My big boy is six! He is growing up so fast. It's hard to believe sometimes that he is the little baby in the pictures. I'm really starting to get a sense of what kind of person he is - what his strengths are and where his gifts and talents are. Ethan is amazingly self aware for a six year old. He is able to articulate some very complicated things about what goes on inside him, including a description of ADHD as "rockets going off in my brain". He is also SOOOO funny. He delights in making people laugh and has a litany of things that regularly make me bust out in a giggle. He has a great imagination and is always wanting to tell me some kind of story he's making up. Usually he has a couple of toys as props - a couple magnets become a "laser shooter 2000" and two legos put together become a person, etc. I find it fascinating that he can play for literally hours with a set of 15 magnets. I asked him yesterday what he thought he was good at and he identified a lot of the same things that I did - oh and he added video games!

Ethan and I had a pretty rough time in January. Ethan's school called to tell me that his heart was racing (this was the second incident) and they wanted me to come and get him and get a doctor's recommendation about how to handle it. I took him to the psychiatrist and, after a very long discussion, we decided to take Ethan off the meds to see if they were the cause. I also had to take him in for an EKG. It was a very scary time! It also started the three worst weeks of school that Ethan has had. Without the medication, Ethan has a very very hard time controlling himself in school. I had to go pick him up about every day because he just couldn't handle himself. It was stuff like throwing things at the teacher, hitting kids, and running away when called. His teacher and I decided to try him on an abbreviated day where I would pick him up at 11:20 to see if that would help improve his behavior. Sadly, even that was longer than Ethan could last as evidenced by the day the bus dropped him at 9:00 and he had already bitten someone by 9:15. It was a complete nightmare! It was extremely hard to be able to tell what Ethan could control and what he couldn't. I couldn't decide whether to be mad at him for misbehaving or be sympathetic because he really wanted to be good and he was just not able. I kept Ethan off medication for almost three full weeks. His dad and I wanted to give him a actual chance to be off medication to see if he could learn some of the self control he needs to be successful. And we came to the inescapable conclusion that Ethan can't be off meds and be in school right now. And, since I don't have a whole lot of options around having Ethan at home, I put him back on medication. So far it's been fine and there have been no more heart episodes. But I'm determined to find a natural way to address the impulsivity that makes it so hard for him to function in day to day life. No luck so far but I'm going to keep looking.

I was laughing this month about all the words that have special definitions at our house and thought that I would give you an abbreviated list of our dictionary:

Twitterpated: the state of being completely in love. For me, it has Disney connotations and is usually accompanied with eyelash batting.

Woozily: the state of being semi-out of control. If you're noticing you're woozily you are probably not "over the line" yet but feel like you are most likely going that way.

Fighty: a description of the amount of fighting contained in something, usually a video game Ex: Mom, can I play this one? It's not too fighty...

Momia: special name reserved just for me. Now that Ethan's dad is remarried and Ethan has started calling Heather "Mom", we resurrected a special name from when Ethan was very little that only I get called. It really did the trick to get me over my snit about having to share my title.

Microwave bird: the bird that lives just out the back door who chirps on the exact same pitch as the microwave. As you can imagine, hilarity ensues.

Goof snuggling: This is kind of like snuggling and kind of like wrestling. It is the opposite of "gentle snuggling" in that the purpose of goof snuggling is to spend time together but not necessarily settle down.

I'm going to be an aunt! My sister Alli and her husband called on New Year's Eve Day to tell me (I was in Albuquerque). We now know that it will be a girl and she will probably arrive sometime in July. It's really weird to see my sister pregnant! I guess in some ways I still relate to us like we're all teenagers. And then I remember: oh yeah! We're homeowners! And employees! And some of us are married and others are mothers! How did this happen? How did life go by so fast?! I can still remember playing Barbies with these girls! I guess I'm feeling the same way about being 38 - because I still feel so young and 38 SOUNDS so old! So, that aside, it's been very fun to have a baby on the way. I went with Alli as "the expert" to help register her. It was fun to look at all the baby stuff but, like for Alli, it doesn't seem all that real to me yet. I'm sure it will become more so as it gets closer. I also realize that the only pregnancy I've ever been around has been my own and this is VERY different from that. It's going much faster and I'm much more comfortable this time around. Go figure :). It will be great to finally be able to pay Alli back for all the diaper changing, babysitting and loving support that she gave me when I had Ethan. She and Dave are going to be a great parents and I can't wait to see them fall in love with their little tike! I'll keep you updated as things progress.

Until next time...