Magic Buttons for my Magic Boy

Last night's car ride went a little something like this...

"Mom, I have 1,000 magic buttons.  Did you know that?"
"Yes buddy.  I do know that.  Which is your favorite?"
"Well, definitely my love button.  Because it's just full of love and it doesn't hurt anyone.  No one dies from it and they just are happy from my love."
Heart clench.
"My second favorite is my leaf button because I am food for the bugs.  I don't like to touch the bugs but they can eat me instead."
Chuckle.
"I also really love my gummy worm button because it's SOOOOOO yummy.  But it does have sugar."
"Do you have any buttons you don't like?"
"Well, I would have to say my sun button.  If people look at me with my sun magic I can burn their pupils and that's not so good.  But bad guys can be blind from my magic.  That's the way God made me, so I can't change it."
Heart clench and chuckle.
"OOOH!  I have another favorite.  I love my magic building button because I can build houses for people who don't have houses!  That's awesome, right Mom?"
"Yes buddy.  That is incredibly awesome. Your heart and brain are so big and I love you for that."
"You are so lucky that I have a HUGE and awesome brain Mom."

 Yes sir.  You are one ball of awesome my little Dude.

A Pebble of Hope Goes a Long Way

This morning I had a consult with a doctor who does bio-medical testing for kids and adults who struggle with sensory processing disorder, ADD and a host of additional blessings.  I walked in there feeling blah.  It was a matter of going through the motions.  Kinda how I've been walking the earth these last weeks.  "Blah" with moments of "Ahh."  I walked out of there with a skip in my step and a boisterous "AH" that about knocked me over.  I haven't felt that skip in way too long.  It was a skip of hope and possibility and feeling understood.  It was a skip of knowing I had found someone who's in Dude's corner and therefore, my corner.  And Tim's corner.  Our corner.

This brilliantly knowledgeable and confident but gentle woman talked about genetic makeup, hormone levels, serotonin, guava, fight or flight reactors....I understood about 1/4 of what came out of her doctor mouth, but what I heard is that she can HELP him.  There is a heap of HOPE for him.  We'll do blood work, saliva and urine samples and the results will be like a jack pot of knowledge regarding Dude's genetic make up.  What levels in his little frame are too high?  Too low?  Just right?  What supplements and minerals and vitamins can we give him to help balance that fight or flight reaction that he has lived with since he was in utero?  She knows her shit people.  And that was music to my longing ears.

She's also going to help us walk through the IEP process and ensure that he gets the help he needs at school.  She gets it and she's just as frustrated about that subject as yours truly.  She assured me that we are SO not alone in that area and touched on the daily phone calls she gets from families who are at a loss for how to work with their child's teacher and the lack of understanding and resources available to help in the classroom.  She touched my shoulder, informed me that I was a remarkable communicator for my son's needs and told me that we were going to do great things for him.  Together.  THAT is hope friends.  Enough to get me through this maze.  And just in time for Christmas. Bring on the cheer.  This Mama is due.

  

All or Nothin'

That's me.  I think you'd agree.  I'm either all in or I'm completely out.  There's not a lot of gray area or haphazard in my genetic makeup.  That can be a really great thing for my family and it can be a really terrible thing.  For me.  For my sanity.  In my current state, I'm "all in" and no holds bar.  In multiple facets. And my head hurts.  I'm waiting with bated breath for this season of feeling the need to be "all in" passes. Because I have high hopes that it will.  God is definitely guiding my "in-ness" which brings me peace. But it doesn't take away the amount of mental effort that life requires right now.  

Our family doesn't have a comfortable, set in motion path right now.  We're in a transition of transitioning, if that makes any sense. Between getting Dude's school struggles under wraps, leaving my job, attempting a new career and essentially a new way of living, processing the reality that set into our community on Friday and swimming through the holidays, this Mama is maxed and there's not a lot of wiggle room in any of those areas.

The "Dude" area is all consuming right now.  I am so in love with that little man and there's this surge in me that won't go away until we ensure that we're doing everything we can to make his complex little brain function at it's fullest capacity.  He's off his meds, which has proven very difficult in the classroom.  But it's a choice we felt like we needed to make in order to get at the root cause of his focusing struggles.  So he's not focused.  That's hard - mainly for him, but also for us and his teacher.  His skinny little frame was no longer reacting to the dose we had him on and his sensory struggles were being exasperated. We didn't feel at peace with the option of continuing to up his dose. So we didn't.  We took a stand for our Dude and now are in a sea of trying to help him make his way through the educational world minus meds.  

What does that look like?  Lots of deep, like deeper than the depths of the ocean, breaths. First, we've been researching alternative schools and are at a depressing and frustrating dead end.  There are two options that speak to us but one turns out to be $23K per year (yes, you read that right) and the other is free but offers us a 1% chance, at best, of getting in.  Great news.   The school issue is now on the back burner.  We have an amazing principal and a community of support and for now, that's going to have to be enough.  Tim and I met with an army of staff at his school on Friday to discuss getting him on an IEP, which would offer more support for him to focus on his work.  He can't do the independent work that is expected of him and we don't have time at night to finish mounds of worksheets. Something has to give.  My fear is that he won't qualify for the IEP under the premise of ADD.  He's "not that severe."  Not to mention that the evaluation takes a minimum of 60 days to complete.  What are we to do until then?  Continue to deal with a teacher that doesn't doesn't know how to effectively work with our kid?  She wants US to tell her how to talk to him because she doesn't think with his creative, imaginative brain.  She's structured and serious, which works for some kids.  Not for ours.

Second, we're working with a nutritionist to guide our naive state of food knowledge. She's amazing, by the way.  A gentle breeze in the midst of a mountain of overwhelming and mind boggling ingredients and labels and chemicals and GMO's and dyes.  We're foreigners in this land and she's a rational, calm, beacon in the midst of all of that.  After learning that we dove, head first, into a non-gluten diet for him over the past week, she encouraged slowly eliminating gluten from his diet but not going balls out.  That lowered the stress in my shoulders.  And our pocketbook.

Third, we're searching for a pediatrician who cares more about a natural state of health over pumping our kid full of drugs in the flippant way our current doc does.  We don't look to him for guidance, which is stupid. So we're interviewing two different practices that come highly recommended.  

Fourth, we're meeting with a bio-medical doctor who will do a thorough investigation of Dude's natural state of being with blood work and other samples.  Those test will show us where are his natural levels and what vitamins and minerals he needs to help balance his naturally unbalanced system.

Last, we're meeting with a neurology focused clinic next week to do some brain mapping as so much research shows that ADD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Autism, Dyslexia and a checklist of other disorders center around an imbalance of the two sides of the brain.  The impulses aren't working along-side each other.  They're fighting each other and sending mixed signals.  It makes so much sense to us.  We were referred to a clinic that works toward balancing the two sides of the brain and we're going to give them a chance.  This is the first real morsel of hope we've felt for his ADD and we're praying rather fervent prayers that this will make life more manageable.  Because something has to if he's going to remain the joyful little student he currently is in a system that doesn't cater to him.  This isn't about him getting straight A's.  We're more than content with his current "B- Average."  But we can't allow him to go on feeling like he's not cutting it on his own and that he requires constant prodding and frustrating discussions to be the student he's expected to be.

That's the Dude stuff.  Are we advocates?  More than I ever imagined I could be.  For anything.   But my kid is a subject you would say I'm rather passionate about.  I've learned through the past year that there's nothing I won't do for him.  And there's no limit to my endurance through the process.  Are we over-advocating?  Some might say yes, but we know our kid and we know his potential.  So we'll continue to navigate these waters until we find a path we're content with.  And we'll hope and pray that the path becomes clear in the not too distant future.

In the meantime, I finish work this week.  I haven't quite processed that yet.  My mind hasn't clicked the "writer switch" yet and I can't fathom flipping that switch at the current moment.  I'm not there yet.   There's too much "stuff" muddying the waters. Perhaps when I leave my laptop on my desk, walk away with a box of all my personal treasures and drive that wretched commute for the last time I'll feel it.  Or when I have my shiny upstairs office painted pale blue with my new "old" writing desk set up I'll feel it.  Or when all these Dude related appointments are in the past and we have some answers and direction I'll feel it.  Or when Christmas and traveling to Chi-town to surround ourselves with family and green and red wrapping paper is complete I'll feel it.  I don't question the fact that I WILL feel it.  I'm just not sure WHEN that happy writing place will begin.

That's our state of being.  It's a tough spot for me, not having a path.  I'm a pathy kind of girl.  God is working my patience as well as my faith.  He knows the areas I struggle with.  Sadly, Christmas seems to be passing me by this year.  I have yet to really "feel" the holiday spirit.  This is a first for me.  It's more like a fog of music, presents, parties and cookies.  It feels like a lot of noise.  I don't care about "stuff" this Christmas.  I just wanna hang with the people I love, share a meal and lounge by the fire.  If you stop by you'll probably find me holding a larger than life glass of Pinot.  Like I said, I'm either all in or not at all.        

I do realize this blog has been more therapeutic than light and kid photo friendly lately and most of you pop in for the blondies, so here's a quick sampling. 

Today

Today really happened.  I don't know that anyone directly involved or those of us who sat, glued helplessly to the tv, looking for our loved ones in the sea of evacuees, have really started processing the space we were forced to enter as a community.  We're now officially part of the laundry list of communities rocked by a school shooting.  That really happened today.  To our community - our kids - our school system - our teachers - our friends - our emergency personnel - our principals - our families.  Over 2,000 students made it out of Arapahoe High School unharmed physically.  One student is in critical condition at our local hospital and we're now just praying that God brings her through this.  Those kids need her to make it through this.  Please pray for that and also for the emotional well being of those 2,000+ students and the teachers who are trying to process what is their new reality.

All our loved ones involved are safe, but it was one hell of a day for them.  I won't go into details.  Just know that they need your thoughts and prayers.  Our entire school system does.  Dude doesn't know what happened today, but his school was on lock down all afternoon.  All schools in our area were. District kids weren't released until 30 minutes after the close of the school day.  They released them one by one with runners to go get them to avoid letting anyone enter the school. The lines of parents outside all our local schools, waiting to get their hands on their kids were endless.  But our kids came home and for now, that's what we can hold on to.

   

Thanks

What am I thankful for this year?  So much.  Not quite sure a blog post could adequately summarize my thoughts on my thankful heart, but I'll try....

Health.  Freedom to live and worship the way I choose to.  Family who love us and make that known.  My monkeys - oh my monkeys.  Unbridled love with the same astonishingly amazing man for 16 years. Opportunity to fulfill my dreams.  Wine.  Velcro rollers. Gleams in my son's eyes.  Pinterest.  Supportive friends who make me giggle like a schoolgirl and cry like a baby all in the same breath. Devotion time.  Pen and paper. This blog.  Google maps.  Goat cheese.  KBCO. Airplanes and the money to ride on them.  Jesus.  My son's passion for Jesus. Adoption.  Tubac, AZ.  The ability to decorate my beautiful home.  Home Goods.  Hot showers.  My camera.  Balsamic Vinegar.  Kindness.  My queen size bed. Nights when my monkeys stay in THEIR beds.  Email.  Hope. Children's books.  Google search.  Walks with my family.  Parks for my kids.  Music - all kinds of music. My piano. Dude's creative mind and unintended sense of humor. Squirt's spunk and independence.  Tim's hands on ability to fix anything and everything.  Medication.  HGTV. Colorado sunshine. Pumpkins. Song. Squirt's smoker's laugh. Our mountains - from a far and close up.  K-Love (when they're not talking).  Dream Dinners.  The promise of heaven.  Amber and Brook.  Leggings and boots.  Chai Tea.  Jillian's 30 Day Shred.  There's a small scope of my thanks.                   

Thanksgiving was rather dreamy at our house.  Nana and Papa brought with uncontrollable giggling, game playing, child focused attention, mad cooking skills, early wake ups with the monkeys, movie watching....it was a blessing for all of us.  The weather smiled on us the entire 5 days, to the point of almost being ridiculous.  Turkey day is recapped below.  Pancakes in the morning and a mother load of festive eats in the afternoon, complete with the company of some of our favorite peeps.   

I gave my dad a recently blown out match for his onion cutting duties.  It takes the sting out of your eyes.  Try it!  

Our (my parents and Tim and my) very first bird.  We moved steadily with slight trepidation.  

My children latched on, literally, to my mom and dad's ankles the entire 5 days.  My mom got quite the work out, especially when there was one child per leg.  

Thanksgiving morning football with the neighborhood dudes.  Why do these out of shape 40 somethings insist on sprinting around for the sake of fun every Thanksgiving?  There were two significant injuries this year and another friend tore his ACL.  I enjoy watching these men put their overall well being on the line each and every year.  

Some of our favorite little ladies.  They could care less about the football.  

How darling is my mom in her trendy hat and boots?  All the kids adore Nana Nancy.  

The bird was delish.  Well done Mom.

We saved our fancy wine from Palisade, CO for our special feast.  

See the label on the wine?  

Mom insisted the turkey be cut in the garage to avoid the mess.  Love that about her.  

And I ate all that.  Plus mashed potatoes.  

One of my "thankful" items inscribed on the tablecloth/paper.  Yeah for new baby friends! 

Give Thanks ya'll.  No matter the season.

Insulation, Sundays and Ballet

In an effort to make our pad more "green" and efficient, Tim and our bud Randy emptied the attic of this nasty and totally ineffective insulation.  They threw it out Squirt's window into what turned into a mountain of yellow, dusty crap.  To say "thank you" to Randy wouldn't quite be doing justice.  New insulation was laid last weekend and we can already feel the difference in the balmy nature of our house.

My far-away confidant, Megan, turned 3-0 and hubbie Eric surprised her with a bash at McCormick's last weekend.  He flew her in, sans kids and treated her like the Mama Queen she is.  Happy b-day friend.

What does a random Sunday look like as the Vogels?  A little something like this...

 Doesn't my little Dude look ridiculously tall in this shot?  

My mom and I took Dude to "Scenes from the Nutcracker" this past weekend.  His reaction?  2 embarrassingly loud and drawn out yawns and three requests to play on my phone.  We'll consider him "exposed" to ballet and call it a wrap for a few years. 

My Tubac

My time in Tubac at The Haven Writing Retreat was life changing for my future as a writer.  It consisted of 5 emotion packed days I've decided to hold private in my normally exposed heart.  But I'd be remiss to not introduce you to the people who were an integral part of that experience.  They were a part of my Tubac and for that, I'll continue to hold them dear.  Thanks all you lovelies, for joining me on the beginning of my new normal.  

 Joanne.  A living history book.

 Jacquelyn.  Angel of words.

 Jan.  A writer all along.

 Byron.  Our comedic relief and man of generous wisdom.

Priscilla.  Woman of steel and grace.

 Laura.  Our mentor, leader, listener, council, core, inspiration and genuine lover of the written word.

 Roberta.  Quietly brilliant and subtly hilarious.

 My Amy.  Brave and sure.  

David.  Our happy place.  Our giver. 

 The Tubac Chapel.  The beginning and the ending place of our journey.  

 The Tack Room, our private dining place.  The room that fed our souls, quite literally. 

 The walls of this beautiful space kept our writing truths private and safe.  And the patio overflowed with wine and cheese every night.  

Sharing Tubac with my Amy was an experience we couldn't have dreamed up.  I kinda love this girl.

Write on friends.