AAACHHHOOO!

sniff, sniff, sniff...scratch, scratch, scratch...

I feel like we might be picking on poor Monkey, but rarely does he spend so much time in the spotlight. Two posts in a row!!!

He isn't like his sister whose personality screams drama. There is a very good reason why we have the rule "you break her you take her".  I have many photos of her pouting, kicking the ground, laying on the ground in anger...she is a gem until you make her mad!

Monkey is easy going and rarely throws a fit or gets upset for more than 30 seconds.

So, since Monkey doesn't have drama, he gets allergies. 

He is itchy. He has scars on his stomach, shoulders and back from scratching.

He has a scratchy throat and makes that annoying sound so few people can make when they are scratching the back of their throat and does it about 50% of the day.

His is always sniffing or needing a tissue. Even sleeps with one.

We tried several OTC allergy meds, but when you just don't know what he's allergic to, it's hard to manage and it was all a crap shoot. We thought it could be food because it is year round. There is no good season for him, so pinpointing it has been difficult. 

So I decided I'd had enough and took him to the allergist. 

Take a look at this:

10 minutes into a 15 min waiting period.

They could only do about 80% of the tests due to the size of his back so they went with the ones they thought would be culprits.  There are tests on the right and left of each line, numbered to cross reference with the cause of the allergen.  They take a small stick from a vile and just break the skin to see how it will react with the allergen. (in case you have never seen this done...)

The big red welts that look like mosquito bits are extreme reactions (he had at least 6 of those ranging in size) and the redness is another indicator that is measured in width and length. 

I am the one standing behind him blowing on his back (and taking a photo) trying not to pass out from lack of oxygen.  He got to bring a video game to help distract him and the moment I stopped blowing he would whimper. 

So, I blew on his back for 15 minutes straight whilst trying to talk to the Doctor in between puffs. 

All in all he had quite a few extreme ones that can be blamed, and many that were bad (not extreme) and a few annoying ones. Luckily dog was on the mid-lower end and not the extreme so Hank gets to continue living here :)

Unfortunately, the extreme ones each fell in different seasons. Of course they did. Heaven forbid we just have spring allergies.

What that means is that Monkey has something EVERY SEASON that he is VERY allergic to. Oh joy!

Trees, molds, grasses...all have a season and he decided to just get crazy and enjoy each season in misery.

We are trying a new medicine for 6-8 weeks to see what we can control with that.  The nose spray they want to try is $80 a month (*gasp*!). We have not tried our sample yet, need to research it some more.  

If we cannot control this a little better, he is suggesting 'shot therapy', which tones down his over reactive immune system.  I don't know. I don't like that either.

So, for now, we try 1 thing at a time and wait.

I have to say, he is significantly less itchy. HOWEVER, according to the little chart he gave me, we could be in a small lull for allergies. Small meaning less severe for him.  Still things out there he is reacting to, but less.  

I will probably wait about 3-4 months I guess, maybe longer to really see how he does. I am a good procrastinator like that...we will call it "keeping our eye on it" not "I really don't want to take 3 kids to the Dr. by myself again".

Sorry if that photo made you want to itch your back...

Cheers!

Some Home School days...

are hard.

and challenging.

and frustrating.

That was yesterday.

Monkey is learning to read.

At a VERY. SLOW. PACE.

I have no experience with this. This is what I know:

A-Dog:
A-Dog was half way done with Kinder (6 yrs old) when we realized that they had no intention of teaching him to read.  It was eye opening, but he was our first experiment child. So, I bought a set of popular learn to read books and taught him in about a week. He really struggled emotionally with school and separation. I think he was in 2nd grade before I could leave him at school without tears. So, academically, I never pushed...until I realized he should probably learn to read.  

Although, then I could no longer say things like "oh, no, shucks, McDonald's is CLOSED!!  See? It says CLOSED...rats...sorry, next time".  Not that I would, but if I wanted to, I couldn't because he learned to read quite quickly with little help from us (and is a straight A student with High School Honors classes).

Agent P:
Agent P would start Kinder when he was only 5 and 2 months, so he was shuffled off to pre-school when he was 4.5. We thought he should experience something in his life that didn't revolve around his younger twin siblings. It was not easy being Agent P during the twins first 3 years, let's face it, it was not easy being ME either :).  

Week 2 of preschool I got 'the call'. 

It was mostly panic and that gut feeling of 'oh, geez, I knew he was going to get himself in trouble in preschool.' Because while I love him dearly, at age 4.5, I feared he was ready to turn the corner into downright...well naughty.  And probably deprived of attention.

Luckily, she was only calling to ask me if I knew that he knew 40 sight words.

I had no clue. 

Remember, at this time, I was still trying to get thru each day with some sort of sanity at the end. I was happy he knew his name and how to dress himself. I was up for all sorts of Mom of The Year awards, obviously.

Apparently he knew all 100 sight words through Kinder and well into 1st grade. Who knew?  From there he just read books of all kinds, could decipher words that even didn't make phonic sense. 

Mini P:
This girl has always, always, always loved books. Loved to be read to, loved to pretend to read...loved workbooks, coloring and anything resembling school.  By 2 she could identify all letters upper and lower case. Not because I taught her mind you, remember, at this point I was still hoping to shower each day...and remember to do laundry.

So, when she taught herself to read before she turned 4, I wasn't surprised but I certainly didn't encourage it :)  She would say "what does this spell?" And then spell a word while I was driving. Have you ever tried to mentally spell a word when someone spells a word out loud to you? And have you ever had to figure out what they meant when they started over mid-way because they messed up?  Made my head spin.  But, that is how she learned to read.  At 5, she reads at a 2nd grade level, full comprehension. If she doesn't know what a word means, she usually will ask.

Monkey:
Oh Monkey. How I adore this sweet, good natured boy. He is what we call our 'observer'.  He notices things that no one else does. He points out things about trucks and cars, like 'that truck has wheels like Dad's truck', or 'that truck is just like Grandpa's except" blah blah blah.  He would rather watch than participate and he absolutely loves watching the navigation arrow on my new truck that shows where we are going.

He can put legos together like no one's business. He studies the directions and is very good at coming up with his own creations that are actually quite well done. He has even brought it to my attention that I messed up one of the truck I put together for him.

But he can barely recall any words he has learned. He knows about 6 sight words (after 4 weeks) and has completed about 5 lessons in Phonics (which is about 4 ending sounds).  I can't go any further because he hasn't mastered them yet. He sees them in his Phonics book and says them, but looking at a flashcard he can't always identify them. Or if he does, it isn't quickly.

I'm not talking hard words. 

I'm talking about: and, he, on, or, no, the, mat, cat, pig, cap, tap...

He tries so hard. He wants to do it.

His brain just doesn't cooperate.

It's just not his thing.

And it is very hard on me too. It tries every (im) patient cell in my body to help him with the same word over and over and over and over. No matter how simple I think it is, it isn't for him.  I don't mean to be impatient and I rarely let it show...

But sometimes I have to just end the teaching...

So I don't scream.

Or yell at the top of my lungs "BAT! The word is BAT!!"   :)

So, today is Friday and we don't do school on Friday (unless Agent P hasn't finished something). 

Thank goodness for me.  

Cheers!

Some Christmas memories

Pretty soon, you will be reading about Christmas in July. That's the pace my life seems to be taking lately. 

I thought as the kids got older, it would get easier and I would have my act together.

I was wrong. Very wrong.

I didn't even post about Thanksgiving. It was awesome. There. Now you know!

I've decided that just so that no one ever feels left out or neglected, I will no longer be purchasing any sort of cards. Ever again. No birthday, no Valentine's, nothing. Sorry Hallmark.

Well, maybe Christmas...or New Year's at least. To mail by St. Patty's Day.

It's not personal.

I'm just terribly inconsistent.

You have been officially notified via blog, no notice will be sent out...obviously.


Lots of events that went on over the last few weeks of Christmas...

My sweet husband's work party was at a local resort that has a winter event the exact same weekend. So, we stayed the weekend. Santa arrived on Friday night in his helicopter.  It was spectacular to say the least.  

View from our room - helicopter landed behind pool

The Big Guy's ride

The rest of the weekend was spent doing this:

decorating cookies

Horse Carousel

Sledding on the snow they brought in :)

Lobby view - the tree was HUGE

Our annual picture of the kids in front of the tree

Christmas Eve church

Christmas Eve with cousins

Christmas morning

Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa

There you go. Lots of pictures, very few words...just like you like it :)

Cheers!