Hello, Hello! Let me start this post off by saying that I have contemplated it all day. I have been reading a lot of blogs lately, and I find that I am drawn to the ones that are very open and truthful. Yet when you are completely open and truthful there is so much vulnerability there… Do I want to go there? Here? To my readers who I mostly have never met in person? The answer (at least for today) is yes…. I have received so many kind notes from many of you saying that you really appreciate it when I include personal notes. Although there is that comment box at the end of every post that doesn’t get too much love on here…. I get more private emails, which is fine, but comments are good too! So here’s the thing… this is probably going to be really long – so you might want to grab a Diet Coke or a Lemonade or something if you really want to make it through this one. (Just don’t spill it on your laptop, K?) And if you’re not into bare honesty.. you might just want to walk away now.

Alright, let me just start by saying this has been a really hard week on our family – a hard week emotionally. It started off with the car accident last Monday (already blogged about that here) Tuesday and Wednesday weren’t too bad – just tried to get the insurance all worked out and such. Hopefully the car is getting fixed on the 1st! That is the plan anyway.

Tuesday I had a chance to talk to a friend I haven’t talked to in over 3 years. She was my best friend in high school, but towards the end of high school and college we kind of went seperate ways. Another mutual friend who I recently reunited with on Facebook, was kind enough to give me my long lost friend’s phone number. The whole conversation was bitter sweet. You know how some friends – even if you haven’t talked to them in years, you can pick up right where you left off? This was sort of like that, in a small way, but there was also some major distance felt. She said and shared a few things that just made me really sad that I wasn’t there with her to walk through these things with her. It reminded me how important it is to keep up with friendships that are important to you. It is so easy to drift apart from people you move away from etc. But now with all the technology we have – really there is no excuse… So in a big way I am just sad that I let our friendship (and probably some other ones as well..) drift apart. Those are years we can never get back. And just as a side note… I have decided to reserve my Facebook account for people I personally know, so don’t run over there and ask to be my friend as I will probably ignore you unless I know you personally…. Sorry, but it is just what I have decided to use Facebook for. On the other hand… I am more than happy to communicate with everyone on twitter! Here is my twitter link: http://twitter.com/themenumom

Moving on…. Thursday my husband came down with a fever. Let me just say that I’m not very nice to my husband when he is sick… I can handle it for about 6 hours and then I just get entirely frustrated and annoyed. I am fine when the kids are sick, or even friends and can show a great deal of sympathy. However, there is something about a whiney husband that just pulls on my nerve strings really really quickly. Anyway, to put it bluntly, by Friday afternoon when he asked me to take him to the Dr. (with all four kids) because “with his sore throat and fever he just wasn’t sure he could make it on his own” I was at the very end of my rope and was not very nice to him at all. I am not proud at all of the way I treated him, and the whole situation left me feeling completely frustrated at myself for the way I handled it.

The entire weekend we studied (and I do mean studied…) Dyslexia. You see, our son Christian is in first grade this year, and frankly he is not going to pass. We have been searching all year for an answer as to why he is struggling so much, and I think we FINALLY have an answer. If you have a child strugglng in reading, spelling or writing, you owe it to them to take a look at this site. After studying the topic so much, we have found this describes him exactly! It is an amazing topic, and believe it or not, 1 in 7 people have some form of it. This was incredibly emotional as 1.) It is a relief to finally have an answer. 2.) It feels very overwhelming at the moment as there are some things he just might never be able to do very well. 3.) Matt was literally crying through some of our research as he could also relate to the entire situation from his childhood – yet he was left to struggle without help. It is a genetic issue and he is fairly certain he also has it. I could literally go on and on about the topic. The frustrating part is that the school district does not test for it – they refer you to your Dr. and your Dr. refers you back to a psychologist who really doesn’t test for it either. You need a certified dyslexia tester – that runs $750 – $1000 and isn’t covered by the school district or insurance. HELLO! No wonder so many kids are not being tested for this and are left to struggle. If 1 in 7 kids have this, why aren’t schools recogizing it more? Anyway, Christian’s reading teacher is going above and beyond her call of duty to help us, we are so blessed to have her! We have some big decisions to make in the days ahead about what type of schooling will be best for him next year. Thankfully we have found some curriculum that is designed to help with this and I have also heard a success story from a college friend whose child has been officially diagnosed and has been using the curriculum. There is hope, but it is going to be a long road ahead!

Last night I was chatting with my best friend – as we do many nights – and she mentioned that her son (who is my son’s best friend) had brought up over the weekend that a couple boys are calling Ryan “gay” at school. Of course the mama bear claws come out (as I’m sure most of you understand..). So I asked Ryan if he ever gets teased at school and he says yes, N calls me Mr. Smarty Pants (which I thought was actually kind of cute…) and I said is that all? And he says “No, N & A are always calling me gay.” Then the chin started quivering and the big crocodile tears started flowing and MY big crocodile tears started flowing. So we had a chat to see if he even knew what that meant (we’re only talking 3rd grade here!) and then discussed our family’s view on the issue, and he said through the tears that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Talk about heart-breaking! So…. Matt and I discussed it for awhile and he made the decision that if it was our child calling another child names, we would want to know about it…. So he called N & A’s parents. He actually only got ahold of N’s parents, who were very kind and responsive. So this morning I grabbed Ryan again and asked how long it had been going on. “I don’t know, quite awhile…” Why didn’t you tell us? “I don’t know, guess I was embarassed.” How did it start? “We take turns taking milk to the Kindergartners and it was my day. The boys said let’s go play and I said no, I have to do Kindergarten. They said what? And I said No, I am K. And from then on they have said ha, ha Ryan is Gay.” Did you even know what gay meant? “No, I asked H (who is a girl) and she told me…” Would it help if we called N & A’s parents? “I don’t know… maybe” Little did he know we already called… UGH Do my babies really have to grow up? Anyway…. So afterschool I am chatting with my friend again, and Ryan hands me a folded up piece of paper and gets in the car. So I open it.. and it says: “Dear Mom, Thank you for helping me feel good. I don’t think they called me that all day. Did you or dad call them or something? Love, Ryan.” TEARS again… But I am so grateful we were able to work through the issue. I was tempted to just let it slide since there were only 4 days left in school… but now I am so thankful we brought it up to him and dealt with it.

Okay, I told you this was going to be long… But I also have to bring this subject up… Jon & Kate Plus 8 Do you watch? Did you watch the Season Premiere? If so, you know what I am talking about. (If you don’t watch, chances are you still have probably heard something about it in the media lately.) We went from the most beautiful vow renewal towards the end of last season – The committment that despite the ups and downs they are in this marriage for good. I felt like they were such a beautiful example to so many families. Then the season ended with Jon obviously wanting to be done recording and Kate wanting to move forward. Fast Forward to this season, and this marriage is broken. It completely broke my heart to watch the premiere. Jon has apparently not been faithful to Kate – we obviously don’t know the entire truth… but it was so so sad to watch. I know many people do not like Kate, but I personally have always been able to relate to her for some reason. I feel like if we were neighbors we would probably be friends. Matt feels that since Jon made it clear at the end of the season that he did not want to keep going, and since they obviously have enough money, that they should have stopped and focussed on their marriage. I agree to some extent, but also feel like I understand Kate’s passion and desire to move forward. At any rate, I found it very painful to watch, and am very saddened that they have a book being promoted in the Christian Bookstores and now it is turning into this. Now if they could turn their marriage around – what a testimony that would be, but after last night, it really felt like Jon had already made his decision and was checking out…

Jon made one comment that really stuck out to me though – he said something to the effect that there aren’t many jobs out there where you are constantly being watched. I spoke up right away and said… I don’t think people realize how much a pastor’s family is watched. Of course nothing in nature like they have, but we are looked upon in our community as leaders (something that I am not naturally). It is a stress on the family though. Matt often reminds me when I go out that I am representing our church and community – so talk and act accordingly.

And on that note… I don’t think we pray for our marriages enough. We have someone coming over to our house tomorrow morning, who called tonight saying their marriage is in trouble – my heart breaks for broken marriages – Pray for your marriage, your friend’s marriages, your pastor’s marriages…

So that is my week – up close and personal – my heavy heart shared with you – not the “hey how are you doing?”, “Oh, I’m great!” natural response we often give, but the here is how it is – TRUTHFULLY.

C-

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 11:08 pm and is filed under The Menu Mom Chit Chat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.