School's about to start

I haven't blogged for a long time. I have been extra busy with reviewing books and making book covers. It's so nice to make some money doing something I love. I have learned that some authors are, uh, interesting to work with. Sometimes they want things on covers that just won't look good, or they want the cover to somehow display everything about a character. Some things are almost impossible to convey on a cover.

Thursday is the day we take Dakota to the developmental center in Omaha. I'm kind of nervous about this appointment. First of all, I don't know what all will be involved. I'm afraid we will leave there without any official diagnosis, and we won't be able to get Dakota all the help he needs. We have been waiting a long time to get things figured out. We are having major bowel issues with Dakota. We have been going through this for a long time, but it's getting worse. To make a long story short, we were told that it would help him for us to give him Miralax every day because his colon is stretched out or whatever, but he is not able to hold anything in now. For 2 weeks atleast, he has had to wear overnights (like diapers) all day long. We have to clean him up, like, 4 times a day. School starts next week and I don't know what to do. He gets so embarrassed by it that he refuses to tell us when it happens. When he's not cleaned up right away, he gets awful sores. First of all, the kids will make fun of him if they smell him or find out he's wearing a diaper. 2^nd of all, I can't have him going all day long without being cleaned up (you know he won't tell anybody), and 3^rd – if the school finds out that he can't control his bowels I'm not even sure they'll let him attend school. I mean, to be able to start Preschool, you must be potty trained. What am I supposed to do? Home school him? I don't have the slightest idea at how to go about doing that. I just wish someone could tell me what the heck I am supposed to do.

Of course, Dakota has issues besides the bowel stuff. For example, he gets over-stimulated easily. It's like, he requires a lot of time to be at home and left alone. I'm stressed about how the school year is going to go this year. At my aunt's wedding reception last weekend, I could tell that Dakota was getting over-stimulated. I knew a meltdown was coming so I started to get things ready and get the kids out of there. We didn't make it out of there in time though and he is really hard to calm down. He cried all the way home.

It's kind of funny how we try to plan our lives around Dakota's situation. For instance, there are lights outside of the apartment complex that turn on when it gets dark. At night, bugs swarm everywhere. It's mostly moths though. Dakota freaks out and acts like someone is trying to kill him or something. When he sees them, he stands in one place and won't move. He screams and cries and we have to pick him up and carry him in the apartment, which is hard to do considering he is like 90 pounds. We try to be home before it gets dark. Isn't that sad? Oh, and like at the reception – he asked me to get him a pop. He was afraid to go over to where it was because there were lightning bugs over there. It must be awful to be that scared of everything.

I'm also stressing over Mikayla starting school this year. Registration is tomorrow. She is pretty shy around people but I think she will do fine. I think she will really like having somebody to play with during the day. I will just feel kind of lonely I guess. I'm not used to being home alone and I don't like not having my kids with me. I guess it will be nice to be able to work on book covers without her setting on my lap with toys lined up on my desk and telling me what I'm supposed to be playing.