A Quick Summary (A Few pics too)

It’s 7 PM. The kids are in bed. And the husband doesn’t get home for another hour. It doesn’t happen very often when I get a little time to myself anymore. I figured I’d write. It’s obviously been a LONG while so I’m going to do a quick overview since I was last on.

 

So yeah, Lily in the hospital. She finally got better and after much frustration on our part, we finally got home. OMG, the red tape and stupid rules to get out of the hospital was infuriating. I wanted to strangle something the final day we were there with continual promises that we could go home. It started with first thing in the morning after morning rounds but sadly, we didn’t leave until close to dinner time. 

 

Although they never provided a full diagnosis of what Lily was sick with, I am 99% sure it was missed strep. I got sick a couple days after getting home and my strep culture came back positive for an uncommon strain. Although I never got as sick as Lily, I totally experienced her symptoms. Poor thing. Even hubby got it but somehow John was spared. 

 

We had a mini vacation around Memorial Day. We planned on driving out East to visit my Father in law which turned into this whole deal of my SIL and MIL coming out too. It was a disaster. MIL was psychotic. Seriously. Like, she needed meeds psychotic. I finally figured out the proper diagnosis. She has paranoid personality disorder. It’s basically paranoid schizophrenia without the hallucinations. And since the family already has a schizophrenia, it wouldn’t be completely out of question since it is linked and hereditary. I don’t think hubby has spoken to her more than two or three times since we’ve come back. I’m still craving a real vacation. Like all inclusive resort on a beach where I can lay around and not do or plan anything kind of vacation.

 

SIL sadly seems to be heading down the same road as MIL. It’s difficult to have a rational conversation at times with her. Maybe not so much paranoid but she has her own host of issues and certainly has picked up some similar tendencies of her mom. I basically just don’t go out of my way to talk to her anymore. I just can’t. She’s still separated and finally saw a lawyer to start the divorce a couple weeks back. We’ll see how long it will take to finalize. 

 

Summer was LONG and eh. It was too hot and just blah. We did a few things here and there but nothing terribly exciting. 

 

Summer was mainly taken up with gymnastics. I was very shocked and surprised when the coach approached my husband at the end of the spring session to invite John to start practicing with the team boys during the summer. John was having wishy washy feelings about gymnastics and our plan was to let him take the summer off and see how he felt in the Fall. I had wanted a pull up bar for awhile and I purchased one to install into our garage and I got John a pair of rings he could hang from and practice on. I knew part of the issue is he never had time to just have fun on the equipment and get more acquainted with it in his own style. He’s much more about figuring things out on his own. 

 

I was leery about moving him up. I certainly didn’t think he was ready and thought he would be at level three for quite a while. But I ended up talking to the coach and I realized he was pretty much on the same page as me. He knew John’s hang ups had a lot to do with his perfectionism and he also saw that he would probably have a better time stepping it up by being with other boys better than him and who were a bit more dedicated than the boys in recreational gymnastics. So after thinking about for a couple of days and asking John what he wanted to do, we decided to give it a try. I figured after a month, we’d know the answer.

 

So, gymnastics kinda became our life. He started going 9 hours a week (3 days, 3 hours each time). It was a struggle at first but he really fell into place and he loves it now. It’s amazing to see how quickly he improved so many of his skills. He’s still the new kid but thankfully that doesn’t really bother him. He does what he can and on several of the events he can really hold his own. What’s really amazing to see is how self sufficient the group is. The first half hour of practice is conditioning so they do a lot of strength training – pull overs, pull ups, dips, v sit ups, box jumps, rope climbing (3 times), etc. Then one of the boys (the rotate who does it) leads the rest in stretching and splits. Not bad for a bunch of boys who are mainly 7/8. I can’t believe the boy muscles the kid has now. I’m glad we did it and don’t regret it. It’s been very therapeutic for him. It’s helped him mature and get a better understanding of himself and connecting his body and brain a bit more. Too bad it takes such a hit on the checkbook. The sport is so expensive!

 

And if that wasn’t enough, Lily has shown her own love and talent for the sport too. One kid’s expense is a lot but we’ve got two. She was moved up into a class for 4-6 year olds called Little Flippers. I guess it basically mimics those early levels for girls too young for the classes and it essentially prepares them for pre-team. yikes. Lily LOVES it though. She goes twice a week now and begs to go more often. She seems to have more of the personality where she’d be super dedicated to it and we’d have a hard time pulling her away. I’m amazed at how much she’s improved too. She was so proud today. She climbed to the top of the rope for the first time. Super impressive, especially to me, since I have no upper body strength. The gym is in a warehouse so the rope is super high.

 

Birthdays came and went. I had no motivation or desire to plan a big party. I ended up throwing together a last minute dinner on John’s b

irthday with a couple of his friends. I ordered pizza, made him a cake, and the boys played outside. It was actually really nice and relaxing.  For Lily, we invited two friends over for a play date. They played and we had cupcakes. Again, super low key. I made her cake for when we got together with family. 

 

We started in with school on August 13 since that is when the school district around here starts. It was easier since all their friends on the block went back to school. It was a slow ease in. We started with basics and I’ve slowly added more into the rotation. I almost have things moving other than music/art. I’ve been lacking motivation in that area. Lily learned to read over the summer. It isn’t easy yet but we practice every day and she has some workbooks that she practices writing and some number/math stuff. Beyond that, we do a lot of board games and play. Kindergarten is super simple. 

 

John is in second grade. When in the world did that happen?!?! I inherited some language arts books so he’s been working in those. It’s a good start to some grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. I’ll have to figure something else out since he’ll finish those in a month or two. I’m not sure what to do with math. He’s already well beyond his grade level. He’s working on his multiplication and soon he’ll have that memorized. He uses an online program as well called Dreambox and his knowledge just skyrocketed when I got him started on it a month ago. He can add and subtract three digit numbers in his head, and has learned a lot of short cuts to help him solve problems quickly. It has him starting in on negative numbers. I wonder how well he’ll comprehend that.  We finally started in our science unit. We’re doing life science this year and I’m using an e-book curriculum a friend gave me. I like it.   Social Studies/History will always be the hard one for me. I think we’ll get back into map reading and learning the states, etc. Plus, John is taking a cooking class as an enrichment subject. He had his first class this past week and he really enjoyed it. 

 

The kids on the block seem to have buddied up again and are playing together all the time. It’s nice to see. Good or bad – I have yet to decide – but they all seem to prefer gathering at my house. Mainly in the front yard but they’ll go into the back too. I prefer keeping them out of the house. John has gotten close to one of the boys so one day when it rained, they played inside and they played relatively well. John is having to learn not to be so bossy and thankfully this one kid is far more relaxed. John has proclaimed that B is his best friend.  I wish I could find a friend like that for Lily, especially since she is the extroverted/socialite of the family. She’s plastered to the window waiting for someone to come out just to play with someone. She craves socializing and unfortunately there are no girls her age around. Thankfully my neighbor’s girl plays very nicely with Lily which Lily loves but the girl is 13. How much longer will she play with a 5 year old? *sigh* I will have to figure out something. 

 

Me? I’m surviving. I go with the flow and I have my routine. Health and weight loss are going. I just wish it would happen more quickly. I am 5 pounds away from losing 100 pounds. At least from my known heaviest weight. I probably have already lost more than 100 pounds since I never weighed myself when I was at my highest (after college) until I was already dieting for at least 6 weeks.  Slowly but surely. My brain still can’t wrap itself around the reality. It’s hard not to see myself as how I was when I look in the mirror. I haven’t weighed this little since sometime in High School, probably sophomore year? 

 

Mentally/Emotionally? I’m eh. I seem to be roller coastering a lot more. I think a lot has to do with hormones and my adrenals. My hormones have been off since the beginning of the year but they finally seem to be normalizing. I also feel like it’s just cell memory from the weight loss. I packed on the weight at probably one of the most stressful stages of my life. I kind feel like each of these recent pounds lost is like losing a part of me that I trapped up inside me from that time. A lot of processing so I’ve been kinda pre occupied I think. I really could use that time away. I never did that even though I had resolved to that last year already. 

 

My inner gypsy has broken out again. She likes to come out this time of year. I yearn to travel and get lost on my own. I feel unsettled. Ready to move on but honestly I don’t know how or where. One day at a time. 

I’ll leave you with a few pics –