Is there a switch that gets flipped?.....

I swear there must be some kind of switch that automatically flips when a child turns two! My little Sweet Pea has always been such a complacent child and easy to put down for naps and at night. Not anymore! He spent two hours crying and scraming before he finally went to sleep. (no I didn't leave him to cry all that time I went to check on him in between) It's not just the sleep thing either, he has become defiant! I tell him no touch and what does he do....goes right back over and touches it all the while looking straight at me as if to say "what are you going to do". UUUGGGHHH!

I WANT MY BABY BACK!!!!!!




Look at that sweet little face....looks like an angel doesn't he?!............

Clean up your toys

Well at least they made it into the closet and aren't all over the family room anymore. I guess we will take this one step at a time and eventually they will end up IN the toybox.

A Piece of Cake??!!!

Get ready to hear a tale, a sad tale, a frustrating tale.................

We had Sweet Pea's birthday party a couple of weeks ago and ordered his cake from A Piece of Cake. We were having a "Little Einstein" party and I wanted a cake shaped like rocket. I had found a website that had instructions how to make the cake, but I am not very crafty, so I called them because I had heard they were good (you bad people telling me lies!!!!) anyway I called and gave the lady on the phone the website and after looking it up she said they could do that and it would look even better than it did in the picture. I was so excited. You see since there aren't any party plates or things for Little Einstein everything was so plain so I wanted the cake to be exceptional.

Hubby went to get the cake (big mistake, ladies never let a man pick up a cake, they don't know what they are looking at) and brought it in and I immediately knew the cake was not like the picture I had given them. I was very disappointed with the cake.

This is what I got


This is what I asked for


The cake in the second picture was not done by a professional, it was done by a man who tinkered with cake decorating. So when the lady on the phone told me she could do the cake even better I honestly believed her. Well as you can tell the cake looked AWFUL!!! Total disappointment.

So we cut the cake and serve it and YUCK!!!! It tasted awful! There was so much red dye that the icing was bitter! So the entire cake, minus what a couple of kids ate went straight to the trash. Now I paid $70 for this cake and it was not edible.

A little later that day Pumpkin starts with a bad case of diarrhea. Surprise it is the color of the icing! This continues for THREE DAYS along with vomiting!!!! The poor little guy kept crying because his belly hurt. Then I find out that one of the other little one's had the same thing happen to her, only she threw up first.

So I decided to call Monday morning to A Piece of Cake and tell them what had happened. The lady (Karen) who identified herself as the owner listened to what I had to say and all she could offer was a discount on my next cake. Well I pondered this and I did not think that was sufficient. I mean two children got sick and I had to throw the whole cake away because it was awful. So I emailed her told her I wanted at least a portion of my money back to make up for everything. She did not respond so I called her late the next day. I spoke with her again and she informed me that the person who took my order said I asked for changes. WHAT!!!!!!! No I did not I gave her the website giving step by step instructions on how to do the cake! How can you screw that up. And as far as the vomiting, well she felt that it was more plausable that two children that had not been around each other for three weeks had contracted the exact same virus at the exact same time than the cake made them sick. Now I had told her I thought it was the amount of dye in the icing that made them sick, not the cake. She said anytime you tint icing red you get a change in flavor. She was so defensive and started yelling at me. I asked her point blank if she was at all worried that two children got very ill after eating her cake and she said "No, not during cold and flu season" She would not even acknowledge any responsiblility. So after getting nowhere with her several friends suggested the Health Department, because the children getting sick. The lady I spoke to at the Health department was so nice and after giving her every little detail including the time when the cake was eaten and when the symptoms started, she too felt that there was something there. I forwarded her the email I sent to Karen and she said she could tell just looking at the picture that there was a lot of dye in the icing. She called Karen and talked to her and Karen calls me and says she still doesn't believe the cake had anything to do with it but I can come and get a Thanksgiving cake for free. ARE YOU CRAZY!!!!! My child was sick for three days from your cake do you think I would subject him to that again??!!! She also tried to tell me that the order taker told me about that in advance and offered airbrushing, NOT!!!! Now what kind of nut would say "Ok, you can make my icing inedible for the color" Especially when the icing is the only thing little ones eat!

The mother of the other child called her to get the dye used to get more information about it since it made her daughter sick. She was RUDE to her and even tried to lie and say she wasn't there too bad she talks too loud because she heard her say she wasn't there and called the employee on it when she told her she wasn't there. So minutes later the other owner (Kathy) calls and threatens me that if anyone else calls about this cake she is going to file harassment charges on me. HUH?! I have not harassed her I called twice about a product and the other mother had every right to call and ask about the dye that made her child sick!

So in summary ( I know this is a really long post but I want this information out there!) DO NOT EVER ORDER FROM A PIECE OF CAKE in PELHAM, ALABAMA!!! You may not get what you want and you may get more than you bargained for the next couple of days.

Oh on a side note the manufacturer of the dye was contacted and he said used properly there should be no tase, evidently that is the selling point. Maybe they should call the decorators at A Piece of Cake and let them know that.

Hubby is in the doghouse!

Just look what he did to my baby!@#@#$!


I know he has been out of town for a while, but he knows I don't cut his hair like that! I had to cancel his pictures and won't reschedule until it grows out. It isn't even straight! I should have known when he didn't want me to go in something was up!

Now isn't this one much better


I get so upset every time I look at him. It is just too grown up! UUUGGHHHHH!
I was a little worried when we got his hair cut the last time (the second picture was taken that day) because we went from the Buster Brown cut to the bowl cut because I felt it was too short and made him look older. Needless to say I have informed him he is NEVER going to take him to get his hair cut again. That is my last baby damnit don't make him grow up so fast!

What's with Law Enforcement in Alabama

Let me just preface this by saying in my former life I worked as a Crime Scene Technician, so you know where I am coming from when I make my remarks.

My husbands car was recently broken into at work, in the parking lot in the broad daylight. His GPS and golf clubs were the only things taken of real value. When he contacted the police to make a report they did not even ask for any detailed information about the stuff stolen. They just wanted the generic GPS and golf clubs, no brands, serial numbers or anything else. I know Bham has A LOT of crime and this may be unimportant in the grand scheme of their day, but come on. Retrieving stolen property is something they can hire a civilian for. Point is as we were taught in school you have to go all out at EVERY scene because you don't know what you may find. It has also been proven that many criminals start off with stealing property and eventually graduate to more heinous crimes. What about the point system, or is that not here either. (Each crime is so many point and after a certain amount your punishment gets more severe)

After being irate about this the hubby tells me a guy at work got his home broken into and LOTS of expensive stuff stolen and they did nothing but write a report. WHAT??!!?? I know I hated going to Residential Burglaries, but come on are we just letting the crooks take peoples stuff that they worked so hard to attain?

Bye-Bye baby

It is time I say bye-bye to those days of ease when putting sweet pea down for night-night. He has crawled out of his crib every now and then, but we were putting off the transition into a toddler bed. This week that all has changed, he climbed out every time we put him in, so in the interest of safety we have transformed his bed into a toddler bed. Last night was the first night and let's just say he LOVES his new found freedom. He finally did fall asleep, in his bed, somewhere between 10 and 10:30 last night. At least that is when we stopped hearing the toys. And I can hear him right now playing with his toys, while he is supposed to be napping. This is about the time when Peanut and I began our regular "fights" about sleep. Peanut was never good about going to bed, but once he was in a toddler bed he got even worse. Sweet Pea has always been so good about going to sleep and now I fear that is all gone.

My little guy is growing up.

I still can't believe he will be two in two weeks.

School Board SUCKS!!!!!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I am having so many problems getting Peanut into the preschool program. Absolutely EVERYONE I have met that has dealt with them, in different states even, has said the same thing; "You have to FIGHT to get you child what they need." Now I don't mind fighting and I will continue to fight them until he gets the services he needs, however I think it is awful that he is missing out on help that he needs in the meantime. Why do they stonewall you? Why to they try to push you off and give you the least possible help and make you wait weeks and weeks before you can make another meeting to discuss the situation. Fist I was told the program was full and not accepting any other children. When I said that I thought if there was a need they had to find a spot, the tune changed. It took a month to get that first meeting. I brought with me all the paper work from the initial speech evaluation and the evaluation from Mitchel's Place (who by the way are awesome to work with). They took the report and looked at the diagnosis page and I think the woman said three or four times "There is no diagnosis, did you hear there is no diagnosis". That was our first clue this was not going to go as we wanted. After talking with them for an hour they decided they needed to do some "Testing" of their own. Although I didn't know what else they could test, I said ok. Three weeks later we go in and they do their tests. The same one's he already had done at Mitchel's! Which I have been told standardized test completed within a year of the test are not valid, but whatever. So they decide to work with him in his "Natural Environment", which in this case they considered a preschool that he had attended one day as his natural environment. (If you are following this we started the process in the beginning of July and as you can see by this time it was September)
We decided to go with it and see how things went. In mid October we went for a follow up with the psychologist and he was then diagnosed with PDD-NOS. The diagnosis was given after another evaluation session with the psychologist and a review with the therapist that he had been seeing since the beginning of August. We were told that he needs to be in a classroom with teachers who are trained to handle children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. So back to the School Board we go.
We meet again and they pretty much told me they will not put him in the preschool period! They feel he is making progress with the people they are sending into his preschool for a half hour two days a week. These women who have each seen Peanut four times for a half hour each feel that they have a better grasp of where he is and what is best for him than either me or the therapist who have been interacting with him since July. Now if you ask me I think there is something wrong there! The notes they send home say that he does all kinds of things that neither I nor his REAL therapist have seen him do. Makes you wonder if they are fudging a little. Case in point the one lady said he told her about his Halloween costume, funny I have been prepping him for two or three weeks and I still can't get him to tell me he has a costume on. When I called her on it in the meeting she said that he said he had a pirate costume on "well at least I hope it was a pirate, because that's what I said it was". HELLO! You just said it right there you told him it was a pirate and we know he has issues with echolalia! It's like they never read the report that was given to them! I precede to tell them I think it stinks that we are supposed to consider what's best for the child and I just don't feel that is a factor here. Oh, that one lady was sooooo smug and kept telling me they have to follow the law, which they are as she says! Problem is the law is written so broad that it is open to interpretation! To this she tells me to write my congressman if I want it changed. B*TCH!!!!!! Now I have given the reigns to our Psychologist and she is going to see what she can do. Next step is to go to a lawyer.

Why do they have to make this so hard, aren't we already dealing with enough sress to add this to it! As and old friend would say "Rat Bastards"!

God is Crazy..?!......

Peanut has been saying grace for the family for a while now. We have always said the "Bless us oh Lord" prayer, however he has learned a new prayer at preschool and insists on saying that one also.

Check out what they are teaching him....

Peanut's Prayer

God is Crazy
God is Good
(Inaudible sounds)
Ah-men

It's official!

We went for Peanut's evaluation today. After testing and meetings with his therapist the psychologist feels that the diagnosis of PDD-NOS is appropriate for him. I was prepped for that though, I kind of felt like she was leaning that way after our visit last week. The good news is it is not severe.

That's all I got for today! I promise I will not focus on this every day!

A little more info on PDD-NOS

I have had a lot of questions posed to me about what PDD-NOS is exactly and what is the difference between that and Autism. To tell the truth I really did not do much research earlier (like I said before I was just to scared of what I might see) but since Thursday I have sat down a few times and did some research and this is what I found that may help to explain a little better.

How do professionals tell the difference between autism and PDD-NOS?

Primarily by the pattern and degree or number of characteristics observed or reported. However, there are difficulties associated with this differential diagnosis, and it often takes a clinician with extensive experience with both disorders to make the call. Problems may occur when a child's developmental level is quite low, so that assessing the areas of concern would be quite difficult at a similar age equivalent.

A second problem occurs with children who are toddlers and young preschool-age children. Many of the behaviors that are considered crucial for diagnosis are still very variable in typically developing young children in this age range. Some children may receive a diagnosis of PDD-NOS as a toddler because they did not have any communicative behavior; later they may qualify for a diagnosis of autism as their communication develops and it becomes more evident that a qualitative difference exists in that area. For parents and educators, the important thing to focus on is not the specific label a child receives, but what can be done to help the child develop skills in the areas of concern.

What is the long-term prognosis for children diagnosed with Autism/PDD-NOS?

Autism/PPD-NOS is a life-long disability, and individuals with Autism live a full lifetime. There are no cures, and even those individuals who proclaim themselves "recovered" continue to have difficulties with subtle social processes. However, with advances in education, early intervention, and research, today individuals with Autism/PDD have a greatly expanded range of outcomes as adults. In the past, the majority of individuals with Autism lived in institutional care as adults. Current trends, based on increased knowledge of how to educate children with Autism and the importance of early education, emphasize building skills and abilities in order to prepare young adults with Autism/PDD to work, to live in the community, and in some cases, to pursue higher education. Outcome appears to depend on both degree of overall impairment and intensity of educational/treatment effort. Prognosis is markedly better for individuals who develop verbal language before the age of 5 years

I found these two quesion/answers to outline everything pretty clearly. There is also a link to a great article that give a more indepth explanation about PDD-NOS if you are so inclined to read it.

Wow this must be the most boring blog to read right now, sorry but my focus is limited.

PDD - NOS

Not a good day for us today. We went for our follow up appointment with the child psychologist this afternoon and we are being re evaluated next week. Some issues have come out in his therapy that did not present themselves as strongly when we did the initial evaluation back in July. She had told us then that he had autistic tendencies, but she did not feel that a diagnosis at that time was appropriate. She now feels that he will fall into the PDD-NOS diagnosis and wants to verify with another test. I guess I should be happy that she said she really doesn't feel that he has full autism, but it is still in the spectrum. I did a little research before we went in for the initial evaluation, but stopped because quite frankly it scared the Shit out of me!

I just keep asking myself, what if it was something that I could have prevented? I know a lot of people blame vaccines, but like the psychologist said, the research just doesn't show a correlation. What about TV? Did I let him watch to much TV at a young age? What about all my cleaning stuff? (I have gone "green" recently) There are so many questions that I am going crazy.

Oh, wait I have already gone there...........
I'm just having a pity party!

New Car

Not for me, but for the boys.


Although my hubby doesn't think they need it, one of the items I wanted to get them for Christmas was a ride on. We have a little one seater that we got for Peanut when he turned two, but both boys can't fit in it and they fight over it. Imagine my delight when I was just browsing by the ride on vehicles and noticed the Cadillac Escalade on sale for $169! Now I have been pricing these for a while, because I think the boys would love it (and I think they are cool and wish I had one for myself, but that's a whole other story), and they are usually closer to $300. I snatched that thing up quickly, well at least as quickly as I could at a Wal Mart where NOBODY is ever working. We didn't get to pick it up until Monday, because the assembly guy was backed up, so I didn't get to really check it out until today after the boys went down. (YES! Peanut finally took a nap! YEHAW!)


This thing is awesome!






































It has a working radio, kid style cd player and cd to play, cup holder, working doors and seat belts. I want to drive it!

Now I just have to be patient because we have another three months before they get it. We don't have a good place to store it as you can see it is "hidden" in our garage for now. We really need to figure something out it is only a matter of time before Peanut decides he wants to see what's under the sheet.

I would never survive as a Single mom

I really don't know how anyone does this on their own. With the hubby out of town frequently I have had my "single mom" stints and can I just say I don't like it. I feel so drained at the end of the day I just want to get the kids in bed and cry. I love my boys, but they can be a handful. I absolutely HATE to yell, but that is the only way I seem to get their attention when they are doing something that they shouldn't. I feel like I spend all day yelling. Then I feel guilty for loosing it. Tonight when we sat down after bath they both cuddled up to me and I felt like the worst mother in the world because not even a half hour earlier I was yelling at them to stop jumping on the couch. At least when the hubby is home I get a few minutes break while I'm doing the dishes. It is like they know he is not here and they let it all loose. I just don't understand, I spend the most time with them ergo I do most of the disciplining, so why is it that they are much better behaved for him?

So to all you single moms out there I give you kudos because I definitely could not do it on my own, you are much stronger women than I.

Autism and Vaccines

So my sister recently sent me a link to an article about Jenny McCarthy. It talks a little about her book about her experiences with Autism. I am not beating up on the book or her segment, what I have issue with is some of the comments that I read. I get so unnerved that people think that just because they read it on the internet it must be true. Here is a comment that I have (although I could not get it posted I thought I would share with you)



Everyone is talking about the Hg levels in vaccines, if your child was born in 2001 or after the vaccine formulas were changed and the Thimerasol was removed. I have researched this on many websites, becaus I too have a child that is developentally delayed and has been tested for Autism. The problem with the internet is you don't know who it is that is writing this stuff. You can find a website validating anythig, the key is you must read EVERYTHING before jumping to conclusions. Here is an exerpt from a reputable site. "By mid-2000, thimerosal-free vaccines against hepatitis B and bacterial meningitis were widely available. A combination vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus is also available today without thimerosal. Measles/mumps/rubella (MMR), chickenpox, inactivated polio, and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines have never contained thimerosal. Thus, except for some influenza vaccine, none of the vaccines now used to protect preschool children against 12 infectious diseases contain thimerosal as a preservative. Certain flu vaccines and tetanus-diphtheria vaccines (Td) given to children age 7 and older still contain thimerosal as a preservative." There has to be more to it than just blaming the vaccines. I really do not feel that the people that have sworn an oath to heal would put our children in harms way. More money for research must be alocated. There are also studies that could convince you that any amount of television your child watches could cause Autism. Let's all throw out our televisions they are evil......



Ok, off my soapbox

OH NO HE DIDN'T

I'm sitting in my living room playing with Peanut and look out the window to see a little boy peeing in my front yard! How rude is that! What nerve he has, I mean we live on the corner it is broad daylight and the bus is coming any minute, which is why he was out there in the first place.

Yes the bus stop is right in front of my house for three different buses! UUUGGGGGHHHHHH!

Sadie's Battle

As some of you know my beagle has been battling lymphoma. She went through Chemo last year and she completed her treatments just before Christmas. It was a great Christmas present to know that she was clear of all the cancer. I did not realize that it could come back! Last month while I was loving on her I noticed her lymph nodes were enlarged again. It has been a battle with the hubby to have her go through the treatments again. His first response when he found out it was cancer again was "I'm not spending thousands more dollars on that dog!", which naturally didn't go over well with me. You see Sadie was my first baby. She sleeps with me like a teddy bear and snuggles with me on the couch. Well after hearing how upset I was he said we would try it for a month and see where we were and if she was responding this time around as the vet recommended. After a month the vet evaluated her and said she is doing great and is responding well to the treatment. I relayed this to hubby and he never responded so I thought that meant we were going to finish all the treatments. When I reminded him to take her in today, he balked and said she was done with treatments and he only agreed to one month. Not at all what I got out of the conversation, but then again he is not a great communicator at times. Now he says we can do one more month and that's it. That will only be half of the treatments. Will this do anything for her? I guess my problem is that she doesn't act like she is sick. She still gets excited and is her normal self. I just have trouble not helping her when there is something we can do for her. I understand he feels it is a lot of money to spend and the money could be spent elsewhere, but my conscious tells me that I can't just sit back and do nothing. Am I being selfish. I know she is a dog, but I still love her. How do I let go?

Am I prolonging the inevitable, probably.

So proud!

We had to make another visit to the doc today and Sweet pea has yet another ear infection. As bad as that is I came out feeling so happy. First the doc makes comments about how cute my boys are and how their big blue eyes are beautiful, the Sweet pea decided to show his intelligence conversation goes....

Sweet Pea: Pibe, semen, eight, niii, te, eweben, tweb, tirtee......

Doc: Is he counting?

Mom: Yes, he does pretty good but skips 4 and 6 quite often

Doc: Really?? He is way ahead of the game. He is talking so well and to be counting at his age, wow.

Yes I am beaming with pride. My little einstein!

Next step Harvard Law............lol

Vacation

Just got back from our fall vacation. I am wondering if you can call it a vacation with a toddler and preschooler in tow. Don't get me wrong we had a great time. I love watching the boys explore and see new things. The look of wonder just gives me warm fuzzies.

Sweet pea, that's my little one, is not a very good sleeper away from home. I don't know if it is his age or just how he is going to be. We had such a fight to get him to nap or go down at night that it was exhausting. My little Peanut, however went straight to bed every night without a fight quite contrary to home.

We learned a few things that are not really toddler friendly on this trip. The boys are always hitting golf balls around the back yard so we decided to take them miniature golfing, BIG mistake. It took Peanut a few holes before he got the idea and Sweet pea only wanted to hit everyone with the club and throw the balls. It was a LOOOONG 18 holes, but we made it through and I think Peanut enjoyed it.

We did get some quiet time on the balcony listening to the waves crash in, ahhhh it was nice. Now back to the real world and a crazy week.

Knock Knock

Just had to share a funny today!

Move over Tiger....

Look at my little man. Doesn't he look like a pro

Look at the concentration as he gets ready to send the ball sailing

Ok, so he missed the ball, but he has good form

Housing market

Ok, here is one of those opinionated posts that may make a few mad, but you were warned that I am very opinionated.

I'm reading the news and run across the article about how the rate of foreclosures has increased yata yata yata, I'm sure you've all read the same. Now there are some government officials who want to take tax dollars and throw it at this situation to "make it better". Here comes my problem with this. There are legitimate home buyers who have had extenuating circumstances that need help and I do not fault them for that. However, during all this "housing boom" there are many, and I feel the majority of those in trouble now fall into this category, that simply are trying to live beyond their means and I don't feel our tax dollars should help them. If someone went out and bought a home as a statement of what they have and did not consider a safe debt to credit ratio when doing so, I don't feel sorry for them. I do not feel that our tax dollars should bail them out. There is a lot of ramped needless spending here!

Come on people if you aren't smart enough to read the papers of do the math it's not our responsibility to bail you out! Be responsible for yourself. We won't go into the subject of responsibility because I could go on for hours about how no one wants to take blame for their own actions, but that is better left to another day.

I am just dumbfonded by it all......................

Intro to my blog

Well, here we are. I have finally decided to jump on the band wagon and keep a blog. I am new at this and very technologically challenged, but I will do my best to keep this up.

I thought I would give you an insight to what you have in store if you so choose to read this blog regularly. First I must tell you I am not much of a writer and my grammar is horrible so please don't judge. Subject matter will include tales of our daily lives and updates on my angels as well as my rantings about various topics.

Warning:
I have some strong opinions on very controversial issues and need to vent at times and this will be my outlet.

Should we feel bad

Should we feel bad if other children we know get fancier toys or have better birthday parties than our child. This question was posed to me yesterday and I just don't know the right way to respond. I feel I should say it doesn't matter what others have, and that is what I said, but I know deep down I would probably feel bad for my child if they saw others getting more and better things than them. Now I'm not one to try to play keep up with the Jones' but this is my seet child, and I want to make him happpy. I know it doesn't matter right now, because the boys are so small, but what about later in life??? Should we strive to pamper and spoil or children with material things?

I just keep going back and forth on this one