Ryder pooped out a penny the other day. He still has three cents left in him. I guess if we shook him real hard, they may come out. :D

School has begun finally. The kids were all keyed up and wired the day before. We rearranged bedrooms; put Mercedes downstairs and brought the boys up. It was a long day. It's been funny to watch Ryder lately. He keeps going into the bedrooms and looking around...trying to figure things out.

We had a FHE lesson on baptism for Mason (he'll be baptized on Sept. 6th) and we had these cards that spelled out the word B.A.P.T.I.S.M. We got to the 'M' and the kids were supposed to come up with the answer--a word that starts with the letter 'm' that has to do with baptism. The answer was "member". Hunter was raising his hand excitedly with the answer. We called on him and he said triumphantly, "the Moronic priesthood!" We all laughed so hard. Hunter thought we were laughing at him, and stormed off. We re-grouped, and explained why we were laughing. Then he understood. Maybe you had to be there, but it was funny.

A Tell-Tale Sign

As we were driving back from therapy today, Hunter saw a horse in a field and asked, "Why do horses swat flies away with their tails?" Then he added, "Why does a fly want to go in a horse's bum anyway? If they like poop so much why can't they just wait until the horse 'goes' on the ground?"

Hunter is a talker. His mind goes a hundred miles an hour--sometimes so fast his mouth can't keep up and he stammers alot.

I tune him out a lot, and well, maybe I shouldn't. He's just so dang exhausting when he gets going. I don't have a lot of answers to the questions he asks. I need to teach him how to use Google.

I'm a little worried about him this Fall with going back to school. There aren't supposed to be a lot of changes to his class (there are eleven 3rd graders and eleven 4th graders) --except the teacher's daughter was just diagnosed with cancer so she won't be teaching this semester. I haven't told Hunter that he has a substitute yet. His hair has just grown back in, and I'm afraid he'll start up with the trichotillomania again because of the stress of starting school.

Have you ever known someone that seems to have bad luck all of the time? They are always in the wrong place at the wrong time...

What is the opposite of the Midas Touch? Hunter has it. So does his dad. Life is never boring around them.

I remember one time when Bill and I were first dating, his car broke down, it began to thunderstorm, a cop pulled over to help, gave Bill a ticket for having an expired license plate, and Bill got his trenchcoat stuck in the hood of the car all in less than 10 minutes.

A sign of things to come??

I wonder.

ALWAYS ADJUSTING

It's been a crazy Summer. Just when you get used to having a break from the demands of the school system, Fall raises it's ugly head and it's time to register...register...register for school. Time to adjust again.

We've begun *officially* the gfcf diet. Mercedes is taking it the hardest. Every ten minutes she asks, "Why do we have to do this again? Can we have chocolate? Can we have pasta? No cheese?!"
She's been driving me nuts.

It's not too bad, yet. The boys had a hard time with the concept of wrapping a turkey burger with a lettuce leaf, but they'll live.

We have a huge chart with all of the prescribed meds and supplements from the DAN! doctor (& the shrink) attached to the fridge. We check mark each one as we give them. We are trying to clean the boys' tummies out before school. Their xrays showed that they were plum full of poop.

Here is a list of the current Rx's/biomedical interventions for the kids: (I could be forgetting some)

gfcf diet

Lamictal
Diflucan
Augmentin
DHA
EFA
Folate
Magnesium Citrate
Probiotics
Melatonin
Benefiber
CoQ10
Concerta
Zoloft
Vitamin B-12
Prozac
Aleve
Vitamin C
A Bunch of Minerals
Not to mention Bill's meds: Lexapro & Wellbutrin
Mine: Zoloft & Synthroid, B vitamins

We do pharmacies proud.