I Knew It

I've been a little worried about Brandon lately. Whenever he gets mad he drops to the floor and starts banging his head. His forehead. It freaks me out because he does it hard enough to leave bruises. I've put him in "time out" in his bed before because he'll keep doing it and his bed is softer. James and I have pondered if he might be slightly autistic.

For being a preemie, you'd never be able to tell now. Sure the first few months were rough, but his only telling fact was that he didn't start to walk until he was 18 months. Except for the head banging. He already talks better than Taylor and Kyra did at this age. He loves to run and climb. In everything else he's right on target.

I finally broke down and looked it up on the internet today. Turns out it is very common in children between the ages of one and four. It should stop by the time he turns four. They have actually done studies and it's been shown that children who head bang are actually intellectually superior to their peers. It can be seen as a sign of intelligence.

I knew he was brilliant.

Things Are Tough All Over

Compared to some people, I've got it easy. Compared to a lot of others, it ain't so rosy. I know I shouldn't complain, but it feels good to give in to it sometimes.

First of all let me say this. Life is great. Kyra isn't sick so life is beautiful. Just dang near perfect. It's the "near" part that gets me.

I don't want to complain, but life can be so overwhelming. Every time I think I'm getting caught up, something else goes wrong. James and I both have a lot of debt from before we got together. His is mostly stuff his ex-wife did while he was overseas with the Army. She never worked so everything is in his name. When the got divorced she got half the bills. Since it's not in here name she has no incentive to pay anything. Most of mine is from Doug's medical bills before he died. His oldest daughter, Tanya, was nice enough to give all of the bill collectors my name and address after he died. We had finally given up and decided to file for bankruptcy, but found out today that we make too much to do Chapter 7. If we file Chapter 13 then we'll have to pay back $600 to $700 a month for 3 years. I don't see how they think we can afford that much. We are one car payment less because we gave back one of the cars, but I haven't noticed any bulging pockts yet.

I'm so disappointed. I was so looking forward to a fresh start. James is planning on quiting Wal-Mart next month to go to school. He has a GI Bill that he can use to pay for school and have a little money left over. Maybe once he does that our income will be low enough to file.

Fantastic News

Kyra's test results were negative! She does NOT have MENS 1.

Thank you all for your prayers.

I'm Back, Again

What can I say. Life can get so hectic. It's been a while since I've posted So much has happened I don't know where to start. Part of my problem is that for Christmas we got a Nintendo Wii and I have been spending too much of my very little free time playing Harry Potter. I've beaten Voldemort but I don't know if I'll ever finish the game. There are different tasks you have to do in each section of the castle and I can't find them all. I need to check online to see if they have a walk thru. Also for Christmas we got an electric fire place and a HD DVD.

For my birthday I got a bicycle. Don't laugh. I have every intention of using it. For one it needs to get a whole lot warmer. For two, I need to get a child trailer so I can take Kyra and Brandon with me. Then we need to get James and Taylor one so we can ride together.

We went to Children's Hospital on 1/11 to have Kyra's genetic testing done. They used a little brush to "tickle" the sides of her mouth to get a skin sample. The results could take two to four weeks. We made a follow up appointment for 2/12 but they call and rescheduled it for 2/21. Great, I really want wait even longer. I'm so scared I can't think straight. The morning we went I woke up at 5 am and couldn't go back to sleep. I keep telling myself that she doesn't have it. I have to think positive. We did find out what the mutation is. Here, let me sound knowledgeable:

MEN 1 is a single base change of G to C in the +3 splice donor site of intron 7.

or,

IVS7+3 G>C

or,

c1049+3 G>C

HUH?

Food Poisoning?

Kyra might have had food poisoning.

The other night we ate dinner with James. We picked him up and went to McDonalds drive thru and ate in the car. Brandon thought it was cute to throw his food in the floor but I thought I picked them all up.

I was wrong.

Thursday I picked Kyra up from preschool and she was talking about eating a chicken nugget. I looked in the mirror and she was holding one from the other day. I told her not to eat it but she said she already had. The one in her hand hadn't been bitten. I thought I stopped her in time. I told her she would get sick if she ate old food.

She started throwing up at 7:30 that night. In all she threw up 8 times. Not a fun weekend.

She is now afraid to eat. She hasn't thrown up since Friday night but she has barely eaten anything since then. She is existing on Gatorade. I finally got her to eat some chicken noodle soup tonight.

She won't even eat sweets! She's got to be sick!

Circuit City SUCKS!!!

My DVDs aren't coming. My cheap, wonderful House DVDs aren't coming.

Sob, sniff.

The email I received said I should receive my order between Dec. 4th and Dec. 12. When I didn't receive them on the 12th I called 800thecity. The nice woman was completely unhelpful. They didn't have a tracking number from where it had reached the USPS, but it had been 15 days so they must have it by now. She said I should just call the post office and ask them if they knew where my package was. I pointed out that without the tracking number they wouldn't be able to track my package.

I asked them if I could just go to the local store and pick my DVDs there but for some reason there is a difference between corporate and regional and it's not the same and no I can't.

She said the only thing they could do is offer me a refund so I hung up and called the local store. I spoke with a manager who said I should wait a few more days (I guess 15 isn't enough) and if I didn't receive them by Friday I should call back. I called back on Saturday but he was too busy to come to the phone so I left a message. He never called back. I called today and he said that there is a difference between corporate and regional, he doesn't know why, but that's the way it is. He can't just give me my DVDs that I ordered. He did finally agree to sell me his DVDs for the $12.99. He wasn't sure if he had season 1 in stock but he could order it in special for me. I had to call the 800 # to get my refund and I'll go to Circuit City tomorrow to buy my DVDs.

After all this trouble it wouldn't kill them to just give me the freaking things.

I'm Back

It seems like tons of stuff is happening but nothing is getting accomplished. I still haven't heard from Children's Hospital about testing Kyra, I still haven't got my "House" dvds and I still don't know about moving yet. I talked to Dad the other day and he's moved in with Sherri and Chris. I feel bad that Sherri has to take care of him but even if I was there he'd probably still be with Sherri. A large part of me wants to be there to help. A small part is selfish and says "been there, done that". That is not why we aren't in Oklahoma right now. I'm actually really home sick. I love Washington, but I don't think I would get paid what I make now in Oklahoma. But I miss the people in Oklahoma.

You'd make it a lot easier on me if all of you just moved up here. I'm worth it, right!

James has applied for the Assistant Manager in training at Wal-Mart at two stores in Washington and pretty much all of the stores in OKC. I so hope he gets hired in OKC. If he doesn't get the promotion then he would have to step down as a supervisor to move. For some reason it is really hard to transfer as a supervisor. Something about hiring from within.

If he does get the promotion we could end up moving in a matter of weeks instead of months. Keep your fingers crossed.