Just A Barrel of Laughs

Life's been a barrel of laughs here this week.


Monday morning. Hubs sends Miss Meg to school clad in princess nightgown and flip flops for Pajama Day. Except pajama day isn't today. It's tomorrow. Hubs blames his Blackberry for giving him the reminder too early. Uh huh.


Tuesday late afternoon. Sitting at the kitchen table, IM'ing an old friend from laptop. Meg saunters into kitchen and announces, "Look Mom! It'll grow back!" Let me tell you that's never a good thing to hear from your 3 year old.


I found this in the bathroom:



There's no before pic because time was of the essence. Daddy was on his way home from work. I grabbed the kids' shoes and we dashed out the door to the local salon. Meg had taken a chunk out of either side and a gaping hole in the middle of her bangs right up to the hairline (!!!) a mere eleven days before my brother's wedding. At the salon, TWO hairdressers combed and parted her hair this way and that while they discussed different ways to remedy our little hair emergency.


Here's the after:




For my brother's wedding we'll part her bangs on the side, comb them over and put in a teeny-tiny (in Meg's words) barrett to hide the missing bangs in the center. It's not so bad. I kind of like it. Now if someone could just convince Daddy.

This kind of drama I can handle. These are the kind of stories we're going to tell when the kids are older. I can hardly wait to see what fun the rest of the week brings ;)

Autism Insurance Legislation in Michigan

Despite the eat and humidity, it was a good day in Michigan today!

Autism insurance legislation passed in the House today by a huge margin of 84 to 25!! Now on to the Senate!!

Change

I am, admittedly, a Type A personality. I like my house neat and organized to a fault. I am a perfectionist. And I don't cope well with change. Gee, I wonder why my son gets his quirks from. So, you can imagine the bundle of nerves I became when coping with all of this at once....and you now know why I became kinda quiet on here over the last month:

• Hubs division of "Megaware" was sold to "Megafocus" effective June 1st.
• Hubs new office relocation (and time frame) remains undetermined
• Aforementioned move will impact children's preschool situation at "Megaware" child development center.
• How does one begin searching for new preschool when one does not know when/where one might need it?
• New employer = new benefits
• New benefits + child on spectrum receiving speech therapy = ??? coverage
• New benefits + $15,000 out of network deductible = is Nick's developmental ped IN network???
• Add one human resource representative who refused to speak to me, the employee's wife, or answer my email questions regarding said benefits because I "may not understand health insurance information." I only work in hospital administration. I'm just sayin'.
• Oh, and throw in an IEP with a principal who didn't exactly want to schedule and IEP, or consider a para until I gave things a little bit of a push. ahem.

With a whole lotta prayer and a whole lotta Mocha Java Chip ice cream, we are making headway.

• New office location is still in the Metro Detroit area. We won't have to relocate. It is considerably farther north, but hey, he's still employed, right?
• We still don't know exactly when the office relocation will take place.
• We still don't know what we will do for Meg's preschool after the move. Am considering a Montessori school near home but still need to go check it out. Am sad to leave the old school behind, but if the Montessori school turns out to be a good thing, I think it will be a good move.
• New health insurance denied Nick's speech therapy. Yeah, I know this sucks. We were 12 weeks away from discharge.
• Worked out arrangement with Outpatient Rehab Department: Nick will get to complete his speech therapy treatment plan in a condensed 7 weeks at a reduced rate with the same therapist we've been with for 3 years. We were awarded a scholarship. Out pocket cost: $215. Can you say amen?!
• Yes, Nick's developmental ped is IN network. Phew. His labs, which are done quarterly, however, are not. Oh well. More money will go into the HFSA account next year.
• And the IEP is done. We got the teacher we wanted and the parapro application is in to the county.

Still a few loose ends, but I'm not feeling like a peice of taffy being pulled in all directions anymore. One foot in front of the other, my friends.

Tooth Talk

Hubs picked Nick up from school today. At first the 5 o'clock pickup went as per usual. Hubs began gathering Nick's belongings from his cubby and asking Nick about his day, except today Nick wasn't talking.

Hubs: "How was your day, Nick?"

Nick: looks away, ignoring Hubs (in his less verbal days, this was the norm)

H: "Did you have a good day?"

N: nods yes, looks away

H: "Nick, are you all right?" (growing concerned)

N: lips clamped shut

H: "Nick, have you got something in your mouth?" (now certain something is up)

N: shakes head for no and covers his mouth

H: "Open your mouth"

N: shakes head for no

H: "We are not leaving until you open your mouth. Now. Open. Your. Mouth."

N: opens mouth for Dad to see

H: "Nick. What happened to your tooth?"

N: "It came out in my hand."

H: "And what did you do with it?"

N: "I throwed it away in the garbage."

Hubs and 2 teachers then proceeded to pick through the trash until one tiny baby tooth was recovered for the tooth fairy.

A childhood milestone... and one (or two) parenting mistake(s).

1. We never realized he had a loose tooth, or two!

2. We never talked about the whole losing-baby-teeth-and-big-teeth-growing-in thing.

I sorta thought we had another 6 months or so before this would happen (*sniff* my baby is growing up!). Apparently I was wrong and fell asleep at the parenting wheel.

I can only imagine how confused and perhaps a little afraid Nick must have been all day. He probably thought he did something wrong, was going to get into trouble for coming home missing a tooth, or whatever wild imaginative things a 5 year old can dream up. So he told no one and tried to hide it.

This evening we made a big deal about becoming a big boy, growing new teeth and, of course, the tooth fairy. Suffice it to say, we've now had our tooth-talk, albeit a little late.

Lawn Bowling

We spent a super beautiful day together with my sister and her family and a fabulous time was had by all. They flew in from sunny AZ for the weekend so the family could all be together for our little brother's wedding shower (well, the bridal shower actually). So we had a little pre-shower BBQ and swim at our house the kick off the weekend....

Uncle Brian got into the action with a little lawn bowling of sorts:

Weeeeeeee!

Not pictured: my little sister wrapped up in a blanket sitting in the sun for warmth because the mid-70's is "winter weather" for Arizonians. We all had a good time ribbing her about it.

Little Boy Logic

The kids and I planted a few veggie starters for the garden a while back and they sun themselves in the window sills throughout the house. I know, it's nearly past time to transfer them out to the garden. I need to get movin!

Anyway, Nick was relaxing in bed earlier this week, watching a movie and munching on popcorn before lights out.

Today as I moved from room to room, vacuuming, dusting and watering the plants I saw some odd yellow lumps poking out of the soil in the squash plant on Nick's window sill....

Nick had "planted" his unpopped popcorn kernels.

This made me smile. At least he's learning where food comes from :oD

Dinner Conversation

I came home from work this afternoon to find Hubs grilling up some hamburgers. The kids were hungry, so we ate an early dinner and, for once, we all sat together as a family at the dinner table.

We chatted about our plans for the upcoming week and a lull fell in the conversation. Nick chimed in, "So, tell me about your day, Mom." And, "Wow, that's really neat" after I told him a bit about work.

Plain old dinner conversation. This child never ceases to amaze me. *happy sigh*