Pumpkin Party

The pumpkins are ready for there big day. They are left to right, Lauren`s which is supposed to be Mickey Mouse (we think it looks like a piece of toast), Allen`s, Paul`s, and Karre`s. Hanna did not get one because she was raging the afternoon they went to the pumpkin patch. Halloween is a rather useless holiday, but it gives the kids an opportunity to have some fun and do something different from the everyday routine so we let them do it.
Allen, Jared, and Paul hard at work on getting the guts out.
Paul actually put his little hand inside the pumpkin and took out seeds one at a time. Last year he screamed and cried and wanted nothing to do with this pumpkin mess.
Karre is very creative and can make some really cool things when she wants to.

Little Bits

Now that we have taken Hanna off ALL her medications we are starting to see what we will be dealing with. She sleeps no more nor less then she was while on them. She is a little more impulsive, but she is not so grouchy. We are not sure yet if the better attitude is because of the lack of medications or if it is just the hormone cycle she is in. It is a wait and see game.

Lauren has a medical appointment this morning and then I will get her to school.

Paul is having a Halloween party in his classroom. Treats will come home for kids to fight over.

I need to get groceries and run errands the rest of the afternoon, and of course it is raining. I always love to load five hundred dollars worth of groceries into to van while getting drenched.

Another Metal Mouth

A recipe for disaster is a kid with Cerebral Palsy, school bus steps, and a very icy sidewalk. That is exactly what we had going on almost seven years ago when Lauren fell on her face while getting off the bus at school.

The phone rang that morning just as I had gotten out of the shower. When I answered it there was my kid screaming and a teacher who said "you need to come now", that was it. Usually teachers are not at a loss for words but that is all she could say so I knew that something was very wrong. Our emergency plan went into action. I had two foster kids here at the time so I got shoes and winter garb on them, called Dad, got myself dressed, and was out the door faster then I could have imagined possible.

When I reached the school they met me at the door with a kid covered in blood, a towel covering her lower face. The most freaky thing was when one of the teachers handed me a paper cup filled with ice water and Lauren`s teeth floating on top. I gave the dentist mane to the school nurse who called them and we were on the road. When we got to the office there was no waiting around they scooped her up, took the cup with the teeth, and went to work re implanting those two front teeth back in the mouth where they belonged.

At the time we were told there were no guarantees that those teeth were going to survive, but if they did we would need to take her to surgery seventy-two hours later. Lauren headed to the operating room three days later for major repairs on those teeth. Those teeth have lasted far longer then anyone could ever have thought possible. That is because everyone was in the right place at the right time and knew what needed to be done and did it. The whole event took less then an hour to unfold. She was left with a very bruised face and two front teeth that were going to need a lot of care, but she would be okay. That is when I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and thanked God for getting us through a very scary ordeal.

Now those teeth are giving out and will need to be removed soon so while that is being done we will have orthodontic work done to straighten out her narrow over crowded mouth. The good thing here is that they will not be removing healthy teeth to make room for her other teeth, the two that need to come out anyway will be the causalities. We knew that braces would benefit her but just let that go since she has so many other medical issues to deal with all of the time, but I guess now it is time to fix this mess too. She will look gorgeous when it is all over with so it will be worth the effort. Looking on the bright side of this is that since the same team that is working with Hanna will be doing the work here I can coordinate the appointments and will have fewer trips to make as a result. Two metal mouths at one time, I am not sure I can handle all of this fun.

Medications

Having kids on medications is always a work in progress. Our four older kids were rarely on any type of medications except for the occasion when they had an ear infection or something like that. This was never an issue until we began to do foster care. Many of those kids were on medications. For our special needs kids it is a must and adjustments are just a part of the process as they grow and change quickly. We have kids on meds for everything from seizure disorders, sleeping issues, hyper-activity, anxiety, etc, etc.

It is not the best time of the year (usually we try to change meds when there is no school), to adjust Hanna`s meds but we have to. Her behavior is just so awful, she is not sleeping even on massive amounts of medication, and she has grown. She will be taken off everything and then we will start over. It is not easy to make adjustments when the kid is not able to tell you how they are feeling and what they think is working. In Hanna`s situation she does not care what she is behaving like, if she is acting really weird it does not seem to bother her, or if she bothers or hurts someone else along the way is of no concern to her. We can only observe and make or best judgement from those observations.

The next couple of months might be a rough and scary ride so hang on and get prepared.

And Off They Go

The older kids have just gone to school and Paul will soon be heading out the door too.

Lauren was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and her winter coat.

Allen had on a long sleeved t-shirt and a light jacket.

Hanna had on a tank top, Capri's, and no jacket at all.

It is thirty-eight degrees out, cool but not that bad for Minnesota at this time of the year. None of the three will be harmed in any way because of the choices they made this morning, so I just let them go the way they were,however I find it interesting that the kid who is supposed to be the least intelligent of the three is the only one who got it right.You are the man, Allen, way to go!

What IsTheTruth?

When it comes to telling the truth Hanna just can not do it at all lately. We can not trust her at all since she is lying about everything.

Me "Hanna did you brush your teeth"?

Hanna "Yeah I did".

Me " Are you sure you brushed your teeth"?

Hanna "Yeah"

Me "How on earth did you brush your teeth when the toothpaste is laying right here on the kitchen counter still in the box, unopened"? (I had thrown the empty one out earlier this morning)

It is like that with everything.
Did you change your underwear? (She still has on the ones she had on yesterday. I bought them all different so that we could tell if she had changed).
Did you make your bed? (It is still unmade).
Did you comb your hair? ( It still looks like a bird is living up there).
Did you unload the dishwasher? (It is still full).

The thing is that these things are just so obvious and she is a terrible when it comes to lying. She is going to get caught every time and the only one who is going to lose in this silly game she is playing is her.

Fun Friday

Hanna is home from school today because right now she can not act appropriately there. she will go back Monday, oh am I glad. She seem to think that it should be fun around here because she is home.

Doing the peed laundry is fun.

Sitting on the phone, on hold with social security for fifty-five minutes. while Paul is trying to destroy the computer is really fun. What makes it more fun then ever is that I did not get to talk to the person who might have a clue as to what is going on in the first place so I am going to have to repeat the process. That fun will wait until next week.

I have to take Paul to therapy this afternoon and as an added bonus I get to bring Hanna along and take her to get groceries. She will pout and complain the entire time, that will be extra fun.

I am making vegetable stew for dinner tonight so I will get to hear the "I don`t like that" and "aucky" from some picky eaters. That will be fun.

Finally I will get the fun of getting wet while trying to give Hanna a shower when she can not stand taking one. I will get to have her screaming at me because she wants to stay dirty.

The real fun will begin when the four younger ones are in bed and I can curl up with a book for a few minutes before crashing myself. When I asked Hanna if she thought that all of this was going to make a fun day she told me that she would just go sort out the Legos, now that sounds like Hanna`s kind of fun.

Another Meeting Over

It`s another day another meeting around here. Today I had a meeting to re-evaluate Lauren in order to keep her CADI waiver services. Things are changing so fast that it is hard to keep up with all of it. The worker that was here today does net even know how all of these changes are going to affect Lauren`s services. At this point things will remain the same. She will get what she needs simply because she has diagnosis that fit in the plan. I am very grateful to have such services for her. It allows her to be the best that she can be.

I am very concerned about maintaining services for one of my other kids because there are very different diagnosis and therefore the means of qualifying for those services are going to be different.

These kids are very different however, they both require supervision 24/7, they both are very vulnerable, and both have about the same IQ. So why is it that one of them will qualify for services that allows them to function to the best of their ability and the other will not qualify?
Is it that the kid with the massive behavior issues is less valued in our society" Is it that it is easier to see the disability when it involves something that can be seen, such as a wheelchair? Is it that there is not a means of documenting the behavior issues in order to make them real and believable for most of society? I do not know what the answer is, but I do know that both of these kids matter equally for their mom and it is very hard to be a part of this. I know that the kid who does not get services will suffer greatly. There will be consequences for what happens here. I also know that parenting the kid with physical challenges is altogether different then parenting the one with behavior issues. They both need people to be there to keep them safe, to help them meet both their emotional and physical needs, and to give Mom and Dad a break. Th

The the thing that scares me most about all of this is that all of the people I work with in advocating for these kids agree that things are going to get a lot worse. I wish that some one who has the power to do something about all of this could just be a "fly on the wall" here so that they could understand and make things better for all of these kids and their families.

I Growed

Hanna had an orthodontist appointment today, Those are kicking, screaming scenes every time. Until she is medicated at the clinic it is a trip that I would not wish for anyone to have to take. Anyway today while we were waiting for her meds to really get working Hanna was telling me what she did in gym class.

Hanna " I growed"
Me "How did you grow'?
Hanna "I am 11 feet 4 feet"
Me "I know you are not that tall because there is no person in the world that tall".
Hanna "I did growed".
Me " You are 4 feet 11 inches tall and that is as tall as you are getting".
Hanna "Mom my teeth growed too".

I hope the teeth are done growing or we will have more then and orthodontic issue to be dealing with here.

One Of Those Days

It has been one of those days where Hanna will not talk to people, is pouting, and being a big grouch. She has lots of those days, actually most of them are like that but today she was especially getting on my nerves.

I made her hang out with me so that she would not be destroying things while everyone else went out for lunch, to get pumpkins, and see Rene and Trevor off to school. She did not want to be with me and did not want to do any of the chores I told her to do so she just sat there and pouted. She would not get dressed so I had to put off getting groceries until just about dinner. time. That meant that we stopped for a quick bite to eat. I offered to give her half of my fries (which she loves) and she refused to eat them because she does not like me. Well be that way then if you want to, I am not going away, and the only one who is not getting what she really wants is Hanna herself.

When Jared stopped to fill the van up with gas he offered to get her an orange juice and she did not want that either because she does not like him either.

She is really mad because she got caught taking the money that she was giving away to her "friend" and she has asked several times if she can have some money to take to school. The answer is NO WAY. If this kid were really her friend then she would hang out with Hanna even if she never had a single penny. Hanna keeps telling us that her "friend" is going to get mad at her. No one here cares because we can understand that there is no friendship here worth attempting to salvage anyway. I can not quite understand why having a friend who is not really a friend is more important to her than the family that she has, who have gone through a great deal of trouble to care for and love her just the way she is.

A Baker

Today we attended the commencement ceremony for Jared`s graduation. He is an official Baking and Pastry Chef now. The clothes and the very cool hat give him that chef look. The original six as we are known Mom, Dad, Rene, Jared, Trevor, and Karre. went. Following the ceremony we went out to a nice restaurant for dinner. It was nice to be able to wait for the food to arrive without having to make kids sit still, be quiet, and no one jumped around and spilled things either. Congratulations Jared!

We Figured It Out

Hanna has things a bit mixed up when it comes to friends. Her friends are not good for her in any way. They take advantage of her all the time and it is really sad when you think about what they are doing. She has been stealing money from her own piggy bank and those of her siblings, who knows maybe she even took some from my purse for all I know, and she has been taking it to school a little bit at a time and giving it to her friends so that they will be her friends.

Who would want anyone like that for a friend? What kind of a thrill are these kids getting from taking advantage of some one who it is not even a challenge to take advantage of? I sure wish these kids had parents who would do something about their behavior. If any one of my kids were ever caught doing anything so mean, rude, and hurtful there would be direct cconsequences for any such behavior. No one seems to care at all.

We have explained using every term and example that we can think of and Hanna still does not understand that these people are not friends. They are using her and she is getting hurt. It is hard to believe that she is giving up money which is something she really really likes to collect, sort, and save. She knows that you can buy things with it but she does not understand that it does not grow on trees. She does not get the idea that you have to earn it and when you get it you do not just give it away and go get some more. I guess this friend thing must be pretty important to give up her treasures for.

We had to lock up all of the kids wallets, piggy banks, our purses, and we even took the change out of the jacket pockets. Hanna has lots of food issues so we already lock up refrigerators and freezers and keep guard on the kitchen. I am getting the feeling that we are living is a jail here. She gets a large number of her PCA hours because of her behavior and will be losing those behavior hours soon. I can not be the jailer 24-7.

A Break From School

There is no school and will be none until Monday. That is supposed to be a break. The first kid was up at 4:00am and they trickled out of bed so that by 6:30am they were all dressed, had eaten, made there beds, and now they can not find anything to do.

The normal, average teenager who can get up unsupervised at what ever time they want to is a treasure around here. Jared and Karre are still in bed. I can not imagine how anyone could possibly be sleeping with all of the noise around here. I guess they just fake it so they do not have to watch kids.

Rene` called at 7:30 this morning to say "hi" while she was walking across campus to her first class. She said that she is going to have to dig out her long johns soon, yes it gets cold enough in North Dakota that even young people who want to look cool will put on long johns. Rene` has some fancy striped ones.

While the kids are having their break from school I guess I will be taking a break from getting anything done around here. When I get some PCA help here later I will have to shut to office door and do some paperwork that must get done this week.

Monday Snow

It is snowing at a pretty good clip here. It is way to early for this to be starting already. There is a winter storm warning out so I guess I had better keep the radio on just in case they call school off. The kids are there now and I am crossing my fingers that things stay that way. Lauren and Hanna were having trouble finding gloves and mittens this morning so I will likely have to stock up on those things as well. Hanna loses many, many pair of gloves and lots of hats every cold season. After a while I just send her with things that do not match because I just can not afford to buy any more of them. She does not care if they match anyway, the more crazy she is dressed the happier she is.

It Has Been To Calm For Comfort

Hanna is someone who just loves chaos even though it overloads her and gets her into trouble. With just Paul and I home with her this weekend it has been pretty quiet except for the usual racket that Paul makes just being himself. I guess that she just can not stand having that kink of quiet so she had to go crazy. She started off by throwing toys at the wall down in the therapy/play room. When I told her to knock it off she threw a block and hit Paul in the head. That is just super wonderful as he has school pictures tomorrow and besides the pictures I will have to explain the beautiful square bruise on his forehead to the school before they get worried. Now she has thrown everything off the shelves so it is all piled in a heap in the middle of the floor. I guess this is one way to get everything cleaned up and put back into its proper location. I have informed Hanna that when she calms down she will be cleaning the mess up. She said " I never am going to calm down cause I do not like it".

BIG SIGH!

Chilly Saturday

It is down right chilly here today and surprisingly the snow that fell over night is still hanging around.

Dad, Jared, Karre, and Allen took there muscles to Duluth to move Jared`s stuff back to our garage. He is now finished with school altogether and looking at his options. In the mean time he is working as a PCA here. I can always use big, strong guys around here to haul stubborn kids, chase after the very busy one, and keep a watch out for crazy behavior.

Lauren is out with a PCA in tow. She has been really doing some dumb stuff lately. I think most of it is that she is just being a teenager but all the same it is dumb. She does not do her chores, make her bed, or do her school work without being directly ordered to do so or being threatened with losing something or other. She always says she will get to it tomorrow, needless to say tomorrow never comes so she never gets things done. If we tell her that she will not get her allowance she says she does not care because she has enough money. I am glad she is out of here for a few hours as it gives me time to not have to deal with her right now.

I have Paul and Hanna home with me. Hanna is playing Uno by herself. She does not want anyone to play with her. I think she is most likely being obsessive and sorting the cards. I do not care at this point as she is not bothering anyone. We still have some of her clothes to get washed and folded from her rainbow mess making. Paul is, as usual just being a tornado, dragging things out, opening and shutting the fridge, and generally getting on my nerves at the moment.

I think I will make some pizza for dinner soon, clean the kids up, and get them ready for bed and then Hanna a I will watch a movie, okay Hanna will watch the movie and I will be chasing the tornado.

Technology Choice Made

We have finally made a choice for a communication device for Lauren. This has been a long process which began way back in May. We have been looking at many different types of devices. The technology out there is amazing. The issue here is that the more technical the device is the smaller it tends to be and therefore more fine motor skills are needed to operate it. People like Lauren who have cerebral palsy have hands and fingers which do not exactly do what their brains are telling them to do. She has been frustrated with this trial process. She really wants the devices that are small and look cool (she is a teenager after all), but they are in general not the best ones for her.

We finally found one that has the communication program that works best for her. It also can be used as a computer with wireless access, has an MP3 player, a camera, speech read out of whatever is on the screen, text messaging, a cell phone set up and it can be personalized with all sorts of programming. It is not the smallest device out there and in her eyes not the coolest. The best thing about it is that she is able to get her fingers to do what they need to do to operate it independently.

We have begun the massive amount of paperwork that is needed to get insurance to pay for at least part of the cost. We have been documenting everything at home, at therapy, and at school for months so now that information has to be compiled in a format that is clear, gets all of the points across, and is as brief a possible.

After that we sit and wait, and wait, and wait, for a reply, and then when they turn the package down be prepared to appeal.

Seeing Rainbows

I cleared out the mountain of laundry, every last dirty sock is off the floor, they are all washed, dried, folded, in the baskets to be put away, and I even mopped the floor in there. This is all really great, every one has clean clothes to put away and there should be no hassle of anyone needing something clean for a few days. There is one problem here though, Hanna`s basket is completely empty except for the two toys that I had picked up and one clean t-shirt.

I knew something was up and I knew that I needed to go into her room to check it out. I put it off for a while and did several other things that I wanted done and then I went up there. What I found is gross and disgusting to say the least. She had returned the dirty clothes to her drawers and closet and put them in with the clean ones. They were not in a separate place or anything. She has created rainbows with them. The underwear are all neatly folded and in order pink, peach, lemon yellow,etc. etc. The pajamas are rolled up into balls, softball size with the pants on the outside tied in a knot to secure the bundles, they to are arranged yellow, green, blue.... In the closet everything is lined up short to long red, orange, yellow, etc. She even switched out the hangers so that they are in color order.

I asked her what the heck she was doing here and she told me all about rainbows, One of our PCAs had taught her that rainbows were always in order and being the obsessive person she is, she found this concept very exciting and just could not keep from obsessing with it. Thanks, Angie. Now why can she keep this bit of not so useful information in that head of hers and other more useful stuff just slides right back out, I just do not understand?

Lately she has been telling us that she can not change her underwear because she will mess up her pattern, well now I know all about the pattern. Getting her to change her clothes is a hassle as it is. Getting her to wear underclothes, and pajamas is beyond a hassle. She did not have underwear, socks, or pajamas until she came here.

I do not mind that she is into the rainbow thing at all. Fold the clothes all you want to kid, but DO NOT put the dirty ones back in with the clean ones. Grass stained pants and smelly t-Shirts are one thing, but I draw the line with the smelly socks, and dirty underwear in there.

I had to empty everything out and now I have more then one rainbow to sort through trying to clean up this mess. I will not be folding and hanging all of these clothes up, my lovely helper Hanna will get to do that. I am sure she will have fun making some more rainbows.

Learning From The Kids

Imagine you are a little girl who has been living with a foster family for almost a year when suddenly you are being moved to another home. You are confused, scared, and you have been abandoned once again. The next thing you know you are being bussed every day to a school for children who are deaf. You have short and long term memory lose so while they are working really really hard to teach you to communicate by signing and learning to read you can not learn these things. You can not remember the things that you had known the day before, you just can not understand this place. They are all thinking that you are not trying hard enough, but besides the fact that you can not remember things you are not intelligent enough to figure out the complex concepts that they are trying to teach you.They are moving way to fast for you to learn. You get really frustrated and angry with yourself and everyone around you. You do not care any more and you just shut down. Imagine this happening to you even though you are not deaf nor do you have any hearing problems at all. It happened because you were unable to speak and far beyond the age when you should have begun speaking. By this time you should be able to converse fluently. This happened to our Little girl. She should never have had to experience all of the trauma brought about here and she would not have if only people would communicate.

The foster parents who first had her had been begging for an FAS assessment as well as intelligence testing. They did not feel this child was deaf, therefore they wanted nothing to do with this school placement for her. No one who could listen to them would. They asked that this child be placed else where.

The birth parents were so wrapped up in their addictions that they could not deal with what was happening to their child.

The "system" was is a state of chaos and they were changing workers for this child so often that no one ever got to know her well enough to figure out what was going on. She had workers who were making decisions for her who had never even met her. There were to many of them to keep track of.

The first foster parents here were correct, there was plenty of evidence that clearly showed that this child had FAS. She had the facial features. She had jaw and palette deformities which would make it difficult for her to learn to speak. (It still amazes me that she speaks as well as she does given these issues). There were police reports which clearly indicated that this mom had been arrested for DWI twice during the time she was pregnant with this child. You do not drink two times during a pregnancy and happen to get arrested both times as the mom reported to the "system". There was a lot more alcohol consumption then that going on here.The people who work in the "system" are supposed to be educated, intelligent people who are supposed to being seeking whatever it is that would be in the child's best interest. They need to be listening to the foster parents, after all the kid is living in their home 24-7, they probably know her pretty well. The "system" also needs to understand that these kids are in need of protective services because there parents are addicted and these addictions are in large portion what results in domestic violence,poverty, physical abuse and neglect that these kids face. The "system" also needs to understand that these people who are in such a state of crisis that they are being court ordered into treatment programs are not going to be fully honest with them about their addictions. This is going to occur if they are willingly seeking help and are ready to admit that they have an addiction problem.

Why did I choose to tell the world about what happened here, because it happens all to often and I believe that if every one would step back and look at what is happening to Americas most vulnerable kids then maybe, just maybe these kids can teach us all how to be better at helping some other kids in the future. The "system" here really needs to get its act together and they need to figure out a way to get people working for the kids, they need to be consistent,they need to get these kids diagnosed when a diagnosis is warranted (stop hiding under a rock and admit that these kids have FAS, RAD, ADHD,ODD, and all the rest) and they need to listen to what the foster parents are telling them. Foster parents are not asking to get these kids diagnosed with disorders just for the fun of it, they are doing it in order to help the kids to live better lives, they are trying to give them a fighting chance in this world.

If everyone involved here would just take the time to communicate there would be a little less hurt in this world. Is anyone out there hearing this or is everyone deaf?

Noisy Oatmeal

The morning routine is that I get Lauren, Allen, Hanna, and Paul out of bed. Then I make sure the two girls are getting themselves dressed and cleaned up so that they will be presentable for the day. I then head down stairs to supervise breakfast and medications while Dad finishes helping the boys get dressed, gets ready for work, and makes sure Karre is up before joining us in the dining room.

This morning Hanna and Lauren got down stairs before I did as I had stopped to make needed adjustments to Paul`s new jeans and answer a couple of questions that Karre had. Hanna decided to make her own oatmeal. She had asked Lauren how much water to put in it and Lauren had told her a little bit. I guess a little bit is about two teaspoons full in the concrete thinking Hanna mind. I have no idea how long she had set the microwave for, by the time I got down there the oatmeal was smelling awful,very dark brown, flaky stuff, smoking in the microwave. It set the fire alarms off, yes all eleven of them (that is what code requires in our house). That sent Allen into sensory overload so he was not going to cooperate any longer, Hanna was mad at Lauren because the oatmeal was nasty, and I am left with a bowl that has oatmeal crud stuck to it that I am going to need a chisel to get off of there.

I would rather have them trying to do things like this independently and messing it up then to have someone doing everything for them. That is what makes this our ordinary, always something out of the ordinary happening world. It was a very loud, smelly place to be for awhile this morning.

"I-A-Boy"

Paul has grown enough to have out grown the clothes that he has been wearing for the past two years. The pants had gotten short enough that you could see his legs above the sock line and the shirts had a little tummy sticking out of them. He is not any where near the size a boy nearly five years old is supposed to be and that is due to his FAS. Our pediatrician will be thrilled to see that he has grown because he has expressed some concerns about the issue on more then one occasion.

This growing spurt prompted me to clear out his drawers and remove all the things that are to small for him. I, of course had plenty of Paul help in the process. He opened drawers, threw everything on the floor, slammed drawers, and smashed his fingers in them. Finally Dad rescued me and fixed the boo-boo, too. I reloaded the drawers with new clothes that he has gotten that were in the to big box. Thank goodness for adjustable waist pants. With some of the older kids I would have to get grandma to take them all in so that they would stay on the behind, but these just pull the elastic to fit and button. His winter jacket is getting to short in the sleeves for him as well, but he will be wearing it until after Christmas because the new one has already been put away.

I said "my baby boy has gotten so big".

Paul replied "I-A-Boy".

He is a boy, but he will always be my baby, too.

Science According To Hanna

The rain continues off and on here today. It is cloudy and gray out. I am not really getting anything done here as I have to keep track of Hanna who is not a happy camper at all. She is mad at Mom and Dad because we would not let her go with her "friends" today. Those are the same "friends" who have gotten her into sooooo much trouble already. She does not care at all about the content of the event that they are attending just these kids.

This morning she went outside to sit in the tree house so she could freeze into an ice block. I tried to explain that if it is raining then it is not freezing out there and no matter how long she sat out there she would not turn into an ice block, she would just get cold and wet bare feet and all (she did not put on shoes), and she would must certainly survive out there. she sat out there for more then an hour screaming her head off. At least I could watch her from inside where it is warm and dry. Her Dad told her, when he got home for lunch that if she really wanted it cold out there he could supply some ice from the refrigerator. She just yelled at him to" keep to your own business". She sure does not have a clue about science. We asked her if she knew what science was and she told us that it is "a day we eat outside". That says it all right there.

The plan had been to take her out for lunch at the DQ her favorite place in the world and then go do some fun things for the afternoon. We had explained this to her but she is so stuck on being with her "friends" and really does not care at all about what we would like her to do, that she can not keep from losing it over something that neither she nor we had any control over. We sure did not plan for this event that is not appropriate for her.

I think that we had better eat outside this weekend and learn something about science while we are at it. Even though she is a real grouch today this whole thing is rather funny when you watch her in action.

It Is Raining

Yes, it is raining outside therefore the apple orchard trip is off. We also had rain inside today as Lauren had tears this morning. She wanted to go on the trip "not do stupid work" , whatever that is. She has had a rough week. She lied several times to several different people and did a terrible job on her school work. She also has not done any of her chores so when allowance is handed out tonight she will not be getting any. We know that she is capable of doing this work with no trouble. Her teacher has been out a couple of times this week so I think she is seeing what she can get away with. She is just a little off right now.

I guess Hanna will have to be my buddy tomorrow as we have decided that this thing they are doing just is not appropriate for her. We will certainly have a rain of tears tomorrow and I am sure a lot of thunder (screaming) to go along with the rain.

These girls had better change the weather very soon or Mom is going to set off a storm of her own.