Dirty Old Pee Mattress

I got some question as to how I clean a mattress when it has been peed on.  It took me a while to figure out how to do this.  Thankfully our mattresses have never stunk after accidents but I never felt thoroughly satisfied with how clean they were after mishaps...
 
until the joy of Pinterest found it's way into my life and I found this method. 
 
So sorry but I have no idea where I found this technique/method or I would totally credit that angel of a mother for helping a brother out. 
 
If that mom is you, please let me know and I will lift your name high on a pedestal and we will all celebrate you! 
 
Anyway, here's what I do...
 
 
 First strip the bed of the grossness.  Then I thoroughly spray the mattress with Mrs. Meyer's cleaning products.  I highly recommend Mrs. Meyers because it smells amazing and is a natural product.  But you can use whatever...
 Then toss on a few towels.  There aren't your fancy towels.  These aren't your guest towels.  These are your hardworking everyday towels.  They'll get washed and will be okay.  I promise. 
 Next you need to toss something on there that is weighty enough to smoosh the towels into the mattress.  Otherwise the liquid loveliness will just soak deeper into the mattress rather than up into the towels.  I have found that laundry baskets of clothes seem to work well.  I tried books but ended up with some throw-away books as the liquid (let's just say it, pee) soaked through the blankets.  With the baskets if the towels get soaked through you can just clorox wipe the bottoms of the baskets and be good to go. 
*Couple of notes: look at all of those clean clothes!   I promise they are clean!  I am SOOOO bad about getting those folded. And two smooshy is totally a real word...moving on.
 After the baskets have been flowerpressing the towels for an adequate time (I waited about 6 hours), I then sprinkle on Baking Soda or this lovely product seen above.  It's basically baking soda with a nice smell.  I then vacuum it all up.  I then sprinkle a little more on the mattress before I put the protector back on.  Just a little factoid...bedbugs hate baking soda!  If you are a spaz like me who is terrified of getting bedbugs you can sprinkle it on your bed, or around your bed when you stay at a hotel.  No, I don't do that...that would be insane! 

And where were the children while I was doing all of this? 
 Well, right here of course!
 And here!
And here!  Together!  Having a grand old sleeping party! 

If fairy tales converged this would be "Sleeping Beauties" and "Cinderella" combined!

Hope you now can feel better about cleaning your mattresses too when you have little oops moments in life!

5x7 Folded Card

Birthday Colors Blue Birthday Card
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View the entire collection of cards.

I love this card, don't you?  One of the ways  that I try to help my husband is to be a good steward of the money he works so hard to make.  And one of the ways that I do that is to look for free promo codes.  So far this week I've made two free cards and a free magnet.  I should note though that many times there is tax and shipping still charged.  No biggie as long as the amount is less than you would pay for a card at the store in my opinion.  If shipping ends up being $5.00 and you would only have spend $3.00 at target on a card, keep walking.  Personalized cards are neat and all, but they aren't worth it if you are spending oodles. 

So anyway, that is one way that I am doing my part to save money.  With an average of 3 birthdays per month to send cards out for, we spend $9-$12 each month on cards.  That's $108-144 a year, just on cards!  Anyway I can minimize those types of costs helps us in the long run.  It may not seem like much at the time, but everything adds up. 

Wetting the Bed

These days, as my blog name suggests, I am "Super Busy at Home".  Lately it's been..."Super Busy at Home Changing Calvin's Sheets". 

Ugh. 

He is only 4 years old.  I know that's still little. 

In the last weeks we have taking to having nightly accidents. 

And once in a while would be okay. 

But did I mention they are almost every night?

Ugh. 

So this morning I just cringed when I heard his little feet hit the floor upstairs at 4:20 a.m.

Lord, give me mercy on him. 

Help me not to kill him.

Help me, help me, help me...

Just kidding...I wouldn't kill him. 

It was just that ideal moment, ya know...first cup of coffee in hand. It was after all 4:20 in THE MORNING

So Mommy put the coffee down (put the coffee down and no one will get hurt just echoed through my head).  And went to get the little dearie. 

I ran hot water in the sink to wash him down, frankly because I was too lazy to run a bath. 

And do you know what he said to me? 

Don't wipe off my tatoo.

Classy.  Totally Calvin. 

Okay, baby boy.  Momma won't rub off the tatoo on your forearm.  Don't worry...not going all gangbangers on the scrubbing or anything. 

I've got the moves like Jagger, moves like Jagger...Oh sorry, sometimes I sing those things to myself while scrubbing down peed boys and it makes me feel all stealth...surely Mick Jagger's doing this fun stuff too, right?  :)

So tonight I gotta tell ya.  I was too sleepy to even remake his bed and track down another matress protector gizmo (what is that even called? Work brain, work!) I know.  I am a lame mom.

So I threw the kid in our bed. 

Emma's "not fair-o meter" has been recalibrated lately, letting her sense even the slightest discrepencies.  So she woke up too. 

She wants to sleep in our bed too. 

Yeah! 

So that's been my morning.  Anyone have any suggestions on how to get this kid to not pee? Or bodily functions I'm down with, but maybe he could do it in the toilet...novel idea!  In my wonderful parenting moves I've even threatened not taking him to Disney.  I think I said something like "Mickey doesn't want you peeing in his beds either" or something of the sort.  He just echoed back the glassy, sleepy stare that I am sure I have and didn't say anything. 

How come my best mom moves no longer work?   Why can't I make kids cry anymore? 

Ugh.  I'm so lame at my job. 

Now if you'll excuse me, me and my Jagger moves are going to go work on making a matress not smell like urine. 

Yeah! I've got the moves like Jagger!

Summer Fest

Today was our neighborhood's summer party.  Every summer the neighborhood comes together in front of our house; we roast hot dogs, have water balloon fights, and just get reaquainted all over again. 
 
I love our neighborhood...have I mentioned to ya before? 
 
It has it's faults.  Granted.  But here are some things I love...
 
 
 
Brick lined streets!  Yes we live on a street that is still paved with bricks and I absolutely adore that!  This is Emma devouring a piece of cake that the neighbor across the street made.  Yum!
 
 
 
 

 Cal liked it too!  In case you hadn't figured that out ;)

 Here's the cake that is being devoured in the previous pictures which brings me to something else that I love...the lady that lives right across the street, her name is Diana, and she makes the most phenomenal cakes!  I love that !  Frequently she'll send over samples to try.  Her husband works with Nick and they keep an eye on our house and the kiddos.  Love the neighborly feeling around here.
 I love that Emma's about to deck Cal with a water balloon.  I love it's a neighborhood where our kids can just be themselves and have fun. 
 Cal being crazy.  All of the kids seem pretty used to it.  There's no pretext or need to explain the kid to everyone...we all have our own Calvin's in our family's and it's cool.  I have to say, I love Emma's little smirk in this picture!
 Big mature trees and old houses...what is not to love!  In this picture they told the kids to "pick out a partner" so that's what Emma did!
 Calvin decided to grace us with his presence as Spiderman.  Love it!
 You never know when a good old fashioned sword fight is going to break out!
 Our neighbor's being, well, neighborly!   I love it!
 I threw Nick in the mix by volunteering him to grille.  He grunted and grumbled but once we got there I think he really enjoyed himself!
 The water balloon committee hard at work!
And we had Spiderman so for our next act...Darth Vader!  I think he had to be in costume to play with the big boys.

All in all we love our neighborhood and these events remind us why we are where we are.  We really are enjoying ourselves!

A New Me, Technelogically Speaking

This weekend Nick did something weird. 

Out of the ordinary. 

For him at least. 

Phenomenal. 

Can you tell I am still a little shocked? 

This weekend he went out and bought me a new laptop!  Eek! 

And not just a new laptop, but a new camera too! 

A Canon Rebel t3i to be exact. 

I am in love!  With Nick and with the fun new products! 

I have to feel bad about getting such nice new things, but they were definitely needed.  Our laptop is about 5 years old and was progressing to go down hill...fast!  It was taking me half an hour to get to one website...needless to say, if you have bee wondering why I haven't blogged much in the previous months, this is your reason right here. 

Our camera has always been a point and shoot.  And I've always felt kind of weird not having a better camera.  I could take the kids pictures for so many things if I had a nicer camera.  My pictures from here would look so much better.  But I never could justify it...in a way I still am having a hard time with it.  But it was a gift and our point and shoot has just died.  Of course it is right outside of the warranty period but the camera has a lovely dark grey blur in the picture.  Nice.  The repair on it was going to be more than just buying a new camera.  So Nick decided to upgrade me. 

Isn't he so sweet? 

He's been laughing all weekend that he didn't buy me a new camera, he bought me a new hobby.  And I think he might be right! 

So watch out world...this lady' got a new camera and a new laptop...trouble is sure to ensue!

Little Lazy Bones


Yesterday there was a pretty huge disparity between our kiddos and everyone else's in the area as yesterday all of the Public Schools started.  This is what we were doing as you can see above. 

Yeah!

Rather than having to get the kiddos up and on the bus super early (7:26 is the bus time we were assigned if we went to school), we are lounging around savoring the last few chilly mornings of summer, taking our time waking up. 
Here's Cal.  He somehow always mangages to walk around with his waistband all twisted and tucked under...I have no idea how it doesn't drive him nuts.  Well, I do, he has sensory issues and can't even feel it, but it just seems it should drive him crazy like it does his Momma! 

Miss Kazoo with Baby Grace.  We switch back and forth on a daily basis who we are obsessed with: Kit or Baby Grace.  As you can see, yesterday was a Baby Grace (in ice skating pants or something?) kind of day. 
 
Yesterday they watched more television than normal.  This is NOT what a typical day looks like around here.  But there were two reasons this occured:
1) Emma had been grounded from watching television and had her grounding just lifted so she was content snuggling in to watch some toons.
2) Nick has started snoring  a lot!  Ugh.  But as a result I ended up not falling asleep until about 2:30 in the morning and that was downstairs on the couch.  So this Mommy was a leetle sleepy!  Sure kids, watch tv.  I'm going to take a nap...
 
So that is was our day!  We are starting school in a couple of weeks (the day after Labor Day!) And until then we are going to do a lot of snuggling, playing, bike riding, crafts, cookie making, and just plain 'ole having fun! 

2 more weeks of summer

I swear, this summer has just flown by! 

We have had so much fun though.  And while we have definitely spent our fair share of time lounging around and recooping from our first year of homeschooling, we have also kept busy. 

We've visited new places, gone to the beach lots, had lots of science time, played in the pool and waterparks around oodles, and had tons of walks, trips to the local parks, and playdates with friends. 

All in all it's been a wonderful time around here! 

The picture above was taken at Nick's parent's house.  Every 4th of July their small town puts on a parade and we are blessed with having Nick's parent's live on the parade route.  So every year the kids are out on the curb to wave and get candy as it's thrown.  It's one of their favorite times of the summer! 

Hope you all have had a great summer!  We still have two more weeks until school starts and we are going to make sure to relish every minute! 

Mommy's Little Helpers


I'm going to start out by saying how BIG these kids are getting!  I simply cannot believe it!  It is amazing and sad all at the same overwhelming time.  I am still trying to process how I feel about it...

Over the summer we have done a lot of baking.  And cleaning, and craft projects, and experiments.  We are getting a tad more hands on and I've really spent the summer pushing them to see what they can and cannot handle.  To my surprise, these kids can do a lot of stuff and they love being little helpers! 

All I can say about these cuties is that we are going to definitely have our hands full! 

A month and a half


Well it's been a month and a half. 

A month and a half ago we started our son on medication. 

Prozac to be exact. 

Within that month and a half we've had the privelege of what feels like, meeting our son for the first time. 

We've learned that he doesn't like crusts on bread (typical kid)! 
Having the lights out at night makes him lonely. 
He doesn't like having Lucy sleep in his room.
He only likes pickles at room temperature.
He's not crazy about yellow cheese.
He thinks Emma's amazing. 
He's also called her his hero once or twice.
He thinks I'm "just Lovely"
He knows that God is with him.

The list goes on and on, but put by the doctor, when he's on the medicine, he's not acting Autistic. 

Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord, is all I can say! 

For whatever reason Cal is extremely sensitive to the TINY dosage of medicine that we've been giving him.  We've had to change the dosage size about 4 times and the time of day we give it to him has changed. 

But it has been amazing. 

He's talked more in the past month and a half than I have EVER heard him talk.  He's playing with others and having imaginative play.  He's dancing around the house almost every day!  He's telling me knock-knock jokes. 

It has been such a joy and such a blessing from God to see him grow and open up and share with us.  We are so in love with this little boy!  We practically hang on his every word to see what cute thing he's going to say with us or what he's going to share with us next.  He and Emma have bonded even more and the screaming and crying and having 38,000 tantrums a day has stopped.  Completely!

I am one happy Mama these days, and one very thankful Christian that the Lord has helped us so immensely with Cal. 

Happy Memorial Day!

I hope you all have a great Memorial Day Weekend!

I haven't written in so long due to just being sooooo busy!  I thought it was just us, but it seems all Moms are making the fast dash to the finish line of the school year...tball, gymnastics, parties, fieldtrips, birthdays, showers...it's all coming in fast and furious. 

Around here we as a family have been working hard to get our house organized and in a comfy cosy manner in which it is easy-peasey to keep clean.  We've all been working together towards this and it's been going really well.  This weekend we have nothing going on.  Absolutely no plans, so I am hopeful that we will be able to get it all done and start enjoying the fruits of our labors.  I am super excited about that part :) 

Wonderfully Imperfect

I found this post on Pinterest.

I love it. 
It describes what I was just thinking earlier tonight. 

By the way, greetings from the mother of one super-smart, smart mouthed little girl and one autistic little boy...both who are amazing. 

Things here have been busy on the ranch.  There was this thing called Easter last week...super busy celebrating our Saviour being alive!!!  This week I am making Birthday invitations, shopping for supplies, teaching, cleaning, packing the kiddos up for fun times, making snacks for various activities, and volunteering at a children's resale upon which I am a board member.

My head feels like it is going to explode. 

Where was I? 

Oh yeah, the saying above. 

See, I was driving home tonight from going to Hobby Lobby.  Then Michaels.  Then back to Hobby Lobby.  Then Joann's.  Praise the Lord Joann's was the winner. 

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. 

Where was I? Oh yes, I've reached this junction in my life where any mundane task, job, and/or errand sans children has become blissfully nice.  You could send me to pump gas and I would be happy.  Because I wouldn't be listening to the fighting.  Or stopping every 200 yards to RE-buckle Cal.  Or listening to something with screaching and guitars being played by people who never should have written children's music...but I digress. 

Anyway, like I said I was on my way home and was thinking about our life. 

Money struggles, Cal's diagnosis', Nick working all of the time, laundry piled up to my eye balls...

11 years ago when I fell in love with Nick...this is all I ever wanted. 

Seriously.

I didn't care how poor we were.  How many struggles we had.  How much I had to clean.  I wanted to be with that man.  Now.  Then.  Forever.

And I am.  It's wonderful.  And things definitely are not perfect.  But God never said this would be perfect.  But I'm living out my wonderful, dream filled life with the man I love.  With the man who holds me up when I can't do this anymore. 

There is no other man in this whole world who I would want to walk this journey with.  I know that God has a plan for us and I know he did then, all those years ago. 

I'm just thankful I'm with someone so handsome.  Because even though this life isn't perfect, it is blissfully wonderful. 

Moving Right Along

I appologize as this blog has quickly become all-Autism, all the time. 

I need to remind myself that life is not based on this diagnosis.  Things must go on. 

I was reminded this with the little tid-bit fact that...

EASTER IS NEXT WEEKEND!!!

Holey-moley, why didn't anyone tell me this? 

So any ideas that I was wanting to do need to be done.  Also I have discovered that laundry somehow cannot walk itself into the washing machine...still gotta do that.  And the washing and dusting and the mopping and the sweeping.  Those things don't just happen. 

The print above I have framed in my kitchen...it is a good reminder for me and kind of paraphrases Romans 8:28 for me:

"And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose."


God's going to make sure we are okay.  That everything is okay.  That Cal is okay. 

Now I've got shopping to do. And Easter baskets to stuff. And laundry to fold.  And ironing to do.  And mopping to do.  And...

Happy Thursday :)

A Week Later

It has been one week since we received our diagnosis for Cal. 

I'm still not dealing with it well.  I have no idea what is wrong with me.  For every diagnosis Cal's received I seem to go through a type of grieving...there's the shock, being mad, denial, sadness, etc. I've been shocked.  I've been mad. I've been really, really sad. And here I sit stuck in denial.  I'm working on.  Trust me, I am. 

One day I found myself on the phone with Cal's nurse.  I kept trying to get her to tell me that he doesn't have Autism.  The poor dear had to basically, very bluntly say "no, he does have autism."  The next day I was on the phone talking with his doctor, trying to convince her I must have someone said something incorrect...surely he doesn't have Autism.  A little more reality slapped me when she told me it had nothing to do with what I told her but rather her interactions with him.  Oi.  After that I was telling Nick, "he doesn't have it, does he?" By this point Nick's getting a little sick of me not being able to come to grips with the fact that our son has Autism. 

I'm working on it.  And every day, a little more, it's all starting to set in. 

Here's where we are on everything...

Tonight we told Nick's parents.  As mentioned before they have a tendency to always say "oh he does not" when you tell them he has something.  Nick's mom likes to tell me "he's  a boy"...trust me, I know, changed those diapers...he's got boy parts.  :)  But tonight they didn't say that.  Which is good because i would have gone all Ninja Squirrel on them probably if something like that had been said.  God knew that I needed them to be okay.  Nick's dad even started asking questions which meant a lot to me...he wants to know more about this. 

Cal is going into therapy.  Well, even more therapy.  He's been in speech therapy for what seems like since the dawn of time, but we are now adding occupational therapy.  Cal was put on an 8-month waiting period.  It has felt like forever hanging over our heads (he was put on the waiting list in December).  Two days after Cal's diagnosis we got a call from the therapy team that Cal's doctor called them and he's been bumped up on the list.  Praise the Lord!!!  I couldn't imagine waiting 5 more months for a phone call. 

Our coffee table now has 4 Autism books opened on it.  Nick and I spend every spare moment we have delving in and tag-teaming each other with books.  "Hey read this part", "hey listen to this..." are what we utter to one another.  It's like living a romance book here, ladies :)  But in a way it is.  I've never seen my husband be so pro-active about Cal.  He takes care of the waiver sign-ups and waiting lists and insurance thins.  He's awesome like that.  And he's reading.  Books!  I was losing faith the man knew how to still read :).  But I love that about him.  He's inspiring me to be better. 

Cal's behavior for those of you who have been asking or wondering seems to be about the same.  When we took him to the doctor it was because he was melting down pretty much all day, every day.  About every little thing.   I guess there has been some improvement in that on some days we seem to have a good day until one thing, BAM, sets everything askew.  Other days from the morning it is, well, a living hell.  Screaming, crying, kicking, hitting, huge outbreaks about everything, until all of a sudden we have a little break.  And still on some days we have it's just all day, every day.  No end in sight.  Everything is wrong. All days, every day.  Those are horrible days. 

When Cal has an outbreak he has abnormal strength.  Our doctor told us this was normal.  This weekend was an example of that.  On our way home from dinner at Nick's mom and dad's Cal wanted to roll the window up and down.  Nick locked the window because 1) it's annoying to have the window go up and down, and 2) it was freezing outside!  Well, Cal flipped of course.  Which we can handle, we're used to this as he doesnt' do well in the car a lot of times.  Screaming, saying the same thing over and over and over and over and...understand?  Well he then got mad and ripped off the arm rest thingy with the lock/unlock and window buttons on it, he ripped it off the door.  Seriously, how can a kid have the strength to do that?  Maybe he doesn't have Autism, maybe he's turning into the Hulk...oh wait, nope, just that denial creeping in again...continuing on...

Nick said this to me long before our diagnosis, but when we knew Cal was "quirky": there is nothing wrong with our son if we find a way to love how those things make him who he is."

I've been thinking of that a lot lately.

I don't want to fix my son.  I want to help my son. 

My son needs to be happy. 

My son needs to be healthy. 

My son needs to know that he is loved. 

So somehow I need to muddle through all of this mind-numbing insurance business, and therapist hunting down, and grieving, and simply understand that Cal is what matters and his happiness.  That is all.  That is what this is all for.