It’s so close…

I can almost feel it. I can almost smell it. I can almost taste it. Done 

It’s only two short months away…

While I was studying for my test last night, I had a glimpse and I almost felt what it must feel like to be done. To be graduated. I’ve been a student for so much of my life. It’s almost impossible to imagine what life would be like when I’m not a student. The feeling of being free. Free to spend time with my kids, free to clean my house without homework looming over my head. Free to schedule doctor’s appointments that don’t revolve around my school schedule….

Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for the opportunity to go to school. I have learned so much, and I value the knowledge I have gained. But this has been a long time coming. Nine years to be exact. I began college in 2004, and it’s 2013… 

I have had lots going on in between, so I don’t feel too bad about it taking that long. I have created three humans in that time, started a business, oh and seven years ago I got married.

I used to crave going to school. I had been out of school for a couple years when Ammon was about a year old.  It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy him or being a mommy, I just felt like my brain had gone to mush. I enjoyed going back to school and missed him terribly, but it really helped me to build my self worth by getting an education.

I took another break when we moved to Utah and I had Cameron. When it was time to go back to school, I was ready. I didn’t crave it as much as I had when I went back the first time. I learned so much in my Marriage and Family major. It has equipped me with so much priceless knowledge and it has changed me as a mother.

I took another break when I had Braydon. I went back when he was only  about four or five months and it was torture. I had taken most of my major coursework and I was not excited to go back. I enjoyed my break all too much and life was so busy with my three boys. I didn’t want to go back. But I knew I had to. 

That semester was the class I took the class that changed my life. It was fantastic. After that semester though, it’s been extremely difficult. I am hacking out the last of my generals and the information is interesting and I really love my religion classes, but I would rather be home with my kids instead of studying for tests. Cameron was really having a hard time this last month. We have spent some one quality time together and he is doing better. But I can’t WAIT to be done and breathe that sigh of relief. I am envisioning me walking across that stage –right now- it’s happening. It’s finally happening…

The Mommy Salary- Are you out there?

Alright ladies, I know I get about 150 hits on each of my posts, but there hasn’t been many comments lately so here’s your homework. Go to www.mom.salary.com and enter your information and cut yourself a big fat check and then if you feel so inclined, you may leave a comment with your “Mom Salary” in it. You don’t have to leave your name, it can be anonymous if you want. I just want to know where all my ladies are at!

I found this site last week while doing research on mothers. It was super fun to punch in my numbers and see how much it would cost to really “replace” me. I have always been quite secure in the knowledge that my work as a mother is most important. I don’t ever feel the need to justify why what I do is important to others, but this was just fun to see the monetary value in what I do. I don’t think there was a job title for “couponing” and “price-matching,” I spend at least five hours a week doing that! So, if there was a way to factor that in, I might actually have a little bit of a higher salary. Here’s my salary!

If we could,
We would pay
MOM

$209,170

Two Hundred and Nine Thousand One Hundred Seventy Dollars

---

Love, Ammon, Cameron, and Braydon!!

WE GIVE OUR THANKS 2MOM !!
NON-NEGOTIABLE

Earnings Statement
Our Family

For The year Ending: February 2013

Housekeeper
$9.15
832

Cook
$12.30
728

Day Care Center Teacher
$12.13
1,092

Facilities Manager
$29.90
728

Computer Operator I
$14.47
520

Van Driver
$12.99
728

Janitor
$9.15
416

Psychologist
$34.59
1,820

Laundry Machine Operator
$9.25
416

Staff Nurse - RN
$28.90
104

Event Planner
$29.21
52

Nutritionist
$23.99
104

Interior Designer
$19.66
104

Bookkeeper
$18.08
104

Administrative Assistant
$17.41
104

Plumber
$17.90
52

Total Value

Regular Hourly Rate
$19.34
2,080
$40,225

Over Time Rate
$29.01
5,824
$168,945

---

$209,170

Pretty cool, huh?

Valentine’s Day

My plan was originally to blog about the monetary worth of Stay-at-home moms but I forgot that I didn’t tell everyone about how our Valentine’s Day went… Sean woke up with chills and a fever so it wasn’t quite how we planned it… But it turned out great anyways.

It went a little like this…

And this…

And this…

And this…

Ammon and Cameron went to the store with Theresa and got me a pink necklace and earrings. They also got me a crown. They thought of it all on their own and they were arguing about what my title is. That is, they couldn’t agree if I was a Queen or a Princess. Cameron also picked out a Valentine’s Day mug. He told me it was for my hot chocolate (I’m obsessed with my sugar-free recipe). He thought of it all on his own! I am so proud of them. Theresa really picked up all the slack because I was doing a lot of homework during the day and then I had to leave for class. We had heart shaped pizza, Martinelli’s, and cake bites. But my favorite part of the day was when Sean gave me a 3-page letter. It was the sweetest thing he has ever written to me and it made me bawl my eyes out. Here’s a little excerpt to show you all how he spoils me…

“you are the pillar in our home. Your love is so strong that I have faith in our children that they will be fine. There is no place that our children could go that your love wouldn’t be able to reach. You are a mighty foe to the adversary and you just mow down all the hate and contention that is around you. You have learned so young who God is and you have tasted of His love. You willingly share this knowledge with others through your acts and you make me so happy. There is no other woman for me, I was meant to find you. I was meant to be healed by your love and strengthened by your presence. I know you have your struggles in life and I want to say that I am so proud of you that you have continued to fight the fight and lose weight time and time again.”

So as you can see, he spoils me. Because of the long weekend, I couldn’t do the thing I had planned for Sean. It turned out to be an all day project, but I got it done while he was at work on Tuesday. It was pretty great. I won’t post exactly what I did, but I will post the link. http://www.eastcoastcreativeblog.com/2012/01/perfect-valentines-gift-game-of-love.html

It was a huge hit. Sean loved it. Although I did fall asleep before getting to try it out! Oops!

Letter to an Ex

How do you thank someone for dumping you?

That idea was nearly impossible to fathom. That I would someday be in a place where I could easily thank someone-- earnestly and sincerely-- for dumping me. I've had many Exes  in my past. Sometimes I did the dumping, sometimes it was a mutual agreement, and sometimes --to be brutally honest--I was dumped. Big time. Oh yeah--the single days-- those were the days... I definitely don't miss them. I eagerly closed the door on my single life when I met Sean. I really love the emotional security that comes with marriage.

Its been over seven years since I've been single and my life has changed so much. I hardly even remember I had a life before I had children, let alone a life before I met Sean. I never really began to live before I met him anyways. But every once in a while I have a random memory pop in my head, a random feeling I felt years ago. An embarrassing memory, a sad memory, a funny memory.  Almost as if I'm remembering memories from another life. It's really quite strange. I travel back in time for a few fleeting moments, and then I'm thrown back to present day mom-hood where poop is on the floor, my toddler is climbing in the oven, and my preschooler is scolding me for not getting him dressed in the right order. I love my life now--and all of its craziness. It really is everything I ever wanted. When I was a child, when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never had the answer they expected. While other little girls wanted to grow up to be ballerina's and veterinarians, I wanted to be a Mommy. It's all I ever really wanted. I've never been able to understand those people who choose to leave their families in search reliving their single life. Never.

But back to those fleeting moments. Let me explain. They are not longings for a former life. They are more like "Ah, can we just erase that from ever happening?" While I did have some fun times when I was single, that mostly came from the awesome roommates and friends I had. My single days were some of the saddest and most empty times in my life.

Growing up, I had attachment issues. Some of you may already know that I technically am from my mother's previous marriage.  I hate thinking about it, because in my heart, I know who my true earthly father is and biology has nothing to do with it. He's the man who cherishes my mother, who adores his grandsons, who counsels my husband, and who loves me. He's my daddy. It took me a long time to heal that relationship because of the hurt that was there from my "sperm donor." (Who by the way, I harbor no ill feelings towards; however, I don't want him in my life or my children's lives.)

I had a hole in my heart. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true. I tried so hard to fill those holes. I would find myself missing someone, and I didn't even know who I was missing. It wasn't until a couple years after I was married to Sean that I realized that my hole was gone. 

I had very insecure attachments with men-- and for good reason-- I didn't always end up dating the best guys. I did date a few good guys though. One in particular, I thought I was in love with. I definitely was more in love with the idea of him. When he told me he had prayed about it and knew we needed to break up. I was crushed.

I was a complete waste of human flesh that semester. My poor roommates had just met me and all they got was a total bawl-bag. I think I literally cried gallons of tears. I would break down crying anywhere. My room, the bathroom, the hallway. I would literally stop dead in my tracks and slide down the wall in the hallway and crumple into a heap of tears. It really was pathetic. It was a really low point in my life and I rarely ever think about it except for those random flashbacks I get sometimes.

The other day I was thinking about how my life is not what I expected it to be, or what I planned on it being like, and how grateful I am for that. How silly was I to think I knew best, to think that my plan was somehow better than the Lords. That led me to think about how grateful I am for the failed relationships I've had. I know each one prepared me for Sean, but whats more, I'm grateful for the guy that was brave enough to pray about things, stick to his guns, and dump me. I get moments that I'm so happy about it that I almost want to stalk him and tell him. How weird would that be? I know he is happily married somewhere, so to avoid an awkward situation, I decided to just blog about it.

Dear Ex,
How can I say thank you enough? Thank you for giving me everything I never knew I wanted.
Thank you for being stronger than me in such a crucial time of my life. Thank you for closing that door on me, because eight months later, my eternal knight-in-shining armor climbed through that open window.
Thank you for being strong enough to pray about things. I was too afraid of what the Lord was going to say.
Because of you, I have the perfect life. It might not be perfect to everyone, but its perfect to me. And it's all possible because of you. So thank you.
Sincerely,
Alicia

My little Cameron boy.

As promised, here is the post about Cameron. I started noticing things about Cameron a few months before we had pieced things together with Sean. I remember thinking that they had similar anger patterns and dealt with  failures very similarly too. I asked Sean one time, "how did you pass that on to him, it almost seems genetic?" I laughed it off, not knowing there could be any truth in my question. I could understand the source of Sean's anger, he had been through some really tough things in his life. But I couldn't understand why Cameron acted the way he did. He seemed to act like a troubled teenager. He would tell us he hated us at the drop of a pin and be deeply offended or hurt by a timeout and lash out in anger or violence. I worried for his little life. I knew no one understood him like I did. It was going to be hard if no one understood that there was the sweetest, most lovable child hiding under all that anger. Besides the anger issues, I remember thinking that there were a few things that were strange, but I never would have put it all together had I not figured out Sean first. He had some weird quirks, but I thought he might just be a little OCD. Here are a few things that I noticed about Cameron after the fact.

• Loud noises bother him, he is always covering his ears when we run the vacuum or when he hears certain pitches.
• Loves learning, and learns very fast. He is very good at learning, he is constantly surprising me with words and ideas I never knew he knew.
• Very smart, he just looks at things from a completely different perspective than a lot of kids.
• Very rule oriented, e.g., If I tell the kids to turn the TV off he will walk up and shut it off immediately before anyone has time to pause a movie, or save a game. He sometimes ruthlessly will enforce rules with Braydon, he doesn't understand that hitting the baby is worse than the baby touching the remote.
• Extremely literal. We have to watch everything we say. He got very upset with Sean when Sean told Cameron he would run a little bath for him. He basically was angry because he said he couldn't fit in a small tub. When we were swimming this summer, I told him that he was my little fish because he was swimming so well. He got extremely upset because he said he was a boy, not a fish. I have thousands of examples of this one. Some are pretty hilarious, and they offer up comedic relief for us in the moment, but he fails to understand that we aren't laughing at him in a mean way, and he becomes deeply hurt.
• Difficulty reading body language, facial expression and tone. Many times we have been in a store and he loudly announces that he hates a certain child walking passed him. ("Me hate that boy!") He has a hard time understanding facial expressions, so when someone is looking inquisitively at him, he is unable to determine the expression and immediately thinks they are mean.
• Repetitive routines and rituals. He has to have his blankets laid completely flat over him. He has to have his towel opened completely wide before we wrap it around him. His jacket has to be zipped exactly the way he likes it, in the order he likes it. His gloves have to be on before we get in the car, etc...  It takes constant explaining to get him to change his mind about things. We spend most of our days talking about the "why" of things, and the reasoning behind each choice. Fortunately for us, it avoids 90 percent of his meltdowns.

•  Strong sensitivity to sound, touch, taste, sight, and smell. He hates getting his clothes wet, he will take all his clothes off when they get a little bit wet. He hates having accidents to the point that he will sit and poop in someones backyard over doing it in his pants. (We've had lots of talks about this.) He's obsessed with skin. He can hear the neighborhood dog and obsesses about him jumping over the fence.
• Amazing memory. He recalls things from a year ago and hes only three years old. He pays attention to lots of details as well, things I never notice, he has thought about.
• Can play with his toys for hours uninterrupted, especially trains. I thought that this is what "normal" children were like because Ammon was so far on the opposite end of the spectrum and had to have me with him and entertaining him every second. Cameron could always play forever with his toys.
• Wants to make friends, but lacks the social ability to do it a lot of the time. He will blurt out something completely unrelated to the topic of a conversation in his attempt to join in. When he fails to join in the conversation, he attempts (if he hasn't crumpled to the floor in defeat) to physically get into the conversation, sometimes in good ways, and sometimes in not-so-good ways. He has broken a toy children were playing with, because they failed to reciprocate the desire to play with him. He will also just give up and retreat, hang his head, and say "no body loves me."
• Black and white thinking. You are good, or bad. No in between. I remember a time Ammon and Cameron both asked for candy for breakfast. I told them no. They were a little disgruntled so I said sarcastically, " I know, I'm such a mean mommy, huh?" Ammon told me "NO! You're a nice mommy, I love you" and Cameron replied with "You a mean mommy, me hate you!" He always will come back when he is his sweet little self and apologize though. He doesn't like being on bad terms for a long time.
• In his "own little world." We always joked about Cameron being in his own little world and that if you ever want to escape reality, go talk to Cameron! Others have described him as marching to the beat of his own drum.
• Clumsy. We always thought we were just comparing him too much to Ammon's natural ability to play sports.
• Desires friendships and social contact but difficulty acquiring and maintaining them.
• Difficulty understanding others’ feelings. He would become extremely upset that I put him on timeout for poking the baby in the eye. He said I hurt his feelings. He had no concept of the actions he did to warrant a time out. It takes a lot of explaining and role playing for him to understand how others are feeling, but we have worked a lot it and he has made great improvements. 
• Loyal. He is fiercely loyal. He will jump to the aid of anyone in need. There have been times he has misjudged Sean and me being flirtatious as an argument and he runs to whoever he feels is being mistreated. He will stand up to me when I am unjustly assigning a timeout to one of his brothers. He will confront Sean if he feels Sean isn't acting nicely toward me or his brothers. He does all this because he is beyond loyal, and he will never let his sense of justice or right and wrong go as long as he feels he has the power to do something. He will never stand by and watch innocence (or what he perceives as innocent) be mistreated. He has been wrong, and he has been right in some circumstances, but in every circumstance, his undying loyalty shines through.

Cameron was officially diagnosed last month, but we started testing back in July. Before that I had been working with him, helping him with his eye contact, helping him understand his actions, helping him be aware of others emotions, and guiding him in his interactions with others. Although I didn't know he has Asperger Syndrome, I did know that he was misunderstood and somehow lacked the the ability to communicate with others. I tried to help him as much as I could. Later, I learned that I was already doing what the therapists would have recommended. (Divine inspiration!) We have been working on a lot of things in the last six months and Cameron has made incredible improvements all across the board. Begining school was also a tremendous blessing for him because it provided him the structure and routine he was craving. The routine alone has made him one of the happiest little boys I know. He still has issues with his anger, but he is overall tremendously more happy. He randomly professes his love for each of us and he rarely tells us he hates us any more. (Although his weapon of choice lately is "Me not your mommy anymore," and yes I have to hide my giggles.

 I'm happy we got the diagnosis--not because I want to label him--but because I wanted people to understand him a little more. I want to equip him with the tools he needs to face the world and succeed. I want him to feel like he can do anything, and not feel trapped and alone. I know that in order to be helped, he needs to be helped in a way that makes the most sense to him. I could make him live on time out, but our relationship wouldn't grow any stronger and he would probably grow to resent me. Our relationship has grown exponentially in the last six months. We talk everything to death, until he firmly understands it, and until I see that light in his eyes that tells me he understands.  You know, it's always fun to look at the world through your children's eyes, and with Aspergers children it might seem a little harder. It takes a little more effort to wrap your brain around the way they think, or how they process things, but once you do, you will love what you see. Things make sense to them in ways that other people can't see and it's a beautiful thing to catch a glimpse of that. I love crawling into my little Cameron boy's  head. It's always worth the journey.