As I sit here typing this, my daughter (I'll call her Dea) & my son (I'll call him Jay) are washing up from breakfast. Next, Dea will plan her schedule for the day. She'll decide what order to do her schoolwork & when she'll do her chores. Jay, being much younger, will probably choose a video to watch. Right now, it's almost quiet here. That scares me. They're never quiet. They must be plotting something.
Between schoolwork & regular household chores, we'll fit in time to decorate for our Halloween party. This will be the first one we've had. The kids are so excited. They seem to have had some trouble deciding on costumes this year. Dea has finally settled on being a vampire devil & Jay has chosen a vampire cat. Oh well, they're having fun with it & that's what counts.
This is a pretty typical day for us, except that they slept a bit later than usual. It may be quiet now, but I'll gaurantee that within a hour that'll change. They don't stay quiet for long. It's pretty hard for two kids with ADHD to be quiet. I'm used to the noise. I actually kind of enjoy it. Silence drives me nuts. In a few minutes, I'll turn on some music & we'll start our day for real.
If there's one thing I can say about my life, it's that it deffinitely keeps me busy.
They've been quiet for far too long. I should go make sure they aren't drawing on the walls, again.

Today I had to have a talk with Dea. Not only is she falling a little behind in some subjects, but her grades have dropped in a few. She currently has Cs in Math & Latin. I know Cs aren't bad, but if I don't do something now, they'll get even worse. So, for the next few weeks we're putting actual lessons (for those two subjects) on hold. We'll be doing review. I really think her problem is not paying attention & not caring about the work. I don't believe she's really having a hard time understanding it. I figure review will help me see if I'm right or if she really is struggling. If she is struggling, I'll help her get to the point where she gets it. If she's not struggling, she'll have until the end of this term to bring the grades up or she'll lose privileges.
The kids have actually been really well-behaved today. Some schoolwork got done & a lot of cleaning for the Halloween party got done, too. The party is on Saturday & we still haven't decorated. We'll start that tomorrow. A few of the decorations still need to be made. I've got red fabric dye & tomorrow we'll use it to make 'blood' splatters on a white tablecloth. Tonight, I'll put the gauze in tea to stain it & let it dry. Then tomorrow, we'll wrap the skeleton in it to turn him into a mummy. A majority of the decorating will probably be done on Friday. That's when we'll put the mummy in the coffin & the coffin in the playroom. We'll hang up the black light, finish assembling the grim reaper & hang him, and find somewhere for the shrunken heads. We still need to set up the games, which includes painting pop bottles for pumpkin bowling. The jack-o-lanterns should get carved tomorrow, but might not be done til Friday. My hubby gives guitar lessons on Thursdays, and might not have time to help with the jack-o-lanterns. Friday will also involve a lot of cooking. All food for the party, that can be made ahead, will be made on Friday. That way, I don't have to spend all day Saturday cooking. Saturday, I'll finish any cooking, put finishing touches on decorations, make sure all the games are set up & ready, and help the kids with their costumes & make-up. Even though this is going to be a small party, it's taking a lot of work. Next year, we'll plan ahead so I have more time to do everything. This year was kind of a last minute decision, which is part of the reason everything is so last minute. We wouldn't be able to put all of the decorations yet anyway. The kids would destroy them. There hasn't been a year that they haven't destroyed at least the holiday decorations. We mostly use homemade decorations, so that we aren't losing expensive stuff.
I know a lot of people are thinking "Discipline them better & they wouldn't destroy stuff." Well, that's easier said than done. Both kids have combination-type ADHD, which means they have virtually no impulse control. They don't think before they do things. I'm not using this as anexcuse, and we do discipline them. They aren't allowed to just run wild & do whatever they want. However, it's not as easy with kids like these. They don't think about the trouble they got in for doing something, before they do it again. They just do it & think later. So, it takes longer to get them to stop certain behaviors. It's a process & not a short one.
Dea has her first Anger Management Group meeting tonight. In addition to her ADHD, she also has ODD & anger issues. This group should help her learn to control her anger. I've tried working with her on it & have made some huge improvements. However, we don't seem to be making progress anymore. Maybe this group, which has been put together by her therapist, will help. You might think it's strange for a 10 year old to need an Anger Management Group. If you do, I'll bet you've never had to fix a solid wood door because your child broke it, patch a plaster wall your child put a hole in, or worry that your neighbors would call athorities on you when they heard your child screaming like someone was beating her (even though no one was is the room with her), throwing things across the room & knocking over furniture. We've finally stopped the violent tantrums, but she's still having trouble dealing with her emotions.
Well, I'm off to go make dinner & take something for this headache.

Friday night, I was up until 4am cooking. When I got up Saturday morning, I got to finish the cooking & do last minute cleaning & work with a few of the decorations. We ended up not having the grim reaper ready, but everything else was taken care of.
The kids had a good time. There were a few minor injuries (a bonk on the head, hit with a door, etc), but nothing serious. We had to replace the pumpkins in Pumpkin Bowling, because they weren't heavy enough to knock over the pins. The velcro ball darts lost their velcro by the end of the second game. The kids came up with very interesting ways to get their apples during our 'Apple Bobbing'. Instead of using a bucket of water, we hung the apples from a saw horse. The kids had to lie on the floor, blindfolded. The younger ones were allowed to use anything excepth their hands. One was trying to use his foot to kick it free & another tried to get the apple between her chin & chest to pull. The older kids could only use their mouths. At lest one of them pushed the apple againdt the leg of the saw horse to hold it in place while she bit.
We let 2 of my nieces spend the night. After the party, the girls (Dea & my nieces) were going to watch a movie. They finally decided on one, but never finished it. One of them fell asleep & the other two came into the living room & hung out with the adults.
Today, the house is trashed. We got most of the garbage cleaned up last night, but the counters are covered in dishes. So, my project for today is cleaning & taking down the decorations.
This party was a test run, to see if it was something we wanted to do every year. I've decided that I want to. Next year, I'll have more time to prepare. Decorations will be up sooner, games will be more thought out, and I think we'll start it earlier (the younger ones were pretty tired & grouchy by the time the games were done).
All in all, it was a good day.

Well, I'm off to clean up (what fun).

Sorry I haven't written for a few days. I've been sick. I felt it coming on Monday & Tuesday, but it didn't really hit until Wednesday. It's nothing more than a cold. The problem is, I have a sinus condition & am already pretty congested from the change of seasons. So, the added congestion & sinus pressure from a cold is enough to knock me on my butt. I've spent most of my time sleeping & the rest of the time in bed. My hubby's been great helping with the kids when he gets home from work, so that I can rest. I'm starting to feel better today, so it's back to work.
We've decided to turn the kids' playroom into a den. They don't pick up their toys & I'm tired of tripping on them. So, all their toys are getting moved up to their rooms & closet, and I'm rearranging furniture down here. That's one of my projects for today. The other project is getting caught up on the housework. My hubby's been great about helping with the kids, but hasn't been able to keep up on the housework while I was sick. So, there's a lot to do. He's helping my sister & her boyfriend fix her van today, so most of the work in the house will fall on the kids & me. I'm sure he'll help with moving furniture (if I need it) & he got some dishes done this morning, but the rest is up to me. Right now, the kids are upstairs cleaning to get ready for the change. Now, that they finally have the playroom clean, I'm going to go start the transformation from 'Playroom' to 'Den.'
I have much more to say, but I need to get started on this, so I'll try to write more later tonight.

Well, I didn't get the playroom turned into the den. I had an idea to rearrange a few other rooms, as well. My hubby & I are discussing the idea & working out details. If we do this, we'll be rearranging most of the main floor of the house. The playroom will become the cining room, the dining room will become the living room, the living room will become the master bedroom, and the master bedroom will become the office/school room. It would involve moving just about every piece of furniture in the house. While rearranging the rooms would be a big project & a lot of work, the idea has some bonuses too. We'd have a bigger bedroom. Our bedroom is tiny & the bed takes up most of it. It's virtually impossible to walk around the bed or to get in & out of it on my side. If we took the living room as our bedroom, there'd be more room on both sides of the bed. I could get into bed without climbing over my husband (who is always in bed before me). If we used the bedroom as an office, I could get the computer desk out of the kitchen. That would free up room in the kitchen for the chest freezer & the baker's rack. The school stuff would also be in the office, which would free up room in what is now the dining room. It would also mean that while I'm on the computer (planning or doing record keeping for school, working on products or my website, etc.), I'd be in the same room as the kids while they do school work. That would help me keep Dea on track & focused, so she may actually get done earlier in the day. It would also mean that someone would be able to be in the room with her when she's on the computer, and we could be doing something other than wiping down counters that are already clean.
So, there are some really good points to this idea. However, we still need to iron out a few kinks. The cats need to be able to easily get in & out of our bedroom. We need to be sure the room we'd be using as a living room would be big enough to have company in, comfortably. I took measurements of each room & all the furniture. Then, I did a few floor plans for each room, so hubby could see how it would work. I did these last night, so he'll get to look at them this evening when he gets home.
I hope I can convince him to do this. It will take work (most of which, I'll do), and it'll probably take more than a day to get it completely done. I really want to do this, though. I think it would make the house much more functional for us. The way I see it, we should use the room in the house to our greatest advantage. I'm sure we'll have to explain the odd setup of the house to prospective buyers, when we sell. However, that won't be for a few years, yet. So, there's no point in worrying about it now. Also, this setup could cause problems with anything large that needs to be brought into the house by the front door. We only have a few things that ever need to come in that way, so it probably won't be much of an issue. I really like the floor plans I came up with & hope hubby likes them, too. If he agrees to it, I could have this done by the weekend.