As Summer said over the weekend I'm taking kind of a break. I just haven't been feeling it lately. with everything that has been going on lately I guess I've just lost the oomph so to speak. That and the fact that the home computer has taken a dump on us. So we are now sharing one computer until we can afford to by a new one. Since Summer is going to school and she needs the computer the most I haven't been online as much. things at work have made me afraid to use the computers at work as well.

The depression has hit me really hard the last week or two as well. I've had at least 4 panic attacks just this month. This is with taking the medication like I'm supposed to. I was so bad last week that when I was driving home from my moms house one night I was actually afraid to be behind the wheel. During an appointment with my therapist last week I told him that I felt like I was on the verge of a breakdown. I just don't know how much more I can take.

Danger Will Roberson! Danger!

Or however it is that the saying from that Lost in Space show goes. To be more accurate it should read: Danger blog readers! Danger!

This isn't going to be a very upbeat post I can guarantee that right off the bat. I'm just in a very shitty mood right now. Very, very shitty mood. I cannot express how shitty I am feeling right now.

To start off with We finally have a date that our youngest son will be going to the 2 week evaluation that we were promised back in May. We received a call on Fri. afternoon from his Kaiser therapist saying that the Edgewood Center in San Francisco will have a bed ready for him on Oct. 1. So it went from a few months of nothing to he'll be leaving in a week. So I called the center yesterday and got a list of things that they need to have done this week before he can go there. Which left SR running all over the place tonight trying to rush through physicals and TB tests. We also now have to go buy him new clothes this weekend because he don't have clothes that are appropriate to wear in S.F. We were going to get his winter clothes for his birthday next month. Now we need them this weekend.

We are in such a rush anymore. For everything. The stress is getting unbearable. We have been letting everything slide lately. The house looks like shit right now. We're behind on laundry, my parents come home from their trip on Mon. afternoon so they won't even be able to see youngest until he comes home. We need to do a ton of housework next week so that we can have oldest son's birthday thingy on Sat. night. We wanted to have a combined birthday party for both boys but that won't be happening now. Youngest is going to miss his brothers birthday too.

To top off all the other crap that we have to do next week my sister called me this afternoon when I got to work and told me that our aunt died this morning. So I will be going to the viewing on Tue. evening and the funeral services on Wed. afternoon. This will be an easier funeral to go too this time though. Summer is going to be able to attend this one with me seeing as youngest will be in S.F. at the time. We just need to decide whether oldest will be going with us or staying home with his Great Grandma. We really don't want to take him out of school. But he also should be around the family as well. It may be the only time he sees some of the relatives at this point.

I know that I wrote a warning in the beginning of this post, but I just can't seem to let myself write what I was warning about. I don't want to revert to what I used to be. Then again if I don't write it out I'll end up keeping it all inside and that will just make it worse. It basically boils down to this: I'm tired of the double standards. I'm tired of be asked to things that are not done for me in return. I have a job too. I am also in a managerial position so I need to set an example. The thing is that when I ask and am turned down I am to just accept it and go on about my day. When I am asked to do the same thing but say that I can't leave work I get an attitude and am treated like I don't care. I do care. The thing is if I run to take care of things every time I'm asked to it is just going to solidify to the kids that they don't have to listen to certain people. They only have to listen to me and that's it. Boundaries need to be set and they need to be enforced. STRONGLY enforced. The parent needs to stick by what they say. I they say NO then it must mean NO. When it comes out any different the child quickly learns that NO actually means no until you get tired of saying no then it will be a yes. Does that make sense? Or am I just talking out of my ass here. Maybe I just don't know a dammed thing.

It's a dammed good thing that I have an appointment with my therapist tomorrow. I haven't seen him since May. With all the other crap that we have had going on I haven't had time to get in to see him. Maybe I'll feel a hell of a lot better tomorrow. that is if I actually open up to him and don't just keep things on the surface. I need to get down inside.

All I can really say right now is that I can't wait for Oct. 20 to get here.

A sinking feeling

The last 24 hours have been VERY eventful to say the least. I took youngest to see his therapist again yesterday morning. He looked through all of our IEP paperwork (SR keeps every IEP form we get in a binder with page protectors) and he noticed something neither one of us ever did. Back in Sept. when we had an IEP for him the first week of school we had talked about sending him to a non public school. The Spe. Ed diecrtor for the district even called the school during the meeting. Yet there was no documentation saying that we even discussed the school. So now legally the conversation never took place. Great. There is more tom say about that but my mind is racing right now.

Last night while I was at work Youngest asked if he could go play with the neighbor girl (his best friend). So Summer said sure. Next thing she knows the police dept. calls up and says that they have him in there custody and he tried to break into the hardware store ion town! They are going to bring him home. She calls me and I get off work and come home. By the time I get here they have dropped him off and have left. SR's friend from church and a teacher at the school is here. We talk about everything that has happened with him lately and all the crap that we have gone through with the school.

Cut to today. I wake up early and call the Schools Superintendants office. Leave a message for them to call me back. Then I call the Spec e director and leave a message for her to call me back. Then call Kaiser and get transfered to the crisis center at Kaiser. They get all the info from me and say they are going to talk to the head of child psychiatry tyhere and get back to me within an hour. They PROMISE!

After all the phone calls I write an email to the spec ed person and CC it to the superintendant. asst. superintendant and the Protection and Advocasy Inc. (PAI) in Sacramento. which by the way Summer called them last night and they put us on the top of there list and are having an atorney call us on Mon. moprning. YAY!

Any ways that was 2 hours ago. Still no calls from the school dist. even though I gave them my cel and home number. I did receive an email from PAI saying that they received it and for us to call and they will set us up with someone. That was already done though.

So let's go back in time to Kaiser. They called me back in 20 minutes. Amazing! I wasn't expecting that. They said to have him in tyhe office at 1:30 this afternoon. They are also checking an a residential program for him and will have more info on that when we get there this afternoon. I never even mentioned that to the crisis person. They are finally seeing that as a necessity just like we are. I mean it's to the point where we can't even go to the bathroom when we are alone with him.

So Summer is getting off work early today and is going to meet us for the appointment. (My typing is zattrocious today!!)

Anyways now I'm just overwheled with so much right now. I mean we are finally going to get some real help. Hopefully. Kaiswer is seeing that we need to have him in a place where they can better evaluate him. That is making me so happy. But at the same time I'm scared. I'm sad. I feel empty inside. I want to scream. I just want to feel numb to the world. I just don't know what to do. Or how I should be feeling right now.

I know there is no set way to feel. I also know that this is a good thing for him and for the family as a whole. This is the right thing to do. But why does it have to be so hard? Why does it have to hurt so much? Why did it even have to get to this pooint in the first place? This is NOT WHAT WE WNATED AT ALL FOR OUR CHILDREN!!!!!!

I am just so full of conflicting emotions right now. But anger and pure rage is the most prevalent. I just don't know who I'm rtaging and angry with.

I have so much more I want to say but I just can not sort pout my feelings. It is also time ofor us to leave. Youngest and I are going to meet Summer for lunch before the appointment. this may be the last time for awhile. That saddens me the most.

I can't believe it's been a week since I last posted. Even more I can't believe how busy we have been around here the last week or so. So now I have to see what I need to put in as an update.

First off I had a meeting with my therapist on the 18th. We spent the entire appointment talking about youngest son and the issues that we have been having with him. He actually spent the last 10 minutes of the appointment trying to get him an emergency psychiatrist appointment. To no avail. He did ask that Summer and I stay for a few minutes after the appointment (Summer and youngest were there as well but in the waiting room) so that he could find someone to see us immediately. He was able to get someone or rather 2 people to come and see us. They put it in his file that he was seen on an emergency basis. and that this should help in the future as far as getting things done.

On Tue last week I took youngest son to see his therapist again. this time he saw the Dr. alone for about 20 minutes. After that was done the therapist made a new appointment for this week and said that he will continue to need to see us at least every other week if not every week. When we got home there was a message on the answering machine saying that we finally got an appointment with a psychiatrist and that it would be the next day.

So that night Summer took a bunch of pictures of the things that our son has done around the house so I could take them to the appointment with us in the morning. The appointment went pretty well. The Dr. was able to see his behavior change from being really good and cooperative to starting to be destructive and hitting me. We saw this Dr. for almost 2 hours. She said that he will need to be seen by her and the therapist quite often so that we can teach him the tools necessary for him to calm himself down. She also said that he does not have autism, ADHD, ODD, or any of the other things he has been diagnosed with at the other facility. She said that he never should have been put on Wellbutrin to begin with because it is an anti depressant and he doesn't have depression. She believes he is Bi-polar. The problem is that there are no FDA approved meds for children with Bi-polar mood disorders. But she prescribed him a new medicine to take. Depakote. It is a mood stabilizer. She said that he needs more than just medication and that she wants to continue to see him on a more regular basis than his other Dr. did. So that is a plus.

Other than that things have been so-so. The whales are finally out of the area. At least as of 3:00PM yesterday they were finally leaving thew area. So that is a relief. I was on vacation yesterday and today is a holiday so I have had an extended weekend. :D I've been able to catch up on sleep, eat real dinners with the family, and spend a little time with Summer in the evenings.

We attempted to set up the pool over the weekend. That was a flop. Big time. We started to add water to the pool Fri. evening. It was full by Sat. morning and I started to run the pump. By 7PM we heard a loud noise from the back yard and saw the pool collapsed over and emptying itself out. I fixed it and started to refill it. But the torrent of water from the pool draining washed a lot of sand away. So I could actually see the pool slipping and sinking down. Which would cause it to fall over again. So now we have been draining the pool since yesterday morning. Funny how it drains so much slower than it fills.

When it is empty we need to move it closer to the house and hope that fixes it. If not I need to haul a lot more sand. Which I am NOT looking forward to. I thought I was going to break my truck last week. I had it WAY overloaded. I used a front loader at work and dumped a bucket load of sand in the back of my truck. Can we saw 'Maxed out the suspension travel?' My shocks were bottomed out and the springs were bending the wrong way. The front of the truck was almost off the ground. It wasn't pretty.

Other than that I need to get away. Or rather Summer and I need to get away. Together. Alone. Without the kids. For at least one night. Maybe two. A place where we can just lock ourselves up in a room and not come out. A place where talking about the kids is strictly forbidden. Even punishable.

God that sounds so good right now.

Where to begin?

That's what I am asking myself right now. Where should I begin with the updates? I haven't really made a *real* update in quite awhile. So I think I'll just start off from last weekend (weekend of the 20th) and move on into this week.

So my cousin and I were making plans to go duck hunting for the entire weekend that weekend. Then on Wed. night (1/17) as we were talking about the last minute details my uncle broke in on the line to say that his M-I-L just passed a few minutes ago.

Now she was not family to me, but she did babysit me a few times as a kid and we stayed in touch through family events through the years. I had just eaten dinner with her 2 weekends prior when I hunted with my cousin last. she was not in good shape at all. She was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's.

So my parents drove me down for the funeral on Sat. I had decided to go to the funeral instead of going hunting for the day. While there I had a few awkward moments with my aunt that is the mother of my divorced cousin. She and I had a little squabble on Myspace that I never posted about. So that was weird but other than that it was a good service.

While there I also started talking to my parents and and a few other relatives about retirement. Yeah I know. I'm too young to retire. That's ok though. Something that I am a firm believer in is that a person can NEVER be to young to plan for retirement. anyways I had always planned on retiring at the age of 59 1/2 (The age to draw from my 401k with no penalties). Through talking with my parents I found out that I can actually retire at the age of 55! Is that awesome or what? I can retire 4 1/2 years early. Then get another job like driving truck or whatever for the next 5-8 years. Then be done for good with the payments from SS. If I even decide at that point I want to work after leaving the state. I really won't have a need to. Outside of keeping me occupied while not hunting, fishing, and traveling.

The day after the funeral Summer asked me to stay home from hunting to be with her and the kids for the day. So I stayed home. but the wind picked up late in the afternoon and I couldn't pass on the opportunity. I told the boys to meat me in the truck in 15 minutes if they wanted to go on a quick trip to a farmers field for the last 2 hours of shoot time. That's when Summer asked if she could go too. So the whole family went. We had a really good time. Didn't fire a shot, but got to see thousands of geese grinding in the adjacent field. Not owned by the farmer that gave me permission to hunt. My work is cut out for me for next year. :D

Then came Wed. That was to be the last day of my duck season. I just didn't know it at the time. It was an awesome hunt. I ended the season with a bang. Literally. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I shot 3 birds for over a box of shells. But I did get 2 nice drakes. 1 mallard, 1 teal. And my first and only goose for the season. After my cousin and I were done duck hunting his dad called us up and asked if we wanted to shoot some pheasants. Since I haven't shot a pheasant in years I said I'd love to. So he had 6 pheasants planted in a field for us by the time we got back to his club. We walked out there for the final hunt of the season and watched some amazing dog work by my uncles dog. We got 5 out of 6 birds.

It was the perfect way to end the season.

The next day is when I got sick and I was in bed for 3 straight days. I was out of bed long enough on Sat. to get my taxes done though. I just love e-file. If you don't use it I can just say this- Step into the 21st century people! This is not the 1940's anymore! It's the only way to go.

Last night Summer attended another one of my therapy appointments with me. We had a good time there. My therapist actually thinks that I am ready to see my psychiatrist to see about reducing my meds. Only problem is that she is out of the office indefinitely. My therapist, SR and I all think that the talk I had with my parents last month has a huge deal to do with why I am feeling so much better. I just got so much stuff off of my chest that night. It has truly been a life altering night.



And now the news everyone has been waiting for. Drum roll please.
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Summer had her breast reduction surgery this morning! She went under the knife at 8:00AM this morning. It took a little longer than anticipated, but the surgery went great. Of course they didn't let me come in to see her until after 2:00! Then I had to leave at 4:00 to get back home to pick youngest up from his after school program. So I only had 2 hours to spend with her. she was pretty groggy which is to be expected. But she is so happy to finally have it done. Now we just have to wait for the heeling process to finish so we can see how it looks. For the next 7 days she has to wear a bra 24/7. She is not allowed to take a shower until her post-op appointment next Mon. I don't go back to work until next Tue. So I will be here to help her around the house. Or rather make sure she stays in bed. She is staying tonight in the hospital and will return tomorrow. I am going to see her as soon as the boys are off to school. She should be home a little after lunch. Fingers crossed. Parents leave for Mexico in the morning and won't be here to get kids from school.

One last thing. While waiting to get to go and see Summer a coworker called me and "disguised" his voice to tell me that my temporary promotion and crew change got approved today. So as of Feb. 1 I will be getting a 5% out of class pay raise for up to a year and $0.50 an hour raise for working an evening shift. When I return to work on Tue. I will no longer have to work with annoying coworker! (If you haven't read about her I recommend clicking both links to get up to speed.)

Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from the last 2 hunting trips for the year.

The greatest wife

I challenge anyone to tell me that they have a greater wife than I do.

Any takers?


Anyone?





No?





Good. I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone.

So why is Summer the greatest wife? Because through all the troubles we have gone through in the past 2 weeks with our children she still has the ability to remain the loving woman I married 12 years ago. Sure there have been many tears shed in the past week over issues that were out of our control but she still has remained strong after the tears have fallen. She still has her faith. That is something that I truly love the most in her. Her faith. I may not be a "believer" in the eyes of many many people. But it don't mean that I have no respect or admiration for those that have an unwavering faith.

So what has she done to make me so happy lately? Let's see here............. For starters she tells me several times a day that she loves me. She gives me hugs, kisses and love, every day when I walk in the door from work. She makes me feel like I'm the best person I can possibly be. She's really turned very playful as of late.

Take yesterday for example. We were sending some text messages to each other. When she sent what she thought was her last one she sent an animation of a person sticking out his tongue. That started an hour and a half text message marathon between the two of us. It lasted until I walked in the door from work. At which point I took her to our bedroom, took off her clothes, laid her on the bed and played wonderful mouth music on her southern regions. Which led to us having wonderful hot animal sex. She even talked dirty to me. Very, VERY HOT!

Afterwards she made me the happiest that I have been in a very long time. She attended my therapy appointment with me last night. Even more importantly she opened up and talked! She talked more in an hour last night than she did for the 7-8 appointments we had in marriage counseling 4 years ago. She even said that she will return to the next one next month. We had a great time last night at the appointment. We both laughed a lot when we were talking. The feeling continued for the rest of the night as we finally started our Christmas shopping. Unfortunately we're not even half way done. We've still got a lot more gifts to buy for the kids, my parents, my sister, my grandma, and a certain diamond ring I've got my eye on for that special someone in my life,. ;-)