And a Happy Fried Chicken Day to you!

Funny story... we had chicken on Thanksgiving. Really. My sister-in-law had her husband put the turkey in and she went to visit their son in the NICU. When she got home the house smelled awful! Turns out the turkey was bad, and with no time to thaw and cook another one, she sent my father-in-law to the store for some fried chicken, and a roast chicken. My mother-in-law had done some ham too, so we had that. But what matters is the company, and it was good! Not to mention the cheesecake that my future brother-in-law brought. Yumm!

We had a long and crazy weekend, with far too much to blog about. Mark and I braved the crowds at 12:30 am Friday morning to snag some things at ToysRUs. Will never do it again. We got several nasty looks walking to the end of the line in the parking lot with a baby carrier, but Daniel was well wrapped and warmer than Mark and I were for sure! After 20 mintues though, Mark took him back to the van to wait until I was almost at the door. I was freezing, but my kids are worth the awesome prices on stuff I wouldn't have considered for Christmas otherwise. This year anyway. 45 minutes just to get in the door. Then the walking around, and another 45 minutes or so to get to the register. We missed the blue 3-wheeled scooter for William by 5 seconds, some guy snagged it first. So he's getting a pink one that we'll spray paint blue. Hey, we don't care and he won't notice! :-)

We got to have a double date with Mark's little sister and her new hubby, which was fun. And we got to venture over to the NICU to see my newest little nephew. Almost 6 weeks early, he's 3 weeks old now and weighs a mere 5lbs 11oz. Such a cutie! He has cleft lip and palate like his mom and brother, and it was really neat to get to see what the palate actually looked like. It's amazing what modern medicine can do for these babies. He liked me, but threw up all over Mark. Hee Hee!

On a serious note though, we have a dilema about Oren. He's been having trouble at school even though we just upped his medication dosage and he's doing wonderful at home. His teacher is gone a lot, she's recovering from cancer and when she gets a cold she's out for a while, and she has lots of appointments. He needs somebody that's there all the time. He's also acting out in other classes, and we're not sure why when his behavior at home is much improved since adjusting his meds. The staff all know him, and sometimes I wonder if they expect bad behavior from him simply because of his history from Kindergarten or something. After being cornered in the hallway and told that his meds aren't working and he's worse than he was at the start of the year, in front of and in full hearing of Oren by the way, that she doesn't know what else to do with him.... Mark and I are now trying to decide if we want to switch teachers next semester first, or go straight for homeschooling. Anybody have any insight into homeschooling or how to help resolve the issue with the school? We would be most likely do a homeschooling program with books provided and a teacher that checks over the work and stuff. So it would be easier than figuring it all out myself, curriculum wise.

What would you do? We'll be praying about this pretty hard, but any advice would be welcome. We've also decided it would be wise for me to call my psychiatrist and get back on my bipolar meds and ADHD meds, if they are nursing friendly, or find some that are. I can tell I'm starting to go a little manic lately, and the ADHD has been hard to control. If I end up homeschooling, me being stable is absolutely vital. But I was able to stay med-free the whole pregnancy, which is a huge achievement, and I'm proud of that. Ahhh.... life. Does it ever get easier? Having kids is wonderful, but I never thought I'd have to make this many hard choices, big ones that will affect them for a long time to come. Wow.