2012

2012 has been an intense year. A year I haven't really kept much, if any, written log of.

I wanted to. I knew I should... but I held back everytime I thought about it. I came up with a thousand different reasons why I shouldn't share our story. I still have some of those concerns but mostly I think I was just afraid of opening up. Going forward I want to combat that fear. I want to be open and keep a journal of our experiences.

I follow some blogs with some regularity. Some of people I communicate with, others because their story touches me. Some of them are careful to hide their children's names, or their locations... others share their locations and names with no issues. I probably should take more care to mask my children's identities but the truth is that this is the internet. Anyone who really wants to find out who they are is going to. And why someone would want to go through all that work really baffles me. Most of my readers already know that anyways... ya know, all 10 of you...lol.

So 2012....

We danced with child onset schizophrenia, anxiety, emerging personality disorders, autism, and ADHD. We struggled through speech delays, sensory issues, cognitive delays, and ongoing destructive behaviors. We struggled with self harm, aggression, and pathological lies.

But.... that didn't define us. That was not all we did.

We crochet owl hats, other hats, scarves, santa hats, and many failed projects...

We went to the beach.

We had play dates and formed bonds with friends who understood that we weren't going to be "typical".

We started to form bonds with each other in meaningful ways (we still have our moments, but I'll take the good when I can get it.)

We learned to ride bikes.

We got kittens!!

We sang with the school chorus.

We did so much more, as a family and separately. I went back to school, took an advocacy class, learned a lot from a few of the best friends a girl could possibly ask for, and learned not to expect anything more from someone than they are capable of giving. I know who will be there for me no matter what time, day or night, that I need them. Now I just need to learn how to ask for that help when I need it.

So wrapping up 2012 I find myself encouraged. The road will be rocky and hard but there is so much left to learn and that is really exciting!

Mittens

I am a mitten making fool. Love making the mittens. I could seriously make several pair a day if life would just stop interrupting me....lol.

Yes, that's today's post.

What I've been up to this week....

Let me start by saying that on Monday afternoon I found myself in extreme pain after coughing.... diagnosis.... cracked rib. NOT fun. As a matter of fact, incredibly painful.

Before that (and after, when I can actually function on the pain meds...) I've been crocheting. All of my ideas have come from various places on the internet... so far I can't seem to come up with my own patterns but I think I may in the future.  =)

So I started with this : 

I'll help you out here... it's a unicorn. It doesn't photograph well but its cute as hell! I made one for each of my girls and they absolutely adore them! They're quick and easy to make, and the pattern was free, which makes me happy!  =)

Well that was fun, but I wanted to do something different. A quick search for free patterns turned up this:

I made it (that's my neighbor's house in the background there..lol) and loved it. It is way too cute. But the kids wanted it and it didn't seem fun enough.... so ^ that turned into this :

 The face was all my idea and all my creation. I was quite proud of myself...lol. But there was a problem. I had one adorable pumpkin and four adorable children. I solved that pretty easily....

 There. Kids happy, problem solved. What to do now?

I decided to look around and see what I could come up with. I stumbled upon this: http://crochetingthedayaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/tunisian-crochet-how-to-basic-tunisian.html and decided to give it a try! The results were :

It was way too much fun! I really loved doing it. I could have done it all day, but I bore easily. On to the next project, but I didn't know what to do. Some clicking around here http://crochetingthedayaway.blogspot.com/ led to here http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/ and I discovered this http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/blooming-flower-cushion.html. This was a MUST do. It's in progress :

So that about covers my recent crochet journey. Kids are doing well... They're loving my crochet journey because they get cool stuff!

Finished!

It's finally done! 

It took over a year, and right now I'm snuggled up on the couch with my masterpiece. I was going to wash it but right now its keeping me sooooo warm! 

Guess its time to make more stuff animals. The kids LOVE the dragon I made last week.

Today was supposed to be a karate day.... but my lower back and my knee are not in any shape to go anywhere. I'm still waiting on the MRI to be scheduled. My back is more than likely arthritis and the bulging discs but my knee is seeming to be more serious. I went through 6 weeks of PT and made great progress but the evaluator says it is most likely a cartilage/meniscus injury. I was referred to an ortho who confirmed that those are her suspicions too and now I'm waiting on the MRI to confirm. My primary care said if it is in fact some time of injury I'm going to be looking at knee surgery. Not at all looking forward to that but trying not to get ahead of myself.

So this morning while I was trying like hell to entertain them while not hurting myself I decided to play the episodes of Sid the Science Kid that I had recorded on our DVR. The three older kids were engrossed in a matter of minutes. The episodes we watched were on inertia and elasticity. The girls really learned and are able to explain back to their daddy what they learned. This led to me printing out worksheets for the kids to do. Joelene did almost 10 math worksheets in less than an hour at a first grade level with only 1 wrong answer. And she was working by herself. She did some letters worksheets too but she doesn't like letters as well as she likes numbers.

We're having a good day.