Emotionally Drained

So we're starting our 4th week of social distancing. Emotionally, this has been something really hard, but I know it's the best thing to do right now for everyone. Yeah, I'm someone who listens to the guidelines. I stay home unless I need to go out for groceries. I want this over with and done quickly. The jokes online about how introverts are fine during this isolation period because we're used to it. Well guess what, I'm an introvert and I'm not having an easy time during this. I spend a couple of days a week just crying. I listen to music to try and mellow out but it makes me cry even more. All I want to do is sleep, but I can't because I have 4 kids I need to care for and make sure that they are okay. I scream and yell every day because I don't know how to deal with this. I realize none of us do and I'm not asking for sympathy. I try not watching stuff online because it makes my anxiety worse but then I'm isolating even more. You can't get away from any of it. I play video games to de-stress and we all always end up talking about it because it's the only thing to talk about.

 Alcohol sales in my state have gone up. Honestly, I'm sure that's every state. Have I been drinking more? I have been. I don't drink anything hard. I drink freaking Smirnoff. I drink one and I'm done, but when you find yourself buying more, it's not good. I used to drink maybe once a year. Now I'm drinking 2-3 times a week! I get to my breaking point and I go to the fridge to grab a bottle. There's that Meme on Facebook going around, I forget what the first option is, but the second is coming out of this an alcoholic. I joke and say yup. I'm coming out an alcoholic. I had always told myself I didn't want to drink ever or get out of hand with it because I've seen what the long term effects can do to a person. This is one of the only things helping me cope right now. I have a bottle sitting next to me. I haven't opened it yet. It's just sitting there. We had a fight again.....

Today's argument is me staying up late the past couple of nights. It means I'm doing things I shouldn't be doing. I'm on Xbox playing with friends I have known for 17 years!!! We actually sat and did the math last night because we had talked about it, but when I stay up late, it means I'm being stupid and yeah. I act different according to him. I talk quietly so he can't hear. No, I was talking quite loudly the past couple of days and if I do get quiet, it's because I'm in concentration mode on the game we're playing. Everything I do is put under the microscope though. I'm only allowed to play with a few certain people it seems like. You might ask if we have all these issues pertaining to the Xbox, then why don't I just get rid of it or stay off of it? It's my escape. I've always loved video games. I shouldn't have to give up something I love doing when I'm not even doing anything wrong. I hate that he always thinks I am though. Trust is never going to be given back. I'm tired of standing up for myself when I wasn't doing anything wrong over the weekend. I'm getting my quiet time that I don't get anymore. Am I cranky in the morning from staying up late? Sure, but I still get up before him when I went to bed last and get up with Brianna! So what does that say about me? I tried laying down today an hour after Brianna laid down. I said "Hey, could you keep an ear out for her so I can take a nap?" "Sure." I lay down and not long after, Brianna wakes up. I lay in bed with my eyes closed for 15-20 minutes. She fussed and cried. Never came to grab her. So I got up and didn't bother with my nap. If I want to stay up late to veg out, then fucking let me! It's my time to have sanity.

Yes I bitch and complain about MY kids. How I need space from them at times and need to regain my sanity. I say how I miss my alone time when I didn't have kids. I'm allowed to say stuff like that. Yes I understand I made my choice having 4 kids, but for fucks sake, let me say whatever I fucking want! No, I wouldn't change having them, but of course I'm going to miss my days of freedom. Any person would say the same. Ask any mom out there. They would agree with me. Let us have our jokes on Facebook about missing alone time. In the long run, we wouldn't change having our kids because we love them to death, even though they drive us bat shit crazy. Days when they had school, while they were gone was my alone time. I don't get that time right now because we're all home. I'm trying to keep them entertained and so much more and I've hit my breaking point a lot of times in the past 3 weeks. Again though, I wouldn't change having them. I do love them. Let me bitch about them though. Don't put me down for stupid shit.

So before I go, I leave you with a little bit of funny. We all need to smile when we can because otherwise, we'll end up crying in a corner for days on end. Pull yourself up and out of that bad mood. Take a walk. Take a drive. Advice I should be taking as well. 

Oops, it's been awhile.

So first off, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who has started following me! I'm like wow, people are following me and I haven't typed up a blog since last June. Almost a year, but with everything going on, I decided I needed to write a post. What have we been doing in our household you ask? Well, I'll start with an update on the kids.....

Kayla had started 5th grade this year! It was a big year for us because I realized this would probably be the last year she had class parties for holidays and what not since next year she'd be in middle school. She had some struggles with some things but we got through it and she kept working at it and finally figured it out. Math....this new crap they are teaching the kids sucks! You moms know what I'm talking about.
Emma started Kindergarten this year! I was so excited for this year for her because it's a big year. She would start writing more and learning to read!(sometimes a dangerous thing for us moms when we don't want them knowing what something says) At the middle of the school year around Christmas time she did bring home a letter stating she was behind in her reading, but I was also told a lot of the kids were. The unfortunate circumstances of living in a city with a lot of under privileged kids. I have been working with her when I can. She can read. I've seen her read stuff. Sometimes she just acts lazy and doesn't want to do the work after a long day of school, which I don't blame her at all. She also did have a month(November I believe) where her and Alex were trading sickness back and forth so she missed almost a month of school being medically fragile and her immune system is a little slower.
Alex started Pre-K this year! The first week at drop off was rough. He would cry for me after I walked away, but I kept walking. I had to. He needed to start his learning this year. He struggled some with using the potty at school because it was different for him. It's hard to explain, but he did eventually get the hang of things and he was doing amazingly at last report card check. There's only a couple of things he doesn't know or still struggles with. I'm really proud of how well he was doing.
And finally Brianna. My little troublemaker. She will be 2 in June! This past year she had tear duct surgery because of a blocked tear duct. That surgery literally took 5 minutes. I'm not exaggerating either. At her 18 month check up, her doctor was concerned at the fact that she wasn't talking like other kids her age. Well we also were still on a binki. After that appointment, we tossed binks because she was chewing on them anyways. So we didn't want her choking on them. It was a rough couple of weeks, but she got used to it and is now content without her bink. Yes there are days she just wants cuddles, but that's okay. I don't mind. We cuddle and watch PlutoTV. She loves watching the old Nick Jr shows on there like Blue's Clues, Wallykazam, Fresh Beat Band, and of course Dora. She dances along with them and has fun. She has all her teeth except her molars(I'm not even trying to check) This past week she had a double ear infection and I don't recommend having to put ear drops in a 1 year olds ears. It's a chore.

Onto this past year in my relationship. It has truly been the hardest year of all for us because of mistakes I made. Yes, I said I made mistakes. Instead of talking through things, I decided to be stupid. I made the mistake of talking with someone I had met on Xbox. He lived in a different state, but we both had sent pictures. Joey and I had gotten into a heated argument one day and I let the cat out of the bag about the other guy I was talking with. Joey did leave for a night and left me with the kids. During that night, I didn't have time to process what had happened so I just continued going on with life as I normally did. I got the kids to school and spent time with Brianna during the day. That's all I could do. When he came back home, we talked. Are we back to 100% yet? No. I don't think we ever will be because of broken trust that I caused. I was unhappy in a relationship and chose to be stupid. I was unhappy because Joey was doing so much job jumping. I just wanted one thing in my life to make me smile besides my kids. Am I proud of what I did? No,because these past months since August have been so hard with fighting a lot more and getting emotionally drained. It's been hard but we want to keep trying because on April 26th will be 13 years for us. I don't want to throw away 13 years. He's a good guy when we have a routine of work going along with helping around the house. The routine lately though is gone.

Which brings me to why the routine is gone. We all know why it's gone. Covid-19 or Coronavirus. I live in Cleveland, Ohio. Governor Dewine is doing an incredible job handling this all along with Dr. Acton and Lt. Governor Husted. We get daily press conferences at 2 o clock. Some of you may have seen on twitter #WinewithDewine. Us Ohioans have a crazy sense of humor and have also made up the Dewine bingo game. Hey, we gotta have some humor and fun during this. Cleveland schools are just not doing good with this though. The kids were sent home with packets on their last day of school on March 13th. My kids finished the packets in a week. More stuff is hopefully coming home mid April. They don't have online learning with their peers like some cities I have heard doing, which sucks. I understand it's a new learning experience for us all, but I hope Cleveland gets a better handle on things. My kids are missing out on learning this year. I did take the initiative and downloaded ABC mouse Alex and Emma love it! Thankfully! The downside is when they act up, their tablets get taken away, which means no ABC Mouse. Alex misses the routine of school and his friends. Emma misses her friends. Kayla says she doesn't care but the last day of school, she hugged her teachers goodbye, so I know it's been hard on her too. They are saying this could last the length of summer. We haven't fully shut down school for the year. As of today, we're scheduled to go back the first week of May. You and I know it'll be shut down for the year. We're not dumb. Ohio is supposed to peak the end of April, beginning of May. I never thought in my entire life i would live to see something like this.
How have we been keeping busy you ask? Um, homework that is all done, ABC Mouse, playing with action figures and dollies, tablet time, video games, and catching up on movies.

We watched Chapter 1 and 2 of the It reboot over the past week. Oh my God! It was amazingly done! I liked it a lot! I think Chapter 2 was better in my opinion. I'd say if you have the chance to watch it then do it, but I know almost all of us have the time.

We also watched Joker before all the stay at home stuff started. Wow. Another amazing movie! I think this was the 2nd best Joker in my opinion. Jack Nicholson will always be my fave Joker. Also, give this one a watch!

Come on. You guys knew it was coming. Who hasn't watched this in the entire world yet? What a cluster fuck of oh my God during this 7 episode Netflix documentary. It was a train wreck that you couldn't stop watching. It just kept going "Hold my beer!" and would give you another WTF moment. I don't know if any of the big late night guys have done any interviews but I do know that David Spade interviewed Rick(the director guy) Here's the link to watch it. Lights Out with David Spade
Just look for the interview with Rick Kirkham. He says there was so much more we didn't see and even shares a story of something that was not shown on the documentary.
Other movies we want to watch while being quarantined are the new Sonic the Hedgehog and Onward. Tomorrow we will be watching Onward on Disney+.

One other thing I have been doing during these past months is writing. I have always loved writing. I'm no J.K Rowling though. I've wrote a few things over the months, but have only really liked the way one of them came out. I am more than happy to share it with you guys. If you have a kindle fire, I am able to share it on there. I feel it's easier to read on there. I do also have it posted on a website. I don't like the way the format is on the website though. I will still post a link for you guys though. If I'm being real, it's 72 pages long.....so it's not a quick read. If you do want me to send it to you VIA kindle, then shoot me your kindle email address and I'll send it on over. Here's the link! Brothers

I feel like I could keep typing about everything going on, but I want to save something to chat about for the weekend. So I hope you all are keeping safe out there and social distancing. I wish you well and talk with you all soon!

1 year old!!!

Can you believe we are 1 year old already??? This year has flown by for us but wow what an adventure it's been with 4 kids! Brianna has been my easiest child so far. I mean she was sleeping through the night at 2 months old. How much easier does it get? 

On her birthday, we woke up and went shopping for a few presents. I didn't go all out because she's just not that into toys. She does love what we got her though. I was really excited to go shoe shopping for her because I didn't get to do that with Emma. After shopping and some breakfast, Brianna took a 2 and a half hour nap! I guess shopping and eating was exhausting.

After her nap she spent time playing with her brother and sister. We did cake when her grandma got home.

I did the round cake for the rest of us and Brianna got the chocolate cake all to herself. She was shy about digging in at first but then she finally got brave and was obnoxious with it.

She wasn't too bad to clean up surprisingly. And i was waiting for that sugar crash to hit but she went to bed at her normal time still. I'm like wow. Super girl!

It was a fun first birthday for her and it was just laid back. We didn't have a big party because I'm just over the whole big party thing anymore. She enjoyed her day just the way it was and that's all that matters.

Today we had our 1 year check up! She was having severe stranger danger issues. Which isn't a bad thing but when she needed looked at by the doctor, she was freaking out. Her health and growth are great! Her right eye is still giving us problems so we finally got the referral to go see ophthalmology. We go June 29th to see the doctor which is actually a Saturday! How excited can a parent be to get a Saturday appointment with a specialist!!! I was over joyed. The little things in life. 

This was her before even getting her shots she was die for today. I'm so glad we hit the 1 year mark so we could get her measles shot. With everything going on in the fricking country, i didn't need her catching them.

So here is a breakdown of what Brianna is up to at her 1 year mark....

- 22 lbs 8 oz

- 31 in

- 5 teeth

- size 3 diapers

- 18 month clothes

- size 4 shoes

- using sippy cup

- drinking milk and eating table foods

- walking(started a week before she turned 1)

- crawling

- loves game shows

- still babbling dada, yeah, mama

You can't have a birthday picture of all smiles!!! You have to have that one grumpy face picture!

10 months old

Today Brianna is 10 months old! She is quite the little girl. She's always doing something silly or making a silly face. She loves to dance!


Brianna is an Ed Sheeran fan. I can't make this up either. Every time one of his songs comes on, she sits and dances and bobs her head. He's got some catchy stuff. I like Ed too.

She enjoys getting into stuff and bugging her siblings as well.

She is finally crawling more on all 4's. She will still army crawl but that's because she's still quicker at doing that. She's slowly getting quicker though with regular crawling.

She likes pulling herself to standing position by the couch to see what I'm doing. Usually I'm talking with her aunties on the phone and she tries stealing my phone then. She's a brat.

We tried some waffles the other day because she was standing by the couch eating one of the kids chocolate chip cookies. She wasn't too impressed with the waffles. Well who would be after having a chocolate chip cookie?

2 more months and she will be one. I'm gonna be honest, I haven't done any birthday planning yet because I've gotten to the point of "OMG i hate birthday parties!" I'm honestly not sure what I want to do yet. Probably just cake and presents and maybe seeing if my family wants to do something.

Here are her stats for the month(I couldn't get her weight because I have two children who broke my scale.)
-size 3 diapers
-9/12 month clothes
-6 oz of formula
-1 container of baby food
-trying table foods
-sits up on own
-crawls on all 4's
-pulls to stand along furniture
-slowly cruises couch
-2 teeth
-big girl car seat(rear facing)

Emma's IEP meeting

So 2 weeks ago, Emma had her meeting for her yearly IEP review. An IEP is an Individualized Education Program. It is so Emma can get special services through the school if she needs them, which she does. She can get physical therapy and occupational therapy. There's also instructions of how she will be transported to and from school and how she will get around her school. Just stuff like that. We also write goals for the year that we want her to achieve.

I met with her teacher, the school nurse, physical therapist, occupational therapist, district representative, and a general education teacher.

The first talk was with the school nurse because she couldn't stay long. She said Emma has been doing great with getting cathed at school. No infections and very helpful with reminding about putting her cream on when she does have a small rash. She also gave me the form that i need to have filled out by Emma's urologist to be cathed at school next year. We will see her this summer at Myelo Clinic.

Next we spoke with the PT. She said Emma has been doing great with stairs and getting around the school. She uses her walker in school for longer distances but in the classroom she doesn't. She walks around on her own. She also walks across the hall to the bathroom when she needs changed. There's a bench in there that she can lay on to get changed. She's also happy with Emma's progress. She was concerned about how Emma will get around next year because there would be a lot more walking up and down stairs. There is two floors at this school. They do have an elevator at the school. They mentioned Emma going to a new school that is strictly one level and the list of schools they had given me just would not work with my current schedule so i said no, I'd like her to stay here because she is familiar with people and the nurse is familiar with her as well. I said she is fine to use the stairs maybe once or twice a day but also let her use the elevator. They were fine with that. And I asked if i would be thrown under a bus like I was this past year with them switching schools without my knowledge. They said no. That's only a pre-k thing. As long as she is at that school and I don't say anything about a change, she stays.

That must have you asking.....is Emma done with preschool???

My baby is going to Kindergarten next year!!! I'm beyond proud of her for this accomplishment. And she's not going to a Special Education kindergarten. She is going to a Kindergarten class that does have kids with IEP's but it's a regular class! The teachers say she is too smart to be in a special ed classroom.(Ok I'm tearing up writing that because she has been through so much and knowing she is doing amazing makes me proud)

Back to talking with people....The Occupational Therapist also said she's doing awesome. They work with fine motor skills. So handwriting and scissors and stuff like that.

These letter and number worksheets are from August 28th, 2018. Obviously she needed some work.

This is from January 10th, 2019, so right after Christmas break. Getting better.....

This last one is from March 13th, 2019. She didn't do the numbers. I don't know why, but OMG! The progress from August until just March? Emma really is amazing! She needs a little work on a couple of letters but still. Not bad for a 4 1/2 year old!
Emma still needs help with scissor projects but she can cut stuff pretty good too.

One thing we had discussed at last years IEP meeting was Emma's attention span and what not. She is doing better with it but still has trouble at times. She doesn't need as many prompts to do something when told to do it which is really good. I had asked if maybe it was something that may need possible medication in the future. They seemed a little unsure about it and said they would monitor it the rest of the school year and get back to me about it. We see the behavioral doctor at Myelo clinic this summer, that's why I had asked. Hopefully if my butt remembers, I'll take her IEP to the Myelo clinic meeting so she can look it over.

Other things that are mentioned in the IEP are goals and tasks she can perform. Emma is getting better with answering "Wh" questions, sometimes answering her own question. She's a goofball. She also can hold writing utensils properly, needs assistance with scissors and glue sticks and seems to be showing more right hand dominance. At times she still does switch but mostly uses righty. Emma can also write her first name! She's working on writing her last name but is still using the tracing sheet that was given to her by her teacher.

Routine daily living skills she can perform are taking off her coat and hat and hanging them up in her cubby, she can pull up her pants after being changed, she does need a little assistance with washing hands thoroughly. She puts her folder in the bin in the morning and also grabs her pillow and blanket when it's nap time.

Now here is a check list of the academics she knows....
-10/10 colors
-9/12 shapes(including 3-D shapes)
-26 uppercase letters
-23 lowercase letters(mixes up b,d,g,q.)
-counts 1-20

Something else that was brought up for next year was testing. Kids in Kindergarten do go through some state testing. Since Emma has an IEP, we did put in there for her to have extended time to do the testing! It's crazy to think she will have state testing in kindergarten. I hope she does well with it.

So she is doing amazingly well. Last year, i always felt like i got emotional at all these meetings. This meeting i did not get emotional or upset. I'm thinking the pregnancy made me pretty hormonal last year. I handled this one like a champ! So go me! I'm excited for Emma to start Kindergarten next year and learn so much.