With holidays come our daughter.  She always bursts onto the scene spending money and making demands.  The stress level in the household increases from her father to her children to me, and to another daughter who lives next door.   This year the stress is even greater.  Their father is coming.  The children will also be traveling with them back to Albany - Kay for a week, her brother for a couple of days.  Their mother's boyfriend may come to.  Peter has not been here since his daughter was in kindergarten.  He is coming with the promise of expensive gifts so naturally the kids are excited, but sadly for all the wrong reasons.  Now some things about holidays are better than they used to be - I make plans and Amee works around them and with us.  She also stays with her sister or in a hotel.  This gives her children - and us - a chance to de-stress every day.  This as you can imagine is even more important with holidays than with an ordinary visit.   Well, Happy Easter everyone!  I wish you luck with the holidays, too.  There is great joy at Easter, especially after life goes back to normal.  

My cherries are in bloom and the kids have spring fever BIG TIME.  Today they are restless.  Temperatures are still above normal, but not 80s.  How quickly we get spoiled.  I wanted to bake with the girls today, but Kay would have nothing to do with that!  Seems we never do anything fun.  The she pouted while I baked with her cousins.

For the most part the last several weeks have been good ones.  PJ has occasionally been very difficult - his responses can sometimes be violent - hitting me if he becomes angry.  He usually calms down quickly.  Everything seems to start when there is something that he does not understand or that seems to be out of his control.  Sometimes he just does not hear - even when we are telling him that he can have what he wants.  Both kids did well on their trip to visit their mother in Albany during their winter break.  They also spent an evening with their father.   

Over Christmas break we visited our children and grandchildren in Albany and my dad, sister and brother in Plattsburgh.  Kay and PJ also spent time with both of their parents, although not both of them at the same time.  It went much better than expected.  PJ did well with the driving and even slept well.  We have been very happy with the medication change at the end of November.  PJ even got student of the week in school last month.  He did open some presents early and tried to hide what he did, but that seems rather normal to me.  Amee left her new apartment to move back in with her sister.  She says that the apartment was too expensive and that it smelled like mildew.  Kay was disappointed.  She went back to Albany with her mother and spent Monday with her, Sara, and William.  Kay seemed very stressed, crying all the time until we got home.  Now she seems to be back to her old self.  Maybe tomorrow I will even get another pedicure!  Last month's manicure laster her all of two days, but it did come out pretty well.  

This has been an interesting month so far.  I have had fun shopping with Kay - not!  After hours of looking for a dress, and waiting in line and then not buying one, we went home and ordered from an online catalog of a local retailer.  Dress was here in three days.  Simple.  Stress-free.  Too bad the rest of the month has not been that way.  Kay and PJ's mother has a new apartment, but she did not really seem to be ready for it.  Seems she was planning to move in December then found a place and went.  Money is going to be a little tight.  Now that she has her own place she has ideas about the kids going at Christmas and I am not so sure about PJ as he gets very stressed around her and has had some recent problems.  i am hoping that he will be able to stay out of the hospital.  He gets very irritable and angry mid-afternoon every day.  Well, I really cannot talk any longer, because i have to give Kay a manicure.  It only seems fair as she gave me a pedicure - best foot massager ever!

Since last we spoke there has been a lot going on.  For one thing everyone - except Kay - has been very sick with a virus that just will not go away.  It has sapped our energy, and we are way behind on lots of things.  Kay and PJ's father was released from jail.  PJ will not talk to him at all, but K sends him texts and e-mails.  She is really trying to connect with him, and I think that he is trying, too.  Unfortunately, she was 6 just a few days after he went to jail and is now 12.   She is just not the "baby" she was when he left in 2002.  He does not know quite how to deal with her going to dances, wearing heels etc. (Most of us feel this way when our children become pre-teens and teenagers, but it happens to us gradually).   She even commented on his spelling and grammar asking me if he meant this or that.  The sickness did not stop the big Halloween Party though.  None of PJ's friends came, seems one forgot and one was grounded, so it was a girl party! Lots of loud music and dancing.  Kay and her cousins had a "play list" (we used to stack records on the turntable), but someone switched one piece for a video of an acceptable song with inappropriate pictures - took us a minute to realize it.  Next time we will make a cd and keep the computer off the internet.  The food went over well - we sure had a lot of it.  The girls gave all the food funny Halloween-themed names.  The kids really got into it wanting to know exactly what was in the Zombie Toes (fried popcorn chicken).  It has taken me a week to clean up!  On Wednesday, we celebrated Kay's 12th birthday.  She was thrilled with the Justin Bieber poster and Christmas CD we bought (Bieber's, naturally).  Another poster from her cousins, earrings and body lotion from her father, and a fun baking set from her mother - she loves to cook (not much at cleaning up though).  Yesterday we went to lunch together and shopping for a dress and heels.  We found a great dress, but she is not very patient and would not wait in the long line, so we bought her shoes and ordered the dress at home.  Lunch was fun - just the two of us.  She does get a little tired of her brother interfering all the time.  Now, if only I could find something that he wants to do!  Well, I am still cleaning up after Kay's attempt at cooking last night.  I bought fish so that we would have some healthier meals - so she fried it!  pretty good, but not much healthier!  Any way, I must finish the kitchen.  PS.  i loved the extra hour of sleep today!  Can I have another tomorrow?  Have a blessed week.

Our daughter is coming to visit her children.  This time she is bringing her on again off again boyfriend.  She always over plans and over expects the visits as does K.  It often causes conflicts when she is here.  This week coming up, we are also anticipating a phone call from the children's father who should be released from prison next week.  K seems a little nervous about this, but her brother hardly seems to notice.  He was only a baby when his father left so he never got very attached.  For K it is more stressful as she was crazy about him.  He is pretty good playing with little kids, but K is no longer a baby.  She has said that she is nervous about him being home again.  But home is a long distance and he will be on parole so visiting will still be limited, but he will be able to call more.  Well, it is supposed to be a fairly nice, but cool weekend so I am planning some baking and outdoor work.  Let's just wait and see how things work out.  Remember the last words of Jesus (end of the gospel of Matthew) to his disciples, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the age."

I wasn't sure how I was going to get everything done this weekend.  Kay was supposed to go to a Girl Scouts Rope Course, but we had very heavy rain and wind.  The class got canceled.  I got a cranky pre-teen and my laundry got done.  I also baked bread and apple crisp, and made soup.  It was a great day to stay inside and my house smelled wonderful.  Tomorrow we have Generations of Faith and a birthday party.  Sometimes I really want an empty nest.  i occasionally lust after freedom .  PJ's doctor changed his medicine last week.  He woke up a little better but was miserable.  i just tried the lower dose in the morning and we are happy.  He has not been fighting with his sister for the last couple of days and got up and to school with a pleasant demeanor.  We'll take it.  Watch out!  Next week our daughter is coming to see her children and bringing her boyfriend.  That has never been very good.

Our son is visiting this weekend.  He is bringing his family: our grandson Nate, as well as his girlfriend and her little girl.  We are going to the zoo, making brownies, and grilling.  it is so "a visit to Grandma's", but all of last week was much more "What's a mother to do?"  Kay was so excited about making a movie for her health class about salmoneliosis.  We had to get costumes together - she played the mother of a sick child.  Her friend and classmate was the doctor so she borrowed "doctor stuff" - it is even hard to explain the difference between doctors and nurse practitioners to Kay and she has lived with us since before I finished graduate school.  PJ was "not too bad", but we had a few episodes of his anger coming through.  He has been very difficult to get up in the morning so his doctor made another medication change.  This medicine seems to be more the cause of his crankiness than the "cure" for it though.  This week we also had ups and downs about his disability claim.  He has been approved for six years now and there was a mix-up with someone else's claim and he was denied starting in November.  Of course, I was worried about paying for his medication so I called right away.  They were so nice and helpful in getting this straightened out.  Then on Friday, we got a notice that someone who had attacked their father over 10 years ago was getting out of jail - all so scary.  The sheriff told me that this person did not even know we existed nor where we live so I feel a little better, but it just served to remind me of all the problems when their father was around.  Well, I need to clean the bathroom (we have a boy in the house), and the living room before our guests - and playtime - arrive.  Have a lovely holiday weekend.