Perspective

My mom went to a lovely ladies lunch to day at the esteemed New Orleans restaurant Galatoire's. (WARNING: Only click that link if you're unafraid of getting drool on the computer.) It was a fancy, Ladies Who Lunch sort of deal to celebrate a friend's birthday. I'm sure there was a lot of getting tipsy on mimosas and silk pant suits from Steinmart.

You know how these things are, women are cackling and talking about their children and grandchildren and somehow my mom find another woman at the table with a special needs grandchild.

The other woman's grandchild was a preemie born at 31 weeks who had suffered a brain bleed. The other grandmother said he is doing well dealing mostly with speech delays, but even this seems to be resolving at this point (age five). There seemed to be only one real problem according to the grandmother: the child still eats only pureed food. My mom, an amateur member of the Spanish Inquisition, asked a few more questions. Side note: really, Homeland security should study my mother. The shear breadth of the questions she asks is quite amazing. Imagine my brother and I talking to her as children. She wanted to know what our new friends' parents did for a living and we didn't even know their last names.

My mom's curiosity stems from her genuine love of people, though, so she was very curious about this stranger's grandchild. Her interrogation revealed that the child was of normal size and weight, and had no apparent nutritional deficits.

My mom called me later to tell me all about her lunch and, of course, filled me in on the stranger's grandchild. At the end of the conversation she says, "You know, Katy, my perspective has really changed--who cares if he only eats pureed foods--at least he eats."

And really, isn't it always about perspective? My child can't walk or talk, but he loves to eat and I don't take that for granted. I'm sitting on a comfortable couch enjoying air conditioning and when the bill comes, I'll be able to pay it. I live in a country where my child's medical conditions can be treated and where early intervention is standard practice.

Most importantly, my child is supported by an incredibly caring team of extended family and friends. People who care about his therapies, his accomplishments, and his set-backs. With all of this going my way, it's hard to be sad about what I don't have for very long.

Holland Mafia Meetup

I'll probably be putting up a real post this evening, but I wanted to be sure and get this up as soon as possible.

Hubby, Charlie, and I will be heading to Plano this coming Thursday for more ABR training. On Friday, August 7th, were going to be meeting up with Jennifer and Jude of Jude; The Diary of a Baby and a Stroke in Dallas.

I've been calling groups of special mommies the Holland Mafia and that where the name comes from.

If you live in the DFW area and have a kid with special needs, then we'd love for you to come meet us. If you read this blog or Jennifer's and just want to come along, that would be fine too. Please pass this info along to any other "Holland Mob Bosses: that you think might be interested.

We'll be meeting at 6:45 at the Jason's Deli in North Dallas
The address is 18111 Dallas Parkway #100, Dallas, TX

Hope to see you there!

Say My Name

Charlie doesn't talk.

He grunts, whines, cries, laughs, and makes happy noises, but as of yet, no actual talking. I'd love to hear "Mommy," "I love you," or, you know, "all the medical bills are worth it," but I'm mostly zen about this. You can read about kids all over the net who are communicating a variety of ways--sign language, communication computers--and I think that he'll definitely find a way to communicate. Also, we live in a very computer-centered world and I find myself communicating in different ways all the time, so who knows what the future holds? I mean, if someone had told me seven years ago that I would be sending written messages with my phone, I would have asked them where they got the crack because that's just ridiculous. Now, I text not only to annoy my friends who are working, but also to update my Twitter page about things that irritate me. Side note: you should seriously follow me on Twitter--how else are you gonna know there's a long line at Chick-fil-a? I'm your eyes and ears on the ground when it comes to Chicken Minis.

A while back we ordered a GoTalk 4 through Early Steps (our state's Early Intervention Program). The GoTalk is an "augmentative communication device." We call her Tina the Talker. Well, Tina arrived and the Speech Therapist and I were giddy with excitement. I mean, this was communication in box! You take that seriously or your kid might skip over "mama" and "dada" and head straight to "I need borrow the car" and "where do babies come from?" So we took the magical Tina out of the box and programmed her with officious words like "water," "cracker," "yes" and "no."

But nothing happened. Charlie hit every button in rapid succession, lost interest, and tossed Tina on the floor.

So, we re-grouped and decided to try an activity with Tina. We cut out pictures from a magazine of ears, eyes, a nose, and a mouth and paired them with my voice saying these same words. We wanted to work up to the point where we would touch something on Charlie and he could tell us what it was called. This time it was nose, nose, nose, nose, nose and BAM! Tina was on the floor again. Really, Tina ain't gettin' no respect around here.

So there we were: the lovely Tina neglected in a corner and I feeling pretty mommiocre for failing to bring out the inner Walter Cronkite in my child. Or even his inner Sarah Palin. Charlie's speech therapist was as stumped as I was. She doesn't have a ton of kids using augmentative communication, so she's like me--just figuring it out as we go along--but she had heard about an augmentative communication specialist at Children's Hospital in New Orleans and I thought maybe we should make an appointment.

So today I called. Actually, I called last week and again this week when my call wasn't returned because I'm one of those parents. (I also have my own laminator. Sue me.) The man at Children's asked me questions for at least five minutes: how old is he? what activities have we tried? how many different levels does the GoTalk hold? I ended up not really needing an appointment--he just gave me a bunch of advice. How nice! and Unexpected! Usually they want charge your insurance company ten dollars a minute for allowing you to breath the same air as them.

Here's the breakdown:

1. Normal two-year-olds have very short attention spans. When planning a therapy session, count on having to change activities every five minutes.


2. In the beginning, I shouldn't expect him to use Tina for more than ten minutes TOPS! Poor Tina, she'll remain abused and neglected.


3. We should be using all five levels of the GoTalk with each level representing a different activity. One could be for foods, one for a few toys, one for a puzzle, and one for song. We'd been doing the opposite--we'd been using only one level because we didn't want to overwhelm him. Apparently, we were underwhelming him by expecting him to be interested in nose, mouth, eyes, and ears for more than five minutes.
   
4. The POINT of augmentative communication with a two-year-old is really just to get them used to using a device--it's not going to be life-altering with a total of twenty words.


5. All children have good days and bad days, so it's OK if he doesn't want to practice every day.


6. Advancement and avoiding frustration might be mutually exclusive. Basically, we might have to push him a little to achieve on the GoTalk.

I called his speech therapist right after the conversation and we discussed everything. We're jazzed and ready to start planning some activities--I'm getting ready to fire up that laminator right now.

Serendipity

I definitely one of those people who believes in serendipity--things aligning for a reason, coming together unexpectedly.

Today was one of those days.

You see, there's this restaurant I wanted to try. Someone mentioned it the other day on Facebook, I googled it, and the next thing you know I was having a white-hot affair with the online menu. It was food porn--they pretty much had me with "homemade bread," but then they went ahead and kept going with "homemade potato chips" and "special blend of cheeses." It could be a blend of Kraft singles and Velveeta, but man does it sound good.

So today, my husband, who knows that I'm more than a tad bitter about the fact that he gets to go out to lunch every day while I'm stuck at home eating cheese cubes and tortilla chips, calls and asks me if I'd like to go to lunch with him. Uhhh. . .yeah?

So off we go to the land of delicioso; my husband and I get the exact same thing--pot roast with gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It's food like Emeril's momma used to make. Charlie also enjoyed liberal helpings of our pot roast and green beans and basically worked himself up into a blood sugar-induced coma complete with drooping eye lids, a bobbing head, and just a touch of drool.

The restaurant had pretty much cooled off by the time we were finished, and I noticed that one of the large tables was filled with a group of people wearing shirts and name tags from the local ARC agency. ARC is a broad-reaching organization that provides services to people with mental and physical disabilities. Like any overly-social mommy who never gets enough adult interaction (my affair with the menu not withstanding), I walked over, introduced myself, told them a little bit about Charlie and the fact that one of their OT's works with him through Early Steps--our state's Early Intervention program. Charlie took this moment to appear as disabled as humanly possible. I'm sure every child is like this--when they're well-rested, they look wonderful and alert. When they're say, stuffed to the gills with pot roast and an hour past nap time, they may look a little less stellar. Charlie? Well, Charlie looks like one of my husband's Delta Sig brothers at a mardi gras parade.

But the people were nice, one lady even came over and said hi to him. Then they told me that their agency has just opened up a Mother's Day Out program. How perfect is that? A Mother's Day Out where special needs kids are welcomed? A chance for Charlie to interact with other children? Even better is the fact that all of their programs are open to kids disabled and not, so disabled kids have a chance to interact with their typical peers. I had been thinking that he needed something like this, but didn't know where to start. Now, I have a jumping off point.

Some might call it serendipity.

Some might call it Murphy's Law since I had the entire conversation with my fly undone.

Victory Lap

So Charlie had a birthday party to attend this weekend. I realize that for most people this is pretty much the definition of uneventful. You show up to someone's house, eat a little cake, watch your kids from a distance yelling things like "stop hitting people," and then head on your way.

This ritual is a tad different for us. Charlie patently refuses to acknowledge the presence of other people by shutting his eyes and pretending that he isn't there. People ask us repeated if he's tired. In effort to not be complete party killers, we simply say "yes," cringe inwardly, and wish desperately that we were somewhere else--like the dentist's office. Or Iraq.

So I was approaching this birthday party with the same glee that many people reserve for activities like funerals and colonoscopies.

But it wasn't that bad.

The theme of the party was water and there were several kiddie pools and one of those giant water slides for the big kids. Another theme of the party was the adults staring wistfully at the giant water slide and wishing they had an excuse to get on it themselves.



Charlie likes water, though, so I thought this was a good omen. We started him off in this contraption that's basically like a large plastic sprinkler that babies can sit in and get sprayed from every angle. Huge Hit. Being the king of oral interaction, Charlie felt duty bound to try to get a taste of every little stream of water in his immediate area.

We also let him spend some time in the kiddie pool, which was fine except that Charlie is convinced that he can swim and nothing short of drowning is going to convince him otherwise.

After a while he started to whine and we decided that he must be hot. We went inside, hooked up his little seat that we take everywhere and he ate watermelon, looked out the window, and smiled gleefully. One person did, however, ask me how old Charlie is. When you child is tiny, and can't walk or talk, the temptation is to lie about their age just to spare everyone the uncomfortableness of talking about disability, but I had told myself that I wasn't going to do this. So, when the question came I simply responded: he's two, but he has some developmental delays, so he's not quite up with his peers. Guess what? The woman I was talking to just so happens to have an older son who has a rare chromosomal deletion. What are the chances of that? Then, just so we weren't completely spared the uncomfortable thing, she told me about her two divorces. For the record, I never know what to say about people's divorces so I smile uncomfortably. What' s the proper response? I'm sorry? Congratulation? He was probably a bastard anyway? ACK!!!

So, we made it through the whole party and I didn't cry when it was over. I did, however, refrain from running down the street with my arms in the air.

Spinning My Wheels

I think it's only natural, when you have a child with special needs, to think and plan for a different kind of future.

I've been around my house just casually assessing--trying to figure out which areas aren't handicap accessible. We've figured out a short-range plan that includes turning our tiny master bath with a tub into one with a walk-in shower. We would also need to put a ramp on our back porch because our house is raised off the ground (it is Louisiana). We've got long-range plans where we could create a suite for Charlie should he be living with us into adulthood. They're building a facility for handicapped adults about five minutes from our home, so that's also in there somewhere as a possibility.

But you know, all of this thinking and planning is basically useless. It's like trying to decide how to spend my lottery winnings (First, I'd pay off the house--NO!--first I'd set up a trust for Charlie--NO!--screw that, I'm going straight for the shoes). No one knows what Charlie will do or say or be. And really, no parent knows what will happen to their child. Your friends down the street who are wondering how they're gonna pay to send Sarah to Brown? Well, for all they know, Sarah will get knocked up at eighteen, marry the guy, and live happily ever after never attending a single day of college. And there are better and worse scenarios than that one. Point is, we can't predict the future. We can't know what's going to happen.

So if I get a little upset thinking it isn't fair that I have to plan for a handicapped future, I remind myself that what I'm doing isn't all that different from what other parents do: We hedge our bets, hope for the best, and try to love our kids the best way we know how.

The rest is out of our hands.

For Shame

I've alluded to this previously, but I'm not sure everyone understands. . .

I have ruined my child.


What, you say. Surely not. Not you, Katy, who reads books on development and creates lesson plans and travels to other countries to give him the best life possible. You could not possibly have ruined your child. He's only two.


But I have. My mother knows. She actually outed me to a nurse at the hospital. Of course, the nurse didn't belive her.


You see, it's rapidly becoming clear that Charlie has developed an unhealthy obsession with rap music.


There. I said it.


I started off with the best of intentions. Charlie and I take a couple of long drives a week. We usually cross the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain at least twice a week and that adds up to about two hours in the car total for each trip. I would dutifully put in either a Fisher Price alphabet CD or a Fisher Price Numbers CD. I mean, I wasn't going to waste precious developmental time with stuff like Top 40! This is my baby's brain we're talking about here!


And the songs were cute and I didn't mind them too much and then all of the sudden I was like IF I HAVE TO HEAR KITTEN KABOODLE ONE MORE TIME.


So I put on the radio for a few minutes.

Just a few minutes more.

Half the drive--that's it!

Well, seriously, nobody ever died from listening to Top 40 music, right?



So here we are today. He likes some guitarists, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Brit brit, and pretty much any rap song you can think of. If you play country he will completely lose his mind with the screaming. It's ridiculous.


I sounds like I'm exaggerating, right?


Here's a picture of Charlie listening to some random song:











And here he is listening to "Come, Baby, Come" by K7:







You may not know this, but that is actually the CP version of dropping it like it's hot (def 1).

Sorry but I've had to close comments on this post due to some serious spam!

Bullies

Wow. I had no idea how many of you guys had followed me here from the MSN days. That's actually really cool.

Well, today's post is actually about a little trick that I learned when I was teaching and I wanted to share it with everybody.

For those who don't know, the last two years that I taught, I was in what's called an "inclusion class." Basically, these are classes where regular ed and special ed kids are mixed together. My job was to make sure the special ed kids understood the lessons, took notes, and generally kept up. I helped all the kids in the class, but the specials were actually my responsibility. Sometimes I taught the class, and the other teacher did what I did, sometimes I developed lessons that worked with different modalities, and sometimes I'd just pull together groups or work one-on-one.

Inclusion classes can really push kids who are in special ed. It also leaves them open to teasing. A little too much attention from the "special" teacher and kids will begin to tease. I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. I usually managed to protect my kids, but sometimes they'd get teased right in front of me.

"Why is she helping you?"

"You retarded or somethin'?"

"You're stupid, that's why she's helpin' you."

I discovered a sure-fire way to stop most of these comments (notice I said most--some people are just different)

First, you have to think about why children/teens make fun of each other--for the most part, it's to cover up insecurities they have about themselves. Clothes are dirty? Point out that Joe over there has a bad haircut. Are you the shortest kid in the class? Make fun of the new girl's buck teeth.

My kid has special needs and a big concern is how to deal with it when our kids get picked on. Luckily, Charlie hasn't experienced that I'm sure it will happen one day. I didn't' have any special needs and I got teased, so really, no one escapes completely.

Anyway, so some body's teasing your kid and you want them to stop.

Some parents would want to go reason it out with the other kid's parents. That's a mistake. A) The kids parents have taught him better and he does what he wants anyway or B) The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and you don't really want to get to know them. Either way, it's best to just nip it in the bud and not make an incident out of it.

Other parents would want to yell at or insult the bully. Again, mistake. There's pretty much nothing worse than an adult yelling at a child. Besides, you're escalating the situation and really, you just want it to end.

So what do you do?

I say kill them with the sort of kindness that makes even normal people go running for the hills. Start with a sickly sweet voice--if you live in the south, pull out the accent. And then say this: "oh honey, does it make you feel better about yourself to make fun of other people?" "does that help you with your insecurities?" "Honey, you don't have to do that." "Do you feel better about yourself now?"

Depending on the situation, you can go as far as you need to: "Does your mommy not pay enough attention to you at home?" "Do you feel bad about yourself?" "Do you need a hug?"

Remember, the point of the bullying/teasing was to draw attention away from them and their insecurities. This kind of behavior shines a giant spotlight back on them.

You might get called a "witch," but they'll probably yell it as they're high-tailing it away from you and your kid.

So, mission accomplished. Bullying over. Bully is now wary of your kid and his crazy parent. You didn't stoop to his level and you didn't have to get anyone else involved. I used this technique several times to great success.

Sunday

For the record, you guys are all about a Charlie update, so I'm just gonna go ahead and let loose with the mommy-dribble over here. I'm not gonna lie, it could get ugly.

The most exciting thing to happen to me this weekend, however, doesn't actually involve Charlie or my bathroom or the new Harry Potter movie.

My husband bought me a new computer.

We haven't plugged it in or anything, but let me tell you, this is some good stuff. The computer I'm currently typing on is old. OLD. I believe it receives social security. It' so old that when I bought all of my fancy, crazy-expensive Adobe products last year, they wouldn't even install on this computer. WOULDN'T INSTALL! So, I had to put them on my lap top and my life ever since has been back and forth between the two computers with a flash drive and inevitably, whatever file or picture I'm looking for is on the other computer and blah, blah, blah.

No longer. I'll be able to put all my pretty programs and my pictures on one computer. And my iTunes. I'm practically drunk with power.

Now let's see how long it takes my husband to actually set the thing up.

What do You Want???

For a long time I've wondered who visits my blog and what they're looking for when they show up. The other day I stubbled across this service called Survey Monkey where you can create your own online survey. So. . . please do me a favor and go over there and fill out the survey. Let me know what you like, so I can give you more of it. I've put a link on the left-hand side and here's another one:


Click Here to take survey

Fun Fact Friday: Demons

1. I'm easily scared by movies. I hadn't seen Poltergeist or Goonies all the way through until I was an adult.
2. My husband took me to see The Ring in theaters and I refused to watch the whole video--you know, just in case it would kill me.
3. Everyone on my mother's side of the family has claustrophobia. My uncle's got it so bad that he made us promise we wouldn't bury him in a box.
4. I'm also scared of heights, but living in Louisiana, it doesn't come up that much. It does hit me pretty hard in air planes, though.
5. I hate, hate, hate driving over tall bridges. In fact, I have nightmares that I'm driving up a bridge and I can't see what's on the other side.
6. I also have nightmares that I've gone to work with no pants on, and I'm trying to convince people that it's just the new style.
7. I can't think of one single thing that my husband is afraid of.

On My Mind

It would be great if I could get together a coherent paragraph about anything, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards this week--I just feel all over the place.

We've got the tantrum thing in a good place and it's been a few days since we've seen a major explosion. There are people who will frown on this, but basically, Charlie likes to have music on. We either play a video or my iPod and he's fine. He'll play on his own, crawl around, whatever--he just doesn't go for the silence. I don't know what the deal is, but he's generally happier, so I think it's fine.

One interesting thing happened this week, though. I showed Charlie a braille book. The vision therapist brought it over when he was about four months old and I stuck it on the shelf and haven't looked at it since.

Charlie hates books. They disgust him and I have no idea why. I showed him the braille book, however, and it did get his attention. I'm not sure what the deal is. Is the print too small in regular books? Is it too difficult to run his eyes over the text? I don't know. I do know that he seemed to like the braille book. I'm going to try a couple of other things as well, but I'm definitely keeping it in mind that he liked the braille book--food for thought.

In gross motor, Charlie is kicking complete ass--we raised the step for him to pull up on, and he had it mastered in about half an hour.

I'm also TRYING to teach Charlie a little independence. In general, I pick Charlie up and move him from room to room. We have a schedule and it is largely dictated by me. I'd like him to have a little more independence. I'm trying to show him that he can, in fact, move from room to room without me. To do this, I'm plopping him down in the hallway near his room and the den. So far, he just sort of looks around confused, but I'm hoping he'll start to figure it out.

So. . . that's what we're up to over here! Tomorrow I go to the dentist because I've started grinding my teeth--gah!

Back to the Bath

Well, I've reached a stumbling block with my bathroom. . .

white.

You see, when we started my quest to paint the house, I chose a slightly off-white shade of white called Quail Egg. But then I bought this towel bar, which has a white/white little piece on it. I've held the paint sample up to the towel bar about a million times and I don't like the way it looks.

So.

I've got a couple of options:

1. I can paint the bathroom a whiter shade of white, but that would mean two different whites in the house and then I start to get tense wondering about the ceiling and what if I want to paint the trim and on and on.
2. I can paint the bathroom a different color, but I'm not sure what.
3. I can embrace the different whites and just go with it.

I think it's time to consult with some of my magazines and see if I can get some ideas.

Fun Fact Friday

Well, Tales of the Cocktail is going on in New Orleans and The Gambit just printed their 50 Best Bars of New Orleans edition, so I'm going to go with the theme and make this FFF the Bar Edition.

1. I started going to bars when I was fifteen. I was pretty clueless--I wasn't there to drink--I just wanted to play pool. Didn't occur to me that what I was doing was illegal.
2. My husband started going to bars when he was two. He'd go after his dad's rugby games. He remembers being frustrated because the dart board was so high up.
3. When I turned eighteen I started going to this Country and Western bar to dance. My friends who were still seventeen would have to sneak in.
4. The first time I went out in New Orleans I went to Fat Harry's. It's been there forever and still is.
5. I drank a Malibu and Seven Up.
6. Fat Harry's is also the only bar I've ever stayed at all night. Like til the sun came up.
7. Being from New Orleans, I taught most of my friends how to open a tab and tip properly.
8. Also being from New Orleans, I spent a lot of nights physically dragging my friends out of bars.
9. I've never been thrown out of a bar, but a lot of my friends have.
10. In Texas we used to go to bar that let you bring your own alcohol. They sold beer and mixers, but that was it.
11. It did cost five dollars to get in, though.
12. People from New Orleans generally hate cover charges.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy a cocktail if that's your thing!

Highs and Lows

Well, I'd like to put up a big ole post, but I went to type it and found myself blank. I guess days away from the computer can make you blank.

Anyway, the good news these days is that Charlie has started to pull himself up onto low steps. He does it from a prop sit and he also does it from the belly-crawl position. His PT is over-the-moon excited about this new development and so am I.

We are managing the tantrums. Time out in his bed seems to be effective. We're also pretty much glued to our schedule, but it's working and that's the important thing.

On the downside, my PT is ready to have a medical equipment vendor come out to the house and help us figure out a good wheelchair option for Charlie. You see, before we know it, Charlie will be going to school and we're going to need a good, supportive option to get him through the lessons. Right now I just cart him everywhere in an umbrella stroller, which probably won't be an option for very much longer. I'm not upset about the wheelchair part. There's this handy chart that helps put kids with CP into distinct categories. Charlie is easily a III. If I follow III all the way into adulthood I can see that he may need to use a wheelchair--especially for long distances.

I want to be clear about something--I do believe that ABR and Feldenkrais will help him make gains that this chart doesn't account for. We're already starting to see him make reciprocal movements with his legs, which is more common in II's than in III's. He's also pretty good at playing in the sitting position although balance is definitely an issue. But, he's still got a long way to go, and I don't think it does him any justice to keep him from interacting with others on their level.

So pretty soon I've got to pick a chair. And that's the yucky part. I wish there was a manual! I imagine it's very hard to decide these things and insurance companies only pay for one wheelchair every couple of years, so I better get it right. The pressure! Gah!

Still Alive!

I'm still alive, but my modem is dead. I'm getting a few minutes here and there, but most of those are being eaten up by processing orders for my store. Busy busy! I'm working on a new post, though, about Charlie's improvements, so hopefully I'll have that up soon. Fingers crossed!!!

No Time Like the Present. . .

. . .to go shopping! I'm having a big sale in my online shop, so if you were thinking about picking something up, now is the time!

Happy Fourth to you all!!! (I am ALL about the exclamation point today).

To Whom it May Concern

Dear Hospital Billing:

1. When you make a coding error, I don't think that I should have to waste hours of my time straightening it out. You are actually receiving a pay check for dealing with billing. I am not. Also, I have a toddler screaming in my face because I'm ignoring him.


2. Sending multiple bills for the same procedure is a horrible practice--I don't know who came up with it, but it sucks. Surely with the gazillions of dollars streaming into you facility you could find some way to put it all on one bill.


3. Charging 1200 dollars for a "room" when my son had out-patient surgery seems like a bit of a stretch. Plus, it wasn't so much a room as it was a rocking chair a bed and a curtain. Rooms have walls.


4. When I agree to pay in installments, please don't call me every five days about my account. You're getting my money--now leave me alone.


5. I am not a moron. I understand the terms of my policy. I know I have a deductible. You, on the other hand, seem to be confused about the entire process.


6. When I call YOU about my billing, please don't act like I'm a degenerate who doesn't pay their bills. I'm trying to straighten it out--do degenerates do that?


7. And finally, please do not expect me to blindly pay an UN-ITEMIZED bill for $300 dollars from 2008.

Thank You,

The Mother of a Special Needs Child

PS: Going to see the neurosurgeon next Wednesday, but we're managing the temper tantrums pretty well around here. It may just be a case of the terrible twos.