The big kids (written before Christmas but lost in broken computer land.)

The "big kids" as viewed from Dancing Baby Girl's perspective!  (see her head at the bottom of the picture.  They were all discussing putting the star on top of the tree the day we decorated.
Interactions between these two are not always the best but they are getting better.  They are the last two home and have been for a couple of years now so there has been jockeying for postion going on as well as just getting tired of each other.  But still I see enough expressions of caring and compassion to know that they do care for one another.

We have been lucky so far with both of these teens in that we have not had a lot of the typical teen defiance and bad choices from either of them.  Douglass' mental health issues can make him high maintenance and difficult to live with but so much of that is not choice of behaviors that we roll with it and go on.

I'd like to think that it is because of my wonderful parenting, and I do think there is a kernel of that, I have indeed learned something over the years, but I also think a lot of it has to do with the truly attached relationship we developed over the years of homeschooling.  The level of respect between the parents and children (teens) is very high and because of that respect we treat each other differently, we interact differently and life is better than was possible with any of my other kids.  In retrospect I really regret that I did not homeschool all of my kids through at least part of their school years.

My Favorite 15 Year Old

I love this girl. One minute gawky, fun loving kid, the next introspective, mature adult. This is by far the most pleasant of all my children to be around. (No offense all you other moody folk!) She has her things she needs to work on, like helping with chores and keeping any sense of organization of her own stuff, but aside from those things all is well in the 'ville. I think she has benefited from the luck of her birth order. I know if I still had a passel around the house, that the resistance to chores and the detritus of her life strewn about the house would really have worn on me. Now when she is often the only one about I have a higher tolerance for the mess. I still don't clean it up or take responsibility for knowing where anything is, but I have more time and less stress to let her cope with the consequences of being messy and disorganized.

She has been the recipient of the best of my parenting. All the skills I have learned, the books I have read, the techniques I have practiced were experiments on the other kids. By the time we got around to this darling I pretty much had a handle on how to do this parent thing in the least destructive manner to both the child and myself. It helps so much also that she has an easygoing and happy personality.

I truly miss the time we spent together homeschooling, although I love to see her flourish and grow at the Youth Performing Arts High School. I do not have the same sense of worry and impending doom that I had about a number of my other teens who when faced with the difficult choices of the high school years seemed to always choose the drama filled, negative consequence generating, sometimes life threatening path. This one has a good head on her shoulders and a sense of who she is and who she wants to be.

I don't think I am deluding myself, she will inevitably take some wrong turns. But she will take responsibility for her choices and be able to see appropriate ways out of her predicament.

It is refreshing after having been worn down by years of parenting difficult, sometimes violent, sometimes law breaking, sometimes suicidal, teens to not be under that kind of stress and still be parenting a teen. Almost, let me stress almost, makes me sorry she is the last of our long line of teens (she is 9 of 9).

Specialists, specialists, specialists

Well, we keep trying to figure out Kendra's health woes. She has fainted at school several times now on top of everything else. We went to the rhuematologist yesterday and it looks like they are going to diagnose her with POTS postural orthostatic tykardia syndrome. Don't know if I got the spellings anywhere right. What that means is that her autonomic nervous system is not functioning well and is not sending the right messages to her body. Her circulatory system is thus dysregulated. They have tied in alot of her symptoms to this including her stomach pain which has otherwise been elusive to diagnosis.

There are a few more tests they want to run, pulmonary functioning, EKG, lab work, stress tests and probably some more that they will dream up. We see the cardiologist next week. From what I can discern if she does have POTS there is a good chance that she can rehab from it and learn to live with the disease. It is a better diagnosis than some of the scary ones they were tossing around like Lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

We still have the neurologist and endocrinologist to see later. In the midst of this my insurance decides to be a pain. Even though I have been on the plan since the end of July and we transferred from another plan, they are now trying to pull the pre-existing condition crap. I hate dealing with insurance messes.

The one bright piece of news is that Kendra will finally get her braces off after almost 2 years. She can't wait.

Catching Up

Of course our pumpkins would be ballet dancers!

Lots of catching up, it has been busy, busy!

First the good stuff, we had a Dancing Baby Girl Weekend and had a good mellow time of it. hoped to meet up with Spidey but he had a strep throat. Couldn't have done the full sibling picture we wanted to anyway as Imiki was home with bacterial pneumonia. Lani can't wait for his heart surgery as she hopes his overall health will improve.

My banner got finished, or at least finished enough to hang in the sanctuary for the baptism on Sunday. I will get a picture of it up here soon. So that is a load of responsibility off my shoulders.

Now for the stressful stuff.

Kendra: She has been feeling very exhausted, looking very pale and complaining of dizziness, so I took her to the peds on Friday and we wound up with an emergency cardiology consult. She is experiencing vasoconstriction to a severe enough degree that they were concerned about seizures!! Anyway they sent her home to bed and started her on some meds to alleviate the vein constriction and collapse. She couldn't dance in her school Dance program's semester dance on Friday night (don't know how she is going to get a grade now) and she couldn't go to the Homecoming Dance on Saturday night.

She spent most of the weekend asleep or lying on the couch but pushed herself to study for a big AP test today and insisted on going to school to take it. The meds do seem to be helping, she no longer looks like a Cullen (vampire for you non-Twilight fans). And she made it through the school day. So I am hopeful. We still have a gazillion specialist appointments to go to. I am glad it wasn't an emergency or anything as the earliest possible appointments with the neurologist and endocrinologist are not until January.

Kendra's biggest fear is that the doctors are going to tell her she can't dance any more. That would be a hard, hard test for her as dancing is her life right now.

Annie: Well the saga continues. the reconsideration letter has been sent to the Medicaid people, a long term waiver has been sought and we are still in limbo. Then tonight Annie calls and she has spoken with her case manager and she is going to go live with this guy that she has talked to a lot on the phone, see he is a really good friend of hers (they have never met face to face), because she has to leave the rehab program because of no funding. Anyway we were pissed that the case manager talked with her about all that and dismayed with the end result that Annie has cooked up. She really didn't follow most of what the case manager was telling her, all she heard is that she has to leave and so she is going to go live with this guy. I swear she is packing her bags as we speak, I know how Annie's mind works.

I am praying that she does not go all impulsive on us and sign herself out of the program. If she can just wait a little bit we think it will all get straightened out and she will be able to move to a post-acute facility here in our city. But Annie is not one for waiting once she has gotten a bee in her bonnet.

DH's work: or lack thereof. The prospects remain dim, he is actively searching for a job, has sent in his resume, etc. but the word is that folks aren't hiring even for previously posted jobs. I saw that happen at my job, one day there were four job postings on the board, the next day they were all gone and an announcement of a hiring freeze was made. It is a scary time. All I want to do is to be able to pay for the house and buy some food. Survival mode is grim but it may not be enough. I try to avoid thinking of the what ifs.

Anyway DH is going out to California this next week and he will have two "interviews" which are not really interviews but at least discussions with those people who might possibly hire him if they are hiring anybody. He has gone back to school and gotten himself certified in two other systems so that he can solicit work on those computer platforms as well. He is trying hard, the economy is just not cooperating.

So now you are caught up. I have to go pick Kendra up from her teaching, ballet of course, I hope she has enough energy left to do her homework or she will get even further behind. On that happy note....

For Linda B.

So here it is, easy and fun. The girl in pink is her friend who was a rock star, I think. The thing was, i was so busy helping everyone else get ready that Kendra thought up this costume and constructed it without any input from parental units and we were so pleasantly surprised at her creativity.

Outreach and connecting

This is one of the members of the second cast "Disco of the Dead", dancing with one of the spectators who is autistic and mentally retarded, but who is the sweetest, gentlest person you ever met. She absolutely loved being asked to come up and dance with the group.

Here Kendra is helping another young spectator make a "potion". They invite some of the small children up at various points in their show to help with things like this.

One of the great things about these performances is that the girls get to do a lot of outreach. They were performing at the local children's shelter house and were a delight interacting with the kids. They also sometimes dance at senior centers (more around the Christmas holidays) and spend time after the show talking with the seniors. I love the outreach part of this performance group. Most of the time they are performing for free at these functions. A wonderful service to the community.

This particular evening was also a chance to connect. We saw several of the families we know who are involved in foster care and spent time with them and the kids. At one point I don't know how it happened but I became responsible for the two hyperactive 6 year old boys of the group and they were literally pulling me in different directions. We finally settled on playing at the bubble truck. Then we had to race over to the inflatables, then race here, then there. In 5 minutes I was a wreck :-)

We got to see Spidey as he was there with his foster family. Can't show you the cute pic I got of Kendra and Spidey though, sorry. First thing Spidey asked me was where was Dancing Baby Girl, he really misses her and the social worker won't let them visit. (DBG was with her mother this past weekend as I had a festival obligation all day Saturday)

Anyway a pleasant evening of connections.

Witchy women?

This is one of the things I spend my life doing, carting Kendra around to her shows and her rehearsals and her lessons and her teaching. Here she is with some of her cast mates right before their Witchcraft show, Kendra is the witch in purple. They do a wonderful song and dance routine that is thoroughly family friendly and very fun.

But they do this routine all over the city during the month of October. Here they were performing at the local children's shelter as part of a larger Halloween extravaganza. They also perform every weekend at the Six Flags amusement park here in town and do miscellaneous festivals and shows. They just got asked this year to perform at the hot night spot downtown, but during the day at the family festival.

Anyway sometimes it just feels like all I do is run her around to things, but for these performances I really don't mind. It is a joy to watch these girls perform, they enjoy their work so much.

I love that Kendra has an incredible confidence, can get up on stage and sing and dance (even in heels!!), and just a wonderful comfort with her body. It is nice to feel like you might have done something right as a parent.

A New Diagnosis

Finally we are making some progress on Kendra's diagnosis for her abdominal issues. Thanks to our wonderful pediatrician who listens and really problem solves. Although we may still have to go to some new specialists, our pediatrician has been really proactive in her own detective work and has discovered some of the factors in Kendra's continuing ill health.

We now know she has a low thyroid, this was detected by the Dr. insisting that the insurance company pay for the more in depth thyroid blood work, the most common thyroid check had come back normal. So she is on thyroid meds. We have known forever that Kendra is mildly anemic but now the DR. wants to aggressively treat it, thinking that her fatigue, etc may be linked to the anemia that many of the specialist have just blown off because it wasn't super serious. Our Dr. commented that all the base lines are just averages and what looks just a little low to the base line, may for that one person be more serious.

Most importantly of all, the Dr. has diagnosed her stomach pain and we are really thinking this is the right one this time. Anyone ever heard of abdominal migraines? Well that is possibly what Kendra is having. It all fits, we have a strong maternal link to migraines all through the women in my family (myself, included) and the type of pain and the associated symptoms all fit. So hopefully we will try out some migraine meds and see if we can't get a handle on this.

It would be such a relief for all of us to get a diagnosis and a treatment plan so she can get back to living a more typical teen life. After all of the specialists have been pooh poohing her abdominal pain Kendra has started to think that there is something wrong with her brain as in she must be making it up or something. I hated to see her second guessing herself. And we were beginning to see a lot of depression as her life has gotten more and more constrained and many folks (teachers, etc.) were saying that she was faking it.

So I really hope this is the right diagnosis and that we can get a treatment plan in place and working. to have this burden lifted would be great.

Kendra's issues

I am so frustrated!! It is not even the second full week of school and Kendra's stomach issues have come roaring back. The poor kid spent the whole night in bathroom puking and she is still so nauseated and exhausted that it looks like she won't make it to school today, even tardy.

We have had so many diagnostic tests to try to determine what is wrong and the last specialist told me "it's not logical" in response to why her symptoms are so severe and do not respond to medication. They can't find anything to explain her hyper sensitive stomach and its inability to digest proteins properly, although they all agree that she has this problem. It is the the WHY and the WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT? that no one has any answers to.

So we are going back to the peds and then I am having her looked at by a psychiatrist (our family psychiatrist, doesn't everyone have a family psychiatrist? we are such a triangle hole family:-)) because the gastroenterologist said that antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds might help. I am clutching at straws right now and will look into every possibility. It is very stressful to have your child sick and not have any answers, to make matters worse we have been struggling with this since she was in utero, and still no answers.

2nd trip to the Fair

Just got back from our 2nd trip to the State Fair. This time it was just in and out for Kendra's performance. I still had to buy some German Roasted Nuts though, the one fair food I can't do without.

Well we are canning/freezing here, lots of tomatoes, at least a surprising amount form my little tiny garden. I only planted four plants and I must harvest 4-7 tomatoes a day and that has been going on for weeks now. I never have too many of the cherry tomatoes, again I only planted 4 plants, because even though there may be 50-70 to harvest, I eat most of them before I make it inside. So the kids are getting a little tired of tomato in everything, but I am not. I eat them like apples, warmed by the sun, yummm.

My onions seem to be doing okay, I have never planted onions before so I don't really know, but they look okay. The volunteer pumpkin plant has about 4 big pumpkins on the vine and several smaller ones. I am taking off new blooms now so that these ones can grow. And the herbs are also running riot and giving us lots of fresh taste for all the culinary creations that my DH loves to concoct.

I have all sorts of plans for a bigger garden next year, right now my plot is only 4 x 12, with actually 3x 10 of usable space, but I want to dig up more of the yard and put in potatoes and some strawberries next year. We will see how adventuresome I am feeling come Spring.

So many projects, so little time and energy.

Fianally a non-frantic Saturday

Gosh it was nice to just sleep in this AM. Nowhere to rush off to, no children to carry to activities.

We didn't get in until late last night as we were at the State Fair, Kendra is performing there with her dance studio four times in the next 10 days. So we took the opportunity to go as a family and cruise the exhibits.

First we had to go see the bunnies, we have an incident that has gone down in family lore about bunnies at the State Fair, so each year we have to be nostalgic and go visit them.
When Kendra was about 7 or 8, really old enough to know better and behave better, we went to the State Fair and had a wonderful, but long and tiring day seeing all the exhibits, doing the midway, etc. One of the last places we went was to the small animal barn and there it happened.
Kendra decided that she had to have a bunny, she NEEDED a bunny and we had to buy one for her right then. It didn't help that the bunnies were actually for sale and some people were leaving with bunnies. No amount of rational explanation about not getting the bunny (allergies, homicidal to bunnies dog, etc) reached Kendra' s ears, instead she started to wind up and began screaming about getting a bunny. The end result of the whole thing was that DH had to hoist her on his shoulder and carry her back out through the fair screaming bloody murder. I kept waiting for the state police to intervene as she soon started yelling, "You're not my real Daddy, my real Daddy would get me a bunny" Of course what makes this all the more hilarious in retelling within the family is that Kendra is our birth daughter, she was just utilizing the lines of her adoptive sibs to try to get her way.

So, anyway, we had to go visit the bunnies and see every last one of them and retell our family story to ourselves. It made me wonder how weird that might really be that we remember with fond nostalgia the day Kendra had a screaming tantrum at the State Fair!?

We also got to see all the quilts, my personal favorite! I always get remotivated when I view the quilts. Maybe i will even clean my sewing room enough to do some work on my projects.

Had a pleasant time socializing while waiting for the dance performance and then we did the midway in the dark, the best time to do that as the lights and glitter are able to really disguise the kind of pathetic shabbiness of it all.

Now today I need to do little at home chores, some garden work, some canning, a little wash, you know the endless bu necessary tasks of family functioning.

Well...time flies, I guess

I am having a difficult time balancing work, home responsibilities, and blogging. Sorry folks.

An update, the BIG lie I knew was out there, well it was that they used the new camera with out asking. I didn't know whether to laugh or not. My antennae is so tuned to these lies, but most of the ones from previous teens have included drugs, alcohol, inappropriate relations between the sexes, etc. And here my 15 year old is guilt racked because she borrowed her Dad's camera without permission and then put it back in the place she had found it, horrors!! We still had a talk about responsibility and truth telling but my heart wasn't into consequencing.

Had a Dancing Baby Girl Weekend last weekend and it was great. She was in tune with all of us, only had one or two typical kid meltdowns and we had no sneaky or malicious behavior.

But things are not so good on DBG's homefront, the parents are under a lot of financial stress and with Mom working extra shifts they have had to struggle for childcare for DBG. With some of her acting out behaviors that has been difficult. And so some of the parents' stress is being downshifted onto DBG and she is being characterized as "the problem". They are finding it hard to delight in her at all and that is only increasing her need to get attention anyway she can figure, usually the negative.

On another front school has started again and at least for the first two days it has gone well. I know we will continue to struggle with waking up. Kendra is not the most pleasant person in the early AM.

I am hoping to be more faithful here.

A Down Day

don't know why, but I am a little blue today. I got a lot of good work done at work today preparing for our upcoming training series which starts next week. It is my job to fill that class and I have at least 8 families pretty solid so it looks good. The photocopy machine and I were in sync today which is unusual and I got most of my materials copied. Did some research on the book we are thinking of assigning as outside reading to our prospective foster and adoptive parents. So I got a lot done, I am still feeling down and yucky.

I figure it is still getting over being ill, I don't know.

Our summer is looking kind of crummy, I mean nowhere near as crummy as the folks in the Iowa flooding, but we don't have the resources to do any traveling and so our big trip to New York and Washington DC will have to be put on hold. My mother who lives in Connecticut and who would have been part of the visit is feeling pretty bummed that we won't be up to see them. Don't have any money to fix things up around the house, and so I might actually be forced to clean and organize, yikes.

Right now I am trying to convince myself to cook some dinner for Kendra and myself as DH is out at his men's meeting. But I haven't gotten very close to the kitchen. Kendra is entertaining herself watching season 3 of Grey's Anatomy up in her room, so it is quiet and boring.

The good news is that Douglas graduates on Friday from his military academy. He will be home again and I have really missed him. He is one who can motivate me to organize and clean because he is always pretty cheerful about being the muscle for projects. I have wanted to defrost my freezer all Spring so that I could give it to a young couple in our church who have gotten into canning, etc. big time, but it has to be moved to the drain, or better yet outside. The dolly is right there next to the freezer, but it has not willfully leapt onto the dolly, so Douglas is needed. If I move the freezer I can organize my laundry room more ergonomically and I won't hate doing the wash as much. (yeah, yeah, let me live in my fantasy land okay). And if the wash room is organized then the laundry that currently spills into my sewing room will not need to migrate there and so I can organize my sewing room and maybe get back into some quilting again. So there, I am glad Douglas will be home soon.

Performer of the Year

Last year Kendra had the honor of being awarded the prestigious title of Performer of the Year. At her studio this is the big recognition that you have arrived as a dancer/performer. In order to win Performer of the Year (POTY), you not only have to show excellence in dance, vocals, and acting, you also must have performed in community shows, and most importantly the teachers must think that you will be a good role model for the younger students. POTY does not just come to you if you have danced at the studio enough years, etc. it is truly a prestigious award that tells the student that the teachers think the student is awesome as a performer and a person.

Part of the joy of being awarded POTY is that you get to be an assistant teacher and join the ranks of the in group of teachers. If you do well at assistant teaching for 2 years you then might get asked to have your own students but that is not a given. Kendra has truly taken on the teaching mantle with joy and responsibility. She is very determined to do a good job as an assistant teacher, she understands the task of a teacher to encourage, challenge, and support her students. The younger students flock around her and they love when she comes into class to demonstrate for them because she is very patient in breaking down the steps into manageable teaching moments.

Anyway, her year as POTY ended at this year's recital as she helped to award the title to the next student. Part of the tradition is that the POTY writes a speech. She gave me permission to print it here.

Last night when I was writing this I was watching Dora with DBG and she said I should talk about rainbows and cookies but I'm pretty sure that's not quite the right subject. Now when I was DBG's age I used to freak out when Miss Sandra announced Performer of the Year, even though I was three and still mastering the good ol' shuffle step. When I was 7 and I was working on my single turns I would convince myself that it was my year. When I was 12 and practicing those fouettes I would actually break down in tears the night before recital, but I'm a cry baby so that is par for the course with me. Through the years and dance steps I have realized that earning POTY takes time. commitment, patience, talent and a lot of hard work.

Last year my nerves were going crazy. I had heard some whispers about me being POTY and I was more than nervous. As I remember it I jumped a good 3 feet into the air when I heard my name. I was so ecstatic that I even named my trophy "Pinky". I kept Pinky by my side for the next little while. I actually took it to Quodoba (a Mexican chain restaurant) with me the Monday after recital, that's 3 days later folks, but I didn't take it in because I thought we might see Emily(a former POTY) and her mother there, and who did we see but Emily and Siri!!

A lot has changed for me in the last year, I started teaching which has been quite the experience. The girls have been great and they have taught me a lot too. I know that's cheesy, but cheesy is what we do here at Dancensation. I went to YPAS (the Youth Performing Arts School) which was a big change, I sprained my ankle in the Fall which set me back a little but all in all it has been a great year for me.

Right now when I have my minute with the mic I want to thank Sandra and Dancensation for everything they have given me which is a lot when you think about it. Dancensation has given me my best friends, my talent, and my second home. So here's to the new POTY whoever they may be. I hope they have a wonderful year.

Some more thoughts on dance

13 years ago, I could never have foreseen myself sitting through two 3 hour long dance recitals, loving every minute of it! I was a tomboy myself, although my parents tried to civilize me with dance lessons and piano, etc. I always escaped to the football game with the boys, the rougher the better. I was initially blessed as a mother with 2 wonderful boys, who were all boy and we happily played in the mud and wrestled and climbed trees. We camped and hiked and were fascinated by spiders and snakes and I taught them how to throw and catch and all of it. I figured I had this mother thing down pretty pat and wasn't doing so bad on some of the more traditional father things either (DH is not much of one for the playing).

The we adopted and got 2 girls as part of the sibling group so I was introduced to dresses and such, but neither of my 2 girls were very girly. Given some of their early trauma, things like dance and frilly princess stuff just didn't come up.

And then Kendra was born, our joyful gift from God. Right from the get go she was a different person. She was not a rowdy baby, she was mostly happy and content. Then at 18 months old she started to insist on being who she was, A GIRLY GIRL. She refused to wear anything but dresses and had to have her hair up in curls and bows. Heck we didn't even own bows, I had to make some. She insisted on wearing dressy shoes, no practical sneakers for her. And at 18 months she announced she wanted to be a dancer. I was floored, I don't even know where she got the idea. We were never around girls who took dance class, but she was insistent. My mother got her a VCR tape of little girls doing a ballet class and that is all the child wanted to watch. She would watch and imitate and soon had the moves memorized.

But she wanted to go to a real class she kept insisting. We bought tutus and ballet shoes and when she was toilet trained I found a great little dance studio on the recommendation of a friend. Thus began Kendra's obsession with dance. When all the other 2 year olds clung to their mothers and cried about going out on stage, Kendra marched right out, found her mark and waited in opening pose. She has never looked back.

And how my life has changed. I learned to sew and design costumes (because dance is expensive!) I learned about makeup, something I had never used my whole life. I learned about competitions and auditions and shows. And every step of the way Kendra has blossomed and grown.

The studio where she dances is fabulous. I don't really know about the quality of dance but it must be good enough as each year several of the dancers are accepted to the Youth Performing Arts high school and they only take 20 dancers for each freshman class from across the whole city/county. The reason I say her studio is fabulous is because of everything she has learned there. The values of the director and her teaching staff are awesome. They do not push the girls just to get awards, they push them to be their best in every area of their life. The role models of sober, hardworking, family loving adults is one that is awesome.

Kendra considers the studio her second home and it is one that I feel comfortable leaving her at. The friends she has developed are the right kind of girls and boys. They are focused on dance and school and giving back to the community (a big part of this studio's philosophy). The parents are involved and know what their children are doing and with whom. There is a level of trust there that is pretty awesome.

Kendra has been able to explore who she is in a welcoming and accepting and forgiving environment. There is always plenty of drama, get 100 teens together anywhere and you will have drama, but the teachers keep a lid on it and model how to live life better.

Every so often my DH or I question the monetary commitment we have made to Kendra's dance but then something will come along to remind us of how lucky we are that our teenage daughter has a circle of peers and adults who are going the right way. Her path to adulthood has been smoothed in many ways by her participation in dance. She is never bored, she never has nothing to do, she has tremendous self-confidence, and she is developing great teaching skills as she is now an assistant teacher.

Solos have taught Kendra how to focus and improve herself, being part of a dance group has taught her loyalty and responsibility. Being a teacher has taught her empathy and patience.

Being a dance Mom has taught me to respect each of my children as unique individuals, and has taught me to a friend myself to the other dance moms.

I can't remember the last time I played touch football but just yesterday I was at dance and I'll be there tomorrow too.

Grand Recital Kendra

Kendra absolutely loves to dance. In almost every single picture we have of her she is smiling and grinning. She dances everything with a big smile, whether it is ballet or just technique class. The girl loves to dance, it is her life.

Dance Recital

Yesterday was the grand recital for Kendra's and DBG's studio. It was a big deal for Kendra as she was relinquishing her title as Performer of the Year (POTY) and crowning the new POTY. DBG was also very excited as she was getting a TROPHY!!! I know I just shouted but that is what she has been doing all week. DBG also got the Tiniest tot Award II, she was the tiniest tot last year and this year, that is how young she was last year when she preformed! She is a natural performer and just loves being up on the stage. Not a lick of stage fright or concern. She even knew her dance!

Her parents came and brought her cousin and baby brother. We had a good time. The only down part was that recital spanned nap time and by the time it was all over and she had her trophy clenched in her hands it was time for a big meltdown. It was not pretty, but we managed and she is now back home with her parents and we won't see her (because of our busy schedules) for 3 weeks.

I hope to get Kendra's permission to publish her speech as Performer of the Year here, she did a fabulous job.

Sickies

No we have not dropped off the face of the earth. I have several sickies. What is it with getting strep throat in the summer? I thought that was a winter thing. But both Kendra and Dancing Baby Girl have strep and DBG has an ear infection that is oozing goo out of her tubes. Yuck and yuck.

Oh, I know what you are thinking, it's Tuesday why am I blogging about DBG being here? Well she is here for the week. We had great plans to go swimming and to the park, etc. but mostly we have sat and watched Dora dvds until I want to run screaming for the padded room. But DBG has actually been a good little patient and seems to be on the getting better end of the ordeal.

Of course with two sick children I am now in paranoia mode, when will I get it? My DH is already convinced he must be sick although he has no fever or sore throat, but he still claims complaining rights apparently. I so hope he doesn't get sick, he is not such a good patient and lately every time he does get sick it seems to linger and he has a hard time recovering. So no strep for hubby please!

Playing The Day (and night) Away

Well I have found a new way to spend my time in relatively meaningless ways. I am now a Guitar Hero. That's not me, that's my far more photogenic and far better guitar playing daughter. We have been having the most fun rocking out to these songs and acting the goof as we do it. Instead of style points we are getting convulsive laughter points. I apparently hold that record, looking the silliest while playing. I have sent Kendra and her friends into paroxysms of laughter while I have rocked out trying to stay on beat and at least get to the end of the song.

Actually we have been having a blast and I love that it is interactive. Kendra and I had gotten into a dry spell where it was all about where I had to drive her next or what chore I was nagging her about now. So it has been refreshing to have something else to converse about and to share. Laughter goes a long way and I don't mind being the butt of the joke when I am deliberately acting the clown.

Somethings I have learned, or perhaps relearned, from playing Guitar Hero:

I have no rhythm at all

I am tone deaf and unable to anticipate the notes

I get rattled easily and then I just start pushing buttons randomly

I should not sing along with the songs, it is painful to my audience

I really like playing the game and I have quite a competitive streak

So I now have a new vice to overcome, blog reading, eating snacks, procrastinating about the housework and now Guitar Hero.

Everybody is in flux

Every last one of the kiddos is in the throes of change, angst, emotional upheaval of some kind, and desperately needing their parents at least to hate on them. DH and I are reeling from the demands.

Some of the change is good, and developmentally appropriate. Bart is moving into a house with a friend and he has needed advice, cleaning supplies and general moral support.

James is flying high as his Ultimate Frisbee team from UC Santa Cruz is going to the nationals this weekend in boulder Colorado. He is happy, excited and really wants some of his family to be there, so even though DH has just flown in this AM from Shreveport, LA and has to drive up to Lansing and Kalamazoo on Sunday evening, he is nonetheless flying out to Boulder tomorrow AM to see the Frisbee tournament. He flies back on Sun noon and leaves for Michigan Sunday at 5 or so. DH is physically exhausted, but James needs one of us there.

Brooke is not dealing well with the transition from school to summer break. She is having some issues in her Supported Community Living placement and as is her way as she becomes upset she is holding her bowels and they are talking about a hospitalization again. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it almost always goes all that way. At least she is kind of used to all the procedures now and she is less frightened of the whole experience. Nonetheless she is calling in tears or angry, demanding that we fix things, or change things or somehow make her life less hard than it is. It is very sad to deal with Brooke as she is just a 4 or 5 year old in a 21 year old body and there are so many things she doesn't understand or deal well with.

Annie has been calling and texting me until I want to scream as she is trying to convince me that she is somehow miraculously cured of all her issues, Traumatic Brain Injury and Borderline Personality Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. See if she has turned her life around and now understands everything she has done wrong and has broken up with her old boyfriend we should know that she is ready to live out on her own and she is going to go live with this new man she met on MySpace because he understands her in every way, unlike us or her therapeutic team. My head just spins when I deal with her and most conversations end with her screaming curses, threats and everything else at me. Thank God she hasn't been able to pull the wool over her new therapist eyes and no one is ready to let her out of the lock down facility just yet. Too often I let her circular thinking get me all wound up and spend way to much of MY time thinking about how to reach her.

Douglass was home this weekend and it was great to see him but he only went back reluctantly to his military school despite the fact that he only has 5 more weeks left. I was feeling very guilty that I had encouraged him to go to this program as he lost the chance to do the one thing that truly makes him happy, be a camp counselor this summer. His military school doesn't end until 2-3 weeks after camp starts and the camp was not willing to keep a counselor slot open for him. He is feeling really bad and rejected. And I am feeling really bad too. He deserves a better deal after working so hard to overcome his issues and get his life in a forward moving direction. I just hope he wont let his anger explode and undo all he has worked so hard to accomplish. It is hard to see your baby hurting and disappointed even when he is a hulking young man who is half a foot taller than you.

Kendra is finishing her freshman year at the magnet school and is feeling all sorts of pressure to get ready for exams, etc. She has been pretty demanding of our time to help her, using homework as an excuse to not help around the house and snappy and emotional. I feel all I do is walk on eggshells around her right now and that all I do is drive her to dance stuff. Typical teenage stuff, nothing bad or unusual, I am just not at the top of my game and it is telling in my dealing with her.

Finally, Dancing Baby Girl is involved in a situation in which I have to sit back and let the professionals do their thing and I have no trust for these particular professionals and I am scared for her, her family and for my continued relationship with her and her family. There are so many ways this could not end well and so few ways to see it go right that I lie awake at night and just shake.

Sometimes I really feel like there is just not enough of me (or DH) to go around at all. I surely don't see how families that are bigger than ours get through the inevitable tough times when everyone is crashing down or just needing parents.