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I sat in that room. I have full trust in this women. This women who is Damian's pediatrician. We discussed what has been going on. Sometimes these turn into mini therapy sessions because I don't know what of his behaviors we need to look at and track and what is typical 11 year old behavior. We discuss a lot. In that room we discussed how I was doing. We talked about how I had written out Damian's medicine list, how many pills he had left, how many refills where left, when he takes his meds and if he shows any side affects. Then she said the thing she never says, she said "This is more telling of how YOU are doing to me. The last few visits we haven't had this list." Wait. Stop. Me? But your Damian's pediatrician. Could it be that you are trying to get the whole picture or could it be that you care too. Then the words they just spilled out. The flood gates opened. We discussed everything that has been going on with Damian. All the things I wasn't g...

Summer this year has been difficult to say the least. It started with my middle child graduating from Headstart. Then I broke my ankle, same day actually. My oldest is going through puberty. The baby is teething, like in the last four months he has popped out about 6-8 teeth. My parents dog whom I loved dearly, had to be put down. Did I tell you that most of this happened in the last three weeks??? There's more but we won't go into that. What we will go into is this, whenever life with the kids gets crazy I seem to fall off my own list of people to take care of. It seems to be so simple of thing to be like okay, you need to take care of you in crazy times.  I read an article today and they refereed to it as the airplane safety life mask rule. If you want to help others you need to help yourself first. I really suck at that. I put everybody so far ahead of me, that I become useless and everything falls apart. I feel the weight of the world most days. The expectations from ...

Someday I will be beautiful. Someday I will that girl in the grocery store that a complete stranger smiles at for reasons other than that, Oh I have been there parent smile when one of the boys is in the middle of a meltdown or being loud. Someday. I say this a lot actually, someday I will be this person. Right now the only person that tells me I am beautiful and I think mean it would be my family, mainly my husband and my boys in those rare and unusual moments when they acknowledge my appearance as something other than a pillow. Even I wouldn't go as far as saying I am attractive, which is why we developed the rule that we go with hubby's opinion of my appearance or I would spend so much more time self hating. It's been a life long struggle. Food is passion, food is my savior, food runs my life sometimes. I am the head cook at Bowen Family Restaurant, a.k.a my kitchen. We started buying healthier, cutting out soda, and carbs because I love carbs. Just don't touch m...

My middle child turned 5 in April. September is going to be bittersweet. There is so much to do, so much to think about. So, so much. His MRI, and his EEG all came back normal!!! Yeah, his brain is good. However this leaves us in an interesting spot, no diagnoses. With final IEP meetings coming up, transitioning meetings, and summer school we are left with no answers. I will admit this left me wondering what to do. I freaked out for a bit, I am not going to lie. How is it that this smart, vibrant boy, who is testing at a three year old level, how is there no answers!!! What is wrong! What did I do!! Then I regrouped, it isn't anything I did. There isn't anything wrong with him. He is a smart, capable, imaginative child. We don't have to have answers. The diagnosis or lack of it doesn't change him. He is who he is. It changes me. It changes my goal. It changes my fight. I don't have answers, I don't have a diagnosis to fall back on. What I have is my figh...

The month of April is always a chaotic time. A vast majority of the family's birthday is in April. We celebrate with one big party, and then for my middle child and my husband we do a cake on their birthdays. April also holds Easter. That is usually enough to make me frazzled. This month we add a nice selection of doctor appointments to the specialist for my middle child. His sedated MRI is tomorrow. He has a sleep study at the end of the month. I have been trying not to absorb this and turn it into the shoulda,coulda,woulda's, but I am failing. I am stuck between feeling like I am okay and I can do this and just wear my advocate hat and be the professional I have been trained to respond like. What they don't teach you in school is a class on what happens when it is your child you are doing this with. There should be Welcome to Special Needs Motherhood 101. Now, if you read these ever, you might be like well actually you should be a pro at this Jessica, your stepson s...

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...