty sac, there was nothing there. In simple terms I had miscarried. We talked about how I was far enough along and I might not be able to pass the sac on my own and how I would have to have an in office procedure to remove it. They talked about all these things. My world ended. We took the older boys trick or treating. My mom came and took them after school the next day. I fell apart hard. One week later we went back, me and Hatter. I had him wait in the waiting room, it was painful enough emotionally I didn't him there for this part, I didn't need to torture him. It was bad enough....

The arrival on Mini Thor meant the chaos had officially hit. The careful schedule we were all used to, especially Littleman ( he is on the Autism spectrum, structure is very important) was out the window, and in the driver seat was Mini Thor. Life run by a newborn is totally logical if you have ever meet one, they don't understand when you HAVE to go to the bathroom. They don't care, if they are sleeping on you and your arm has been numb for the last thirty minutes and you move them ever so gingerly and they start screaming. They simply don't care. For the other three members in the household this has been a tough adjustment. Squeaker is suffering from middle child syndrome. He is very much look at me look at me. Littleman has basically decided he is going to be pissed at me and everything is my fault, our bad days by far outweigh our good. Hatter has been working his ass off, and has hit his breaking point, he is just toast. He needs a break from all the overtime and the...

Things you learn in life, nothing goes as planned, even your backup plan. So let us start with a recap of the week. On June 10, I had an semi impromptu doctors appointment. I had massive swelling in my feet, my toes turned purple and I was losing circulation in my hands and feet. Now if your pregnant and you haven't typically had these issues this is a bad sign, this could be a sign of toxemia. In my case they were like well your miserable your close to the end, if you get a headache go to the ER. Okay so now I was pissed. I still had to go in the next day for my pre-op appointment. June 11, go to my pre-op appointment, rather bitchy. It was a quick trip. I did some errands before hand, Littleman was going to run out of his medicine and I wanted to make sure he was good. So I go to leave my appointment and realize the nice shiny still under three month old van had been hit. Seriously. I cried. Freaked out a little, then freaked out a lot. Came home, had the babysitter stick aroun...

I really don't mean to be a downer but when you enter the Land of Chaos sometimes we have to face the less than perfect moments head on. I am not good at outwardly expressing these feelings. Actually I am a very good at burying my head in the sand. Slowly the people that have become my inner circle have pushed me to come out of the sand recently. As I wait still for Mini Thor to make his appearance these are things that are going through my head. Littleman is 10. He is in fourth grade. He is on the Autism Spectrum and has some accompanying behavioral disorders like Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, and a few other little quirks. He is always going to be the most difficult child. I don't say this to be mean, or to give an excuse, this is just life. This is just the things we work with everyday in our life. There is so much more that goes into him and his ten years then I willing to cover right now. Let's just say as much as we struggle with him so...