Our sweet middle child and our crazy life- Day before the specialist

Wrtten 10/3...

This is Daniel. He just turned 5 two months ago. He is our middle child.
  Being the middle child,He can create a ton of drama, but he can also cause others to join in the fun, even if he creates the opportunity.
He can also steal your heart, run away with it and totally spike it like a football.
Lately and for almost a year he's been struggling. Sometimes he'll totally emotionally shut down, crawl under a desk or just sit there, and lose his ability to reason. He'll just growl and scream and kick at everything and just generally refuse to comply with what's being asked of him..  By all accounts this has a totally random cause.   He's done this both at home and school. It's now interfering with learning and just functioning.
He had several episodes of this at school, one of which I witnessed and was able to capture on my cell phone camera. 
He also had two episodes on Sunday morning. One on the way to church, and one leaving. I had to drag him  to the car. Although he's been potty trained for several months now, he's having so many accidents I was convinced that he needed to wear a diaper. He then went in he potty, which shows me this is a control issue. Every day he also walks up to Sarah and either hits or bits her with no provocation
Last Monday, by 745 am I had received two phone calls from the vice principal.
Needless to say I believe one of many things is happening. It's pretty obvious the staff at this school haven't put his IEP in place six weeks into the school year. I have meet with several of them several times, and each time they cannot recall a tiny portion of the bad things they've said. Daniel tells us daily that his teachers don't want him there. Whether or not there is any truth to this is yet to be seen as this is his perception. Since there is a lot of behind covering going on we'll probably never know the answer.
All we get is a bunch of meaningless talk. I make requests that according to the federal and state laws are perfectly legal and I get told everything else like this needs to be done at another time. To me this was a no. This also proves to me this school isn't doing a great job educating special kids because to them parents are merely a hindrance and not a valued member of the team.
We are at the point where we want to pull out our hair and bust out some special cuss words, but we won't.
I want to cry and go hide under a rock because honestly I think that no one wants to know what he's been going through. Only several of my friends have pleaded with me that we not walk through this alone, so that is why I wrote this.
I guess you can say there is a silver lining here. On Thursday we are going to go see the developmental pediatrician and it only took a month to get an appointment. By everyone's account this was a miracle. To us this just took way too long to get here.
God knows just how much I love this kid and how totally heart broken I am for him. God willing we get some kind of answer and if needed some medication, because he just deserves to be his happy little self who wants to please..

 Please say some prayers, and be Blessed

Summer Fun 3 (Fair Park)

This summer we did a lot of fun stuff locally.

This post is about 

Summer Adventures at Fair Park in Dallas, TX

Our kids: age 2, Age 5 and age 7 all have varying interests and this was a sure hit with our entire family.  All the fun of the fair with not near the crowds of the fair..  You pay one price and get unlimited rides.  They had little rides for Sarah and big rides big enough for Andrew. Jonathan was one inch shy of getting to go on a roller coaster.

There was a splash pad and because Texas is hot in the summer and my kids have never seen one of these EVER. This was just their reaction and it was priceless.

 They rode their first roller coaster together.

And what would a day at Fair Park be without a Fletcher's Corny Dog... Totally worth the $5 each...trust me.

This was a great trip, Be super blessed.

Summer Fun part 2- Stockyards Birthday

We have had may adventures over the summer, but none so fun as The Historic Fort Worth Stockyards .We have been here before.

Last  time we were there, although Daniel was talking about cowboys non stop.... when we got there he was terrified of the horses the cowboys were on.  As you can see this time he wasn't.

This was also on his 5th Birthday. I love my  Daniel.

This animal is a Longhorn steer named Pecos.  And yes He's saddled.  Daniel was so proud of not being afraid, that we let him get his pic taken.  We donated $5 to the Fort Worth Herd.  They let us also pet him.  Although he has those horns, he was quite tame.

 Jonathan petting pecos, the cow girl was making sure no one was skewered.

Twice daily cattle Drive down the middle of Exchange Street

Summer Fun Part one of many

First I just want to say that if you have young kids, please do yourself a huge favor and try not to move from one dwelling place to another  while they are young.  It doesn't matter if it's two miles or 4,000 miles. Just count the cost. One person gets the enormous task of packing everything and the other gets the enormous task of keeping three curious monkeys  out of the fray.
My end of this move involved 2 sleepless nights at a hotel (because the first night Sarah kept us all awake)
We packed up our residence and  moved to another apartment in July, and lets just say it's been a world of difference.

Our view of the GOLF course.

We paid some professionals to move our stuff down 3 flights of stairs across several roads and down and up another flight of stairs. it was worth EVERY PENNY of the 800 we paid.for 8 hours..
Andrew's arm decided to malfunction a midst this move which although if you know me and my family, by now it wasn't a surprise something really bizarre always happens.  Luckily, Andrew has a cool benefit that he can use called Airrosti ... You need to check this out If you are in pain because in 3 visits his pain level and function was back...granted he had bruises from treatment but it DID work, and I highly recommend it.
Oh and the fun thing about moving (sorry for the sarcasm) was getting out primary vehicle towed again. This time out in deep fort worth.  $293 later we got back the van. Yay for Andrew parking the van late at night and not seeing he was in a fire lane...granted it was really poorly lit and the markings on the ground leave you guessing about where is safe to park....
Granted we are re-funding our emergency fund so little annoying stuff doesn't become a point of freaking out.  I love Dave Ramsey.

The Boys room

The Hallway looking toward the kitchen

Sarah's Room which is huge but largely still not put away.

our bedroom

our back porch... the stairs lead down to the golf course as a fire escape.

 Be blessed.

Trina

School's Out for Summer.

The last week has been full of....Awards Ceremonies...

 Kind of rough always being the last class at the awards. You can't hear and by this time no one cares about the people in the class behind.  The first two classes were completely spanish speakers.  We had the best readers though and that included several of his closest friends. And that's a Fact Jack!

 Jonathan accepting his award...

 Jonathan Who Had Mrs. O. (First grade...got the Math and scientist award---always drawing weather,maps and or airplanes)

 Daniel Graduated from Preschool program- with the Friend award...He's spent the last two years with her and 6 of the most amazing little kids. She deserves a Gold  medal and a trip to a fancy spa (for a week)... They really need to pay these teachers more.  I will miss you something Terrible Mrs. H.

     

I believe this is his friend Jerome... like we said He is friends with EVERYONE.

NOW.... We go have fun and actually do something. Last summer was eaten away at with various therapies.  Because of insurance issues...although we need it, we are going to just have fun, learn a bunch about this state of ours Texas and just be kids.

And also Move somewhere in the area (that is still being determined).

At least: I know:  the School won't be calling me about Daniel having any more episodes. I got some more gray hairs because of that.

At Least I Know: We won't have any more conversations with the Nurse. I got more calls from her than I did his teacher. She will be summoned for Jonathan's Ard in the fall.

Hopefully (Prayer request):

We will find a place and get moved smoothly

------>We will have our transfer request granted <------- p="">

We will find treatment for Daniel and get him diagnosed. (there was supposed to be an appointment but due to major ineptitude and a doctor's office lying to us and our insurance...the appointment never happened.  We are going to call our US Senator at this point.  

There shouldn't be this much trouble trying to get my child medical care. Ever.

Be blessed

Because we are

Texas Blue Bonnets....

 Texas Blue Bonnets.... and why this picture was so painful. I'm going to make a huge print of the top one to hang in my Living room... Anyone have suggestions where I can get this put on canvas, please leave a comment. If I know you and you just have to get one of these please contact me and I will either email or snail mail you a physical picture... and it's not going to bother me to mail you a picture.. :-)

Bluebonnets this year were SUPER rare. Most of the time they are everywhere... This year I think they were delayed.  The location of this picture was taken off of SH161 off the service road right at Walnut Creek bridge in Irving Tx. GPS and Google maps
 
View Larger Map

 We had some fun and they got some candy. Trust me there were more than 35 attempts at a decent picture. Getting 3 to look at the camera and smile at the same time. TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE. Dang it took forever.

We finally got an appointment for Daniel to be evaluated for May 21. With the only specialist in the metroplex that sees 4 year olds. Major EYE ROLL...
I've been really going through a lot with at least one or two of his defiant aggressive outbursts with the school a week.  He has attacked teachers and other students, but we all are in agreement he blacks out and has no idea what he is doing. but that's another blog.
May 2nd Daniel's class will be Participating in a musical program.
April 24th is Jonathan's 1st grade class field trip to Texas Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.... Be blessed.

Where in the world have we been.

A while back when I began writing this blog, I decided that if things were happening that were negative in nature or were highly emotional that I wouldn't write about it. Hence the break that I took from writing. I had been going through a period of deep loss and transition from having Sarah, moving, and a couple of friends who were dear to me passing away. I used the time to play with my kids, and to spend time just alone with the Lord.
Now that things have taken on more of a positive life. Andrew has been working for The Container Store for the last year, and has been moving up.
 I can now say that taking the leap of faith and moving our family to another state so that Andrew could get a better job was totally worth it.
It was not the easiest of times although in my humble opinion God provided everything we needed (to the last cent). Was it scary and did we ever question this decision daily? Yes.
We had some difficulty finding a church, because a friend of ours felt we should have gone to another church because of it's charismatic nature (because we were used to it). We went there twice and didn't feel like it was "home" (That church died a few months later).  We walked into a church one Sunday and were totally shocked the sign on the building or by it said First Euless Baptist.  We have been there for over a year and although it's a bigger church, it never ever feels big.  We even go to a class on Sunday mornings with other married couples and love it.

Once we got that started. We've begun to make some friends.
Our boys started school and once we had Jonathan transferred to Daniel's school, Jonathan began to excel.
I mean like get on the Honor roll at least every other grading period. Not get on the list of the most injuries because of bullies.  He still falls over his own feet etc, but bullied he has not been (to the extent he was at the other school).
He is learning to love himself as being different, due to the difficulties he has with balance, muscle tone and speech issues.
We are still experiencing issues with Daniel, and although we love him something terrible. We don't like what his teachers are telling us. Until we can catch him in a seizure on video we cannot be treated for it. In fact we were shoo-ed away and told he should be seen by psychiatry.  Only thing is everything in the area for kids is considered out-of-network or only accepts medicaid (which we don't qualify for).... We re researching other avenues for getting him help with our insurance company.
We have discontinued therapy due to their wanting 5,000 for therapy and their refusal to feal with our insurance company. That and I had a suspicion that they weren't really doing anything and He wasn't liking the therapist he had who was mistreating him.
 Since we discontinued therapy outside of school his behavior dramatically improved almost immediately.Like within a week or two.
He has however during this time started to pull himself together. and behave well for his teachers, who are so warn out by the time their second class shows up that they can hardly deal with him when he is in a bad mood..
Sarah has been visited by an early interventionist twice a month.  She did qualify for services, although that whole deal is overloaded to the point where we've been in this system for 4 months and have yet to be seen by a speech therapist or a physical or OT... I figure by the time we get sent to the district for services, they might will have seen her twice. Whoop Tee doo.
 By the time Daniel goes to school every days, Sarah and I get 2.5 hours before we have to go and get the boys from school.
 So that's our life right now. Good bad and otherwise.