A New Record...

... For longest time a blog has gone without an update. Did I get it?? Can I call the folks at Guinness?

Ok... seriously... here's a run-down on why I haven't been writing.

* I became Geri's CNA. That meant 6 weeks of intense training and then studying and then testing. It was really hectic and insane, but totally worth it because Medicaid pays me to provide CNA contact hours. These are hours she qualifies for based on personal needs, which would otherwise be delivered by a stranger, but instead she gets them from the person who knows her best and understands her. Me! And I get paid for it! So I have more money to spend on... errr... medical bills. Sigh.

* Big Brother is on visitation with his father's family. It's great, they're great, he's having a blast, blah blah blah... I still miss him like crazy and fight off bouts of faux-pression (when you're super sad so you want to call it depression because "sad" sounds too light a term, but you know that you aren't clinically depressed and you don't want to freak out your friends and family by throwing that word around) and being sad makes me blow off writing. But seriously, he's having fun. He had a great T-ball season and is taking swim lessons and had fun at VBS. I just wish he was doing all that here, with me. Yes, it's a tad whiny and selfish. No, I'm not sorry I feel that way.

* Geri's seizures are not quite under control these days. She still isn't having them super-frequently, but her neurologist and I believe we can do better so we upped her Keppra dosage, which was really low. I wanted her at the bottom of therapeutic range to minimize side effects, so it's not like we were just being lazy, but she's tolerating it well so increasing is ok by me. We'll have to keep tweaking it until it works, which some of you know is the fun part of epilepsy. Which means that if this is the fun part, the rest of it blows. Just saying...

* Listening therapy has been FANTASTIC. It's made a huge difference. Her expressive language exploded after we started it, and that's been fun to experience. She's hilarious! She says to me "I'm stinkin' cute!" all the time, as well as "I'm gorgeous." I'm trying to get her saying "I'm so modest" but she'd rather yell "I work out!!!"

* I had a crazy illness recently, was ill at home for two weeks then hospitalized for six days then ill for another week at home, and found out I have some form of gluten intolerance. Apparently I caught a stomach bug that threw my delicate balance out the door and all hades broke loose in my belly. So now I'm on a gluten free diet. May I just say that this has always been my idea of hell? I'm of French descent, raised in an Italian community... My food groups are "bread", "pasta" and "other." It's nice how there's a lot of great GF baked goods out there, yeah I know, but they are most definitely not the same. Even really good GF pasta is a bit rubbery, and great GF bread is a bit dry and not as soft and spongy and... I should stop. At any rate, it sounds like torment until you factor in the physical discomfort of eating glutens, and then it doesn't seem so bad. I seriously feel about a thousand times better... and this may even be the source of my weird "migraines." So yeah, I'll take it and I'll like it. Just gotta pull on my big girl panties and deal with it.

*We own chickens now! Three of them... Hamlet, Rozencrantz and Gildenstern. We had four, but Ophelia died in a heat wave, which I think is consistent with the play. Isn't Ophelia the first of these characters to die? They are pretty good layers and the kids get a kick out of them. Little Sister enjoys checking for eggs and chasing the chickens back into their run after free-range time. Geri loves it when I catch one for her to pet. She giggles her head off the whole time, which is really calming for the bird... not! But it's cute as can be and I love seeing her have such fun. And the kids are great about the "we will eat them some day" aspect, since we have made it an up-front term. If you ask Little Sister what the chickens are for, she says "Food!"

I can't think of anything else right now, so I'll go to bed. I'm sure there's more that I'm missing, but I'll get to it another time. Thanks, and stay frosty everypony!