puttering...

Hmmm... what to write about?

I'm not working on any big projects, I haven't found any amazing (and dirt cheap) antiques at the thrift store lately, and there are only so many times one can write about the weather. (Enjoy a good monsoon? Colorado is the place to be right now...)

Mostly I've been just puttering... finishing up a few little bits and pieces of past projects.

I finished painting M's little drop down desk (it needed a third coat) and it's working beautifully... he loves it and it gives him a little bit of space just for his laptop.



I also finished the last little bit of painting in the sunroom... When I posted that it was "finally complete" back in March, it was really 99.9% complete. I hadn't been able to paint the side of the molding around the slider then because the shrink-wrap plastic I use to help insulate the door during the winter was in the way.

The plastic came off months ago, but it took until today (almost time to put the plastic back on again!) to paint that little 3/4" space on the side of the molding.

(Yes, I can procrastinate with the best of them....but it's done now... yay!)



As long as I was working in the sunroom, I decided to take a few minutes and hang the last few suncatchers that my grandkids made. I'd already hung most of them on the pumpkin patch fence...



...but I'd held a few back, since I'm not sure how they'll hold up to the weather. I wanted to keep a few to hang inside, in the sunroom, where they would catch the light but wouldn't be blown down, made brittle by the cold, crashed into by deer (yes, it really happened!), or faded to nothing by the sun.



So after spending a bit of time drilling and stringing them on thin copper wire,the chandelier in the sunroom looks like this...



I'm really happy with it. I love how the suncatchers glow with color as the sun shines in through the windows and skylights...



My last little project was in the loft, which is kind of S's area...



It's where she stays when she's visiting... This is her bed, which I love, it's an older log daybed.



The other side of the loft used to hold R's computer, which has since relocated to her room...



It's a tight fit (her bed is just inches from the back of the chair when it's pushed out) but R really likes it there...

Unfortunately, moving the computer left one whole side of the loft completely empty.

So... since S loves to color and draw, I created a little art area in the loft for her. I moved a small table from the mudroom up into the empty corner, and added a couple of chairs so the girls could draw or color or craft together.



The table is small, but is solid oak and fairly heavy.... and moving it up into the loft ended up being an all day job, as I kept trying this and that plan to make it possible for R and I to move it up there by ourselves. Finally, I threw in the towel... R and I just couldn't get it up into the loft... and called daughter E to help. Once she got here it took all of three minutes to move the table (and chairs) up the ladder and into place.  (E is expert at moving awkward things in awkward spaces!) S hasn't seen it yet, but I think she'll like having a little art area up there.



And that's been my week... lots of puttering, nothing major is getting done but it feels good to get some little things crossed off my to-do list.

Next up? Back outside to finish winterizing the chicken coop before the snow flies (again!).

no time...

S is still here and both time and energy are in short supply around here. I need to always be in the room when she and M are together and since neither of them likes being outside (and it has been HOT lately) I'm spending a lot of time inside the house... and the outside work has not been getting done. So... I've started heading outside to work early... before they get up... but that's normally my "blogging" time... therefore no blog post today.

Although, I guess this is a post, but this isn't a blog post about anything... just explaining why I'm not able to post...  (Too little sleep makes for convoluted thoughts/sentences!)

S has a pre-placement visit today with a foster family. She's super excited. I'm cautiously hopeful. This family might be wonderful... but they don't really match what the department said they hoped to find for S, and it's not like they are the best option from among several families the department is considering... They are literally the only foster family who could take her right now. So... we'll see.

One more quick note... I changed the settings for my comments because I got some feedback that things weren't working well... Let me know if this is better, and leaving comments easier.

Everyone is still asleep so I'm back outside to get a little more done... (The gardens look like giant mutant weeds are taking over!)

Soldier and Nancy ~ a little "living history"... and a brief update

We've been helping take care of a neighbor's horses lately...

That's Soldier in the front stall... Nancy in the back stall.

This photo shows their personalities... Soldier is big, bold, confident and curious... Nancy is small, shy, a little skittish and not much into things that are unusual... like a camera!



They are the dearly loved horses of a friend of ours, Mr G... a elderly man who, until some bad health this past spring, took care of them entirely on his own. Soldier was his riding horse... Nancy's a rescue he got as a companion for Soldier. Since March though, another neighbor and I have taken turns caring for them... Mr G spent a month in the hospital, and has been home for awhile now but isn't strong or steady enough to take care of them.

I might feel differently come winter but, right now, I don't mind taking care of Soldier and Nancy. You know how much I love history... and going into Mr G's tack room and hay barn are like stepping back in time.

Mr G was born in the mid-1920's and grew up on a farm in central Europe. He came here after WWII and has no wife or children... just his horses. His place looks and feels a little like I imagine a small farm in 1930/1940's Europe might have looked and felt.





His tack/feed room is nicely organized and is decorated with pictures and calendars he liked so much that some of them have been hanging on the walls for decades.



He also has a little hay barn, with hay neatly stacked on one side and this old, carefully cared for, tractor on the other. (I might try to buy this tractor when he's ready to sell...) The chains on the tires are for the snow, of course... yes we do get so much snow that even a tractor needs chains!



An ancient, well used pair of hay tongs remain stuck in an old bale of straw next to his hay.



Anyway, I don't mind going up there to do his barn work... I go early in the morning, before anyone else gets up, and it only takes 20 minutes or so.

It's so peaceful up there.... and I love seeing the "from scratch" ways his barn is set up. There are no livestock panels, electric fencing, or pre-fab stalls here.

It's all made, by hand, by Mr G.

His tools of the trade...




.... mended, not replaced, when they break.



These scissors, stuck in the crack between the wood of the hay barn, have a slightly curved blade... for trimming the "feathering" on the back of a horse's legs and fetlocks. They also work well for cutting baling twine!



Decades worth of horse shoes... Soldier only recently began going barefoot.



An antique scythe hanging in a shed...



A long piece of lodge pole pine which can be used to limit Soldier and Nancy's pasture access...



I took a lot of other pictures as well, too many to post... wanting to somehow record a way of doing things that seems to be quickly being lost...

We are doing fine with S here, by the way... M and R are bending over backwards to make things work and I'm hoping everyone's patience holds out until they find her a place to be. Her attorney (all children in foster care are appointed one) was here yesterday and S enjoyed showing her around... She (the attorney) will probably be sending her assistant to the foster mom's house on Friday to help get S's things packed up and moved out. It will be good to get that done sooner rather than later...(When we packed up a few of S's things to take with us on Monday, the foster mom told S she'd better take everything because she wouldn't keep it for her... Needless to say, we couldn't pack up a whole room at that time, and S has been stressing about the foster mom throwing her things away...) The GAL is sending her assistant to make sure foster mom doesn't start in on S or me again verbally...

savoring the small blessings...

Yesterday was tough.... there are no two ways about it.

After picking S up on Saturday after a blow up (both she and foster mom blowing up!), the plan was to take her back to her foster home yesterday. There was a staffing yesterday and all the "important" people would be there (GAL, worker, foster mom, etc) so it made sense that the meeting would be a good time to get things sorted out.



Only S really didn't want to go back... She was willing to go to the crisis center rather than return to that home.

She let her therapist and caseworker know and we met the caseworker for a "just her and S" meeting before the bigger meeting.

After talking to S she and the GAL decided she shouldn't return to the home...



And of course, the next question was could I keep her for a few days while they found a place for her. I said yes, but only for a week... give or take a few days.

Then we had to go back to the home to get some of S's things. I was worried... frightened probably isn't too strong a word... because I knew the foster mom would get ugly... and I wasn't looking forward to it.



And she did get ugly... telling S that "you'll never have a family" and saying angry, hateful things to me as well.





M was so angry at the things the foster mom said that he had to leave the house, fists balled up, psychotic voices yelling inside his head, full of impotent fury. R was much the same (only without the voices!)... the foster mom actually lied to R during the ordeal to get her out of the room so she could attack S verbally! R was angry, furious that an adult would act the way this woman did.

S is no angel... she can yell and swear when she's angry (I've never seen it, but I know she does...) and can be a master at creating her own reality, but that's easier to understand coming from a person with her history of abuse, than from a foster parent who is supposed to be the "stable" one.



Today we will try to recharge and put yesterday behind us...

Tomorrow the GAL comes to make sure my home is safe enough for S to stay for a few more days.

Small blessings to savor? My children's finalized adoptions, being able to delete that foster mom's name and number from my address book, a nice warm cup of tea, a quiet house, and a surprising a tiny fawn grazing in the back pasture...

Shakespeare Festival

We had a lovely adventure last Friday... We drove to the nearest light rail station, took the light rail into downtown Denver (an adventure in itself to us), and visited the Shakespeare Festival (a DPS event).

We went to see our friend S. She is the young woman who was in my friend's foster home for many years but then had to leave... It's a heartbreaking situation. She lost everything... home, family, school, friends... her whole life disappeared in the 10 minutes she had last summer to pack her things and leave that foster home.

So we're her family now... she's is not able to live with us, but we see her frequently and try to fill a little of the void that was left when she lost her long time foster family.

Anyway, she was performing in the Shakespeare Festival, and I wanted to be there to cheer her on.

It was such a fun day... seeing all the costumes, the happy excitement of the kids, watching even the littlest kids performing Shakespeare on the many stages scattered around the DCPA (Denver Center for the Performing Arts).

Here is our S, anxiously waiting her turn to perform...



Her performance... She did amazing, by the way, she had a lot of lines to memorize (she shares M and R's developmental disability) and she breezed through her scene. I was SO proud of her...



... and taking her bow.



I do love this kid... I'm so glad we could go and see her perform, meet her friends and teachers, and just be a part of her life.

I am still stunned...

... so I try not to think about it too much.

I haven't written much about S lately, or the drama that was her life this past summer. The agency (that has legal custody of her) threatening to move her from her foster home to place her in a group home... a place she didn't want to be. They'd moved her the previous summer (2009) from her long term foster home to this new one, and it took her months so settle in and adjust... and now they wanted to move her again.

That threat hung over her head all summer, and was the reason we started, back in July, to become re-certified as foster parents (initially a requirement to maintain contact with S while in the group home) only to stop part way through the process when the agency changed their minds and decided fingerprints and a background check was enough.

The whole group home issue seemed to be behind us though... All interested parties (S, foster mom, caseworker, GAL, group home foster mom, group home licensing agency rep, etc) met about a month ago, and at S's foster mom's request I kind of crashed the party.

Hey... they were having their meeting at a McD's for goodness sake! It's a free country, I can drive up to Brighton (or where ever I was, maybe Ft Lupton) to McD's if I feel like it... it's public place.

Once I'd "dropped in" they kindly allowed me to stay for the meeting. S spent the first few minutes I was there hugging me and crying. She whispered in my ear "I don't want to go" and I said "Then you have to tell them."... and she said "I can't". So I invited the caseworker to take a walk outside with S and I, and I talked to S about it's being ok to be honest with the worker. That it's important for her to tell people how she feels, and what she thinks is best for her... not what the worker thinks is best, or what I think is best, or the foster mom thinks... but what S thinks is best. And she was able to tell the worker she didn't want to move...

We went back inside and the GAL was still hot to move her, so I pulled out all my rusty advocacy skills and did what I could to basically "present" S's case. Finally the GAL agreed to let her stay where she was...

The GAL wasn't happy though.. and during the course of the meeting she was taking no prisoners... she was out for blood. She was angry (as any caring person would be) that in S's whole 16 years of life, NO one has consistently put S first. NO one has fallen in love with her the way a parent falls in love with their child; willing do anything in their power to make sure that child is well loved, and fed, and cared for... and happy. The GAL was right.. and then she turned angrily to me, and said I was no different... I hadn't put S's needs first either.

I hadn't adopted her either.

It wasn't a fair statement. I knew it wasn't... this childless lawyer knows nothing about loving a child enough to know that adopting them isn't necessarily what is best for them, or for the children you've already adopted. I tried to explain... especially about M and the schizophrenia, and how it wouldn't be right for any of the kids to adopt S.

But the GAL cut me off with "Don't make excuses to me."

In a way she was right. In this family, S's needs come after M and R's needs... but I can't change the reality of S's life. I can love her, but can't adopt her... It wouldn't make her life "all better", it would only add layers of drama and upset (sz is like that) that she doesn't need and neither do M and R.

So I did what I could... I advocated for her at the meeting, then came home made her a bedroom here. A concrete symbol of her "place" in our family.

I got a call Monday afternoon from S's foster mom. S had, out of the blue, done something so bizarre, so disconnected, so.......  Words escape me, I can't even think of a word that fits... so, whatever, that her life is forever changed.

The scary part (well one of the scary parts, there are many) is that S doesn't even "get it"... She is so disconnected from herself physically and emotionally that her reaction to the situation was nothing even close to a typical reaction (even for a cognitively delayed teenager). If she doesn't "get" the seriousness of what happened... there is no working with her to prevent it from happening again... or to discourage her from talking to M and R about it.

So I don't think it would be good for her to be around R and M for awhile.

My hearts breaks for S. I'm saddened by what's gone on this week...

... but at the same time I'm inwardly rejoicing that M and R are here... with us... in a forever family... and haven't been bounced from foster home to foster home... getting good care in one... and abused in another.

They've known stability, loving parents, the blessing and benefits of homeschooling... they've been protected.

Protected.

And cared for... as children should be.

I think about what happened to S this week and feel like I'm looking at "what might have been" in terms of R and M.

And I want to grab them both up in hugs and kisses... and hold them too tight... maybe never letting go... and thank them over and over for being my children. (But they would think I was acting weird and worry about me if I did!)

I have such incredibly mixed emotions... can you grieve and rejoice at the same time?

If so.. that's what I'm doing.

*~*daybook*~*

FOR TODAY

October 4, 2010

Outside my window... it's still dark, so early still that there is not even a hint of a light peaking above the eastern horizon. It's also quiet, the donkeys must not be hungry yet...

I am thinking... how it's was almost exactly one year ago that I made my first daybook entry.

I am thankful for..the weekend going well with S here.

From the learning rooms... R had to have an academic assessment done as part of the COVA enrollment process. The results were interesting, and I've been tweaking her school work to focus on those areas that the testing showed she is having problems with. The interesting part of the assessment results was seeing how her scores, even in just one general area, were all over the place.

From the kitchen... the gardens are still producing, so I'm still canning. I bought a little bookcase at a garage sale to hold all the home canned food, and it's getting pretty full. We have a ton of pumpkins in our little pumpkin patch, so many that yesterday we invited all the neighborhood children to come over and pick pumpkins out of our little pumpkin patch. It was so fun to watch the kids picking their pumpkins... I still have a few left, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them... maybe cook and freeze a little bit more.

I am creating... I just finished up re-doing the chalkboard wall in my kitchen. When I originally painted the wall with chalkboard paint I just painted over the texture that was there, not thinking about how the texture would hold the chalk dust. I've been meaning, for months, to smooth out the wall and paint it again. Finally, last week, I got it done. I smoothed the wall with joint compound, sanded a little, then primed it with magnetic paint, and put a topcoat of chalkboard paint on it. It looks pretty much  the same as it did before I started, but the wall is much smoother now and it's a magnetic chalkboard... which is really fun!

I am going... out to the barn as soon as I'm done posting. I'm trying to keep up better with the barn work, and an early start will help.

I am reading... Eat, Breathe, Love at a good friend's recommendation. I haven't decided yet if I like it as much as everyone else seems to.

I am hoping... that M settles down again soon. We are on week three of some fairly significant instability and I'm wearing out. I've had to increase his haldol, and the pdoc seems to have dropped out of sight... It would be really nice if M just settled back down again.

I am hearing... nothing but the tick of the clock. How wonderful!

Around the house... I've got some plans for the loft, I think I'm going to turn it into a bedroom for S. She's not here all, or even most of the time, but given all that's been going on in her life recently I think she's needs her own space here, and the message of our committment to her that creating that space implies.

One of my favorite things... a nice sweet cup of tea on a cool Fall morning. Thanks for the Barry's, Steve... I'm enjoying some right now.

A few plans for the rest of the week... a trip to the stable, a trip with our homeschool group to tour the county courthouse (this is really perfect timing, with the guardianship hearing coming up!), celebrating K's (dd#3) birthday, and probably a few more things I'm forgetting.

A picture I'm sharing...

Some of the bounty of the garden... I think the different colors are so pretty, and love that we'll be continuing to eat from the garden for at least part of the winter.

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It's been awhile... (long catch up post)

... since I posted.

Life has been moving at warp speed this summer, and in all the busy-ness, I'm afraid blogging ended up left by the wayside...

Here's a little of what's we've been up to:

We finished up the meetings and paperwork to move M into adult developmental disability services. Outwardly, nothing has changed... which was my goal... to keep things just the same for him. He now is getting services through the "adult side" though and his Medicaid has changed to long-term Medicaid, coverage he should be able to keep for many years.

I spent a week earlier this month preparing for our meeting with SSI to get M qualified for benefits. Countless hours went into filling out the online application (with his complete  medical/psychiatric history) and gathering all the paperwork to document his disabilities and medical issues. The hours paid off though... he's already been approved! That's one BIG thing I'm happy to cross of my to-do list...

I also spend a fair amount of time figuring out the paperwork to apply for guardianship for him. It wasn't as time consuming as the SSI application, but I did have to fill out a bunch of legal documents... twice... since I filled out most of them wrong the first time. I got everything done though, and submitted to the court... Our hearing is in about a month, and I'm sure they'll approve the guardianship. That's another big job happily crossed off the list!

I'd finally got around to shopping for carpet, staying pretty well within the budget I set for this last major upgrade on the house. It was in town within 10 days of placing the order, and installed less than a week later. It was HARD work for the kids and I to move all the furniture out of the house (and move it all back in the next day) but it looks soooo much better than the nasty pink carpet we'd lived with for years... it was worth every loaded-down-with-furniture trip up the stairs.

As long as I was at it, I decided to fix up the kid's little computer niche, something I'd been meaning to do almost since I moved the computer upstairs. A little spackle, some little leftover paint, and an afternoon's work and it looks much better.

I also (impulsively) decided to paint the kitchen island. I really should stop reading This Old House magazine... this is another little project, like my chalkboard wall, that came directly from the pages of this month's TOH. I like how it turned out, but didn't expect it to take several days to paint... (having to remove all the hardware and the five coats of paint it needed slowed me down some).

Before...

2

After...

Much better I think.

s

I also decided to enroll R in COVA. (Colorado Online Virtual Academy - a public online school) I don't know what I was thinking... it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I think it was primarily a case of the homeschool guilts, feeling like maybe I wasn't doing enough... teaching enough. As it turns out though, we aren't going to do COVA after all... there were just too many problems with the IEP process, and it was reminding me too much of the terrible experiences we had years ago with (brick and mortar) public schools. After a string of several minor, but revealing, bad experiences with COVA staff around R's IEP I withdrew her from the program before she even started any coursework, and we are happy to once again be completely independent homeschoolers.

I wrote the following to a friend of mine about the experience...

"I remember perfectly now, why we homeschool... It's because of the people who were in charge of my children's education... but didn't "get" FASD, and failed to recognize their disability, unintentionally triggered behaviors and problems (because they didn't understand FASD), wasting my children's precious learning and attention time with tasks that were pointless and led to absolutely NO learning, and treating me as much less than a valued member of the IEP team... and more like someone who has to be put up with and could very easily be disregarded."

Speaking of education, Cody is now on his way to becoming an educated dog. After reaching new heights of naughtiness, I enrolled him (us) in a beginning dog training class. I was embarrassed at first, he was NOT the star of the class... he was more like the example of how not to behave. Ok... so maybe he wasn't that bad, but he definitely had a ways to go... Fast forward 2 1/2 months and he's a graduate of the beginner class and is more than halfway through the intermediate class. He sits, lays down, stays, comes, no longer pulls on the leash (most of the time), "leaves it" (when food or something is dropped), heels, high five's (he's too cool to just "shake"), rolls over, goes to his bed, and is just becoming a joy to be around. He really seems to love learning new things. And the best part is his naughtiness is almost gone and he's turning out to be a great little dog!

Fortunately Cody's NOT so well trained that he's given up stealing our shoes, slippers, etc. as a sneaky way to get us to chase him and play with  him...

... that would be very sad.

Tucker is also becoming a more educated donkey... R has been working with him this summer and he's made a lot of progress... He now will allow a fly mask on his face, and R has even tacked him up with a little pony saddle we have. At this point she's not getting on him, but she is leaning onto the saddle... putting a little weight on it... and except for a little bucking one time, he's doing ok with it. She loves working with him so much that she asked if Tucker could be hers... so now he is.

Isn't he handsome? I still think he's just the cutest thing on four hooves....

Our pasture got a little more interesting a few weeks ago, with the addition of Cubby... another donkey. We are "fostering" him... just keeping him until the donkey rescue can find him a home. He came to us chewed up from head to tail (literally!) from fighting with other donkeys, and he looks better now... his wounds are healing... but he's still got a major chip on his shoulder and likes to throw his weight around with the other animals. He also kicks, not at people, but at the other animals, so R and I have had to learn a whole new level of caution when working outside. The rule is pretty much to never get between Cubby and one of the other animals, and if there's trouble... get out of the way!

Tucker (in the fly mask) and Cubby, in a friendly argument over a stick... (yes, they each have one end of the stick in their mouth... and neither will let go!)

Tucker won... of course.

We've had another change in our animal population this summer too... Lili the chicken has moved to another home. The kids and I loved her, but it wasn't fair for her to always be alone. I believe most animals need the companionship of their own kind... and since Joe refused to have another chicken around, the only alternative was to get rid of Lili. Luckily I have a friend with banties, and Lili's living there now, happily roosting with a bunch of chicken friends and doing fine.

We had some excitement a month ago or so, when some kids who live east of us accidentally started a fire out back... on a windy day. The fire quickly grew out of control and it was amazing (and horrifying) to watch it racing over the land, pushed by the wind. Despite a couple dozen firefighters working on it, it didn't stop until it hit the road. We were lucky, the wind didn't blow the fire towards us and none of our land was burned... It was an exciting afternoon though, standing outside watching the fire gobble up everything in it's path and praying the wind didn't shift.  When it rains now the air smells like a wet ashtray, but I can't complain... a bad smell is nothing compared to losing land, or structures, to a prairie fire.

A little bit of the burnt hillside to the east of us...

It looks like our friend S, who is in foster care,  might be moving again soon... possibly to a group home. I've been working with the county human services agency that controls her care, trying to ensure we are able to maintain contact, and our relationship, with her. First they said we'd have to be recertified as foster parents, which I was fine with... and I started all the reading they were requiring as part of the recertification process. Then they decided to be satisfied with getting our fingerprints and doing a background check on us. So that's where things stand now... we are just waiting to see what happens next and hoping that the caseworkers in charge of her care understand how important it is to all of us to maintain contact with S. We go back a long way with her... she is like another daughter to me... I hope DDHS respects that relationship.

I think that's most everything that's been keeping us so busy lately. With the cooler weather life will slow down... and I have to say I'm looking forward to the first cold snap, and the first snow. This summer has been just a little too busy for me.

*~*daybook*~*

FOR TODAY

June 21, 2010

Outside my window... the sun is up, more or less... it is hidden by haziness and fog. The trees and buildings in the distance look softer this morning... their sharp edges lost in the gray/white fog.

I am thinking... that I'm going to have to cancel M's PT again, because of other appointments on Weds. I hate cancelling... I might see if I can't possibly squeeze PT in. (This, of course is the type of thinking that got me into trouble last week!)

I am thankful for... a more ordinary week that the ones we've had lately. After having S for awhile, life aways seems so easy with just M and R.

From the learning rooms... we're keeping a regular school schedule despite S being here (I make sure to have lessons for her, and she joins us for school), and all the running around we're doing. The structure of school is extremely important to the kids, especially now that M is more unstable again.

From the kitchen... it's the lull before the storm. Cooking light (and easy) now... but looking ahead to LOTS more time in the kitchen later in the summer when the gardens start producing and it's time to can and freeze.

I am creating... I'm playing around more with the banjo these days. I've had the tune "O Come Angel Band" stuck in my head for days, and yesterday picked out the melody on the banjo and started trying to find just the right "rolls" to go with it.

I am going... to have to get hay ordered today. I gave some of our hay to my friend L yesterday because she'd run out... but that left me low enough that I really need to get it ordered.

I am reading... We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication by Judith Warner (an excellent book so far, by the way...)

I am hoping... the medication changes we made last week do more good than harm.

I am hearing... the birds outside, squawking and quarreling over whatever it is they quarrel about in the early morning, the tick of the clock, and the noise of Tucker's braying through the window... reminding me it's time for his breakfast.

Around the house...I picked up a dining room table at the thrift store for K (dd#3) and refinished the top (the legs. etc were in good shape). It was a fun two day project...

One of my favorite things... the quiet of the morning.

A few plans this week:.. today's doctor appointment and blood draw, then later in the week, a field trip with the homeschool group, an educational evaluation for the kids, an evening showing of a taped performance of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (R LOVES Romeo and Juliet!) that is part of the Met Summer Encore series, and Special Olympics. I also need to gather the paperwork together that Medicaid is asking for to re-certify M, write another letter (following up my unanswered one) to DDHS, and start the process to get M on SSI. Unfortunately, it's going to be another busy week...

A picture to share...

My favorite room in the summer...

...the front porch...

...temporarily rearranged a bit to accommodate checkers with M yesterday afternoon.

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7 Quick Takes

7 Quick Takes

~1~

Many thanks to those who emailed or called after my post about my frustration with the lack of progress in terms of M's GI problems. Your ideas and support are much appreciated. I'm not sure what the next step will be...

~2~

We seem to have flip-flopped seasons again. All the windows in the house are closed and the heater is on... It's 45 degrees outside and soggy wet.

~3~

S has been here for the past few days, and may be here for a few more. Unfortunately, M isn't handling it well at all. I'm going to have to figure out something to keep them occupied today, especially with it being so rainy and cold, or it could be a long difficult day with M.

~4~

We've done some fun things with S since she's been here. Keeping the day very structured is about the only thing that gets M through these unstable times, so we've been going more than we usually do. We went to The Wildlife Experience on Thursday. What a cool place it is... it's kind of a combination of natural history museum and art gallery. We saw the new National Geographic "CritterCam" exhibit. It was fascinating to see video of the world from the viewpoint of a wild animal, shark, or even just an ordinary house cat!

~5~

Thursday evening we went to town and saw Scenic Roots in concert again. Not only do I love their music, but I'm just impressed with these kids in general... We bought oneo f their CD's and M got to know their sound person well ;) (following him around as he did all the sound checks, talking his ear off!) Both S and R were too shy to get up and dance, but I didn't blame them... it was kind of a subdued crowd. We talked to them about possibly playing at the birthday dance we're planning for the fall... If they fit in the budget, they're our first choice.

~6~

ALSO on Thursday... as if we didn't have enough going on... we did M's assessment for adult services with the CCB. I was stressed about this, not sure what it would be like... (some of these kinds of things are NOT family friendly in anyway!)... but it went well. My friend L came to be part of the assessment process and her help was invaluable! We've been friends for 20 years, and she totally "gets it" in terms of M. It  really feels good to get that meeting behind me...

~7~

Yesterday we hurried through school so we could down to the Parker Fest. This has become our "big" summer event... We don't go to either of the big amusement parks in Denver because they are just too big. They are difficult  and risky places for both kids... But we do love the Parker Fest. The kids ride all the rides, sometimes multiple times... (R is totally fearless)... and then we walk through all the booths and venders and sit for a while in the park and listen to whatever band is playing. We got lucky with the weather last night... The forecast was terrible, but we got a couple of hours of clear weather, and got all the rides ridden, before it dumped rain on us. R was happy, and M managed some rides (with R) that had been too scary for him last year. We finished up the evening at home with a bag of cinnamon roasted almonds we'd bought at the fair, some hot chocolate, and the movie Leap Year... it was a nice way to end the day.