I'm dealing with another headache. But, I think I have riddled out why. My blood pressure was 143/94. Great. I honestly think that lowering my Synthroid was the wrong decision and I'm going to ask my doctor to refer me to an endocrinologist next appointment. I love my doctor and I really like how he listens to me and pays attention to what I have to say, but I think an endo would be better suited to what I need. I just hope I can get one as cool as Dr. Kabongo.

I went to parent teacher conferences yesterday. Andrea's was about expected I actually talked to Alyssa's teacher about my concerns with her issues. I love her to pieces but there are things that concern me and have for a while now. He feels the same way and when I mentioned that some of the things she does makes me wonder if she might be on the spectrum, he looked relieved and said "well, I didn't want to say anything" so I am going to talk to her pediatrician and maybe even make an appointment with the autism spectrum therapies people, just for an evaluation. I'm honestly not sure how it will go, I don't think she's actually autistic, but she has some tendencies so maybe they will be able to point us in the right direction for therapies that will help her be able to cope in the world, now that she is getting older and will be facing middle school where the kids can be even more cruel.

Some of the things we've noticed:

She very much lives in her own world. When she does her creative writing, the things she writes almost make sense and when she tells it, it makes sense, but it's not complete thoughts. You can tell that there is a lot that is in her head that doesn't make it to paper.

She has little hand "tics" that she does, where she fiddles with her fingers or puts her fingers in front of her face, kind of like a "I'm squishing your head" thing, but she gets EXTREMELY embarrassed if you catch her.

She is and has always been a very literal person. If you say "it's 8:00" and it's 7:59, she just doesn't get it..she doesn't get estimates...Sarcasm is a totally foreign language to the child...In fact, the first time she smarted off to me with something smart assed, I almost swallowed my tongue, it was just so un-Alyssa...and when it worked she looked so pleased with herself. It was almost like Lieutenant Commander Data telling a joke.

She fixates on things. Her teacher says that lately, every spare minute of her class time, time she should be reading or working on homework, she has been copying a play that she's been reading. She told him that by copying it, she can understand it better, but she is hand writing this play word by word.

She also has this white board that she uses at school, and he said for a while there, she would leave little notes to herself on it. For instance, on Thursday, she would write "God morning Alyssa! It's Friday!" so when she came in on Friday morning, it would be there for her. Now she has turned it into a calendar where she has the days for the holiday marked and so on. He said it's just not "normal"...

She tests extremely well, though, and definitely knows her school work. But, she doesn't turn in her homework. She's just an interestingly unique child. I figure talking to somebody won't hurt and maybe we'll get her some tools she can use to handle growing up a little better. I don't want to change her, for sure, but I want her to be happy and healthy.

I met a new friend today. She seems very nice. A good ole southern girl. She has three kids, a 3 1/2 year old boy, a 1 1/2 year old little girl and a 6 week old little boy. I've just been so jaded at meeting new people, I have a hard time really thinking "yes, this might actually be a friend for me" *sigh*.

Right now, I'm sitting here, looking at SpiceCat sitting on the couch. She is such an interesting looking cat. If I ever wanted to be able to communicate with animals, she's one I want to talk with. It's just so hard to read what's going on with her. Boobookitty and Lucy are easy to read, for the most part. SpiceCat is a mystery.

I did a little gardening today. Sort of. I repotted my prayer plant into a bigger pot, added some dirt to my pothos and watered them really good and repotted my dandelions. I hope they grow. On the positive side, my catnip actually seems to be growing and doing well. Perhaps it will survive?

I keep going over in my head what we will be able to do once pay is straightened out and we get our income tax. We should be getting something like $900 more than normal once they get our pay issues straightened out. When pay gets straight, I want to give Greg a big chunk, because he's been without any fun money this whole trip, just about. But, I also want to get things caught up so that we can relax a little bit around here. But, I'm thinking, if nothing else, we can put things off until income tax. With that, I'm going to pay off our van. Then, that will give us $560 a month that I can put $150 or so straight into savings. The rest will go toward snowballing down our credit cards and other debts. This year will be spent getting us dug out of our hole and then next year (2012) we will be able to get Greg's Charger and relax. Plus, after we get back from our trip back home this summer, I'll be doing my damnedest to get me a job. I just need to get my butt in gear and finish these classes.

Hi! So, I'm going to give blogging another chance, and maybe I'll keep up with it. I'll try to do something every day, even if it's just a quick kidism that I've experienced that day. I want to chronicle as much of the fun I've been having with these monkeys as I can, because I know that in far too short a time, it'll just be a memory and they'll be off making memories with their own families.