Destiny Skywalker

Small victories. Successful first day of summer Bible camp (3 half days) for E. When we tried this back in 2019 at another church, they sent him home within 30 minutes. But we've been attending a new church this past year and E has been attending Sunday school semi-regularly. They've been more inviting and inclusive, and didn't sweat the small stuff. They seem to get neurodiverse kids. He wears headphones every single week and comes home telling us what he learned about Jesus. No text messages to come get him. We were nervous but agreed we should try to get him out of the house in an environment we were already comfortable with. He was nervous, too. He only has a few more "camp" opportunities this summer and they're all in what we consider to be safe, practiced environments. But this gives me some hope that he can start doing this more regularly, because it is good for him to practice his social skills.

I meant to post this yesterday but fell asleep. Sunday we did tie dye and it was super fun. My husband even requested some socks because he likes crazy socks and he had an extra pair of really light khaki ones. So I know what we will be doing next weekend. Husband wants a 4th of July themed shirt so I need to go to Michael's tomorrow and get some white shirts. Also dug up a few more old Girl Scout shirts that she will never wear unless we do something cool with them. I think E's turned out the best. Q's rainbow one came out pretty good but she got a little sloppy with the purple at the end. The one that stayed mostly white was supposed to be several bullseye patterns but I must not have done the rubber bands right or we didn't use enough dye.

He's a competent administrator. Just not super inspiring and I would like to see the party building their younger leaders. But I'll take that any day over Trump, who is an incompetent fool and thrives in chaos because it feeds his ego.

Honestly, it's a good thing the CEO went down with the ship. I'm sure they're going to liquidate the company from lawsuits, and any assets from his estate. His wife was also an employee. She's going to be ruined.

It was fun. I wanted to come back but my husband missed me because I worked from home and left for happy hour as soon as he got home.

I wish we'd move on from Biden, too. That said, I'm not voting for a Republican in 2024. Especially Ron DeSantis.

Exactly. Middle of Nebraska in August at some podunk town festival? Bud Light Lime.

Bud Light Lime FTW. Only shitty beer I will drink. When Carhartt pissed off all the fundies for being woke or some shit, I got a free jacket from our local gifting community from one of my kids classmates lol. That probably identified us as being woke too.

Nice job, boys! Are they going back to the same schools next year? E's echocardiogram came back normal. So that's good news. My kids have 7 (really 6.5) days left of school. This school year can't end soon enough. E has been pretty grumpy after school, and I think it's because his teacher is suddenly out for the rest of the year because she shattered her wrist and elbow in a fall. The sub seems uptight and grumpy (retired teacher). So at this point I am just like whatever and we are finishing out the year. I have a feeling there will be a staff shakeup next year. I will say that the kids in his den at the new Cub Scout pack are not as nice (well, there were only 2 boys left in his old den anyway), but the activities are so much better and the leaders are more organized. I'm honestly not sure he notices. And he doesn't go to school with any of them so not a big deal. When/if he moves to BSA, we will find a troop closer to home, as there is a very active troop in our neighborhood. I think we will stick with Top Soccer and maybe try the running club next year. Found out Q's jerk lacrosse coaches used to be the boys HS coaches and were dismissed (which is saying something because it's not paid). So, I know it's not just us. But knowing that, I think we are done with the sport. It's clear that they are aiming for girls HS coach, and that means it really isn't worth investing in this sport for the next 7 years when she's guaranteed to have them as coach for 5 of those years.

Very sorry to hear about Nygyl. He was a handsome boy.

Now you're 2nd on the list because no one is crazy enough to take my kids. I mean, I don't think they'll ever go to jail or anything, they just aren't easy kids. Expect a lot of calls home about misunderstandings.

At 1:45 AM I cracked my head on a top bunk sitting up in an open air cabin. Had a huge headache until I got home at 1 PM and popped some ibuprofen. It's starting to wear off a bit now at 9 PM. I took 7 5th grade girls camping this weekend with 70 other Girl Scouts in grades K-12. My troop hosted a Mental Health First Aid station to earn their Bronze Award and it was a huge success. I'm super proud of them, and honestly, a week ago I wasn't sure they were going to pull it off. My daughter definitely pulled more than her fair share of the weight when others dropped the ball, but she did it without complaining. I heard multiple leaders talk about how confident she was, how well she knew the material, and what a great teacher she was. She really shined. I am super proud of her, and the other girls, as well. Other than that, there were 2 vomiting incidents (not my girls), 2 sprained ankles (1 of my girls), and a near disaster with water beads. It was a 3 hour drive there and 2 hours back. So needless to say, I am tired. But here's a picture of one of our cabins!

If it's a virtual day he can IM you when he's available. Wait 5 minutes and bail.

So today there was a diversity discussion on bias towards working parents. One of my rather nauseating coworkers was going on about how he felt SO supported as a working parent by our leadership. So I busted out this little gem: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/04/30/first-time-moms-see-a-30percent-drop-in-pay-for-dads-theres-a-bump-up.html The guy tried to discredit the study because it uses Danish data. That got me pretty fiesty. This is what I deal with.

I'm sorry to hear. Losing our pets is always devastating. Its.not fair that they have such short lives.

Adult contemporary. I had to Google it, too.

Aw man, I liked him in Rome, too. Sounds like he will be in Ahsoka, though?

Oh crap. I've heard the horror story about someone who had to get a throat access lanced. It almost killed him.

I've been thinking about you and wondering how it was going. I wouldn't feel bad about vacation mode. I have a few friends in various stages of burnout and the time off is really needed to reset, although the anxiety you mention about what you should be doing is really common. It is hard to untrain our brains. Good luck with the new job, I hope it goes well.

I'm hopeful we found the right soccer environment. We have experience with the coach and I think he genuinely likes Q. We know a few of the girls too and from our previous experience, they are nice kids. But honestly, girls this age are starting to be pretty terrible to each other. But yeah, not really doing team sports with E. Although he is a ball hog at soccer lol. We were thinking about having him join a running club next year but that's on hold until we get the echocardiogram. I think TOP soccer is perfectly safe, though.

I'm really debating taking Q to one last lacrosse practice. This season has not gone well, which I kind of expected but hoped for better. The coach played lacrosse for a military academy, so you can guess at what kind of attitude and coaching philosophy he has. He plays favorites and cares too much about winning for a recreational level program. She left the last practice feeling like absolute crap. She has 3 games this weekend and then one more week of practice. She opted out of the holiday weekend tournament because the last tournament we traveled to, the coach treated her like crap. Soccer starts next week, so we've already decided to blow off practice next week. I told her let's go to Saturday's game because the A team won't be there. She likes the B team coach and girls. She is much more relaxed and plays well with her own team. But Sunday, the A team plays right before them, so they are going to stick around and take playing time from the B team girls like they do every time there is a back to back game. So I'm debating whether we even show up on Sunday. It will largely depend on her mood. But I think we are done with this sport. With her going back to premier (year-round) soccer, I think it will be asking too much of her to play 2 sports in the spring. There is also a local performance choir in the area and she has always really enjoyed that at her old school and she definitely has more of a stage presence than the other kids at her new school. So she is going to audition for that next month, and I think that will be a fun activity for her with not too much commitment (one practice a week after school, 3 concerts a year). She is also continuing with Girl Scouts next year. We also find out next week if she gets into the gifted program. If she does not, I will be asking for her test scores and appealing if she met the benchmarks. We took E to his genetic testing appointment and they said they don't think we need to worry about Williams Syndrome or NF1 (it looks like he and I are both carriers of NF1 but it can mutate during your lifetime). However, they still want to test him. When he was in the NICU, they did an echocardiogram and apparently noticed a small abnormality but didn't tell us about it. So we are going back for an echocardiogram. Honestly, I think this might explain why he is so thin and near failure to thrive. So right now I'm waiting on insurance authorization for testing.

Thank God that's over. Of course we are not playing for the team we expected but it's a good fit and I think a closer drive. And it only took 2 days instead of 5 like last year.

I had the shits last week and lost 2 lbs. Best I've done since January.

Hey Boo Boo

Soccer tryouts week is the worst week of the year, every single year. Please God let her have an offer tonight so I can have my life and sanity back.