Charlie's Asthma

Now that the weather is warm enough for the kids to play outside, the dreaded asthma is back. I feel so bad for Charlie who loves to play outside but always comes in coughing and sometimes short of breath.

We are once again back on the daily regiment of breathing treatments and medication. It helps some but does not make it go away completely.

The good thing about this season is that Charlie is no longer fighting the breathing treatments. He will get the nebulizer himself and likes to squeeze the medication into it and turn on the machine. He will also hold the breathing tube himself for a lot of the treatment and even puts it in his mouth and breathes deeply.

It sure makes the three or more times a day treatments go a lot smoother. I still hope he grows out of this but with Dan using his inhaler just as much as Charlie is using the nebulizer, I doubt it will go away.

The next hurdle is getting him to use the inhaler the right way so he can have it at school in case he needs it. Quite a task since he cries at the sight of it.

Dinnertime

Feeding this family can be challenging at times.

When you put together a child with Autism who does not care to have his food mixed, a couple of kids who will not drink milk and one who does not care much for meat, one who gags on onions and then throw in a hubby who really enjoys tinkering in the kitchen, sometimes we all end up eating different variations of the same basic meal.

Take tonight for instance. I decide on making one of mine and most of the kids favorites. It is a combination of fried potatoes, hamburger, onions, and pine nuts. Most of us enjoy this. Zack will not eat this mixed up combination and neither will Jonny because you can see the onions. So out comes some of the meat, plain, and added to the menu is some plain white rice. Dan hears this and decides that since this is not his favorite meal, he will mix the hamburger, onion and pine nut part of the mix with rice. We may get a taker to join him in that. Patrick eats anything.

On the side is broccoli with hollandaise sauce on top. That one is pretty easy since those who do not like it can choose not to have the sauce. Dan ended up taking the bottoms of the broccoli and cooked them with mushrooms, blended it all together with some milk and made a delicious soup. He will for sure get takers on that because Lys loves his soups.

So when all is said and done, everyone will have the same things done differently on their plates. Three frying pans, 2 pots, the veggie steamer and rice cooker all dirty and in the end, at least it is the hope, everyone will be happy.

Spring Cleaning

Yes, it is that time of year again. The time when I get the bug to rearrange rooms. I have to say I blame it all on my mom because I can vividly remember season to season changing rooms around. Lugging furniture from here to there, dusting everything in site, making sure that everything was perfect before putting all of the piles we created back into their place. OK, so the piles were usually in my bedroom and most of it ended up in the garbage, but you get the idea.

It is one of those things that must be passed on in a genetic way because I cannot help but to completely overhaul my house as the seasons change. It kinda drives Dan a little crazy when I start moving things around so I have learned to just get started on it and only ask for help in moving the big furniture once things are so out of whack that he has to help me or he will not have a place to sit or sleep. He has learned it is just a way of life in living with me and usually the changes that I make, he loves.

A couple of weekends ago we redid our bedroom and last weekend the living room. Today was the lil kids room. The bunk bed was moved out from in front of the window and now the window is flanked by bunk beds. They can open up that window now that the weather is nice. Fresh air in there is much needed during the warm months and since it is the coolest room in the house, it helps to keep the rest of the house nice and cool as well. In place of the bunk bed is the TV stand/dresser. This keeps Charlie from climbing in the window which he loves to do.

Now we have a pile of toys that the kids will help me sort through. Some to the trash that cannot possibly be fixed and some to be donated that they have grown out of. We may yet find a carpet that I know exists.

I know mom will read this and laugh knowing she had the same thoughts when I was a child and we found my carpet.

Sun, sun, sun...

Today was a PERFECT day. Nice and warm and for once sunny. The kids convinced me to drag out the pool and I got to get my hands dirty in the garden, planted some wave petunias to hang by the front door.

My garden is really starting to come to life now. I have flowers on my strawberry plants and buds on the columbine. Things will look so nice once the flowers all start to arrive. Until then, here are a few pictures of the work in progress.

Octopi? Octopods? Octopuses?

The dictionary says it is octopuses. Still does not sound right to me but here are my creations.

A friend of mine sent me the pattern and I have been working on these four for the last couple of weeks.

Having a lot of fun creating these critters!

And I am back....

So I talk with my mom and my mom tells me... My friend's daughter-in-law has a great place where she blogs. It is a place where all of her friends and family can see what is going on in their lives. Why don't YOU do this???

I told her I do and then dug this up from last year and sent it to her. Now that she knows I blog, I guess I need to blog and update the kids, the pics, the crafts, and anything else I can think of.

So keep an eye out mom... oh yeah, where is YOUR blog??? *grin*

I will be adding more to the blog now and even doing a bit of backblogging so that things are in order. I suppose I will blog, that I blogged a blog from a while back so no one but me gets confused.