It was an awesome fall day yesterday and all the kids had the day off from school. We did a bunch of fun things and I decided to end the day making carmel apples with them. We had gotten a cool little machine shaped like a big red apple that you use specifically for making candy apples (it's like an electric fondue pot) and had plenty of apples left from apple picking. They came out great, the kids ate one last night and I told them to save one for today. Well, Alex had dipped his in carmel and chocolate and thought it was the greatest thing ever so wanted both last night. Talk about begging, for an hour he yelled and whined that he wanted a second apple - couldn't do it. He has to follow the rules like everyone else, and he had already had sweets that day so my answer was no.

This morning I knew he was up to something because I heard him sneak downstairs (I was already down there) and go into the fridge. By the time I got into the kitchen he had already managed to hide his apple. He knew I would not let him eat it for breakfast so he hid it in the pantry closet, hoping to get in there, close the door and munch away! He tried telling me it was healthy because there was an apple buried underneath all that chocolate and carmel. Sometimes I want to be the fun mom who lets them eat sweet gooey things for breakfast, but with Alex if I do it once, he will expect it every day.

We have a reward system for Alex, so he picks one thing to work for each day. I print a picture off the computer of what he chooses and he brings it to school with him. If he has a great day, he earns it. One of his favorites is going to Blockbuster to pick out a DVD, especially SpongeBob. This is great and easy except he likes to hide them so he can keep them longer than a day so the $1 rental turns into $10 by the time I find them and return them. Why not rent them for a week you ask? Because that would blow the whole reward process - he earns it for the day only, that way he has to continue to try every day to do his best - if he knows the DVD is still at home for him to watch (he knows how to work all the TVs and DVD players in the house so will try to start a movie even if I have said no) he may not give the day his all and still think he can come home to his show.
And if I did decide to rent it for the week, he would tell me he wants a different DVD anyway, that he is bored of the one he just watched. Can't win and I don't want to go broke at Blockbusters! So, today is the day to return his movies, 2 from this weekend, and they are no where to be found. I called school who checked with him and sure enough, they are in his backpack hidden in a sweatshirt. He got on the phone with me from school and when I questioned him about taking them after we had just discussed why he can't do this anymore he replied, "that's just how I roll mom." Really? Do I laugh or yell??

Alex was home sick yesterday, so he wakes me up this morning and says, "Exciting news mom, I' feel better! And more exciting news, I stayed in my own bed all night - do I get a treat? " First, such a cute way to wake up, the way he says "exciting news" makes me laugh, second, great that he isn't sick, and third, he did stay in his bed all night, but forgot to mention that he still was up about 7 times during the night asking me for water and to sit with him in his room. And at 3a.m. when I try to crawl in his bed with him because I am cold and tired and don't feel like sitting on the floor, he tells me that his bed is too small for both of us and that I should move down on the floor, and while I'm there I can rub his back for him. And if I want to lay with him I should probably get him that bunk bed he's been talking about, that way I would have my own spot! Clever boy....

He obviously was feeling better because when I got downstairs he was already donned in an apron, chefs hat and oven mitts, and had numerous food items and bowls, plates, spoons, etc out on the table. He told me he was the chef this morning and was making breakfast. This is why he cannot be left alone for long - he had the blender out for smoothies, the toaster, things he could have gotten hurt on. Always love his effort and creativity, but MAN, the cleanup sucks!

Well, we scheduled his procedures for reflux and blood work at the hospital for Fri Oct 16. The procedures plus blood work (which they are thankfully doing while he is under anesthesia)will only take about 20-30 minutes - but we will be in recovery for about an hour. I HATE when he wakes up from surgery - he is so irritable and disoriented, the poor kid is calling for me when I am right next to him. It has gotten better as he has gotten older, but he still comes out fighting, pulling his IV out, pulling the monitor patches off, etc. trying to get out of bed insisting he is ready to go home. He overheard me telling someone that he is going back to the hospital and he is already panicking - it breaks my heart to have him this frightened.

But no worries, he is still his feisty self. Last night we went to open house at his school which was very fun, they have a book fair, pizza dinner and open house all at once so the whole family enjoyed the night. He was so polite and introduced us to everyone, showed us around and was very proud. Because we got home late, I told him he could take the trash and recycling to the curb in the morning (this is his weekly chore) and he agreed. Well, when I told him it was time to do that before his bus came, he told me he didn't feel like it, he was busy getting ready for school which is much more important than chores, and wasn't doing it ever, and ended with, "there's nothing you can do about it mom - what are you gonna do about it?" Funny, funny boy of mine, I told him that was fine, and that it was too bad he would miss dessert night and family game night tonight. "Just Kidding mom, jeez!" was his answer on his way out to the garage......

So, I was right - Alex's reflux has surfaced again. We were at the GI doctor yesterday and they confirmed it, BUT, they still want to do an endoscopy at the hospital, and possible colonoscopy too, to see how much damage there is and what medicine is right for him, blah blah blah. this poor kid hates hospitals soooo much from being there so many times, he goes into panic mode as soon as he sees the building as we drive up to it. If I tell him too soon about his upcoming appt. he will have nightmares about "the mask" that they have to put on his face to put him to sleep. We actually have to medicate him before he even gets into the surgical room otherwise he will start shaking be pretty combative and they have to hold him down on the table, and my heart can't really take that anymore.

On the bright side, they took another x-ray and the metal disc that he swallowed is gone!

Oh, and I had to pick him up from school early to take him to this appt., and when I got there he only had socks on his feet. He has this thing about certain shoes and usually wears flip flops, crocs, or boots in the winter. He has been wearing socks on gym days just during gym and thinks its great. When I sent him off to school he had just socks on but his crocs were in his backpack - or so I thought. He had taken them out and hid them in the garage so he could wear socks all day long. Now it's raining out and he has no shoes and I need to take him into a Dr. 's office. So guess who gets to give a piggy back ride to a 100 pound boy up 3 flights of stairs? Yup, I'm the lucky winner! I had a roomful of mothers looking at me like I was the worst, letting my son out in the rain with no shoes. Puuhlease...that is so normal in my world!!

It sometimes baffles me how much Alex knows, how smart he is, but will still do things that make absolutely no sense to me. He asks me to check the weather on the computer every morning, wants to know what to expect from the day. When I tell him it will be rainy he will say "And cloudy too, right? Because nimbus clouds make the rain." Or he will take an interest in a certain animal and want to know all about it, most recently skunks, and he told me they are nocturnal like raccoons and bats so we should be careful when we pull in our driveway at night.

Now maybe that is no big deal for a typical 10 year old, but with the odds that have been stacked against him from the very beginning, I am pretty impressed. So why doesn't this train of thought apply to everything? Like when he sneaks outside to play when he is not allowed to open the door without asking permission, especially today while I was helping the girls with homework and making dinner, and when I find him out front and walk towards him telling him to come in, he runs to the truck, gets in , and locks the door. Or when I tell him we are having homemade soup and bread for dinner and he throws himself on the floor screaming like a maniac because he wanted me to order Chinese food - all I wanted him to do was eat dinner, a healthy dinner, not scrub toilets. I know, I know, it comes with the territory, lots of unanswered questions, and lots of questionable behavior. The extremes can be , like I said, baffling.

The girls bus comes first, Alex's bus about 30 minutes later, so he has a little time to play before he leaves. This morning he decided to take Bella's battery operated car for a spin around the driveway and up to the cul-de-sac. He was doing all these crazy moves in the car, and going forward , reverse, parking it, then yelling for me to watch carefully. Like I would look away for a second! When he saw his bus coming up the street, he pulled back in to the driveway and asked me where he should park it, so I told him back in the garage. He did then came up to me and said, "So mom, did I pass?" Pass what?? "Do I get my drivers license? Did I pass the driving test?" I told him he had a lot more practicing to do, and he told me to make him a pretend licence while he was at school because he is sure he will pass the test when he gets home. And you know he won't forget about it, so I better get busy...

At 5:45 this morning the doorbell started ringing repeatedly, ding dong ding dong ding dong, fast and furious. It is one of those noises that bolts you upright in bed and starts your heart racing before your feet even hit the floor running. It is Alex, standing on our sun porch ringing the bell like a mad man - even after he sees me through the glass he keeps ringing it, like there is some possibility I can't hear it. I open the door and let him in and ask him what is he doing?!! Very calmly he says, "I was locked out. There was a noise on the porch, I went to see what it was and closed the door behind me." Well, the noise turned out to be rain on the skylights and after he realized that, he wanted back in. What better way to get help than to pound the hell out of the doorbell?

I was not happy that he woke everybody up on top of giving me a minor heart attack, but we went over the scenario again, just to be sure it wouldn't happen again. He promised that if he needed to investigate on the sun porch again, he would unlock the door before he goes out or leave it open a crack so he can get back in with no problems (which he usually does, I guess the rules are different at the crack of dawn). Sounds good, problem solved. But wait, knowing the way Alex works, do you think he will come up with another scenario so that he will tell me he HAD to ring the bell again? I am sure he will.....So, as I am giving him this mini lecture, a beeping noise goes off and he says, "You know what that means mom, your coffee is ready!" And he takes off. He was right, the coffee was done brewing, and he was also right in knowing coffee in the morning wins out over pretty much anything...

Alex came downstairs this morning all dressed and told me to look at his feet. I did and he had mismatched socks on, actually he had 3 pairs of mismatched socks on each foot and told me it was Friday, crazy sock day. Pretty fun, I thought, school is having crazy sock day! "No, mom, school didn't say it's crazy sock day, I made it up. It's craaazy sock day, ok?" Ok.......

As I tucked Alex into bed tonight he said, "Come here mom, get closer." I did and he gave me such a big hug and kissed my cheek about 10 times and told me I was the best mom on earth, the best mom"ever, ever, ever..." How sweet is that? He usually doesn't let me kiss him now that he is 10, and I usually tell him to get over it because I am going to kiss him forever, "ever, ever, ever..." Sweet dreams my little bubby....

Like every day when Alex's bus pulls in and I go to undo his harness, I ask him how his day was. Most days he will say, "great day mom" or "good day mom, no codes (which means he didn't follow directions, wasn't safe, etc. and the "code team" had to escort him to what they call inhouse which is a room where kids go to collect themselves until they are ready to get back on task. Actually Alex calls it JAIL and the teacher who runs the room the SHERIFF!) Today he said, 'Uhhhh, it was OK. I had one code, but it's fine mom, really. I had a good afternoon."

He got off the bus and we went to sit down to look over his daily book so I could see all the things he did (social studies, math, etc.) and any problems he had. I gave him a chance to tell me what caused the code and he said he was in music and didn't feel like joining in and following directions. Well, that didn't seem so bad to me. Yeah - he left out the part that when his teacher said he had to join in or leave the room he spit at her, twice. Nasty! If there is one thing I cannot stand it is spitting. And there it is, that lack of filter with Alex, see, most kids would never dare to spit at their teacher, they may think it, but would never do it. Well, he did it and got in trouble. The good part is that by the time they got him to inhouse he was able to sit at a desk and talk about it, then go back to music and apologize.

I give those teachers so much credit....

This morning Alex decided to have a little fashion show while he was deciding on what to wear to school. He must have come down 8 or 9 different times with a new outfit on each time. Wow, he has some fashion sense that bubby of mine - sleeveless sweater vest with shorts a tie and baseball hat, sweatpants, white t-shirt, a black tuxedo jacket and green crocs, bathing suit bottoms, long sleeve shirt, visor, and a winter scarf around his neck - those are a few of my favorites. He wanted to know which was my favorite, uhhhh, how do I pick? I was able to remind him he had gym today so he came back down in gym shorts, a t-shirt and a sweatshirt (phew!) He certainly is original.....

I took the kids to pick out some mums and pumpkins for the yard, and most of the kids decided on small white pumpkins that they could paint when they got home. Alex decided he wanted a big orange one, and did a good job picking it out. But he is a man on a mission, and first wanted to carve it as soon as we got home - got out newspaper, a butter knife, and a spoon. I tried to tell him if we carved it now, it would rot soon and he wouldn't be able to keep it very long. He bought into it pretty quickly, which is a bit scary because it means he already had a plan B.

And he did - pumpkin pie. He doesn't like pumpkin pie, or any pie for that matter, and I explained to him it was a lot of work to make pumpkin pie from scratch, that it wasn't like pouring brownie mix in a bowl with some eggs and water, it was time consuming. I wouldn't mind going through the process with him, but I had a bunch of people showing up for brunch about 30 minutes later, and it just wasn't happening.

As I said, a man on a mission - he got out bowls, pie pans, beaters, etc. and wasn't even listening to what I was saying - actually at one point he put his hands over his ears and said, 'blah, blah, blah, I am not listening." Had to distract him quickly or this was going to go south fast, and thankfully the doorbell rang - literally saved by the bell! Some of our company showed up early, yeah!

Sometimes completing the simplest of tasks seem overwhelming. Our friends and neighbors were having a big Labor Day cookout and I was responsible for making some appetizers. Well, they also rented a big bounce house which is great, except Alex doesn't do very well in them - he has a tendency to get a little crazy, jumping around without really paying attention to others and their space. If he accidentally lands on someone, he may think it is fun or funny and continue to do so. Clearly, not everyone likes being super flied or having this fun bounce house turned into a MAM ring.

While I was trying to cook in the kitchen, he kept trying different escape routes to get across the street into the bounce house which was inflated and full of kids already. So appetizers that should have taken 30-40 minutes took much longer due to the need to basically keep him in lock down until I could go to the party with him.

These situations arise all the time, where I have to watch him constantly, and stay one step ahead of him mentally and one step behind him physically. Makes everyday tasks stressful and sometimes exhausting. Part of the journey I guess!

No sleep

One of the worst things is lack of sleep, and at 10 years old Alex still doesn't sleep through the night. We had a big cousin's sleepover last night, they all went to bed late and Alex was up twice during the night, then at 4 a.m. he came into my bed. It would be ok if he went right to sleep, but he asks me to rub his back until he falls back to sleep. So, I start out saying no, then after minutes of whining, and my desperation to get some rest, I give in and rub his back until I can't feel my arm anymore. Of course, the minute I stop he bolts up and tells me he's not asleep yet and the cycle starts again.

Needless to say, he never really falls back to sleep and at 5:45 decides to go check on everybody else. I am able to stall him for a bit, but poor Meghan starts coughing non-stop and the rest of the gang wakes up anyway. And at 6:30 (after getting to bed at 1, and waking up at 4) I am serving breakfast and the coffee is not brewing nearly fast enough.

Alex's nights usually start with him waking up a few times between 11 and 2, then somewhere after 2 he makes his way into my room and insists on getting in to my bed. I am not an idiot, and know I should be firm and walk him back to his own room and do this continually until he gets the point, but after 10 years of not sleeping well along with stressful days, I wimp out. At some point I will be strong, just not this weekend.

We have done sleep studies, there is nothing medically wrong to cause these night time wakings. When he was an infant and until he was about 4, he had severe reflux which would cause him to wake frequently, but other than that, we just add it to the list of mysteries. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep on his part only adds to his tendency to act out, he has got to be exhausted too. Dr.'s have told us to put him on sleeping pills, but seriously, how much medication can one child take? I am such a freak about chemicals that I don't even like giving Motrin half the time! We have a full day planned, hopefully there will be Dunkin Donuts drive thrus along the way....

I was going through some old pictures on Kodak Gallery, need to order some for a school project, and came across Alex's First Communion photos. He had a practice day with the rest of the kids and their parents the week before the actual Communion, and he did really well. There was a number of activities and stations for the kids to go through, and then we came to the actual practice - you know, walking down the aisle, taking the fake host and putting it in your mouth, then taking a sip of wine.

Well, it is dead silent, all the parents in the pews watching while the kids parade up. Alex is last in line, waiting patiently. He takes the host, takes it in his mouth, then takes the wine, the wine that you are supposed to SIP, and proceeds to chug it like he's at a keg party, not church. He ends up finishing the wine, yes all of it, then wipes his mouth on his sleeve and lets out a loud, "aahhh." I hear some of the parents laughing, I was not one of them, although looking back I do think it's pretty funny, and the woman running the practice who had handed him the cup said, "Well, good thing he was last!"

Embarrassing moment #3 million - I told you there usually isn't a dull moment!

Feeling a little anxious today - I can sense some upcoming medical procedures with Alex. I have noticed him coughing and choking at meals lately, and in his words "throwing up on my tongue" which typically means his reflux is flaring up again. This means going to the hospital to put him under for the procedure to ensure that it is his reflux, then they can start the course of medication which will probably last about 3 months. Just what he needs, more meds on a daily basis!

My other concern is his eyes. He has had 9 eye surgeries so far, I think I mentioned that, and I have noticed he is having trouble seeing again, plus he has told me he sees "the black thing" floating in his eye which they said should have gone away by now. I HATE eye surgeries - too many risks involved and such a long recovery period. After all his procedures I am not even sure how much is left to do to his eyes, let's hope I am just thinking the worst.

Do you remember when you were little and your parents would tell you they would take away the pain or the illness and absorb it themselves, just so you wouldn't have to bear any type of hurt or discomfort? Now I know exactly what they meant...

My sister just reminded me of a really cute thing Alex did to her when we were on vacation this summer - he had been goofing around with her, rough-housing a bit and walked up to her and totally out of the blue held out his hands and said,"Auntie, can I have this dance?" It was so cute and unexpected! They danced for a couple of minutes and after she hugged him and thanked him for the dance he told her she needed dance lessons,that she wasn't that good, and that he would give her one the next day! These are the moments that keep me going....

Today was Alex's first day of school! And for a child who doesn't roll so well with change, we had a lot to deal with this morning. A new van driver, a different van with no cd player so he can listen to his favorite music on the way to school (Hannah Montanna, Camp Rock, Bon Jovi, etc) and a last minute phone call to let us know he will be in a new classroom with a new teacher. So, there were a lot of tears, telling me he was soooo nervous, please go on the van with me mommy, please come to school with me, what if my new teacher is strict, on and on. After about a half hour I was able to convince him to get on the van and then slowly pry his arms off me to leave for school. Then I went inside and cried. It was tough for both of us. But it turns out he had a great day and I took him to Blockbuster to reward him with a movie rental!

I just sat down to play "Ants in the Pants" with Alex, and he looked across the table at me and said, " Hey mom, it's on, you're going down puppy face, we'll see who wins this game." Are you kidding me? Where does he get this stuff from? I haven't laughed that hard in a while.....

I was thinking when I got up this morning that since today is the 2nd day of school for the girls and Alex doesn't start until tomorrow today might be quiet and uneventful with Alex. NOPE! Bella had a mini meltdown and didn't make it to the bus in time so I told her I would drive her, we had plenty of time. Next thing I know I can't find Alex anywhere, there isn't even any noise coming from another room. As I am calling for him, explaining we need to leave to take Bella to school I hear him asking for help - actually it was "Mom, help, get me out of here!" He had squeezed himself into one of the pantry closets and broke the door off the slider so he was stuck in the small spot on the floor under the shelves, unable to open the door. He was hiding so he didn't have to go with me to drop Bella off.

When I got him out, he decided he would go with us (like he ever had a choice) but he needed to "get something" first. Ten minutes later he has his school backpack stuffed with who knows what, dressed in shorts, t-shirt, hat, binoculars, boots, walkie-talkie, the works. He said he decided he isn't going to his school Gengras anymore, he wants to go back to Latimer Lane school with his sisters. And just in case they didn't have a teacher ready for him today, he was dressed to work "security" for them, guarding the school outside so no person or wild animal would bother the kids while they were at school. Thus the binoculars - he is able to spot danger from a mile away apparently - and the walkie talkie so he can call them and tell them what is going on as he patrols.

Needless to say, poor Bella was a little late to school, and it took some bribing to get him to leave school grounds with me.