Time....

It seems like it's trickling by and I am unable to slow it down. With so many things happening in my own life, school seems to encompass the majority of my time, I am having trouble to sit and watch my kids and to appreciate them on a daily basis. It doesn't seem like 4 years has passed since Jack made funny faces whenever the camera would point to him, today he tests for yellow belt in karate. It's something that he really wanted to do and opted to forgo soccer for. He has excelled, something which Jaesen and I had questioned due to his ADHD. Although we have always known his potential, even we were pleasantly surprised by how well he has taken to the repetition of this sport.
Tristan, little Mr. Serious, and it's hard to believe he is off to middle school next year (here he will attend a magnet school where it starts at 5th grade). This year he tackled the violin, along with soccer and was finally placed in gifted and talented for math and reading. His imagination stills run rampant, from Harry Potter to Star Wars, he is still just a little guy in a body that is slowly growing. He used to have his imaginary playmates, "the boys", that rode everywhere with us and hung out with him until Jack was big enough to join in the fun. The kid who could navigate through Tokyo station with the best Japanese businessman or climb Mt. Fuji to the top. His nonstop monologues on whatever interests him at the moment can be taxing on a person, but the amount of knowledge in that great big head of his is enormous, and he so wants to share it with everyone.

And then there is Bean, little miss Savannah. How can it be that over four years has passed since her birth? Is time really passing that quickly? I look at her and now she is not a toddler, or a baby, but a strong minded little girl. She can ice skate, battle the other girls in soccer and kick their butts (making her mother oh so proud!), wield a lightsaber with the brothers and write her name. It was just yesterday that the midwife surprised us by saying, it's a girl, when we thought Charlie was going to be born. Just a moment ago when her funny faces could make us all laugh, she waited to walk until her Daddy came home from Iraq, almost like she knew that he needed to be a part of that moment. It's like trying to hold sand in your hands in the ocean, the surge of the surf keeps dragging the sand away, time is moving on no matter how hard I try to slow it down. The best I can do is capture the moments one at a time and enjoy them in the moment.

My Grocery Bills are Through the Roof!

I know you may say, well naturally you have three growing kids, a husband, two dogs and a cat, of course you will have high grocery bills. But now I am scouring the health food shelves looking for organic this and that, whole wheat and natural products, products without high fructose corn syrup and all those added, evil yellow and red dyes. No I haven't become a granola. But I have become the mother of a child with ADHD. I used to think that is was a convenient excuse for parents who wouldn't control their children and think evil things of them in my own head. And then one day I was that other parent. The parent of a non toddler who threw an absolute temper tantrum in the grocery store. Other people would stare and whisper while I tried to cajole, calm and eventually drag out a very strong 5 or 6 year old. We of course then didn't believe we should ever medicate our child, again another excuse for over medication. Sadly, after 2 years of trying different diets, punishments and many cases of wine, we realized our family was breaking and we needed help. At this point I begged on my knees for a doctor to find a medicine for our little guy (after all the blood work and such came back that he was perfectly healthy, other than this one little thing). After taking the medicine for 8 days we woke up to a child who could control himself during the 10-12 hours that the medicine works for him. Not a zombie, not altered, but a wonderful, spirited child that we knew we had but who was hiding within that horrible problem of his brain not firing on all it's pistons at all times. It's hard to be this parent. There are days I literally want to throw that child against the wall with his comments and frustrating behavior (and no I don't act on those impulses, although some days are harder than others). And then there are the days that he shines and makes us laugh and I feel horrible that we waited so long to get him help. These are the dilemmas of being a parent, nobody knows what it will be like for you, what cards you will be dealt, you just get them and have to plow on through and be the best you can. Some days that happens, and some days it doesn't and you feel like crap as you crawl into bed at night. But tomorrow is another day, another roller coaster in this crazy world of "life", and as long as I can keep my mantra that this too shall pass I know that I can get through it. So for now I scour for foods that will help him when the medicine won't, no fun cereals that contain all that sugar and dye, I have to up his protein, and try and keep him away from chocolate milk. Fortunately he loves fruits, vegetables, salmon and organic cereals or I would be in huge trouble! Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and the organic section of my supermarket are my new favorite places to be as I scan the labels for magnesium, zinc and calcium, just in case you are looking for me.

A Winter Wonderland

Well the kids finally got what they had been hoping for, SNOW!!!! It even gave them two days off of school while the streets got all cleared off. So hot cocoa, snow pants, mittens and sleds were items of the day. For me, I had three hours of shoveling snow so that I could get my car into the driveway from work, and to get Jaesen out of the driveway for work. Because even though the kids have snow days, we still have work. At any rate, it was a lot of fun, we snowboarded, went sledding, drank hot chocolate, had lots of movies and games, built snow forts and dried endless mittens, hats and boots in front of the fireplace. I love winter!

A Year in Review of the Yerger House

Ho, Ho, Ho, It's Gingerbread House Time!

And it's that time of year again, gingerbread house day is one of the best day's ever! All the kids get to go to the candy store and help pick out at least 20 pounds of candy to decorate houses with. And every year the houses get better patios, ponds, and more houses are made. This year we even had sharks in the pond! Of course a lot of the candy is consumed, and everyone loves that!!!! It is just fun to watch the kids take charge and make their own version of candyland.

Waiting for that snow....

I know everyone says that we won't like it come February, and you really aren't supposed to like it year round, but my kids have my love for the snow and are anxiously awaiting that day when the ground is covered in white and they don't have to dream about sledding and snowboarding, they can run out and do it. By late winter we will be ready for spring and the newness of that season, but for now, we are all waiting for those flakes to fall.

Tristan is 10!

Holy cow, can I really have a child who is 10? Where did the last 10 years go? There was a time I wasn't consumed with math homework, wiping noses, getting up in the middle of the night to calm bad dreams, but that was before I was a MOM! Ten years ago I was experiencing that scared, excited, please let's get this over with nervousness, and we were blessed with Tristan. A non stop talker when it's about anything he loves-animals, sports, Harry Potter-he'll talk your ear off. He's smart as a whip and has a good heart. Happy Birthday Bug! We all love you so much.