2nd Day Confusion...

I admit that it has been hard for me to let Allan go. I keep thinking that I know I cannot just walk him to class every day, but at the same time; how do I just drop him off at the door and let him walk into the school all alone and take himself to class? I realize this makes me sound like a crazy person, but it has been on my mind. Rich walked him to class yesterday for his 2nd day of school because he wanted to meet his teacher and see his classroom. Allan showed him that he knew exactly where to go and that we would not have to worry anymore. It made me feel better about it all.
The day dragged on forever, even though we had a lot of things to do to get our bills paid. We went to pick up Rich's check, went to the bank, paid our van payment, took Aaron out for lunch and then did our shopping. I still had almost two hours before it was time to go pick him up. Aaron took his nap and I ended up leaving ten minutes before I had to for us to walk and get Allan lol. We had to wait 15 minutes outside the school. Then it was 3:20 before Allan's class ever came out! I saw his teacher finally and like 7 or so kids in the line, but no Allan.
She asked who I was there to pick up and I told her. She looked and realized he was not in the line. She said "Oh no! I bet he went in the bus riders line!" She turned to go in the school to find him. Just as she did this, he came out the door. She asked him what happened and he told her he did not know where she was. She told him how important it was for him to pay attention and to be in the right line and always watch to see where she is and know where to go. Then she told him he gave her and his mommy a heart attack! The whole incident was maybe like two or three minutes. I was relieved that he came right out and everything was fine.
I have had a talk with him again about how important it is to pay attention to his teacher and to do what she tells him to. He said he was just in the classroom I guess and did not realize everyone left. I just think it is crazy how worried I was about him finding his classroom that I never thought there would be a possibility that he did not come out when he was supposed to! I realize it was just a mix up and that it was only the 2nd day. It will be better once he gets into the routine and knows what to expect while at school. I am just glad I did not overreact at all or get upset. I did get worried for that split second before he walked out the door but I really did not think he would have gotten on a bus.

My kindergartener!

Today was Allan's first day of kindergarten! I was really proud of him this morning. He woke right up when the alarm went off and did everything I asked him to do to get ready for school. He was so excited about packing his lunch. He even let me take a picture of him without getting mad at me lol. I did offer him a piece of gum for letting me do it. The kid hates pictures!
Here is my kindergartener getting ready to walk to school:


Aaron did not want to be left out:

I went with him for the first hour. It was mostly the kids coloring while the parents all had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. His teacher's name is Mrs. Pierron. She read the kids a story and then they did a little hand print activity with the parents. Then it was time for parents to leave. At first Allan looked a little sad but then he heard the teacher say they were going to go on a tour of the school and then play outside. He gave me a huge hug, a million kisses and then I walked out the door. I was pretty sad about it. Especially because there was another boy in there crying when his mom left.

On another note, I started back to school too. I think I'm going to do well in my first class. Time will tell!

Learning Teams!

My academic adviser told me that it would be smart to take a couple workshops this week before starting in on my class next week. I agreed, so I am taking two of them.
Each one is only 3 days long. One is basically understanding the similarities between going for an Associate's Degree and a Bachelor's Degree. The other is about Learning Teams.
I'm starting to be a little nervous about working with a Learning Team. Basically, I will be working with 2-4 other students in each class to complete assignments. Of course there will be work I have to do on my own, but there will be quite a bit that I have to do with the Learning Team. It counts for 30% of my grade. Basically, the work I do in the class can potentially affect 30% of someone else's grade in that class, and that 30% of my grade will be based on work someone else will do in the class. That is quite a bit of responsibility! It will also take a lot of effective communication and trust in total strangers with whom I only communicate with online to do well in each class.
It is overwhelming to think about but I think it might get better once I am actually in the class and actually involved in the team work. Pretty much I have a case of fear of the unknown right now lol.

Back to college I go!

Next Tuesday I will be back in school. One week before Allan starts kindergarten. In a way, I'm looking forward to going back because it will give me something productive to do during Aaron's nap time. At the same time, I remember how stressful it was the first time. For my bachelor's degree I'm going for Human Resource Development. I will only have to take one class at a time instead of two and each class will be 5 weeks instead of 9.
With there only being a week before my class starts I was hoping it would show up on my student website by now. I'd like to get a glimpse of what I'm getting into so that I can prepare for it. I'm a little nervous about working with learning teams though because I have heard both good and bad things about it. Basically I will be working on projects with a group of other students and if one person does not do their part it affects the entire team's grade. For my Associate's degree I never had to work with learning teams. I realize a big thing about it is communication and the best way to be good at communication is to be in a situation where you have to rely on other people and work as a team. I'm just a little nervous about it.
I'm sure I'll be a little stressed next week trying to get back in the swing of things but I know that no matter what, everything will work out.
I've always done well in school and even though college is a lot harder than high school was, I still got good grades and did really well. I think it is a little more difficult to do online college than it would be to go to a campus. Mainly the fact that it is up to me to do what I have to do. I have to be motivated to get my work done and do it on time. There is no one there to tell me what to do. It is all up to me to get online, do the reading and follow my course syllabus.
Some nights I remember just sitting here staring at the computer screen knowing how tired I was but that I needed to get my work done. To be successful in an online college a person has to have motivation to stick with it and do what needs to bed done. If I didn't know that I'd stick with it and give 100% to my work than I never would have went in debt for the tuition lol. I feel really good about how far I've come.

PCOS

I posted before about starting to take Zoloft for my anxiety. I actually think in the week I have been on it that I am starting to notice a difference. I'm not so nervous at night and I do not jump at every little noise. I go to bed and do not toss and turn as much and worry about all the "what ifs" that can happen in the middle of the night.
As much as I hate having to take medicine, I realize that I need to and that if I want to be a normal person I'm going to just have to deal with the fact that I need help. I cannot control my anxiety/depression on my own as much as I want to. Being so afraid and nervous all the time was causing me to go into a depression and until I've noticed a change in myself the last few days, I did not realize I even had depression.
Today I got really down again though. After all the thoughts I had last night about being a mom and everything it has taken for me to have my babies I still had some sadness left over this morning. When I got the mail there was a letter from my doctor. I have been told in the past that there is a possibility that I have PCOS, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. I was never really tested for it, but I pretty much thought it is what I had after researching about it.
The letter today confirmed it for sure. Now I have to start taking another medicine every day. All my tests were completely normal except for my insulin levels. It is due to my PCOS. Now after hating the idea of being on medicine at all I am going to have to take a total of three pills a day. The Metformin they gave me has to be taken twice a day.
I really don't know what the big deal is to me about taking medicine. I just don't like having to I guess. I'm going to do what I need to though to get myself healthy. I need to do this not only for myself, but for my kids. They deserve a mom who can give them 100% and if I'm letting my anxiety control my life and not doing something about my other health problems, than I am not doing what I need to for them.
I didn't really mean for these past few blog posts to be all down and negative. It just helps me to get my thoughts down. Tomorrow is a new day, it is also payday. I have a fun weekend planned and hopefully I can put all this negativity away for now and enjoy my time.

Don't know where this came from...

This is something that I have not really talked to Rich about. Not that I don't think he would be supportive, because I know he would. It is just something I have kept to myself. If people read it, or even if he does, that is fine because I can better explain myself by writing anyway. It's not like I'm trying to keep it a secret, I just don't want people to tell me "not to let things get to me."
Most people that know me knows I had to take fertility drugs to get pregnant with Allan. Rich and I tried for two years and I could not get pregnant. I did not ovulate. My first, 2nd and 3rd ultrasounds showed twins. Rich and I got to hear two separate heartbeats and dream of what it would be like to have two babies. That third time I went in for my ultrasound, one twin was much bigger than the other. I asked the U/S tech if that was normal and why it would be that way. She told me she was sorry but there was no longer a heartbeat for my other baby.
That took me a lot longer to get over than I think anyone actually realized. Of course Rich and my family were all upset too, but it affected me for a long time. I hated people telling me "At least you still have one baby." The does not make losing my other baby any easier. My pregnancy was considered high risk after that. I was told there was a chance I could lose Allan too. Allan also had heart arrhythmia. Luckily he outgrew it a few weeks before he was born.
When Allan was a year and a half I got back on fertility medicine. Rich and I wanted another baby. It did not work this time. Even after seeing a specialist I was told I would not be able to have anymore babies. What a surprise when I found out almost a year later that I had gotten pregnant again! I consider Aaron a true miracle. I had no fertility treatments or anything. It happened naturally.
All those years of not being able to have a baby, losing a baby, then having a baby, and then being told I never would have another and finally having another was a major up and down roller coaster ride for me. I'm sure it was for Rich also, but he does not express his feelings the way I do. We had many many discussions about whether I should get my tubes tied or not. I felt like I should because of everything we had been through. I did not want to have to go through it anymore. I did not ever want to have a C-Section again. I felt like financially it was a good choice to make as well. It is not cheap to raise a child! LOL. I also felt that it would be better to only have two children to divide my attention between. There were many many reasons Rich and I made our decision and I know we made the right one.
Even after all of this, there are times when it just hits me out of nowhere that I will never be pregnant again. I'll never have another baby. Aaron is already almost 2, Allan is 5. Of course they still need me, but for the most part they are pretty independent. I just have times where I get really sad about the idea of not having anymore kids. Do I regret getting my tubes tied? No, absolutely not. I still stand by all of those reasons I made my decision. If I could go back in time, I would still have done the same thing. I know I made the right choice.
I still get sad over it sometimes though. It just hits me sometimes that as much as I wanted to be a mom before I was one, as hurt as I felt when I had such trouble and as much as I grieved over losing Allan's twin; I still made the choice to never have a baby again. Maybe no one really understands how I can say I'm sad about a choice I made that I don't regret making. It is hard for me to even understand or explain. This is why I'm letting it all out here instead of trying to explain it to someone else.
Tonight was just a tough night for me emotionally. I babysat for Lilly and after she and both my boys went to sleep I just had too much time on my hands to think.

Mommy brag!

I'm the kind of mom who makes a big deal out of all the cute things my kids do. I can't help it, it's just who I am. I've probably blown up the news feed on facebook more than I should about posts about my kids, but I don't care.
Today I was drawing with Allan and Aaron and Aaron was scribbling like a crazy man. So I took his hand and showed him how to make a circle. I showed him a few times and instead of scribbling back and forth like he had been, he scribbled circles all over the paper.
I just really thought it was neat :) Here are Aaron's circles :

New way to cool off!

The boys have a new way to cool off lol. It is kind of hard to have a pool when you live in an apartment. I never thought about putting a small one on our patio! My mom gave me a pool for the boys. It's pretty small though and not a whole lot of room for both of them, but it will work until we can get them a little bit bigger one.
They played in it for an hour today lol. Allan played in it during the time Aaron napped too.


Rich and I have started talking about the idea of getting a house. Our lease here is not up until November and no way will we move in the winter (or in the middle of the school year for that matter) I'm thinking it will be at least another year or so before we would get serious about looking for another place. When we do move I want it to be somewhere that we can stay for many years. Allan has pretty much grown up in Hollybrook though lol. We've lived here since he was two years old. We did move out for just a couple months before but came right back here.
I just know that eventually the boys are going to need their own bedrooms. Right now it is fine for them to share but they are not going to be this young forever. In all honesty I don't think they would like being separated right now. They are really close. This is all just in the thinking stages anyway. Nothing is definite yet. There is no law saying that kids cannot share a bedroom. Plus I am happy here.
If we do move, I am going to be picky about it. It needs to be somewhere close enough to Allan's school that I can walk him there and back. I'm not taking him out of the school district he is in. I moved around to different Elementary schools growing up and it was not easy. Not easy to be the "new kid," not easy to make new friends and not easy to leave the friends behind you had before. People have their opinions about Taft but Allan really liked it there and as long as he is happy I'm not going to take him to a different school.
I guess I'm really just rambling. I tend to do that lol.

Medication...

I've never been the type of person to go to the doctor unless it's really bad (like ER worthy.) Of course I did when I was pregnant and I go to my yearly check ups with my OB but other than that, I don't.
I've had depression on and off since I was a teen. It is hereditary in my family. I don't really feel like I am in a depression, but I do know I have anxiety and that it is getting worse. I just feel nervous all the time. I get real shaky and panic over dumb things.
The past few months my mom keeps telling me I need to just go have a check up done. I need to talk to the doctor about my anxiety. No! I hate going to the doctor. The only reason I go to my yearly OB visit is because ovarian cancer runs in my family and I also have issues with my ovaries. (Sorry if TMI, but I'm not even sure if anyone reads my blog lol)

Anyway. So I go today and tell her about my anxiety. She wants me on Zoloft. She says it will treat anxiety and depression both because they tend to go hand in hand. Tonight is my first dose. UGH. Rich is on so much medicine and I never have had to take medicine every day. It's going to be hard to get used to. I just hope it helps me like it is supposed to.
It will be nice to not be so nervous all the time. It is hard to really even explain how I feel. It's like my body starts shaking but if you look at my hands, they are still. She also did routine blood work for other things and I have to go back in a month.
Oh well. I know I need to stay healthy and take better care of myself. I just hate medicine. I'm glad I have such a good doctor though who I am comfortable with. There is no real point to this blog post I guess. Just wanted to get my thoughts out there.

Our Summer So Far...

Our summer has had it's ups and downs but overall we have done a lot of fun things. 
It started after Allan's last day of preschool. It was really neat to compare the picture I took of him on his first day with the one I took of him on his last. It is amazing how much he has grown and learned this year. He blew them away at his kindergarten registration with how smart he is. He is reading very advanced, already at a reading level 4. By the end of kindergarten he is supposed to be at a 6. I am just really proud of him. He never stops surprising me.

 I also fixed up my flower garden. Allan and I did it one day while Rich and Aaron napped. I really liked the way it turned out. I need to get another picture of what it looks like now with all my new blooms. It looks really nice :)

The next big event of our summer was his 5th birthday party. He decided on a Mario theme. He had such a great party. Everything turned out really well and it was a lot of fun. It is hard to believe he is 5 years old. We ordered pizza from Little Caesars for everyone and of course there was cake and ice cream. 

 

We have also been super busy doing other things. We joined the summer reading club at the library. We go there at least twice a week, sometimes more. We have a season pass to the zoo and to COSI. I'm still waning to make it hiking at some point and to go to the beach and also to Marblehead. There are so many things we have still that we want to do. We are finally able to do these things because we got a new van. 

The school year is coming up fast though. There are "Back To School" signs and items all through the stores. It is going go go fast.  

It's going to be hard for Allan not being able to see Rich very much. He will be in school all day and Rich works 2nd shift now. 

His new job is so much better than Walmart though. He gets paid weekly the amount he was making every 2 weeks at Walmart. Plus he is going to be hired in and getting a good raise in September. That is going to really help us out. 

There is much more than I've talked about, but I'm not trying to make this a super long blog post. I'm going to try to blog more. I don't even know that anyone reads it, but it is nice to get all my thoughts out there. It is nice too to be able to go back and read things and see how far we have come over time.

Easter Eggs, coloring and hunting!

Autumn and Albeny came over to color eggs with Allan and Aaron on Friday. They all did a good job with them and they turned out really good. I hard boiled over 2 dozen eggs and let them color them. they had a lot of fun. Even Aaron was able to drop the eggs into the colored water. After they dried they decorated them with Spiderman stickers :)

Then today was a fun day too. We spend the morning in Mansfield with my mom and Jimmy. Jimmy needed to get Braelon an Easter outfit. After we got home I realized how busy tomorrow was going to be and just did not know if we were going to have enough time for the boys to have 2 Easter Egg Hunts. So Rich distracted them in their room and I hid the eggs outside. I am so glad I did because they had SO much fun. Allan could not believe how sneaky that Easter bunny was to just show up like that lol. Tomorrow is church and then dinner and fun with family. 

Aaron won a basketball game!

When we took the kids to see the Easter bunny at Wal*Mart, I entered Allan and Aaron's names in a raffle drawing. I did not think any more about it. Well then on Friday when I walked with Brandy to pick up Autumn and Albeny from school I got a call saying they drew Aaron's name! 

Rich went to pick it up. It's a really neat basketball game. Aaron is too little for it and Allan almost is, but it is something they will be able to use for years. It is too big for my apartment though so we decided it is probably an outside game. The problem with that is having to lug it in and out. I'm sure eventually they will get more use out of it, but for now it is being stored in my room lol. 

Back to school...

Tomorrow Allan goes back to school. Spring Break has been really great. I planned a lot of fun things for us to do, even though we did not make it to the zoo like we planned to. Allan managed to do all the homework his teacher sent and there was a lot of it. Even though that was optional, I still had him do it. I am excited for Easter this coming weekend. The boys are going to look so handsome in their outfits I got for them. 

My only complaint about Spring Break is the crazy weather. One day it is cold, then rainy, then warm, and back to cold. I wish it would pick a season already lol. I never know from one day to the next what we will get to do. It is hard to make plans when the weather is not consistent. 

One other thing, I only have 6 more weeks until I am a college graduate! I'm really excited about it. I always dreamed one day I would graduate from college and even though it may not be the career field I thought it would be, I still did it and I'm really excited about it. 

April Fools!

I stayed up last night thinking of different pranks to pull on Rich for April Fool's day. I had a great one planned but ended up falling asleep before I could follow through with it. 

The kids and I went to church while he slept and then when we came home I got busy. Here are all the pranks I pulled on him today and the reactions from each one.

1.) I hid the van behind a big truck parked in the parking lot. Much later in the day when we went to the store, I grabbed the kids and headed out like nothing was out of the ordinary. Rich flipped out when the van was gone, but Allan was quick to tell him where it was :) He got a laugh out of that one and said it was a good one lol. 

2.) He brought home a bag of his favorite Chex Mix. I dumped the contents of the bag into a bowl and filled the bag with Cheez-Its. (Allan ended up telling him that one! LOL)

3.) I poured food coloring into the back of the toilet to change the water to red when he flushed it... 

4.) I taped a paper spider to the bottom of the toilet seat so that when he lifted it, it would be there. (Allan ruined those too lol. He wanted his daddy to see all the tricks)

5.) I changed the ring tone on his phone to sound like farts (that one got him too lol.)

6.) After the day was over and he went to put the kids to bed, I went out and hid the van again lol. I knew he would know where it was and that no one actually took it. I mainly did it just to make him laugh all over again. 

It was such a fun day between him discovering all the different things I came up with to trick him today.

Wonderful Wednesday...

Today started off really great. Rich let me sleep in until 9:00am and when I did get up he had cleaned the entire kitchen. I went in and made eggs, ham & cheese for breakfast. Just when we were eating, Brandy and the girls showed up. She wanted to go tanning and since it is close to Garfield park, we took the kids there to play so that she could walk over to the tanning place. This was only 10:30am. It was a beautiful day. The kids had a lot of fun playing. I could tell though that Aaron was getting worn out. His nap time is usually 11:30am and it was already noon by the time I realized how long we had been there. A little bit after Brandy came back to the park we ended up leaving so that he could get his nap. Allan was on the swings for so long he got really dizzy and I had to carry him to the van. Rich carried Aaron and he was kicking and screaming from having to be taken out of the swing. 

When we got home, Aaron pretty much went right to sleep. Allan did a couple more of his homework papers while Rich & I just basically lounged around. When Aaron woke up about 2:30pm I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our day. I counted up enough change for ice cream.I asked Brandy to meet us so we all walked to the Mega Moo. Aaron made a mess but he loved the ice cream. He had his own cone lol. Yeah, that took bravery on my part :). After ice cream we all went to Brandy's and played on the playground there. 

My kids were beyond ready for bed when we got home. Aaron did fight it a little bit though. Not crying, just laying there with his eyes open. Allan was out really fast. It took Aaron until a little after 9 and their bedtime is 8:00. 

Tomorrow my mom is going to watch the kids so that Rich and I can go play Easter Bunny and get the kids' Easter outfits. We have bills to pay too which is never any fun, but it has to be done!  Later we plan on walking all the kids to the school to play. We'll go to the preschool playground and hopefully there is not as much graffiti on that side of the school!

Tuesday at the park...

Brandy and I walked Allan, Autumn and Albeny down to the school to play today. Aaron stayed home with Rich for a nap. The playground has been covered in graffiti for some time now. Until today, Allan has not really paid much attention to it. The girls are older though and they were pointing out some of the things written on the playground. 

Once Allan caught on, he too began looking at the words and trying to sound them out. He was proud when he figured out what S-E-X spelled. He has no idea what this word is, what it means or anything. Then he sounded out the word F**K. He knows that word, and that it is a bad word. I told him to just play and not worry about what kids were putting on there. Then Albeny started yelling "Ew! This one here says *I peed here*." How gross! I ended up looking around at some of the things too and I was absolutely disgusted. These are elementary school kids. 

Eventually they lost interest (thank goodness) in the graffiti when some other kids showed up at the playground. One kid was a little girl who was 4. She was a very loud, crazy kid. LOL. Allan liked her right away and they were playing together, chasing each other around and just having fun. It was getting close to time to leave and Allan did not want to. He said something that will forever make me laugh whenever I think about it. He tells me "Mommy, that is one heck of a girl!" He comes up with some really crazy things sometimes. I was laughing at him and I asked him why he thought that. He then says that this little girl sat on him, and pinched him 2 times! Even though Allan had fun with her, Autumn and Albeny was convinced this girl was a psycho lol. 

Brandy ended up making them quit, but they were singing "Allan and crazy-girl-at-the-school sitting in a tree..." 

It just blows my mind at how different kids are today than they were when I was in school. I remember being in the 5th grade when I first started trying out cuss words. Allan is only 4 and due to kids from school (and now words at the park) he knows a ton of them and is now probably going to ask me what sex means. I am not ready to have this conversation with him. He knows how babies come from mommy's belly and I even explained to him how he & his brother were born by a C-Section. He has even seen a picture of him coming out of my belly; and one from when I had Aaron. I believe in being honest with him about things when he asks. 

We have had talks about private areas, the proper names for them and how important it is for them to stay private. I want my kids to feel comfortable talking to me about anything and that is why I think honesty is so important. I just hope he forgets about the new word he discovered at least for a few more years... ugh. 

Hidden Surprise Easter Egg Treats™ Recipe - Kellogg's® Rice Krispies®

Hidden Surprise Easter Egg Treats™ Recipe - Kellogg's® Rice Krispies®

These look really fun to make and good to eat! We are going to make them here in a little while with all the kids at my mom's house. It looks really fun and messy and that is the best kind of fun to have :) I am also thinking of finding a fun craft to do with my own boys today before we go over there. I like to keep my kids busy.

*Update! The kids made them and they turned out great! I left my camera at home though so I did not end up getting any pictures of them. They also ended up a lot bigger than I thought they would be. One issue was that once the kids got to the middle of their eggs where they put M&M's the candy would fall out. We didn't end up making a craft because we went to the park to play instead, but that is an entirely different post lol...

Spring Break 2012...

Spring Break has not started out the best. Saturday it rained all day. Allan and I ended up doing some Easter crafts during Aaron's nap though, so that was fun. Aaron is really into coloring now too so I try to save the scissors and glue projects for when he is sleeping. I like letting him paint and do things like that too, but you can do more with a 4 year old craft-wise than an 18 month old.
Aaron is a ton of fun too. He has a GREAT personality going. He loves to argue, give hugs & kisses, and growl. I am loving the little boy he is turning into.
Today was a completely lazy day. Allan worked on his homework packet that his teacher sent for him to do during his "break." I was somewhat productive. I got the dishes done, worked on my scrapbook and helped Rich clean the living-room.
I made cheesy ham & potatoes for dinner and Lisa and Ron came over. They got the kids all wound up before they left! Dinner was really good :) One thing I do not feel bad complimenting myself on is my cooking!
The kids cleaned the living-room & their bedroom of all their toys. Then they got their baths/stories and went to bed. Rich left for work and I sat down to do my Ethic's paper. 1,700 words later, I was getting ready to turn it in and closed the document. I hit "no" to save changes because I had meant to close a different document.
I was really upset to the point of tears. I decided just to suck it up and re-do the paper. I mean, what choice did I have anyway right? I'm glad to have it done and over with. It is 1:30am and I need to shut down the computer and go to bed.
The boys wake up way too early every morning. You would think eventually I would be able to wake up easier after doing it for so long, but NOPE! Staying up this late just about every night makes it really hard to get motivated in the mornings.