Valentine's Day

This was my Valentine's surprise from my boys when I got home from work!

Leaving the garage......

Entering the back door.....

White chocolate covered strawberries AND a Reese's!!!!!

On the wall.....

Card from Izaiah :)

I was too busy loving on my boys to snap the end result picture of finding them, but you get it.  You know what they look like.  Swoon :)

My Eyes Suck

When I was 10 the eye doctor told my mom I would likely go blind by age 18 if I didn't start immediately wearing hard contacts.  Back then contacts were a big deal.  I was the only kid my age wearing them, and one of the only people I've ever known who wore hard ones.  Without corrective vision, I have almost always been legally blind, but could see fine once I got contacts.  I still had to get new ones every few months or so because my vision continually worsened.

By the time I was 25 I wondered if maybe I had exaggerated that part about being told I would go blind, because A.) that sounds silly, and B.) I never went blind.  Two summers ago I talked to an eye doctor who suggested I try switching to soft contacts.  I never knew how how awful hard contacts were until I tried soft ones.  They felt like satin pillows on my eyes compared to the hard ones, and once I tasted how wonderful my eyes could feel, I couldn't go back.  That was in May.  The doctor would special order trial pairs for me and then I would come back to have them checked a week later.  I literally was at the eye doctor every 1-2 weeks until after New Years, having to order new contacts each time.  My eyes got worse and worse and worse.  He said that was somewhat normal at first, but then it got out of control. At one point he told me I am the only documented case of someone's eyes changing so drastically in such a short amount of time the way mine did.  In two weeks my eyes deteriorated more than the average person's eyesight does in a lifetime.  He had to contact manufacturers and specialists because I was the first documented case of this.  I wish that came with my name in a textbook and subsequently, a hefty check.  He said that when I was 10, doctors thought hard contacts would stop my eyes from getting worse because the hard contact presses against the eye and does not allow it to change very much.  This, they thought, would prevent the otherwise inevitable: my eyes deteriorating until I have no vision left.

Research has since taught them that that only prevents the eye from changing while hard contacts are being worn.  Once they are no longer being used, the eye transforms at a rapid rate to the degenerated state it would have otherwise been in if hard contacts had not been used to postpone the loss of vision in the first place.  My eyes finally leveled out after months and months of readjusting to new prescriptions.  Recently they decided to change very quickly again, and they are at a -11.  It's -13 that they stop making contacts in that strength, so I am getting dangerously close to blindness.  My eye doctor tries to reassure me but he acts more nervous each time he looks at my eyes.  They don't carry contacts at the strength mine are now, but they can be custom made, at least for a while longer.  As a result, I have these debilitating headaches several times a week that sometimes 3 Ibuprofen can't even budge.  I'm tired of not being able to read road signs or look at the computer without getting nauseous.   My husband is too handsome for me to go blind!  Dear God, I promise to read more and watch less TV if you keep me from going blind.

This is the closest example that I could find of what my eyes are like before and after I take out my contacts:

BEFORE

AFTER

Loony Bin

Things have been going better with Izaiah.  We are working on all staying home together as much as possible and confined to two rooms of the house.  Izaiah feels safer and has been bonding to me a lot more.  If we leave the house or let others in, Izaiah has a meltdown and we tend to take several steps back.  Mark still won't allow Izaiah and I to be alone together.  He has this enormous feeling of responsibility if something were to happen when he has stepped out.  It's a valid expectation, it really is, based on the things that have happened in the past, but it's also an annoying one.  We are working with a new therapist and it has been going so well.  Izaiah has only gotten aggressive a handful of times since New Years's.  PROGRESS!!!!!!!!

Also progressing (I hope, finally) is the area of school.  We had an IEP meeting and decided Izaiah needs to be in a therapeutic school.  He is still at a beginner's first grade level and seems to learn almost nothing at school.  They try and have been really great, but his needs are more than they can meet.  He was having daily outbursts to the point that it was a normal occurrence for him to assault teachers or the principal, and he would have meltdowns to the point of throwing desks and chairs in the hall while screaming obscenities.  The school would frequently have to go on "lockdown", meaning everyone is confined to their rooms and could not leave until Izaiah had been de-escalated (average de-escalation time = about an hour).  So clearly this was not a good situation for Izaiah, but also not for the other students!

We told Special School District from Day 1 that we would only allow him to attend one of the three therapeutic schools they listed as options.  Working in the Social Work field, I often "know too much" about abuse/neglect that goes on, especially when it comes to schools and residential facilities.  I could tell you (actually I can't) where alleged or substantiated child abuse has occurred and been perpetrated by staff, and which facilities have tried to cover it up or not done enough to protect its students.  So in looking at the three therapeutic school options, that eliminated one for sure, and another after a little investigating.  The school district decided that he could go to either of the two schools we were not willing to allow him at, but would not let him attend the one we wanted.  We had his school principal backing our decision, as well as several Educational Advocates, teachers, therapists, psychiatrist, etc.  It seemed like they were intentionally holding out on us because I was being so insistent about my child not attending the two schools I had concerns about.  I don't know why it mattered so much to them.  They said he would have to receive homebound services - where a teacher would come to the home and work with him on schoolwork for an hour a day - until we could resolve where to place him.  Before the homebound teacher started, they then refused to come out because we declined the first school they offered.

While trying to figure it all out, Izaiah got expelled from his school for hurting another child.  A week and a half and a lot of phone calls later, and a homebound teacher finally started coming out.  In the meantime, lots of emails, lots of phone calls, lots of advocating, and SSD once again seemed to be punishing us for not having him go to the therapeutic school they wanted him at (aka the least expensive and most unsuccessful school), so they took away the homebound teacher.  They said we were not complying with our son's educational needs.  WE weren't complying with his educational needs.  Mark has not been able to work, clean, cook, or run errands and has had to stay home with Izaiah round-the-clock all day every day with no relief and they think this is our idea of ideal?  Poor Mark.  We looked into hiring an attorney and were not getting very far with that.  Finally a director of something at SSD got too many phone calls so allowed Izaiah to be placed at the school of our choice.  Hallelujah!  He was actually super helpful and validated all the decisions we had made.  Where was he a month ago?  We are not sure when Izaiah starts but are hoping it will be this week.  He has been out of school for five weeks now.  

He spent the night with his grandparents last night, and Mark and I did not go on a much-needed date or clean a single thing around the house.  We stared at the TV in a completely exhausted state and we slept.  We were excited to go to the grocery store and get errands run, but we slept too long to do that.  The hugs I have been getting lately from that little boy make it all worth it.  I don't know what we would do without help, though.  We'd probably all be in the loony bin.  Since we have literally frequented the loony bin so many times this year, I think that qualifies me to joke about it....right?