Will we survive the Teen years?

We are at my mom's for the weekend in Marhsall, TX. So far it has been a good visit. However we could not get Jacob's wireless working on his laptop, so we had to plug him in! ha! There was some drama involved with trying to fix it, but we finally just had to give up. This picture is what he looks like most days! Don't you love that face!

I called Dell this morning and spent 90 min with a very patient tech person, who checked things out remotely on my computer. It is amazing to me that they can connect to my computer from somewhere else and control the mouse. I am so glad they can, because it is just to technical for me. I spent 90 min. on the phone and it was determined that something is corrupted on the hard drive so they are sending a new hard drive with all of his original programs installed. I was proud of him. He took it well. Asked if we could get him a thumb drive so he could save his stuff onto it and not lose it. He was very mature and helped me with some things and was not upset that we would have to wait for a hard drive. He can still use the computer, but not wirelessly. I will have to reinstall Windows 7, that will be half a day with tech support but they do help a lot.

We go off to Walmart. Elijah picks out some legos and Jacob finds a game he wants to buy with his money. I front him $7 to get it and his grandmother buys him a thumb drive. After all purchases are made, his mood gets SOUR. He just wants to GO back to grandmas and get busy on his computer. We are hungry and want to get something to eat, so we stop at Chilis. OH my, he decides NOT to order anything and to sit there and pout. Oh my can he pout. After about 15 min of us ignoring him, he finally starts talking to us. I am going to have to have a long talk with him about how he behaves. I hope we can survive these teen years. I never knew boys could be so dramatic. I also think he has some OCD because once he gets in his head what he wants to do, he doesn't like changing HIS plans of what he though would happen.

Why?

Why is it when we travel, Elijah tends to just GIVE me harder time than usual? We decided to come to my mom's this weekend since we are all off for spring break. We are just staying for two nights. The boys were pretty good on the drive down. Typical bickering but nothing too bad. Got here and got the cat settled. we don't usually bring one of the cats, but Tiger has a wound that needes tending so we could not leave him at home. By the way, he is the sweetest kitty in the world and did great on the drive.

My mom was on the phone with her sister, who is staying with my grandmother who is not doing well. I get Elijah out of his bath and hand him his clothes. I go to get his implants and then Elijah starts yelling at the top of his lungs he needs help. He can't hear himself and has no idea my mom is on the phone. I go in and motion for him to be quiet(with a finger to my lips) and HE GOT LOUDER. I try to put his processors on and he won't let me so he can listen. I draped them(they are on eargear) around his neck and he YELLS at me ....YOU DO IT. He also starts yelling for grandma who is still on the phone. I just walked away at that point and left him in the room. He finally put his "ears" on and told him he could come out when he stopped crying. He did calm down and now things are fine. He just always has to test me when we are out of our normal routine.

Glasses OFF!

Elijah has gotten into the wrestling mood the last few nights. It is something fun we can do! When we wrestle he tells me "Glasses OFF". This is something he learned from his big brother. Whenever Jacob wanted to wrestle, when he was just a small thing, he would walk up to his dad or me and say "Glasses off" and we knew it was time to wrestle. I can't believe how much time has passed since I last wrestled Jacob. He is JUST too big and has been too big for a long time. I am glad that Elijah is still young enough that he wants to wrestle....however he is getting almost TOO big for me to wrestle! I need to enjoy it while I can!

Update on us!

We are counting the days until Spring Break. We aren't doing too much, but Elijah and I will be going to a Dallas Stars Hockey Game next week. Jacob did not want to go so my brother Jerry is going with us. We got free tickets from the hearing foundation who has helped us with a great deal of our expenses with Elijah's cochlear implants and therapy.

Elijah is doing GREAT in school right now. He has had SEVERN good days in a row. He had to take 5s or take 10s yesterday or today. This is excellent for him. It means he is complying more and not argueing. His tics have improved dramatically and he has them a lot less. He is really enjoying recess. He told me it was his favorite thing at school when I asked him. I really do appreciate how well his teacher works with me and HOW hard she works with him!

Jacob is still an eating machine. I wish he would get over his moodiness, but oh well, I guess it is part of being a teen! He is still a handsome kid and so good at heart.

I made reservations for a five night stay at Orange Beach in June! My sister, her son and my mom are going too. My mom will be staying with me and my sister and her son will stay with one of our relatives who has a house at the beach. Elijah really LOVES the beach. Jacob does too, but worries about getting sunburned. Those two have the red hair and blue eyes and BURN very easily. I am going to have to stock up on sunblock....bullfrog has been the best for them!

I am excited about seeing family when we go. My grandmother and many of my aunts, uncles and cousins are in Mobile. We will spend one night there!

I need to get my camera and get more pictures of my two boys! I'll try to do that soon. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week!

Jacob--The Eating Machine

I was always told that teenage boys could eat a LOT, and now I am finding that out first hand. Jacob can really put away some food when he wants too. If he is not eating a meal, he is snacking in between. I even have to specify which snacks are Elijah's and which ones are Jacob's so I have food for their lunches for school. If not, I would get up to make lunches and have nothing in the house. I buy Jacob a quart of chocolate milk each week(he doesn't like the chocolate milk in the plastic conatiners, so I have to get it in the traditional paper square types and they only come in quarts) and he drinks it in about 2 days. He will drink white milk, but the chocolate milk is a nice treat for him.


I bought some blueberry bagels at Sprouts last week to try and told him he could eat them if he liked. There were six bagels and I think I got to eat one of them. I'll buy two packages this week. I usually eat my slim fast bars, but these bagels are about the same weight watchers points that the slim fast bars are and I like a change.

This morning Elijah and I ran to eat at Ballard Street Cafe here in Wylie and then to drop my car off to get an oil change and tires rotated. I never have time during the week to get this done. Neither of us like hash browns so I brought them home for Jacob along with a pancake from Elijah's meal. Now Jacob never gets up early on Sunday mornings, but I woke him up a bit and told him about his breakfast that was in the fridge. He got straight up out of bed and came in here to eat. I guess his stomach can motivate him more than me.

He has matured some and will ASK before raiding leftovers. He knows I plan to take them for lunch sometimes at school or have for dinner the next night.

I have been told by others who have raised boys that it will only get worse. I hope I can afford this boy. Eljah will be ten soon, so I have a few more years before he starts eating me out of house and home too.

Meals and Family

Night after night I have to decide what to cook for dinner. I really don't mind cooking, I just run out of ideas. I am not the best cook and I like things that are easy to cook. I don't mind cooking something more complicated on the weekends when I have more prep time and cleaning time after the meal. I have the usual meals that I cook, and try to rotate out so the boys don't get tired of them. So, I am asking for your favorite recipes. What do you like to cook!

One of my favorite recipes that is easy is a pot roast in the crock pot. It so SO easy. I have a large crockpot and I put in two cans of cream of celery soup and two cans of cream of mushroom soup with a pinch of beef bullion. You let it cook 4-6 hours depending on how big the roast is!

Another easy crockpot recipe is chicken breast with cream of chicken soup. Put it in the crockpot and let it cook. I use four cans of soup and four chicken breasts. I cut the breasts up to make sure they get good and done.

Let's hear your favorite recipes.

What if?

So many of us goes through life wondering, “What if?” on so many things. What if I had left earlier, would I have been in that wreck I just passed? What if I won a million dollars in the lottery? I used to ask myself that “What if” question quite a bit. My questions were wrapped around Elijah:

What if Elijah had not been premature?

What if he had not been deaf?

What if he could have been implanted earlier than 18 months of age?

What if he had not had tourette syndrome along with OCD and ADHD?

Like I said, I used to ask myself these questions a lot, along with some other typical “What if” type questions. However, as time has passed I have learned that I cannot dwell on the “What ifs”. These questions get me nowhere and only cause me to dwell on what could have been then on what can be! I have learned to accept Elijah for who he is. We have not had to deal with all of this at once, thankfully. Elijah’s deafness and prematurity came first! Tourettes, OCD and ADHD came later.

We are on a journey and sometimes it is a fun one and sometimes it can be quite scary. Jacob is part of that journey with us and he makes it even more interesting. He is the typical older brother with Elijah but he also watches out for him. He is a great help to me and a great son! I cannot imagine my life without either of my boys and so I cannot dwell on the “what ifs” either, because what if they had not come into my life. That is unimaginable.

Now, I still do daydream about the lottery! I have all kinds of plans IF I were to win that!!!