Just4Keeps Blog Challenge #1

I didn't get a chance to do this over the weekend, so I'll do it now before I start challenge #2. I'm not one to be much of a daredevil -- sky diving, bungee jumping and the like, so that's not something I'm afraid of because I wouldn't even consider doing it.

After thinking long about this, the one thing that comes to mind that I am afraid to do is go to work in the field that I spent many many years going to school for -- court reporting. Right when I finished court reporting school, seven long years going part-time evenings and many school loans later, Dave and I had decided that I would stay home a little longer. Marisa was only 10 months old at the time and I didn't want to put her in daycare to go to work. However, I kept up with my skills and kept taking the certification tests every six months.

Marisa had just turned two and I decided this was the time to go back to work. I prepared so well to take the certification test and passed two out of the three portions -- Literary at 180 wpm and the Jury Charge 200 wpm. I had just missed passing the Q&A portion by 4 errors. Well, I felt so good about it and that was it -- Here I come professional work world!!! Three days later my father passed away and then two weeks later I found out I was pregnant. Well that was the end of that :(

Now I sit here 4 years later wondering when I'm going to take that leap into the field I prepared so hard for, but afraid of the unknown and insecure about my abilities.

Blog Challenge #2

Where do you see yourself one year from now?

Hmmmmm..... good question. I'm not one who really thinks too far ahead because no matter how much we plan things or think they're going to go one way, they usually don't.

I do see myself working again, but where and doing what I don't know. I see myself being thinner and healthier. These are the two things I struggle with on a daily basis.

The one thing that just popped into my mind is that I am going to be debt or as close to debt free as possible!!! While Dave and I don't have much credit card debt in comparison to others, I want to have NO credit card debt and get out of this hole we put ourselves into when we had the addition built over two years ago. While the house is 99% finished, we just got whipped when it came to finishing it ourselves after the builder quit and filed bankruptcy and the legal bills that wiped out the rest of the money to finish it.

Yep, that's where I'm going to be one year from now -- out of our financial hole!!!!!

I'm Bloggin!!

As a challenge from Just4Keeps, I started a blog so I could take part. Let's see if I can keep up with this as I hope to be able to journal important moments in my life so I can then be able to remember when I eventually get to scrap them.

My day has been kind of bumpy. Started of good, but then the bright side of it ended when I took Collin to see a speech therapist at our local public school. Collin is my youngest who just turned 3 in July. I have noticed that his speech is somewhat delayed especially when I compare it to his sister and brother when they were his age. Well, as recommended by his pediatrician, I did so and the speech therapist actually brought me to tears. I don't know if they were more tears of anger or tears of failure.

She started off by more or less saying that his speech is impaired, but then went on to say he has behavorial problems, attention span problems, possibly could need medication to calm him and rein in his attention, and then the big kicker -- "he might be autistic". What the **** is she talking about. Now I don't know a whole lot about autism, but I know enough to realize that's not what my child has. I wanted to scream, but I was trying to hold my composure around my son and in front of this lady.

Collin is rambunctious, in a very defiante stage, and his speech is jumbled at times, but I feel he's made great strides over this past summer. I wondered how a woman, who I do know is a trained professional in speech therapy, could even begin to label my child with the things she did. Oh, and I forgot to mention she told me more or less, I need to have rules and defined boundaries in my home with set consequences. You don't even know me or my family, and for the whole ten minutes you take out of your time you can assess this much!!! It's amazing and sad to me.

If she'd like to come and visit my home for the day, she would see I have plenty of rules sometimes too many. I grew up with a very strict father and I believe a lot of him wore off on me, the good parts at least. If she bothered to even ask me, as I am his mother, what he is like most times, I would have told her that his behavior in her office was not usual. He only acts that way when he is nervous or afraid, and she definitely made him afraid. Especially when I was telling him to please sit down and I had to repeat myself a few times, she turned around and said I shouldn't have to ask more than once, I should direct him and she raised her voice and stated, "Sit down," to him.

Well, he freaked and stuck his head into my arm and after that he wanted out. That's when the tears started to fall. I tried like the dickens to hold them back, but the more I tried the more they strolled down my face. I couldn't tell her it was because I was angry at all the garbage she just fed me. I just wanted out of there, too!!!!

I have continued to cry off and on because somewhere I feel like I failed Collin. Failed him because I haven't given him the time or attention I gave his sister when she was his age. He has been a handful since the day he was born, and I wouldn't have it any other way, but somewhere along the way I just got tired and ,well, lazy I'd say. God gave him to us for a reason, spite fire and all. He's my little bubba all full of gumption. He's so sweet telling me over and over, "I lub you, mama".

Well, that's it I've told myself, I will make a difference with him and the changes started today. We worked on the alphabet flash cards and I've read to him in a one-on-one relaxed setting where he wanted to focus. I've cut back on the TV although he only watches the educational programs. Still I don't want to fail him. There's so much guilt already associated with mothering and I can't let this be something that I could have made a difference with and didn't. One day I hope to walk back in her office and show her the progress he made while having a big smirk on my fac