My heart hurts.

Rough day all around. Sad. Stressful. Not my most stellar parenting today... and getting Nolan to go to bed tonight was exhausting to say the very least.

I went over to Sandra's Remembrance Site and there is a gallery of pictures on the right hand side of the page. I was at first saddened to see the pic below, but now I am so thankful someone posted it. That's Sandra making a kissy face at Seth and Seth is being held by one of my most favoritist kids (except she's not a kid anymore) from my daycare days - Alecz.

Since we became moms, we hardly had a chance to get together anymore, in fact; the last time we were supposed to meet up (which was the first time in a long time) was the day before she went in the hospital with the SJS.

Her funeral is Saturday, ironically at the same time as my uncle's. I am choosing to go to hers; I hope my aunt understands. I need some closure to this... I need to hear the stories and see the pictures from happier times, so I don't remember my last visit with her in harborview as the way she was, because she was so much more than that. So much.

So Sad.

My friend Sandra passed away yesterday. I am so sad for her... for her husband, and most of all for her daughter. She's 3 1/2 and hasn't had her mom around for the past 9 months, and now will never truly know how awesome her mom was.


Sandra and Adrianna Eunhae at her baby shower.




Sandra... not sure where I got this picture from, I think it was emailed shortly after she and her husband adopted Adrianna.

I'll Take Rage for $200 Alex.

*sigh* Today is day 3 of the meds (he's on Focalin XR)... it has definitely improved the crazy all over the place, driven by a machine kind of behavior. But it has left a sullen, angry and sad boy in it's place.

Granted, we are only on day 3, but he is not bubbly, or happy, or interactive much ... he plays by himself, and goes from 0 to pissed in mere seconds; exploding with screaming or occasionally exploding violently towards his brother (usually it's provoked, but still; kind of startling.)

He seems like a little dark cloud, and it's breaking my heart. He just sits on the couch looking so forlorn and depressed. I'm going to call the doctor tommorrow and we go back in on Thursday to check in, I'm hoping he's just adjusting and it'll work itself out. I just don't know. The meds definitely start to wear off around the 11/12 hour mark... not only does the pinball like behavior come back in, but so does his sunshine. Smiling, playing, chattering happily... almost makes the pinball stuff worth it.

Yesterday, I had to get on him about sharing (he was hoarding like a bazillion cars and wouldn't let Seth play with any of them) ... after arguing back and forth I finally said he was either going to share or he would have a time out. He screamed "NO!" at me, and I told him to go to his room for a time out. He refused, so I helped him (picked him up and took him there) and he started screaming "SHUT UP! SHUT UP FUCKER!" yeah. A. He has never told me to shut up. B. he's never called me a fucker. He hasn't used bad language in a long time actually... I was shocked. We had a few more bouts of him telling me to shut up, and such but he didn't say fucker again.

The meds make it so he doesn't nap anymore either, which really isn't a big deal since he's chilled out.

But the sadness is hard to watch. REALLY hard to watch. I'm so hoping he adjusts and my happy boy comes back.