Camping

We went camping this past weekend with my parents to Lancaster Pa. It was a great time with a long drive in the beginning and the end. We rented a cabin as we will not be picking up our camper until roughly 4th of July. It was really nice. Emily learned to play Minature Golf and had a really good time.
We went to Hershey on Monday and went on the Chocolate World tour. Years ago, it was much cooler. Now... well... it smelled like chocolate and Em had fun.
But the gift shop was something else. Miles and miles of candy. Everything Hershey makes. That was great. Emily kept asking for M&Ms! Sorry honey, wrong manufacturer. They had this exhibit that you could make kisses, package them and so on. So, I asked the girl how many kisses you get, thinking this would be something great for Em to do so she could give them to her cousins and say that she made them. Oh, you don't get to keep the kisses. What a rip off. Let me pay you to push a button or two and then leave. Can you say RIP OFF?
We spent one day at the outlets. Now, if you have never been to the Pa outlets, you have no idea what outlet shopping really is about. None of these outlet malls with the same stores over and over again. This is where outlet shopping started. With factory irregulars and way out of season stuff. We walke out with some great deals.
Then there were the fabric stores. All 8 billion of them. Okay. 3-4 would have been fine. But I had enough quickly and the guys and Em were done long before me.
But the food. The Amish sure have good old fashioned cooking. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes, there was this one store that was all jellies, jams and relishes. Yumm! Cookies and Shoo Fly Pie (imagine sugar in a pie tin).
Emily loved looking out for the horse and buggies. We bought her a pairie hat, like Little House on the Prarie. We couldn't get her to take it off for days. It was great. Kept the sun off of her.
We spent one day at the amusement park, no not Hershey. I refused to pay nearly $100 per person. We went to this other one that was like a carnival on steroids. But Emily loved it. There were the flying swings and the log flume. And... we only spent about $125. That's not bad.

Acting Out

Emily has had a really bad week. She's been off her meds since last Wednesday. She's been acting out since then. She likes to bite. I have always been a firl believer that if you are bitten by a child, bite them back. Don't hold back either. Well she thinks it's a game. She continues to bite even after you bite her back.
The doctor put her on new meds, but if they don't start kicking in soon...
We are going camping for the weekend tomorrow. Mom and Dad are taking her with them and when I get done with work Brian and I are following. I was joking with my mother yesterday and was trying to get them to take Brian with them too, so I could drive down by myself and have a mini vacation before vacation, but that was quickly shot down.
So, we had taken Emily to the doctor yesterday. It's a little more than an hour north of us. The ride up wasn't great. But it was nothing compared to the ride home. The doctor was running an hour late, we are still so tired and Em has had enough of both the doctors and Albany at this point. So, she was none to happy to be at the doctor's office.
When we got in the car to go home she got upset about nothing. She basically yelled and screamed for over an hour. It was not plesant. She even started to throw things at the back of my head.
We had to stop before we went to dinner. My mother had gotten out of the car and I got in back seat with Em. I asked her where my pleasant friendly little girl went? I told her I didn't like this little girl that was in front of me, not being nice and yelling and telling us that she hated us. She told me that she left the nice child in heaven. I told her that she needed to come back. I said I love you but I'm not liking you right now.
Today hasn't been much better. I'm kinda glad that my parents are taking her with them tomorrow, and feel bad at the same time. It's going to be a long weekend.
I was reading my list of blogs that I read, mainly from my cousins. She came into my bed and started getting upset that her father was in the room. He didn't touch her, talk to her or even look at her. She just went off. I can't take much more of this. I'm going to need a straight jacket before too much longer.
The up side of last night , I won $20 by picking the correct American Idol. I know, I can see a few of you rolling your eyes. But, I have to tell you how my addiction started.
Have you ever watched the adution shows? They are hysterical. Fools getting up singing like cats in a garbage disposial and they get upset when they are told that they suck. But then you get stuck on a few of them and the next thing you know, you are rooting for them. No, I have never voted and I'm not going to waste my time. But it becomes fun to see if you are right as to who is going home each week.
Plus, I have the major hots for Chris Daughtrey. HMMMMM.
Okay... Back to earth. So, I pick David Cook. Cute, sings great and lets hope that he doesn't sell out and sing crappy POP music.
Don't get me wrong. I do like pop. 80's pop. When pop was real. Not this Britney crap. But good pop. Wham!, Echo and the Bunnymen, Blondie. Real music.
But right now, I am very stuck on a genre of music that has really gotten me through a lot. Grunge. Good grunge. Pearl Jam. REM Nirvana. Stuff from when I was in college, more than 15 years ago... Good God was that a long time ago. Maybe it's Guitar Hero 3. I can play Evenflow with the best of them.
But, I need to get to sleep so I can go to work and then....
Vacation!!! Yeah!!!!

It's been a long week.

Any one who has children can understand when your child is feeling badly and you need to keep them at home and in bed, that it's the worst trial in the world. But you should be stuck in the hospital is so much worse. Emily spent from Wednesday afternoon to Sunday morning in the hospital on the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU). They hook you up to an EEg and give you a cord that monitor's your EEg for days at a time. The furtherest she could go was twenty feet to the bathroom. Albany Medical Center has a great children's hospital with lots of things to do and a huge atrium from Ronald McDonald House to visit. But Em was attached to the wall for five days. We had to entertain her for hours on end. Plus NO medications. It was not easy. When your child is sick at home, they are home. Even on bed rest, they are home. I had grabbed movies, her DVD player, her favorite animals and some other things to try and keep her occupied. My mother and husband went home a few times and came back with more things to keep her busy.
Long story short, I'm still not sure what was going on in her head. It's still so complicated.
But the best part is on Thursday night she kept putting her fingers in her mouth. I couldn't figure out why. She was drinking some pink milk earlier in the day and there was blood on her straw. She has had a couple of loose teeth. She lost her first molar. The tooth fairy came to the hospital. She left her a lot of money... $10! (it was all she could find in her purse in the dark at night).
So, toothless came home on Sunday. No meds. She came down with a fever and a cold in the hospital. She's miserable. I'm tired. I'm miserable. Daddy's... well... daddy.
Then there is work. You would think that the place couldn't work with out me. God forbid I ever go on vacation for more than a couple of days.
So, now it's time to get into the bath and try to wash out more of the crap that is left over in her hair from the EEg probes. Yeah!!!!

It was a good time, but at the same time not a great reason for a visit.

Last week my cousin's lost their Grandmother. She lived in Cobleskill Ny which is about 65-70 miles north west of me. Brian, my parents and I went up on Thursday for the wake and I went with my mother and Emily today to visit. It seems like every one is going back to their homes tomorrow.
Emily is obsessed with death. We have not told her that Grandma Clist died last week. Emily won't understand and she will come up with the conculsion on her own soon enough. We didn't even tell her we were going up to the wake. She wouldn't understand why she could go. So when I told her Friday night that we were going up north Saturday to see her Aunt Chris and Uncle Mark she was thrilled. As I continued to explain that the rest of the family was there too, she became more and more estatic. She could bearly contain her excitement as we got closer and closer to the house.
In Cobleskill is a place called Howe Caverns. A natural cavern of some length. I was discribing it to my cousin in law Jim as the Grand Canyon with a roof. That's exactly what it looks like. It's dark and COLD and wet and tight.
I have claustrophobia. This was hard for me. Jim Courtney and I took Emily, Courtney's nephews Brandon and Gabe and Courtney's cousin's daughter Jesse. The boys loved it and I think Emily enjoyed herself too. I was thrilled to spend time with the bit of extended family that I don't get to see often. But it was really dark and small and really really scary for me.
Emily is usually afraid of the dark. They get you to a point in the cavern and turn off the lights. She did better than I did. I don't like it one bit. I don't like anything about the caverns, but it was fun to be with Jim and Court and the boys.
I really want to tell the Clist's once more that I am so sorry that this had to be the reason that we got together, but, I enjoyed our bit of time together. I miss you all and love you.
More hugs and kisses.