Devon Shanor Photography Hosted ME!

Friday our family photographer, and wonderful friend, had me over to guest blog!

Professional Photography & My “Super Hyped-Up, Seems-Like-A-Sugar-Rush” Child

Yes, that's me! Devon approached me and asked if I would be willing to come on over and talk about having professional pictures done with a child like Aiden. So I did! Check it out, look at her work, you won't be disappointed!

If I Wasn't Already a WAHM

Last week I featured bullying on Thursday, but I forgot to mention a very important progression for us:
We finally got a steady set of appointments with the psychologist, and Bug has steady appointments with her.
If I weren't already a WAHM (Work-At-Home-Mom), I would have to consider doing so. Wednesdays feature Occupational Therapy for an hour, and now Psychology will be every other Thursday. Both of these are for undetermined periods of time.
I don't know how Bug feels after these, but I always feel so drained after these appointments. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's that knowledge we don't have to fight quite as hard anymore? Don't get me wrong, we're still fighting, but it's not quite as difficult.
Also, Bug read his first short story (mostly) by himself. Beaming from ear to ear? You bet I was.
Anyways! We have many an errand to run, so we're off to do that! See y'all next week! (Maybe the weekend, but bank on next week.)

Don't Talk, SING!

Bug took forever to talk. It's just a fact. He could talk, he just didn't. Sometimes he would to me, but not usually.
He may not have talked, but he could sing, and sing he did. All the time. It was wonderful.
He still does it, and that's one thing I'll always hold on to, and I hope he continues to do as he gets older.
That's all for this post, we've got things to do! Biiig things!
Okay, we have laundry. We have laundry to do.

My Boy... the Bully

*Knock* *Knock*
*Opens front door*
Little Girl: (sobbing) Bug smacked me. (sob, sob, sob)

Oh, Lord. I thought with taking him out of school to homeschool we were past this. Damn, damn, damn, damn.

Me: Okay, honey, I'll take care of it. BUG!
Bug: (with total look of guilt runs past and into the house)
Me: Why'd you hit her?
Bug: She tried to kiss me.

Trying my hardest not to smack myself in the head, I tell him to go sit upstairs and think about why it's not nice to hit. Impulsiveness is one of the hardest challenges we face with Bug. He gets the urge to do something, and he does it. That's the end of the discussion.

Does he feel bad afterwards? Not really. Does he know he should? Yes. He will apologize, too, but this has led Bug to be labeled a "bully", and one of the main reasons why we had to pull him from the private school he attended at the beginning of the school year.

Here are things we've tried:
Lecturing
Rewards for good behavior
Grounding
A pop on the butt
More lectures
Avoidance

Here are the things that haven't worked:
Lecturing
Rewards for good behavior
Ground
A pop on the butt
More lectures

Most of the time, avoidance is the only choice that we have. No, I'm not trying to make Bug a shut-in, but "normal" interaction with other children just isn't in the cards for him right now. For the most part, he just hangs out with Gnat. Listen, you've got to start somewhere.

It's awful. You get the phone call from the school saying that your child is being suspended the third week into KINDERGARTEN and you don't know what to do. Keep your head held high, and KEEP TRYING.

Also, lecture. It's droning, and it sucks, but up til we did pull him out of school, our morning drive consisted of the following conversation. It helped some, but not a lot:

Me: What is okay at school?
Bug: Playing quietly, sitting in our desk, not touching people...
Me: What isn't okay at school?
Bug: Hitting, kicking, biting, punching, pinching, throwing our pencil box, being mean...

It was a long list, that's only part of it. Keep it up. It gets better, I promise.

Happy Birthday Aunt Britt!

Today is Aunt Britt's birthday! Aunt Lissa and I are taking her out for dinner, since she doesn't usually get to celebrate.
Keep tuned in, though, Thursday I'll be featuring a post about bullying... No, not about what to do when your kid is bullied. I've found thousands of posts on that. This post will be about the "forbidden" what to do when your kid IS the bully. Not just that, but when your special needs child is the bully. Yikes.

Fun Times at the Beach, and Their Disastrous Ends

Yesterday we went to the beach.

It was pretty fabulous, until the end. We made it about two hours before we caved and left due to Gnat just being so tired and not getting any sleep at the beach. It probably didn't help that ten minutes into being there Bug dumped a pile of sand on top of Gnat's head while he was in the portacrib, so the portacrib was then it's own mini-beach.

Even that, though, we got past.

Bug collected all these awesome shells he was so excited about in his little boat/sand toys. There's only one in the picture, but there was two at some point... Somewhere.

Bug showing off his shells he collected.

Which is just it. At some point, somewhere. He was playing with the toys in the sand and buried them. No big deal. Except he couldn't remember where he buried them. Meltdown ensued. We never found them; I was pretty bummed out too because I wanted to be able to save the shells from the first trip to the beach he actually enjoyed.

Thankfully, we had Aunt Lissa with us, and she saved the day with Slurpees.
Whew. He still was upset, but it helped. Afterwards, he snuggled with me.
Yes, snuggled. That made it all better. Plus James and the Giant Peach on Netflix. Movies help, too, lol.

Good Things Don't Abruptly End... Except in Military Life

Last week was the last week of having Cowboy home with us on leave. The abrupt shift back to him working is hard, but welcomed. I'm not going to lie, I get a lot more accomplished when he's not trying to help me by letting me sleep in, lol.
Don't get me wrong, getting a chance to sleep in is wonderful. I have a terrible sleep pattern, and while I do have medication that's intended to help me, I don't take it often, and it doesn't always work when I do use it. However, he's not fully aware of everything I do in a day around the house, so he can't do it. If I sleep in, those things don't get done, which means I have to cram them in to an even shorter time span!
Now, at least we have what resembles our usual schedule again; however, he will be missed at home all the time! SIGH. #WoesofMilitaryWife

Date Night

Tomorrow is date night, and I'm ridiculously excited.
I know a lot of people grump around about people who take date nights, or even harass about time away from their children. For starters: date night is usually after kids are in bed. As a follow-up... I don't think they've ever had time away from their children with just their spouse.
Yes, I come home, and I've missed my kids. It's also one of the few times that Bug will tell me he missed me as well, so, I'll take it!
Besides, Cowboy and I have such crazy schedules, we take the little time we have for just us and enjoy the heck outta it.

So. Tired.

Life has been... hectic. To say the least. The past few days have consisted of writing and mailing wedding invitations for the long-awaited ceremony.
By long-awaited, I mean by the time we have the full wedding ceremony with the dress, and the cake, and the fun stuff, we'll be three days away from celebrating our two-year-anniversary.
SO, yeah, lol.
Gnat was up ALL night last night, so I'm going to go take advantage of what could be a minimal nap. See ya!