Happy Birthday, Thomas!!

Thomas, my firstborn, turns 4 this week.  FOUR.  Before my eyes my adorable preschooler is slipping away forever and he is turning into a BOY.  I am so excited to see him grow, and so proud of the boy he is becoming, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t also a little sad.  In honor of his birthday I post this video with the Thomas the Tank Engine theme song… AND a Happy Birthday serenade by 50 Cent.  I stumbled across it on YouTube and it cracked me up.  Some people have waaaay too much time on their hands!  I also would like to take this opportunity to share some of the latest “Thomas-isms”.  If I don’t write them down, I forget.  We think we won’t ever forget those precious memories, but believe me, we do. 

He has been really making me laugh lately with the way his little mind works.  For example, I was fixing his hair and commented on his cow-lick.  Confused, he asked, “What’s a cow-lick?”  And when I told him, he responded, “Ohhhh… why not a PIG-lick?”

Fire! Fire!

It appears that I am trying very hard to burn my house down… or at least my kitchen.  TWO nights in a row!

The only damage is to my oven mitts, thankfully.  And maybe temporarily to our lungs.  Last night I set an oven mitt on a hot burner not realizing it was still on.  I thank God that someone was in the room to see the flames!  I grabbed it, burning, and ran out of the house into the rain.  (It is still lying on my front porch, btw)  -Phew- It STUNK!!  I had company for dinner, too!  We had to throw open the windows to let out the toxic fumes.  It was FREEZING!  And the lovely aroma of chicken picatta and garlic bread was overpowered by FUNK.

Then poor Thomas had an asthma attack this morning… was it the smoke?

So tonight I was again cooking.  I noticed the hot burner was askew, probably because of the commotion last night.  I thought I could straighten it, and silly me… figured, oven mitts are made to withstand heat, it can touch the burner for just a SECOND.  Welllll… No, no they can’t, lol.  As I saw a red glow and smoke appear I thought, “You gotta be kidding me, I did it AGAIN??!!??” and threw it in the sink to run water on it.

So now I am down TWO oven mitts, if any of you were wondering what to buy me for Christmas…

LOL

Three TV commercials have made me laugh out loud this week.  One I can’t find (it was for soup, “Who’s ‘Num Yummy?’ “, another I can’t remember… but *tadah* here’s the third!!

 

Wendy Portillo has been suspended

The Naples News reported yesterday that teacher Wendy Portillo has been suspended for a year without pay.  Click here for the full story.  Ms. Portillo came under scrutiny last spring following a Survivor-like “vote” in which she allowed other students to publicly ridicule kindergartener Alex Barton, who has an Autism Spectrum Disorder.  For the original news story click here.  I wrote two previous posts on this subject:

Florida Teacher Allegedly Lets Kindergarteners Kick Autistic Boy Out of Class in Survivor-like Vote

Let’s Not Become a Lynch Mob

 

Support Group is on a roll!

This past week we held the third Support Group meeting at my church for families of children with special needs.  We had SIX families and a staff member attend!  We would have had EIGHT, but one house was full of sickos and another tired mommy accidentally fell asleep.  Considering that this group was thrown together in August, those are really exciting numbers.  Although I would have been excited by TWO.  And everyone seems to really be connecting.

The parents have all said, “Oh I needed this so much, thank you for starting this group!” And I smile, because one of the main reasons I asked if we could form the group was to help ME!  I couldn’t find a Christian support group nearby, so I started one! But I also have a heart to help people (on my good days), and all these pent-up ministry inclinations just waiting to be used.  Funny how God works… recently I was pretty upset that things didn’t work out the way I planned with another ministry that I wanted to be a bigger part of.  I was not given the opportunity to be in the leadership role I thought I wanted and I couldn’t understand why.  I have gone to seminary for goodness sake!  I got skillz!  But now I see that God had at least 2 reasons for holding me back on that ministry: 1. to humble me and give me more of a SERVANT’S heart, and 2. if I had become a part of the leadership of that other ministry there is no way I could have helped start the support group!  So I didn’t get what I thought I wanted because God had something better in mind, even though I had to wait over a year to see what God had planned.  Think about THAT sometime.

Fun with friends

It wasn't THIS dock, but you get the idea...

 

Last weekend we hauled the family off to the home of some friends out of town for the day.  Sometimes these visits can be a recipe for disaster, especially if a home is not babyproof (read- PERCYproof).  I am happy to report that the day did not suck.  We actually had a great time, despite a few hiccups.

The home was owned by two men who had clean, minimalist decorating taste.  THANK GOODNESS!  Not a lot of things to break.  And the best part was that were was a loft area that housed a pool table.  We stuck the kids up there to play and could observe them from below, and they were content for a surprisingly long time.  SCORE!  We were actually able to visit some with our friends.  This doesn’t happen a lot for us in social situations.  Plus some out of town family met us there and Thomas especially had a fantabulous time playing with his cousins. 

Lovely Lexapro

I did it.  I’m back on meds as of last night.  After spending all day Monday lying on the couch with NO energy whatsoever and eating waaaaay too much Halloween candy I suddenly knew it was time.  I have told you all before that I had a feeling this was coming but I wasn’t quite there yet… now I am so way  there.  So I am on Lexapro, because Zoloft makes me eventually gain weight and be not quite myself.