He's Going to Pre-K

I finally found a preschool that I am comfortable with and my son is scheduled to start there on Monday. Please excuse me while I jump from joy!!! I love having him home with me, but we both need a break and he needs to be learning and praying and this school is a faith based school so they pray every morning and every afternoon. The classrooms are school...only ten kids per class..and it is clean and all of the staff, the directors and teacher are all intelligent and gracious. He will only be going for four hours a day, but that is good enough for now...You can learn a lot in four hours, plus he will be able to play with friends both inside and outside and work off some of his energy.

On the other hand of this,the four hours a day will give me the opportunity the keep the house clean without my four year old messing it right back up, I can go grocery shopping without having to put him in one of those dirty old car carts that all the kids love to ride in (and those carts are very hard to turn), etc. I am looking forward to Monday, I just hope my son is too. If we can get through it without kicking, screaming, begging, and saying, "I promise I'll be good...just to make me go to school." it will be awesome.

My Four Year Old

My four year old is driving me crazy. No, really, really crazy. He can be the sweetest little boy at times, but most of the time he is an over active, overly imaginative, creative, jumping, kicking, whining, crying, whining, demanding, hungry mean machine. He does things just to see how far he can push my buttons and at first I just sit there and occasionally threaten him with a time out or a spanking or a timeout in his room alone…and for a minute he may get quiet until he realizes he would rather take his chances and just scream at the top of his lungs while looking at me. That is when I have to take action.
The fact that he is home with me during the day now instead of in pre-K makes things a little worse. He needs to be in a school environment at least for half a day learning and growing with kids his own age. The problem is I have not been able to find a free pre-k program in our neighborhood in which I can pick him up and pick his sisters up on time as they both get out of school at the same time. So, I would end up paying a late fee to one of the schools which I cannot afford. So I keep looking for a pre-k or church pre-k program to place him in. I am trying but you know for yourself that you can’t just put your child anyplace. You need to check and double check the place out to make sure that your child is in a good place.
Placing Keith Jr. someplace where he will be able to grow and where he will feel comfortable is going to be a challenge. He is a spoiled momma’s boy but once he gets used to a place he thrives but he problem is it usually takes him a while before he gets to the thriving point. I could put him where he was last year up until I lost my job but I cannot afford it. However, maybe I can call and see if he could come three days a week or ½ days and see if I can get a break on the tuition if I do. Another option is to place him in the preschool where he went to for summer camp. That is an option, but my favorite option would be to just place him with our church. He knows the teachers at the church and they know him. I would feel comfortable with him there and it would help thatI I would be volunteering at the church sometimes. Problem is, the daycare/prek program at the church has not started yet. Maybe I should just ask the Pastor what is needed to get it up and running. Maybe I can help make some calls or something. Yes, I think that is an option. I will call the pastor to see if I can do anything to help open te the prek doors soon, and I can check into the summercamp he went to to see if they would take him in as a pre-k person, I could offer my services to help….or I can just keep looking around in the neighborhood. OK…I think I know where to start. I will keep you updated as to the progress.

Time at Grandma's

It is after one in the morning and I can't sleep. Insomnia has been a part of my life for almost a year now. The only thing that helps is the ocassional ambien. I have had this horrible headache across my forehead for three days now and nothing except pain medication eases some of the pain, but I do not like taking medicine so I mostly suffer through it. I have an appointment with the oncology surgeon on tuesday so we should have some more answers and a surgery date then. I am so weak all of the time now. I made hotdogs for the kids for dinner which they did not mind, but I feel a little guilty. I will really try to make that homemade spaghetti and meatballs with garlic toast for them tomorrow.

I visited with my parents today much to the delight of my little ones. They had been asking all week to go over there so I took them there with the intention of only staying about fifteen minutes, but it actually turned into almost three hours. It was a nice visit, spending time with Mom and Dad is always nice and I wish I could do it more often. The only problem is that my two year old niece bites my kids and my two year old nephew throws things at them. My mom watches them for my sisters so whenever I drop by with the kids after school they are there. The funny thing is, my kids still love to be around my niece and nephew. They talk about them all the time. I also watched my granddaughter for a few hours tonight so my son-in-law could take m daughter out to dinner for her birthday. She is getting so big and is forever cute. Happy Birthday Krystal.

Vipoma Diagnosis

I am numb. I guess that is probably the best way to describe my feelings right now towards my recent medical diagnosis. After months of diarrhea, weakness, weight loss, back and stomach pain, etc. I have finally been given a definite diagnosis for what is wrong with me. I have been diagnosed as having Vipoma. Never heard of it? Join the many doctors and other medical professionals who have been in practice for decades who also have never heard of it. This disease is very rare and affects 1 in 10 million people. Yes, you heard right…one in ten million people. My Endocrinologist, who happens to be one of the top fifty in his field here has only encountered this a few times in his entire thirty plus years of practice. One of his nurses told me that she has been working in his office for nine years and that this is the very first time that office has encountered anyone with this disease. There is no mistake, they have run test after test after test and even repeated some of the tests just to be sure…it is definitely Vipoma.

From what I understand, this is a very rare cancer that usually originates in the pancreatic area. Chances of survival are greatly increased if they can find the tumors and remove them. The problem is, although they know for sure they are in my body, they do not know exactly where they are. Scat scans, radiation scanning, etc. have not been able to show where they are, but what it did show was another problem that I apparently have….Gallstones..one of which has calcified. I don’t really know what a calcified Gallstone is, but I do know that the doctors are wanting to remove those gallstones as well, but their priority right now is to find the Vipoma tumors and remove them. At this point I am told the next step is surgery, however the surgeons are in discussions as to how to proceed with that. Did I mention how rare this is? I am told to be patient and that they are aware of the urgency of the situation but that is very hard to do when I do not know what to expect next. Doing nothing is not an option as of course if you do not remove these tumors it is fatal. However, for what I have read, even if you do remove the tumors, there are no guarantees. I read somewhere that your chances are greatly improved if they can remove it, but that by the time symptoms present themselves it has normally already spread making your chances not so good. The survival rate for this does not seem to be really good, but I have a LOT of people praying for me so I am hopeful.

I just wish I could speak with someone who has this and is living with it. Someone who can tell me that there is a LOT of hope and that though most people do not make it, there are a LOT of people who do. But I cannot find anything like that out there on the internet, not in the forums, anywhere. So I wait, and pray, and enjoy as much time with my kids as possible. I am scared if you can’t tell by this posting…I am very scared. I have hid this diagnosis from my three youngest children (ages 4, 8, and 10) because I do not want to scare them. It just doesn’t seem fair to put something like this on them when they are working so hard in school. I don’t want them worried and I don’t want them to cry. If there is anybody out there who has this, or know of someone who has or had this, please let me know. I could really use to hear from someone out there who knows something about this. Thanks for listening.

My Tween wants a Cellphone

I didn't have a cellphone until I was well into my twenties, had a job, and a couple of kids. However, times have changed and with the change has come the need for us to consider allowing our Ten year old to keep a cellphone in her purse for emergencies. Yes, I know that although "emergency" is the intended reason for the cellphone, she will probably use it to call her dad, her grandmother, etc. The good news about that is, there is a cellphone made especially for kids that you can program yourself to only be useable by the child during certain hours which means the phone will not be ringing during class time. Also, you can set a limit on how many minutes per month the child can use it, and get this....it comes with a GPS so, if heaven forbid you do not know where your child is, or cannot reach them, the GPS will allow you to find them....what parent can't use that? Another good part about these phones is that they are NOT toy phones, and are not cheapos..For example, the phone I just bought my daughter is pink, pretty, and a Sprint phone. The plan I purchased meets my budget and includes unlimited texting. Trust me, there are plans available for ANY budget. I prefer the piece of mind that allowing my daughter to carry a cellphone brings. Plus, when she is at a friend's house she texts me constantly so I know exactly what she is doing. :)

To find out more about these great cellphones for kids, visit the webpage below...

http://www.kajeet.com/antoinette