Trying to help my son.....

 

This kid is one cool dude! Totally Rad man, Cowabunga! (ok so he is a Ninja Turtle fan too)

          As some of you may or may not know my son is having trouble with paying attention, getting things done in a timely manner, and we are working with the school to find out what is going on in his little head! BUT for now, we are basically on our own trying to help him the best we can until these evaluations get done, which sadly, might NOT get done this school year (even though we have been after them to do it since early December!)

          One challenge we have struggled with is HOMEWORK. It is hard to get him to focus on it and often it appears he does not understand what he is supposed to be doing (aka doing all addition on a multiplication worksheet) So I end up spending a lot of time working with him to get the homework done, which leaves his 6yr old sister sitting there ignored completely until I can get him to focus on homework. Sometimes that can take an hour or two, while she sits there bored, or watching tv which is unfair to her, but I cant ignore his need for help, either. Caught in the middle, as the only one here when they get home from school every day, I am on my own with this issue. I am working today on coming up with a Daily Homework Planner for Devin so that when he gets home I can get out his homework, and write in the planner what he is supposed to do for each homework item, set a time goal for each homework item and a place to check off if we made that goal or not. We are going to have a Daily Goal Plan, Weekly Goal Plan and Monthly Goal Plan, each with their own set of rewards if goals are met. For Daily Goals the reward will be staying up 10 minutes later than "bedtime" for each assignment completed PROPERLY in the time frame. "bedtime" in our house is 7pm for the kids, they go up to their rooms and get to watch a movie until 7:30pm or so, to unwind from the day. So if he has 3 assignments, he would be able to earn 30 extra minutes of play time downstairs before heading up to watch a movie before bed, thus actually getting to stay up until 8pm or so (although, he will likely fall asleep before that LOL!) Since "staying up late" seems to be a big deal to him right now I figure it is a good starting reward, even just staying up 10 minutes later than his sister makes him ridiculously happy LOL! For a Weekly Goal reward it will be a little easy at first, so that he can see that his work is earning him something, and gradually we will increase the hardness. SO for now if he meets all his daily goals at least TWICE during the week he will earn the weekly reward, which will be a trip to the local ice cream place for a kiddy cone for him AND his sister (thus giving her the incentive to leave him alone while he does his homework...muhahahaha) The Monthly Goal will also be a little easy this first round, he will need to meet his WEEKLY goal at least 2 weeks, to earn a trip for him and his sister to the Maine Jump, a local indoor play park with bouncy houses that they LOVE going to, but at $10 per kid, we dont go to often! (they get unlimited play time though, so that is fun)

          I looked online and got some ideas, but nothing is matching what I want for him so I am going to have to give it a go and make my own. First things first, my kid is a pretty visual kid (like his mommie) and he like bright graphics and colors... so for a graphic I am going Ninja Turtles as that is his current "thing", amusingly his favorite character is Michelangelo... the absentminded, distracted, laid back turtle... while my daughter's favorite one is Leonardo, the thinker and leader.... hmmmm they chose turtles just like them.... odd! LOL! So I picked this graphic for the Daily Goal page:

Going to have the page say something like, lets attack that homework! Something motivating and silly.

For the Weekly Goal page I thought this one would work:

along with THIS one:

That is the logo for the ice cream place here in town. Gonna add the words "keep your eyes on the prize" 

And for the Monthly Goal page I like these two, a ninja turtle and the Maine Jump logo with a You Can DO It type comment.

So those are the graphics.... now for the WORK... Going to use MS Word because, well it is what I have, and I am good at it!

Here is the FINISHED Daily Homework Planner page

Here is the FINISHED Weekly Goal Tracker

And last but not least, the FINISHED Monthly Goal Tracker

Hairstyles, Pageant dresses, and Photography

          Well... My daughter's 2nd pageant is coming up. She did the first one last year and came in 3rd place. This year she is gunning for first LOL! SOOOO one of the things MOM has to do is HAIR... not to mention hand make all her outfits because I REFUSE to pay those astronomical prices for the pageant dresses when I can make something Melonie designs herself for less! So first things first I had to get a design idea going.

          Melonie was very upset that my mom, her Mimmie, would never be able to see her in this pageant (she passed away this summer suddenly) I told her that she could honor her by coming up with a dress that Mimmie would love. I gave her the outline of a dress and a box of crayons and told her to draw what ever she wanted and I would create it! She decided on a Breast Cancer/Susan G. Komen theme. My mom had been a 5yr breast cancer survivor, going on 6yrs when she passed away. So I made my little girls dreams come true!

This is her Evening Gown. (and yes, she is standing out in the snow, it was about 25f outside!)

          For her opening number outfit I got her a store bought dress that was really sparkly at K-Mart for about $10 and added a pink ribbon to the left shoulder. For her Talent she is signing Somewhere Over The Rainbow so she has a Dorothy outfit, and we added a pink ribbon to the left shoulder of that too. For Modeling she can chose what ever she wants to express herself. My kid is a punk... hard core punk metal fan... yup at 6! So she chose a punk outfit, leggings, "doc martin" style boots, tutu, and custom designed shirt that she drew and Mommie made happen....

This is the front of the outfit, the tutu has more than 500 rhinestones all hand glued... ugh...

This is the back of the shirt, SGK is for Susan G. Komen and the 08 is both the year Melonie was born and the year of our first Race for the Cure!

 

This is a close up of the sleeves, blue and gold rhinestones for our school colors.

          Now for her hair... The style she rocked for her pictures will be the same style she wears in the Evening Gown part of the pageant, it is simply two lace/cascade braids (basically you only add hair from one side while doing a french braid, and you let hair come out loose on the other side)

View from the top

View from the side

          The pink and purple is a clip of hair that she wanted to honor my mom, pink for breast cancer awareness and purple that was my moms favorite color. She will have the clip of hair incorporated into each hairstyle!

          We also have to have an 8x10 photo to submit this Saturday when she goes in to do her interview, so out came the camera, and I got a bunch of good shots, this is the one we are submitting:

             For her interview outfit she is wearing a dress that I made for when we run the Race for the Cure. It is made from the Ford Warriors scarves.

 

Here she is at the 2012 Race, we keep adding ruffles to the bottom to make it longer!

This will be her hairstyle for her interview, called a Bow Braid and is the hairstyle worn by Prim in the new Hunger Games movie Catching Fire.

 

This was our first attempt, we will keep practicing!

Going with a Hunger Games hairdo makes her happy, as she LOVES rocking a Katniss Braid any chance she gets!

   So this is where we stand so far... got to plan her talent hair do and her modeling hair do next!

 

The Struggles of finding out what is wrong

          Today is about my boy, my star, my sunshine, my muffin, my firstborn, my son Devin. Over the last few years I have noticed my little dude's attention span shrinking by leaps and bounds. I listened to people tell me it was normal, that kids his age are flighty, they don't focus well.
          This year I decided that once school started I was going to push to have this looked into, something was wrong with my little dude! BUT 2 weeks into school my mom passed away, and my son spiraled down a road of sadness that I couldn't help him out of. I was so stuck in my own grief that I just couldn't do much of anything really. By the 2nd week in September it was time to face the Race for the Cure with out my mom, but with my entire family, and many friends behind me. At the end of the race something amazing happened, I played Amazing Grace on bagpipes on my MP3 player with a speaker. We all stood together and then tons and tons of Dragonflys took off behind us, my moms favorite bug and something she had just started to collect. Suddenly my son started sobbing, the first time he had cried since the day I told him his Mimmie, his best friend was gone. My dad took him over to the side and held him, rocking him while he cried. It was sad, but also the best day in a long time, he finally let go, let go and cried and grieved. Things started to settle to normal again.
          By November I felt confident that it was time to get his attention issues looked into. I let my husband handle things, his mother is a teacher at the school, and he knows the people there. We felt that he would rock the boat less than I would, so he would try first. He approached the Principal who is also the special ed director about getting Devin evaluated. We were told that he didn't need to be evaluated, that his grades were just fine. Yeah, my kid was PASSING because we were spending 4-5 hours a night doing homework with him, struggling to focus. Eventually because my husband kept pushing, we got a review from a special education group in the school, but NOTHING was done, no report given, no help for my son. I was FED UP! It was MY turn now and honestly I am thinking they wish they had just gone along with my quiet husband! I spoke to friends at the school, got tips and ideas on how to proceed from parents who had dealt with the system. Then I wrote a letter to the school, in the letter I gave them until March 31st 2014 to come up with a written plan of action on getting the evaluation done, that I expected them to keep me informed, give me updates and work with me on getting my son the help he needs. I also let them know that he will be seeing his regular physician to be evaluated too! That day I had a phone call from the school superintendent stating that we would be working towards a resolution soon! Then a call from the school scheduling a meeting. Than a call from the counseling service assigning a caseworker to help us.
          Things are rolling along nicely now. Devin has a doctors appointment with his pediatrician on the 21st,  we have an IEP meeting at school on the 24th and a meeting with our case manager that we hired on the 25th! I am glad I have a great team backing me up from friends, to family, to Facebook only friends who just want to support us! We are lucky that we have them, and I have told the school that I WILL use them if need be, I can get my "army" together to go to the school board if we don't get anywhere with this first IEP meeting, and we have no problem marching our butts down to the state board of education if needed either!

          My son is my best buddy, my little dude, and NOTHING is going to stop me from finding out what is going on inside that little head of his and getting him the educational help he needs to succeed! I am his fiercest protector, his bright fiery mother of Scottish ancestors.... these quiet French Canadians have NO idea what they are up against!

Well I thought I was your average Mommie, but I guess I am not!

          If you asked me I would just say "Sure, I am just your average mom" but so many times friends and family have told me, "NO you are NOT your average mom, you are something else!" that I decided maybe they were right? Maybe I am Not Your Average Mommie!

          First let me explain about the "Mommie" part, I know that there are people out there right now saying "UGH, it is MOMMY, not MOMMIE!" well in our house it is Mommie, thank you! My mother went by Mimmie to my kids, rather than Nana, Grammy or Memere (more on that last one later...) and when my son was in Pre-K he decided that if she was Mimmie than I was gonna be Mommie, because we are mother and daughter. Who can fault kid-logic? It stuck and to this day that is how my kids spell it, and at first teachers correct it, and my kids say, nope it is like a NAME not a WORD, and sometimes NAMES are spelled DIFFERENT!

          Now about that Memere part I said I would explain. We live in Northern Maine, at the top of the state, on the boarder to New Brunswick, Canada. Almost everyone here speaks at least some French, a lot of them speak fluent French and English, often mixing the two languages for what we call Franglish! Memere means grandmother, and my kids have both a Memere and a Grand-Memere, oh and hey a Pepere (grandfather) too! Those are my husbands mother and grandparents, they live just a few streets over from us (eh.... small town.... his uncle lives just 2 houses down the street....)

          Now onto the "Not Your Average" part of the program... well for starters I have bright pink hair with hints of purple... YES REALLY!... The bottom 12-14 inches of my hair is pink and then there are hints of purple all thru the next 4-5 inches up, after that it is just normal brown with hints of grey! My mom had breast cancer 6 yrs ago, we have run the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure ever since, doing the 1K event. I told her when she hit 5yrs I would dye my hair pink and run the 5k for her! So I did it, and I liked it so I kept it! My mom never saw the 6yr mark for being a survivor, she died from sudden cardiac arrest on August 20th 2013. I added the purple to my hair at that point because it was her favorite color. So when people say to me "I love your hair, it is so cute!" I tell them just why it is pink and purple. Sometimes people just nod and say sorry for your loss, other times they cry and admit they are a breast cancer survivor too and thank me for supporting a great cause. Often I get a great big hug from complete strangers, which doesn't bother me in the least! I will continue to run the Race for the Cure in my mothers name with my kids at my side!

This is me and my rocking hair!

          I am a pretty crafty mom too, I knit and sew often, and cook and bake too! My daughter is my main target for my clothing sewing as she is a little punk, my son prefers his jeans and tee shirts, thanks anyway Mom! Both kids love crazy hats so I knit them some every year. The most recent 2 styles are the John Deere Dinosaur hat (green and yellow) and the Wild Hair Hats.

Here they are hiking on the trail sporting their John Deere Dinosaur hats

 At the CanAm International Dogsled Race sporting their Wild Hair hats (a Mohawk and Pig Tails)

Now let me introduce you to the cast and crew of this production!

This is me! Jaci (that is pronounced JC not Jackie!) I am a stay at home mom. I did go to college, for Animal Medical Technology, but I like being with my kids more! It does help keep the pets healthy and the vet bills down though!

This is my partner in crime, my husband James. He was born and raised here, and is fluent in French and English. He works at the local grocery store as a manager, but on his days off he is a pretty goofy guy!

This here is Thing One, also known as my son Devin. Been known to answer to D-Man, DJ and Digit! He is currently a 4th grader, loves trains, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, sledding, soccer and has the attention span of a goldfish most days!

This is Thing Two, also known as my daughter Melonie. Been known to answer to Melly, Mel, Melly-Bean and Bean. She is currently in Kindergarten, loves a punk metal band called Icon for Hire, dressing in clothes she helps design and I make, the color pink, and anything her big brother is doing (she loves just being with him)

You will see lots of this cute guy, his name is Waffles the Bear and he was my mom's bear. He came to live with us after she passed away. He goes everywhere and does everything with us. If there is some event that the kids would have wanted my mom to go to, Waffles goes in her place. He has a whole bag of clothes ranging from a snowsuit for sledding to a Cub Scout uniform for going to scouts with Devin. The kids talk to him and treat him as a member of our family and expect everyone else to as well!

This is our cute, but crazy, dog Butterball. She is a purebred yellow lab, but is very tall for her breed, standing on all fours her head comes to my hips, and she weighs close to 100lbs, not fat though, muscular. She is EXTREMELY protective of "her" babies, the kids. She does not like anyone to even walk by our house, she will bark like crazy! If someone approaches the kids, she goes berserk. I am ok with this, I like my guard dog.... most days... but when a stray leaf blowing by on the deck is seen by her as a viable threat... and she barks like mad out the window at it....well those days she is just crazy! We take her on long trips and vacations with us and she does very well, never aggressive when away from home, she puts her body between strangers and the kids at all times though.



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