The Holidays

Well, the holidays are officially in full swing and I'd love to say I've been completely on the ball. The boys, Darrell, and I have all been fighting a hell of a cold/flu bug for TWO weeks. I'm so disgusted with the whole ordeal. Staying up till 2-3 o'clock in the morning listening to your babies hack and hack and hack is so heartwrenching. Missing 2.5 days of work sucked as well. The first part of this month could have gone better. My car died on my way home from work two weeks ago and then my phone just died on the following Monday. I went through withdraw as I was carless and phoneless for the better part of a week. Luckily for me the car is fixed, got a new phone, and it seems that we are finally kicking the colds. I've been home for awhile now and my kids aren't coughing as they lay in bed. What a relief!
I spent the evening over at my Dad's house wrapping presents for the kids. I thought Dustin barely had any presents and that I'd have to go on a mad dash for more stuff for him before the holiday. Boy am I glad I wrapped presents before I did that. Turns out he's got a ton of stuff. But, there are a few special things I want to get for him despite what my Dad says. :)
At work, we seem to be having a good collections month despite the fact that I was out for half the week. That's good news after we struggled with every hospital all over the country to get them to pay for their operating room equipment last month. Literally, it was like pulling teeth. Luckily our efforts from last month are bearing fruit this month. For that I'm greatful. We really need to keep this ball rolling into the new year. I'd love to see some consistency going on for the next few months. If I'm ever going to move into general accounting then my team needs to be on the top of their game before I take the exit. Not from the company obviously, but from the team I've been a member of for the better part of 4 years. In March it'll have been four years. I love my team and we do great work together. I'll miss that but would enjoy learning more about other areas of accounting. Eventually I'd like to get my CPA (I think) and having a more general accounting background would be useful. Although, I finish my Masters in Business Administration in March and I have to say that I'm really looking forward to being done for awhile. Especially since it seems that DustBug needs my immediate attention and his education also needs it.
I went to the speech therapist again earlier this week to finish up testing for Dustin. Might I begin by saying that Dustin's actual participation during the testing was pretty minimal to non-existant. We've known for awile that his speech isn't as advanced as it could be. But, I'm pretty sure that he flunked with flying colors due to his non-participation. Even stuff he knew because he verbalizes it with me everyday. On Monday, she asked him to say "Momma," and he wouldn't even do that. Seriously Dustin? But, this has spurned my husband and I into action in terms of working with him more on a one on one basis with flash cards and reading. So, that's a good thing. It gets frustrating when you are the only one working on things. I got discouraged awhile ago and have been neglectful on this front. I hate admitting that but it's the truth. Dustin is so bright and I know he is, he just needs more special attention from both of us. The speech therapist said she hoped to get him into a special PreK program in January if they have an opening. He's only 3.5 so hopefully with a year and half in that program he'll be where he needs to be. There's nothing more devastating than being told there is a problem with your child. You feel so guilty and helpless at the same time. What'd I do wrong? Blah, blah, blah. But, it's not the time for pity parties and it's time for action. So, with that said, that's just what we'll do. We've been working with him almost every day this week. Darrell slacked off a day but the days I've been home with I've worked with him. Bribery works well in this situation. Getting him to do what I want for a reward is definitely my method of choice. Now, I must say that I do not agree with bribery to get a child to behave... like if you are good now I'll give you X,Y,Z... but in order to get them to participate in activities they normally find boring I'm all for that. Maybe there's no difference, who knows? Obviously I don't. This is the first time I've ever had a 3.5 year old. So, I'm kind of winging it. Plus, with me learning and school as always come so easy it's ridiculous. Darrell struggles a lot with that which is why he's not the one in school. It's so foreign to me and that's probably why I'm having to go through this with Dustin. I have to learn to understand. Probably one of those master plans and designs someone has for me that I'm just finding out about.
Anyway, I guess this wasn't much of a post about the holidays... but there you go... it'd been awhile since I posted and figured I'd blurt out all of my random thoughts here.