Sleeping Success!!! Major Milestone!!!

News Flash!!!! News Flash!!! Majorly exciting news in fact!!!

Logan is asleep for the first time since May in HIS OWN BED!!!!

Since we’ve had Logan, he’s had serious sleep issues. S-E-R-I-O-U-S! Like as in, has-to-be-touching-you-at-all-times-or-will-cry-the-entire-night-until-he-vomits issues.

But, Mommy & Daddy bought him a bed, and Grammy & Papa brought it home last night. Logan was “fixing” it with a screwdriver so that he could sleep on it. The idea of fixing it himself and using tools was just too tempting!

Today, we went shopping for new sheets. While we had anticipated and talked about Spiderman, when we got there, he was all about the SpongeBob ones! He even PROMISED to sleep in his own bed if I would get him the little SpongeBob pillow. Therefore, he was incredibly excited tonight to have SpongeBob ready to sleep! We also got the fishy lamp with “Nemo.”

Remember, this IS Texas. The weather was HOT today, and it’s humid and sticky now. Both pairs of pajamas that we put on quickly came off!

And finally, proof that he’s asleep in his own bed for the very first time…

Woohoo! I won’t know how to act without feet in my face or getting head butted in the middle of the night! Papa won’t know what to do without his Velcro buddy up against him with every turn in the night!

We’ll see how long it lasts. At the last minute, he did want to come up and lay with me, and it’s hard to resist those long eyelashes, but I reminded him that his SpongeBob pillow would be lonely, and he finally settled in for the night. Without me lying with him. Success! At least once!

And last but not least, the slumbering Princess. No, she doesn’t have sleep issues. She’s just too cute not to take pictures of!

And while my precious grandbabies are sleeping, I’d better head that way too! Night!

Questions...

Well, sending out my blog to family and friends has spurred a few questions that I'd assumed everyone already knew the answer to. Typing that, I feel a little conceited now...because that would imply that I’m SO important that EVERYONE must be talking about me in order for EVERYONE to already know what’s going on, right?

Anywho…the question that has flooded my email today is what’s wrong with me? Am I ok? The answer is both yes & no. For the last several years, I’ve had problems with chronic pain in my left hip and thigh. It would vary from slight to severe. The last 3 years, it’s steadily progressed, and for the last year and a half, it’s been unbearable most times. I’ve been to several doctors and have been diagnosed with degenerative bone disease. The bones deteriorate away, making rough edges where the nerves go through, so they are constantly irritated. In my lucky case, I got it in my lower spine and pelvis, which are weight bearing bones, which causes more rubbing of the nerves, which causes more inflammation, which causes more pain….you get the idea. It’s to the point now that I’ve been told that I will be in a wheel chair soon. As in, staring it in the face. Ironically, the way to prolong that, is to use a wheelchair now when a lot of walking or standing is in order. That way there is less “wear & tear,” thus enabling me to do things longer. My wheel chair was ordered a few weeks ago. I’m supposed to go pick it up, but have been prolonging that as well. Denial can be a great tool. NOT!!!

I’ve been off of work because of the pain. I was missing so much work that I was gone more than I was there. I’m also on very high doses of pain medications at all times. I’ve been to 3 pain management clinics. All have procedures that such that they want to do and that they seem to think will be highly effective. The problem is that my insurance won’t pay for them. When Michael started working at the hospital way back when, we didn’t put the entire family on his insurance. We only put him on because I had family insurance available at the airport for a much lower cost. Overall, my insurance has been great! This is the only thing that we’ve run into trouble with. Well, the hospital that Michael works at has their own pain management center at their central location. They don’t have to get any kind of approval on his insurance because, well, they ARE the hospital providing it. Therefore any care provided at the hospital or by the hospital staff is 100% covered. There’s not even a copay. Michael had gastric bypass surgery in September, and we had to pay a total of $700 for services not provided at the hospital. Not bad for a surgery that costs THOUSANDS of dollars. Anyway, during open enrollment we added the family to Michael’s insurance for this year, thinking that January 1st, I could be in the pain management clinic getting some much needed treatment, and get back to work. We then found out that any added members to insurance don’t have coverage for the first 90 days of the year. **Sigh** So, now we’re looking at April 1st. My short term disability is for a maximum of 6 months, and will therefore run out April 9th. Hopefully, they’re magic! If not, hopefully I can go back on limited duty or something while we work out the things that we need to with pain management. Now that I’ve written a book about that…

Question number 2 has been about Logan, and why we have him, and what the status is, etc. Logan is Jennifer’s son, our grandson. There was an *incident* Memorial Day weekend. I picked him up from Springtown at about 2am on that Monday morning. He went home for a few days before CPS removed him and did a placement with us. We had him until September, when Gilbert (Logan’s dad) petitioned for custody and won. Gilbert also messed up quite a bit. Being in the army, he moved to Tennessee with his family and things seemed to be going well. Logan came back here November 19 to start his holiday visitation time. He was supposed to stay until December 29. The entire time that we had him, we couldn’t get a hold of Gilbert. Just before he was supposed to go back, we filed the petition for custody. Gilbert & Jennifer both agreed to give Michael & I custody to keep Logan out of foster care. The judge granted us custody on January 10. We have a hearing in August to determine Jennifer’s status and to see if she can have unsupervised visitation yet or not. At this time, her visitation is 100% supervised until she resolves the issues that she has. Once they are resolved, she may be able to petition the court for custody. Right now, we’re taking it one step at a time. Logan is adjusting well and of course spoiled rotten by Grammy, Papa, and all of his aunts & uncles!

Hope that clears up some of the blanks!

Hyperventilating!!!! Panic Attack!!!!

Cody & Grandma LAST year. And he's even taller now!

I mean, seriously! I woke up this morning, and for some reason with the week looming before me, I started an all out panic attack! As of Thursday, February 28, at 12:30pm, I will have an official 16-Year-Old!!!!

That's right...my sweet, snuggly, giggly little man, the first baby I ever had, will be 16. How did this happen? However it happened, something happened right. He's polite, responsible (more than enough for a 16-year-old!), handsome, TALL, smart. Doing well in school. Doing well in JROTC. And getting better all the time. We won't be doing the driver's license thing just yet because we had to wait so long on his social security card, which I thought I knew where it was and didn't, so his permit has been late. Hopefully soon though!

I'm already a mess. I mean, that's only 2 more years to 18! Only 2 more years til I can't tiptoe up to his room at night and peek in at his sweet little (well, hardly! he's well over 6-foot!) slumbering body and know he's ok. I can't just holler to him from across the house for a hug or a favor or whatever. Only 2 years away!

I got seriously trashed on his 13th birthday. SERIOUSLY! I totally didn't mean to. We're definitely not casual or social drinkers. When asked how often I drink, I mean it's like 3 or 4 drinks per year! But as we sat at Joe's Crab Shack, Michael & I across the table from Cody & Mikey, I started panicking that day that I officially had a teen-ager! I ordered a shaker-ita! With an extra shot! Then, as I downed that as fast as I could, I still couldn't get over that he was getting that big. I mean, yeah, he was taller than me, & yeah, he had a lot of responsibility, but now I could no longer look at him as my baby boy! On that realization, I ordered another shaker-ita, even before the dinner order was taken. There's a funny story in there about me & Michael's salad & some fork thing that I'll never live down. I swear it's not true. Urban legend if you will. Ahem. I wouldn't do that. (insert angelic face here) (also insert 3rd shaker-ita here)

Well. By the time that dessert came, and we sang happy birthday, I had successfully convinced myself that we were "practicing" for when he REALLY turned 13. That must be it. I couldn't walk unassisted when we left, but I was successfully in denial.

The next morning, I decided I'd better start counseling NOW for when they turned 18. For real. I'm totally not even joking. I mean for serious for real.

Somebody lock the liquor cabinet & throw away the key before Thursday is all I'm saying!

Recovering

Our first ever ENTIRE family picture!!!

Finally recovering from a week of being sick! Oh, and I got around to posting pics from our family portrait session in November. They're in an album on my myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/elena_515

Those that know me that for me, that's fast!!! I'm working on the organization thing. It's just not there yet.

Those in Colorado...yes, I know I USED to be organized. USED to is the key word. Since I've started having trouble with this bone disease, most days are hard to get out of bed and do the have to stuff. A lot of that doesn't even get done. Thankfully, my cousin Kirsten recommended a new medicine, and it's helped tremendously. I've been getting out to do errands once a week, and then taking the rest of the week to recover, but that's improvement! I seem to be walking better, too. Working on dose adjustment now, so hopefully we'll get some improvement soon!

***Logan's funny for today***

I was giving Logan a bath, and he had a strange look on his face. Here is the conversation...

Me: What are you doing?

Logan: Peeing.

Me: What?

Logan: Peeing. (Stated very matter of factly.)

Me: Um, well ok. Let's change the water and clean the tub BEFORE I wash you with it!

Logan: Ok. Next time go in the potty?

Me: That would be nice.

Logan: Ok.

We're working on potty training, but lately he hasn't been interested. I've had the flu this week, so haven't been pushing it. Guess that's what happens when you're two?

Flu, Flu, Go Away

DON'T come back another day!

We've got it running through our house and it's been awful! Hopefully we'll get over it soon so that we can do some fun stuff before Grandma goes home.

Ahhhh!!!

So Logan has a new thing...

Logan: "Grammy, know what?"

Me: "What?"

Logan: "I love you!"

Me: "I love you, too!"

A minute or two goes by...

Logan: "Grammy, know what?"

Me: "What?"

Logan: "I love you!"

Me: "I love you, too!"

Repeat. Again. And again. And again.

I love it! The thing is, he's started doing it at night, too, while I'm trying to put him to sleep. The only exception is that he inserts kisses in between each of them as he holds my cheeks with both hands. How do you say no to that, that it's night-night time, not play time? So cute.

Anyway, Katie went to her first dance tonight. *sigh* Those of you that know me know that that was torture! However, she said she didn't dance with any boys, because in her words, "All the boys at my school are idiots." Right on! Let's keep that attitude for a few more years! She's so pretty...how am I going to handle this?

Well, I best be getting off of here and getting ready for the big party tomorrow...Nikiya's so excited she can hardly sleep. What's she most excited about? The party? You would think. Alas, no. It's the fact that one of the girls spending the night is her 14-year-old sister, whom she sees every other weekend at her dad's. Those two have a very special relationship that I'll have to explain sometime. I need to post the paper she wrote about Jordan when she had to write on someone that she admired. It's sweet. How can I get my other children to act like that? Any suggestions?

Less Than One Month Left

Well, we have a date for Grandma to go home. Well, sort of. She wants to go home between March 1 & 8. We had decided on March 8, but then Michael mentioned that he might like to go, too. His days off are Tues & Wed, so we may look at those dates instead so that he can make the trip also.

This Saturday we're having Nikiya's birthday party. Then, she's having a few girls spend the night. Hopefully that will be fun for her. It's her first ever slumber party! She's excited & can't wait. Me? Not so much. I'm totally not ready for it. As in, the house is a mess, I haven't shopped for food, cake, ice cream, decorations, or party favors. Hmmm...should get started on that sometime today I suppose, right?

Next weekend we're going to Houston to take Grandma to visit the son of a family friend. She hasn't seen him much since he moved to Houston, but their family is close enough to ours that they really are family. Hopefully that will be fun. Hopefully Grandma, Logan, & I will get out some next week to do a few things. Maybe the Princess Kaylei too since I'm taking care of her while her mama works and looks for another job. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being Grammy.

Speaking of being Grammy...I hate that I go anywhere with the kids and everyone says something about being his Mommy, and he will tell them I'm Grammy. They inevitably say, you can't be a Grandma yet! (Insert self-righteous looks like we must have been parents at 14 and our children were parents at 13.) Anyway, how do you explain, they're my STEP-Grandchildren, and my husband is 9 years older than me, therefore his children are older than mine, and so on and so forth? And that it's none of their business. And that we never consider the STEP relationship, with our children or our grandchildren, neither do our extended families. We are a family, and happy that way. Please keep your self-righteous looks to yourself and let me enjoy my time being Grammy!

We got a letter from Cody's school the other day that his test scores were enough for him to take AP classes next year, so he's excited about that. Katie has already been in Pre-Ap classes, and told him it's nothing exciting, it's HARD! Katie, 12, is very smart, but truly only goes to school for the social environment. But Cody while he's always gotten good grades, has never been really serious about it. In the JROTC program, he's gotten really serious and now would like to be ready for college and the Marine Corp. Thank goodness for that.

Speaking of school, Nikiya is not looking forward to moving. When we were in the other school in NRH, the gifted and talented program was a couple of hours a week that the g&t teacher pulled her out of class to work with her. Yes, I say her because she was the only one in grade level in the program. When we moved to Mansfield, she's in a g&t CLASS, as in all the time. It's awesome! They do experiments all the time, they can bring bugs and birds and pets and plants or whatever to school and share it and study it. They have already had several independent studies, so that they can explore and study whatever they choose with no limits and then share it with the class. Her homework is the same as Mikey & Cody's. I'm not exaggerating. It's the SAME stuff, same requirements, same time to do it in, etc. The difference? They are sophomores in high school, and she's in 3rd grade. When we move back, she won't have the same freedom of discovery and the same exposure to so many things like she does now. Erica told me about some private schools around that take scholarships. I've been checking into those and see if anything pans out.

As for me, I've started a new medication that seems to be helping with the pain. This is the first time we've made progress in over a year. That for me is especially exciting. I'll start with the new pain management clinic in April and let me tell you, my hips can hardly wait! For now, I've spent the last two days actually getting things done and up and around. It's amazing!

Anywho, my to do list for today won't be getting done with me sitting here, so for now I'll say goodbye and *really* I'll get the new pics posted soon. The family pics are awesome, which is hard to say when you have 15 people in one shot!

Has it really been that long???

I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated my site! I've been getting requests from family and friends for new pictures of the kids, for holiday updates, etc. It wasn't until tonight that I spent some time catching up with some of the blogs that I read and realized that it really has been awhile!

With that being said, it's 2:22 am, and I'm sure that Logan will be up before I'm ready. I'm going to just hit a VERY FEW highlights; then fill in the blanks later.

Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had Erica, her boys, and her grandma over. I can't believe how big the boys are getting! Daniel and Louisa and their crew came by to eat a bit. Sheri, Todd, & the girls visited for a few minutes later in the day when they came to get Katie. She stayed the night over there so that she could watch their girls while they hit the Day-After-Thanksgiving sales. This was the first time that I got dinner together all by myself, and it didn't kill anyone so I'll take that as a success. ***A little Thanksgiving funny...that morning, Logan was watching me put the turkey in. He was very concerned, and in the sweetest little voice & with the sweetest little face, he kept cracking us up saying, "Ah, poor turtle!" Then as I went to put it in the oven, he started screaming, "No, don't cook my baby sister! Don't put her in there!" I have NO idea where that came from, but after close examination and once he was satisfied that this was in fact NOT his baby sister and she was safe with Mommy & Daddy, he was fine with the turkey making it into the roaster.

My Grandma is here visiting from Colorado. She's been her since Dec 8, and will be staying at least through the end of February. She's tentatively planning on leaving early in March depending on the Colorado weather. My aunts and uncles don't really want her to be there during the worst of the winter weather. It's much more mild and no slick roads (ok, RARELY!) here with us. However, with our brood and our busy household, I'm not too sure that she hasn't gotten more than she bargained for! We're really enjoying her being here, if only we could keep everyone well long enough at the same time to do more while she's here. Last year we went to the Stock Show & Rodeo, Waco to the Dr Pepper Museum, down to San Antonio & the Alamo. The stockyards. All kinds of stuff. We haven't done much this year but work on the other house, sleep, and go to church. Must be pretty exciting for her, huh? Oh yeah...she's almost caught up my laundry, and if you know me, you know that's NO small feat! Hopefully we'll get down to Glenrose and stuff while she's here. We're hoping to get to the Stockshow this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed!

Christmas was fun with the babies here! Most of you already know that I'm very sickly obsessed wtih pink. I'm an 8-year-old fairy-princess wanna-be stuck in this 32 year old body. Crazy yes, but I do love it! All this time I've only had grandsons. I've made my own daughters sick to death of pink, but now I have my Princess Kaylei! I'm taking full advantage! Hoping to tweak my approach so that she'll still like it when she learns how much I like it and not want to run and hide. Anyway, Logan was helping his beloved Papa pass out presents. He's so funny! He's been very good with manners...Please, thank you, & you're welcome. So much so, that whenever he does anything at all he deems as nice or appropriate, you're met with a "You're welcome!", whether there's a thank you or not. He was handing out the gifts, and kept saying "You're welcome!" as he handed them over. However, with a bunch this big, that's a lot of presents. He didn't want to give up helping Papa play Santa, but at the end, he was yelling in a cross manner, "YOU'RE WELCOME!!!" as he handed over the packages. Which of course made everyone laugh. Which of course made him crabbier. But it was pretty funny. The night before as we were headed home from picking him up with Jennifer, Chad, Kaylei, & Mikey from their Nanny's (grandmother's) house, he was doing the same crabby thing yelling, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" He was better than scrooge!

Jennifer & Chad & Princess Kaylei stayed most of Logan's visitation with us (Nov 19-Dec 29.) They went home to his mother's house on some weekends and such. However, we didn't hear from Gilbert the entire time that Logan was here, but Rachel visited a few times. Just before time for him to go back, we learned that Gilbert was in jail, Rachel wasn't going back to Kentucky, and we had no idea where Logan would be. We filed a temporary restraining order to keep Logan here until a hearing could be had. We had the hearing on January 10 and now have custody of Logan. However, the judge was NOT happy about Jennifer being here and would not place him in our custody with them in the house. She wanted Jennifer to have only limited completely supervised visitation until her other issues are resolved; then unsupervised visitation options can be explored at that time. So for the time being, they are staying at our other house in NRH. Chad is doing a fantastic job fixing up the place. We need it to be ready to go very soon. He's already completely torn out the kitchen floor, leveled it, and replaced both the sub-floor and the concrete wonderboard so that it's ready to lay tile. The floors are stripped. He just put up the wall between the laundry area & Mikey's room today. He's getting ready to start building our cabinets once the tile is down and the drywall is up. He's done some awesome work at the cabinet company he works for and we're excited to have him available to help us with it. It gives them a place to stay while saving up for a good place for them to stay with the baby and be close enough to visit Logan often. The judge was pretty hard on Jennifer so she's doing what she can to meet her demands before going back to court in August. Hopefully things will be much more settled by then.

Anyhow, that's it for now. We've gotten our photo session photos back, and we've taken lots of pictures, but I haven't downloaded any of them yet. I'll do that over the next few days and get them posted.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season! Best to you and yours in 2008!