Did I ever tell you...

I can't remember if I ever told you all about Logan's other doctor appointment. I took him to our family doc to have his ears assessed. This was two days after the ear pain incident.

If I already told this story, just skip this post. I honestly can't remember and my brain has left the building for the month. It's on vacation.

So the doc looked in both his ears and scraped and cleaned all the wax out that she could.  Logan said his ears have never felt cleaner. Gross. The right ear had a ton of wax, while the left ear had just a bit, but not much. The left ear is the one with hearing loss.

The right ear was swollen and red, while the left ear was not swollen, but maybe just a hint of red. The left ear drum had a white spot on it, the right ear had no spot.

The spot could be a number of things,  but more than likely an old scar from an old illness, which scars cause hearing loss.

I know someone out there is reading this and laughing because I am butchering the explanation of this. Sorry. Lol. This visit was like two weeks ago, and remember that my brain went on vacation, so.....

We received a referral to an ENT and a round of antibiotics. Meanwhile Logan is using an Audio Trainer at school. This is basically a personal microphone system that his teacher wears while she is teaching, and he wears ear buds set up to receive the signal from her mic. It is helping so much already! It's so much easier to concentrate when you can hear what's going on.

This story is just beginning, I'm sure. More on this later.

Glasses

Sooooo, are you still waiting for that post on Logan? Oh yeah, okay. Sorry.

Last week we had parent teacher conferences. Sami got all A's. Phoebe got two B's and the rest A's. Both of their teachers were awesome and spoke highly of them. It was great.

Logan's conference went as expected.  It was good. We went in and had a talk about his missing homework and blah blah about how he scores so high on the placement tests and she doesn't see what we see about dyslexia . And then Trevor went on and on about what dyslexia is. How it affects him; how having dyslexia does not mean you are stupid. Blah blah. It was great. She was dumbfounded in a good way. I really wanted Trevor to explain better than I could to her about what we see and what it means.

And we had gone to the eye doctor earlier in the day for dyslexia screening. The funny thing is that when I made the appointment, I had asked for dyslexia screening, but when we got there and were in the room with the doctor, he told me they didn't do dyslexia screening. Lol. Okay then. Why am I here, right? But in the end we ordered a pair of glasses for Logan.

So funny thing on this journey to find out if Logan is dyslexic, we have so far found out that he is deaf and blind, but still have no idea about the dyslexia.  Haha!

A million things to do on a Tuesday

I noticed it has been a while, and I don't have time right now. So until I do, enjoy this post from the end of November that I forgot to publish.

When I have so much to do that it starts to get tangled in a knot in my head, I make a list. This morning's list was long:

Paint stucco: today!
Paint table and chairs for craft show
Find a desk or build a desk for craft show
Finish set for craft show
Photos for craft show
Build a child size bench: stain rustic
Batting and stars
Order card samples
Print and bind card catalog
Laundry
Change sheets
Christmas gifts
Finish photo shoots #1-4
Clean the house

Normally the list is like this: finish photo shoot and clean the house.

This time of the year is not my favorite. We over book ourselves and turn into a frenzied mess. If you noticed above, I'm doing a craft show this year. The circumstances of how it came about make me want to kick and scream, but it's truly not relevant for you to know the details. As I have said before, I wish people would think about how their actions or words affect others.

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of being generous in thought and mind with everyone who enters my life. It's important to me that everyone is given as much as I can give. A lot of the time this backfires. This is the part I've been thinking on. If my intentions are good, and I've sacrificed more than I should have, then why does it belly flop?

I think I have expectations to be appreciated, given that I have sacrificed so much to help people out. I know I'm talking around the issue here, but I just can't be specific... just try to follow....

Anyway, I really do feel sad after I serve someone. I don't think it's normal, and I don't know how to change my thinking. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I end up making the recipient feel angry or upset with me because I didn't meet their expectations fully or quickly. But the truth is that the recipient had completely unrealistic expectations of me, given that I was the one choosing to serve them, even though they felt that they "deserved" my service.

Did you follow all of that? Meh. It was probably not followable. Sorry.

So yeah. My problem. It seems stupid, but I cry a lot about it.

And hey you! Yeah, you! You probably think I'm talking about you, right? Well you are probably wrong. Or maybe you are right. This does happen over and over and over. Lol

Anyway, as I said before, it's something I feel very emotional about and yes cry about. I love helping and serving. Love it. But not when it's expected and complained about.

The end.

Dear Blogland,

So much to share, but not enough time. We got the front window of the house done finally. It looks amazing!  It is just too bad that we can't keep the bare cedar because it is BEAUTIFUL! But alas, it must be painted.

We built the gable vent for the front of the house. We talked about all the different shapes we could build the gable, but in the end we went with the hardest... the TRIANGLE. DUH DUH DUH......   {ominous music playing}.

It hurt to think about all the angles and compound angles. I wanted to wack a few things and crumple my husband into a thousand bits, but in the end we all were whole, no one died, and most importantly the gable was built.

Now I get to calk and paint it before it can be ready to be installed. It's two pieces by the way. I hope that somehow we can get it up the ladder and on the house. 

For reference, I am including the waaaaaaaaayyyyyyy before we bought it picture that we found in the courthouse records. It was actually a pretty nice house back in the day.

And one quick question: What would you do about that scallop-y part above the front door? It's not my favorite, but I could leave it too. We are thinking of just cutting it off and that's that. What would you do?

We worked at the house on Saturday. We worked on the front windows; getting them trimmed out and replacing the siding.

I cut crazy angled trim boards for the front of the house to line the stone between the stone and siding.

We took the siding all the way back to the side of the front step, getting rid of the mailbox slot. Yeehaw!

We did not take it far enough back to get rid of the cat door. Ugh. We will have to just patch that part in.

We worked until about 9 pm trying to finish, but we just didn't have enough time. There is still a lot of siding to put up, and we will get it done on Friday.

Meanwhile, I'm-a-gonna get the stucco patched and primed this week. It's a warm one, so it will be perfect.

AND.... lots of doc visits scheduled this week. It's gonna be a killer.

AND.... parent-teacher conferences! I know you all can't wait to hear about those!

And now, one more thing before I go. It's a question: Would you be uncomfortable or upset if your child who was struggling ' s teacher got a second job after school? Seriously, I don't know how to feel about it. On one hand, it's none of my business and I could care less. On the other hand, does this mean she won't be prepared the next day for lessons and stuff at school? Will she care less? How would you feel?

Even More

I'm so confused. On Friday, I picked logan up from robotics club and he said he wasn't feeling well. I felt his forehead and he felt warm.

On the way home, he told me that he was having a really hard time hearing all day and that his left ear was hurting.

We got home and I took his temperature. 100°. I tried to talk to him many times and he couldn't hear me. So, I don't know. This whole thing is weird.

More on Hearing

So since no one commented on my last post, I can only assume it was because you were waiting for more information. We have three options for how to proceed with Logan.

#1 preferential seating in the classroom. This is where Logan would be seated by the teacher as she teaches. If she moves around the room, he would need to move with her.

#2 Use an auditory trainer. This is basically an amplification system. Like a mic that the teacher always wears, and then a speaker is placed on Logan's desk or he would wear headphones in order to hear the teacher better.

#3 a hearing aid. Obviously this option is the most expensive for us, and the most extreme, though not really extreme. It's just an EXTREME investment. So for this option, we would go to our family doctor for a prescription for a hearing aid, and then back to the Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind to fill the prescription. They would then loan us the hearing aid in order to test it out to see if it would be a viable option, before proceeding with purchasing our own expensive hearing aid.

I met with Logan's teacher yesterday to go over these things with her. I left very frustrated and upset. I feel as if she thinks I am making this into a bigger deal than it is. As if she thinks I'm making this up. Like it's nothing and he is fine. I'm not talking about the hearing problem, either, I'm talking about the dyslexia.

I just feel really tired of the school system right now. I want to yank Logan out. I'm screaming it from every pore in my body, but Trevor is not behind it, so he stays for now.

Meanwhile I am pursuing dyslexia testing in Twin. I don't know if it's a possibility yet, but I want to have it done by parent-teacher conferences next week. I want to punch that stupid teacher in the teeth, so to speak, with his test results. 

I'm so very tired of these people who know nothing about dyslexia acting as if they have a PhD in the subject. Having dyslexia does not mean you are stupid. Having dyslexia does not always mean you don't like to read. Logan already has failed a dyslexia screening for an online therapy program, and this company used a well known test to screen him. This company was also recommended by Logan's school. So I don't know what it will take to convince his teacher, but either way I am bringing my secret weapon (Trevor) to put her in her place next week at conferences. I can't wait. I hope he's extra mean.

Ok, I know I'm not being nice, but I didn't explain what happened in my meeting with her. After explaining that I was still pursuing the dyslexia testing, she asked me what I see in him that makes me think he has it, because she doesn't see anything, and he is really smart. So I had written a list the day before of all the symptoms he has, and I had it in my purse. So I grabbed the list and started reading it to her. And she laughed. She smiled and laughed through the whole thing. And when I got to the end she said "I could say those things about all of my students." !!!!!!!

Ya know, maybe logan isn't dyslexic. Maybe it was just the hearing loss that was throwing him off. I don't know. But that was just plain wrong of her. I think any parent who sees their child struggling, especially when no one else sees it, would fight for them. It's just what you do as a parent. At least I care about my kid. Shame on her.

Anyway, I'm tired now, so siyanarah.

Huh

I am speechless.

yeah.

umm....

huh....

Logan has hearing loss in his left ear.

He can still hear, but not well.

Weird, right?

hmmmm....