this is why i love my kid.

they can drive me nuts through the day fighting and whining, and making  ABSOLUTE mess of the house, having temper tantrums over sensory issues, being cranky from lack of sleep etc.

But today, she had a fairly decent day, though she was whiney and cranky from the heat….then after a lovelery swim in the pond we come home hungry and the girl makes her own supper wth some help… a can of alphabet noodles.

In the middle if eating she asks “can I borrow your DSi for a minute?” I say ya, but give it right back. She did, and I never looked until just a few minutes go to what she wanted to take a picture of… and this is what she borrowed it for!

All nighter drive in weekend.

Our local drive in is wonderful, I love it there…laid back, a fun park for the kids, and NEW released movies for a GREAT price. the second you drive in the gate you go back 20 years.

The playground it all the old wooden and metal slides, and teeter totters, and old swings. the kind you could get a splinter from, or a cut from the painted over rust on the sides of the slide.. it’s GREAT Survival of the fittest We survived…I’m not into raising wimps

On the Victoria Day weekend they always have an all nighter, 4 movies back to back.

the boy being 5 still gets in for free, and the girl cub is $3….so it’s a good bang for our limited buck.

We don’t have a lot of funds for entertainment, in fact the internet is what we consider our entertainment fund, and we try to do a lot of stuff for as cheap as possible or free ( and a bit of gas money), but we always try to swing going to the all nighter.

We spent the last of our money this month ( save some gas for the kids swim glasses midweek) to go to the all nighter…Sadly… it almost didn’t happen because CFShubby (The mundane one) was in so much pain going, the idea of being cramped in a car for almost 12 hours between going and being there and getting home, we had a bit of a meltdown from frustration before we left. Living with CFS is not easy for anyone.He was too sore… I was frustrated at the idea of him not being able to go. I’m a problem solver, so I was trying to come up with ideas to make it better for him and didn’t want him to miss it & The kids would be dissapointed if we didn’t go. HE was crabby because my ideas were none that appealed to him ( thought he is a bit stubborn, and sometimes I think if he at least TRIED the idea, it might work. shhh)

He came with us….and made it through…but it is pretty bad when he can’t even do these things as well anymore. It’s a whole other blog post, but I’m so tired of my husband’s life being limited to coming to the living room to try and play some video games with the kids for a few hours before needing to crash again.

Anyway…for $23 ( and the gas there) we saw 4 new movies. Shrek 4, Iron Man 2, Clash of the titans, and She’s out of my league.

I tolerated but chuckled in a few places at Shrek 4.. it actually has a real good moral lesson to ADULTS who gripe to much about their lives( so basically all of Twitter)

Iron man 2 was good….I enjoyed it…except for the bathroom trips with each kid, and therefore missing some of the best action scenes. RDJ is hot as usual as Tony Stark…but I much preferred him in Sherlock Holmes. ( glad there is another one in the making )

Clash of the titans.. I didn’t watch, I mostly dozed through it…too much mumbly dialogue…thick accents for my CAPD and it was going on 3 am…. no ADHD meds left in me, and not entertaining enough for my attention span at that hour.

She’s out of my League.. was actually what I’d have to stick in the category of “good” and though I would not pay a full theatre price to see a basic, typical boy gets girl, boy loses girl” romantic comedy…if you do get the opportunity to see it for cheap, or rent when it comes on DVD, it is worth the watch just for the one HILARIOUS shaving scene…it by far tops the 40 year old virgin waxing scene

We got home as the sun was coming up, and I made breakfast for everyone, as I watched the birds and the chimpmunk living in our wood pile wake for the morning get breakfast too. I watched a Starling steal hay from our bales we put around the house in the winter, and take them up to a tree and add it to it’s nest.Then we all crashed in bed exhausted.

It’s going to be a short, kind of lazy day. It’s like Sunday to us today being the holiday weekend.

You know, it doesn’t matter how long it has been, or how far apart you are, or the things that have gone on in the past…True family is always there for you when you need them.

That family can be blood family, friendship family, neighbor family, or community family…one thing I have learned in our life with each of us having differing needs and disabilities, is just that.

I may bitch a LOT to get through the everyday stress…this is kinda what this blog is for…but I am very blessed in my life because of the true family and support I have in my life.

I told my mom and dad about the waiting for an audiologist test for the boy, from my mom’s asking on my FB wall the other day about his CAPD ( Central Auditory Processing)

Today I did some calling around to find out about alternate ways to get him tested faster.

I’ve been waiting for months to even HEAR anything back about a future date for the OHIP covered testing at the hospital in the city. My Nurse Prac. is not taking me seriously and the boy’s hearing is getting worse, he is loosing /not developing consanant sounds in his talking, is talking more “cotton mouth” like a deaf person with the soft pronouncing of his words, much like my dad did/does, and he is getting very frustrated when he tries to communicate with people. I’m seeing that “i don’t know what you just said, but I’ll smile and nod anyway” look on his face, that my dad often had in those situations.
I’ve asked twice if the referral has gone through because I have not heard anything yet and i felt that she got annoyed with me for being over worried and impatient. “there’s a process, these things take time” instead of just saying, “I see you are concerned, I’ll look into it for you.”

i’m SO SICK of this woman not taking my family’s issues serious. I’m trying to find a new health care provider, but so far no one can take us, and anyone in the county who is available refused us because we are HER patients, and they are on the same health care team, and they won’t take patients away from each other.
So anyway, I had called an audiologist and asked some questions…enquired about cost, coverage etc… it was SO REFRESHING to talk to someone who BELEIVED me when I told him my concerns and the signs my boy shows of CAPD. They squeezed us in for ASAP, and he said, “if you grew up with a deaf parent, and have mild CAPD yourself, NO health practitioner should be minimizing your concerns with him fulfilling ALL of the preliminary criteria for CAPD.”

So, on the off chance I can’t get the testing covered by our Disability, I had written my mom an email and asked if they’d loan me the money to get a hearing test on our own faster. My dad has been essentially deaf even with two hearing aids since I was 9…he had a cochlear implant at 55years old, and got back 65 percent of his hearing! He heard bacon fry for the first time in nearly 30 years when he was 55 years old.  I can TALK ON THE PHONE with my deaf father. we now call him bionic Poppy, because he has digital ears technically. He can “turn his ears off” and be completly deaf when he is not hooked up to his implant. He says he sleeps REALLY WELLlo.. anyway…i’m getting sidetracked…

When I got home from swim class with the kids, my mom had emailed me back and said “of course, we know how worried you are, as are we with the family history of nerve deafness, and no we don’t want the money back.we’re glad to help. All you need to do is ask!”

So I have an appointment for the boy with an audiologist on June 21st.  It’s a day trip, in a farther away city, but I don’t care. I’m hoping for good weather and a good health day for hubby, and i’ll pack a picnic, and we’ll make a day of it. At the appointment, he’ll get the full testing needed. A physical hearing test, the newborn screening nerve test they did when he was born ( which he technically “failed” because they did not get a reading, and the midwife assumed that meant her device was broken), and then the test with probes on his ears and head to see what he processes from ear to brain, while engaging in typical conversation/play and talking during background noise etc.

My dad  knows what it is like to live without hearing well and growing deaf and he doesn’t want that for his grandson. He’s too smart a boy to be held back by any level of deafness. When I told my 5 year old about getting his ears tested, he was genuinely happy, and said he’s wanted his hearing tested, because he can’t understand people when they are too loud to him, and he can’t hear me when the disswasher is running, or when daddy is talking”.

This is a BIG deal for me…My parents are not well off by ANY means…. they get by on my father’s disability pension for his deafness & arthritis from a school board as a bus driver, and my mom works part time giving samples in a grocery store like they do at costco, and kills herself physically doing it…so for them to just give us the money, no questions asked, means A LOT to me!

you have NO idea how relieved I am right now! I’m sittin’ here with tears streaming down my face!

I let the kids write on the front of the dishwasher with white board dry erase markers.

This is the most recent note my 9 yo daughter left me

( i played with it in irfanview, because the actual picture was rather dark)

Apparently she doesn’t love me on friday and saturdays.. when I asked her about that joking aroung, she said that of course she did, but I already knew that, cause Fridays is Family fun night, and Saturdays I let her play with her friends

(click the picture to enlarge it so you can read the easel)

On the side of our house that people see most when walking past on the small piece ( and only sidewalk) in our little hamlet, there is a “flower bed” that was there when we moved in. it had nothing but dirt and some crappy low weedy plants in it. It was more of a dumping ground.

The Girl cub claimed it as her flower bed, and this year she sprinkled wild flower mix in there, a few misc bulbs from other places in the yard we removed them from.

Late last fall I tore up a peonie bush that was poorly placed on the other side of the house under the bathroom window and just tossed it in there…it was cold, and I said. “well I guess it’ll take or it won’t, let just see.”

Well it rooted, and it’s growing and soon there will be peonies there. which she is delighted by.

I’ve noticed that the walls don’t contain the lily of the valley she transplanted in it, and the clover grass is growing through the holes in the walls of the wood. To keep the wood edging clear, when I walk by I pick out the grass growth. But I smile when I walk by that side to cut the grass, because it was nothing before, and it’s growing into a little while and crazy, beautiful bed of flowers that she loves and waters diligently ( too much).

So the saying on the sign just came to me this afternoon, so I grabbed some chalk and wrote it down on her easle and stuck it in her garden.

For those of you who don’t know I started a “blackboard blessings” last year in my front window, to thank a neighbour for the mystery gift that was left at my door, and now I make new signs on a rotating semi regular basis of quotes or what I’m thinking, or what I feel blessed by.

So this is the sign out side in that flower bed. I’m going to make a “permanent blackboard” for that flower bed with the sign, because since it spilled rain while I was out this evening , the writing it gone now of the easel