2016 - hopes, plans, dreams......

So we are a few days into 2016.  The kids are back to school, and I have had a little bit of time to reflect on some things. Be prepared for ramblings.......

This year is going to be about moving back to England.  Pauls contract is up at the end of June, so I foresee us being back by about 6th July.  Do I bother putting the kids into school for 2 weeks, when they have been off for a month? Given we don't have a house, probably not.  We are going to get the house packed as near to departure as possible, so that we can stay in company provided accommodation while we figure out if we can buy a place straight away or if we have to rent for 6 months or so.  The unpredictability of it all is killing me slightly.  It's not like when we came here, and everything was sorted for us.  We have to sort most of our own stuff.  We can do it. I know we can, but I am choosing not to think about it yet.  We have to seriously start sorting things on April.  Till then, we will enjoy our American lives as much a as possible.  We will enjoy our large house and all the perks that come from living in the middle of no where.  I will be sad to leave, but I know new, different adventures await us.

I am trying really hard to get the online crafting business off the ground.  When we return to England, I want to start selling at craft fairs, school fairs, markets etc.  I have started looking into insurances etc, and hope to become a limited company when we return.  Still need to look into it in a bit more detail, but I have time.  I am picking up as much raw materials and stock as possible here, as I feel the majority of things will be cheaper here.  We have sold some bits and pieces, but doesn't cover costs yet.  It is a work in progress.  I hope to be able to also start teaching Zumba when we return.  I am also doing an online Teaching English as a Second Language course at the moment.  It is interesting, and will help keep my options open for when we return.

I want to get my diabetes under better control.  I have recently been told about a Facebook group called Type One Grit.  They follow the literature of Dr Richard Bernstein, himself a diabetic.  It basically limits carbs to 30 grams a day (an example, a sand which in the uk typically contains 30-60 grams of carbs).  I have started trying to cut my carbs and fruit.  It is a work in progress....

.....as are the children.  They are hard.  Oliver and Isaac are intelligent as anything, and aging nicely, do they are turning into little beeps at time. We are constantly monitoring Isaac's behavior,  we really don't want any issues at school again.  I tend to take those out on myself, even though it's not all my fault. Sebastian's speech has vastly improved.  His speech therapist is really pleased with how he is doing.  He has a new occupational therapist through the same provider.  He has had a couple of sessions and is in the testing phase.... Will give him a couple of weeks before i sit in.  He is now at day care 5 full days a week, though he does leave early on a Tuesday.  This is what he would be doing in England, so may as well get him used to it.

We have a holiday in the books already..... More on that at a later date.  This has been a kinda rambling post......

Boy update

Ok, sorry, this has been a long time coming.  An update on the boys.

Oliver

Oliver had his operation on the 28th March.  This was to replace the ear bones that were removed last February due to cholesteatoma.  He was called in for 8am, the earliest ever.  He was through to the waiting area by 10am, and under the knife by 10.30.

As I say, the earliest ever.  We had Seb home that day, so Seb and I went home for lunch while Paul waited.  I took Seb back to the hospital after lunch, and Paul took him to get Isaac.  I was called through to recovery just after, so about 3pm.  The doctor was more than pleased that there was no more cholesteatoma.  He was able to put this titanium prosthetics in to replace the bones, and finish up some other things.  Oliver came round fairly quickly, and we refrained from giving him too much morphine.  We had the same nursing staff as last february, they remembered us!  This was one of the smoothest operations.  Hopefully it will be the last.  We were home by 4.30, the earliest ever.

Oliver is recovering well.  He has antibiotics, which will stop today.  He has been in some pain, so has been taking some strong pain medicine.  Since we started the ear drops to dissolve the packing around the new 'bones' he has been complaining of more pain.

It could be the drops making everything move a bit.  Or it could be the fact he is returning to school tomorrow, after his follow up appointment first thing.  He is not to do any physical activity or recess at school.  He is not to run around, jump around, or anything like that for 2 months.  2 MONTHS.  Very hard for a 8 year old.  We were going to do him a birthday party at the end of next month at a local trampoline place.  We will have to see what the doctor says......

Isaac

Ok so those who follow the blog will know that we have had some issues with Isaacs behavior at school.  It got so bad before spring break, that Isaacs teacher requested a meeting with us.  This took place in the second week in March. Isaac general behaviour was discussed, and it was agreed by all that he is a lovely boy who needs help managing his emotions.  We agreed to some form of parent coaching/training/therapy.  I asked for Isaac to be assessed for any learning difficulties there maybe, as I had noticed some things in his reading.  I also told school that I had given Isaac an incentive that if he behaved at school that week I would take everyone out for donuts.

Here he is eating that donut.

School assessed his learning, and everything seemed fine.  In conversation in the meeting and between the teacher and the learning assessor person, it was though that Isaac may have some sensory issues.  He chews a LOT, he does not like crowded places, loud noises or new things.  I have strategies to deal with these things at home, but school do not.  One of the coaching/training/therapy people they recommended was an occupational therapist (OT), and after Isaacs assessment, his teacher was very keen that we get in touch with this OT.  To be honest, we had no idea who we would use, and how we would even make that decision.  Its hard to be told your son most likely needs therapy.  Any whoo, long and short of it, Isaac has an assessment at the OT's office later this month.  This gent actually goes into school, so would be able to assist both Isaac and his teacher in finding ways to deal with his issues.

His behavior has been exemplary since spring break.......

Sebastian

Ah the monster.......

He has been assessed again for his speech, this time by a company his school uses.  They say he does not make his early sounds, the 'm', 'p' and 'b' sounds.  These need to be sorted first. He does not move his lips when he talks, and makes his sounds from the back of his throat. I am awaiting a call back from them to arrange speech therapy sessions.  They will do them in school time though, which is much better for all concerned.  he is a chatter box, full of life.  He thinks he is a monster truck, and our sofa is the course.  His most clear words are 'I want'.  His speech is so much clearer than it has been ever.  He is coming along nicely, but is a little behind on most things.

In the summer I shall be taking him to the doctors to find out how I go about getting him assessed for developmental delays.  I think this will make the transition into English education easier when we return home next year.  If we were in the UK, Seb should be starting school this September. 

So there you have it.  That is the boys, pretty much.  They are hard work, but can be very rewarding.  They are growing into these little people, I have no idea how they are going to turn out, but I hope they are going to be good......

School Stress

As I mentioned in my last post the last couple of weeks have been a little bit stressful…

About 2 weeks ago, Paul got a message from International HR, advising us that our contract extension was 99.9% definite.  I know I said to all at Christmas that we would be back next year, but Paul's company love him so much that they want to keep him here another year.  Ok, not quite, but it has been made possible for us to stay another year through a few movements within the group.

Our date for returning to the UK is now 30th August 2016.  While on the communicator, the lady mentioned that we would now be eligible to get Isaac into Oliver's school, and would we like to?

HELL YEAH!!!!!!

This all began 2 weeks before Isaac was meant to start at his old school.  Cue a lot of crazy phone calls.  I was in touch with Oliver's school administrator on the Monday to begin the process.  I filled in the online application, and awaited phone calls regarding testing.  The group testing at school was scheduled for the thursday, but had to be changed for the following Monday.  We were lucky enough to get the individual testing at Clarity on the Wednesday of the same week.  Funnily enough Sebastian already had a doctors appointment that day.  So the Wednesday afternoon we trotted off to Greenville for the testing for Isaac.  I like Clarity, I think they do a good job (probably cos they have never under-assessed our boys!).  The lady said it would take 45 minutes to an hour.  25 minutes later, he was done!  

This made us early for our doctors appointment, so we stopped for some cakes on the way!

Sebastians doctor is awesome.  Basically school had been querying his Hep B vaccination not being up to date, so she readily agreed to write a letter explaining that he was on a catch up schedule, and that immunization will be completed by September.  Then we had to talk varicella (chicken pox).  Oliver and Isaac both had severe chicken pox back in April 2011, when Seb was 3 months old.  Seb got a couple of spots, so I presumed he had immunity.  Unfortunately, school wanted proof, so the doctors had to take blood.  It took 3 nurses and the doctor plus me to get blood from him.  Not nice… But I was able to pick up the boys Immunisation Records ready for school, so that was something…. And an appointment was made for his next Hep B.  We also discussed his speech.  Although it is a lot better than it was, and he talks a lot more, there are still very few consonant sounds, so she referred him for speech therapy, again.

Friday morning, I had to go and see Isaacs teacher at his old school, and explain the situation.  She was very sad, only a week from term starting, and she may be losing one of her pupils.  I explained that it was best for the future for Isaac to be in a more structured environment, as that is what he will be in when we return to the UK.  I thanked her for all her hard work, and asked if she could fill in a form to send to the new school.

I came away from that meeting feeling a little, teary, which I had not expected.  It is a great school and Isaac has met some lovely people there, but we feel he is ready for a change that will facilitate his learning, and hopefully get him more interested in reading, and learning academically.  

Last Monday we trotted off to Oliver's school for Isaac's group testing.  I say group, it was him and the Lower School Director.  Oliver and I sat outside, and I could hear some of what she was asking.  After, she said he was very good at listening, needed a little work on fine motor skills (just like Oliver) and really good with numbers.  We were able to hand in the immunization records, and get his passport photocopied, so that was most of the paperwork, just waiting on Clarity results.

And then we waited…. and waited…… I eventually called Oliver's school Wednesday morning to ask for a progress report.  Clarity report was in, we just had to await the boards decision....  School called me back about 4pm that afternoon.  

HE WAS IN!!!!

Such a relief.  Thursday, the day before his old school started back, I had to call them and let them know he would not be there.  They were very understanding, and wished us all the best.  I fully intend to stay in touch with that school, as I would like to volunteer in the Middle School once my degree is done.  

I received another call on thursday, this time from the doctors.  Sebastian is not immune to chicken pox, so needs to be immunized.  That was yesterday afternoons fun task, 2 jabs.  Took 2 nurses….

We have since received the Clarity report ourselves, Isaac is average in nearly all areas and above average in number and math skills.  

We always knew he was awesome….

What's new with you?

So, what's new?  We have been doing the usual really.....

Oliver had his baseball dinner on Friday night.  They won their last game by a tight margin, 11-10.  Oliver played a blinder.  They were down by 3 runs, Oliver hit it, and managed to get all the way round, with the help of his team mates finding their confidence.  He led the run streak that led to them winning the game.  The coach made a big deal of this at the dinner. All the team were presented with a trophy, and baseball cards made by the coach and his wife of the team.  A very nice touch.  The coach is hoping to arrange some practices over the winter, and has asked everyone, even Oliver if they will be playing again.  I think he wants to try and put together the same unbeatable team for the more serious, more intense spring season. 

Sebastian had his speech evaluation on Friday.  It went well. The therapist was very nice, had a set of standardized questions/activities to help her gauge where he is in his level of speech.  Typically he came in just under what is considered normal, so she recommends speech therapy.  She explained what she does in her sessions, and it all sounds very reasonable.  She said she did a lot of gross motor activities, and when I said that Seb can't jump yet, she took a deep breath and mentioned apraxia.  This can often manifest itself in slow speech development.  She asked if we wanted to be referred for occupational therapy.  No thank you.  Speech therapy is enough for now.....  

We had a fairly relaxing weekend.  A trip to Hobby Lobby where we ended up with quite a few presents for peeps in the UK (you guys are sooooo lucky, you all have wax crayons for Christmas, mmwwwwaaahhhhhhh). Then lunch at Longhorn Steak House.  Paul and I have been craving steak for a few weeks now, and this did not disappoint.  We even managed to sort out the photos for the frames we received for Christmas last year, and I put a compile of significant baby vests into shadow boxes, ready to go up in the house (somewhere). 

Oliver handed in his first book report this week. A day early too.  He has had weeks to do it, managed to do it in a night.  Think he was quite pleased with how it turned out.

It has got really cold here. Paul got a 16 degrees Fahrenheit on the way to work this morning.  That's something like -7degrees C.  Cold.  But it's ok, as it is due back in the low 20's next week....

To be honest, I have been spending most of my time thinking about Christmas.  I need to have all the gifts bought by the beginning of December.  Then I can concentrate on getting us ready for flying back to the UK.  At least I have managed to sort the cats inoculations in preparation  for going to her hotel, which I have also been and booked.  Paul is off the week of thanksgiving.  This coincides with Isaac's birthday, both boys finish lunchtime on the Tuesday. We are hoping to get most of our shopping done that week... I am actually quite looking forward to thanksgiving.  We will be at home, I wanna do a turkey.  Hopefully it will be as good as my one for Christmas.  It will be nice to have Paul and the boys around. It can get a bit lonely with just Seb.  He's not the most talkative of creatures......:-)

I have more I could write, but I don't want to waffle.  I need to think about the competition I am considering entering with this blog.  See my Facebook page for more details.

Ciao xxx