Slime World, Neurology, Naughty List and Sarah's New Do

Josh has his Economics Fair this week.  At parent teacher conferences over two weeks ago they sent home the poster paper for his business sign to be completed over the Thanksgiving weekend.   Of course we didn't even start on it until Sunday night.  WHOOPS!  However, I think the sign turned out good.  Josh came up with the design and I drew it out.  Aaron relegated that job to me--he said he will do the Pinewood Derby cars if I do all the artsy fartsy stuff that come with school projects.  Awesome deal!  Here's Josh holding his poster on the way to school:

We actually had to make the slime last night for him to sell.  Josh wanted to make blue and red slime.  The blue slime is for BYU and the red slime is for the UofU.  Thanks to Aaron, that's where Josh got the red/blue slime rivalry idea.  Josh and Daniel helped make the slime which is pretty easy to make.  All you need is some Borax, Elmer's Glue, Food coloring and water.  Here they are helping me mix it up:

Josh won't actually sell the slime until Thursday even though all of it was due this morning [Tuesday].  I am hoping it will sell because you just never know with these things.  I am a little nervous because when Aaron went to pick up the Borax to make the slime with, he got the very last box.  I am hoping everyone else didn't do slime, too.  I guess we will just have to wait and see with our fingers crossed.

Sunday night I made everyone help pick up the house because it had turned into a disaster area.  Everyone was busy picking up except for Daniel.  I found him studying something quite intently while sitting on the kitchen floor.  I looked closer to find him looking at an RC Willey ad that had a picture of Santa and his "nice kids list" just for decoration.  Daniel was searching to see if his name was on Santa's list.  It wasn't.  Aaron and I tried to hide our giggles because Daniel was a little upset by that.  We just told him he would have to work extra hard to change that...hehehehehe.

Yesterday morning Josh had his neurology visit.  We had to be down at Primary Children's Hospital at 7:45 am.  That meant we had to leave our house by 6:45 am by the latest.  To make sure we could leave on time I set my alarm for 6 am and told Josh we would be getting up extra early in the morning.  I went to bed and slept really well (which is really unusual for me).  I was awakened by someone turning on the kitchen light.  I rolled over and saw Aaron was still snoozing away.  I then looked at the clock to see it was 6:15 am and my alarm had not gone off.  I looked again at my alarm and I had set it for 6 pm instead of am.  Doh!!  Luckily, Josh is such and early bird that waking up for him was not a problem.  I got up and we both got ready and left by 6:45 am while everyone snoozed on.  We got down to our appointment.  The doctor visited with Josh and then started examining him.  That's when I noticed in Josh's haste to get dressed he had put his pants on backwards.  NICE!  Anyway, the doctor didn't find anything out of the ordinary so she decided to increase his medication.  I also asked about his new type of seizure where he can't speak afterward even though he tries.  She looked at his past EEG and saw that with his particular type of seizure activity (complex partial) that is not uncommon and not to worry about it....um easier said than done!!  Anyway, I asked her if I should have Josh sleep in my room with us so I could keep an ear out for any seizures.  She told me not to do that, but to get a baby monitor so Josh could still sleep in his own room and that I could still listen out for any seizure activity.  Doh!!  I don't have a baby monitor so I guess I will need to get one.  Who would have thought I would need a baby monitor not for a baby, but for my 8 year old son?!   Also the medication they decided to increase was the same one that makes Josh have an "attitude".  That was a major side effect when he first got started on this particular medication so I am not looking forward to him starting with the attitude again since we have to increase his medication.  Ah well, I would take the attitude over the seizures any day, but it doesn't make dealing with the bad attitude that much easier!  Anyway, while we were at the doctor's office they asked if Josh had received his flu shot.  I said no.  They then asked Josh if he wanted his flu shot.  He quickly said, "NO THANKS!", but ,I as the parent, have the overuling vote.  I made him get his flu shot anyway.  Josh was not too happy with me.  Oh well,--he did get an awesome crayon band aid, though.  By the way just for informational purposes Josh's stats are he is 65 pounds and 55 inches tall. He is getting to be a big guy!

After the appointment we came home.  I was afraid to see what my house looked like since Aaron was the adult in charge for the morning since I was gone.  Luckily Daniel and Matthew got dressed and medicated and made it to school on time.  However, the house was an utter disaster area.  Oh well, I guess you can't have everything.  I was impressed, though--Aaron had gotten Noah and Sarah breakfasted and dressed as well.  Aaron even attempted to comb Sarah's hair for the very first time EVER!!!  He tried to pull it back into a ponytail.  He even used three elastics, but unfortunately, it didn't stay in for very long.  Here's the front view with Sarah's mouth full of an Oreo cookie:

He even put a bow in her hair because Sarah can't go a day without her pretty pretties in her hair.

I have to say I was most impressed with Aaron combing Sarah's hair.  Have I mentioned he has NEVER, EVER done her hair--EVER??  Aaron gets an "A+" for effort for sure!! I am just glad the boys all have short hair that doesn't need to be combed, because if it did need to be combed, we would all be in trouble! 

When I got home from the neurologist Aaron had to head out to work, but before he left he gave everyone a nice Christmas edition Oreo that had bright red frosting.  GREAT!  Noah got the Oreo and ran.  He opened up the Oreo and picked out the frosting with his fingers smearing it everywhere as you can see:

He then went to town on the walls:

It's a good thing I love my husband because I was certainly cursing his name as I had to clean up the huge mess from the crazy morning and the mess Noah made with the Christmas Oreo Aaron gave him!!

Pica, Thanksgiving, Diarrhea, and Trains

Wow I can't believe another week has gone by so fast!!  To catch up, last Saturday Aunt Jill came back to stay with us for overnight.  Unfortunately, that night Sydney got the stomach flu and was sick a lot of the night with diarrhea and throwing up.  Luckily the next day she started feeling better.  Jill and I attempted getting pictures of the kids with Sydney, but no one was really too cooperative.  I did get this one of Sydney and Noah--both the trouble makers together!

We were hoping no one else would catch Sydney's stomach bug, but we weren't that lucky.  Sarah started in with the flu Monday night.  She had three diarrhea diapers that morning, but I thought it was just because she had gotten in to a huge bunch of grapes and ate the whole thing.  However, in looking back I think it was because she actually had the flu.  Sarah threw up five times throughout the night.  That meant changing and washing the sheets all night--which was not pleasant.  She still didn't feel real great the next day, but the throwing up and diarrhea had stopped...or so we thought.  Wednesday she had one more bout of diarrhea, but nothing else.  That's when Aaron caught the bug.  Luckily he only had it for a few hours and then was good.  So we thought we would be safe to head over to G&G T's for Thanksgiving.  We had a delicious Thanksgiving feast.  After dinner I found Noah laid out on the couch rubbing his tummy with one shoe off.  I thought it was a funny picture! 

 

Most of Thanksgiving dinner was Daniel friendly which was nice.  It is a lot of work to make a huge dinner and not include anything with milk, eggs or nuts.  After dinner was cleaned up and the leftovers divided out, we started to peruse the Black Friday ads.  I didn't want to go out shopping by myself so we decided to spend the night with G&G T so I could go with them while Aaron stayed back with the kids.  We headed out about 8pm after the kids went to bed.  We got in line outside at Target to wait for it to open at 12am.  That's when the Target employee came around and told us we had a very little chance of getting what we came for.  We decided that we would try our luck over at Walmart (shudder--I HATE Walmart!).  I really hate Black Friday at Walmart!  Have I mentioned that I HATE Walmart?!  Surprisingly, we were lucky enough to get all the doorbusters we came for which was awesome!!   However, I think the Black Friday sales are starting to get even more crazy.  I don't know how many more years I will be going out because reading some of the news stories it is becoming hazardous to your health!  Anyway, by the time it took us to check out and get pick up everything else we didn't get back home until 3:30 am.  I was exhausted and was so ready to go to bed.  We walked inside the house and I started upstairs to head to bed.  That's when the nasty smell hit me.  I followed my nose to Sarah's room.  When I opened the door I about gagged.  I flipped on the light to find that she had had major diarrhea that had filled up her diaper and had oozed up her back, all over her shirt, pants and bedding.  So much for going to bed!  I had to throw her in the shower to clean her up and start some laundry and remake her bed.  Poor thing!  Unfortunately she was sharing a room with Noah so he got woken up by all the commotion of cleaning the mess up and he was NOT happy.  Luckily we got her cleaned up and put her back to bed without too much problem.  The next morning we packed up our stuff (including all the yummy Thanksgiving leftovers) to head home because Aaron had a few things he wanted to do at our new house.  We pulled into our driveway and parked.  Matthew hopped out of the car and tried to help unload the car.  Unfortunately, Matthew got to the trunk before we could stop him and opened it.  Everything in the trunk fell out including all our leftovers.  It was so sad.  My mashed potatoes bowl shattered everywhere.  The blueberry, raspberry and pumpkin pie slices all got smashed together.  Luckily we were able to salvage the turkey and the stuffing, but it was sad to see everything else ruined!  Here's a picture of my jumble berry/pumpkin pie with mashed potatoes smeared all over the outside of the bag **SNIFF, SNIFF**:   

I think Noah has some serious pica issues going on!  I bought some different baby wipes and Noah loves to eat them.  We can't leave them laying around because he will pull them out, stuff them into his mouth and chew on them.  What a weirdo!  Here he stuffing it into his mouth:

  

I made him take the wipe out of his mouth and he was not happy about it.

Saturday morning Sarah found a tube of Desitin diaper rash cream.  She thought it was some hair gel and rubbed a bunch of it into her hair and on her face.  When she was done with it she set it down.  Noah found it next and went to town.  He squoze out a ton and rubbed it all over his hands and face and then he tried to eat the rest of it.  I caught him mid Desitin bottle squeeze into his mouth.  YUCK!!  That can't have tasted it good, but he ate a few squeeze fulls before I stopped him.  Here he is caught red handed (or white handed and faced!)  And let me tell you that stuff is hard to clean up!!:

He is not as innocent as his face makes him look, either!

After Sarah major explosive diarrhea episode in the early hours of Friday morning she didn't have any other problems--that is until this evening.  She was sitting over at the table when Aaron and I heard her shart.  A shart is a toot with a little extra poop.  I went over to see the damages and it was a ton worse than I had suspected.  I came to find the green liquid diarrhea had filled up her diaper, came out the top of the diaper, up her back and had poured down all over the seat of the chair.  NASTY!!  Good thing Aaron was here to help me because this was truly a two person clean up job!!  At least she was sitting on the chair when it happened and not on the carpet!!  I am thankful for a full tub of disinfectant wipes because we needed them to wipe down everything a few times!!  YUCK!!  Hopefully, she has now gotten it out of her system, but with her you never know!

While Aaron and I were getting all the stuff to clean up her diarrhea mess Sarah whiled away her time doing this:

AWESOME!!  Princesses must have boogers, too.  I figure I will add this picture, too, just for blackmail purposes when she is 16 and has a boyfriend.  Haha I can't wait--poor girl!!

Noah has decided that sheets are for chumps.  Every night I lay him down for bed he rips his sheets and mattress pad off his bed and throws everything on to the floor.  The first few times I remade his bed only to come and check on him a few hours later to find all the sheets and mattress pad off his bed and back on the floor again.  I give up.  If he doesn't like sheets then he can sleep on the plain plastic mattress--poor kid, but what else can I do short of duct taping them on his bed?!

 It is a sad, sad day.  Noah has figured out how the climb on the kitchen table now.  We had to find a new place for the garbage can where Noah couldn't get to it.  It is now sitting on a barstool, but I am betting it won't be long until he can climb on that, too.  We have to keep him away from the garbage can because he throws everything in it.  When he is done drinking his sippy cup in the trash it goes it the trash is not put up.  Noah is starting to turn in to a stinker!  What am i going to do because I already have Sarah who is a big stinker, too?!

 

Wednesday the kids had no school so we decided to go somewhere fun.  Aaron had to work so I was on my own with all five kids--a daunting task!  We decided to go over to the Dinosaur Park.  We loaded everyone up in the car, drove over there only to find they were closed Wednesday because of the Thanksgiving holiday.  Since we couldn't go there we decided to try the Union Station Museums (aka the train museum as my kids call it).  They had their Christmas decorations up.  The kids liked watching the model train going around the Christmas tree.

 

The kids liked crawling up into the mock railroad car.



 They had a mural of a rail car with a couch in front of it.  That made it look like it whoever was sitting in it was part of the display:

After being inside we headed out side to look at the real life/size trains.  I was surprised that they let anyone and everyone climb on them.  We even got to see the inside of a restored post office rail train and the inside of an old restored hospital rail car.  That was interesting.  However, the kids just liked climbing and playing on the trains.

Noah was ok with hanging out in the stroller which was great for me since I only had to keep track of four wandering kids instead of five.

 

Sarah had to be like her brothers and climb on the trains, too.

 

Once Matthew found out there was Frontrunner tracks by the outside trains display, he spent the rest of his time waiting for the Frontrunner to drive by.

We have started trying to teach Noah how to use sign language to communicate.  He is starting to master the "more" sign.  Here he is signing more to get some more cereal.  The next sign to teach him will be for "drink".  This signing with him is bringing back so many memories because this is what we had to do with Matthew since he didn't start speaking until he was over 3 years old.  I am glad Noah is catching on so fast!

We had a good holiday weekend (minus the pica and diarrhea of course).  It will be hard to go back to reality tomorrow!  However, I must say I am very thankful for all my blessings!  There are so many to list.  It is nice to think about all my blessings especially when I am faced with some hard trials.  By looking at my blessings it helps me concentrate on the positives instead of the negatives!!

Difficult News, Special Chapstick, Homemade Shirts, Parent Teachers and Date Night

I have taken a while to update because I have been going through some internal turmoil after hearing what Matthew's teacher had to say in Parent teacher conferences.  We scheduled Matthew, Josh, and Daniel's parent teacher conferences all on the same day to keep things easy.  However, that morning I was having one of those days so I ended up sending Aaron to visit with everyone's teacher while I stayed home with all the kids.  It is easier that way than trying to bring all five kids to each appointment.  Josh and Daniel's appointments went great.  They are both doing well.  Josh needs to work on his handwriting.  Also both Josh and Daniel have a hard time listening to directions before starting their assignments.  After hearing that I knew we were talking about the same kids because they don't listen to directions from me either.  Other than that both Josh and Daniel are doing fantastic in their classes.  Matthew's appointment was later that evening.  Aaron left to go to the appointment while I fixed dinner for the kids.   When Aaron got home about an hour later he pulled me aside and told me how the appointment went.  I really like Matthew's school teacher this year.  I feel she has a good handle on things and is one of those teachers that really want what's best for Matthew.   She has gone above and beyond in trying to work with him.  For example Matthew was having a hard time sitting in his chair and keeping his feet on the floor.  To help him she went out and bought him a special desk to where he was forced into sitting with his feet on the floor.  I also feel she has a better understanding of autistic kids because she has an autistic 20 year old son herself.  That's why what she said came that much harder to hear.  She and the psychologist have been doing major testing on Matthew the last few months.  Any test that could be done they did it and the results all came out the same--the testing is showing that Matthew not only has autism, but he is now classified as intellectually disabled as well.  That means he is testing in the range of mentally handicapped or mentally retarded.  That means he can no longer be in the Learning Center anymore and will be downgraded into the Functional Skills unit because he is not progressing in the Learning Center anymore.  His teacher told Aaron that Matthew is the "Special Kid" in the Learning Center that the other Learning Center students had to help out.  Matthew teacher had a hard time telling Aaron this because she wanted the testing to turn out better, but it didn't work out.  Matthew is only functioning on about a 1st grade level with his understanding and he is not progressing much.  However, the funny thing with autism is, is he is above grade level in his math and ability to read, but everything else like comprehension, and basic understanding of what is being taught is extremely low.  Both Aaron and I have been dealing and grieving about this unexpected blow for the past week.  When I was in the hospital after having Daniel and having him being unexpectedly being sent to the NICU, the social worker came in to visit with me.  She told me something that has stayed with me.  She told me it was ok to mourn the loss of my "Gerber Baby Experience" which means it is ok to cry since my baby experience was not the "normal" happy, everything was perfect and I got to take my baby home with me when I left the hospital experience.  I think her advice applies to Matthew and his whole life.  Don't get me wrong we have celebrated all his successes, but along the way occasionally we find ourselves mourning the loss of our normal first born son or our "Gerber baby" experience. We are glad to have Matthew in our family because we have learned more from him than he will ever learn from us and, for that, I am thankful.  However, that doesn't make it an easier to hear that he is now labeled as not only autistic, but intellectually disabled as well.  Now trying to look on the bright side he won't be blended into the Functional Skills unit until next year.  His teacher also told us that by having him in the Functional Skills unit it will help him avoid a lot of the teasing and basically mean kids through Jr. High and high school.  It will also help him learn functional living skills which will help him be a little more independent when he gets older.  He will also have a lower student to teacher ratio in class, but the kids he will be in class with are not the typical kids he will be able to learn appropriate social skills from.  Aaron and I are trying to come to terms with this unexpected development, but it is like going through the grieving process all over again.  We are grieving the loss of opportunity of him becoming a lawyer, doctor or whatever dreams parents have for their children.  However, all I want for him is for him to be happy.  Thankfully right now he still has his happy disposition most of the time and is blissfully unaware of the emotional turmoil we are going through.  I know eventually Aaron and I will accept this and move forward, but for now we are still mourning this unexpected news we were so unprepared to hear.

In other happenings with some help from a friend I made these awesome tee shirts for Matthew that say, "I have AUTISM...what's YOUR excuse?":

I thought they would be great ice breakers and also help explain his often odd behavior to strangers.  It would have helped out on Halloween when he walked up to a stranger and got within inches of a lady's face and started blowing in it.  Aaron stopped him as soon as he saw what Matthew was doing, but they lady was just looking at Matthew wondering why he did that.  Aaron asked Matthew why he did that and Matthew said he just wanted to scare her since it was Halloween.  He scared her alright, but not the way he intended to--thus the reason for me making the shirts.  He wore them to school and his teachers loved it.  I thought they turned out cute, too.

We caught Sarah putting on some "Chapstick" that she had found the other day.  However, it wasn't really chapstick but a glue stick.  We were half hoping it would stick her lips together so she couldn't scream as loud, but that didn't happen ;).  I have no idea where she even got it from, but hopefully she won't find anymore special chapstick again!             

We were in the Herriman area Saturday so we decided to stop at the Up house.  It is a replica of the house in the movie Up and everything inside looks like it does in the movie.  It was fun to go and see.

Here's the kids in the living room:

The other day I was grocery shopping with Daniel, Sarah and Noah.  While I was shopping they were relatively good so on our way out I didn't stop Sarah when she wandered into the arcade.  I let Sarah and Daniel look around for a bit when Daniel reached into his pocket and conveniently found some money to buy something with.  He bought a gumball.  Since he got something Sarah wanted something.  Luckily I had a quarter in my purse.  I let her and Daniel take a ride on Pumba and they both loved it.  Of course Daniel was hamming it up for the camera:

Noah is turning into a little stinker.  Needless to say, Sarah is grooming him well.  Anyway, whenever he sees a computer out he heads on over to help type things whether we are there or not.  I caught him typing away with both his hands trying to be like mom and dad.  Good thing the computer was turned off because he can get into trouble that way.  I have sent out a few texts I didn't know about thanks to him.

In adding to our current trials and tribulations we also got a letter from Matthew's current psychiatrist saying that she is phasing out her private practice and that we will be needing to find a new provider soon.  Let me just say trying to find a provider who specializes with children and autism that we respect and like is hard to come by.  Also Josh had another seizure Sunday morning and this seizure was different than any other seizure he has had before.  After he had it he was not able to speak even though he was trying for a little bit afterward.  That was scary.  We do have an appointment with the neurologist, but not for another week and they can't get us in any earlier.  Talk about stress!!

Anyway, not to be so doom and gloom Jill came and stayed with us again Saturday night.  She was kind enough to let Aaron and I go out on a much needed date.  We went and played racquetball up on base.  That is a really fun game and a good stress reliever.  Aaron told me that I have to add he won two of our three games, too.  We then grabbed something to eat and then did a little bit of Christmas shopping.  It was such a nice break and came at a much needed time!  We were able to forget our troubles for a few hours which was fabulous--even if I horribly lost the racquetball game!

Why Babies Need a Dad and a Mom, Croup, Eating Batteries

I found out the other morning why babies need a dad and a mom!  Monday night all the kids were in bed except Noah.  We were waiting for Sarah to fall asleep before we put him in the same room with her.  About that time I left to go to the gym to work out.  I just assumed Aaron would change Noah into his pajamas and put him to bed.  Well I was right about the put him to bed part--but the pajama part not so much.  I was exhausted that night when I got home so I went straight to bed.  It wasn't until the next morning when I went to get Noah and Sarah out of their room that I found this:

Aaron put Noah to bed, but he was too busy watching football to find pajamas for him.  Aaron did at least change his diaper which was good.  However, Aaron just laid Noah down wearing only his onesie that never got snapped up in the crotch after Noah's diaper change.  I am assuming that sometime during the night Noah got bored and decided to rip his diaper off.  That meant the next morning, I went to find Noah fast asleep next to his diaper that wasn't on his bum with his naked butt sticking up with his legs tucked underneath him as well as a pee saturated sheet, blanket, onesie, etc.  YUCK!  Now I know why babies need a dad--it is to show the mom that it is ok to bend the rules once in a while and have kiddos not wear their actual pajamas to bed.  However, they do need a mom to tell the dad that if they do decide to lay the babies down in non pajamas they have to at least make sure they don't have quick access to their diapers--that is unless they want to change all the bedding the next morning!  However, I can't complain too much because Noah did sleep through the night without crying which is a big thing as of late!  Maybe sleeping "free" really is more comfortable...who knows?!

Sarah has to do the exact same thing as her brothers!!  We did up her seat belt today and she refused to put her arm under the seat belt.  Every time we would pull her arm through, she would take it back out.  We then realized she sees her three older brothers only wear shoulder belts and she wants to have just a shoulder belt car seat, too.  Only she isn't quite big enough for a shoulder belt car seat quite yet...I have a feeling we are going to be in for some big fights oh, I mean fun times ahead...      

 Daniel loves to draw me pictures.  I have so many that I have to secretly get rid of them.  One day Daniel caught one of his pictures in the trash.  He quickly pulled it out and came crying to me asking why I had thrown it away.  I had to quickly assure him (while my nose grew a foot) that his picture being in the trash must have been a mistake because I would never throw his awesome artwork in the trash...Please tell me I am not the only mom who does this!!  Anyway, he did have a spare minute this morning before school in which he drew me this sweet picture:

It is a picture of me and him and he wrote up at the top of it, "MOM FUM Daniel Mancil".  Let me interpret for you--he meant to spell out, 'To Mom, From Daniel Mancil'.  I love the pictures he draws.  He can be sweet.  I especially love that he put his full name on the picture thinking that I wouldn't know who just Daniel was.   What a funny kid!

We have to keep the kitchen garbage can on the kitchen table to keep it out of Noah's reach.  I know it is not the most appetizing thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  However, yesterday he figured out how to get on top of the table.  That is bad thing!!  He hasn't done it since, but if he can start crawling on top of the table none of our dishes will be safe.  Noah loves to throw everything from silverware and sippy cups to all kinds of toys in the trash.  Last week we forgot to put the trash can back up on the table after dinner.  It didn't take Noah long to get into it.  He ended up throwing his sippy full of milk away and then pulling out an empty diet root beer can out and walking around trying to drink it.  Good thing I caught it that time.  I am starting to run low on sippy cups and now I think I know why...at least he has good taste--I would rather drink root beer than milk any day!!

Our Wii remotes have really gotten a work out.  The rechargeable Wii remote batteries we bought for them no longer work so we have had to revert back to good ole traditional batteries.  However, since we had used the Wii rechargeable batteries we had thrown away the backs to the remotes.  That means the batteries are exposed.  This isn't that big of a deal unless you are Noah.  For some reason he LOVES to pop out the batteries and try to eat/suck on them.  I can't tell you how many times I have had to pull batteries out of his mouth.  I tell the kids to keep the remotes out of his reach, but of course they don't listen.  The bad thing is, is if they pick up a remote and it doesn't have both batteries in it, instead of trying to find the missing battery they just go and get a new one.  No wonder we never have any batteries when we need them!!  I am thinking that maybe the charge from the batteries is where Noah gets all his extra energy from--he really is the Energizer Bunny!  Maybe I should try sucking on batteries, too, then I could have some extra energy!

Noah was supposed to have his Early Intervention evaluation yesterday morning.  However, that morning Noah woke up with croup and felt pretty crappy.  We cancelled the appointment and will remake one when he is feeling better.  In the meantime his brothers are taking care of him.  Noah has quite the runny nose right now and every time the boys see it they will clean him up.  It is a sweet thing to see how his brothers watch out for him.

Signing, Visitors, Seizures, Nursery and Other Such Craziness

Last weekend Daniel brought home a stuffed monkey named Mr. Fuzzy Mono from Kindergarten.  He was supposed to take it around with him and then write/draw about his experience in his book.  He was then supposed to return it back to school Monday morning.  Well Monday morning was pretty chaotic and the kids were lucky they even made it out the door fully dressed and have eaten breakfast.  After I sent Josh and Daniel to the bus I was revelling in the quiet house after such a chaotic morning.  The revelling didn't last long because next thing I know Daniel came bursting through the door too upset to talk.  I was alarmed because I didn't know what had happened to him.  I finally coaxed out of him that he had forgotten to bring back Mr. Fuzzy Mono.  It was late enough that I didn't know if he had enough time to grab Mr. Fuzzy Mono and run back to the bus stop before the bus came.  I gave him the monkey and told him to come back if he missed the bus and that I would take him to school.  Daniel ran out the door and made it to our mailbox as he saw his bus drive by on its way to school.  I was watching from the window and I wished I had a camera to take a picture of his face.  He immediately went from being happy to extremely upset the second he saw his bus drive by him.  I started laughing because it was so funny.  Daniel made his way back to the front door and was quite distraught that he'd missed his bus.  I consoled him and quickly got everyone dressed in order to take him to school.  He made it in time before the late bell rang.  For everyone's sake I hope we don't see Mr. Fuzzy Mono again for a long time!!

This week we had an unexpected visit by Aunt Jill and cousin Sydney.  Jill came flew in Tuesday afternoon and stayed the week with us.  We gave her the whole basement and moved Josh and Daniel up to Matthew's room.  Having them in Matthew's room lasted all of five minutes before there was massive fighting.  We ended up moving Josh and Daniel into Sarah and Noah's room.  That lasted all of 20 minutes before there was mass chaos and jumping off the dressers onto Sarah's bed.  We then moved Josh and Daniel out of Sarah's room and into mine and Aaron's room to fall asleep in.  After they fell asleep we then moved them over to Sarah and Noah's room.  Of course having four children in one room I don't know how much sleeping actually happened.  They were up before the crack of dawn jumping off the dresser again.  I got up and started them getting ready for the day.  We all had to be ready to go to school by 8 am since it was Donuts with Mom day.  Miraculously after much chaos and headache we all were ready to go around 8 am including Jill and Sydney.  As we were heading out the door I had one major problem--I couldn't find my keys.  I looked everywhere.  Of course things were starting to get frantic because Josh and Daniel's bus had already left so they could only get to school if I drove them.  I finally gave up and called Aaron at work and told him to get home ASAP because I needed his keys.  About the time he got home I ended up finding my keys.  Aaron had borrowed them the night before and had put them in his shorts pocket then buried his shorts deep into the laundry basket and didn't tell me.  When I found my keys and cursed Aaron's name a few times we all hopped in the car and left.  We got the school in time to find out all the donuts were gone and the bell to start class rang.  I sighed because I really wanted to have donuts with my boys that morning.  Oh well, hopefully we can do it next year--and if they do Aaron will be banned from my keys so we can actually make it in time to get a donut!

The next night we decided to have Josh and Daniel sleep in our room on the floor thinking we would get more sleep.  Boy were we WRONG!!  Daniel coughed all night long because he needed a breathing treatment.  Aaron finally got up with him about 4 am and gave him a nebulizer treatment.  As they were settling back down Daniel needed snuggles with Dad so he was laying down with Aaron.  I put in my ear plugs so I could salvage what was left of the night for sleep.  That didn't last long until Aaron was punching me in the arm telling me to check on Josh.  I rolled over and heard the worst thing ever--Josh gagging and shaking.  I started calling out to Josh and he was not responding.  I yelled at Aaron to turn on the light to find Josh in the throws of a grand mal seizure.  I got out of bed and started timing it.  When it hit the two minute mark and he was still seizing I sent Aaron to find the emergency medication to stop the seizure.  If the seizure lasts longer than 5 minutes you HAVE to call 911 because it becomes life threatening at that point.  Luckily, the seizure stopped at 3 minutes, but not before Josh's lips had turned black from his lack of breathing.  That was one of the worst seizures I had ever seen him have.  Daniel was awake for it all and it really traumatized him because he had never seen Josh have a seizure before.  Daniel just sat on the bed and cried.  Of course Josh was unresponsive for about an hour during the post ictal phase of the seizure.  When he started coming around he was very confused and didn't know his name or how old he was.  He finally fell back asleep and then woke up right at 7 am.  Josh got up and went about his morning as if nothing had happened and as far as he knew nothing had happened.  I kept asking him how he felt because after something like that he had to feel awful.  I know Aaron said that after he has had a seizure he feels horrible.  He has a horrible headache, really sluggish and just plain bad.  Josh kept telling me he felt fine which got me scared.  Anyway I did feel a little better in talking to Aaron because we figured out that between the both of us, we had forgotten to give Josh his medication the night before.  We were hoping that that was the only reason why he had had a seizure.  To be on the safe side we had them sleep in our room again the next night.  Unfortunately the next morning we were awakened by Josh having a seizure again.  However, this seizure wasn't nearly as bad as the one the previous morning.  When Josh came out of it he was confused, but he reoriented quickly.  The next night he slept in our room, but he did not have a seizure.  I am hoping that it was just the missed medication that caused them.  However, to be on the safe side he does have a neurology appointment scheduled in two weeks.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't start having break through seizures during the day because that is how that awful week of his hospitalization started about 20 months ago.  We are praying hard that won't happen and everything will get back to normal.  Epilepsy can be so scary especially with him since his seizures are so hard to get under control!   We had him sleep in our room again last night and he did not have another seizure, but I was so keyed up that any noise he made I would flash a light on him to make sure he was ok.  That meant that no one really slept last night, either.  I am trying to decide which is better for no one to sleep with me checking on him every five minutes (which is bad for having seizures) or letting everyone sleep and hoping he doesn't have one.  There really is no ideal solution.  If only I didn't need to sleep...

Anyway on a lighter note we can't have Jill come to visit and not pull her share!  Thursday morning was garbage day and Aaron had forgotten to take the cans out to the curb.  I had forgotten about it to until I heard the garbage truck coming down the street.  I immediately stopped what I was doing and tried to find some shoes to wear to take the garbage cans out before the truck passed by our house.  I wasn't fast enough so Jill ran barefoot outside in freezing temperatures to stop the garbage truck in order to pick up our cans.  The garbage truck driver was gracious enough to wait for us to wheel out the cans.  However, we both had to come in and warm up our bare feet to keep from getting frost bite--brrrrrrrr!  I am sure we were a sight to see with our bed head, pajamas and bare feet.  How awesome are we?!

We have had a crazy week to say the least.  Sarah is keeping her artistic skills honed as you can see:

Unfortunately, I need to keep the pencils, markers and crayons out where the kids can reach them to do their homework.  Sarah knows where they are kept and helps herself whenever no one is looking.  Luckily I have discovered Magic Eraser which has cleaned off quite of her artistic masterpieces off many surfaces like the wall, counter top, table, etc.  Sarah is being a good sister and has showed her little brother the awesomeness of having a blank canvass called a wall that needs to be filled up with nice works of art.  I caught Noah with a pencil scribbling away on the wall in the kitchen.  **Sigh**  Needless to say and thanks to Sarah and Noah, I have used my Magic Eraser so much it will be time to pick up a new one soon.  Good thing I love my kids!

Noah and Sarah were playing chase in the kitchen.  Unfortunately, Noah was only wearing socks so when he started running away from Sarah he slipped and fell and did a face plant into the floor.  Aaron picked him up to give him loves and was surprised to see Noah had given himself his first bleeding nose.  Poor guy!

Since we are living in such tight quarters in this rent house, we are keeping close tabs on how fast they are building our new house.  We were out visiting the new house and talking with the builders.  One of the builders brings his dog to the site and Josh loves to play with him.  This last visit we didn't wash Josh's hands before he rubbed his eyes.  His eyes almost swelled shut because he is so allergic to dogs.  This picture was taken a few hours after he had gotten a dose of Benadryl and a dose of Loratadine and his eyes had gone down in puffiness, but still looked awful.  I still had to give him another dose of Loratadine in the morning because his eyes were still plenty puffy the next morning, too.  Josh loves animals so much, but he seems to be allergic to them all... poor guy!

Speaking of the house here is the latest picture.  They are supposed to finish all the framing today as well as put in all the windows.  I am excited to actually see the form of a house now.  I can hardly wait to move!!  Aaron is doing a house building blog so you can see all the rest of the detailed pictures here.

Saturday night Aaron got some awesome tickets to a BYU football game.  Josh has been wanting to go for a long time so Aaron decided to take him.  The tickets were really good seats that were really close to the field.  They got down to the game early so they could look around at all the pre game show activities going on.  Even though it was freezing cold Aaron and Josh LOVED every minute of it!!

Here's Josh swinging on the railing that was close to their seats watching the game.

I guess it is all fun and games until someone runs out of gas.  The game was such a one sided victory for BYU that Aaron didn't feel bad leaving early in the second half of the game to bring a tired Josh boy home to his actual bed.

I have been holding off on taking Noah to nursery even though he turned 19 months old over a week ago.  I am sad he is my last baby and I am not ready to go to Relief Society without him.  Unfortunately, Aaron's views are different.  Aaron is tired of being wallered by Noah all during Sunday School so he put his foot down yesterday and MADE me take him to nursery :(.  Noah was not very happy to be handed off to a stranger so Aaron hung around the nursery room most of Priesthood and Sunday School.  Noah did ok up until it was time to clean up the toys.  When he had to give up his toy cars he got pretty upset.  Aaron had to take him out to console him.  I did miss my little man during Relief Society, but he needed to go at some point even if I didn't want him too quite yet...speaking of church what a crazy day yesterday during Sacrament Meeting!  For some reason every week Sarah likes to go out in the aisle, hold onto the bench and jump.  I have no idea why she feels the need to do this, but she does it anyway.  While she was doing her jumping the bread came around.  I told her if she wanted a piece of bread she had to come sit down.  Since Sarah loves food she quickly obliged.  Now as the tray of bread came within her reach I told her numerous times, "Just one piece.  Just take one piece.  Just take one piece."  Of course Sarah was just Sarah and grabbed a handful.  I was quick enough to pry most the bread out of her fingers, but she was able to hold on to two pieces.  When she saw her good fortune of seeing her two pieces she announced it to everyone, "I GOT TWO PIECES!!"  She then shoved them into her mouth before I could take any more away from her.  As for Noah, he is at the I want to wander around and not sit still stage so he tries to sneak out of the bench every chance he gets.  While we were listening to the speakers (as much as you can with five squirmy kids), Daniel called out to me to tell me something.  Noah took advantage of my lapse of supervision and booked it out into the aisle.  He wandered up a few benches and was looking at everyone.  I started to stand up to get him when Sarah decided to be the helpful sister and daughter.  She ran out and grabbed him before I could get to him.  In her haste she knocked Noah down and on his way down to the ground he smacked his head into the bench.  Sarah's momentum knocked her down and she ended up falling right on top of him.  Of course this happened during the sacrament so it was pretty quiet until they both started screaming and crying.  I had to run up and grab them both while they were screaming and then take them out into the foyer.  Fun times!  Yesterday was Fast Sunday so of course it was testimony meeting--Matthew's most favorite meeting of the month because he gets to speak in the microphone.  Now for some reason he has it in his head that he NEEDS to be the first one up to the pulpit every month.  Now before he goes up I make him tell me what he is going to say in the microphone to make sure it is appropriate.  Well in his haste to be the first one up to the microphone he bypassed me and ran up the aisle.  I held my breath when he got up to the microphone because you never know what will come out of his mouth.  Luckily for me he just bore his testimony about how we need to be honest.  Phew!  I breathed a sigh of relief after he came running down the aisle while flapping his hands to sit down.  Of course Josh and Daniel had to get up as well.  Josh bore his testimony about his remainder (I think he meant Redeemer).  Daniel had to wait his turn to bear his testimony, but don't worry he passed the time while picking his nose.  Ewwwwww!!  When he got his turn he spoke so fast it was hard to hear what he said.  Gotta love Fast and Testimony meeting with kids!  Here is Noah after we got home from church none the worse for wear after going to nursery and being tackled by Sarah during Sacrament Meeting.

For Halloween one of the kids came home with a Warhead candy.  Daniel had never tried one before so I let him try it out while I recorded him.  He had no idea they were so sour, but I made him finish it for my own amusement.  What a mean Mom I am!

As for Matthew he is doing great so far this year in school.  He has a fabulous teacher who actually wants him do succeed as much as we do which is AWESOME!!  Now Matthew has struggled with his handwriting ever since he has been writing.  His teacher the two years previous was really strict about what she expected in the handwriting department.  If his handwriting wasn't up to her standards she would erase his whole assignments and make him redo them.  This caused many meltdowns as you can imagine.  Thankfully his teacher this year decided to try something different.  She thinks that Matthew lacks the muscle development and strength in his hands to hold a pencil correctly in order to have good handwriting.  To fix this he has started Occupational Therapy at school.  Hopefully we can start seeing an improvement in his handwriting soon.

In speaking of kids with problems, Noah is extremely delayed in his speech.  He only has three words at this point which are Stop it, What, and Tickle tickle.  However, I am not worried about autism with Noah because Noah is very socially appropriate which is a relief!  We have an evaluation with Early Intervention tomorrow to see if he qualifies for services.  Unfortunately, I have had experience with them before with Matthew.  I guess that is good because I know what to expect if he does qualify for services.  I have started signing with him and he is starting to learn the sign language sign for more.  Hopefully his speech comes sooner than Matthew's did, but until it does I hope he learns signing quickly so he can at least communicate his wants with us.  I never knew parenting was going to be so HARD!!  Even if I did know how hard it would be I wouldn't change anything...even after I have to sacrifice my sleep, clean up marker and pencil off of multiple surfaces daily and clean up bleeding noses...

Family Pictures, Embarrassing Moment and the New House Blog

We got our Fall family pictures taken by a friend last Saturday.  Luckily, even thought it was overcast, it did not rain while we were taking the pictures.  Unfortunately, it was a little on the cold side temperature wise.  Everyone did well with the coolness except Matthew who would love to live in an inferno if he had the choice.  He likes his temperature HOT.  Anyway, of course with 7 active people you have a hard time getting everyone to cooperate in each picture.  This candid picture is one of my favorites because it shows what our typical family life is like...Josh is over goofing off on the rock that we told him not to climb on.  Noah is screaming because Aaron is holding him (he is a momma's boy through and through!!).  Sarah and Daniel are playing around and happened to look up when the picture was snapped.  Matthew is complaining that it's too cold and he wants his hot chocolate.  The best part is Aaron and I are trying to have a conversation, oblivious of what chaos is going on around us.  This picture captured our family life perfectly and I LOVE it because of that very reason!

Here's the same picture from a different angle a few seconds later.  If you notice nothing has really changed.  Chaos is a constant in our lives!!

 Even with all the chaos, Emily got some good pictures.  Here's Mr. GQ Matthew.  If he was distracted with posing for the picture it got his mind off the coolness of the temperature for five seconds and he could actually smile.

 Josh is at the punk phase that anything we attempt like picture taking is not fun and he tries to let everyone know.  Getting him to smile decently was like pulling teeth.  He did give a partial smile/smirk for this picture, though:

 This picture I was telling him a joke which got his mind off the picture taking long enough to crack a smile even if he isn't looking at the camera.

 Sarah was more than happy to get posed and her pictures taken which was a relief!

 Daniel is a camera hog and kept asking Emily to take all kinds of pictures just of him. 

Have I mentioned that Noah is an extreme Momma's boy?!  I attempted to put him down to get his picture taken and he immediately started crying to show his displeasure.

He would only smile if he was in my arms. 

However, we did witness a miracle.  He allowed me to put him down for five seconds without crying which was long enough to get this picture:  (miracles still do happen!)

Of course trying to get 7 people to look at the camera all at the same time proved to be Mission Impossible!!  We still attempted it and got pretty close. 

Again, Josh has entered that punk phase again....and Noah is not happy about sitting on Aaron's lap.

This one 6 of the seven are looking at the camera (because Aaron is in the middle of threatening them as you can see by his mouth) and it turned out great.  Josh is even smiling--see miracles happen!!

In this picture everyone is looking at the camera and it turned out good. 

This turned out great minus punk Josh boy who was getting tired of taking pictures at this point.

 We got some couples pictures because we hadn't gotten some for a bit.  Again we were trying to ignore the mass chaos that was going on around us. 

 I think Fall is a great time to take pictures!  I love the fall colors.  Again we put on our happy faces and ignored the mass chaos and screaming around us.

Later on we moved over to the playground to take some fun pictures.  Here's Daniel the ultimate poser:

 Punk Josh did not want to go down the slide to take a picture and his face shows it all--the little turd!!

 Noah did NOT want to go down the slide, but Aaron sent him down anyway.  He made his unhappiness WELL known for a while afterwards!

 Matthew was very cooperative--thank goodness!

 Sarah was too busy playing to pause to look at the camera and smile.  At least you can tell she is smiling!

All in all it was a good day.  We got some awesome pictures and I want to thank Emily for her time in doing them.  Hopefully, she doesn't think our family is too crazy and chaotic!  One embarrassing moment of the day happened as we were walking across the park.  Daniel and Josh were arguing about something when Daniel got frustrated.  He then turned toward Josh while pointing at himself with his two thumbs and yelled, "WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND DOESN'T GIVE A CRAP?  ME!!"  So much for keeping up our perfect family facade--however, I don't think we had much of a facade going on anyway for anyone who has shared a sacrament meeting with our family...Gotta love kids when they forget to turn on their boy I shouldn't say this in front of company filter.

As for our house, it is coming along.  Aaron has been fascinated by the building process and has visited the site at least once a day.  To show all the progress through pictures he has started The Mancil Family House blog.  If you want to see the progress of our house here's the link:

http://themancilfamilyhouse.blogspot.com/

It should be completed around the end of January/beginning of February--not soon enough for me since Noah had another sleepless night again last night...the new house can't be done soon enough!!