I'm coming home.

      20 of 24 hours of my day.. since March.

Heal Me by Melissa Etheridge (Please listen if you have been with me even through just a part of this journey.  The main person I want to hear this is my wife, Shiela.  I'm coming home.. it will take a bit, but I'll be me again.  I love you and Ben and want my life back).

I need a "do over"

The past two days have sucked. Today I have had 2 or 3 seizures and a migraine that lasted all day. I slept for a lot of the day.. something I've been trying not to do because it is Ben's last week before starting preschool next Thursday. I felt guilty about now going to his swimming lesson today but was relieved when Ben and Michael arrived back home just minutes after leaving for his lesson after learning that the pool was shut down for the day due to someone having an accident of one sort or another in the pool. My niece, Ash, is a lifeguard this year so we get all the nitty gritty about the town pool.

Tomorrow is Ben's last lesson. I am going to try to go. We'll see if that happens or not. With the migraines being so bad today, chances are it will be hard getting up tomorrow. I will try though.

Next week Ben will be home with Michael Monday through Wednesday before starting at preschool.. *cross fingers* I'm going to miss him even though he's crazy active.. :D

Not much else has been going on. We made some changes to remove some minor stress.. whatever we can get rid off, we do.. every bit helps.

ok.. i need to watch more shark week before Benji gets home. *chomp*

A wise man once said...

A friend of mine in college once offered what seemed to be, at the time, a colorful and exaggerated piece of advice. I believe I was stressed out about some class or an upcoming audition at the music school that we had to subject ourselves to every semester. He and I worked at a computer lab together and spent most of our time trying to hack into various servers on campus and I taught him various skills like how to decode porn on the old school version of the internet. I didn't show him how to do it with porn specifically.. I remember finding an encoded (uuencoded, to be specific) photo of the Gerber baby and walked him through the steps of making that into an actual photo on the computer. He was a bright guy and was able to apply his new-found skills in other manners. I didn't tell his girlfriend.

Anyway.. he told me that when he gets stressed out, he just thinks "oh F&%^ it" silently and moves on.. just tossing that stress aside. I couldn't comprehend how one could do that and actually have it work.. but I have found over time that I have used that approach to problem solving once in a while. Amazingly.. it has worked wonderfully each and every time. This guy may have been on to something.

Remember that Preschooler?

Benji is about 4 and a half. He will be turning five in December. So far, we have kept him in awesome awesome home daycares. In Boston he was at Las Floritas (Little Flowers) and the hardest part of moving away from the Boston area, by far, was leaving their family. We try to stop by for visits when we are in town, but you know how it is.. time flies. I'm sure I spelled their name wrong. Ben picked up Spanish much quicker than I did. His time there was the reason I am called Otra Mommy.

When we moved to Springfield, we dreaded the daycare hunt. We didn't feel that he was ready for a formal preschool yet, so we chose TT's Tot Lot. Awesome Awesome Awesome. Can't say enough good things about that family.. especially after they cared for Ben as the tornado ripped through their neighborhood about 100 feet from their house. We miss them, but they are close enough to visit.. we just need to find time.. time has been elusive lately.

Now that we're back in CT.. the search has been on again. We moved into town too late for the public systems pre-K program. The school system is debating putting him into Kindergarten so he can receive speech services and any other services he may need. Our plan is to start him at a private preschool in town late next week and then once his testing has been completed at the public school we will work out some sort of hybrid where he will be bussed to North Street for his services and bussed back for the private school's kindergarten, which is more one on one. Assuming he does well, we will then transfer him to public school kindergarten the following year.

As a present for reading all of this.. here are some pictures from baby-benny to current-benji...