What's happening?????

Well, lots really. Some recap stuff from the past several weeks, pictures to help tell the story.....

Well, I know I promised pictures of the sand sculpting contest, so here are a few, slideshow on the way:
Brandon on the beach on a cold Sunday morning:


Not the most elaborate castle I have seen there, but still amazing detail.


Lots of "statements" with the sculpting this year:










The pictures do not really do the sculptures justice. It amazes me how much can be done with sand.

For the squeamish I highly recommend you skip the next picture.

Brandon was bitten by a spider, just under his eye a few weeks ago. It also happened to get a bacterial infection. MRSA? No one would really say, but considering he was already nine days into a ten day stint of Amoxicillin, it could have been. He had to go on cephlex to help with it.





We had two emergency room visits, two family doctor visits, and a visit with a plastic surgeon over this. He also managed to have a sub-cutaneous hemorrhage just after the last picture, which made it even worse.

Brandon is playing soccer again...so in the middle of the game Brandon is yelling instructions to me about when to take pictures of him. "Get this one dad", "Get me just as I am kicking it", etc.


A spider we found in the garage:



Susan sponsored a team for the Race for the cure two weeks ago. Due to my world record procrastination, Brandon and I were photographers for the event. All of us had a great time.








And Susan carried her son the last mile....no kidding...


Susan and I went to a costume party this past Saturday.
See if you can guess who I went as...
I can't believe I'm going to show you this.....


Oh, and there is more....

Hint: "I would say I'm sorry if I thought that it would change your mind"


Tuesday this week was the start of piano lessons. Brandon's mom may actually pay for half, yet to be seen though. Brandon was very excited. Heck, I'm excited. I've always wanted to learn. I've been looking at electronic pianos for a long time, and two weeks ago I got one for a half to a third of retail. At Sam's club no less. We were in there to get one of Brandon's prescriptions for his spider/bacteria experience and I decided I would just "look". 15 minutes later I was wondering how it was going to fit in the car. :-) Hey, it was that good of a deal.

Ok, so Sam Hain, All Hallows Eve, Halloween.
Brandon lost his mask at his lockin with the YMCA, so we had to make a quick stop to get another this afternoon. We also needed candy. Brandon had carved his pumpkin on Monday so that was already set.

All that being done, Brandon announces that he wants to go get candy with his friends, the neighbors. Now that hung me up. My mind is doing the parental unfounded fear thing. He is ten. Should I let him go with his friends? What happens if they get in trouble? What if he gets hit by a car, and on cue, sirens blare in the distance (not kidding, they really did right at that moment). My heart rate jumps. What if.....a thousand horrible things. Meekly I speak, "Yes, you can go." He jumps for joy, does cartwheels, etc, until I start spelling out rules. Have to be back by 6:30 (it is 6:15 at this moment and not even dark), Have to stay on this street, have to ...., have to...., have to.....

Poor kid. Seriously, I was freaking out.

He goes across the street. I walk inside and close the door. I can do this...he can do this....

I walk back out, across the street, and tell him a few more things....come back and close the door.

I do this exact same thing six times in all. Yes, six times. By the sixth time, his friends are tired of seeing me. Brandon says, "I KNOW dad!!!!" He knows, but will he use that knowledge?

So I say to him, "Under no circumstances are you to have ANY fun. Do you understand me? Having fun would mean you are breaking some rule, and I won't have it." He cracks up laughing. :-) And yes, I did say it to him. He knows dad is destined for a padded room with nice people to hold him down.

In the end he spent a half hour with his friends handing out candy. when they didn't make any moves to go get candy, he came home to ask if I would walk with him, and I felt a prayer had been answered. So we walked the 'hood, he collected his bounty, and I actually let him have a little fun. He even remembered all the rules, and was very polite at every house he went to.

Here is a picture of his pumpkin:


And the boy that carved it:

A jumble of things....

Well, the school year is in full swing, but Brandon is off to a great start.  Almost two months in and I am wearing down though.  I've been the full time parent for six years now.  It is pretty much the same every year.  After a couple of months, my son and I get pretty tired of each other.  Even though this year I pretty much had the whole summer to myself and crammed in everything I could, I am starting to wear down again.  I am working hard to keep from getting where I was in the spring though.  I have changed my work schedule this year to be home when Brandon gets out of school.  Now he can play with the neighborhood kids in the afternoons and evenings.  He does his homework, gets a snack, and goes out to play for a couple of hours.  I get some time to get things done around the house, make dinner, etc.  Brandon and I are also playing various sports.  He does soccer, and I am doing volleyball, kickball, and softball.  I also have three babysitters to call on, though I don't do it enough!  I also have an amazing girlfriend that lets me vent and offers up a lot of encouragement and support.  I just do not really get a lot of pure adult time where I do not have to be responsible for anyone and can really just let loose.  My job is extremely demanding during the eight hours I am there each day.  Getting to and from work is  pretty mentally demanding as well.  To get anywhere around here you need to cross a bridge or a tunnel, or a bunch of them.  Traffic is just tremendously tedious.  At home I'm trying to stay one step ahead of a ten year old boy that pushes every button and limit far beyond the acceptable.  Plus, I never really know what report from either school or day care awaits me.  Most of the time the conversations with those institutions start with "Mr. Dad, can you come into the office so we can talk about Brandon."  Any energy, spirit, or hope totally drains out of me at those words, and I hear them a lot.  I have had to take my son to several different doctors, emergency rooms, etc in the last two weeks.  He was bitten by a spider, had a bacterial infection, multiple emergency room and family doctor visits for the bite, normal counseling appointments, plastic surgeon for the spider bite (family doctor was being overly cautious), and a new psychiatrist (praise God).  My medical insurance at work has changed and I am in the process of just getting my own insurance.  It is actually cheaper than the NEW High Deductible Health Plan.  You see, a single parent of a special needs child is the worst case scenario for this new insurance.  GRRRRRRRR.  There is the constant threat of vomiting when my son takes his evening and morning meds as he shoves the offending pill down his throat, halfway to his stomach.  I don't know why, because when he throws them up, I rinse them off and hand them back.  Ok, not really....well, once, but it was the anti-biotic and he needed the full regimen of that.  Hey, I had to pick through the vomit to get it....

Enough griping though....on to other things....

Two Saturdays ago was the Pub Crawl that benefited Parkinson's disease.  I got a babysitter and had a plan.  I don't drink often...if ever.  Many of my friends don't know that I drink.  It isn't that it is a secret, I just don't do it often.  You see, I am a single parent and I normally have my son with me.  I don't take him where there are a lot of adults drinking, and I don't drink around him otherwise.  We had a great time and it was for a great cause.  I also found some great new German pubs that I did not know about before.  :-) 

Two Sundays ago we (my son, my girlfriend, and I) went to Church, did a few hours of rock climbing, had a social at California Pizza Kitchen, and then played a couple of hours of volleyball with my league.  OMG, Who knew Volleyball could be so much work?????  Twenty some years of playing basketball has been a huge disadvantage to me.  Volleyball is nothing like basketball and I'm unlearning a lot of things.  I really like the exercise and I am learning to like the game.

Last Wednesday we had an awesome kickball game.  We won a game!!!!!  And not by forfeit!  Susan, my girlfriend was the MVP of the game.  She has several outstanding plays and kicks.  For once everything just came together.

My son has been playing soccer with the YMCA.  He loves it and is learning to love running.  This past Saturday he nearly kicked a goal in from half field!  In the air no less!

This past Saturday was also the Wine Festival.  Unfortunately, I only got to some sweet reds and whites, but they were good.  I love Chianti, Cabernet, and most of the other reds.  Susan and I had two groups to meet up with, and I forgot about the third (which I hope they forgive me for).  Susan and I ended the night with buffalo chicken sandwiches and friends at Hooters. 

So in all, I have made an effort the past two weeks to get out and get some Mike time...and give Brandon a break from mean ol' Dad.  It has been a difficult two weeks with work and doctors so I really needed the breaks.

Halloween parties coming up this week.  :-)

Have a great week everyone!!!!

PS: Transformers is a kick ass movie. If you haven't seen it, you should! There is one scene where they talk about masturbation so if you have children that will ask, you should know...



~Mike
--
"Until you forget what you think you know and what you think is possible, you will never know what is truly attainable."

So my son proves me wrong....on occasion...

I keep telling Brandon that the claw machines you see everywhere are a rip off. They are, but not as much for him. "The claw decides who will go," the LGMs say. Well, it is probably Brandon operating the claw. He has a knack for it. He spent $5 the other night and pulled out three stuffed toys. He even gave one to a little girl that was passing by....

~Mike

I feel pretty honored right now...

Monty is playing a picture game and I have become a part of it! For a Different Kind of Girl recently wrote about her one year anniversary as a blogger and wrote a lot about what the blogging community has given back to her. I started blogging sometime in 2005. Sort of like Hygiene Chronicles and probably a lot of others, it was an experiment that I never really expected to go beyond a couple of posts. It is a bit addicting though. :-) I really started blogging a lot in the first part of 2007. I was hurting in a way that I did not think I would recover from and I was looking for help. I found it reading all of YOUR blogs. I found COURAGE and HONESTY and a willingness to be TRUTHFUL. I found people SEARCHING and I found some ANSWERS. I found STRENGTH and I found WEAKNESS, and I found PEOPLE willing to share their STRENGTH with those who were WEAK. I found ENCOURAGEMENT. In part I know it is the semi-anonymous nature of the Internet, but I found people will to lay aside inhibitions and EXPRESS themselves. While I would love to return the favor to Monty for her including me in her game, there is a person that has been on my mind and in my prayers for several months now. I chose courage as the word to describe her and search on. Funny thing is that the first two pictures had to do with jumping off a cliff.

So here is my submission for the game:

Her name is Jules from Theater of the Absurd. I feel she embodies so many of the characteristics above, but with all that she has been through, and what she did over the summer, COURAGE is what immediately comes to mind.

COURAGE



PS: Something I ran across while doing an image search on most of the characteristics listed above in one search.

The Shape of a Mother

I feel pretty honored right now...

Monty is playing a picture game and I have become a part of it! For a Different Kind of Girl recently wrote about her one year anniversary as a blogger and wrote a lot about what the blogging community has given back to her. I started blogging sometime in 2005. Sort of like Hygiene Chronicles and probably a lot of others, it was an experiment that I never really expected to go beyond a couple of posts. It is a bit addicting though. :-) I really started blogging a lot in the first part of 2007. I was hurting in a way that I did not think I would recover from and I was looking for help. I found it reading all of YOUR blogs. I found COURAGE and HONESTY and a willingness to be TRUTHFUL. I found people SEARCHING and I found some ANSWERS. I found STRENGTH and I found WEAKNESS, and I found PEOPLE willing to share their STRENGTH with those who were WEAK. I found ENCOURAGEMENT. In part I know it is the semi-anonymous nature of the Internet, but I found people will to lay aside inhibitions and EXPRESS themselves. While I would love to return the favor to Monty for her including me in her game, there is a person that has been on my mind and in my prayers for several months now. I chose courage as the word to describe her and search on. Funny thing is that the first two pictures had to do with jumping off a cliff.

So here is my submission for the game:

Her name is Jules from Theater of the Absurd.
COURAGE

Careful what you write about....

My last post talked about how things were going great with my son. Well, not so fast. I have been punished for my optimism! Ok, not really. Last week was a not so great week and I'm still recovering. There were several events that have upset my balance. It is even more disheartening when I get a progress report for him that has 2 A's, 2 B's, and a B+, all S's, all strengths, and no areas of concern. A first to say the least. His grades are always this good, but the S's and no areas of concern are cause for global celebration. So one bad week shouldn't bring about such a shadow, but it does. Many of Brandon's issues are cyclic. I am praying this is not the start of a downward and depressive swing. I can't really take full blown temper tantrums in Target from a ten year old anymore.

He has seemed to bounce back this week though.

He gets to see his mom for a little bit Thursday!!!!

It's an acorn year. All day, all night, acorns drop onto my roof, bounce - bounce - bounce - bounce, rrrrrrrooooooolllllllll, and launch into the yard. They are about a foot deep...or sound like they should be. The squirrels will be FAT next year for sure.

:-)
~Mike