hearing eval

Updated:
Jayden did great for his hearing check. It's amazing how they can do things even when a child isn't completely cooperative. They did several tests. They watch his reactions to things and that's how they can tell how well he is hearing. The bell tone headphones he should have wore, he could hear the beeping through it. Then they hid it behind my back and moved it around.

The other test was done with the tester in one room and Jayden and I in the original booth. There were boxes with animals in each corner of the room. The tester had the room set up so it was like we were wearing headphones, but we weren't. Then he asked Jayden to point to the pig, to the monkey, and to the bear, except he changed the decibel levels.

I'm happy to say that Jayden did well. They reported his hearing is good. I will receive a formal type up report in a week or so. I'm just glad things went well and we got good news for once!

Original:

Jayden will be having a hearing evaluation done by an audiologist at the South Dakota School for the Deaf this afternoon. It was supposed to be done in February, but had to be cancelled by them and rescheduled. So today we will hopefully get an answer as to how well he hears. I will update later.

wordless wednesday with water

a tween

This girl is a tween. Have you ever wondered why they call it a tween? Well according to Wiki, it's the ages between 10-14, or the tween stage before becoming a teen. Ok, I added that last part. It's also a stage where the said tween begins to exhibit huge independence if they hadn't already shown signs of that earlier. They may also be more lippy, mouth back, voice their opinion, scream, shout, and demand things.

But during this tween stage, they can be caring and motherly, looking out for younger siblings, and also trying to do good in order to gain things. Or maybe it's the privileges they are trying to gain back that were taken away during said independence stage. Aw, heck, who am I kidding. I can't keep track of this tween from one minute to the next.
But I can tell you this much. I love her. She's my first born. She's a big sister. She's an auntie, a good grade getter, a volleyball player, a sporty softball teammate, and my oldest daughter. And she's pretty special, even in this tween stage.

dams and water play

I love this weather that has finally blessed us. The kids are outside running, playing, throwing balls, taking the dog for a walk, riding bikes, and playing in the water. Every spring, I think the kids find something to do with the water. Last year it was rolling a ball through it and today it is building dams with rocks and using natural items from trees as boats, that really did float.

Littlest Pet Shop toys were found among the water, rocks and dams. People out walking their dogs and pushing their kids all commented on how neat it looked and what fun it must be. We also took our share of taking fun photographs with silly faces. I'm sure I'll post those this week.
For now, I have to say, I love spring. I love having the kids outside screaming and playing instead of fighting inside. It brings such happiness to see them using the outdoors for fun. And of course, it helps keep my sanity level in tact.

this boy

Have I mentioned lately how much joy this boy brings to my life? Have I mentioned what kind of miracle he is to me? I look at him so many times each day and thank God for his life.

This boy has the most contagious laugh that makes my heart warm. This boy has a love for the outdoors, cars, airplanes, trains, and water.
I love this boy beyond the justice of any words.

good bye

Good bye Stewie poop that has accrued through the winter.

Good bye Humpty Dumpty Snowman, now that we found you under 2 1/2 feet of snow.

It's time for you to get washed down, deflated, and put away for 8-9 months.

it just sucks

The bedroom in the basement has water again. Not as much as before. The smell is still there. The carpet is ruined. And we don't have answers. We tried contacting insurance, but I guess we can't use that because we don't have flood insurance. Who would have thought having a little bit of water in one room that comes in from the wall would need flood insurance. I mean the sump hole is dry. Ugh. So I guess we're on our own to get it fixed.

Some guys at work said we need to cut the drywall out and bleach the wall and floor, but that's after we dig down at least 42 inches to fix the wall. They said since the house was built in 1977 it was probably tarred and after this much time, it could be shot, or something like that.

All I know is my basement is in shambles, my boys don't have a bedroom. Their furniture is all over the living room. It just sucks. I'm sure it could be worse, but right now, I have 5 kids on antibiotics and a stinky, wet basement, and honestly...it just sucks.

bedroom and garage day

We are still working on the boys' room, but have made huge progress, although we might have a set back coming up. The room is now dry, which is great. But the smell that I call "cat piss" and that my husband calls "mildew" has become quite apparent since the water came in. It's the same smell we had when we bought the house and had the carpets shampooed. And at that point, the smell was so awful (in that one room) that we recarpeted it. Now the new carpet smells that way. I febreezed the heck out of the carpet, so we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Today we tackled the garage and made a huge improvement in the organization of it and purged tons of garbage. I'm sure the garbage collectors in town are not going to be impressed by our pile in April when we can start setting our junk out again! That's the one thing I love about living in Volga. The first Tuesday of every month is considered spring clean up. So it's not just once a year, but every month, except Dec-March. Anyhow, we've got a driveway full of stuff that will be piled out there.

I imagine I will have to work on cleaning my house tomorrow, which I hate doing. Having six kids, the house never seems clean. I'm not a clean freak so to speak, but I do like my house to look decent! I guess I'll see how that works tomorrow.

water in the basement

I never thought I would come home to water in the basement. I had a phone call to warn me, but it happened. Water has come into the boys' room and soaked it. Mike pulled all the furniture out of the room and then I started sucking water out. Next up was shampooing the carpet. And finally pulling the carpet up to attempt to dry the floor and carpet.

The floor is a slimy, wet mess. Right now we're blowing a fan at the corner to try to dry the water as it still comes in. We can't see it coming in, but we know it still will as the ground is saturated in that corner from the drain outside. We've also got the dehumidifier going in hopes to help dry things out. Everything is a mess.
Of course all the stuff that was in the bedroom had to go out of the bedroom. So the living room downstairs is full of crap. This is not the first time we've had problems in this bedroom. We're probably going to be forced to look for a permanent fix soon.

To top it off, Shaylee has bronchitis and a very red throat. I need a break. A big break. Housework is hard enough to keep up on when things are "normal" and now the normalcy is gone.

one more birthday celebration

One last celebration for the 3 year old.

Except he really didn't know it was a party.
Or that people were there to see him.

Instead, it was a "get together" with cake and ice cream.

And no singing, no candles, no making a big deal out of it.

Just family over enjoying some time together.

Because Jayden hated his last party two weeks ago.

Which is why we made it short, sweet, and fun, just how Jayden would and did like it.

Pizza Ranch review: Part 2

After having a previous few thoughts on our local Pizza Ranch, after today, I had some more thoughts which I vocalized to the owner. At least this time it wasn't so much about things happening to me, per say, but to the entire experience. Are you ready for this?

My husband and I went out to eat today for lunch. We really like the salad bar, so we were excited. Thankfully, we didn't have any issues with that. In fact, my husband was quite excited to see they had cottage cheese on the salad bar. He eats cottage cheese on his salad. I think he's strange for that, but that's not what this is about.

I watched two small girls who were probably about 6 years old wander through the restaurant and up to the buffet many times helping themselves to food. I wasn't paying attention to what they were getting until I seen the one little girl bring a plate back that was heaping full of chicken. There had to be at least 6 big pieces of chicken on her plate. And she was sure excited to show her mom. I joked that she must be eating the skin only and not the meat. So we started paying attention to the empty plates coming out, except nothing out of the ordinary was noted.

That was until my husband says, "she has chicken on her plate" as he carefully told me the mom was coming out of the back room with several pieces of chicken. So I watched her. She walked right up to the buffet and dumped the chicken back into the tub of chicken. I was appalled! I think I had a thousand thoughts going through my head. What do I do? Should I tell someone? Should I talk to her?

I decided to go tell the people in the kitchen. I first explained my story to a kitchen helper, who then had me tell my story to the owner. She was appalled. I explained several times the story, how the little girl kept getting chicken and then the mom brought chicken back up to the buffet 10 minutes later and dumped it back in. The owner immediately told the kitchen helper to pull the chicken and make new. The tub of chicken was heaping full and it was 11:50am....just in time for the lunch rush.

Then the owner decides she's going to go talk to this lady and walks back there. I proceed through the buffet. Soon the owner comes back and tells me she talked to her and thanks me (again) for making her aware of what happened. I asked her what the lady said. The owner then tells me what she said. "I thought it was ok to do that!" So the owner tells her it's never ok to take food onto your plate, back to your table and return it to the buffet. Wow.

I was speechless. And I couldn't make eye contact with the lady again. I was floored. It could have been someone injecting drugs into it or something and then returning it to the buffet. It actually can bring many scary thoughts into my head.

endings and beginnings

Today was the last day I drove to Madison. It was also the last time I drove home from Madison. At least in my personal vehicle, for work that is. Who knows, maybe someday I'll travel to Madison "just because". Nah, I doubt it.

For the last 1 1/2 years I have called Madison my home away from home. My place to earn a living, to pay the bills, and to have a job. But as today, I no longer travel to Madison. It was a bitter sweet ending. Saying good bye to families the last couple of weeks was hard, plus not being able to say good bye to families for various reasons left a feeling of no closure. But...

knowing I was coming to Brookings to work was a whole new beginning, something I have longed for since the day I was hired. I took the job in Madison in hopes that it would get me to Brookings at some point. Kind of like putting my foot in the door.

And here I am. I can now take my kids to daycare, pick them up, go out to lunch with my husband or friends, run errands on my breaks, plus just be home. I mean Brookings is my home. It's where I was born and raised. So it's great to be home.

So here's to bitter sweet endings and refreshing new beginnings.

Wal-Mart

My quick trip to Wal-Mart tonight was nothing short of frustrating. All I needed was cat litter. One simple item. I parked at the garden center doors, ran in...well walked in...grabbed my cart, picked up the litter and returned to see 5 people in line, a CSM helping the cashier (the only cashier) and a quick 4 people behind me. Wow. The front of the store never gets lines like that.

I refused to walk all the way to the front. I parked over there, went in over there, for the very reason I did not want to go to the front of the store. So I waited. And tweeted a few.

Then I seen it. A customer was using WIC, which was why the CSM was there. By the way, CSM is Customer Service Manager. I know this because I used to be one. Anyhow. It's very rare for WIC to go through garden center. WIC takes longer because it's separate transactions.

The CSM scurries away and we all wait while the cashier slowly takes the WIC order. Not that it was her fault. She rarely does WIC, so she has a valid reason to be slow. I wait and wait. Then I see the CSM scurrying back with infant cereal. Yep, she had gone all the way from one corner of the store to the other end of the store to get the "correct" items for the customer's WIC order.

I was frustrated. I can imagine the CSM's level of frustration or anger. Wow. Finally, like 10 minutes later or an hour or however long it was, another lovely cashier showed up and said she would have been there sooner, but she had to catch a fish.

Ugh. Remind me to never go to garden center at Wal-Mart when I want to make a quick trip into the store. I got my cat litter and left.