Vinegar Drink, Snow, More IEP Meetings, Spicy Milk

We finally hit our year mark of moving in to our house.  I still can't believe we have been here for a year.  Anyway, since we were hitting our year mark that meant we had to get everything fixed before our year warranty on the house came due.  We only had a few nail pops and seams that we needed to be patched. The sheet rock repair guy came out last week one morning after the kids went to school to put the initial patch on.  He then needed to come back the next morning at  7:30 am to finish sanding and smoothing everything out.  However, at 7:30 am, I am in the middle of getting kids ready for school.  I was making their lunches when the doorbell rang.  Of course all the kids went running for the door before I could stop them.  Matthew got there first wearing only his underwear because he had just gotten out of the shower.  Have I mentioned our boys have no definition of privacy?!  Anyway, the poor dry wall guy didn't know quite what to do when the door was answered by an 11 year old boy wearing nothing but his underoos asking him what company he worked for.  I finally made it to the door and immediately sent Matthew to finished getting dressed.  I think the guy was a little relieved to see me to say the least.

Sarah had a friend over last week.  While they were playing they decided they wanted some milk.  They asked Aaron and he went and poured them some.  Now Aaron and I, since we have had Daniel, we got used to drinking Soy Milk while he was a baby we got to the point that we don't like cow's milk anymore and just drink Soy Milk.  That means that we just buy the cow's milk for the other kids and usually we get through the gallon before it expires.  We haven't had a gallon of milk expire on us for a really long time.  So Sarah took her first swallow of the milk she pushed it away and said she didn't want any.  Her friend took a drink and told Aaron that the milk was too spicy.  Of course Noah was oblivious and was chug a lugging the whole cup.  Aaron looked at the gallon of milk and saw it had expired a week before.  He then smelled it and it smelled AWFUL.  He quickly found out why Sarah's friend was calling her milk 'spicy'.  Her friend also told Aaron that her mom never buys spicy milk like that.  Aaron told her that we usually don't either, but in this case he made an exception.  He dumped out their drinks and gave them some newly bought milk that, thankfully, wasn't spicy.

Aaron has lived in Utah for 14 years now and he got his first jury summons for Salt Lake Courthouse.  He had to report Monday morning for jury duty.  Thankfully he didn't get selected.  They were going for 12 jurors and he ended up being candidate #20 and barely missed the cutoff.  Phew!  He said it was an interesting process, though.  As for me I have lived in Utah for 30+ years and have never been summoned for jury duty--I am not complaining, though.

Aaron got asked to speak in church last week.  When he came home and told me I started laughing at him like neener, neener, neener!  I then thought about it and realized that by having him speak it would leave me down in the audience with five kids to rustle all by myself.  I told him such and he turned back at me and said, "Neener, Neener, Neener!"  Luckily, the kids were pretty good that week.  I did have to take Sarah potty at which point I threatened the kids pretty good to behave while I was out.  Aaron kept an eye on them and said they did pretty well while I was gone.  Aaron did really well with his talk.  It was on how to be and remain a worthy priesthood holder.  I am glad that's over and I am hoping that we have had our turns for a while so we won't have to speak again for a LONG time.

Last week I got a dreaded call from school (have I ever mentioned that I HATE getting those?!).  Anyway, it was the occupational therapist calling about Josh.  Josh has been receiving occupational therapy services for a few years from the school, but never had it in his IEP (individualized education plan).  They were hoping his handwriting, coordination and hand strength would improve enough that it wouldn't be an issue.  Unfortunately, it is not improving so we had to officially add his occupational therapy goals to his IEP.  Josh has struggled with some loose muscle tone, some gross motor and fine motor ability since he was a toddler, however he has been able to function without too much of an issue so far.  His neurologist thinks his epilepsy has something to do with it as well as some of his genetics--poor kid he got both mine and Aaron's lack of coordination.  Anyway, the seizure medication he takes doesn't help things either as it makes his overall muscle tone a little more loose and less coordinated.  It seems to be a perfect storm--poor kid. Anyway, they finally decided enough was enough and it was time to get down to basics.  We got together last week to discuss and update his IEP.  As the IEP meeting progressed we got to talking about the future.  I guess as school progresses and as he has to write more for class (and for tests) they will get him using some 'assistive technology' which means they will provide him with a portable keyboard so he can type things instead of writing them and take notes easier.  They also have a really neat pen that has a built in recorder.  What is so great about this is you take notes on this special paper and when you are finished you plug everything into a computer program.  It then records your handwritten notes, but fills in the blanks with the sound recording of the things you didn't get written down.  This would be fabulous in Josh's case since he can't write as fast as he needs to and have it legible at the same time.  However, this can be good and bad.  It will be good for the fact that it will help him get everything down that he needs, but by using this technology he will not be using his hands as much so they won't get stronger or better at writing either.  It seems to be a double edged sword.  Anyway, they wanted to start introducing this assistive technology sometime in 6th grade so he can get used to using it before he heads to Jr. High school.  That way he won't be faced with trying to get used to a whole new school and trying to do something totally new as in learning in a new way.  I am hoping that things get good enough in the next year and a half that this won't be such a big issue, but looking at the last couple years, I don't know.....

The other day I was cooking and I pulled out some vinegar to put in the recipe.  Noah saw the big container of vinegar and thought it was a yummy drink and asked to have a taste.  Being the devious mother I am I emphatically said, "SURE!"  I poured him a cupful of white vinegar and gave him a straw and here's the outcome: 

 Aren't I so mean?!  Hey, if you can't have fun with your kids who can you have fun with?!

We keep getting more and more snow and it doesn't ever warm up enough to melt it so we still have tons of snow left.  Here's the view from the car last Saturday:

I and usually a winter lover, but this is getting ridiculous!  I can't wait for spring!

Last night was our ward's Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts.  Daniel was so excited because he is the only new cub scout coming in this year.  While we were waiting for dinner to start, it was hard to keep the kids sitting quietly at the table.  I gave Sarah a paper to color.  As time went on the kids were getting more and more antsy and starting to get into trouble.  I finally started getting frustrated and my voice started getting sharper.  All the time Sarah continued to draw and I guess this was her interpretation of what happened.  She drew me with a smiley face and showed me.  Then she scribbled out my smiley face and then showed me the picture saying, "This is you mommy.  I scribbled on your face because you are yelling."  Gee thanks, Sarah!

 However, things got better as the banquet went on.  Josh got to participate in the opening flag ceremony.  He's the last one standing in line.

Noah saw all the cubs saluting the flag so that's what he did, too.  He's so funny.  For the record I don't know why I am pulling such a weird face, but oh well.

 

Josh received an award and then got to choose a cheer.  He got the sprinkler cheer so that's what he and the leader are doing.

The kids were all exhausted by the time we got home.  I put Noah to bed, but he stayed awake long enough to line up his cars all over his bed.  Since he did it at the pillow of his bed, he had to sleep at the foot of his bed instead.  What a crazy kid!!  If he weren't so socially appropriate I would be really concerned about his car lining upness (if that's even a word), but at this point I am not too worried about it....

Valentine's, Guilt Free Ice Cream, Muralling, Car Problems

Well in keeping pretty busy I have neglected my poor blog again.  But here is a quick attempt to bring it back up to date.  The weekend of the Super Bowl we had plans to party.  Saturday night we were able to have lunch with one of Aaron's friends from growing up in Texas--Brad and his family.  It was nice to see them again.  It is nice that they have moved up to Utah so we can see them more often.  The next day was Sunday and we were going to have friends over for a Super Bowl party, but, unfortunately, that didn't happen.  When we got up and started getting ready for church Daniel was complaining that his stomach hurt.  Now Daniel is quite a dramatic child so you can never really believe him when he complains about things.  I told him to go get ready for church anyway.  He got dressed and really started complaining about his stomach.  I still was going to make him go to church, but Aaron took pity on the poor kid and decided to stay home with him.  It was a good thing he stayed home because about 20 minutes later and ended up throwing up EVERYWHERE.  I felt bad about making him almost go to church at this point.  We called up and cancelled our party after he threw up again when I got home from church.  Luckily, no one else got it.  I also learned that I may need to take his complaints a little more seriously next time....

 

The month of February is all about love so I will start out with Noah's love affair with all things cars.  You will never see this boy without at least one car in his possession at all times.  He LOVES them!!  The other day he was trying to carry a handful of cars from one place to another, but they kept falling out of his little hands.  He was getting quite frustrated so I showed him all the pockets he had in his overalls that were just perfect for holding and transporting cars.  He was so excited!  He went around the whole house looking for more cars just to stuff in his pockets.  It was pretty funny.  He was in heaven.

Daniel had his last basketball game two Fridays ago.  While Aaron was there watching him a friend offered Aaron Jazz basketball tickets for that night.  Aaron was excited.  It was last minute, but he decided to go and it was Josh's turn to go this time around.  However, Daniel's game ended at 7pm and the Jazz game started down in Salt Lake at 8:30 pm.  I already had the kids in bed so when Aaron got home he roused Josh out of bed and they headed down to Salt Lake to go to the game.  They were running late so Aaron hurried so they wouldn't miss too much of the game.  Well let me tell you that Aaron NEVER speeds, EVER!  If anything he drives under the speed limit which drives me crazy.  So.....when he called to let me know he just got a speeding ticket I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April Fool's Day.  Then I just laughed and laughed because he was so smug when I got my speeding tickets.  Oh well what goes around comes around right?!  Thankfully he was able to do online traffic school so it didn't go on his record and increase our insurance rates.  All I can say was that was one expensive Jazz game he went to (even if he got the tickets for free) if you include the speeding ticket!!  Anyway they made it to the game.   During the game Josh did well the first half, but the second half staying awake became quite troublesome for the poor kid.  He is quite the early bird, but late nights do the poor kid in.

 They did have fun, but I don't know if we can afford for anymore games in the near future ;).

 Two Saturdays ago Daniel was invited to a birthday party.  Now times like this it is cause for great celebration!!  After I dropped Daniel off at the party I took the kids out for some guilt free ice cream cones.  We never get to go out for ice cream because Daniel is extremely allergic to it.   If you did go out for it you feel super guilty eating it in front of him so we just don't get it.  However, since Daniel was having a fun time at a birthday party so we had a guilt free ice cream party at Arctic Circle.  YUM!!!  Aaron couldn't come with us because he was down helping my grandparents move into an assisted living center that day, but me and the four other kids had a good time.

 We finally hit our year mark of living in our new house so I figured it was time to start on the kids' murals.  I am starting in Sarah's room.  She LOVES Cinderella so that's what I decided to do.  It's hard to see, but here's the initial sketch:

 I still have a ways to go but here's the actual painting:

A few days later (she actually has arms now):

 Hopefully, I can finish it this week.  We'll see...The kids do not make it easy for me.  While I was painting Noah exploited the fact that he didn't have my full attention.  Our fridge has a feature that if the doors do not close after a few minutes it starts beeping at you.  After hearing it beep the first time I came out to find that Noah had scooted a bar stool over to the fridge and was standing on it, with the fridge open while shoving handfuls of grated cheese into his mouth and spilling cheese EVERYWHERE.  That particular scenario happened not once, but THREE different times.  Also when Aaron got home from work he parked the car only to find Noah wandering around the front yard with no coat or socks on.  Noah had snuck outside while I was busy in Sarah's room.  I hadn't been painting that long and probably at least half that time was trying to keep kids out of mischief in which I obviously failed miserably!  These kids are such stinkers!!  I could have had the mural finished by now if I didn't have to chase down Noah and Sarah and trying to get them out of all the mischief they get into to!!  Oh well they keep things exciting whether I want them to or not.

Valentine's Day is a kid favorite--I think all the candy they get from school and home has something to do with it.  Here the kids are inhaling their Valentine's packages from G&G T.  They loved them!

 For Valentine's Day it was fun to try something 'hearty' for Sarah's hair.  Here's what her hair looked like for Valentine's Day:

She was excited to let me do something 'hearty' with her hair so I didn't hear any complaints when it was time to comb her hair.  It was nice.

 

Sarah had a Valentine's Party at preschool and got lots of candy.  She was nice enough to share it Noah who went to town trying to stuff as much of it in his mouth at one time as he could.  His favorite was the suckers as you can see in the above picture with a ring pop and a sucker in his mouth.  In the pic below he managed to fit three suckers in his mouth at one time.  What you can't see is the HUGE drool puddle all over the floor from it.  At least he was happy.

 Unfortunately, we had major car trouble last week.  Aaron was on his way to a meeting with his boss's boss when his car up and died.  Needless to say he never made it to the meeting.  Luckily a friend from work that lives by us was kind enough to tow Aaron's car home to our house so we could decide what to do with it.  We decided to tow it to a car repair place to have them figure out what the problem was.  Unfortunately, it was bad news when the garage called us back.  The timing belt had gone out on the car and it supposedly took the engine out with it.  DOH!!!  To have the repair place fix it would have been more than the car is worth so we told them not to fix it and put it back together while we decide what to do with it.  At times like this I am so thankful we have three cars.  Aaron took the truck out and got it licensed, registered and insured and started driving that in the meantime.  In talking with my brother he offered to help Aaron fix it which probably meant replacing the engine.  I am so blessed to have a great handyman as a brother!!  Since he has all the car fix it tools at his house Aaron and I towed the car from the garage to my brother's house.  In towing cars I have always been the one to drive the towed car.  This time around I got to be the actual tow-er of the car with the Suburban.  It took a few streets to get the hang of it, but I did ok.  Aaron did get some major whiplash from my not-so-smooth starts, but we eventually got the car to my brother's house without incident.  Here's Aaron and my brother Bryan pushing it up his driveway in to his garage:

 This all took place on Valentine's Day.  Hey towing cars together can be romantic, right?!  By the time we got home we had our Valentine's feast of pink spaghetti and meatballs.

 The kids then opened their gifts which was a mug with their name on it and a huge heart shaped, pink Rice Krispie treat with a love note.

 The next day Aaron went over to Bryan's house to help fix the car.  They decided to try out fixing the timing belt first, but not really thinking that would work.  In this type of car when the timing belt goes out it destroys the engine in about 99 times out of 100.  I am thanking my lucky stars that we happened to be the 1 out of 100 because when they changed the timing belt the car started working.  That NEVER happens, but in this case it did.  We are so THANKFUL!!!  Especially since we just got news that with the Congress not coming to terms Federal Employees might be forced into taking mandatory furloughs.  A furlough is when they tell you not to come into work one day a week and you don't get paid for it meaning it is a 20% pay cut--OUCH!!!  I have dusted off my resume and just renewed my Registered Nursing license so I may or may not be in a search for a job, unfortunately.  We will know more in the next two weeks about our furlough situation.  Anyway that makes me that much more thankful that we don't have to replace a car right now.

Josh is quite blunt.  We are working on trying to teach tact and appropriateness, but it does not come natural for him.  Take for instance the other day--Aaron was at the pharmacy picking up some prescriptions.  It happened to be really busy and that's the time when Josh told Aaron (pretty loudly I may add), "I bet Valentine's is your favorite holiday!"  Aaron thought that was an odd thing to say so he asked Josh why he thought that.  Josh was surprised that Aaron didn't know why so to emphasize his point he replied incredibly loudly in his condescending voice because he couldn't believe his dad could be that dense, "BECAUSE (insert eye roll right about here) YOU GET TO KISS MOM A LOT!!!!"  He said it so loud that he got quite a few stares from the people standing around the pharmacy.  Aaron was pretty embarrassed to say the least.  Nice, Josh, nice!

Speaking of Josh we had a neurology check up for him last Friday at Primary Children's Medical Center.  He is doing well.  He did have a questionable spell at night about 6 months ago, but other than that he has been seizure free as far as we know.  I did talk to the doctor about the future and she said that if he remains seizure free for two years she wants him to have another sleep deprived EEG.  That struck the fear in me since his last sleep deprived EEG caused him to go into status epilepticus (uncontrolled seizures) which sent him via ambulance from McKay Dee Hospital down to Primary's for a long hospital stay.  Anyway, that is still at least a year and a half away from now so we will see what the next year and a half will bring.  In measuring Josh he has gained 10 pounds in the last 6 months which is a lot.  However, he was showing me his 'big' arm muscles the other day.  In seeing this picture can you tell me where the 10 pounds went because he is still so dang skinny?! 

Holy cow you can count all the kid's ribs!!  Anyway with such a big weight gain we had to increase his medication to keep him on a stable dose.  If all goes well (meaning no seizures or big weight gains) we don't have to go back for another visit for a year.  YAY!!

Monday to celebrate President's Day we had a family day and went up to Hardware Ranch to see the elk.  Here's the visitor's center with the huge stuffed elk.  I am taking the picture and Noah was not very happy at having Dad hold him since he is such a mommas boy as you can see.  He is lunging out at me trying to get me to pick him up--what a stinker!

 Here we are the sleigh ride:

 Seeing as we were so late in the season this year we were still surprised to see so many elk still down on the field. 

 Here we are standing by the horses that pulled the sleigh.  Josh couldn't wait to get away from them as they caused him to have major watery eyes, runny nose and a sneezing fit during the whole sleigh ride.  Here I thought Daniel was the only allergy boy--I was wrong!

It was a fun visit.  Hopefully, we can go again next year, too.  I hopefully will remember the Benadryl for that visit....

Sickness, Craziness, Family Day and Other Stuff

Two weeks ago Aaron got to take a business trip.  He was going to Fort Worth, Texas and we, as his airport shuttle, got the lovely opportunity of taking him to the airport at 4am Tuesday morning.  Yes, you read that right we had to wake everyone up at 4 am in the morning in order to get him to the airport to catch his 6 am flight.  After dropping him off we came back home and tried to decide what to do for the rest of the day since it was only 5 am and the kids didn't have school that day.  Luckily a friend heard that I was going to be single parent that day and invited all of us over for lunch.  It was a nice break in my first day of Aaron's business trip.  Luckily, the next few days the kids would be going back to school so that would break up the monotony a bit.  By the time he was supposed to come home Thursday night I think all of us were ready for a break from each other--especially ME!  Anyway, Thursday we ended up having a really bad ice storm.  The roads were all frozen over and it was so bad they actually closed the airport for a few hours.  I was praying that Aaron would actually be able to get in that evening because I was done being a single mom!  My prayers ended up being answered because he was able to fly in even if it was two hours late.  It was a relief to see him.  He wasn't as happy to be back in Utah since he had just left 70 degree Texas to come back to single digit degree nastiness.  He was glad to see his family again, though.  He used to travel quite a bit, but he hasn't had to the last few years.  I used to handle it so much better, but this last trip was really hard on me--maybe it was the additional three kids that we added to our family since his frequent travel days....

 

Last week Aaron had to work late so that meant I had to get all three boys homework done before we had to be off to our various events like basketball and scouts.  That meant that the three oldest boys had my undivided attention for almost an hour straight.  Noah, ever the opportunist, took advantage of my lack of attention and went to town on my dining table with the only unwashable marker that we have.  Good thing I love him because otherwise.....the little stinker!!

 Last Monday the Discovery Gateway had an Autism night where individuals with autism and their families could enjoy a night without judgement from families with typical children without atypical behaviors.  There was a lot of hand flapping going on as well as tantrum/meltdowns going on throughout the night; however, Aaron and I were completely at ease and relaxed because we had a lot in common with every other family there that night.  It was AWESOME!!  I will say it was difficult to try and keep track of all 5 kids that seemed interested in 5 different things at the same time.  It was a little like herding cats!  Here's a few of the activities we did: 

Everyone got a chance to ride the horse.

Noah loved going shopping in the pretend store with the shopping cart and plastic food.

 Outside the even had a retired Life Flight Helicopter they let the kids explore.  They even had the sound of the engines going which was quite loud.  That's why Sarah and Daniel are covering their ears.

 Matthew, Josh and Daniel were exploring the controls at the front.  Matthew has actually ridden in a Life Flight Helicopter as a patient before right after he was born.  He had to be transported from our hospital to Primary Children's because he was so sick.  Anyway, that was a long almost 12 years ago.

They had a green screen set up just like in the news.  Sarah and Noah thought it was pretty funny seeing themselves on the TV.

Matthew was trying to give a newscast with the changing pictures on the TV, but couldn't quite keep up with the changing pictures.  It was pretty funny.

 They had an air tunnel and stuff to make paper airplanes and parachutes from so you could see how good of an airplane or parachute maker you were.  Aaron, of course, had to construct his own.  Good thing he's an Electrical Engineer instead of a Aeronautics Engineer is all I will say....

 They had big blocks you could build with.  Sarah got it in her mind that she wanted a tower built around her and wouldn't let us move on to another activity until she got her tower built around her.  It was about this time we were glad we were surrounded with lots of other kids throwing tantrums because she fit right in even if she wasn't autistic.

 Matthew found a generator where you could do two of his favorite activities--spin and turn on a light.  He spent quite a bit of time here just turning the handle to turn on the light.  He got pretty excited about it.

 They had a magnetic wall covered in gears that you could put together.  Noah LOVED this and stayed here for a really long time.  He was pretty good at putting them together, too.  Now I have a possible birthday present idea for him in April.

 We had a lot of fun there that night.  I am very thankful that we had the opportunity to go.  It was a really fun Family Home Evening activity!

When we got home from the Discovery Gateway Daniel was really whiny.  Aaron happened to feel his head and he was burning up.  We took his temperature and it was 103.2.  No wonder he was so whiny!  The poor kid didn't feel good, however, he had no other symptoms beside the really high fever.  He continued to have the super high fever for the next three days without any other symptoms and then it went away.  It was really weird.

Since it has been so cold we have lots of icicles on our roof.  Josh went out one morning on his way to school and decided to knock them down.  He didn't realize that standing right under them was a bad idea until one hit him right on the cheek.  Ouch!!

The very next day I sent Josh down to brush his teeth.  Now usually this takes him all of 5 seconds on a good day because just like any other kid they don't do a very thorough job.  However, he was down in the bathroom for a LONG time.  When he finally came upstairs his face and fingers were covered in blood and he was shaking pretty badly.  He then asks me, "Do you notice anything different about me?"  Seeing the blood my worried reply was, "Ummm are you ok?!"  He then said quite proudly, "I just yanked out my tooth!"  He tried to bring it to me to see, but ended up dropping it three times because he was shaking so bad.  I am still wondering how loose the tooth even was since it seems he worked pretty hard at getting it out.  What a crazy kid.  Keeping with the crazy Josh theme he had another Talent Show program in his Music Class.  Of course he didn't give me the flyer for it until the day before.  As he was handing it to me he insisted that he did NOT want to play his Christmas song on the piano again like he did last week in his other talent show.  I made him pick a song from a different book that he could play and then I let him take that.  When he got home from the day of the talent show I asked him how it went only to have him say, "Ya I played that one song and a few others, too."  I don't know how it turned out since he likes to play things he doesn't know how to play.  This time I will really say that ignorance is bliss.  Now I am hoping there won't be many more talent shows this year because Josh just can't turn down a chance to perform whether he's ready for it or not.....

Saturday we were cleaning the house.  While I was cleaning the kitchen the kids thought I was fixing them lunch and Sarah and Noah came and sat down.  I told the kids it wasn't time for lunch and Noah got upset.  He doesn't hear the word, "No" from me very often and this was the poor, pathetic face he pulled.  Poor Noah.

 Daniel is finishing up basketball this week.  So tonight was the Jazz player appearance night when a Jazz player comes to talk with the kids and do some activities with them.  Here is Daniel taking a shot:

In other happenings Josh had scouts a few weeks ago.  When he got home I asked him what they did in scouts.  That's when he told me that I was a bad leader.  Um, gee thanks Josh.  I appreciate your critique....Anyway he then told me that they learned about how to be a good leader.  He told me that good leaders don't TELL people what to do they ask them nicely.  I guess that's where I fail in my leadership as a parent.  I don't ask the kids nicely to clean up their messes I just TELL them to do it.  Hey I have tried to ask nicely, but that has resulted in nothing being done.  Somehow saying, "Could you pretty please with sugar on top pick up your nasty socks and put them nicely in the laundry room?"  Doesn't work as well as, "Clean up your nasty socks NOW or you won't be able to play!"  I guess that makes me a bad leader, but at least I get results!

Last week was parent teacher conferences.  I dread these because I never know what kind of stuff I am going to hear about my kids.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  Daniel is doing quite well.  He is only one of 5 kids who has gotten 100% on their spelling tests this past term.  Josh is doing good, too.  He is reading really well and ahead of most of his class.  He needs a little extra help in math, and handwriting, but otherwise is doing ok.  Matthew is having a little bit of a hard time.  Matthew has to be compared to typical students his age just to be able to compare to see progress.  He is quite delayed, but that comes as no surprise.  He does well in reading, but he is still working on comprehension.  His teacher is having a really difficult time getting him to eat his lunches, but that's nothing new as well.  Other than that he is happy go lucky as long as things are going his way.  I am glad parent teachers is over now all I have to face is the IEP meetings  for Josh and Matthew in a few months.  I can do this, I can do this, I can do this......