Archive for June, 2008

Just in time for the Fourth of July, I present this American flag-inspired soap bar.

You will need:

• a rectangular bar mold (or other desired shape)
• white melt and pour base
• red and blue colorants (be sure to use non-bleeding)
• a small star-shaped cookie cutter (make sure it fits in your mold)
• summery fragrance of your choice
• alcohol in a spray bottle

You will also need equipment to melt and mix your soap. Most people use a Pyrex measuring cup and microwave. I use a small slow cooker to melt my soap and mix the colors in small dishes. You can also use a double-boiler or a bowl set atop a pan of simmering water.

Each layer should be fragranced. I melt my entire base together and add the fragrance.

Color enough melted and scented base for the first layer blue.

Pour it into your mold and spritz with alcohol to remove any air bubbles.

When it is firm, use your cookie cutter to cut a star out.

I had a little trouble getting the star out because the layer was still very soft.

Spritz the blue layer with alcohol and immediately pour the melted and scented white base over the blue layer to desired height. Remember, you need to leave space for the remaining layers.

Spritz again with alcohol to remove air bubbles.

Color enough base for the next layer red.

When the white base is firm, spay with alcohol and pour over with the red colored and scented base.

Spray again with alcohol to remove any air bubbles.

When red layer is firm, spay with alcohol and pour the final white layer to the top of the mold. Spray with a final spritz of alcohol to remove air bubbles.

Wait until all layers have fully hardened. This takes a few hours. Alternately, you can let it harden over night.

Turn over mold and gently press to remove your American flag-inspired soap.

One of the chores that the older boys have to do is empty the dishwasher, which is run when it is full – almost every day.

They can frequently be heard complaining that we never empty the dishwasher, despite the fact that my husband empties it at least once a week for them.

Well, this week they have been at camp. The dish washer has been run exactly once and currently only has about three dishes in it, excluding silverware.

So, I guess there is a reason that we make them empty it.

You have to see this Strawberry Shortcake Soap over at The Soap Queen’s blog.  Have to.  It is so cool.

That I was going to do a Weight Watchers Wednesday post yesterday, but I didn’t.

I am lame. Sorry. I just can’t seem to make the time to blog. I would like to, but I just can’t. It’s only a season, though, and I thank you for bearing with me.

Anyway, as for WW, I kind of got away from the plan when things with the D got really bad and when I was working overtime with him after his diagnosis.

The good news is, I did not gain a pound! In fact, I lost a pound.

Even though I put my scale away, I wanted to check in and I was pleasantly surprised.

With this weight loss thing, every day is a new day and a new chance to get it right. Time is going to move forward anyway, so I might as well try to do something right with it. The alternative is to get less healthy and more fat in the coming days, weeks, and months, right?

I think the fact that I did not gain during such a stressful time is a great sign that I am making meaningful changes.

And I will continue to make more now that I am refocusing on taking care of me.

Onward!

I know, it has been so long since I updated. Things have been so crazy around here. It seems like every second of my life has been consumed with learning about ADHD. There is so much to this, but for the first time in 11 years, I finally have a glimpse inside the D’s mind.

I have never understood my boy. Never. But, now I am starting to. And it has made such a difference in our lives.

Things have settled down with him and he is now able to go a couple of days without a temper tantrum.

Still, it is not perfect and there is much work to be done.

The older boys are leaving for summer camp on Sunday for a full week.

Then, on Monday, my mom is taking Little E for a couple of days.

I will have a couple of days alone and then the rest of the week with only my 4-year-old, who loves lots of alone time.

It will be a long-needed break.

And when it is over, I should be rested and we should be able to get into a routine again. Hopefully, one that includes blogging!

I can’t believe that all of this change in our lives happened right when I got my new laptop!

At least it is change for the better. We are on the pathway toward healing the hurt feelings that resulted from a year-and-a-half long downward spiral in the D’s behavior.

Our family was a wreck. His tantrums got so bad that everyone hated being around him. The stress got the better of all of us and we all fell into bad patterns of interaction with one another.

Things are going much better now, though.

Still, I know this will always be work; it will always be a challenge. Any parent with an ADHD or other “attention different” child can tell you that, but at least it will be work toward a productive goal. Fighting all of the time was work, too, only without any positive outcome.

That’s all I have for now. I am seriously fighting to keep my eyes open, so I am going to get off the computer. I just wanted to check in and let my blog friends know how I am doing.

I plan on resuming Weight Watchers Wednesday tomorrow, too.

The other day, I set out to make a great loaf of multi-layered soap. I carefully melted, scented, colored, and poured each layer. I gently textured the top as it hardened. I patiently waited until the next day so the soap would be fully set before I unmolded it.

And here’s what happened to my bars of soap:

The reason was that the soap I used for the yellow and green layers was remelted from another project and the soap I used for the pink and white layers was a freshly opened 1 lb. bar.

Let this be a lesson: Always use the same base for multi-layer pours to ensure better adhesion.

Not the type to give up (or waste three pounds of soap!), I came up with another idea.

First, I melted a pound of clear glycerin soap in my handy crock pot.

Then, I cut my split loaf into cubes.

Next, I scented the clear soap (with the same fragrance oil as the other soap).

I poured a small layer of clear into a silicone loaf pan, sprayed it with alcohol, took a handful of cubes, sprayed them with alcohol, and put them into the loaf pan, adding more clear soap over the top and spraying with more alcohol.

(The alcohol helps the solid soap adhere and it pops the air bubbles on the top of the melted soap.)

After that set, I repeated the process, first spraying the set layer with alcohol.

Here is my final loaf.

I cut it into large 4 oz. body bars and half-sized 2 oz. hand soap bars.

Just to follow up on last night’s rant…

I am feeling much better today. I had a good cry last night, followed by a good talk with Bob.

This morning, I took the kids for a walk to the park, which was around 2.3 miles round trip, according to Google Maps. I was good to get out. Very therapeutic.

I am definitely going to make that a regular thing.

We are going to switch to our summer schedule, since we are close to wrapping up the school work for this year’s portfolios to the state.

The summer schedule will include about an hour of academic stuff, so we can still finish up what we need to do. After that, we will do more project-oriented learning activities.

We will go out in the mornings, but I like to stay in during the sun’s peak burning hours (red hair + light skin + blue eyes + freckles = major sun burns), so I figured we could keep the studies going over the summer.

The older boys are going to camp for a week from the 22 – 28, so I have a nice break coming up. Then, in July, they will have summer kids week at church from 9 – 12 every day. Add in a couple of trips to grandma’s and I should have the mental health breaks I need to avoid meltdowns like last night.

Plus, I plan to go out at least once a week when Bob is home to some place with WiFi, so I can bring my laptop.

In other words, I am doing much better. (Wait, I said that already.)

Sorry for being such a downer! I hope to get some fun stuff posted later today and a soap tutorial tomorrow (hopefully!).

I am so overwhelmed I cannot even put it into words. I did not realize how much I was tuning out The D’s problems and not dealing with them. I mean, I was dealing with them, but more as if he was just being a bad kid. Now I realize that this disorder gives him a completely altered way of seeing the world and dealing with life. Absent learning to adapt to his condition, he does act like a bad kid. But he is not. The changes we are making in our approach to parenting are starting to work already. As much as I abhor schedules, the schedules are helping. Standing in as his substitute brain when he is frustrated is starting to help. He went all day today without stomping. You have no idea what a big deal that is. To put it in perspective, he was stomping so much, he made the light in the downstairs apartment fall down last week! Thank God that the property manager was understanding.

I know that things are going to get better. They already are. Most importantly, I enjoy being around my son again. He has been so mean for so long that I all but gave up hope that he would ever be nice again. For 2 years he has acted like a mouthy teenage punk, but now he is just a little boy again.

The downside is that this is exhausting me. I am on duty every second of the day. The only reason I am online right now is that he is at a meeting at church. The other two boys are so quiet and independent by comparison. Even Little E, who is only 4!

I am so physically and emotionally wiped out that I started crying when I read, “ADD is an ‘invented disease,’ it is a ‘media-myth’.”

I Googled “homeschooling” and “ADD” and “ADHD” to find out more about what other parents do with homeschooling ADHD kids. I found that gem on Home Education Magazine’s web site. I have not read the articles linked there yet. I was crying too much.

Why do people think they know everything about everybody else?

This is not a made up condition!!!

In all my years of political blogging and dealing with complete idiocy, I have never wanted to call anyone an asshat until just this very minute.

After everything my son has been and is going through, and the difference in his mood, attitude, and behavior since starting the medication, you cannot convince me that this is a myth.

This is not just a kid who won’t sit still or doesn’t pay attention. He is not difficult to teach or slow or behind academically. All the judge-y know-it-alls think ADHD is all about drugging active kids to get them to sit still.

No. It isn’t.

True, The D does not sit still. Neither do my other two boys. I read to them while they are hanging upside down or rolling on the floor. I homeschool. THEY DO NOT NEED TO SIT STILL!

This is a kid who is unable to process through his emotions because his brain won’t sit still. So, he reverts to primitive behaviors, like stomping, yelling, and hitting.

He had no way to process the things that sent him into a depression a year and a half or so ago. And no one had any idea that this disorder was affecting him. That is why therapy was not making things any better and everyone threw up their hands when they could not help us.

But, you know, I am sure it is just an invented disease or a media-myth.

And I am even more sure that people are insensitive nitwits without a clue.

Too bad that doesn’t stop them from talking typing.

So, the D has been taking ADHD medication for a week now. I have noticed a positive difference. We still have so far to go.

I am not sure if more could be accomplished by a higher dose – he is taking a very small dose – but I am not sure if I want to take chances with it. We have a follow-up with the nurse practitioner who prescribed it Wednesday, so I’ll discuss it with her.

I am not sure that he really has anything else going on (like the severe mood dysregulation that was mentioned during the preliminary diagnosis) that cannot be attributed to the ADHD, especially since it went undiagnosed for so long. Man, there is a lot more to that than I thought. I was under the impression that it was just inattentiveness and hyperactivity. There is much, much more. (I want to post more about that.)

I was kind of upset when I realized that the public school should have caught this during the 3 years he was there. They should be trained to spot the early signs.

Instead, it went so long that his behavior got to be really bad. Now he has so much work to do before he will be functioning at his age level. (As do we.)

I am not going to dwell on it, though. I have more important things to deal with.

Like sleeping! I am so exhausted from dealing with all this.

But, it’s great to start to see the little boy I love coming back!