Updates & such

So many things have been constantly cropping up since the Summer that my poor little blog has been severely neglected.  But because so many things were happening and I was so stressed out, a step back was needed & helped immensely.  I have also cut WAY back on my Facebook time (I'm down to maybe 5 minutes a day) as well as took FB off my phone.  There was just too much drama from too many people so the downtime from FB & my blog was definitely needed. 

On to the updates :-)  Lightning is allergic to dust mites & is now on medication targeted specifically for that allergy.  He may also be asthmatic, but the allergist needs to look into that more before trying a new asthma inhaler with him.  It's also increased my home work load as I'm having to launder his bedding every week now rather than every other week.  We're working on getting a dust mite pillow slipcover & mattress slipcover to help the rest along, but it's got to fit into the budget, and right now it doesn't.

Dare and Bess are both doing very well and enjoying school.  The furballs (dog type:  Luna & Twinkie, cat:  Rowan) are showing their age, but still seem to be enjoying life.  Twinkie has lost the bulk of her hearing, but can still see well enough.  Both of the dogs have joint issues in the winter, so we've done what we can to ease that.  I bought a couple of buckets so I can give them warm water baths on the warmer Winter days so they aren't miserable with cold water & we have non-stinky dogs.  Rowan's in the best shape of the furballs, but she's also the youngest.

Donald is going overseas in January & will probably be back around June.  It's going to throw a real wrench in getting anything done at the office, but it may actually help with the budget.  We'll get family separation pay for each month he's gone & hopefully will get a discount on our Verizon bill since he'll be on military orders.  It's going to be a crazy time, but we'll get through it.

Thanks so much to Zaira for tweeting me about the Jessie episode on Narcissism.  I'd been looking for a way to start talking to the kids about Narcissism in general so they had some clue what it was, and this was a great platform to begin with.  It was very kid oriented and I was able to not mention the N at all in reference to the show...it was more "what would you do if someone made you feel like Bertram's mother made him feel?"  So informative to see the kids' reactions, too.  Bess is going to be eleven in January and she's turning out to be just as curious as I am.  She's beginning to ask more questions about why Grandma doesn't like me & why I don't like spending time with Grandma.  It leaves me walking a very fine line between being honest with my daughter & demonizing her Grandmother, but I'm trying very hard to let her make up her own mind.  It's not easy, but I think it's the best thing I can do for all of my kiddos.

In other NPD news, Donald & I have come to a much needed understanding.  I realized one of my biggest gripes is that he never EVER discusses the issues he has with his mother with the kids.  In my mind this leaves them wide open to not know how to deal with the manipulation and emotional abuse.  So I talked to Donald about how he needs to talk to the kids about what to do if someone (not specifically Grandma, because he's not ready for that yet) makes them feel bad or hurts their feelings so the other person can feel better about how they see themself.  He agreed that he needed to start doing that, so now we're BOTH in our own ways talking to the kids about how to care for themselves.  That's pretty freaking awesome :-)