This update certainly has been a long time in coming!!! I felt a little silly sitting down to write an O-Gram that said "I still have no idea what's going on - stay tuned!". So I waited until some of the dust of my life officially settled. There have been some very exciting changes... read on!

Today was my last day in ProLaw development. I have accepted a position in our Technical Solutions department as a technical consultant. And what a ride to get there! After my post your-job-has-been-moved-to-india sulking ended, I really started thinking about what I wanted to do for the next couple of years. Working on the NextGen product was just miserable and I was sure I couldn't do it every day for any length of time. I wanted to quit every morning and I know myself well enough to realize that I had to find something else and fast. It was right around that time that I was made aware of a opening on the consulting services team. It started out being a position in data conversion (where I started at ProLaw!) but morphed into a high end technical consultant position, responsible for all kinds of things - custom imports, custom reports, SQL migrations. All kinds of fun stuff plus I would actually get to talk to people! So I applied and heard nothing and heard nothing and heard nothing. And in that time span of nothing, the powers that be decided that they needed to pull the development team off our future product line to ensure that all the cool new stuff got into the old product line. Honestly, it was the good news and the bad news all at once. It was great to be able to do the stuff that I really like but I also had no confidence that we wouldn't get yanked again the very next day. So when I got called for an interview for the consulting job, I went. I waited until just before (what I thought would be) the official offer to tell my boss - mostly because I didn't want to raise a false alarm about leaving. The next six weeks were total chaos in my world! There were offers and counter offers. About every other day I changed my mind about staying or going. And in the end, after all the negotiations, I decided that my best bet was to leave development and take the new position. It was one of the hardest decisions I've made in a long time, but my choice became pretty clear to me once I spent some time putting it in the light of "what do I value the most". First and foremost for me at this point in my life is stability. Being the sole provider, I can't afford to just quit my job because I hate it. So I have to have something that I want to do today and for a lot of days to come. Put in that light, my choice was very clear. I start my new job on Monday and am finally starting to get excited!! I've been assigned to a project and everything! I'll admit to being slightly apprehensive about not knowing everything already - it's been a long time since I've been the new kid on the block. But along the way I've developed the belief that I can do anything I put my mind to and that gives me a great deal of comfort as I dive into the deep end of the pool. So here's to a whole new chapter in my career!

I spend some time after the last update really looking at the "I don't have enough friends" problem. It's not new complaint of mine (which is not a huge surprise). The big and persistent ones rarely are! "Not enough friends" goes way back for me so I decided to sit down and take a really good look at it this time. The answers I found surprised me! When I dissected my complaint, it really ended up being a couple of different things. 1) I don't have enough social interaction on a weekly basis 2) I don't have girlfriends to just call and go do stuff (movies, coffee). Basically, I am missing buddies and social outings! It was much easier to start filling in the gaps when I could describe what they were. I tried lots of different things and have found a couple of winners that really work for me. I joined a book club that I am just loving. It has all the benefits of good conversation, great women and it is forcing me to read - something that has been sorely missing in my life since the birth of my son! I also joined a Wednesday night game group at the local game store. They play all the games that I love and are a really nice group of guys to boot. I was able to find a sitter for the whole summer and have gotten totally spoiled getting to play every week. I also filled the summer up with tons of fun activities - a trip to the dells, a family reunion and cabin vacation and a trip to GenCon with my friend, Tim. I have felt busy and connected and have had very little time to feel lonely all summer. Hooray!

Thank you all for your unfailing support over the past couple of months. Especially those of you who took the "call Sharon once a week for a month" challenge. All in all I got two job offers, lots of "I love you"s and countless e-mails encouraging me to hang in there. I was reminded, once again, that I am richly blessed with friends and I want to take this opportunity to let you know how grateful I am to have you in my life!

Ethan and I have had an interesting summer together. I attended a school conference for him at the end of May. His teachers all love him and went on and on about how charming he is and what a sweet spirit his has. They also said that they have made progress with Ethan in some important areas: getting along with others, following instructions, and impulse control. But, at the end of the year, Ethan is not as far along as they would like and suggested that he may have a chemical imbalance. They suggested that I take him in and get him tested. It has been my belief all along that Ethan has ADHD and I had hoped that he would learn impulse control and concentration through school and training at home. I have kept Ethan off sugar with good results and have tried a bunch of herbal remedies with very little success. So by the time I got to the conference, I had reached to a place where I was willing to try medication. I made an appointment for Ethan to see a specialist. There is no actual way to test for ADHD - it's not something in the blood that they can check the levels on. So the doctors have to look at the child's behavior in different settings and determine if they are more fidgety or more impulsive than other children of their age. It's a pretty subjective evaluation but I got a lot of people to fill out the survey and the results matched across the board. So Ethan was diagnosed with ADHD and also something called Oppositional Defiant Disorder. I started him on Methylphenidate (generic Ritalin) about three weeks ago. At the beginning, it seemed to help settle Ethan's continuous motion and curb his impulsivity - specifically the impulse to reach out and whack whoever is closest. At the same time, I noticed a general change in attitude. Ethan, a boy who is pretty happy most of the time, seemed to be angry and argumentative instead. I figured I'd give it a couple of weeks and see how it went. But as time went on, I noticed less benefit and more of the other. I called the doctor this week and he recommended upping the dosage of the meds. So it seems like it will be a while before we find a solution that works for Ethan. My hope is that he will be on medication just long enough to learn to live without it. I have read all the "scare" studies and would like this to be a short term solution to a lifetime process of adjusting and learning.

Throughout the summer, Ethan and I have been working on "lessons". I wanted to keep what he was learning in school alive over the three month break in a way that was really fun for both of us. After several failed attempts (read: Ethan ends up going to his room crying from frustration and I am left feeling hopeless and horrible!) I finally tapped into what seems to be a never-ending source of motivation for Ethan. When I think about what I would call it, the only term I can come up with is "boy stuff". One day Ethan practiced phonics to see how many ways Batman (who sometime attends lessons) could make Mr. Bacon (the rainbow pig) fall off the table. On another day, Ethan practiced his numbers to get a chance to smash grapes in the back yard with a hammer. It's just goofy stuff that Ethan is totally willing to work for. As a result, Ethan read his first word this summer. I think it was "sat" but don't honestly remember. He popped off with it and I just about fell off my chair. What a proud moment for me!!! And what an awesome thing to have happened in front of my very eyes! I'm so glad that it happened with me instead of at school - it's a moment that I will never forget. Just like the first time he rolled over or when he took his first step. Plus I know that I've really accomplished something when it is ME who says that lessons are over - Ethan invariably wants to keep going. So hooray for the wonderful boy who I've been blessed with safekeeping. And hooray for the wonderfully flexible job that lets me have the afternoons with him. And a special hooray for moments of insight (for me and for him!) that make all the difference. He'll be reading ME bedtime stories before I know it.

I'll leave you with this wonderful clip. It's one of my favorites!

By far, the event of the summer was my older sister Sheila's wedding to Rob M. It was such a blast! We started out with a bridal tea party. Sheila has some very long time friends and many of them gathered at Seasons of Long Grove for tea and tiny sandwiches. Gayle (Sheila's maid of honor), Alli and I all came up with games to play and we had a really fun time. Then it was onto the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner . It was great to get to see all the Ms again (Rob's mom and families of three sisters!). And the food was SO GOOD! After a very short night's sleep, it was off to the beauty shop for fancy hair. All the girls (bridesmaids, bride, mother of the bride, friends of the bride) were there so we pretty much took over the beauty salon. Then off to the church for getting ready. The ceremony was beautiful and Sheila and Rob were all smiles (with just the occasional tearing up). Then it was "man and wife" and a mad dash for the car. Mary Jane had agreed to wrangle Ethan during the ceremony and he was very well behaved. My friend Holly then came and tagged MJ out and was "Ethan's date" for the rest of the evening. What a great friend to come and let me enjoy my sister's wedding! Thanks Holly! And what a great reception it was. Dancing, wonderful food, drinks and all kinds of people to talk to. I ended up dancing just about the whole night with Ethan, family and friends. What fun! I am so happy for the newlyweds and feel really lucky that my sisters picked such great guys to marry! It's kind of weird to think that my new brothers will be around for the rest of my life and that Ethan will pretty much always remember having an Uncle Wob and Unka Dave. Not having been a boy (obviously) and not having had an uncle, I'm a little fuzzy about what the job of an uncle is. It will be really cool to see what that kind of relationship develops between Ethan and his new male relatives. Anyway, many hearty congratulations to the new Mr. & Mrs. M!

Until next time...