Billy bones had another appointment with the neurologist.

By the way, if you follow me on twitter you’d already know a bunch of this, just sayin’.

Anyway, the visit with the neurologist was somewhat of a disappointment.  The tics haven’t diminished, in fact, they’re as bad as ever.  And this may or may not change.

She offered medication if we feel like he needs it, which, I love not being commanded what to do by doctors or, well, anyone, but some guidance would be helpful.  Oh, and the meds? They may or may not work.  And the side effects?  Some never go away, even when you discontinue the medication.  How is that a good trade?

She did give me some literature and a couple of web sites to look at, but beyond that the whole visit seems like a large waste of time.  Glad we don’t have a co-pay.

So, here we go, learning to just live with it, work around it, and generally just ignore it as much as is practical.

I have no idea why, but several weeks ago I deleted my Twitter account.  What is wrong with me?

Let’s just let that question go unanswered, k?

Anyway, long story kinda short, I go thru my days thinking in tweets.  I mean, Twitter is made for people like me.  So, I had to set up a new account.

Easier said than done.

Twitter gets it’s nose all outta joint (or should I  say, it’s beak?) when you have deleted your account and they won’t give it back, nor will they let you get a new account with the same old email addy.

Once ya get over the “use a different email, ya dolt” drama, then ya have to find a username that’s available, and do you think they’d let me have my old username, even though it’s just sittin’ there gathering dust?  No ho ho!

But, I feel like I got one over on the old bird.  My old username was MotherHen88.  Can’t have it.  So I tried all manner of combinations.  Some using my real first name, using different numbers, blah blah blah, until finally I typed in MotherHen . . . and just waited, well, that’s taken.  But then I had an real brain cramp and typed MotherHen88 and as I just said, Twitter is holding that for ransom.  But the next bit was just purely due to my having a whole other brain cramp at just the right time.  I tried to backspace outta the “forbidden” username and only got one of the eights off before being distracted by some child of mine wanting food or something, and Twitter coughed up an “available” next to my brand spankin’ new username MotherHen8.

So follow already!

I’ve put a Twitter widget in the sidebar.  I don’t know.  Is that a crow or a grackle?  As noisy as grackles are I’m thinkin’ of it as a grackle.

By the way, not only is today my bloggiversary, it’s also Perry’s birthday.  I don’t think he’s 40  yet so you don’t need to send a condolence card or anything, but ya might wanna head over to Life in a Shoe and read a syrupy poem Kim wrote for him.  Really, I think she even mentioned syrup or coffee or something.  :D

Happy Birthday, Perry!

Did you see me yesterday?  It’s very likely you could have since I was all.over.creation!  I’ve been clumping all my errands into one BIG outing, when possible, and that makes for a very long day.   Yesterday was the Boss of all normal errand days, so I thought you might wanna read about it and then say,

“Why Mother Hen, you poor thing!  Your dogs must really be barkin’!”

. . . you know. . .

. . .  in your comment!  {hint, hint!}

Idiom Definitions for ‘My dogs are barking’

When someone says this, they mean that their feet are hurting.

So, here we go.

1. Took Hubs and Calico Zak to work.
2. Took Billy Bones to the Oncologist for his annual check up.  (Fear not, all is well!)
3. Dropped by the house to pick up the lunch that my workin’ men forgot.
4. Delivered same to the warehouse.
5. Drove thru at the bank.
6. Shopping at Stuff Mart.
7. Shopping at Sun Harvest (local health-food store).
8. Fast-food lunch.
9. Quick stop at the feed store for wire, hay, and pellets.  I love it there!
10. Home, gotta empty the car!  (So tired I wanna stay!)
11. Out to the grocery for the whole week’s worth!
12. Home again, home again, jiggity-jig!  (I think “jiggity jig” is French for “Y’all!  I’m tired!”
13. Pick-up Hubs and Calico from work.
14. Drop Hubs off at the Men’s Meeting.  His parting shot is, “Pick me up at 9, please.” (I see a second car in our near future.)

Of course, my cell phone and camera were big players in our day.

During item #1 I used my camera to show the Oncologist the videos of Billy Bones having his tic episodes.  Since the boy is having greatly reduced symptoms now, I wanted the doc to see just how severe the symptoms had been.

Doctor G. was so impressed that he borrowed my camera and took it down the hall to show all the Pediatric Neurologists, none of which had ever seen the like.  That is, Chronic Tic Disorder associated with Strep Throat, known in the biz as P.A.N.D.A.S. (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections)  There is some controversy as to whether or not this condition even exists.  Funny, that.  I vote yes.  Not too hard to make that call when you’ve seen your child go through it.  Anyway, Billy Bones was quite the celebrity to all the specialists on the 8th floor.

Between items #9 and #10 I got the call letting me know that B.B.’s blood work came back perfect (YAY!)  and asking me to email the video to the doc.  I guess he isn’t done showin’ off my boy.

During items #13 and #14 Billy Bones was on the phone with Adam McManus, who was interviewing Charlie Zahm on the radio!  My boy was winning some CDs of Charlie Zahm’s music.  (B.B.’s favorite music!)  B.B. was even on the air, briefly!  That completes B.B.’s total-media exposure!  He’s now been on T.V., in the local newspaper (both when he was sick and got his wish from the Make-a-Wish Foundation), on the internet (his blog), and now on local radio!  He’s so famous!

By the way, if you’re in the area, there is a Charlie Zahm concert this Saturday (March 27th) at Bulverde Baptist Church at 2:00 p.m.!

And the final phone call I received yesterday was from Hubs, telling me that he could catch a ride home!  YAY!

~Jiggity Jig~

Parsley outside my backdoor!

El Niño, La Niña,  whatever, I forget how it goes, but I think that due to the oppressive heat we had this Summer, we are having a very wet Winter.  Or maybe the wet Winter is a harbinger of a mild Summer to come?  I don’t know, but we have had rain near ’bout every four days ’round these parts all Winter long!  I’ll try not to complain because I know we have it very easy in the Winter.  This is our time to shine!   We seldom get snow, and when we do, it’s hardly anything to worry about.  Also, the rain we’ve gotten lately is sorely needed.  So, I’ll try to not sound too whiney.  OK?  I’ll try.

Never buy plastic fencing, even though it’s cheaper than the wire fences.

BUT!

I’m really sick of the mud, and the kids being in the house so much.  See, one of the trade offs that Texans are so proud of is that even though we huddle indoors listening to the humm of the a/c for most of the Summer, which, by the way, lasts about eight months here, the pay off comes in the Winter when we can enjoy the truly mild (yesterday the high was 79°) field trip weather.  Perfect for going to the Zoo, or bird watching, or cleaning up a long neglected backyard!

I’ve had it with the rain and the resultant mud, and we have mud!  After our record breaking heat and drought this past Summer, there is no lawn, just mud Mud MUD!

Rabbit cages, clothes lines, and dirt lawn – it’s the Redneck Tri-fecta!

Today is a great day.  It’s sunny, dry and 50°, so there is work going on out back.  If I had focused on laundry instead of rabbit breeding this morning I might have even hung some laundry on the line.  That’s ok, first things first.

Tomorrow the forcast calls for more mud in the form of rain AND snow.  I have my doubts about the white stuff.  My kids have still never even seen it, and likely some of them doubt if it’s a really and truly real thing.  At least we’ll enter into this weeks wetness with a cleaned up yard!

The Background

In 2005 I let my driver’s licence expire.  I know, now!  But at the time it was just one of those things.  I just let the time get away from me, and ended up having to go to the DMV in person.  Well, in San Antonio this is a particularly unpleasant experience.  The lines, oh the lines, and no place to sit, and you had better have planned to spend the whole day.

So, I did my bit, signed in all the right places, got my thumb-prints photographed, my social security card photographed (this becomes important later), my picture taken, the whole nine yards.

Then I went home and waited for two weeks for my shiny, new, driver’s licence to arrive in my mailbox.

The Wrinkle

Instead of my shiny, new, driver’s licence, the Texas Department of Transportation (Tx.D.o.T.), aided in their logic by the Department of Homeland Security (D.O.O.F.U.S.) decided that since I never bothered to change my name with the Social Security Administration (S.S.A., is it a palindrome?) to match my married name, (which, by the way, was already on my driver’s licence!) that they would just send me a letter telling me to get my name on my Social Security Card to match my name on my driver’s licence and then come back to their wonderful waiting room from hell and go through the whole rigamarole again!

So I didn’t.

Ever since.

I know, I’m bad.

I’ve been driving around all this time.  Shh!  Don’t call the cops yet!

Keep reading.

The Impetus

I had no plan for getting my name changed on my Social Security Card.  I mean, I didn’t plan to not do it.  I just never got around to planning to do it.  You’d think it would have come up.  We’ve been married for 22 years.  You’d think I might have carved out a day to take care of it.  But, no.  Not so much.

Until.

My car insurance carrier sent us a notice saying they won’t be able to continue our coverage because they changed something and don’t do business with our agent anymore.  Weird, huh?  So, in order to buy new car insurance ya kinda have to have a current driver’s licence.

The Beginning of a Solution

First I had to get that pesky Social Security thing in order.  Took two days but I got the paper I needed to carry to the Tx.D.o.T. people to PROVE that I am who they thought I was all along.

Next I went online to find a better Tx.D.o.T. location to spend my day waiting and do you know?  In all of San Antonio, a city of over 1.3 million people, there are a grand total of four Department of Transportation Offices.  That’s just wrong!  No wonder the process is an all day affair!

Plan A

So I had this brilliant idea.  We’ll go out of town to get this deal done at an office that certainly won’t be over crowded.  Hubs was on board with this plan, he so hates to wait for anything.

We decided to go to Bandera.   Their Tx.D.o.T. office is only open one day a week and it just happened to be Wednesday.  That worked ‘cuz it was Tuesday when I was hatching this brilliance.  So we set out for Bandera this morning.  Between stopping at the grocery for a few things and getting gas and realizing I left the directions at home and having to stop and ask the local librarian where the DMV was located we finally arrived at the Tx.D.o.T. office at lunch time.  Yes they do, they close up for an hour and fifteen minutes for lunch on their one day!

We enjoyed a lovely lunch hour at a local restaurant, wondering the whole time what the sign on the Tx.D.o.T. door meant by saying they can’t do any renewals since their computer is broken.  Yessirree.  Computer.  Singular.  And yeah, it really meant that they can’t do any renewals.    But the friendly Tx.D.o.T. man said maybe I could go to Kerrville or Boerne.

And really?  He oughtta be friendly.  Open one day a week and can’t do a lick o’ work since the ‘puter konked out!

Plan Two

Since Kerrville is the opposite way from home we decided to head to Boerne.  Now, the difference between Boerne and Bandera is enormous.  Bandera hasn’t got a thousand folks all together.  Boerne has over 7,000.  It’s even got a WalMart and an H.E.B. (our big grocery chain).  So, we thought there was a good chance that their DMV might be open on a Wednesday.  Turns out they’re open five days a week, just like big city folks, only without so much crowding and waiting.  They even had two clerks, and I had to wait!  I picked a number from the box, 12.  They were serving number 8.  Compared to Bandera it was a madhouse!  We thought it was cute!  The numbers were magic-marker on cardboard!  Very redneck for such an upscale hick town.

Many More Wrinkles

So I sat down and told the clerk that I needed to renew my expired licence.  She asked how long it had been expired.  When I told her the part about 2005 she started the list of documents that I needed to have with me and didn’t.
Stuff like birth certificate, marriage licence, immunization records, baptismal certificate.  I really don’t know all the items that were on her list ‘cuz I didn’t have any of them and I quit listening after she said I’d have to take a written test and a driving test and their first available appointment would be next Tuesday!  Oh, and by the by, they don’t accept the letter of name change from the Social Security Administration anymore, I’d have to wait for the actual card to come in the mail.  Now that I reflect on it, I’m surprised I didn’t have a stroke while she was talking.  And she ended the whole disappointing filibuster with a request to see my old driver’s licence.  She started clicking around on her keyboard.

And then she said it!

“Your driver’s licence isn’t expired.  I’ts actually good until your birthday in 2011.  You just need to get a duplicate made.  That’ll be ten dollars.  You wanna do that?”

I signed in all the right places, got my thumb-prints photographed, had my picture taken, paid my ten buckaroos and she handed me my temporary licence.

Can’t wait to see if they actually mail me a driver’s licence in a couple of weeks!

I’m crying today.  Crying over the Dyslexia that one of my Pirates is struggling with.  I have two Dyslexic Pirates, but one is having lots and lots of difficulty, the other is doing great.

I know that every child is different, but, how can these two be so different?  Or is it that I am handling it differently?  Doubt that.  It’s just that Dyslexia is not a ‘one size fits all’  kinda deal.

I did my research years ago and figured out how to help the older Dyslexic Pirate,  but  I feel like I’m still clueless with my second Dyslexic Pirate.

And, like a good mother, when I don’t know what to do, where to start to help my child, I cry.  Then the crying reminds me to pray.  (I’d like to say that praying was my first impulse, but I don’t wanna add lying to you to my list of reasons to cry.)  The tears are tears of frustration and uncertainty.  I need some answers.  I need a plan that isn’t gonna waste our time and energy spinning wheels that can’t get us from point A to point B.

And I’m not really asking for any suggestions.  I know you would all come fix me a cup o’  tea and comisserate with me and tell me anecdotes of others who used xyz approach with great success, and I would love you for it.  But that likely won’t help my Pirate spell the word “giant” correctly in the book he is writing.

All that said, if you have a Dyslexic child, I do crave YOUR words of encouragement and advice.

But, mostly, I just gotta get this crying outta me, then I’ll be fit to plan.

Thanks for “listening” to me ventilate.  Yer a peach!