Catch of the day!

Honeybunches loves catching little critters.  He is really good at it too.  He catches butterflies, dragon flies, frogs, snakes and other wildlife with ease.  Yesterday while I was gone shopping with my mother DH took Honeybunches for a walk to the local middle/high school where there is a small pond.  He caught a bat in his old Cool Whip container!  I got home and he told me he caught a bat!  He tried to show it to me. 

I had to tell him that is one animal he can NOT catch as they are very dangerous. I had to warn him that if he gets bit by that he'll have to go to the hospital and get rabies shots that hurts really bad. Gramma told him it can kill the cats. Yikes! I had him throw the bowl in the bush and run. He gently took the cover off and put the bowl down. Thankfully it didn't seem to mind. I told him it will fly away in the night time. Phew! My boy has a gift with little creatures.

I had my excitement for the day. The doc called me back herself instead of a nurse calling. Then the doc said she had to call DPH. Then she called me back to say they'd be calling me. She called back again to see if they called. (By that point I was getting concerned b/c she seemed to be.) DPH called and I told him what happened. He said "That was the catch of the day!" lol at least he had a sense of humor. He said since Honeybunches only touched it's wing there is low risk. He said rabies and other bat diseases are spread through bat scratches, bites or even their saliva. He thinks Honeybunches is safe and won't need shots. Phew! He did take down my address for some reason though.
 

Today's Lesson On Why Honeybunches Needs His Meds

This morning when Honeybunches woke up I went to give him his meds like I always do.  He asked me to wait until after he ate breakfast because if he takes them 1st then eats "Breakfast tastes nasty".  That was something new.  So I gave him his breakfast, took a bath, and did all that other morning stuff.  Then we drove Princess to her Summer Playground Program.  Well on the way there he was wrapping the middle seat belt around his neck trying to choke himself, hitting Princess, trying to bite her and having a really hard time controlling his body.  At one point Princess even asked him "Did you take your meds"?  She could tell.  I was wondering myself.  So we got home at 9 am and I looked in his med box.  Sure enough his morning meds were still there for today.  Bad Mommy move for the day!  I gave them to him and the rest of his day was just perfect.  He usually has them at 6:45 or 7 am so it's interesting how only two hours late can make such a huge difference but it surely did.

He had a great appointment at counseling.  He used his brain a lot.  He was more focused then usual.  They were playing Emotional BINGO.  He draws the feelings cards.  Then she has him either say what the feeling means or use it in an example sentence.  For example "Frustrated is when_____" or "When ____________ happens ___________ might be frustrated".  He did amazing answering the majority of them.  When he didn't know he tried to think and would tell her he had no idea or he'd try to make up a situation anyways.  That was another one of his best counseling sessions ever IMO.

Yesterday morning we went to the lab to get Honeybunches' blood work.  He did fine with the help of his favorite lab tech.  Well today I noticed there were three missed calls from the hospital we got it done at.  I called them back to see what they wanted, thinking it had to be the lab.  First the lady was pretty rude saying she could only give the info to the patient.  I had to tell her I was his mother and he was only ten lol.  Finally she put me on hold, did some investigating and found out that they had to cancel two of his tests because they didn't have enough blood.  So we have to go back on Thursday for more fasting blood work.  Ugh.  Twice a week might be too much for him.  I hope his favorite lab lady is working again.  This could get expensive for Momma though.  Each time we get his blood work I have to pay him $1-2 for doing a good job.  

Easy Spanish Beans and Rice...

Tonight I invented a quick easy Vegan dinner.  It was too hot to cook on the stove.  We had some instant rice. I put a cup of that and a little over 1 cup of water.  I threw that together with a half can of Goya Black Beans, a can of canned green chilli peppers, 1/2 an onion, an envelope of orange Goya Sazon, a couple tablespoons of hot salsa, and a sprinkle of Adobo.  I cooked that in the microwave for about 6 minutes, stirred it and cooked it a few more minutes.  It came out so delicious!  I surprised myself by how good that was.  Being so easy, I didn't believe it would have been.  I was proud of me lol.  I will surely be making that again on another hot day when I am not wanting to cook. I might throw in more veggies next time.

My Interesting Boy and FOH

Things with Honeybunches have been going amazingly well.  This is the last week of his Summer Enrichment Program.  Tomorrow is actually the last day.  He's been doing awesome there without any issues at all. :)

Honeybunches seen his pdoc on Monday.  "Interesting" was the newest word used to describe him.  Add that to the list of "Complicated", "Complex", and "A tough cookie to figure out" lol.  Anyways, she found it interesting how wonderfully he does with his Lithium being on the higher end of the therapeutic range.  Honeybunches counselor L worked things out so we can continue to see her.  Even better she found a time that works for the afternoon buses.  Hooray!  We made a new routine.  We got to town, went and found a nice air conditioned restaurant, got him some fries (I got a Veggie "Grinder" aka Sub aka Hero aka... whatever you call them in your states lol), then we went to the library.  I was happy they gave us library cards although we don't live in that city.  Now we have somewhere to go to beat the heat.  Honeybunches loved playing on the computer and their selection of Junie B Jones books.  They had so much more than our small town library did.  We stayed there until it was time to walk to counseling.  His session with L was "Interesting" I guess we could say, since that's the word of the day that we are spelling with his alphabet soup.  They were doing puppet play.  Honeybunches puppet got aggressive with L's puppet.  Aggressive play with Beanie Babies has been the theme in our house lately.  His Beanies get arrested by Officer Honeybunches for shooting eachother, hitting, punching, and other aggressive acts. Then he literally throws them in jail.  Sometimes his rescue team (Firetrucks, ambulances) have to come save the day.  Sometimes they don't and the animals die so he covers them with washcloths.  Think he watches too much Law & Order SVU or Cops?  IDK.  Those are about the only things he will actually sit down to watch on television.  Anyways, L found his aggressive play interesting.  Her animal puppet began talking to his animal puppet about being friends.  After she said it's obvious he has a fear of harm.  That rang a bell in my brain this morning.  I remembered hearing about a phenotype of Childhood Bipolar called exactly that... Fear of Harm or FOH.  You can read more about that here. I found that all really interesting.  Honeybunches does fit a lot of what they are talking about.  I've heard about it before in my groups at TBMF, but never really looked into it much.  For some reason, her saying that about him made me think of this.  I called L and left her a message telling her to Google "Child Bipolar" and "Fear of Harm" as I told her that it was a phenotype of Childhood Bipolar I thought she'd be interested in.  I'm curious what she'll think of it...

PS: Some good news!!! Honeybunches' lost 2 lbs from all this walking we have been doing!  Our state's medicaid also approved his PT-1 "Prescription for Transportation" forms so he can still see his GI doc who's over an hour away and his Developmental Behavioral Pedi who's over 2 hours away.  I was really worried about that, since we don't have a vehicle anymore.  That made me happy and relieved some anxiety.  Phew! 

Honeybunches 10th Birthday Party

Today was Honeybunches 10th birthday party.  He invited all the 10 children in his class plus a couple more.  Earlier in the week I got a phone call from one mother who said her son was coming.  His party began at 2.  He waited around for them until 2:30.  Not one of his friends came, not even the one whose mother said he was. :(  Sometimes I think that bothers me more than him, but this year he actually seemed a bit heartbroken. I am heartbroken for him or shall I say along with him.  I wonder if he were in a regular class if things would be different?  Would more friends come then? I see the neighbors and how they have birthday parties. Cars line up the street as far as we can see.  I admit I am a bit jealous.  I wish that Honeybunches could have friends at his birthday parties too.  Maybe next year we might try his party in June.  Maybe then more people would come?  With the 4th of July being in the middle of the week, maybe people went away this weekend.  Hey maybe it's better to think that they had some good excuse instead of that children just didn't want to come or even worse, that their parents didn't want them to.  Tears fill my eyes and want to roll down my face, but they are stuck.  I won't allow them to.  I want to say that Honeybunches had a good time celebrating his birthday with his aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, DH and I, but the truth is IDK.  IDK how he feels in his heart. His sister Princess was sweet.  She used her own hard earned newspaper money to buy him a Zhu Zhu pet for his birthday.  He also got two fishing poles, one from each aunt that was in attendance.  Another aunt gave him $$ which he bought a Fire Truck off Amazon with.  Gramma gave him $$ which he put with the gift card to Walmart I gave him.  IMO his best gift came from God who gave him ten years on this Earth.  These ten years have gone by fast.  Tomorrow he will officially be double digits.  Although these years were not easy all the time, I would not change my Honeybunches and every moment I've had with him.  He's taught me so much in life.  When he opened my gift card, he asked who it was from.  I told him from me.  Then he said "Awww come here, let me give you a hug".  I leaned forwards and he gave me one of the biggest hugs.  He sure does give the best ones I've ever been blessed with. 

Camping with no vehicle

This was a camping trip to remember!  DH dropped Honeybunches, myself and a big load of stuff off at the campground.  Then he was going back to get Princess, Angel and a bit more stuff.  He didn't make it very far.  The truck got stuck on the highway!  We called my brother who came to the campground to pick me and Honeybunches up.  Then we went to meet DH on the highway.  He said he seen three State Police who stopped at different times to see if he needed assistance.  I guess they were pretty nice and went on their way.  So I went there and waited for AAA while Dh went home with Honeybunches and my brother.  The verdict on the vehicle is that it needs about $1300 of work including a new engine, some converter things, and more.  Yikes!  IDK if we are going to get it fixed or look for another used one.  We'll think on it for a few days.  Anyways, my brother is such a blessing.  He drove us back to the campground on Saturday and picked us up this afternoon so at least we got 2 of the 4 nights we paid for.  It was a great get-a-way and break from reality.  I love being out in the woods.  It's like when we are there the world just stops for a few days.  Honeybunches loves it too.  He literally spends hours searching for frogs, knewts, lizards and this time fishing.  He made a friend!!! There was this boy only looked to be maybe a year older than Honeybunches who taught him how to fish.  He spent many hours with that boy.  Princess and I got to spend some much needed Mommy-Daughter time.  Angel stayed home.  She doesn't really care much for camping these days.  At 16, her friends are the #1 thing in her life.  I missed her, but she stayed with Gramma b/c there was limited room in my brother's car.  She really didn't seem to mind lol. 

I had to call some of Honeybunches' providers today to see if we can arrange things.  His counselor is only a half hour away.  I called to see if she could possibly change the time she sees him so we could take the bus.  His GI doc is over an hour away and his Developmental Behavioral Pedi is over two hours away.  I called his primary care doc to see if she could fill out a PT-1 form which is a prescription for transportation so his insurance can give us rides to those.  Later this week he has his dentist appointment, which is a half hour away but we can take a bus too.  Honeybunches might think that's fun lol.  I hope that he does so the day will go easier.  Honeybunches missed today at his program.  My plan was to bring him back from the campground for it, but we didn't have the vehicle.  I signed Princess up for a Summer program too.  They have one in the next town for really cheap.  She's all excited about that.  We'll find a way for her to get there.  My brother said we can use his car.  I offered to give him gas $$.  It's going to really suck without having a vehicle, especially with all Honeybunches appointments out of town. He's been seeing his counselor since he was 3-4 years old.  Hopefully she can work with us to change his appointments so he can continue seeing her.  He did awesome camping.  Not one issue presented itself. :)  1.1 really is our magic #.

Camping Photos