Well, for starters, my ex-spouse and now friend A has finally moved into an apartment and out of my father's house. A is renting a nice 2 bedroom in town and my brother and his friend helped move (well moved not just helped) all of A's furniture out of my father's house and out of the old trailer (where it has been stored with a bunch of my stuff too) and got it into the new apartment. So while unpacking and setting things up needs to happen, A is officially self-supporting. A also, thankfully, was given more hours at work and so should be able to afford to keep this apartment. It is beautiful, a big kitchen dining room combo, a medium sized living room, a nice sized bedroom for A, and a little bedroom for the boys for when they spend the night. I have taken the boys over every evening since Tuesday to help A feel settled in (the couch from the landlord was already there and I took the boys TV out of their bedroom and took it over as A's place comes with everything included--heat, electric, hot water, cable, and wifi. I am hoping that the boys will enjoy being able to has 1-on-1 time with their other parent. Hopefully we can nail down a consistent schedule so the boys always know that they can count on having specific time with their Bubba.
I have also signed a rental deal with the owners of the old laundromat, and will be converting it to a single family residence and running a family daycare from there. It is a big building with a good, level yard. I am nervous about it, as it is quite an investment. If all goes well, after 3 years they will hold the mortgage and I will buy the property. I will fill in details about this as time goes on. Suffice to say that between doing all the trainings and paperwork for the child care licensing, and now getting all the permits and doing the renovations for the house/day care, I am going to be one busy lady. it is good though. I am ready for a project that challenges in me different way than I am challenged by raising children with special needs.
I'll update some on how Josiah's struggles with Kindergarten are going. I will also be updating on how I am expanding my use of the Nurtured Heart Approach in trying to help both of my boys have more security and self control so that they can function better and enjoy life more. If you look into it, I have read the book multiple times as I have been trying to prepare myself to use this approach to parenting. I did not want to do it halfway. I am at step five, the credit system. We started using it today, and we had a day wonderfully free of major arguments, fights between the boys, bad language, and tantrums. Josiah only had one episode of "freaking out" as he calls it, and it was short and resolved quickly. Gonzo only had one round of insane, incessant whining and arguing and it was not at me or his brother, at the video game he had chosen to spend his credits to play. The extreme positive affirmation aspect is something we have been building up to, and using a clear, unemotional consequence for broken rules seems like it is going to work. I have a bit of tweaking to do to the system, as it is very flexible and can be used by anyone in any situation, I just have to find the right balance that works for us. But so far, it appears by the calm and happy evening I had with the boys, that once we adjust to this system, life may be a whole lot more peaceful, and our relationships with each other and hopefully with extended family, school, and community will drastically improve in quality. It is a challenge to essentially toss out traditional (and not so traditional) parenting models and advice, but those have not had much effect on the family dynamic with intense and difficult children who have gone through intense and difficult times over the past few years. It was time to try a drastically different approach (which has elements of other models and ideas that we have worked with in the past, but applied more intensely), and if the first day was any indication, if I do this right and consistently my children will feel more empowered, more in control of themselves, and have more respect for others, while building them up rather than tearing them down, which most parenting models essentially do (though I had not really realized that before I started exploring this method). Keep your fingers crossed and say a prayer for us that by fully embracing the Nurtured Heart Approach to parenting difficult children, that like, for all of us will improve. It is amazing how hard it is to train yourself to give positive affirmation rather than negative feedback when it comes to behavior. Like most of our culture, I had been programed to try to give attention and specific examples to behavior that was not correct more intensely than giving praise and affirmation and specific recongition to behavior that was correct.
Showing posts with label House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label House. Show all posts
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
A quick update ....
HI All,
As it has been so long since I made a full post, and I am still on an ailing computer, I wanted to try again to make a quick update of a variety of my life areas.
The kids:
School for Gonzalo is going very well this year. His behavior has been much better than in previous years and he is learning well. School for Josiah is still up and down, he has his good days and he has his bad days, some REALLY good and some REALLY bad!). I believe his teacher is trying and I also believe that she truly is a teacher that ca not think outside the box, so this is a struggle for her as much as it is for him. Luckily his assistant (surprisingly) CAN think outside the box, as does the spec ed teacher, principle, and CSE chair. So while still a struggle, he is moving in a positive direction. By November I think we will be on an even keel.
The other big thinks going on for Josiah have just been with his medical/physical special needs. He did not get his dental surgery last month because he had a nasty cold and could not go under anesthesia. And since they book months in advance who knows when he will get in again. His hydrocephalus has been on our minds, as his CT scan last year raised some eyebrows with his neurosurgeon, but as he is not presenting any symptoms, it has just been a process of getting a second opinion from a doctor who is more familiar with pediatric hydrocephalus, and that took a while. We saw him in June (or was it May or even April!) and he wanted to do an MRI to see how the fluid was moving through the brain to see if it is coming in faster than it is going out, which would cause it to build up slowly over time. As it was 60-90 minute MRI he had to be sedated. Luckily he has not had a cold lately and we had the sedated MRI scan yesterday. The doctor should get the results later this week and we will hopefully know something within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully fluid is coming and going at the same rate and he will not need another brain surgery or a shunt. The ventricolostomy will hopefully continue to work as it had done early on.
Other issues with Josiah lately--his hips are rotating in too much and his neurodevelopmental doc thinks that he should have hip surgery. We are scheduling an appointment for him to see his orthopedic surgeon to see if he agrees or if her thinks it is not necessary. There is the visit with the eye doctor which we missed because I wrote it down wrong on the calendar and did not check phone messages for a couple of days (which I do let go way too often, I really need to start checking phone messages daily). So I missed the reminder call which said the 3rd and my calendar said the 6th. So we have to reschedule that one. Overall though even with some potential problems beginning to show, Josiah has been pretty healthy this school year, and seems to be weathering the change of schools well health wise.
The income/housing issues:
I am working on the LONG process of getting registered as a NYS childcare provider to do family home day care (up to six kids). As I am doing this I continue to babysit the two year old and her brother after school. I also have another family that has asked me to babysit occasionally for their 3 year old and 9 month old. I told them that I had to work it so that I only had a maximum of two kids at any one time until I am licensed (state law--as an unregistered provider I can only watch two kids at a time on a regular basis in addition to my own). So it is a bit of schedule juggling but should be a good start.
However I have noticed that my neighbors, who are retired and older, are not so happy with all the kids running around, as we share the porch and yard in our duplex. So I have been looking into other housing for a while now. It is slim pickings up here. But I have been talking to a woman whose son is in Josiah's class and who I grew up with (she was a couple years ahead of me in school so we did not know each other well). She has been trying to sell a large building that used to be her family's laundromat. It has been on the market for quite a while and has not sold. She is willing to do a rent to own and allow me to convert it to a residential home with the intent to do daycare. So that is in the works. I need to make sure that my investment and hard work of converting it from commercial into residential (which will not be a problem, I have already talked to the zoning/building code man from the town-I'll just need building permits and such to renovate it), the contract needs to protect my investment and be written in a way that does not screw either of us in this endeavour. Thank God (literally) that A's niece is a lawyer and her husband a contract lawyer. Even though A and I are separated, the family still is open to helping. So, if the contract goes through well, I will begin renovating the inside and maybe even have it done by Christmas (as long as I have enough tie to work on it on a regular basis).
Health wise:
For me, weight loss is still a struggle. I do well for a few days with being careful about what I eat, watching my blood sugar (ice cream is VERY bad for blood sugar, so is boxes cereal). But then life gets stressful or busy or something else is going on and I turn my attention to that and fall back to my bad eating habits for a few days. Then I push forward again on developing new habits, and well it is a cycle. I think overall, that cycle is moving towards better and better eating patterns when I look at the overall picture, but I really need a solid month of really focusing on changing my eating habits themselves, so that I fall back on good habit and not on the ones that are so ingrained that there is a rut there. Two steps forward, one step back is still forward motion as a whole.
Other stuff:
My car is ailing and need work (tires, brakes, steering, etc...) AND i have the money right now to get it all done--so YIPPEE!! I take the car to the shop tomorrow and hopefully he will be able to get the parts in and have the time to fix her within the next week. I am guessing it will cost nearly a grand, but as I bought the car for $400 last February and she was worth so much more, it is worth putting that much money into her.
My chick are growing big. They were hatched on September twenty seventh (my two button does not work) and have been growing well since they arrived by ail at a day or two old. They are nearly two weeks old and have gotten their wing feathers. they are still in a big b ox here at the apartment, but will soon be moving over to my father's property. I have to build a new chicken coop as his is not is great repair. So i think that will be a project fro the4 coming weekend as they are getting to be a bit too big for the box. In a couple of months the extra roosters will become dinner (not something I look forward to, it is hard for me to eat animals I love, but I can not keep them, they will fight each other to death as they get older and territorial, only one or two will be kept with the hens. Then in 4-6 months I should have a bunch of fresh eggs daily. It will be wonderful. I have wanted to have chickens for so long. As a kid, my chore was caring for our chickens, and they were my friends. I loved having chickens and caring for them. I have always wanted to have a flock of chickens, and now I have them. Maybe when I move into the new house I can bring the chicken coop over there, which would be great.
Well, I should end now. I will write more soon, and when I get my computer back should be able to do short posts daily again rather than these intermittent postings.
Hope you are all well and enjoying autumn--my favorite and most productive time of the year.
As it has been so long since I made a full post, and I am still on an ailing computer, I wanted to try again to make a quick update of a variety of my life areas.
The kids:
School for Gonzalo is going very well this year. His behavior has been much better than in previous years and he is learning well. School for Josiah is still up and down, he has his good days and he has his bad days, some REALLY good and some REALLY bad!). I believe his teacher is trying and I also believe that she truly is a teacher that ca not think outside the box, so this is a struggle for her as much as it is for him. Luckily his assistant (surprisingly) CAN think outside the box, as does the spec ed teacher, principle, and CSE chair. So while still a struggle, he is moving in a positive direction. By November I think we will be on an even keel.
The other big thinks going on for Josiah have just been with his medical/physical special needs. He did not get his dental surgery last month because he had a nasty cold and could not go under anesthesia. And since they book months in advance who knows when he will get in again. His hydrocephalus has been on our minds, as his CT scan last year raised some eyebrows with his neurosurgeon, but as he is not presenting any symptoms, it has just been a process of getting a second opinion from a doctor who is more familiar with pediatric hydrocephalus, and that took a while. We saw him in June (or was it May or even April!) and he wanted to do an MRI to see how the fluid was moving through the brain to see if it is coming in faster than it is going out, which would cause it to build up slowly over time. As it was 60-90 minute MRI he had to be sedated. Luckily he has not had a cold lately and we had the sedated MRI scan yesterday. The doctor should get the results later this week and we will hopefully know something within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully fluid is coming and going at the same rate and he will not need another brain surgery or a shunt. The ventricolostomy will hopefully continue to work as it had done early on.
Other issues with Josiah lately--his hips are rotating in too much and his neurodevelopmental doc thinks that he should have hip surgery. We are scheduling an appointment for him to see his orthopedic surgeon to see if he agrees or if her thinks it is not necessary. There is the visit with the eye doctor which we missed because I wrote it down wrong on the calendar and did not check phone messages for a couple of days (which I do let go way too often, I really need to start checking phone messages daily). So I missed the reminder call which said the 3rd and my calendar said the 6th. So we have to reschedule that one. Overall though even with some potential problems beginning to show, Josiah has been pretty healthy this school year, and seems to be weathering the change of schools well health wise.
The income/housing issues:
I am working on the LONG process of getting registered as a NYS childcare provider to do family home day care (up to six kids). As I am doing this I continue to babysit the two year old and her brother after school. I also have another family that has asked me to babysit occasionally for their 3 year old and 9 month old. I told them that I had to work it so that I only had a maximum of two kids at any one time until I am licensed (state law--as an unregistered provider I can only watch two kids at a time on a regular basis in addition to my own). So it is a bit of schedule juggling but should be a good start.
However I have noticed that my neighbors, who are retired and older, are not so happy with all the kids running around, as we share the porch and yard in our duplex. So I have been looking into other housing for a while now. It is slim pickings up here. But I have been talking to a woman whose son is in Josiah's class and who I grew up with (she was a couple years ahead of me in school so we did not know each other well). She has been trying to sell a large building that used to be her family's laundromat. It has been on the market for quite a while and has not sold. She is willing to do a rent to own and allow me to convert it to a residential home with the intent to do daycare. So that is in the works. I need to make sure that my investment and hard work of converting it from commercial into residential (which will not be a problem, I have already talked to the zoning/building code man from the town-I'll just need building permits and such to renovate it), the contract needs to protect my investment and be written in a way that does not screw either of us in this endeavour. Thank God (literally) that A's niece is a lawyer and her husband a contract lawyer. Even though A and I are separated, the family still is open to helping. So, if the contract goes through well, I will begin renovating the inside and maybe even have it done by Christmas (as long as I have enough tie to work on it on a regular basis).
Health wise:
For me, weight loss is still a struggle. I do well for a few days with being careful about what I eat, watching my blood sugar (ice cream is VERY bad for blood sugar, so is boxes cereal). But then life gets stressful or busy or something else is going on and I turn my attention to that and fall back to my bad eating habits for a few days. Then I push forward again on developing new habits, and well it is a cycle. I think overall, that cycle is moving towards better and better eating patterns when I look at the overall picture, but I really need a solid month of really focusing on changing my eating habits themselves, so that I fall back on good habit and not on the ones that are so ingrained that there is a rut there. Two steps forward, one step back is still forward motion as a whole.
Other stuff:
My car is ailing and need work (tires, brakes, steering, etc...) AND i have the money right now to get it all done--so YIPPEE!! I take the car to the shop tomorrow and hopefully he will be able to get the parts in and have the time to fix her within the next week. I am guessing it will cost nearly a grand, but as I bought the car for $400 last February and she was worth so much more, it is worth putting that much money into her.
My chick are growing big. They were hatched on September twenty seventh (my two button does not work) and have been growing well since they arrived by ail at a day or two old. They are nearly two weeks old and have gotten their wing feathers. they are still in a big b ox here at the apartment, but will soon be moving over to my father's property. I have to build a new chicken coop as his is not is great repair. So i think that will be a project fro the4 coming weekend as they are getting to be a bit too big for the box. In a couple of months the extra roosters will become dinner (not something I look forward to, it is hard for me to eat animals I love, but I can not keep them, they will fight each other to death as they get older and territorial, only one or two will be kept with the hens. Then in 4-6 months I should have a bunch of fresh eggs daily. It will be wonderful. I have wanted to have chickens for so long. As a kid, my chore was caring for our chickens, and they were my friends. I loved having chickens and caring for them. I have always wanted to have a flock of chickens, and now I have them. Maybe when I move into the new house I can bring the chicken coop over there, which would be great.
Well, I should end now. I will write more soon, and when I get my computer back should be able to do short posts daily again rather than these intermittent postings.
Hope you are all well and enjoying autumn--my favorite and most productive time of the year.
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