Their Back

I am happy to report that the Riley and Lorenzo had a great morning and seemed excited to get back to school. They had such a short summer break (only 6 weeks) but they seemed ready to be back. Lorenzo was happy and I hope it stays that way for a little while. As I was packing his backpack and getting all of his papers together last night I started to have what felt like an anxiety attack. I was reading what the expectation are for 1st grade and about homework policy and was thinking there is no way Lorenzo will be able to do this. We will be having another IEP meeting soon, and his requirements are different but it still makes me sad when I think he is not the same as all the other little boys.

He has not been very stable the last few months and they have almost tripled his meds. We are meeting today to do some med management and an EKG. I think they will be adding something else, as we cannot go up on his dose any more. His evaluations start on Thursday and I am hoping that will give us a better idea of his strengths and weaknesses so we can better know how to help him in school.

Riley is doing great, I think I sometimes take him for granted as a lot of our time and energy goes into Lorenzo. He got a hair cut yesterday and as he was sitting in the chair he looked so much like he did when he was a baby, I almost started crying at the barbers, I just cant believe he is growing up so fast.

Liam had his 3-year-old check up today and I am happy to report he is on the growth chart now!!! He is only in the 5th percentile but we will take what we can get. He is starting to talk a lot more and we are just working with the therapist now on diction and forming the words so that they are more understandable.

Jeremy and I celebrated our 10th anniversary yesterday and although we just went out for an early dinner we had a wonderful time. It was nice to have some time alone without the kids especially since when we got home it was a race to get everything ready for school and still fit in home evening.

Giant Centipede

Centipedes just become part of life when you live in Hawaii, although I may not be as scared of them as I used to I still do not like them. At Church today while we were getting ready for sharing time Irene Draper our 1st counselor let out a little yell and said “centipede” We had one of our Valliant 10/11 teachers Franz Hoffman in there setting up and he came over to help take care of it. He had on closed shoes so I just though he would step on it a few times, so I was very surprised when he took out a pen and a thumb tac and started to remove its front pincers. Irene got him some scissors and he then cut the pincers off, picked it up and took it out side. He did not want to kill it. Brother Hoffman is a big man from Tahiti and is one of the kindest gentlest people I have ever met. He has really helped one of the boys in that class who was always in trouble and I would say it is nothing short of a miracle to watch the two of them and how much this boy has changed. I did not know exactly how kind and gentle he was until today, not many people would spare the centipede.

Good Day

I do not know if it was because I had a couple of day’s off running or if it was just a good day but I hit a personal best running time today. I ran 7 miles in 63:45 and I even walked 1/8 of the mile at the end. Whatever it was, it felt good. I had to take a picture of it so Jeremy could see when he gets home from Kaua’i.. Today is technically Liam’s birthday but we celebrated it on Monday as Jeremy was going to be gone today. He had fun and has been calling himself “Jones” because my sister sent him an Indiana Jones hat and backpack. He is so silly, he just makes us laugh.

I once caught a fish "this big"

Jeremy took the scouts fishing on Friday and Lorenzo, Liam and I got to tag along. Lorenzo wants so much to be like all the big boys, he waited until all of the other boys had their lines cast and then it was his turn, he was so patient! He was the only one who caught a fish. It turned out to be a “nightmare weke” which we looked up and apparently really can give you nightmares, glad we threw it back!.

Fun without TV

We did it; we finally canceled our cable so we are now without TV. The kids were a little upset about our decision but when we told then the up side to this would be more time to spend as a family doing things like reading and playing games they were all for it. As we never did watch it that much it really has not been hard.

Last night we played Risk together and while I hate to play this with Jeremy (he will pick someone go after them and try to wipe them out and totally disregard his own mission, he has made many people extremely upset while playing games) it was a lot of fun. Riley ended up taking over the entire world and won. He was very excited and he ended up showing us his celebration dance that was more fun then the game in my opinion.

Not much to report on. Olivia went back to UT Monday so we have been a little lonely but other then that just the same old same old out here. Riley’s class at the University of Hawaii ends Friday so we are looking forward to a couple of weeks of down time before school starts on the 29th.

We had a nice 4th of July. We ended up taking the kids to the block party on base and needless to say they had a great time. Olivia did not want to do any of the rides or games this year; it is so hard to believe she is growing up. She will always be my little Livi.

Liam had his first dentist appointment this week and loved it. Speaking of growing up to fast I cannot believe he is going to be 3. It makes me sad to think he is no longer my baby (he tells us this all the time, “not baby, big boy”)

Lorenzo has been doing relatively well, we will be starting our full blown evaluation and testing in a couple of weeks but right now his mood seems to be a bit better but we are noticing more of the autistic traits and characteristics. The Doctor’s keep reassuring us that he is high functioning and has every hope of a good outcome but it is still hard for me. I guess some of it is denial but I feel like I am coming to terms with it.