Hello again!

I suppose that once a month updates are actually pretty good. Everyone here is doing pretty well. The kids got their report cards in the middle of January. Christopher got all As and Bs! I am so proud of him. Now that we have his ADHD under control, he can more easily concentrate on school work. His behavior at school is very good, although at home we are still having some issues. Cassidy is still having some issues learning. Her school has finally agreed to get her tested for any kind of learning disorder. These include ADHD, dyslexia, etc. I go in next week and talk to everyone about what we need to do. Barry is doing well and still sweet. He has decided that he does not know how to do anything (at times.) His teacher and I are working on getting him to work to his potential.

We got our second major snow storm, but compared to the Mid-Atlantic states we got lucky. Of course my kids are out of school today, but this is only our third weather day this year. Last year we used five or six days. (The past two years we actually missed school for something other than snow. One for flooding fall 2008 and one for a tornado fall 2009.) Anyway the weather is supposed to get sunny, not warm, but sunny tomorrow. We will see how soon this snow melts. :)

Cassidy sold 150+ boxes of cookies this year, about 100 less than last year, but still very good. She was the top seller in her troop. Her troop also has a My Guy and Me dance that they are doing next week. Cassidy is going with her Uncle Nick. She is really quite excited about it. I am going as a parent sponsor. I get to check in the couples. :)

Chris and Barry had their Pine Wood Derby with Cub Scouts. Cassidy got to race a car also in the family division. They had a really good time. Christopher's car was an army tank, Barry had a police car and Cassidy had a teddy bear car. We are never one of the fastest cars, but we do well. The pack raised money for the food pantries in the area by selling hot dogs and chips for a dollar. This past Monday the pack packaged boxes to send to our troops in Afganistan and Iraq. That was controlled chaos, but fun.

In AWANA, Christopher competed in quizzing for the first time last Saturday. His team did a good job. He has already agreed to quiz again next year. They also completed in the AWANA Grand Prix. It is the same thing as the Pine Wood Derby. Again we did not have the fastest cars, but the kids all got awards for Hands-On. (Hands-On award is the award that goes to the kids who did the most work on their own car.) Again they all had a good time!

We are all finally well (at least for the moment.) I am still trying to find an ENT that is approved by our insurance. We saw one and he was, in a word, awful!! I have talked to other people about this doctor and no one has anything good to say about him. Some of the people were other doctors, some where other patients, and some where others in the medical field.

I have found out that Brad is out of jail again and yet I am not getting any child support. I have gone back to the child support office to get the ball rolling on getting him paying again. They have contacted him (back in December) but I have not heard anything since then. I will keep you posted. :)

Police, Hospitals, and Chaos!

Well, since I last wrote we have had a visit from the police, a visit to the police station, a five day hospital stay and of course the normal chaos.
The visit from the police was actually quite amusing! My boys were selling Cub Scout popcorn and I was delivering it to my next door neighbor. Christopher came over to get his inhaler and said that there was a raccoon in the yard. I said he could wait a couple of minutes for it to leave. Then he told me that the raccoon was falling down. That concerned all of us, so of course we went outside and found not a raccoon, but a opossum. It was sick, it took about 2 steps and then fell over. He hid under my house. So we decided to catch it in a pet carrier and call animal control. My neighbors have air guns (kind of like BB guns, but not) and they were trying to scare the opossum out from under my house and my other next door neighbor called the police because they were "shooting" guns. The police came, 3 of them. No one got it trouble, but they did stay for about 30-45 minutes to help us catch the animal. Animal control picked it up the next day.
Our police station visit was with Barry's Cub Scouts. The Chesterton police station and fire station are in the same building, so we got a tour of the police station (got to climb in a police car and hear the sirens up close) and the fire station (they still have a fireman pole). Cassidy and Barry went to that. Christopher was with his Cub Scout den at the library. Anyway that was a fun experience.
The five day stay in the hospital was not so much fun. Cassidy had been coughing for about a month with numerous visits to the doctor. Finally last Monday (10/19) the doctor put her on an antibiotic and gave her an inhaler. (She has never used an inhaler before and has no idea how to use it.) On Wednesday she was having a little trouble breathing about 10:30 pm. I took the boys to my mother's and took her to the hospital. They took us straight back and gave her a breathing treatment. They did a chest x-ray and found that she had bronchitis and pre-pneumonia. Because I have a nebulizer machine at home they sent us home and said that she should continue the antibiotic and do breathing treatments every 4 hours when she was awake. No problem. We had a follow up appointment with her doctor on Friday and everything was going well. On Saturday, she began to really have a hard time breathing. She was doing breathing treatments every 1 to 2 hours. (Not a good thing!) I took her back to the hospital and here is where it got interesting. We got to the ER and checked in with the triage receptionist. Cassidy was doing fine at the time, so I was not too worried when she said there were about 5 people ahead of us. About 10-15 minutes later Cassidy started to have a REALLY hard time. I got back up and told the receptionist that she needed to be seen NOW. The receptionist said she would tell the nurse (never happened.) Another man came in and said he was having trouble breathing and they took him straight into triage. Still no help for Cassidy. By this time she was crying and saying she could not breathe. A whole bunch of people came in and so another nurse came to help the triage nurse. She actually came into the waiting area and just looked at everyone to see if anyone needed immediate help and saw Cassidy. She listened to her lungs and took us straight back, no triage. Before Cassidy saw the doctor the nurse had her on O2 and had called for a respiratory therapist to give her a breathing treatment. They did another x-ray and she had full blown pneumonia. Her breathing was so bad that they gave her a breathing treatment that lasted an hour and they did a blood gas (not a good experience). Had the results of that been any worse they were going to transfer her to Riley Children's hospital in Indianapolis (about 2 hours from here.) Luckily they were good enough for us to stay in northwest IN. Cassidy's O2 saturation dropped to 88 (should be 95 or higher) every time they took the O2 off until Tuesday evening. That is why she stayed in the hospital so long. She was able to come home Wednesday. She is back at school now (half day today and full day starting Monday.) She is MUCH better.
Normal chaos is, well, normal. Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, AWANA, school, etc. are all going fine. The kids are ready for Halloween. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween. Enjoy!!

Quick update!

Still no new news on Brad. The kids are all doing fine. We went to a friend's house for lunch and the kids had a blast! Nothing really new on the other stuff either. When I said quick, I meant it. :)

About Brad

Alright, I think I need to explain what is going on, at least what I know right now. Brad was put back in jail on the 29th of January. He has two more years left on his prison term. I believe that he will be there until the 2 years are over. As to why he went back, here is what I know:

1. Internet is not allowed to anyone convicted of a sexual offense -> He was caught using the internet at one of his jobs.

2. Porn is certainly not allowed either -> Well that is what he was looking at.

3. Every six months he was required to take a polygraph. He has taken two and passed neither of them. The first one was almost a freebie, because most people do not pass them. However he failed the second one also.

4. He also has a tendency to say whatever he thinks will get him out of trouble. That of course gets him in even more trouble.

5. He caused some problems for me, and that caused him to get in trouble also. I am not going to go into detail, but he was told he could not talk to me at all. He did not talk to me, but he decided that he was going to take me to court so he did not have to pay so much child support. Of course that got him in trouble also.

He may get to stay at a work release center, which would allow him to work and pay child support. I will not know about that until the middle of Feb. As I know more, I will pass it on.

As Hermoine Granger said in Harry Potter "What an idiot!"

Crazy life!!

Lets see, where to begin? I do not even know! My life is so crazy! My kids really seem to be going in ten different directions and they are still little. What am I going to do when they get big enough to really have lots to do. I think I will just have to let them figure it out. This past weekend the Colvins took my kids on Saturday and kept them the WHOLE day. It was so nice to have a day with no kids. I did not have to feed them breakfast or lunch (they ate at grandma's house), I did not have to entertain them, I actually got stuff done! Hooray! Yesterday Christopher had a counseling session that went really well. Today Cassidy has Girl Scouts, and then all three kids have swimming lessons. I am watching my nephew so his mom can go to a funeral. Tomorrow we have AWANA, and Thursday we have more swimming lessons. I am pretty sure the kids do not have some place to go on Friday, but I have an AWANA activity with the girls T&T. Then on Saturday, I have a counseling session with Brad's counselor again. That is just this week. Oh well, I will survive! :)

Update

I have a little update about Brad. He got out of jail last December. I expected him to really cause a lot of problems for me right from the beginning. I have been pleasantly surprised that he has been on his best behavior. He only communicated with me through his mom because he was not allowed to talk to me until I talked to his counselor. I did not talk to her until the very beginning of August. That was the hardest meeting I have ever had to go to. Everything that I thought I had gotten past was brought back to the surface. I have come to the decision that I am not quite as over everything as I thought. I have gone back to talk to the counselor twice. Once alone and once with Brad. (The first meeting Brad was at and he had to do all the talking.) I am getting child support, again another thing I did not think I would ever see. Brad has not tried to see the kids yet. It is part of his parole that he stay away from kids under 18. From what he has said, he does want to see our kids. I am still a little uncomfortable with the idea, but it will be court supervised, so it should be fine. The kids have all figured out that he is out of jail, but Christopher is the only one who is having a hard time with not seeing him. After my first meeting, Christopher said that since I had talked to "Daddy" he should be able to see him too. I have been considering getting Christopher some counseling, but could never afford it. I found a place near our home that counsels kids for free, so we have our first appointment on Wednesday right after school. Cassidy has started telling people that her dad is dead. I have told her that she cannot lie to people about things. She may start counseling also, if I see that she is continuing to have an issue with the "Daddy" stuff. I think that she is angry that her dad is not around to do thing with her, like her friends' dad's do. Matt and Nick have both done special things with her, but she is starting to see that it is not the same. (Nick and Matt both took her to her Girl Scout Daddy/Daughter Dance the past two years.) Barry does not seem to care much about whether or not he has a daddy in the picture. Anyway back to Brad. I have been told that he may not be able to see the kids until at least December and if that does not happen it could take as long as December of 2010 or 11, before he can see them. Anyway, I will let you know how things are going as things happen.