Sorry, so few blog posts lately. Life really does have a way of putting blogging on the back burner. I wish I had a laptop, if I did then I would cart it around with me more and in my “quiet” but “not upstairs hiding away on the computer” time, I could actually blog more often. It’s the being upstairs hiding away part that I don’t like. Right now Derek is studying, the girls are watching Beethoven the 23rd and I am upstairs blogging…and I would much rather be downstairs with them, but… not studying with Derek or watching the umpteenth sequel of Beethoven the Big Slobbery Dog, but downstairs with them doing my computer thing. That thing I do. Ah, such is life.
So my mojo has been gone, gone in a big way. I have been a little whipped by life. OK, a lot whipped by life. But I had a kit Guest DT spot and so I had to jump start it. Which, thank goodness after a bunch of clanks and clunks, was re-started. I am the Guest Designer for A Million Memories for the month of March. All I have are sneaks for right now, but I think you’ll get the picture.
Loved the Jillibean stuff this month. The papers were very pretty. Kind of reminded me of Calico prints. I added the red gingham stickers. They are by October Afternoon. I ordered a bunch for my last class and then didn’t use them. Which is fine by me, cause I love them. I’ll hoard them forever.
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Really this battle with our insurance company has been ridiculous. After being told 7 times that Tri-Care did not cover the treatment that my son needs, it looks like that might not be true. If it were not for the dogged efforts of our EMFP coordinator, we might have walked away and taken that “no”. Until I get the paperwork filled out, turned in and approved, I’m not believing anything. I’ve had to learn the hard way with that.
My son is on a new medication and we are hoping that helps but if not, then we need a back up plan. There is a hospital in Virginia that we may be able to send him to. That is as far away as you can get from Ca. but there really is no choice. I hope that if need be, he will go and take it as his chance to get the help he needs. I can’t really handle many more ups and downs. None of us can, most of all him. He needs help that goes beyond what any of us can do for him or what an acute care setting can do. I can’t stand to see him hurt this much anymore. One day he won’t be able to take it any more, we’ve had more then enough scares with that already. This really is a dire situation. I always have hope but he doesn’t have hope and that is where the plan always fails. He holds the key to his future and as much as I want to make it better, I can’t. And I’m exhausted from trying. This really has been an effort between myself , Derek, my mother and my father. They have played a part in helping somehow always. In other states, just being there emotionally. In Ca, they have both been there physically, emotionally and financially. It has been rough, we are all exhausted. He got out of the hospital on Thursday. If he can just stay on the medication for a few more weeks then we will have an idea if it will help him or not.
My son was denied SSI. I thought that I might puke right there on the SSI clerk. I had to drag Hannah (home, sick) down to the SSI office with me and wait for hours to speak to somebody. Because Cory is over 18, it is near impossible to get anyone to speak to me. Since he was inpatient again, I took his paperwork and a note from him giving me permission with his ID to update his status…but the only info they would release to me was his status. Denied. The letter came later. Really? You guys don’t think he is disabled? Really? OK. So many things I want to say right now, but I won’t. The Medi-cal would have helped him to get approved for so many more programs. It’s a bummer.
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We had to have “the talk” with Hannah last night. You know that one…the one we all dread. The “your body is changing” talk. Oh My. If only we could have had a hidden camera. To say that she was shocked would be an understatement. Really. She is 10 1/2 now and has to wear a bra (along with half the girls in her class) but also has just gotten body odor. Just in her armpits. Oh gosh. Really, like I thought it was the swarthy family in front of us at the SSI office. Then Hannah says, “Mom, smell my armpits. I think I need deodorant”. I sniffed expecting to smell, little girl sweat. Oh no, that’s not what I got a nose full of at all.
So, Derek and I figured that with the little boobies and the body odor that it was time to talk to her about some of the changes that her body was going through.
I think we should have had a game plan. Maybe a book. Maybe some diagrams. Maybe should have hired an expert to do this for us. Wow, that was a bit rough.
So, just picture this. Sweet little Hannah, eyes popping out of her head saying “So wait, when I’m 11 there will be blood coming out of my vagina? WHAT?”
It gets worse.
The eggs part. Which I described as “The egg drops down…..” well, you know the sordid details. Then I added, “You know, you are born with all the eggs you will ever have”. This was met with hysterical laughter from her. She says, “AND I have EGGS!!!!”
OK, so back to the should have had a book or some diagrams part. The poor dear was picturing the eggs we make for our breakfast , big white chicken eggs. By now, she has fallen back on the couch laughing so hard she can’t contain herself.
Oh, it gets even worse.
She knows that somehow we are going to be talking about S.E.X. She knows enough to know that the two are related somehow, at least we think. Um, yeah that would be a NO. A big no. What a relief, right. Except now she knows how the birds and the bees are related but yet we haven’t the heart to tell her that there is no such thing as Santa Clause. Puberty came a little too early for us or her.
So, when we very uncomfortably tell her how babies are made she has a look of pure horror on her face. She says, “But I want lots of babies, is there ANY OTHER WAY TO MAKE BABIES?”. No. Sorry dear. Don’t worry, when your body is ready it won’t sound gross to you. Of course that will be when you have been married for at least 5 years, are financially stable and college educated so you have nothing to worry about little Hannah!
So, then she looks at me and realizes that Derek and I had to have done this to make her and Maddy and that I had to do it one more time before that to make Cory.
So, she then holds up her fingers and says “Oh my Gosh Mom, you had to do that 3 times. Ewwwwwwww” and she promptly fell back over on the couch laughing again.
I pretty much laughed so hard that I almost wet my pants. Yeah, Hannah…that’s what having 3 kids will do to ya!
So then I told her that if she watched the rabbits out back (we feed the wild rabbits so we have a ton of guests every day) that baby rabbit season was coming and that the rabbits were busy making babies. They have been chasing each other like crazy, we couldn’t figure out what has been going on with our sweet wild rabbits until we saw one actually catch the other. Then it became perfectly clear what was going on with the rabbits. Like I said, Baby Bunny season is upon us. This is our first bunny mating season here. Quite interesting, it seems the girls are not down with it at all.
So to this, her eyes widened and she said “Oh My Gosh, animals do it too?” and for the last time fell back on the couch in hysterical giggles.
Really, she had no clue? Oh dear. Turns out, she didn’t.
We gave her the BIG talk about keeping this very, very private from her friends. That it was her friends parent’s choice when they decided to fill them in on this little secret, not her choice. That we wanted her to have the right information but she was not really free to share it. She understood. We can trust her. At some point it will be discussed amongst the kids. I was in 4th grade also when my parents had the talk with me. I was in 5th grade when my friends and I started talking about it. She would be in 5th grade if she had started school in California. So same age as I was, about.
We felt like we had taken her innocence and there was no going back. But life does move forward and she is growing and at some point she would have found out about starting her monthly cycle. I would rather it be by us telling her first then her just waking up one morning and having started it. That would freak the heck out of her as much or more.
But still, she has passed a milestone.
So, this morning during breakfast she says this, “Ohhhhhh, I know why Uncle Jake doesn’t want to have a baby. Cause then he has to do that.” and she looks at me all knowingly. I just smiled at her. All knowingly.
Cause, have you seen Uncle Jake’s wife, Auntie Chandra? Trust me, he likes practicing making babies. That is a fact. I think it was the financially stable part that is holding him back! It is definitely not the making babies part that is holding him back!:)
Gotta run………………..missing my making babies partner. Downstairs.
~Katie




































































by Katie
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