Playing with the Queen of Hearts

Hi LJ-land. I have been alive and surprisingly really busy on my days off. I am not being a good LJ-er. It really sucks that they block it at work. That was how I kept up. :(

Lessee... Things with Aaron are going much better after seeing a psychologist and working on our parenting style. I interviewed for the designated charge position and didn't get it, but was told I interviewed well and that there is probably another opportunity coming up. I'm okay with not getting it. I feel like I did my best and that's all I could do.

I have not written anything in so long or even made cards lately. My inner creative beast is getting restless. Bitt told me about these books with prompts so I bought them and maybe I can get back into it.

I am super tired so this entry sucks. I worked last night and I'm taking a med-surg certification course that is every wednesday after I work. So it's waaaaay worth it, but I'm brain dead.

Wow my days off have been whirlwinds lately. Not much time for updating. But! I am here now. (strikes a pose)

I have been dieting and exercising almost everday for the past two weeks. I haven't lost any pounds yet, but I have lost one inch in my hips, waist, and bust! That's exciting to me. :) I'm just gonna keep with it. This time no gimmick diets. Just the real deal. I love this website my sister-in-law gave to me. It helps me count my calories and fats, carbs, and proteins. It makes it really easy for me because I have trouble keeping track. It is all there in black and white and I have to own it. It keeps me from eating to terribly. It's called myfitnesspal.com if anyone is interested. You also log your excercises and it tells you how many calories you've burned. :)

On the Aaron front, he is degenerating in school again. He is even getting worse at home. I'm kinda worried his symptoms sound like ADD. But at least if we know we can treat it. We saw one psychologist who said he thought that Aaron had Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Which does sound like him, though they say ADD also can go in hand with it. But that psychologist was kinda... wishy-washy and I could tell he was grasping for things. He only has a Masters and dude, I could get that and practice. I want someone really experienced in child psychology with a Phd. No offense meant toward the Masters degree, it's great. I just feel you should go the full monty if you are going to be a doctor of any kind.

Aaron has always been an on the go kid like someone wound him up and let him go. I've noticed he has trouble paying attention, even if you are talking directly to him. Now I would say these are regular 4 year old things, but at school he is definitely not listening when he should. I watched him and his mind seemed to wander all over but where it was supposed to be. He shouts out the answer to things even when he isn't called on. He gets up from the rug and goes to fiddle with something when he should be sitting. He has meltdowns when things don't go his way, no matter how small. He seems to have anger issues too. He gets mad a lot and will tell us he 'doesn't love you' or 'he doesn't like you' and to 'go away'.

When people get close to him, he pushes them away. He is super duper impulsive. He reacts before thinking much at all. He thinks something is, therefore it has to be. I know that can be a four year old thing too, but the other four year olds in his class don't act that way.

I don't know, I don't want to be an armchair psychologist. I'm just grasping at straws trying to find out what is going on here. We're taking him to a more experienced pscyhologist today. Maybe we'll get some answers.

God Bless the damned internet. You could search all day and suddenly you have a thousand ailments, lol.

Sunday and Monday was fun. We left Aaron with my grandma on my father's side, and went down to Kent, WA to stay overnight. We got to have dinner Sunday night and just hang out. The next day was my Charge Nurse seminar so Jim just slept in and hung out all day while I was there. They had internet so that took up a lot of his time, lol.

The Charge Nurse seminar was really awesome. You learned a lot of stuff there that you can apply just in your everday life as well. It kinda cemented some things for me and helped me learn why I need to be a stronger charge nurse to be a more effective leader, but not a Hitler. Plus the speaker was hilarious and just made the whole thing fun.

Mostly I've just been doing family things. Visiting my grandparents, hanging with my family, catching up on Bones and Castle while on my elliptical. I'm also trying the Power 90 to alternate with for muscle confusion. I've tried the straight elliptical and it just didn't do much but take of a few inches and give me strong legs and butt, lol.

Well, almost time for me to get my face on so we go. I'm just glad I got to squeeze and update in here.

I wanted to thank everyone for giving me adivce on Aaron. I really appreciate it. I would reply to each of them individually but it's an emotionally loaded topic and requires a lot of energy I don't have right now. I feel compelled to give as much as you've given in the replies. I'm going to keep all the comments though in case I want to reply to them later.

I'm going to start the P90 tomorrow so wish me luck! It's going to be a rough 90 days. But I'm hoping I'll look good at the end of it. And feel better. Just gotta have follow-through and no I don't feel like it so I'm going to skip it days.

Aaron does seem to be doing a little bit better. I think by the time he's done here he'll be adjusted enough to go to kindergarden and fit in well.

I have nothing more exciting to say. I do have some cards I need to take pictures of and show you guys. Once I stop being lazy I will. :)

We got some really crappy news today. Aaron's new teacher said that Aaron is being terrible at school. He's being aggressive toward the other kids, going up to them and then telling them to 'go away'! He even wrote over some little girls writing with his own pencil. He's acting like a bully and I'm really bummed, guys. We've tried so hard to make him a polite child. It's hard to prepare him to deal with a bunch of kids his age when he's an only child, but we tried the best we could. None of the kids at school will play with him because he's mean.

I seriously cried. I don't want my child to be a bully. I'm worried we messed up. Maybe we let him see cartoons wtih fighting too early. I mean, we limit to things like Pokemon and the Iron Man cartoon, but maybe that's still way over his head. I don't know if that contributed.

I guess he was running around school pretending to shoot everyone with a pretend gun too. I know boys want to crash things and play guns and swords. But is he overly aggressive that way? We try to tell him that real guns are not okay, that crashing his trucks together is being mean to them, etc. Jim has let him watch Star Wars and Lord of the Rings while I was at work and I've let him watch Star Wars when I was home. I don't know if that was a contributing factor.

I mean, we don't fight at home. We aren't loud. But Jim does have patience issues and anger issues, and sometimes I think he is too controlling and too hard on Aaron for his age. He expects too much sometimes for his developmental age.

I know he's new to school and kids react badly to new environments. But like this?

I just hope between the teacher and us we can get him going in the right direction. We are going to make sure he doesn't watch anything with any hint of violence in it. Which includes my grandma's house where he is allowed to play games like Zelda and Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I've already talked with my grandma (on my mom's side) and asked her not to let him play those.

Am I overreacting? I dunno guys. I just feel I'm failing at being a parent and I want so bad to help Aaron grow into a decent human being.

Any advice from parents would be so appreciated. We are at a loss and wonder if there is something we are missing here. I don't want my child to be a bully. That's terrible.

I cleaned like a fiend today while Jim went up in the snow with Jethro to play. I was still and am still feeling under the weather. I also grocery shopped and overdid it. I felt like real crap when I got back home. Stupid Type A personality anyway.

Aaron had his first day of school at the new place on Monday. He did okay. Jim ended up having to stay and said Aaron eventually got into the groove. I know it'll take a while since it's a new environment and new people. And kids don't do well with abrupt change. So I must keep reminding myself of that so I won't have anxiety over him being upset while he's there.

Wow I am boring. I can't think of anything else to say. Though it's early I'm tired and I'm thinking of whimping out and going to bed.

Oh, I do have to go to the dentist on thursday. I really really really hate the dentist office. Well not the office, but all the things they do to you while you are there. It's kinda sad, I guess, but I have to take a sedative before I get work done. It's just so invasive and I feel like I'm drowning when they spray the water in there. Gotta keep your tongue out of the way, your mouth hurts being stretched open for so long, and I have a horrible gag reflex.

So I am going to take some Lorazepam before and if that doesn't work or wears off, I told them to give me the laughing gas. It worked with the root canal I had to have a few weeks back, but they gave me 5mg then. I was out of it the whole time and barely remember anything. Then I went to my grandmas and she watched Aaron because I fell asleep on the couch for four hours.

I asked for less this time because it seems that the 5mg was too much if I was still sleeping forever after the procedure, lol. But then they only gave me 2mg and I'm worried that won't be enough. I was thinking more like 3mg or 4mg, though I know that is a LOT. Regularly, people only take 0.5mg to 1mg. You only see higher equivalents with detoxers. Which I am not. I am just a freak who is terribly afraid of the dentist.

I'm just worried in general when it comes to the dentist.

Traumatic!!

Aaron is in the bathtub and is babbling and playing made-up games and it's cute. But it's also loud and sometimes annoying, lol.

I rented Easy A, but I didn't watch it yet. I hear it's really funny though, so me and Jim are going to watch it tomorrow. It's so much more fun to watch a movie with someone. And eat popcorn and chips.

Now I'm hungry, heh. Okay, going to read some silly gossip magazines and then go to bed. Night LJ-land!

They probably all regard us as fascinating morons considering all the things people do. And I'd bring them a bundt cake for sure.

I Just want to be happy. I just want to be able to look back on this year and say I at least lived it as full as I possibly could. Because there is no second 2011. When it's gone so is another year of my life and I don't want to waste it. I feel like I spent too much time in 2010 worrying and being busy and just not living. But I'm going to now.

We went out to the party last night and stayed over. I got drunk too early and had to take a nap, lol. I didn't miss the countdown though. The neighbor across the street had those huge fireworks you see at shows. They were awesome to have right above our heads.

Hope everyone had a Happy New Years!! Maybe 2011 treat you well.

That's so weird to say. It seems like 2010 just flew on by like mad.

So, any good stories to tell about your new years?

What's everyone up for on New Years? We're going to a party at a friend of ours in Orchards. It proves to be fun and full of alcohol. We're planning on staying over in the guest bedroom. Aaron is going to stay with my Grandma and grandpa overnight. He loves it there so I know he'll have fun.

This laryngitis is really getting me! I'm getting more hoarse by the day. Other than that though, the sinus pressure seems to be gone. I'm still getting body aches though. Thank goodnes for Aleve and Motrin.

Since getting off Medifast I started loosing my hair again. At our work Christmas party we were all talking about losing hair. One of my close friends just found out she had breast cancer and the chemo is killing her hair. I told her we could be bald buddies. I wish I was brave enough to shave my head for her. Instead I bought her a book and a nifty bag to carry stuff in to have things to do at chemo since it takes so long.

I feel so bad for her. She's my age and has two girls. She is a super awesome person. Loving and caring. They are doing chemo, total mastectomy with breast reconstruction, and then radiation. So far it's only spread to her upper lymph nodes. I'm so glad she caught it before it got worse. And she is just an amazing person with a positive outlook on it all. I wish I could be more like her. I heard the word 'cancer' and was immediately so upset and looking at all the possible outcomes. But really all I can do is be there for her and cheer her on.

Back to the hair thing, my boss told me to try to eat more protein. Which makes sense as the Medifast stuff was so big on protein. So I'm drinking all these chocolate Muscle Milks, lol. They have 50% of your daily protein. I seriously cannot afford to lose anymore hair. It's really thinning. It's not obvious to others, but I can tell when I'm doing my hair just how thin it is getting. :( I'm not vain, but I love my hair. It is the one thing I do for myself regarding my body besides make-up.

I broke down and started a statin cholesterol med. Which was okay for a awhile and then suddenly I started swelling everywhere. Not really into having heart failure thanks. So I took myself off it. I'm not liking this new woman I have for my primary. She doesn't listen and instead of finding out what I want to do, she just tells me this is what I should do and here you go and out the door she goes.

Jim uses a prescription niacin and it works for him. It has lowered his bad cholesterol and upped his good. My primary said that wasn't true, that it only raised the good. So she wouldn't give that one to me. When I go back I'm going to request it agian. Not going on any statins if they are only going to make me swell up. Plus, it made my fibro pain about 5 times worse.

As soon as I went off it, the swelling went down and the aches and pains were less.

Okay, enough rambling. I've been up since 5:30 AM because of feeling sick, so I need to go take a nap or I won't be fit for the party tonight.

I am wiped out. I've had a cold-sinus thing for a few days now. I've lost my voice to it and all my energy. I'm especially faster to get irritated or overwhelmed by stimuli. I kinda just want to go to bed. But at the same time I want to read my friends list and do SOMETHING I haven't done in a while. Read a book, watch some Bones... I dunno...