My DoozieLife: Work, Kids, & Relationship Mayhem!

Let's See... The troll has learned to crawl... She has learned to crawl into the kitchen, to my computer, and push the button surrounded by the big green light... I think that is her hint that I have been on the computer LONG ENOUGH! What else... She has learned to play SuperSmash Brothers Melee and sing in Guitar Hero. Such a talented little thing!
October update: Troll Baby is running and now has 3 and a 1/2 teeth... she can say vroom, vroom, shhh, I want that, Hi, woof, a horsey sound, dog-dog and much more

The afternoon that my son was supposed to take the CHSPE, I tore the house apart.. again. I found his wallet deep within the bowels of my couch, somewhere between the frame and the fabric lining thing. Now, another $25 dollars later, he is rescheduled to take it in October. October 17th he took his test! Keep your fingers crossed that he passes. We won't find out until November.

The above mentioned son is having great difficulty with his knees. Every day it gets harder for him to take the pain and be active. So, we need to schedule another surgery. I am not looking forward to this. When his accident first happened, the trauma surgeon on call was a hand specialist. Basically, he just went into my sons knees and did the minimal repair possible until my son could see a specialist. Well, I found a specialist, the best knee surgeon available at a hospital I trusted. He has done a great job on my sons left knee, and now it is time for the right knee. I am worried sick that there are more problems with this knee than the initial surgeon implied. Only time will tell. Unfortunately, I haven't kept up on the CCS (California Children's Services) paperwork and had to re-apply, so it is still a work in progress to get my son back to UCSF for re-evaluation. *update* CCS is approved and we go back for evaluation on September 17th! Thank heavens, because every other day he wants me to feel his knee grind.. GROSS!

Surgery was October 7th and it went great! In and out in one day. The screws they took out were almost 3 1/2 inches long!

This week, my oldest daughter had surgery. She had her thyroid removed at UCSF, an important step in her health care issues. Surgery went great, I drove over 500 miles in 2 days to take her back and forth, and the baby/troll made a lot of new friends int he waiting room at the hospital. My daughter has a bunch of auto-immune disorders, and Graves Disease was causing her to have a constantly rapid heart rate (resting HR anywhere from 110 to 140) and when she was stress, it would easily get her up around 180. This has delayed surgeries she needs to have, and put her plans on hold. *Update* She is doing so great. The incision is healing really well, and her singing voice, which had lost an octave, is back to normal! Her heart rate has slowed way down.. so exciting! and now she can finally use the gym membership we have been paying for the past year! Hurray!

Update: October 2009 - Well, the thyroid is all better, but it turns out as though her immune system has been semi-secretly attacking another organ system for a long time... her ovaries. when she went to endocrine for a post-surgery follow up, they revealed that the estrogen problem we thought was no biggie really is a biggie, and that she probably has lasting damage to her ovaries. Not only that, but she probably would not be a candidate for fertility treatment because of her auto-immune crap. She so desperately wants to be a mother one day, and wanted to contribute to the continuance of the redhead population... now, we are thinking it is time to start saving money and fundraising for the surrogate mommy or adoption that is in her future.

Also, we again have a surgery date for December to try and create and connect a j-pouch for her. This will allow her to get rid of the iliostomy bag and move forward. Let's hope the doctor's are able to do this with one surgery (sometimes they do not have enough small intestine to work with, and have to allow the "connection" time to heal before they remove the iliostomy bag and make the new bowel connection funtional with another surgery).

My 7 year old... How to curb the video game addiction... Advice anyone? Thank heavens school starts in just a few weeks, and he can put his overly smart brain to a higher calling than Game Cube. He did lose 4 teeth in the past 3 weeks, and earn 2 stripes on his Karate belt. Great kid, easy peasy. He doesn't give me much blogging material.
Back to school update. He loves his new school, and his teacher. he is very smart, but is a bit of a chatterbox. He now occupies a special table all to himself close to the teachers desk, lol. We are working hard to help him learn to be social on his own time, not his teachers.

Last, but not least. My fiance has started working nights. He loves it, and it means I can finally stop wearing earplugs to bed! Hurray!.. Along with the troll baby finally sleeping in her own bed, I am no longer sleep deprived (as long as I make myself turn off the computer at a decent hour).

UPDATE: She finally has teeth. One year, one month old and she has two teeth broken through the surface! Hurray!
My sweet baby girl is ten months old. Ten easy months of pure fun. Ten months of a loving, happy disposition, few tears and easy bedtimes. Until this week. This week, our goof troop went to bed an angel, and woke up a troll! Two straight days and nights of crying, whining, pinching, squiggling, kicking, crying, and mamamama-ing. It was fun... No really... Ok, you are right... It wasn't fun, it was hell on earth. Goof troop is still a boobie baby, and for these two nights, that's all she wanted. I generally am pretty tolerant, but I am a light sleeper, and I find it impossible to sleep with your boob firmly clamped in the mouth of a troll. So, between the crying and the suckerfish grip she maintained, I managed an average of 1.2 hours of sleep per night.

The last two days, she has slowly returned to normal. Napping, playing, talking and being a little human. In fact, she is napping at this very moment (knock on wood). I am so glad she is feeling better, as you can clearly see from her picture that she was one unhappy little troll.

The following does not have me laughing. At all. Tomorrow my son is supposed to take the CHSPE (California High School Proficiency Exam). Wait.... Was supposed to take... Although I have reminded him for a week to find his school ID, he waited until 7 pm this evening to look... Just to realize it is nowhere to be found. So, he now how has to wait another 4 months to take the exam. Another 4 months until he can get a "real" job since he has no work permit. The events leading up to this series of events are being chronicled on my official blog. It is a long series of events, years of serious life disruptions that just threw conventional schooling out the window. If you like stories involving the police, drunk parenting, kids being ran over by trucks (see the aftermath in this articles fine pictorial documentation), then my blog is the blog for you.

My son is 17. In a previous life he had to be an attorney... One of those sleazebag type of attorneys who could and would defame any persons's character. My son is so good at arguing, he will either convince you he is right because he gets you so overwhelmed, or else you will just agree with him to get him to stop running his trap.

Today, my son wanted something from us. Something simple, a ride to the bike shop to look for a used bike. In return, we asked him to fold the clothes. During the 2 hours we were busy cleaning house, etc., he spent the entire time trashing his sister. Two hours on her personal soapbox. Two hours of how she gets everything without having to do anything, about how bad she treated him when he was recovering from being ran over, about how she never did the dishes, etc., etc. Now, over the past couple of years his sister has been chronically ill, and truth be told, has worked it to her advantage. However, she has been my mother's helper these last two babies, and I doubt I could have survived them without her. She recently moved to her own apartment, and while it is a wonderful thing to not hear them argue, I do miss having a second "mommy" in the house.