More than words

Special Days and Special Things

I really should have Sandy be in charge of my book - she harangues me endlessly until I write another blog post, even though I thought every 3 days was quite an ambitious accomplishment, but hey, if she were here to nag me about the book, I might actually get something completed.

So, let's see, it's been a busy week.  Lots of errands.  Trying to make the best use of my time while Ailish is gone, and since Brad has blessedly been working from home this week, then when Ailish gets home, I take one or the other girl out of the house to keep them separated for as long as possible.  I told him I know it's not reasonable to expect that he can be home every day of the week, and I know they need him in the office a little more, but just until August 13, just until I can have both in school for a reasonable amount of time, I really need more help at home.  Separating them seems to be the only way to keep things on an even keel, and if we aren't separated, by the end of the day, I just want to pull my hair out.  I wish I could be more zen, wish I could come up with that great Supernanny scheme to get them to want to work on a project together, but everything we've tried has ended up in disaster.  Did I mention the ice cream story?  This is a perfect example.  Sandy gave me an ice cream maker for my birthday, and we thought what better way to use up some of our cherries?  So, we loaded up the ball, per the directions, and we told the girls they needed to roll it back and forth to each other for 15 minutes.  The first five minutes went okay, and then the griping began.  By the time we were finished with the first 15 minutes, they were yelling at each other, accusing each of hurting the other by rolling the ball too hard, and then I heard, "I don't even like stupid cherry ice cream!"  So I said fine, get out, we'll do it ourselves.  Brad and I rolled for the last 15 minutes - we didn't whine or cry or anything!  The ice cream was good, but the experience of making it added an aftertaste that I can't really shake.

So anyway...back to this week.  Summer school has been going well for the most part.  She likes the bus driver, thank goodness - she had a phobia of buses ever since 2nd Grade when a kid booted on a field trip to the zoo.  In San Francisco, they road the Muni bus all the time, but she said it didn't count, wasn't a school bus.  I didn't tell her she was riding the bus until the day before school started, and thankfully, she's been okay with it.  The biggest struggle, for both of us, is just getting out of bed.  The first night, I couldn't sleep at all.  Nerves, fibro stuff, I don't know, but I was up until 4:30.  The next night, I was exhausted, and fell asleep at 10:30, but still, that 6:30 alarm was tough!  Last night was awful - I kept having nightmares about fires, which is a recurrent one lately.  I'll be standing somewhere and all of a sudden the mountain behind us will catch on fire in some way - one day, it was cars careening over the side of it and bursting into flames, last night we were in an area where fires were approaching, and we were getting ready to leave when the mountain right near us just went up in a second's time.  I have no idea what the dream analyst would say about all this, all I know is I am just exhausted when I have to get up in the morning!

So, Kieran had the playdate on the first day of school, so we didn't pick her up until 3:00.  We dropped Ailish off with Brad at the house, and I took Kieran on a few errands.  I had thought maybe it would be a good time to "grab" her a pair of shoes for school.  Payless was having their BOGO, Famous Footwear was doing the 2nd Pair Half Off thing, and I'd noticed Marshall's had really beefed up their shoe department, so surely, we could find something for her.  Well, I had forgotten to take into account that not only are her feet somewhat "different," shall we call them, but she also has her daddy's, let's say...sensitivities when it comes to shoes.  I'm not saying I'm innocent - I of the 9.5 WW shoe size who can't stand thongs because the toe separation creeps me out, and now, ever since my ankle injury, I can't have a back on the shoe or even the slightest heel, but still, this man is truly a wonder of science with the way he can pick apart a shoe, and Kieran has definitely learned at the feet (ha!) of the master.  This one had a stitch right where her toe was going to go, this one had an arch in the middle, this one, honestly mommy, how could anyone put their foot on that quilted stuff in the bottom?  We started off cheerfully enough, from Marshall's to Famous Footwear we went.  By the time we got to Payless, she was starting to panic a bit that she was upsetting me, that she hated her feet, and though I tried to tell her I wasn't frustrated with her, just the process, she was feeling really bad.  She got a pep talk from Daddy and we continued on.  Part of the problem is that she's a 1.5 in some brands, 2 in others and even 2.5 or 3 in others.  It's really confusing.  Very few brands have half sizes in kids (which I totally don't understand!), and as she said, she feels more like a 1.75 in the shoes she really wanted.  We moved on to shoe liquidators, Kohl's, and then, what I had already warned was the last stop of the day because we had to be back for our babysitter to get there, we went to Mervyn's.  Of course Mervyn's is where we should have gone first because they had Vans, which is what she really wanted to begin with.  She has these Vans she's worn all year - Daddy picked them out, they're black with pink and white skulls, they are her favorite shoes, and she keeps saying if she could just take them to a repairman, she'd be happy just to wear those forever.  I had to explain he can't make them bigger.  With much fanfare, we found a great pair of pink vans with lavender and white stars.  Hallelujah!  We also found a boys pair of plain black ones, which she liked but I could tell was a little worried someone would figure out they were boys shoes.  But victory was finally ours!

By the time we got back, I was exhausted and my ankle was killing me, but we had date plans, so off we went.  Dinner was decidedly eh, but we made up for it by stopping at Ben and Jerry's (that cake batter should seriously have an addictive warning on it!), and then while we were at Barnes and Noble, we got a call from Sandy and decided to head over there to hang out for a bit.  I know, thrilling date, but honestly, I didn't have the energy for much else!  We did pick up some books for Ailish before we headed over though.  I found one on Anxiety and one on Depression, workbooks to hopefully help her sort things out herself since she doesn't seem to want to talk about it.

Yesterday, I took Kieran to the mall because Sandy reminded me there was a Van's store in the mall - why didn't I think of that?  So we found one more pair of girl shoes that she could wear, and then checked out the Disney Store, which had some amazing deals on Hannah Montana stuff especially, and I got a few things at Lame Giant.  By then it was time to get her to her first Dolphin swim practice.  There were only two of them in the group yesterday, which worked out really well.  She said she loved it, and wished that practice lasted longer - that's all I can hope for!  I walk a very fine line - I want her to succeed and commit to something, but I don't want to pressure her to be perfect or stay in something she doesn't love, but for now, it's all good!

Once swim was over, I took Kieran home and decided to take Ailish out to look for her own shoes (and to take Kieran's boy shoes back).  We found some actually pretty quickly at Mervyn's - at least she's easy in that regard!  Before we looked for shoes, though, we went to the lab because they had forgotten to do one of Ailish's tests, and we needed to re-check one of them.  Thankfully she's negative for any autoimmune stuff, which is really good news, but the CBC was the one they missed, which would tell us about anemia, and her glucose was really low, so we're re-checking that to see if she's hypoglycemic.  I decided what better day to get my own Coumadin level checked, so I went ahead and got my blood drawn.  I thought Ailish would see it as a show of solidarity, but as soon as she was done with hers, she ran out to the lobby.  I do my best to reach out, but I can only go as far as she'll let me.  So after a few more errands, we ended up at Ailish's Musical Theater class.  I must say, while my plan to keep them separated is working well for them, it has me absolutely beat!  My ankle is so swollen by the end of the day, it isn't pretty.  I figured last night, that would mean I'd get a good night's sleep, but it eluded me.  Maybe tonight, and at least I won't have to wake up at 6:30 tomorrow - woot!

I have to stop here and say Happy Birthday to my brother, John.  He is 43 this year, a walking miracle, and a testament to stubbornness being much more powerful than a disease!  We should say he's 31, since he was supposed to die at 12 from complications of severe diabetes mellitus.  He's still here, still in great shape (aside from the aches of being in your 40's :), and I consider his life to be such a gift.

Also, a big happy birthday to our niece, Chloe, who turns 9 today!  We are so excited to get to spend the weekend with her and her sister Ellie.  Just as soon as Brad gets back from his meeting today, we'll be heading up to Ventura.

So in the midst of all the running around, I have been thinking about special things.  I had bought special blackberry balsamic vinegar in Seattle, and vegetable orechette while I was up there as well, but they seemed too special to use just every day.  They've been sitting on the shelf for the past 8 months, waiting for the "right" time.  When I was in Denver, at Savory Spice Shop, I picked up some spice blends that I still haven't used, not quite sure what dish will be special enough to warrant their use.  And I think back to scrapbooking papers I've bought, so in love with them I want to make sure I use just the right photos on them, use them to their fullest potential, and yet they sit for months, losing their specialness day by day as new lines come out.  The same for the food - the spices won't be good forever, the pasta will become stale, and yet, I waste their potential waiting for the best opportunity to use them.  Or even the china that took us a great deal of pondering to pick out - we have used that very expensive wedding china exactly four times.  Four times in 15 years.  Some days, I feel that way about my own brain.  I certainly did it in college, so paralyzed by the thought of the "best" major that I ultimately couldn't choose and dropped out.  Oh yes, I blamed dropping out on other things, but really, that was the actual reason.  All my life, I was "filled with potential," and yet I haven't used it.   Hmm, maybe I really do need Sandy to be my editor - she seems to be the best at yelling at me, and maybe she'd give me the push I need to pull those brains out and really use them.  I'll have to get a few margaritas in her and see what she *really* thinks about that :)

It's July 1, and you know what that means!

Summer School!  I think I would feel more excited if Summer School didn't mean I had to wake up at 6:30 - honestly, couldn't they run it from 11 - 4?  Just a thought :)  But still, it's a good thing.  I was a little worried about getting Ailish up for it, but since we'd had a doctor's appointment for her yesterday, and I had to wake her up at 7:00, at least that was a bit of a warm-up for it.  We took her to the doctor because she's been saying that everything hurts, when we touch her it hurts, picking stuff up hurts, etc.  I just want to find out if this is depression causing a physical response or if she has an autoimmune issue already rearing its ugly head.  So we got the blood draw, a whole panel of stuff.  She wasn't too happy about that, of course, but I think it's really necessary to rule that out.

After that, we ran around doing a few errands, and then we had to be back in time to take Kieran to swim.  We were hoping to get Kieran promoted to the Dolphin team, and thankfully there was a spot on the team, so she starts that tomorrow.  We've been taping the swimming trials for her, and I think it's gotten her really pumped up to see how those kids swim.  Michael Phelps was amazing - we were all cheering him on when he broke his world record!  So here's Kieran getting ready for swim yesterday.
There's the Sake tasting party - who knew there were that many different kinds of sake?
And finally, the pics of Kayla and Samantha's visit:

Kayla was teaching Kieran how to make weird faces - it's a 12-year-old thing, I'm pretty sure!

If the trick to looking thinner is to find someone to hide behind, it's hard to take a picture when we both want to hide behind someone!

And lastly, the three girls...sort of

This pretty much sums up the way it's been here - we keep trying to pull Ailish in, and that just makes her pull away even further.

We had a productive, if not really painful, session yesterday with the wrap-around therapist.  Considering she has refused to go to the therapist provided us by the Child and Family Center, I didn't know what would happen yesterday, but I think something about being in her house, and the therapist's patience in letting Ailish play first, letting her talk about nothing important, got her to a point where she could open up a little bit.  She said she feels sad all the time, every day, and she says she feels like she's in a tornado that just keeps pulling her down, down, down.  And then there's the manic monster, which she doesn't want to be either.  I wanted to cry - I just can't imagine feeling that helpless.  We all want so badly to help pull her out, and we can't reach her.  It just broke my heart.  She was refusing the therapist's request to have her participate in family things a little more, like just come down and eat dinner with us, but amazingly last night, even though I didn't expect her to, she did come down, and she ate some chicken.  I thanked her, which I probably shouldn't have done - praise has the opposite effect on her, but I still wanted her to know I recognized the effort - I know it took a lot for her to be there.  She disappeared soon after that, but at least we had that little bit of time.

Kieran and I will run a couple of errands, and then it will be time for Ailish to be back already.  Tonight, Brad had another meeting cancellation, so we'll try another date night and see how it goes.  Then we have the wonderful distraction of the girls' cousins at Grammapoppa's starting on the 3rd, and *that* will be a very good thing!

Oops!  Kieran got a playdate call - nothing better!  So our plans, and my post, were disrupted, but that was serendipity for her!  I'm off to get Ailish from the bus stop.  Hopefully it was a good day, and having Kieran gone for a few more hours will give her some much needed space.  Ahh, July.

Best Plans and all that...

Just after I finished that last post, I had a brilliant idea to get us out of the house and do something fun before the end of Ailish's summer.  Since I had two Nordstrom $20 rewards and a Children's Place $10 reward to use up before they expired, neither store being close to us, we'd head towards Daddy's office but make a stop at a huge mall in the valley.  Kieran was instantly excited - she ran upstairs to count her money, checking to see if she had enough for a Claire's "10 items for $10" run.  She came down dressed and walked the dogs to get herself one more dollar.

Ailish, on the other hand, was an entirely different story.  She looked bewildered at the suggestion.  I told her I was getting in the shower, and I wanted her to be dressed by the time I got out.  20 minutes later, I emerged clean and dressed, but she was still standing in the middle of her room in her pajamas.  "What are you doing?"  I asked impatiently.  She flapped her hands at me.  "I'm trying to decide what to wear."  "Ailish, it doesn't matter!  Just put something on!"  She shooed me out the door.

I came down and decided to heat up the chicken leftovers for lunch, because at this point, I figured we were in for a 30-minute wait.  I was wrong.  It was an hour before she came down the stairs, acting as if nothing were amiss.  I told her after that long of a wait, she better grab some lunch because I didn't want that to be the first thing we had to do at the mall.  Why, why, why do I open my mouth?  Lunch became another ordeal - her usual choice of chow mein was not good enough.  Finally she decided to try one of Daddy's frozen burritos, but she insisted on heating it 30 seconds at a time, checking, re-checking, over and over.  In the end, I think it took six minutes to heat up, but the process took about 15.  She ate slowly, ever so slowly, knowing full well that Kieran was bursting out of her skin.  I suggested that maybe Kieran have a snack so she quickly heated up some noodles and butter - she'd had two bowls of that before Ailish got through half of her burrito.  Finally, she was finished, and I went to the bathroom in anticipation that we'd be leaving.  I came out to find that she'd decided to have dessert - a fudgesicle no less, which I knew would take her at least 20 minutes to eat.  I was finally pushed past my breaking point.  The outing was canceled.  Ailish did a poor job of concealing her satisfaction while Kieran began to cry.  I sent Ailish to her room.  Brad emailed me not to be a hostage to her, but I knew that if I continued to push her, she'd just find ways to make our day more difficult once we were out and about.  I'd been down that road before, too many times to count, and I knew it would be better to save our gas and money now, before we left the house, even if it meant disappointing Kieran.

But poor Miss K was just despondent.  She cried for an hour, and I did my best to comfort her, but I knew the depth of anger she was feeling - I was feeling it myself.  For seven weeks now, we've been doing everything we can to help Ailish feel like a member of the family, to help her transition, and it feels like we've put in so much more effort than she has.  She has a detached air about her, one that reminds me of the Swedish Exchange Student we had for six months when I was a kid.  He really didn't seem all that interested in being a part of our family - he was just happy to be out of Sweden.  I think I can say the same for Ailish - yes, she's happy to be out of residential, but I'm not so sure she's happy to be *here*.  She doesn't express any affection for us, doesn't express any gratitude for anything, and spends most of her day in her room by herself.  Getting her to do any chores or participate in family activities is an extraordinary task - I suppose if it were just me, I could back off and see if she will come around at some point, but poor Kieran, who just wants a sister to be with again, she has the hardest time.  She wants to be with Ailish, she wants to play with her, and yet her requests are met with, at the very least, resistance, and at its worst, outright aggression. 

When we confronted Ailish with this yesterday, she said she didn't know how to live here anymore.  She claims we changed all the rules.  I asked how it was possible that she could visit here three times, for long visits, and do okay, and yet now that she's here for good, she can't be a part of the family?  She shrugs, she doesn't know.  She asked me if what I really wanted was for her not to be here.  I said it wasn't about that - I wanted her to be here with the proper tools to be able to function in the family.  If that means I want her to be at Excelsior right now, learning how to get along with Brenna and with us, then yes, I do mean that.  But I don't want her just gone outright, with no chance at ever coming home, and I don't want her just out of the house anywhere.  I love her, she's my child, and I want the best for her, but I also don't want all of us rearranging our lives for someone who doesn't give a damn.  It was a heartbreaking exchange.  Where do we go from here?

For that moment, where we went was back to our corners.  Ailish retreated to her room, not seen or heard from again until Brad got home.  Kieran and I stayed downstairs.  When he got home from work, I took Kieran to the mall we'd talked about, and we were able to use my reward certificates for a dress for her and some skorts for back to school.  She got some earrings from the Claire's clearance.  At the Nordstrom Rack, I was so proud because between the dress for her, some hair stuff for Brad, and a bracelet she'd found on clearance, the total came to 39.97, so I didn't have to spend a penny.  But then when we got in the car, Kieran went to take the tag off the bracelet and it fell apart, sending beads all over the car.  She was so sad - it's hard for her to find pretty bracelets that fit on her tiny wrists.  We went back into the store, but they had no more bracelets like that, so we got a necklace, but she still was sad that she didn't have the bracelet.  So on our way home, we stopped at Borders and got her a beading kit so she can make her own bracelets.  Her aunt Michele is a wonderful jewelry maker, and we'll see them next weekend, so we're going to ask Michele for a lesson before she gets the thousand beads out :)

So, the shopping trip, though very shortened, was ultimately mostly successful.  But the day itself, it was not an easy one, and I don't know when there will be another one of those.  It reminds me again that I can do all the "right" things when it comes to this, but it's up to Ailish and Brenna to play a part in this as well, and we can only be as successful as they want to be.  Unfortunately, it makes me even more grateful that school starts on Tuesday.

Lazy Days

Where were we?  Oh yes, summer...it has been refreshingly not sweltering, highs only in the 80's, which is quite nice.  Since we don't have to escape the heat, we haven't done much beyond the scheduled swim, musical theater and dance classes they've had.  We had to be here for the plumber, as he had to come out three times to figure out exactly why the water was coming through our ceiling.  Finally, we discovered there is something wrong with the shower faucet, allowing water to leak through.  Once we got that fixed, we called out the mold remediation team.  They cut out a larger portion of the ceiling, then set up some sort of decontamination zone with a HEPA filter and a dehumidifier.

Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of mold, but with the girls' asthma issues, we don't want to take any chances.

Next, we need to have the drywall people out to replace the hole, and then painters to fix the wall.  Apparently, it's just not summer around here without some sort of home renovation!  Hopefully it will be summer without another broken bone!

Last night, I actually made a real dinner, which I haven't done in quite awhile.  Ailish has been on such a chow mein kick, there didn't seem to be much point in adding more heat to the house if she was just as happy with something out of the microwave.  But I've had a bumper crop of basil (the only plant I haven't killed yet), and some prosciutto I bought weeks ago for a salad Ailish requested but never made.  So I decided to make up my own recipe of chicken with prosciutto, basil, sundried tomato and lemon sauce.  I served it on top of polenta, which is oen of the girls' absolute favorite sides.  They both scarfed down the food, much to my amazement.  I said, "Wow, both girls ate all of their dinners!  I have to write this down!"  So Ailish says, "Yeah, but don't make it all the time like you do your other chicken dishes, because then we end up hating them."  I didn't know which one she was talking about, so I asked, "My chicken curry?"  "No, you don't make that often enough."  "Oh, my fried chicken."  "No, I love that one."  "Hungarian chicken?"  "No..."  I'm still at a loss!

This weekend, we have no real plans, except that Brad has decreed Sunday to be doughnut day, so there you go.  July is turning out to be a busy month, so I guess we should revel in the calm for a few days.  We might go down to Brad's office tonight for dinner, but we have to make that decision early or we get stuck in hours of traffic.

One last set of pics...from the moon sand files:

Hold onto your hats, I might relatively be up to date!

Yesterday was quite exciting - Samantha and Kayla and Tom stopped by for a brief visit!  I didn't tell the girls beforehand because I didn't want them to get too excited, especially since we weren't sure how much time they'd have or when they'd be able to come.  They were flying back this morning after a whirlwind week that started up north, so it was so great that they were able to see us.  We had a great time catching up, showing them all the improvements on the house, and Kayla got to hang with the girls.  She's definitely ahead of where Brenna is in that whole growing up thing, so to compare her against the other two here, she's a bonafide teenager.  Well, she will be in two months, so it makes sense, but still, it's hard to only see her every six months - seems like she's a different person every time we visit!  We had lunch together, and then, sadly, they were off again.  I have pictures, but they are in the car, and right now, my body is protesting madly to any sort of movement, so that will have to wait!

Yesterday was also Kieran's swim lesson, so that was the second highlight of the day.  She's learning the breast stroke now, the last thing she has to learn before moving onto team.  Tomorrow is her last lesson of the session, and then next week, she'll go to four days a week for two weeks.  We'll see what happens after that!  On Sunday, we watched the Olympic Diving Trails, and she was so enthralled by the divers.  I'm not sure my heart could take watching her dive - I'm already holding my breath watching these girls I don't even know!  They get so close to the board on their way down - it's a very scary thought to think how close they come to cracking their heads open on the platform.  I can't wait until the swimming part of the olympics - I want to show her what it really looks like.

We've been taking the girls to the pool several nights in a row now.  We have to wait until the sun goes down, so it's usually no earlier than 7:30-8:00 before we get there, and then we let them swim for an hour.  It's a nice way to end the night before the girls have to get into bed.  Honestly, though the days themselves seem to crawl by, I am kind of amazed that we only have one week left before Ailish starts summer school.  I forget that the first couple weeks are always better than the middle portion, when all the novelty of summer wears off and boredom is the only thing left.  It's definitely had its problems, but I do get the timing of summer school now - with two weeks on either end of it, you take care of that middle core that is the most frustrating to get through.

Tonight on the agenda, an actual date with Brad, which I am sad to say I don't remember the last one we had.  His meeting was canceled, and I already had the respite babysitter scheduled, so hey, why not take advantage of the opportunity?  Brad even mentioned going to the movies, but unfortunately, there's only action movies or Sex and the City, so I'm not sure we'll be able to bridge the gap on that one!

Ooh!  I actually did another layout, this one inspired by the One Little Word blog.  I have been reading their blog for quite some time, and had intentions of doing several layouts inspired by them, but the word this week made me want to drop everything and get this page done.  So here it is:

I think that's my story for now - the weather has finally cooled enough from unbearable to just plain hot, and though I don't have a plan yet today to keep the girls occupied, I'm sure I'll come up with something :)

Okay, enough of that sunshine...

Literally and figuratively!  I know yesterday was the start of summer and all, but this is ridiculous.  We've been battling a horrible heat wave the past several days, and today is supposed to be the hottest one.  Yesterday afternoon, when we got in the car at the Wal-Mart parking lot, the thermometer said 120.  120!  Yes, it was because we were on the blacktop, so it did cool down to a balmy 111 by the time we reached our next destination.  Yeah, I'm done!  Today, the high is predicted to be 113, and they remind us the thermometers up here are in the shade, so really, we're looking at 115, 117, somewhere around there.  See, I moved from Vegas to California to escape these kinds of temps, and here they are even worse, because they are not truly dry temps, so it's just disgusting.

Even with our thermostat on 82, the a/c runs nearly constantly, so I've been trying to come up with things to do away from the house so we don't fall over when the power bill comes.  Thursday, I took them to see Kung Fu Panda - Vons had a free movie ticket promotion a couple months ago, if you spent a certain amount on selected items, and I racked up 10 free tickets during that time, so I can at least take us to 3 movies.  Of course, that doesn't count the $21 in concessions, but hey, at least with the free tickets, we aren't spending $30 at the box office as well.  I can't say I loved the movie, but it was cute, it was dark, it was cold, and no one was talking to me or fighting, so mission accomplished, I say.  We walked over to Borders afterwards to look at books (and let's face it, stay in more air conditioning).  I managed to keep us out and about until Ailish's Pop Dance class at 4:00.  She wasn't as in love with Pop as Musical Theater, but as long as she keeps trying, that's the important part.

Yesterday, we had a therapy session at 11:00, and then I was thinking (but didn't tell them) that I would take them to Chuck E. Cheese.  I knew it would be crowded, but I had a coupon and I thought it would bring us at least a few hours of peace (and cold air).  But they got in a fight as we were leaving therapy over who was going to carry the moon sand back to the car, and I thought I would not reward that, so instead, I decided to take Ailish to get her eyes checked.  She's been saying since she got home that she's having trouble reading the clock across the room with her glasses on, so I knew it had to be done, but it was just a matter of squeezing it in.  We had to wait awhile for an appointment, but the exam itself was pretty painless.  It was an interesting experience for me, though - on those forms, you have to list all of the meds the patient is taking, and, you know, it's pretty obvious when you're taking Lithium that there's some sort of psychiatric issue there.  So once the eye dr. was finished examining Ailish, she asked her to wait in the lobby, closed the door, and then she asked me all these questions about whether we were getting help for her, what were we doing to make sure the OCD didn't take over her life, etc., etc.  That came out of left field!  So she went on to explain she had OCD and how it controls her, and how she's been like this forever.  I swear, I have had more people tell me their mental health stories lately than I ever have before - it's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, I think it's really good that people can talk about it because there is such a stigma, but it's just so strange where these things come from sometimes.

The glasses themselves became a bit of an ordeal.  She didn't like the ones at Wal-Mart.  She didn't like Penneys or LensCrafters, so we ended up at Sears, and when she started to balk, I said that was the end of the line.  So she picked out a pair, and after special coatings and transitions lenses, the whole thing came up to $229.  ouch!  It would have been cheaper to go to CEC!  But I know, we would have had to do this anyway.  Brad's worried because he says this is when his eyes started to go bad for him and every year he'd have to get stronger and stronger lenses, and he doesn't want her eyes to be as bad as his.  As I've said before, we can't wish for things to be different - they are what they are, and we just have to deal with it.  Yes, it's absolutely unfortunate that she seems to have the worst eyes of the girls, with everything else on her plate, but why wouldn't she?  That's the role she was born to play.

So last night, a group of us ladies went out to a Japanese restaurant for a Sake tasting.  They had a special where if you have ten people, you get a 9 course meal and 12 shots of sake for $25.  Sounded like a good plan!  Unfortunately, I've had a bit of an issue with heartburn lately, particularly when it comes to alcohol or any kind of spicy/oniony foods.  I popped Tums before I got there and Rolaids three times during dinner, but in the end, I could only drink about 2 shots of sake and eat maybe 1/4 of the meal.  Hey...maybe it'll be my new diet plan! :)  Seriously, it is something I need to address with the rheumatologist because the Fosamax he has me on can cause heartburn, and apparently I'm supposed to stop using it and call my doctor, so I guess I will do that on Monday.  But anyway, thankfully Sandy was there to make sure my un-drunk sake did not go to waste!  She is hilarious, but alcohol is like her truth serum.  I think she stores up all these things she wants to say to me, and then she just lets loose when she's had a couple.  I know she loves me, and the things she says are true, but it's just so funny because she'll say, "And another thing!" and I'm like oh God, here it comes!  What is she going to say now?!

One summertime ritual we've been indulging in, vinegary cucumbers.  The smell of these things instantly takes me back to summers when I was a kid.  When it was so bright outside that walking in the house meant at least five minutes of being blind while my eyes adjusted to the light.  I can almost smell the suntan oil and sun tea mixed in with it, it seemed like the three of them would go hand in hand.  My mom would get so mad because the cucumbers are supposed to marinate in the vinegar for hours, and we could only wait minutes before we started eating them.  By the time they were supposedly "done," there would only be a few left.  So now, the girls are the same way with them.  Kieran especially is my vinegar girl, just like me.  I *love* vinegar - apple cider, balsamic, you name it, it's one of my favorite ingredients.  I know there's a joke there about being full of something and vinegar, and yes, it's probably very fitting :)

But here are a few pics of our ritual:
It's basically apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar, but oh, it's the only way to eat cucumbers!

Hopefully we can survive the heat blast today, and then tomorrow, the high will "only" be 100!  Woot!  Get our sweaters!

Good Day Sunshine

I know, it’s a little eerie writing another entry in less than a week, but that’s what happens when it’s summer and you have one child in Musical Theater class and the other blissfully playing with moon sand.  I could be getting something done, but I have to leave in 20 minutes to pick Ailish up again, so what would be the point of starting a new chore? :) 

It’s been a busy busy day.  Try as I might to sleep in, the sun hitting me square in the face at 7:00 a.m. just won’t let me snooze any longer.  I imagine as the days wear on, and I stay up later and later, eventually my body will ignore the sun, but then again, I just got the notification that Ailish’s bus will be picking her up at 7:15 a.m., which means that in two weeks, I’ll be waking up at 6:30.  Ouch!  At what price peace? :)

The FedEx man came today to deliver more Dodger tickets, and the dogs had to attack him.  Then we had to be over the hill for an allergist appointment at 1:30, so that was a big event.  I really like this allergist - I forgot how much I really liked him.  We’ve seen plenty in Ailish’s young life, so that’s not an empty statement.  He talks to her, not around her, and somehow he can convince her that creams are not the horrid thing that she says they are.  We left with lots of new prescriptions, and a promise from her to let me put the creams on!  

Next, the County people came out again today to talk about the next step in the plan.  We met a nice woman who will come out to hang with Ailish a few times a week and try to help her find things she likes to do.  This will give Kieran and I a little more alone time as well.  Ailish was very wary about the whole thing, which I can understand.  The staff turnover rate in residential is so high, I think it’s made it really hard for her to trust people and open up to them.  She was always saying goodbye to someone she liked.  But they seemed like they really wanted to be helpful, and we could definitely use some of that!  We’ll see how things go with her next week.

Last night, Ailish and I had a date while Kieran stayed home with the sitter.  That did not go as well as I’d hoped - Ailish was very anxious about deciding what to do, so eventually I just picked Chili’s and figured we’d go from there.  We talked while we ate (well, I ate, she mostly picked, she said she was too nervous to eat) and I told her I wanted to help her find a way to communicate with us when she wasn’t feeling like talking.  We decided to get a dry-erase board for outside her room, so she could tell us what kind of mood she was in and whether she was up for talking.  And I thought a journal that was more like a day planner would be good because then she could write down her moods as they happened, and maybe we could chart out how her moods change.  She seemed up for the ideas, so we got those and then grabbed some frozen yogurt for dessert before we headed home.

So next on the agenda today was Kieran’s swim, which I wasn’t sure she’d be willing/able to do yet.  She’s still fighting off the bronchial/ear stuff, but she seemed better, so I decided to at least let her try.  I was really proud of her - I could tell she wasn’t feeling 100%, but she really gave it her best effort.

After that, we ran to Target and picked up the prescriptions.  This is one of my favorite weeks - the weeks when they have the Target $10 Gift Card coupons for new prescriptions!  We are never at a loss for new prescriptions, so it’s nice to have a benefit every now and then.  We got $30 in gift cards, so I decided to use it on moon sand for them.  I’ve noticed when we’re in therapy that Kieran loves to play with it, just raking it, forming it, then smushing it - it’s almost like a zen rock garden.  I thought at least if we can’t get to a park for them to play in the sand, they can play with the moon sand.  I have threatened banishing it from the house if they make a mess, so we’ll see how long it lasts :)

I did actually get a layout done this week, and I’ve been working on the 2007 album I started ever ago.  The one nice thing about being smushed back into one room is that my scrap stuff is back where the DVR is, so now I can watch all my shows while I scrap.  It used to be, I had to choose one or the other, so that is definitely a plus.

Oh, and yesterday, a bad thing - when I went to get my labs drawn for my coumadin level, the girl who did it completely blew my vein.  It was *bad*, but I was actually laughing because the guy next to me, early 20’s, tattoo on his arm, was telling the other vampire that she had to be gentle because he was terrified of needles.  Are you serious??  Anyway, the vampire who killed my vein got someone else to finish the job, and though I didn’t want any blood taken out of my hands or forearms, I wasn’t expecting her to go back into the same vein.  Ouchie!!  And still no $20 for me!  Anyway, Ailish and I gave the wimpy guy a hard time as we headed to the elevator.  The vampire asked him how he got his tattoo if he was afraid of needles - he said he cried the whole time.  Wow, that’s dedication...or stupidity, one of those.

So now Ailish is at Musical Theater, and it’s just about time to run back and pick her up.  It is literally across the street, and even though my ankle is not its best right now, I decided we could saddle up the pups and walk across to get her.  Truly, we don’t walk them, we just yank on them the whole time yelling, “Heel!”  She said she loved the class, yay!!

Brad just emailed to tell me someone he works with wanted to get a Civic Hybrid for their daughter, but it’s now a 4-month waiting list and you have to pay the $7,000 over sticker for it.  Timing is everything!  With every dime added per gallon, I know we made the right decision on that one.

So...good day, Dodgers won (twice in a row, a miracle!), girls got a new summertime diversion, extracurricular activities went well, and I might even get another layout done tonight.  I just want to thank everyone for their notes of encouragement - I know it’s been a really rough month, so I wanted to share a good day for once.  With so many bad days, it makes it much easier to appreciate the good ones!

At least I'm avoiding stress...

Ha!  Sandy said I hadn't updated in forever, but it's only been five days!  It just seems like forever!  It's been one of those weeks, not busy like the Girl Scout week, but stressful.  The morning that I wrote my last post, Ailish woke up coughing and wheezing terribly.  We tried a few breathing treatments, but she was still having trouble, so I decided to take her to Urgent Care for a stronger breathing treatment.  To my surprise, after a chest x-ray, we found out she had bronchitis.  I couldn't believe it - she didn't seem *that* sick.  We got a prescription for prednisone to help her asthma and antibiotics to get past the infection, and off we went back home.  I had scheduled a babysitter to come that night to watch Ailish so Kieran and I could go to a support group meeting.  By the time I got home less than two hours later, she had a fever of 102.8 and she was coughing just terribly.  We gave her lots more meds and sent her off to bed - she missed the 5th Grade play and picnic, but she didn't seem too upset about that. By Wednesday night, it seemed like the meds were doing the trick, and she'd be back to school on Thursday.  But then Thursday morning, she woke up with a rash all over her face and torso.  I put in a call to our pediatrician, and he had a cancellation, so we rushed over so he could take a look.  He prescribed a new antibiotic, which is thankfully much more fast acting, so by Friday morning, I knew she was good to go.  It was only a half day, but it was the last day of school, and I wasn't about to have her miss it if at all possible.  We said goodbye to our principal, and also to Ailish's amazing 3rd grade teacher, both retiring.  It was a tough day!

Friday night, Kieran had a sleepover at a friend's house, and when I picked her up in the morning, she was in a horrible mood.  I chalked it up to being grumpy because I picked her up, but she had a birthday party to go to that afternoon, and she needed time to get ready.  I left her with Brad while I ran down to the valley to a Lupus group meet-up.  It was so interesting to be around that many women dealing with similar issues.  My MIL and I occasionally talk about our symptoms, and of course, I'm trying to help my sister navigate things, but it was really unusual (in a good way) to have a whole roomful of people who get it.

I left there with just enough time to jet back and pick Kieran up for her birthday party.  She was still crabby, but I figured it was not getting enough sleep the night before.  I dropped her off at the bowling alley, and then met back up with everyone for the pool party and dinner portion.  It was quite a party!  By the time we got home, she was worn out. 

This morning, she slept in past everyone else, and we had to wake her up so she could be there to celebrate Father's Day.  Brad got some very good presents - new leather flip-flops, an Andersen's Pea Soup baseball hat, and the best was the Funnel Cake Kit! 

He is the biggest funnel cake fan ever!  Ailish and I found this in a gourmet store at the outlets in Gilroy, and we knew it would be the perfect gift for him, because it would make the breakfast of his dreams!  After we ate funnel cakes, we headed off to Leona Valley, land of the cherry orchards.  As much as I have loved it since our first visit in 2003, this is only the third time we've made it there.  It's tricky because the orchards are only open maybe two weeks out of the whole year, and if we aren't here or if the season is earlier than usual, we have to wait a whole year before we can go again!  So even though it was Father's Day, after promising a lunch at Famous Dave's, Brad was happy to go along with the outing.

Unfortunately, on our way out the door, we got a phone call that Brenna had to be restrained.  That put a bit of a damper on the day - we'd been missing her, and hoping that the call was her saying Happy Father's Day, so it was hard to hear she was not having a good day.  Kieran was very sniffly and coughing, so I gave her Motrin and a cough strip before we left, and brought a few with me as well.  She nearly fell asleep on the way out to the orchards, but she was excited to go, so we went ahead with it.  Though several orchards were already closed, we found one with plenty of cherries left for the picking.  We had to get Sandy hers as well, so I was nervous about getting enough.  I shouldn't have been worried - by the time we left, we had more than 16 pounds!  Poor Kieran, though, she was fading fast :(  At one point, she just laid down in the middle of the orchard, clutching her cherry bag by her side.

All of my hopes of getting good pics of her in her cherry shirt holding bunches of cherries had vanished, but I was much more concerned about getting her through the next couple of hours until we got home.

We had linner, as promised, at Famous Dave's, and Ailish literally sucked her pork rib bones clean.  I've never been able to eat any meat off the bone, so I admire her appetite for it!  Kieran, on the other hand, had no appetite at all.  We headed home, and on the way, we got to talk to Brenna on the phone.  At least we were able to connect with her today. 

Once we got home, and we dropped off the cherries, I took Kieran to Urgent Care.  The dr. checked her ears and listened to her breathing, and then told me she was prescribing antibiotics.  I have no clue what she has...I'm guessing bronchitis?  Either way, hopefully she'll feel better in the next few days.  She'll miss at least one swim practice, but hopefully not much more than that.

In other stressful news, Thursday night, while trying to help Ailish through a coughing fit, I turned the girl shower on full blast to get a steam room going for her.  She hated the effect it had on her eczema, so I turned it off after only a few minutes, but when we came downstairs, we realized there was water dripping from the ceiling.  Once Brad got home from work, we called a plumber to come out and try to figure out the problem.  We tried everything to make the water drop again, but we couldn't duplicate it.  Story of my life!  He left, and the next morning, as Ailish took a shower for school, water poured out of the ceiling.  Ack!  We waited at home all day on Friday for the plumber, but no one ever showed up.  So frustrating!  They promise to be out first thing tomorrow morning, and hopefully, fingers crossed, this will not be a huge and horrendous problem to fix.  Of course, this is me, right?  So what are the odds...don't bet on me in Vegas!

I did get one piece of fun news - I will be teaching for Cropper Hopper at ScrapFest at the Mall of America in Minneapolis in September!  I am really looking forward to the opportunity - I think it will be a lot of fun!

One final funny quote before I sign off...a few minutes ago, Kieran walked past and said, "I'm going upstairs to spend time with the man we're honoring today..."  LOL!  Even at her worst, she can make me laugh!

A title would be good here, but that might take me another 3 weeks to come up with it

Oh Typepad...as if it weren't hard enough for me to get here and write a post...all I wanted to do was add a picture to the end of my post and the whole thing froze up with some horrendously long explanation as to why my photo failed :(  Ugh...as if saying it once weren't difficult enough!  Okay, I will attempt to go back and explain one more time.

The past three weeks in Ailishland have still most definitely had their ups and downs.  She still can't sleep very well, even with the addition of a nighttime sedative, and her moods are still definitely fragile.  School has provided some relief, which means the end of school on Friday is not a good thing.  We have 2.5 weeks before summer school starts, so I have to quickly come up with cheap and cool (as in temperature) things to do!  Unstructured time is Ailish's nemesis, so I'm not looking forward to it.

After a lot of deep thought, we decided to put Kieran back into public school in the fall.  Not because this wasn't working, but just because with Ailish home, she really needs a place to be "normal."  We were hoping to get her promoted to 4th grade, because we've been covering 3rd grade almost exclusively at home, but after some testing, it was determined she has enough gaps that 3rd grade is recommended.  I still think she did better than half of the regular 3rd grade class, and that she probably had little chance of being promoted, but we've been promised that she'll either do some pull-out work in 4th grade, or if a 3rd/4th split is available, she'll go there.  These promises are good, but our wonderful principal is retiring, so we really won't know how things go until we get there August 13th.  Ultimately, this was a decision we left to Kieran, and in Miss K Fashion, she pulled out paper and made a pro and con list.  It was a tie, but it came down to her friends, which I totally understand.  It will be nice for me to have time to myself and maybe take a college course or two, but that's only if she does well there.

In an attempt to make things a little better at home, we rearranged furniture this weekend to give Ailish and Kieran their own rooms.  This meant we gave up our office - all of the office things are still in there, but now there's a California King bed squished in the middle as well.  I'm surprised by how much I resent having to do this, but there's no point in lamenting what is, we just have to make the best of it and move on.  We're just hoping by doing this, everyone will be a little safer.

We did do one cool thing in the last 3 weeks - we bought Brad a Honda Civic Hybrid.  He loved his last car - the first car that was truly his in seven years, it was a sporty electric blue Mazda.  But since he drives so much for work, after five years, it had almost 82,000 miles on it, and I was always worried about him breaking down two hours away from me, or not being able to get to us in a crisis.  With his car payments coming to an end, I figured this was the most painless time to get a new one.  And with 45 mpg, his Hybrid saves us money - he was filling up his Mazda 2-3 times/week, so this makes a huge difference!  We went through carsdirect.com again, which I absolutely highly recommend.  We didn't get the car delivered to us, like the last two times; because of the Hybrid being so popular, they had to track one down and send us there, but we did save $7,000 off the dealer's asking price!

This dealer was less than a mile from our old apartment in South Pasadena, so we thought we'd do some reminiscing while we were down there.  We drove by our apartment, now painted tan instead of salmon.  We noted that the lot that used to hold our pumpkin patch and Christmas trees was now a Starbucks/Subway.  After we got the car, we wanted to head to one of my favorite restaurants down there, only to find it closed.  No problem, we figured we'd just go a few more miles and hit Spike's Teriyaki Bowl, another favorite.  That was closed as well.  Down the block was Super Mex, our favorite hole in the wall Mexican place - closed also :(  We were getting very discouraged!  We decided to head back to Pasadena and hit one of our old stand-by's, Crown City Brewery.  Yes, they were known for their beer, but also for their food, and from the time we were dating, we were frequent visitors.  We were excited to see it open, but our mood was immediately dashed when we saw the sign that they were closing in a week.  This place had been there for 20 years!  But they had lost their lease, and it was time to go.  I was more sad about that than any other.  If anything defined our young marriage, it was Crown City.  We celebrated there, Brad ate there every day after the Bar Exam, and when the girls were babies, we took them there and they teethed on lavoshes, their famous appetizer.  I was really sad to see the end of an era.  I guess you really can't go home again.

This last week was particularly brutal in the way of events.  From June 1 - 8, I had a Girl Scout event every single day.  In the midst of that, we had the goodbye assembly for our principal (where I cried so loudly that the kids were giving me dirty looks!) Kieran's first week of swim practice and Alysha's graduation and graduation Luau.  I had so much to do to prepare for the last Leader meeting, so that took up any free time I had.  It was quite a crazy week, and I was so happy when it was over!  But the leader meeting was nice, and I was so touched to receive a formal Appreciation Pin award and a gift certificate to ticketsnow.com to buy some Dodger tickets :)

This week is not quite as bad - we still have a 5th grade picnic and play tomorrow, and I have to wrap up the principal's goodbye present (which includes a scrapbook I need to finish so she can have a brag book for her twin grandsons), we meet with county people tomorrow to discuss the kind of services Ailish and our family will be eligible to receive, and Kieran has a birthday party to attend on Saturday. 

Oh!  Almost forgot a "this is just how my life goes" story!  So Duncan has been sneezing a lot over the past few weeks, and we couldn't tell if it was just allergies or if he had something stuck up one nostril.  I took him to the vet, who said he needed to put him under to scope his nose.  I said maybe we'll just try the allergy med first and see how that goes?  He reluctantly agreed, but also said he should be put on antibiotics.  He gave him a shot of amoxicillin in the neck and prescribed more pills for him.  I discovered that Duncan and Ailish would be on the *exact* same allergy meds!  $120 later, I thought we were done with all that.  Two days later, as I was petting him, I noticed he had a lump in his neck, but I hadn't really put two and two together.  Last week was so busy, I just wasn't thinking straight.  I told myself if the lump was still there on Monday, I'd take him back to the vet.  So Saturday morning, I woke up early to make muffins for my Cadette troop as we were having a yard sale that day.  I am in the midst of mashing up bananas when I hear Reilly whimpering.  I look over to see that Duncan is oozing all over a blanket in the den.  His abcess had burst.  He didn't seem to be in pain, but he looked a little bewildered.  At first, I couldn't figure out why he had this abcess, but then I finally realized - that was the injection site.  I wake Brad up to help me clean him up so I can finish my muffins.  So then I am getting my muffin carrier out of the cupboard and I bumped my casserole dishes, sending one to the ground.  Glass shattered everywhere.  I woke Brad up again to help me with that.  It was quite a morning!  And after all that, our troop ended up netting $8.40 from the garage sale!

I had pictures to share, but I'm not trying that again!  For now, I'm still here (just barely some days, but I am still here), and we're just doing the best we can.  Hopefully we're on the right track, and summer vacation doesn't derail us too much.

I can answer that question now

Remember when the DMH guy asked me how I was doing?  Not so hot.  It's been a rough two weeks.

I knew it would take a bit of time to settle into things, but honestly, I was hoping that at least it would be a bit of a honeymoon for Ailish.  When we'd had her home on extended visits (honestly, she had a visit that lasted longer than how long she's been home so far), she had a few minor bumps, but nothing like what we've seen.  A few examples:

When we would visit while she was at Burt, she talked a lot about how she wanted to take lessons in dance, voice, theater, cheer and tumbling.  We talked about how petite she was, and how she'd done so well at her cheer camp in Texas last summer, and she could be an excellent flyer with some lessons.  I told her she could pick two things, because combined with three Girl Scout troops, there was only so much time in the week for me to do all these things.  In the meantime, Kieran has been taking swim lessons to meet her P.E. requirements for homeschooling.  Once she got past the basics and onto the actual strokes, her teacher said she's a natural.  She caught onto the backstroke and sidestroke very quickly.  I've been wanting to get her on a team because I want her to learn the importance of practice and winning and losing gracefully.  But to put her on a team, we needed to change her lesson place.  So, Monday was Ailish's first day of school.  She was anxious but not overly so.  Once we saw her off, we had a lot of errands to run and things to get in place.  Kieran had swim that day, her very last one with her current teacher, so we made him a card - she wrote the sweetest note to him - I should have kept a copy!



This was her on the day she passed the test to go on to the next level, a few weeks ago.

So after that, we had to go to Target to pick up Ailish's prescriptions, then we had to go to the Girl Scout office, and I thought I would try to track down a new gymnastics place that had just opened.  Supposedly this coach is the best there is up here, and he just left an established gym to start his own.  We were pressed for time because Kieran had a playdate scheduled, and I had hoped to take her to the new swim place and get her tested, but we managed to find the gym and pick up a class sheet.  The classes were pricey, $20/pop, but they had an appealing combination - tumbling immediately followed by cheer, both in Ailish's age group, so I thought it would be perfect.  Thankfully, the girl told me to sign up online, so before I committed to anything, we were on our way to get K to her play date.  Next, I picked Ailish up from school, took her to get frozen yogurt, and explained about the gymnastics place.  I even told her that Kieran had asked about gymnastics, but I told her I wanted them to have their own places to feel like they could shine without competing with each other.  Ailish mulled over the schedule and she said she thought that would be good to take the tumbling and cheer together.  Agreed.  Or so I thought.  We picked Kieran up from her playdate, and I thought before I went to a Leader meeting that night, I'd run K over really quickly to her new place and get her tested.  This is one of those serious places - one where kids go on to Jr. Olympics teams and that sort of thing.  No more 5 feet deep, 20 yard long pools.  This pool was 12 feet deep!  There were several teams practicing in different lanes, while the parents assembled on risers on the side of the pool.  It was sweltering and humid, with giant fans trying in vain to cool everyone off.  But the kids were looking happy, and Kieran was so excited.  We were told where the locker room was and instructed to get her changed for her test.  As she was putting on her suit, Ailish said, "No, I changed my mind.  I want to swim."  I slowly shook my head, and tried nicely to explain that I wanted them to each have their own world.  She got very upset very quickly.  She refused to leave the locker room, so I left her there and hoped no one would notice that she was disobeying the signs all over the locker room instructing that no child should be left unattended.  We walked out to the testing area, and had to wait our turn behind two other girls.  Ailish finally slunk out of the locker room and slowly made her way to where we stood, scowling all the way.  When it was finally Kieran's turn, even though my heart was jumping out of my chest, she did not even hesitate to jump into that huge depth.  She swam the strokes she knew with ease.  There were two others that I know Kieran has done before, but they were called different things, so she wasn't sure what to do.  The tester said Miss K needed just one month of lessons before she could bump up to the team level, and noted that she has a very natural form, so Kieran excitedly left the pool and headed to the locker room.  By this point, Ailish was glowering.  She stomped her way back to the locker room, and then all the way out to the car, 10 steps behind us.  Kieran noticed after awhile and asked what was wrong.  I told her to ignore it - she was trying to get attention.

When we got home, Ailish wrote me a huge note which began with what I'd feared most.  "I hated Burt.  I faked my way through.  I learned NOTHING!"  Whether she was just angry and or whether it was the truth, I believe it's closer to the truth than she knows.  Without having to compete with either of her sisters, she is an entirely different person.  She can't stand to see Kieran succeed at something and not want a piece of it.  I wrote her back and explained that I wanted them to have their own place, and that Ailish is much more naturally gifted at other things.  I didn't mention, but know for a fact, that Ailish would have absolutely panicked in 12 feet of water.  She can't even manage 5.  We went back and forth with the notes, not really getting anywhere, but basically she said she didn't want cheer or gymnastics, she wanted nothing.  I was frustrated that I'd spent so much time and effort trying to track down the perfect class set-up for her, but at least I hadn't paid for it yet.

The next day, I had an early meeting with my Co-SUM, so Kieran came along and worked on her homework there.  She asked me if I minded if she wrote me a letter, and I said okay.  So as I'm sitting there, working on Girl Scout stuff, she hands me this note that describes in detail how Ailish has been hurting her.  Sitting on top of her, grabbing her wrists and growling at her, then cackling and jumping off.  She says she will just all of a sudden jump on her for no reason.  I asked how many times it's happened - she said five or six.  In less than a week.  My heart just broke.  This was the one thing I warned Ailish about.  I said she could have good days and bad, but the only thing we can't abide in the house is violence.  Fortunately, we went straight from our coffee meeting to the therapist's office, where Kieran could talk some more about it.  She's very scared of Ailish again, scared of the mood changes, and she says she feels so mixed up about how she should feel - she loves her so much, she wants her to be home, and yet she doesn't feel safe to be in the same room with her.  It's everything I had hoped wouldn't happen.  That night, we had Ailish's first Girl Scout meeting, and I wanted to wait until Brad got home to talk to her about what she'd done to Kieran, so we just got ready for that.  She did really well at the meeting, and Kieran was so great about staying out of the way - I'd let her bring Brad's Nintendo DS to play Animal Crossing, and she alternated playing that and keeping a few other siblings entertained during the meeting.  Not once did she come up and interrupt the meeting, something Ailish does at every single one of Kieran's meetings.  We had one the week before, and Ailish insisted on sitting in the circle, giving her opinion, etc.  When I ask her to read her book, like we'd planned beforehand, she does for a minute, but then she's back.  I can tell it irritates Kieran, and it definitely bothers me.  Kieran had to be the tagalong since she was 2 years old, and rarely did she ever interrupt a meeting.  She had to wait 3 years to get her turn at scouting, and both of her sisters were constant interruptions during her meetings.  It's very hard to tolerate.

I'll stop here and say we had to institute a rule after about day 4 of having Ailish home - she and Kieran were either on the computer or the DS constantly, so we had to give the same one hour rule that we gave for TV.  They didn't like it, but I just hate losing them completely to a virtual world.

Okay, so the GS meeting is over, we head home, and it's time to get ready for bed.  I ask Ailish to grab me a cleaning wipe because she got something sticky all over the remote.  When we were done wiping that off, I asked her to wipe the kitchen table because there was something on there too.  She had to pick up the DS, which was still open and still had Animal Crossing running.  Kieran was in the bathroom, and Ailish tried to wipe around it.  I asked her to pick it up.  She scowled at me, "It's not *mine*."  I said I didn't care, she still could pick it up and wipe around it.  She did, and then went upstairs.  K came out of the bathroom and went to pick up the DS.  "Hey!  Where's the game?!"  The cartridge was gone.  I called Ailish down and asked her where it was.  She looked me straight in the eye and said she didn't know.  I told her I knew she'd taken it because she was the last person to have it in her hand.  She said she didn't.  I told her to look me in the eyes and promise me she didn't.  She said, "Fine, I promise I didn't take it," as she stared me down.  So Kieran and I spent the next 30 minutes tearing apart the kitchen.  On the one hand, I was feeling horrible if I was wrongly accusing her.  Maybe it just fell out and here I was, assuming the worst of my child.  But on the other, I just knew deep down that she'd had something to do with it.  Finally, after searching everything in the area, I called Ailish back in.  I told her she had an hour, and that the cartridge needed to turn up somewhere - whether it was the bathroom, the dresser in their room, Kieran's pillow, Brad's desk, my desk, it needed to appear somewhere, or she would be earning the money to replace it.  She stalked off.  10 minutes later, Kieran found it taped to a note on the bathroom mirror, "If I only get an hour, so does SHE!"  Kieran hadn't had more than an hour, even with the Girl Scouts in there, but that was beside the point - she'd resorted to stealing and lying to make her point.  My head was reeling.  I told her to go to bed.  Kieran sobbed.

The next day, their nicer-than-any-piece-of-furniture-we've-ever-owned bunk bed and Ailish's new gorgeous dresser was due to arrive.  They gave us a four hour delivery window, but of course they arrived right when I was bringing home Ailish from school and she was due to have phone therapy with Brenna.  But I'll back up, because that morning, Kieran and Brad and I had to clean up their room so the furniture would fit.  Even though that was supposed to be the weekend project, things had just been shoved into bags and made no sense at all.  In the midst of cleaning, we found Ailish's diary, where she'd hidden three room keys she'd stolen from Kieran - you know those hotel room keys, I save them so Kieran can play with them, and they'd had a huge argument about it on Saturday.  One more thing taken from Kieran, and for no other reason but to torture her. 

So as the furniture is being built and dogs are barking their heads off, we have phone therapy.  Ailish is non-responsive, except to say that it's true, she just faked her way through Burt, and that she didn't care.  She barely made any conversation with Brenna and spent the time picking all the skin off her fingers.

So here's the best part - though we qualify for county services, we have a two month waiting list to get a therapist.  Our private therapist is definitely available, but Ailish is paranoid and thinks we've poisoned her against Ailish.  We qualify for respite care, but they don't have any trained babysitters, we just have to find our own, a prospect that is increasingly difficult.

Wednesday night, I took the girls to Alysha's last Show Choir performance.  She is a senior this year, so this is it.  Show Choir is singing and dancing together, so I thought the girls would enjoy it.  Kieran was bored to tears.  Ailish sat the whole time, eyes riveted, never moving.  Afterwards she said she knew that was what she wanted to do.  Hallelujah.  Thankfully, we have a place across the street from us (as opposed to the gym 13 miles from our house), which was once Ailish's preschool but they've expanded to offer lots of other classes, and they have, ta-da, a Musical Theater Class and a Pop Dance class.  Plus a three-day camp where she'll learn Hairspray.  I took her over yesterday to look at the schedule and pick out her classes.  I wrote out my check for $250 without a word of thanks from her.  She had completely switched from her four days of gloom and doom to giddiness.  She's been way up ever since.  She's going to be a star, she is going to win the Nobel Peace Prize for inventing solar cars, she's going to be the American Idol, you name it, she's proclaimed it in the past 24 hours.

As for school, she's perfect there, but of course.

I'm having a difficult time physically and emotionally.  The last three days have been bad ones physically.  I think the stress of it all has finally caught up and I'm just exhausted.  I know when I wake up and my hair hurts, it's not going to be a good day.  But emotionally, this is a really disappointing week.  At this very moment, we were originally supposed to be on a cruise to Alaska.  Then at this very moment, we should be at the top of the Space Needle.  And then, when we knew Ailish was coming home and we had to readjust our plans again, we should at the very least be packing for a weekend getaway to Pismo Beach.  But since we can't trust her with Kieran, we don't want to saddle Brad's parents with that, so we've had to cancel everything.  I didn't resent her for having to cancel Seattle - I made the decision to bring her home early.  I knew what that meant.  I did it for reasons beyond my control, but still, I could have ignored that and left her there until June.  But the weekend thing, that was the last thing I had to hold onto.  Most days, I feel like Brad and I barely keep our head above water, and I was looking at this as a huge life raft.  I feel like we were out in the middle of the ocean, dog paddling for days, and we saw the raft coming towards us, giving us hope, when something came along and snatched it away from us.  Some days I wonder just how much longer we can keep paddling.