Right Wing Mom

I realize that Jake takes up a lot of my blogging sometimes - but its just because, honestly the kid takes up a lot of my life.

I have said in the past that parenting/raising him was twice the work that Kaitie and Mandy ever were. Yep - you heard it here first… I think parenting Jake was harder work than parenting twins!

That boy has given me the highest highs and the lowest lows in my adult life. It has definitely been a roller coaster.

Right after Emma was born we were fortunate enough to discover the Feingold Diet for him. A diet that rightfully claims to help with behavior and other issues. Well, as Marc and I were so very seriously at the end of our ropes with him… we thought: Why not! We jumped into the diet and within days we saw a miracle.

We had a little boy that we actually wanted to be around.

Lately, we have been getting a little slack with the diet. Not being as careful about what he was eating and it started to show. Nothing too bad… but it was starting to work its way back to somewhere we didn’t want to be!

We reordered our food list and started back at square one a few weeks ago. And what do you know? It still works Within a few days he was back to a “regular” little boy. ( well, regular for that crazy kid!)

So the whole purpose of this post is to tell a short little story of our trip to Target today.

The last time we were in Target together ended horribly. Jake screaming… and I mean blood curdling crazy screaming that reached each and every corner of the store. Condemning stares from people who no doubt saw that I was pregnant, with Emma in the cart and Jake doing his thing, wondered why I was bringing another kid onto the world when I couldn’t even control this one. Me in the car, crying out to God, “Why can’t he be normal?” “WHY!?!” Texting Marc the same and then feeling guilty that I was thinking so negatively about my son.

In a word… it sucked.

Today… after 3 weeks back on Feingold, it was like night and day. He was great in the store. So great he called Daddy who gave him permission to pick out a new toy. With Bionicle in hand he proudly walked up to the register and waited and skipped out to the car as happy as can be. But that was not what got me… it was the woman who smiled when she saw him talking on the phone and commented “How cute.” It was the Mom who smiled at him and gave a little chuckle as he was trying to pick out a toy that was under $10 (and having a hard time) and finally it was the cashier who commented on how happy he was holding his new toy.

I got to see people see Jake the way I see him. The real him. The awesome him.

Its probably just those crazy pregnancy hormones, but I cried all the way out to the car - with a big smile on my face.

Last night Jake was snooping in the girls room and guess what he found? Valentine’s Day candy. We told the girl they could keep it in their room so Jake wouldn’t see it and want any. Well, the damage was 3 suckers, a mini-twix, a pixie stick and 4 chocolate hearts. Lovely… lucky for us it was close enough to bedtime so we didn’t have to experience too much of a reaction. He did however start acting really goofy and loud. Spinning around and flapping his arms and making really loud annoying noises. Well, at least we know what caused that and how we can make it better. I am so happy we found The Feingold Plan. Huge difference! I am just hoping his reaction is mild today. It is exhausting trying to deal with everyday stuff when he is having a full blown episode. 

I love my house and one of the things I love about it is all the natural light. I really like sunlight (as long as my pasty white skin isn’t sitting in it!) We have this lovely wall of windows things going on in the living room and kind of the same thing in the bedroom. But, I will tell you what. Those windows really stink when a hail storm comes blowing in at 5am! I was scared out of my wits till I realized what was going on. Man… it was LOUD! Thankfully, it was short lived.

I am still scrapping my heart out for my clubscrap competition. It has been fun putting everything together and it has helped me try some new stuff out. One thing that I FINALLY got the hang of was my Cricut. I bought it over a year ago and just could not get the hang of it. I really thought that I wasted a lot of money on it. Haley had been talking about it and she mentioned an infomercial she saw. I had seen it too, but all I could say was HA! Fat chance! Cause I just couldn’t get the darned thing to work and it really making me mad. Well, the other day I needed to finish up a page and I was out of my favorite alphabet stickers, so I took a deep breath said a little prayer and dug the Cricut out. After a few minutes of tweakng the machine and REALLY reading the directions - I gave it a shot and… IT WORKED!!! Thank you Haley for motivating me to give it another shot.

Last night I was finishing up a page and I couldn’t figure out when the pictures were taken. SO I started digging around and well, eventually I dug out an old computer that was sitting in Marc’s office closet. Man - I struck gold! I found a whole bunch of pictures of Jake when he was about 2 and 3 years old. Which really made me feel better, I was starting to think I really neglected taking pictures of him! Also some pictures of my home Akron, Ohio! On my last trip home, I took a bunch of pictures of stuff that reminds me of home. I would list some of them, but no one but Shannon would know or care! But, I did find a picture of my elementary school that I found out has since been torn down. I can’t wait to scrapbook those!

Off to start school - I hope everyone has a fantastic day!