We're still here

First off, I want to thank you all for the wonderful, kind messages and well wishes- it means a lot to me. I know the blog has not been as active as in the past, but now that my funk is medicated away, it'll be better.

Jaymes is doing wonderfully. He's here part of the week and with his other family ("foster" family, though they re really just like family to Jaymes and the rest of us at this point, very good people) and is so happy. He is now potty trained, only wearing a diaper at night. He has an accident here or there, but that's fine... I am just so happy the idea of using the toilet finally sunk in. I am so ready to never touch another diaper again.

Jaymes is talking, and in greater detail and with more clarity than before. He can understand more difficult concepts, like that when we're sitting in traffic. Being the little backseat driver that he is, Jaymes will bellow "GOOOO" at every green light and stop sign, regardless of whether we can actually go or not. He doesn't much care about the cars in front of us, he knows where we're headed and sitting in traffic is not part of the plan, in his opinion.

Instead of screaming and hitting and yelling, Jaymes is now thrilled to see me and my husband when we come to pick him up. He's polite and well behaved 90% of the time. All aggression has ceased- thank God!!! He's just a sweet, laid back kid. He's been doing so well, in fact, that we plan to wean him down to a lower dose of his Tenex. He's matured and developed a lot more impulse control, and the current dose is just more than needed.

Jaymes cracks me up in sooo many ways. He has this Angry Birds hat that his grandmother gave him, and he won't take it off. It suits him, for sure. We ask him if he is an Angry Bird and he says "Not angry. Happy bird." Hi foster dad and I were talking about teaching him about calling 911 in an emergency, and we both about died laughing when we realized how a 911 call from Jaymes would go.

"Hello, what is your emergency?
"Silver Noctopus"
"What? Excuse me?"
"my silver noctopus!"
"is this a prank?"
"Silver noctopus needs to see the noctopus doctor!"

When the ambulance arrives, of course Jaymes will show them the mangled Silver Noctopus and explain that he requires the services of the Noctopus Doctor. The EMT's will not be amused.

Yeah, maybe we should wait on teaching Jaymes to dial 911.

Here at home, life is returning to normal. I'm out of the whole depressed funk thing, thanks to wonderful doctor, therapist, and medication. School started for me last week, seems like it won't be too terrible this semester. Last semester, I failed all four classes thanks to The Funk. So much for that 4.0. Boo. I'm on academic probation this semester. I made sure to pick all "in person" classes, rather than the online classes I took last semester. It's a lot easier to keep track of things and not procrastinate when there is a teacher in your face saying "this is due NOWWWW". I don't think I will have any trouble getting A's in my classes, they are pretty easy. I took Intro to Spanish, which is easy because of all the Spanish classes I've been through and the fact that I lived in a Spanish speaking country for two years. I accidentally chose the wrong math class, I meant to register for Intermediate Algebra, but I took Introductory instead. Oops. Luckily, the book is the same for both classes and I think a refresher of the easy stuff is a good way to get back into the swing of things. My Music Appreciation class is pretty awful, but it's only once a week, so I will probably survive. The fourth class I chose was a Study Skills class, thinking it would not only be really easy, but also would be useful for me to learn some new ways to study and do my schoolwork. I'm all for new skills.

So, in a nutshell... Jaymes is great. Mommy's Crazy went away. Daddy is much happier. Sierra is getting a bit spoiled. School is good. All is well. I don't feel bad anymore when people find out Jaymes isn't with us all the time. This was the right thing to do, and everyone is getting relief- including Jaymes. Not only that, but Jaymes now has 2 families. Our tiny one, and the enormous family of Mark and Tim. When Jaymes got his tonsils out last week (he never felt any pain, tough kid), Mark had about a dozen people asking how Jaymes was. Jaymes seems very popular among their friends and family. I love that. the more people Jaymes has, the better. The kid is surrounded with love from all sides.