Breath in, breath out, repeat. . .

Honestly, sometimes I'm so tired this is enough to make me exhausted.  With full time school, full time family, part time internship, and musical beds most nights, it's hard to really catch up.  I know for a fact, we are not alone in this dilemma.  I realize that parenthood in general is exhausting, but sometimes, even once, I'd like to FEEL rested even if I'm not really.

With that said and the little rant over, things are good.  Really good.  I have officially finished my internship and at the close of this semester I graduate with my Ms.ed in Education Administration.  In addition to that, I went through the many, many hoops NYS has created to re-apply for my teaching certification as a Teacher of the Speech and Language Disabled.  I took two exams for state credentialing, had to take an exam for credit (6 graduate level credits!), I I had to complete 3 workshops and have my fingerprints done once again.  Now I pray, hard, that the deem my past transcripts as successful in meeting all of their requirements. If they do not approve it, I essentially would have to go back and do a BS degree all over.  On 5/1/14 NYS changed ALL of their requirements and have all new exams.  My past degree is, in essence, erased.  Sigh. Like I said, I'm praying!!

Sergio has just celebrated his 8th birthday.  At four I was overwhelmed with the magnitude of the health changes he was undergoing.  Thinking TPN was going to be a temporary 6 month or less endeavor, until his gut started working again.  At 5 the start to of the never ending hospitalizations for weeks at a time.  At 6 being given no hope that he could beat a fungus infection that had overtaken his entire body and we were sent home on a regime of drugs that no one can even find in any medical literature.  To the amazingly wonderful 18 months of absolute stable health and no hospital admissions.  To 7 when the vicious cycle

started all over again.  Here we are today, incredibly blessed to be outpatient now for over 2 months!  He's happy, healthy (in a very relative term) and still keeping us on our toes day and night.  His Make-A-Wish trip is now in the planning stage with the organization and we were blessed again with a wonderful duo of experienced wish planners.  They are kind, compassionate and appear to understand the level of needs each of the kids present when planning a trip for a particular child. We'll give more details when things are more solidified. :-)

School is almost over for the kids.  I'm so proud of all of them.  Granted, Tray has given us a few extra gray hairs, but that's what a healthy child should be doing!!  He is feeling strong, invincible and adventurous.  He's also now feeling grounded, phone-less and for some time he was x-box-less.  But we've given back some things and he has held up his end and is keeping his nose to the grindstone and out of trouble. We were REALLY close to going to homeschooling and then I thought. . . . who am I kidding!!??  I've always said I could NEVER homeschool, I'd kill them all. LOL  So after talking, yelling, withholding and loving, he is moving in the right direction again.  I'm happy. :-)  That was a close one!

Marriela, Cody and Joshua have all had good years.  Joshua is officially a senior next year, but hopefully we can talk him into staying until he's 21.  We'll see.  If not, we'll find him a program to get him into a home based business like Nettie.  Speaking of Nettie, she recently had 2 very large orders and now has enough to buy a laptop!!  We are so very proud of her and in a month we'll be looking to hire her own personal business assistant to help with all of the card making, paperwork, and businessy stuff.  Here's her website again if you haven't had a chance to visit.  www.fortheloveofpeace.webs.com


Peter is getting very close to the end of his schooling as well and will be looking at his internship (3000 hours!) by the fall.  It seems like just yesterday we were signing up on-line and laughing that we'd never get accepted!  Who knew??

Well, that's it for now.  Just felt like it was time for a bit of an update.  Hope this finds you all happy, healthy and in company of loving family.

Hugs,
Renee