It's the drain pain that never ends...

Maybe tomorrow afternoon. Plumbers came today and busted up the floor again. I've been pressing my dear husband to take the horns on managing this, though I did come up with the list of folks for him to call. Blessedly, he arrived home as the plumbers backed into our driveway. This time they brought their big truck, and later, the boss made an appearance.

They managed to pull out some of the broken snake line pieces (turns out there were at least three down there), but they have to return tomorrow to replace more pipe, as they found a crack in some joint in a pipe that runs under the floor very near our boiler.... which is going to absolutely need to be serviced and cleaned after this whole ordeal.

I'm still not totally clear what pipe line this is we're into now, but I think it's the kitchen drain... or something connecting it to the main, it's all getting well over my head. So at one point they asked us not to turn on the kitchen water, and my husband turned off the water valves under the sink to ensure nobody would use the water accidently. After the plumbers left for the night, he turned them back on to discover that the water pressure was greatly diminished to our kitchen sink faucet. We're not sure what the heck is causing that...so I'll have to drag the plumbers upstairs tomorrow after they're done with the drain to see what's going on with that. My guess is either the valves are so old they just happened to crap out when he turned them off, or something about the open line downstairs is effecting the water pressure...how,
I can't even fathom.

Are we exceptions?

Well, it's very hard to get a doctor to issue an exception to the rule of vaccine even when an adverse reaction has occurred. There's a lot of banter going on over the MMR vaccination and the outbreak in California right now. Today a supposed friend listed an article that called all parents who elect against any and all vaccines dummies.

Insults, threats, disparaging words... it gets really, really hostile and aggravating. If we were friends who saw each other in person everyday... or ever (social media makes connects between folks who might likely have never spoken again), would you still be my friend? Would I want to still be friends? If you're going to resort to name calling, then the answer is a definite "no."

So I feel the need to be defensive of the choices we've made for our family. Yes, we vaccinate, but we do so on our own timeline. No, there's not a lot of "credible" science to support our timeline because nobody is studying alternative routes and procedures other than the one issued by the CDC. However, given that we've experienced adverse effects while following those guidelines, and others have accomplished more positive outcomes in taking a more cautious pace, we've chosen to delay and space out our vaccines. We've chosen to be more cautious in hopes that we can achieve the desired outcome without the negative adverse effects. Because, the autism issue is only getting worse. 1 in 50... or some crazy  number like that is a lot of disabled future adults, and comes with a lifetime of consequences our society isn't prepared to deal with... at.. all..

Sometimes it's a gut inclination and sometime it is simply fear that causes us to decide when administer a shot and when to abstain. But it's a personal experienced based fear, for the most part. Yes, childhood disease of the past were awful and also left thousands of children damaged, scared for life, or dead. Nobody wants to go back to that. However, there's no such thing as a risk free vaccine, and unfortunately not everyone can have them safely. Sadly, they won't work for everyone either, as growing evidence is demonstrating that the immunity can wear off, or the virus mutates so that the immune response is insufficient.

My firstborn had every single shot on the very first day possible throughout the first 18 months of his life. Yes, on his first birthday he received an MMR and varicella shot. Over the next three weeks he had unexplained fever spikes, higher than he'd ever experienced in his short life. One of these spikes in temperature caused him to have a febrile seizure, which at the time I believed to be a benign childhood experience that wouldn't cause any harm. From that point on whenever he began to approach 103 degrees he would begin to seize. My view on anti-pyretic treatment at that time was in line with what I'd been taught; fever was good, because it helped the immune system kill the germs. Eventually, things seemed to return to normal...except as my son's development stopped progressing as it should.

So in all earnestness, we're not sure if the MMR shot caused a problem or not, but it was very suspicious. My son had his shot in June, and aside from the weird fevers never developed any other signs of infection or symptoms that would point to why he was having some sort of inflammatory response. The spinal tap after his first seizure, along with his blood work was all clear (for all they tested it for). Yet, his body was obviously having a bought of inflammation (as immunizations are suppose to cause...that's how they work). At this time the CDC handout on the MMR vaccine acknowledges that in some "rare" instances children will have febrile seizures from the vaccines (though I'm not sure if they advised that back in 2002 or not).

My son went on to have his 18 month shots, and it was after this time we began to seek help and evaluations for his speech delay. Motor skills seemed to be within target, but if he had been evaluated today he would have certainly been targeted as being autistic and having sensory issues. As he aged the autism diagnosis eventually found him, though before that he was labeled with Global developmental delay, "retarded", and eventually PPD NOS with auditory processing disorder.

Was he born this way?  I didn't think he was abnormal as an infant.
Was it how he was born? (Pitocin induction) (I'll never do that again)
What I ate? (There's a lot I didn't know and I eat more nutritious foods now)
Genetics? (Well, with two cousins also on the spectrum, born about 10 years later, it's something I wonder about)
Environment? (God only knows)
My parenting skills? (Hopefully, we've stopped blaming moms by now)
Vaccines???? Well, nobody knows for sure. Some think they can safely write off vaccines, but I'm not convinced it can be ruled out completely. My son DID have a strange reaction after his MMR and Varicella shots (both of which are also derived from aborted fetal tissue...what if we could at least eliminate the use of aborted babies, at least most moral objections could be also eliminated).

I've changed a LOT of things to try and avoid whatever it was that sparked my son's issues as his sisters and brothers have come along. And I'm cognizant that there are risks to every decision we make.  We do a lot of self imposed quarantine around here, so I can be confident we're not spreading our germs. If I register so much as a 99 temp I cancel appointments and we stay home. All the vitriol over those "nasty" unvaccinated kids risking everyone else's lives is not warranted towards us, but it doesn't seem to matter, as it seems as if they'd rather see our children sacrificed for their sake then risk their sense of security. When we've been to the store, doctors' office, or speech and occupational therapy, we use hand sanitizer as soon as we've returned to our car to ward off anything we might have picked up while out and about. We're certfied germaphobes. We're on multi-vitamins, probiotics, omega fatty acids, and have been working on making ourselves more healthy overall, for all our sakes.

Eventually, I have allowed two more of my children to receive the MMR shot, when I felt they no longer seemed to be at risk for developing developmental issues. I would have administered another, but said child had a cold at the time and will wait for another opportunity when there's no other issues. Thankfully, those (much older children) seemed to do just fine with their shots and have not displayed any adverse reactions.

So if you don't want to be my friend...or if you think I'm "stupid" or whatever, then I guess we're not friends. I value your health, and the health of your children. So we pretty much never go out when someone is sick, and I wouldn't risk exposing others if I knew for certain we had a virus or infection that could infect others. As it is, being that we also homeschool, we're hardly a risk for the rest of the community, still some persist in their assertion of our ignorance. When it comes to vaccines, if something might have caused my child permanent injury, disabling him for life, and you still think I should subject my children to that substance again for your sake, then I guess that's a price I'm not willing to pay. I'm not willing to intentionally harm my children for your sake. What kind of friend would demand that from another?

More drain pain drama

So this Saturday the original plumber guy stopped by to re-camera our drain and such. We explained to him the extent of what his co-worker had and hadn't done, and upon realizing that the broken snake hadn't been removed before the concrete was replaced, he determined that it was kind of pointless to stick a camera down there. Also, he felt that his co-worker performed uncharacteristically and had neglected to pour the concrete correctly. The whole thing needs to come back up again.  We were to await a phone call in a few days and reschedule.

Well, right about the moment I was assisting a toddler with his potty business, a knock on the door yielded the uncharacteristically inept co-worker who stated he was here to "make lots of noise" in redoing the drain job. His English is not so good. Just an hour from the time I needed to leave to serve as Taxi mom. I was just a teensy bit panicked thinking if I sent them away they might never come back, but on the flip side not feeling very confident about letting this guy fix this unsupervised. Plus, they hadn't called nor made an appointment...plus, said toddler was still sitting on the baby bjorn potty with a disinterested big sister as supervisor. Calls were made, and finally I sent them away when I couldn't get ahold of my dear husband. I had a bad feeling about this all the way around.

I'm starting to think that Angie's List is not a very reliable source for accurate reviews. While they manage to collect a large number of reviews, when contrast to the reviews on our local Yelp site, Yelpers seem to leave reviews more like what we've been experiencing. All the reviews for this plumber on Angie's List were pretty good. However, when I looked them up on Yelp (which I hasn't done before hand), while there weren't nearly the same number of reviews, the reviews that were there were 50% worse... More like C- instead of A+ Why the difference? The same was true for our bathroom contractor too (who I also neglected to research on Yelp).

Drain pain update

A week ago a plumber busted up our laundry room floor, dug up the broken pipe, and replaced it with a new one. The old cast iron pipe had very much disintegrated and it was a bit of a relief seeing it so we could be sure it probably was just the passage of time and not anything we had done per say to cause that level of deterioration.

However, the plumber left things rather unfinished. He didn't re-camera as was promised, did not remove the broken snake line, didn't leave a bill, neglected to reinstall the laundry room sink and (where my washing machine drains), and left the broken pipe sitting in our back yard. While we figured concrete needs to dry, the completion of the project seemed to have been abandoned. A second plumber was suppose to finish things up the following day, but he never showed up nor returned our call. Who doesn't love spending an entire Saturday waiting around for a no-show?

Since laundry don't wait for nothing around here, my dear husband spent several hours on Sunday reinstalling our sink so the washer could go back to work. Before that I'd ran a couple loads, while sitting next to the machine armed with two 5 gallon buckets, that I used to catch the run off water to dump into our shower. It was kind of like a fire water bucket line...or as my son pointed out, "like [that scene in Fantasia] the brooms with the water buckets." As I pressed him into service he hummed the song from the movie as he walked down the hall to dump his bucket. We were all grateful to get our sink back into operation.

We got ahold of the company owner yesterday, who thought everything had been taken care of. So we're still not done with this little repair project, and of course we'll have to find someone to fix the floor, but for now, things are at least functional again.



 

Polish Madonna

I must confessed that I lied a while ago. I didn't intend it, but I claimed I only received one items I truly wanted for Christmas. Well, that wasn't totally true, but indeed I received three items I wanted. It mostly slipped my mind until I realized my blundered assertion wasn't totally accurate.

My quiche pan, was washed and quickly disappeared into a kitchen cabinet, so I it was out of sight and out of mind.

However, the Polish Madonna, shouldn't have slipped my mind so easily, given I tossed it up on an abandoned nail above my kitchen sink, a temporary storage place until a place is made ready in the laundry room. I've had a small printed copy of this picture taped to a cabinet door above my washing machine for a couple of years. So this year my husband got me a print on a wood panel. I haven't decided where exactly I'll hang it, and will certainly wait until all the plumbing work is finished down there before I do.

Plumbers were suppose to come this past Monday, but they got caught up on another job and never made it. So we're rescheduled for this Friday.

Pope encourages moms to breastfeed at their babies baptism

This story today, brings a smile to my face. When my oldest was baptized he screamed the entire time because he just wanted to nurse. He was still recovering from his cleft lip surgery and was still rather irritated. All through the Mass beforehand he had slept contently, but as soon as it was over, and who could expect a baby to remain content for so long, he began to wail. I had neither the coordination nor the were withal to attempt to nurse him during his baptism.

Flash forward about eleven years to my the baptism of my youngest son. The well meaning, but seemingly oblivious priest decided to give a second homily during the baptism. Perhaps he felt he needed to reiterate all of the principles covered from the typical Baptismal prep course, but he had been thus inspired to speak for a very long time, while several babies began to come unglued. Once again, my infant had slept peacefully during the entire mass, and now that it was over, had began to wail. The difference this time was I did get up the gumption to just nurse the baby. Yes, I sat down in the middle of the (very drawn out) ceremony and nursed my son. Soon I was joined by his Godmother and her baby who also had grown hungry and antsy. At the time I was a bit conflicted about it, but irritated given the priest's lack of brevity in making this the longest lasting Baptism ever, but now, having read the story about the Pope's actions, I feel more at peace over the occasion.

Wondering eye

If I were married to my house I would be an adulterer. For I am always checking out the current market looking (window shopping only) for that greener pasture. If I were to return to the labor force tomorrow I would seriously consider going into real estate, as I find it just that fascinating. However, today I heard the downside to one side of the rental market from a renters perspective. As lately, I'd been reticent in thinking how care-free being a renter is contrast to a homeowner (given all our recent plumbing and bathroom redo woes). These experiences have outstripped any stresses we ever encountered as renters. I can say that with plenty of renter trauma under my belt. As I heard from tenants who have and will move before they are ready, to accommodate an owners wish to renovate and sell, I'm am grateful, that at least that's one issue I need not worry about as a homeowner. As long as we pay our taxes and mortgage... So the trade off for having to deal with maintenance and repairs, is it's our mess and we own it.

St. George and the Dragon

We've just started reading St. George and the Dragon, by Michael Lotti, for our classroom story time. We've only just finished the second chapter today, but I'll update this post when/ if I have more to say on it. I'd read it was a good book for middle school kids.

 

Plumber progress!

Fourth time's the charm. Perhaps we're just tired of getting estimates, or maybe it was this guy's offer was one we couldn't refuse (best prices yet), so today we allowed the visiting plumber to cut our kitchen drain pipe (I really didn't want to see that lovely copper pipe sawed in two) and he snaked it before putting his camera down to get a better idea of what was going on under our laundry room floor. While he wasn't the first plumber to suggest this, as the guy on Monday also recommended this course of action, given my husband was actually home ready to supervise, and the price for this service was significantly cheaper, we gave the go ahead.

Someone is really interested
in all of this plumber stuff...

Yup, there's a long piece of broken snake line and some other strange debris down there, and the various pipes bend and go through the house from our back door and right out (but under) the middle of the laundry room door. We're scheduled for floor demo and pipe repair at the beginning of next week (also the best price quote so far). The good news is that he was able to get our kitchen line flowing again so that it's not backing up into the laundry room floor drain (thought why that happens is still confusing to me). The big kids were actually happy when we told them to load the dishwasher this evening. Thy couldn't believe their good fortune!

 The ugly is that when they're done, we'll have a line of missing tiles and simply rough in concrete floor patch and we'll  have to find someone else to fix the tile... I don't really "love" the tile down there, as it's very slippery when wet. We found some tiles in the garage that look a lot like this floor (and the downstairs bathroom floor too), but it turns out they are not the same size, but about an inch bigger. Still perhaps a skilled tile guy could use them to patch this up.  If we ever can manage to save money again (I have a feeling this house isn't done screwing with us yet), I'd love to just have someone tile the kitchen and fire place hearth and then we could fix the laundry room floor then.

Coming up short

Our new therapy place doesn't believe in closing for snow. Our previous therapy place followed the public school closing decisions, and so unlike last year, the public school hesitated on calling it a day and didn't even bother to implement a delay. So, even though the roads in my neighborhood were covered in snow, and the hilly parts a bit treacherous, we pushed ourselves to make it to our appointment on time this morning. I was not happy about going out in this weather, not one bit, and was still harboring quite the grudge all day for my efforts. I noticed that many of the other families who usually have appointments during the same time were absent today. I began to feel that I'd done the therapy place a big favor in making my appointment and was ever so put off when they insisted on payment again today....

Our previous therapy place was a lot better about how they did their billing. Perhaps it's old school, but I rather prefer to get my bills in the mail, once a month so I can attend to them in the privacy of my own home,  late at night when all the minions are snug in their beds...not in the waiting room, every week, at the therapy place  the moment I walk through the door. The new therapy place's billing manners seem so absolutely rude to me, that it is leaving a rather foul impression. If it weren't for the wonderful therapist I'd be dumping this new place in a hurry.

So of course I'm already in a foul mood, having just written another hefty sized check, smack in my face, after already being upset over my snowy morning drive...when who should call, why the creepy bathroom remodel company that seems to think it's okay to demand more money after the final invoice and a paid-in-full check clears the bank. Seriously! Given my patience meter was already pegged, I informed them they should be receiving our response in a letter (certified from the JAG) any day now, and I wasn't going to continue this conversation as I was at an appointment (not a lie either).

We have another plumbing company coming to give us an estimate tomorrow, with only one of two estimates returned thus far, I'm really feeling squeezed right now. Thoughts have been churning all day on what must be cut to make room in the budget for this plumbing issue. First, I called and canceled my dental appointment next week, as I was going to get a night guard (I'd grown tired of hearing what a grinder I was and had agreed it was prudent to get a guard to prevent further damage), but decided that was one expense I could do without for a little bit longer.

Still, that didn't seem like it would be enough, so I notified the girls that since they hadn't cleaned their rooms this weekend, as I'd warned, I would have to tell their dance teacher they wouldn't be doing dance next month...and thus the rest of the year since it's the beginning of the build up to recital... Honestly, I can't see myself making out the check for all the dresses at the end of this month given our plumbing issue... so if they won't even clean their room, why am I knocking myself out taking them to dance? This of course feel awful because the teacher cuts large families a fantastic break on the classes, and the monthly tuition is not at all unreasonable, instead it's a great bargain, especially given the number of classes the girls are in and for this area. It's the recital dress cost which I dread. Staying in classes after January and not doing the recital is a waste of time given that's all they work on after that point on. So it's a deadline I'd set and the girls chose to ignore my warning. I gave the teacher a heads up we might not be able to continue, though I only told her it was because of our plumbing issues and I'm not sure how badly our budget is going to be affected, but likely adversely.

Don't feel bad for the girls... their teacher wants them to stay and told me not to pull them out if it's a money issue. I thanked her and just asked if she knew of a good plumber (she's lived in this area for a very long time, she would know), and indeed she's going to get me the number for a master plumber she knows and trusts. So if things start to go more smoothly, and the girls clean their room, then perhaps they won't have to quit dance for the rest of this year after all. However, truth be told, while I love for them to have this activity in their lives, this taxi mom is getting tired and might need a break for a while.

Are we prepared?

Are we prepared? An article on US News crossed my headline feed, perhaps you saw it too.

You don't have to scroll too far into the comments section to find story after story of adults who are flailing. There are too a few who claim to be doing well, and I try to glean from those all gems of experience driven wisdom in hopes we too will advert the abyss of autism affected disorder caused issues.

Arrested Development

Firstly, It is astonishing how influential a few kernels of advice from a high school teacher can be. Pray those in those role today are worthy and dispense wise advice.

As was quite common, back in high school, recent alumni would occasionally drop into to visit their favorite teachers. I doubt you could just drop into a class in this day in age, given our heightened state of vigilance and increased security measures. My AP English teacher used to say to us, after the nostalgic alumni departed, "Never come back, it's a case of arrested development." I took this to heart and I've never gone back.

So when Father started his homily declaring this the time of year when folks return to their hometowns and childhood hopes I couldn't connect with that sentiment... at all. More and more of late, I thank God and my husband for taking me so far away from our hometown.

Yeah, I realize that makes me unusual, different, perhaps even weird. Why can't I be glad for where we are now? Why can't this place be my home, and hold my hopes and dreams? I like it here, right where we are. It's quite a contrast to my childhood and I don't see that as a bad thing.

Suffice to say, I didn't process anything else form the homily today.