So I failed

But nobody is really surprised. lol 

Things have been up and down. Had a fight with Master last week and I was told to take off my collar. It sucked. Big time. But the following night we talked and just…wow. The level we communicate at now is amazing. Everything is fine. I love it. 

Saturday was Mal’s birthday party. Unfortunately he developed a fever right at the beginning and spent most of it on Wes’ chest. 🙁 But it was a good party, anyway. My parents both behaved, and it was nice to see my dad for the first time since he got out of jail. It was also really cool to see all 3 of my sisters in one place, and watch how much fun they had chasing chickens and collecting the eggs for me. 🙂 

Laura and Chris ended up spending the night and Xander really loved that, but everybody’s still paying for it. lol The adults stayed up until almost 2am, and I don’t even know when the kids crashed. We got up in the morning and made waffles, scrambled eggs (with our own eggs!), and bacon for breakfast. Laura and I went grocery shopping while the guys stayed at home with the bigger kids, and then I made dinner and they left around 7ish I think. It was so much fun. Although Xander passed out at 8 last night and I had to push him to stay awake that long. lol But he came down with a fever, too, so he’s slept almost all day today and went to bed at 8 again. 🙁 

Today my social worker gave me a call. I really love her. She was so excited to be able to give me good news for once. They averaged Wes’ last 3 months of income to use as a basis to approve/deny our foodstamps. As it turned out, we got $550 for the rest of the month and $700 for next month!!! I can’t even tell you what a relief that is. It will likely be turned off for January because Wes has been working all this month, but I can stretch that $1200 to last quite awhile. 

Tomorrow is actually Mal’s birthday. I really can’t believe he’ll be a year old. In some ways it seems like yesterday, and in other ways I can’t remember what our life was like without him. He’s still not walking (which I consider an awesome gift after Jaime walked at 9 months!). He’s super tiny…as in, he got size 6 month clothes for his birthday, but so healthy, and such a happy boy (most of the time, when he’s not sick, anyway!). He’s still mostly exclusively breastfed, although he does eat solids sometimes, and I have a milk donor who gives me milk to put in his sippy cups, so he typically gets about 3oz of donor milk every other day or so. I love my little man. <3