Its been a rainy June and goodbye Michael Jackson

Sierras 11th birthday. (obviously) We got her some clothes, a hair straightener, earrings, some big thick purple bath towels, and a new purple BMX freestyle bike with pegs on it. The exact kind she wanted. I wasn't going to get it for her because when I asked what she wanted she didn't say a bike until a few days before her birthday. But Chris couldn't resist a moment to do something daddyish. ;-) She had a party but not many friends came. I think it was just poor planning on her part and late inviting. She had a sleepover with Skye, Ashley, and Danielle was there for the party.

We've been babysitting for a friend this summer and its been interesting to say the least. Two autistic children don't always get along well. Thats all I'm gonna say about that. LOL

We've been cooped up inside a lot this summer because its rained most of June. There have been a few semi-nice days but not many.

Its been an odd week in history. Farrah Fawcet died of cancer. Ed Mcmahon died. Billy Mays died. And Michael Jackson died. So many people in the public eye, it stopped the world for a few seconds. The internet traffic was so heavy after the news of MJ, that it almost ceased to work altogether. The cause of death is still unknown. Some people are happy, having pegged him a pedophile. Others are moarning and in grief. The black community has lost an icon. The music industry has lost an influencial singer, dancer and coreographer. MTV and all the channels have been running tribute shows that show his songs and music videos. So my children got a chance to watch them last night, having never seen them before.

Ivy is now infatuated with his "Thriller" video and both girls made me tape the show and so far today its played 6 times. Ivy dances in MJ style and they both gasp and giggle about the zombies. I find it so odd that my children are seeing this video for the first time because of his death. In his death, my children are experiencing joy at watching him dance and sing.

My thoughts are with the Jackson family as they sort through this tragedy. As they are with all the families of the other public figures that passed away this week. May they find peace in the afterlife that they were not able to find here on earth..

This is what a good daddy looks like.

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Originally uploaded by lady_ivey

We have double the children now than we did back then.. and he's still a wonderful father.

Happy Fathers Day! and a rather large update

Oh yes, I've been worse than horrible about updating. What can I say? I have four kids. Cut me some slack.

As you can see, that is baby #5 right there on the left. We had our 20 week ultrasound a few weeks ago. Today I'm 20 weeks and 5 days along. And technically its baby #7, since I had two miscarriages in between the girls.

We decided to find out the gender this time. The result? Baby number 5 is another girl to add to our estrogen filled home! Daddy is thrilled beyond belief and I'm happy keeping Odin the only little man in my life for now. =)

All the testing came back good, and the 20 week scan looks great. My thyroid levels are off though, so I'm back on synthroid again. I was on it for Sierra and Ivy too.

My OB doesn't want me going until my due date, which is officially November 3rd 2009. Instead they want to induce me the last week of October, or sooner depending on how much I dilate. I'm alright with that, since usually after ROM I go quickly.

Lets see... Ivy graduated Kindergarten the other day. I'm so proud of her. She really has learned so much this past year. As weird as her teacher was at times, she was a good teacher for Ivy. She even returned the communication notebook to me at the end of the year. I'm impressed. Ivy retained her IEP for next year, though it was by the skin of her teeth. We advocated for her based on her below average pragmatic skills test scores, and her need for sensory breaks an other accommodations. So she'll be in the social skills group with the SLP next year in 1st grade. Her evaluation by the school psychologist was a joke. Well, reevaluation. It was 5 minutes of observation and 10 minutes of "conversation." He concluded her pragmatic language was excellent and she had no issues at all. So he was not going to diagnose her officially with Asperger's at all. ..... at the IEP meeting I called attention to the discrepancy in his report versus the speech and language pathologists report that looked at her pragmatics. She scored below average, enough to qualify her for special education for another year. And yet he said it was excellent?? He asked her questions again about things, and she gave fictional answers. But since I wasn't there, he had no reference. He took it all at face value and claimed there was nothing wrong there. I was livid to say the least. In the end though I had to back off a bit. They were willing to give me an IEP for another year and THAT was the goal of that day. I can get her a medical diagnosis on the autism spectrum another day by a real professional. LOL The schools job is to help me help her. And I believe they did. It was a successful IEP meeting, albiet my first stressful one.

Piper still has a whole year and 1/2 left before she goes to preschool. I can't believe that. She's such a big girl and SO ready. Of course she has that 3 year old attitude. LOL She also took the scissors to her hair the other day. Gone was that hard to make decision about whether I should cut off all her hair to give her bangs or not. No, she made the decision easy! Most of her hair was cut off to make it even after her barber job, and she's now sporting a very cute bob. I have to admit, she didn't do a bad job on the side she cut. And just like her mom, she hid the hair under the bed. (RIP Aunt Alice)

Sierra has run the gamut of things she's willing to do for popularity and/or friends. Her first serious "relationship" with a 13 year old boy ended badly recently. She refused to kiss him because she wasn't ready for her first kiss, and after a month of waiting he was too embarrassed that his girlfriend wouldn't kiss him that he dumped her. Now she's willing to do anything to get him back, including sacrifice her own self worth. I can't think of anything I hate more. Watching my daughter give up everything for a boy that I know is playing her. Being used. And not being able to stop it. As a parent I'm pretty powerless to these social things. Being an aspie parent I'm even more powerless because I don't get it in the first place. I find it hard to understand why she NEEDS these horrible friends that treat her like crap. Or why she MUST do things/say things when they're around. I simply do not get it.

I count my blessings that I believe her trying smoking has ceased. She tried it twice. (first time because she wanted to try it. Second time because others heard she had tried it and dared her to again.. *insert eye rolling smilie here*)

smoking.. boys... kissing....

I'm not going to like the next 7 years.
Yes, she turned 11 finally. It seems she's been stuck at 10 doing much older things for awhile now. I'll be glad when my pre-teen acting like a teen finally IS a teen. Then it will seem age appropriate at least. Ahh what a period at 9 will do to you... hormones really are the devil.

Odin my little man is not so little anymore. He's 16 months old now and just as snuggly as ever. I think everything he's doing is age appropriate and on target. (though I said that about Ivy as well and looking back... well.. I was a little bit of an idiot.)
He says "key eee" for kitty
"baww" for ball
"I did it" for I did it.
"dada" for dada
(no mama at all. *sigh*)
"up"
"yes"
"no"
"nope"
"ahh yes"
"ahh no" when thinking LOL
"step" when he wants help getting up or down the stairs or steps
"I said stop!"
"stop!"
"stop it!" (can you tell he has siblings?)

He says some variation of thank you, though I can't think of what is is right now. It sounds nothing like thank you, but he says it everytime you give him something so I'm assuming thats what it is.

He blows kisses with both hands. He gives kisses and hugs.
He pulls hair still. A LOT.
He hits faces.
He doesn't bite much. Not as much as the girls did.
He loves to play with his trucks and play outside.
He plays by himself a lot better than the girls did.

He nightweaned himself a few months ago. He takes a sippy with diluted milk to bed. (we're weaning down to water) He nurses once a day. Occasionally twice a day, but no more than that. He just doesn't want it like the girls did. Odd huh?
He hates shoes and refuses to wear anything but Robeez. He'll walk in those but everything else causes him to fall on the floor screaming and howling pitifully.
He still sleeps in my bed... and I'm unsure how to transition him to his own bed so soon..with the new baby on his heels.

He's the most snuggly baby I've ever had and I love him so much.



(Picture of the girls taken at the Old Port Festival in Portland.) I went to see Thriving Ivory perform and I enjoyed every minute of it! (I also have a video of it on YouTube.)


In conclusion... heres to you Chris! My wonderful loving husband. I'm so glad I married you. (seriously!) I'm so glad I chose you to have a family with. You're an awesome father to my oldest, even if she's not yours by blood.. and you're a great dad to our children we made together. I love you so much! Happy Fathers day darling.. and thanks for the waffles and bacon. ;-)


<3 Peace.

I'm Shocked.

I peed on this February 26th, 2009. Exactly 5 days ago.

Really, do I need to add words here? I am absolutly still in shock. In fact, I'm not quite convinced honestly. We literally DTD only a few times in the past YEAR. I know I know, you can get pregnant from doing it once... but still! What are the odds? I'm nursing on top of it, my cycle is irregular, and we have infrequent sex. I guess this baby really wanted to be here! O_O And thats the first time I've made reference to "the baby." Gosh, Odin just turned a year old! I wasn't ready for this so soon. I was really enjoying his babyhood!
No symptoms of anything so far. I'm not even sure when my last period was except it was sometime in the beginning of January. Ya I know, that would put me close to two months along already. Its a good thing I don't drink, drug or smoke huh?!

Looks like an October baby. I always wanted an October baby. Did I say yet that I wasn't ready? Whew...

I'm gonna take another HPT to be sure before I make appointments. Though I'm not sure why. This HPT had two lines before the test was even finished going across. LOL I really thought it would be negative too. A surprise pregnancy! Baby #5, pregnancy #7.

I don't believe it yet.
Gosh this makes getting a van a SUPER priority now! Yikes.

*breathe* It will be okay. You always wanted a large family....
I know BUT..
I'm not telling anyone anyway. I told Tabitha and thats it. I mean, honestly? No one cares and everyone else would be so against us having ANY children let alone #5. LOL I gave up getting their love and support a long time ago.

Okay rant off... this wasn't supposed to be that kind of blog day.
I just wanted to share that our family size looks like its increasing!

The Missing Children

Many of you know that my husband has three other children from a previous marriage. Some of you know the circumstances surrounding that. Some of you might not. Its a long complicated issue.

Long story short, his ex-wife wasn't the best parent she could be. The children were left in situations they never should have been left in, neglected, and abused. My husband was given the children, but their behaviors were already so severe that it was hard for him to parent them without help. The state offered help but said they needed temporary guardianship in order to do so. My husband was young and naive and truelly believed they were trying to help him. They didn't. They also didn't get the kids any help either.

Aside from a few visitations spaced far apart and eventually canceled, he didn't see his two girls Abigail (Abby or Abbie, the caseworkers spelled it both ways. I never knew which was she herself preferred it..) and Cynthia much afterwords. Visits were started and stopped. They cited his inconsistencies, but failed to help him meet those expectations. (He had a real hard time in social situations)

When I came into the picture he still had his son Duncan. That only lasted a year. Suffering from what I believe to be an attachment disorder, Duncan was hard to parent. I loved him so much, but the day in and day out was soul stealing. I was drained. We reached out for help and were again blind sighted by the department of health and human services. My husband said it would happen, but I believed differently. I was there! I wouldn't let that happen. Surely they would say what they mean and honestly help us with the situation! ... I didn't realize just how trusting I was.

Never again.

Duncan was taken just days before Thanksgiving 2003. Our daughter Ivy was an infant still, and they threatened to take her as well. They had no reasoning. We were scared anyway. I was too shocked not to be scared. They took the little boy I'd been loving for the past 2 years.

We visited him a few times in foster care, but they terminated visitations when I wouldn't let him hold Ivy. I was afraid to let him hold her. His behaviors included threatening to hurt her and me. He was violent. I didn't want to risk that. I wanted to concentrate on helping him and showing him we cared, not on my issues of trust vs safety. I brought Ivy to visitations, but didn't want him to hold her. That was enough for them to TPR him quickly. We never saw him again. A few years later we received notification that he was adopted.

Both Duncan and Cynthia have found their Forever Family now we've been told. We have no idea where they are or who they are with. We are not privy to that information any longer.

We were told that Abigail was unadoptable, and she'd age out of the system soon. Workers started calling and asking us about the family tree. They wouldn't say why. Later my sister in law Shannon said she was called to a meeting about maybe being a foster placement for Abigail. She sounded hopeful. She went to a few meetings. Chris was never asked to go to any of those meetings.

Nothing ever materialized. We were told Abigail was on the news as Thursdays Child. We watched it. I'm sure Chris cried later on when he thought no one was watching. It was hard to hear her say she just wanted family that loved her. We ARE family that loves her. We love all of them.

I was lucky that I was able to meet Abigail and visit with her a handful of times. She came to the hospital when Ivy was born and got to hold her. Visits soon stopped because she became hostile to staff at her group home because she wanted to go home to her daddy. The more visits they allowed, the worse she was. Or so we were told. So they terminated visits.

I was only able to meet Cynthia once because the state terminated visitations after just one. But she was able to meet her sister Ivy, and able to see her daddy one last time. We brought her a Care Bear for a gift. She was quiet. Nervous, but happy to see him. She was extremely good natured about meeting me for the first time and knowing she was a big sister again. The meeting was excellent, but again we were told her behaviors were worse after she saw us. So visits stopped just as soon as they started. She was adopted a few years later.

We're waiting for the day that they look for us. We'll be here, ready and willing to be a family. We always were here all along. We tried our best, and our best just wasn't enough for them. Hopefully there lives have improved and that they're happy wherever they are. At least that is my hope.

Our home will always be your home. We love you.

Odin Christopher at almost a year old

Look at how grown up he's gotten! In a few days he'll be a year old already. He's walking, running even. Lets see if I can remember some stuff..

Odins words: Mama, Dada, "I did it", thank you (which sounds nothing like thank you but trust me, it is!)and "Ivy." He loves his sisters so much.

Odins favorite foods: Frozen peas. Yes I know its weird. He absolutely loves them and refuses to eat them if I cook them! LOL A handful of frozen peas at his highchair and he's a happy baby for the next half hour. He also loves cereal with a little bit of soy milk on it, and pretty much eats whatever we eat. Peas are the favorite filler though.

Odins favorite drinks: Nummies! He's still nursing strong but Piper is beginning to wean. I think if I sat down more she would nurse more but she's three years old. I feel confident she has received the best she can from me and I'm ready to move on I think. Slowly we are headed that way with her in the lead as always. Oh yes, Odin. He loves to drink soy milk or apple juice from a sippy cup. He also loves to drink ice water from MY cup.

Odins favorite games: Run-to-mamas-desk-as-soon-as-she-gets-up-so-I-can-toss-everything-off-it game is his favorite! I have the pictures to prove it, I'll have to get them up soon. He loves to try to throw my coffee cup on the floor. He's destroyed three cups so far including a Christmas cup, my favorite pentacle cup from Salem, and one of the matching mugs we got from Acres of Wildlife where we went on our honeymoon. *sigh* Thats not one of our favorite games for sure. He loves to grab Daddys Mountain Dew bottle. Sometimes I'm going to get a picture put together of all the kids holding that mountain dew bottle. I know they've all done it. LOL

Odins favorite toys: Trucks and cars, electronics! (my cell phone, daddys cell phone, the PS3 controller..) He loves to play with his Little People too.

Odins favorite show: Yo Gabba Gabba hands down. LOL I think its everyones favorite show because its just. so. crazy.
Its teletubbies for the 21st century.

And now I bring to you.... Odin Christopher

All About Piper

She's three years old now!

Some More Pictures

Here's a few more pictures I took while I was playing with the camera. Theres so much to learn about this one I'm already lost in the menu! But so far it takes awesome pictures. You know, looking back on my blog.. I really didn't do too bad with just a cellphone camera. Some of the pictures I took were really nice even. Hopefully I'll have a lot of fun learning how to use this one. =)

My New Camera!

My sister in law finally made good on her promise of a new digital camera! After nearly two years without one I'm so thrilled! So far, I love it! Its a Fujifilm Finepix Z20 in green! <3

Winter 2008

Ivy and Piper playing outside in the cold just days before record low temps in Maine. Brrrrr!
I've had enough of the snow now and I'm ready for spring. When I was younger I loved the snow. It really must be something about getting old that turns you against it..
suddenly Florida is starting to look nice.

Shoot me please.

Final Christmas 2008 pictures

 
 



I didn't get my new camera this Christmas like I thought I would. =( So I had to make do with a cellphone camera. Its better than nothing I suppose but boy does it hurt. Big time Mommy guilt for that.

And More Christmas 2008

(anyone know why I can only upload 4 at a time from Picasa?)

 
 
 
 

Yep more Christmas 2008