Thursday Morning Confessions

I took this 5 minutes ago.

1. I haven't changed my calendar since November.

2. I feel guilty when I make a Middle Eastern dish and serve it with pork.

3. I have a Facebook "friend" that I despise. I keep this person as a "friend" because we have numerous "friends" in common, and even though this person likely has me hidden, every time a mutual "friend" comments on my status or I comment on theirs, the "friend" I despise is forced to see it. And I know it annoys them. And that makes me happy.

4. We're on day four of snow days this week. I made my kids clean and organize their closets after breakfast. Now they're all doing homework that I made up for them. After that, they're washing mop boards in every room.

5. I haven't cooked potatoes or red meat since Will left more than three weeks ago.

6. There's nothing wrong with cereal for dinner once a week, right?

7. I'm teaching a group exercise class twice a week. It's giving me a complex because I'm pretty much the fattest person there.

8. I might have gone into Will's closet and sniffed his clothes when I missed him last week.

9. I broke the car wash near me last week because I can't drive in a straight line.

10. I painted my dining set black and replaced the chairs. I love it. You can see the before and afters HERE (scroll down to the end of the post).

At least it wasn't Bob Saget.

There's a quote in the movie Inception that says, "Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange."

Yeah, I'll totally second that.

I had a very pleasant dream last night. I was in luuuurve with a very nice man. I think in the dream we were vacationing around Italy. He was sweet and kind, and doted on me. There was a lot of hand holding and nuzzling.

I woke up from the dream with lingering warm fuzzies.

And then with a sick sort of shock I realized that the man of my dreams was Dave Coulier.

You know, Joey Gladstone.


I don't...I can't...I just...WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? I haven't seen Full House in years.

Apparently my subconscious has been harboring a deep, secret love for Dave Coulier.

Of all the late eighties/early nineties TV stars, why Uncle Joey? Kirk Cameron, I'd understand. I thought dirty thoughts about him all through middle school. Wil Wheaton? That would make sense, too. I think dirty thoughts about him even now. But Dave Coulier? That just disturbs me.

I'm afraid to go to sleep tonight. Who knows who else is hiding in there?

Subconscious, if you're listening, could you please make me dream about Johnny Depp tonight? Thanks.

I see you're drinking 1%. Is that 'cause you think you're fat? 'Cause you're not. You could be drinking whole if you wanted to.

So, I don't know if it's because she's in the new Pink video or what, but in the past two weeks I've gotten five e-mails from people telling me I look like Tina Majorino.

Tina Majorino.

Not Tina Majorino.
Maybe a distant cousin or something.

What I find kind of funny about the comparison is that one of her best known roles was Deb in Napoleon Dynamite. And as I've pointed out before...

Teen-aged Will looked an awful lot like...

Napoleon Dynamite.

(Will danced exactly like this at every high school dance.)

Maybe it was destiny.

Except I'm pretty sure that if Will ever asked me to play tether ball I'd assume it was a euphemism for something dirty.

Putting mysef in the corner.

Sorry for neglecting you my dear internets. I got busy. I'll show you what I was doing later this week when it's done. I know, you're on the edges of your seats with anticipation.

Anyway, as punishment I will immediately put myself in the corner.

This corner.

This is a little nook in the corner of my bedroom. I love it. I lock my door and curl up here with a book (or my laptop) when I need to escape. It has saved my children's lives numerous times this week.

And speaking of saving children's lives, THANK YOU! I've been completely awed by your donations to the American Heart Association. Because of you, Liam and Amelia have raised over $200, which is more than one third of the total for the whole school. You guys rock.
You can still donate until February 17th. Click HERE to donate to Liam. Click HERE to donate to Amelia. And if you missed what this is all about, click HERE.

And if it's any added incentive for you, if Liam gets $5 more in donations, he'll earn a freakin' dart gun. Because that's what I need--a six year old with ADHD and a dart gun.

Give a little bit of your heart to me.

I'm hoping that if I butter you up with a gratuitous picture of Will nursing a kitten you'll give more.

So, I'm about to go all Annoying Mommy Blogger on you and use my blog for my kids' fundraiser.

I know.

Normally I don't participate in school fundraisers. I have three kids, which means I have to buy whatever they're hawking from all three. They can't go door to door because every single household in our neighborhood has kids selling the same crap. And most of our friends and family live far away. Or in the internets.

And even if none of those things were an issue, I still wouldn't participate because the stuff they sell is crap. And they pressure the kids into it by offering things like free ice cream and Silly Bandz, and if you're going to use tactics that make my kid cry over not earning Silly Bandz, you're not getting my business. They don't need new books anyway. Just scratch out the "48" on the number of states and write in 50. It's not that hard.

Anyway, this is different. They're not selling anything. They're going to jump rope. And it's not for the school. It's for The American Heart Association.

For those of you who may not know, Liam was born with multiple life threatening heart defects. He was possibly going to need a heart transplant. But, a surgeon in Philadelphia knew a procedure that might save him and prevent the need for a transplant. This procedure was developed by another heart surgeon who used research grants from The American Heart Association.

So, when they ask us to raise money, I do it.

And really, not donating is pretty much like killing cute little kids. Could you sleep at night knowing you killed a kid because you decided to buy Dr. Pepper and an Us Weekly instead of donating? I think not.

Liam and Amelia each have a donation page set up. Their classes are competing for the most donations. So, if you feel so inclined to donate, you can split the amount between the two or you can pick your favorite kid and set this up to be a real live battle to the death.

You can choose to donate anonymously, or you can list your name. Or you can even list a fake name like Captain Studly Pants. And you can donate ANY amount.

To donate to Liam's page, click HERE.
To donate to Amelia's page, click HERE.

Thanks, internets! You're Awesome. Unless you don't donate. Then you're a kid killer.

It's a disease, and I've passed it on.

So, I've apparently spawned the next generation of infomercial addicts.

And it really is an addiction. It starts out small. Maybe you buy a set of Ginsu knives. They're useful. They're quality products. And then maybe you get a Sham-wow, because who hasn't needed to soak up 5 gallons of bodily fluid from the carpet at one time or another? And the next thing you know you're wearing nothing but a Snuggie, blending margaritas in your Magic Bullet and snorting OxyClean off Billy Mays' corpse with Ron Popeil.

Anyway, Liam and Amelia seem to have fallen prey to the sweet, sweet siren song of infomercials.

Except we don't have cable. The only TV they see is from Netflix and whatever channels we can pick up on digital rabbit ears. One of those channels is Qubo. Normally, I love Qubo. There's not a single show on there that is remotely questionable. However, they don't have regular commercials. They have mini-infomercials.

First, it was Pillow Pets. It got to the point that I had to ban the Pillow Pets song from our house. If I was forced to hear, "It's a pillow! It's a pet! It's a pillow pet!" one more time, someone was going to die. (And I know it's now playing in a never ending loop in your brain. YOU'RE WELCOME.) And don't you dare refer to the closure as velcro around my kids. You'll call it a "hook and loop strap" or they'll cut you.

More recently, however, it has been LifeLock. First of all, I'm not even sure why they need to advertise an identity protection program during The Magic School Bus. I mean, is Miss Frizzle using my debit card for bus gas and wacky shoes? But anyway, that's been the commercial in heavy rotation lately. At first Liam and Amelia were simply concerned. They didn't want me to lose our house! And my good name! You! Must! Get! LifeLock! But they finally got the hint that I wasn't buying it.

Now they play LifeLock.

Last night I overheard them playing, and here's how it went down.

Amelia: Oh no! My identity has been stolen!

Liam (in his Superman costume, of course): Ma'am, that was pretty stupid not to buy LifeLock. Did you know that for every car that gets stolen, eleven people get their identities stolen? You wouldn't leave your car unlocked. Why would you leave your life unlocked?

Amelia: (Pretend sobbing.) Can you help me?

Liam: Yes! LifeLock works 'round the clock to protect you. Other credit monitoring systems don't tell you until weeks after your identity has been compromised, but at LifeLock we can stop it before it happens.

Amelia: But what if someone steals it anyway?

Liam: Well, LifeLock gives you a ONE MILLION DOLLAR guarantee to work to resolve any identity theft that may occur under our watch.

Amelia: Oh thank you, LifeLock, for protecting my good name and my family's future!

So not only are they infomercial-obsessed, they have taken it to a creepy new level.

If they start yelling, "Billy Mays here!" while dumping ink on their white shirts, I may have to stage an intervention.

Just say yes to drugs.

(Admittedly not the best picture for this post, since he looks completely stoned.)

So, Tuesday I had to go to an award ceremony for the first grade. Liam was getting a citizenship award and an award for being on the straight A honor roll.

This was a big deal.

For the first nine weeks of school, Liam was suspended regularly. I would get phone calls daily from the principal. His (mis)behavior of choice was to scream as loud as he could, for as long as he could. Long, ear piercing shrieks. He could keep it up for hours. We went through two bars of Ivory during those nine weeks, thinking that if he associated the screaming with a bar of soap in his mouth for a while, maybe he'd stop.

That didn't work out. He still screamed, but with the added bonus of diarrhea.

It all started in Pre-K. He couldn't sit still. He cried. He threw huge temper tantrums. But, the teachers blamed it on immaturity. With a late August birthday, he was the youngest in class. And academically he was doing fine.

In Kindergarten it got worse, but again it was blamed on immaturity and "just being a boy." Because apparently going on regular screaming rampages through the classroom is normal boy behavior.

At this point I suspected it was more than immaturity, but his teacher and school counselors didn't think so. And since I didn't want it to be more than that, I listened to them.

Then we moved and he started first grade, and his episodes were worse than ever. And the suspensions started. When I took him for his school physical in September, about five minutes into the exam the pediatrician asked if I'd ever had him evaluated for ADHD. I hadn't even had a chance to mention his behavior problems at school. Just the fact that he could not seem to be still or quiet for even 30 seconds made the doctor suspect.

So, we scheduled a behavioral evaluation. And everyone involved agreed that Liam had ADHD, and it was severe. And across the board they recommended medication.

I'll admit that before this, I firmly believed that ADHD was way over diagnosed, and way over medicated. And I'll even admit that I thought a lot of the parents who gave their kids ADHD meds did so because they were too lazy to really parent their kids and try behavior modification.

I know, I know.

I still think that it's over diagnosed and over medicated. And I still think there are some parents who drug their kids up beyond what they actually need because it's easier than dealing with the child.

But I also now realize that this is a real disorder. That their brain chemistry is a little haywire. And that sometimes drugs really are the answer.

We started him on medication, but I still struggled with that decision.

And after a few weeks, his teacher wrote that it was like having a new kid in class. That he was still the same sweet Liam he always had been, and still very active and a little crazy, but she could see that he was actually listening now. He could stay focused on his work. He could play with other kids, which was something he simply couldn't do before. Before the medication, his brain couldn't slow down enough to allow him to interact normally with other six year-olds.

But the real turning point that put my mind at ease about the decision was when I asked Liam himself about it. He told us that it "fixed his ears," because now he could hear the teacher. And that it "made his friends like playing with him more" because he could stop talking long enough to actually play, and he could listen to what they wanted to play sometimes, too. And then he said it "took the motor out of his legs." He said that before, there was a motor in his legs that made his body move all the time. He said he couldn't stop it--that his body would move and move until he fell asleep, but since he started taking his pills, the motor was gone. I asked him if he felt better or worse taking the pills, and he said better. He said that before the pills he was always "fighting with his brain." How can I argue with that?

And it's not all perfect. The medication makes it hard for him to sleep and decreases his appetite. So, he has to take a prescription antihistamine at bedtime that helps make him drowsy and also increases his appetite. And afternoons are hard, as are early mornings. He only takes medication at breakfast, and it wears off by around 4:00. So, it takes some work to get him to settle down after school, and getting him to focus enough to get dressed when he wakes up is a struggle. I have to get him up an hour earlier than necessary because it takes him that long to get dressed. But overall, the medication has made life better for everyone involved.

I know there are other parents like me who might be opposed to medicating their child. If you're one of them, and your doctor thinks that medication might be the way to go, I would urge you try it. You don't know what it's like for your child. They may be suffering--or "fighting with their brain"--unnecessarily.