Last night I told Paul that a lady from church is coming to our house tonight to meet with me as we're working together next week with teaching VBS. It turns out he didn't know I was helping with VBS this year, and he looked at me like I was crazy. Yes, I do need to get back on track with saying "no" more often. One example would be a few weeks ago I accepted a request from someone at the University of Pittsburgh to do a review of one of their professors who is going up for tenure/promotion. It seems they do external reviews (some that the candidate has selected as well as some that the administration selects). All the reviews for tenure and promotion are internal at my university. Anyhow, I agreed to do that review, and the materials have been sitting on our dining room table. I need to read them and write my review in the next couple of weeks. I should have said "no, thank you." In terms of VBS though, I don't regret having said "yes" to that. I regret having agreed to teach 2 courses plus conduct 3 individualized instructions!
I haven't helped out with VBS the past 3 summers. The first one because I had a newborn bay, and the last two years because I was teaching (face-to-face) classes that met at the same time as the VBS. Next week I'll be doing my office hours from 9-10pm instead of 7-8pm, which will enable me to do VBS from 6:00-8:15pm. I'll be taking Nadia to VBS with me, and Ian will be having some extra time with Daddy. Now the truth is that since I'm teaching these classes, I probably shouldn't have volunteered to help with VBS since I get the bulk of my schoolwork done between 7-10pm each night and I'll be away from the house from 5:45-8:30 each night next week, but I've really missed VBS. I'd rather pick VBS over teaching online courses. Maybe next summer I'll just be doing VBS and the choir. There's a community choir that rehearses in July and August and has a performance in September every year. My choir director is one of the two directors of the group (about 100 people sing in this choir). I haven't been able to do it in the past, but if I resign from the university, I can do it next year, if we're still living in this area.
My to do list is just really long at this point. I need to get ready for VBS next week, do some housework, work on preparing the online course I'll be teaching in one month that I've never taught as an online course before, and of course I always have LOTS of grading to do. I did get the lawn mowed today. I decided to use part of the time Alexis was watching the kids to mow the lawn. I think it was the first time I mowed this month! The assessment course is going rather smoothly as I taught that as an online course last summer and last fall. I made adjustments to the syllabus and how I set it up, and that one is manageable now. I've never taught the social studies course as an online course before, and I established far too many discussion boards. We're half way through the 4th week of a 6 week course, and thus far 1,162 messages have been posted by myself or students in that one class (I haven't read/assessed 161 of those yet). Looking at a colleague's course from last session, he had 1,684 discussion board messages in one course. I am tweaking the syllabus so that it will hopefully be more manageable in the fall. Every time I think "I wish I was a SAHM" I keep reminding myself to be grateful that #1 I can work from home and #2 that hopefully some day (soon?) I will be a SAHM again. The lessons I am trying to learn at this moment are #1 get back to saying "no" more often and #2 ask the neighbors to babysit a little more often. Last week they watched the kids for 4 hours total. I was thinking of doing 4 hours a week again this week and the next two weeks, but I'm thinking of upping that to 6 hours a week. Also, I am going to talk to them this week about watching the kids 4 hours a week during the fall semester. I am not Wonder Woman.
Between Speech and OT, we had someone here from 11:25-1:45 today. Ian's case manager from Early Intervention also was here during part of that time span. Karen had two suggestions for his naps. The first is to put Nadia down and then take Ian for a little stroller ride right near our house until he falls asleep and then take Ian in the house in the stroller to see if he'll nap in the stroller. The second was to call the Pediatrician to see if he would approve of Ian having 1/2 or 1/3 of a tablet of Melatonin once a day (30 minutes before nap time). She said some of her autistic children that she works with use Melatonin for their naps. She said it works with some kids and doesn't with others and that you'll know within the first couple of times of using it whether it will work with Ian or not. Today he cried for 25 minutes and then slept for 30 minutes and then I went and got him and he slept for an hour in my arms. In my mind that's another option. He'll get more sleep that way and not cry so much if half the nap is in the crib and the second half in my arms. Karen suggested trying the stroller method before calling the Pediatrician for approval on the Melatonin.
This morning he fell asleep in the stroller on the way home from the playground, but I woke him up when we got home because it was almost time for speech and then OT. The stroller I use to take them to the playground won't fit through a door into the house, and even though it's cooler this week, I still think he'd be too hot in the garage. Karen said of all the children she's ever worked with (and she's been doing this a LONG time), Ian has been the hardest with teaching him to eat. She is not sure if he's still in pain or if he's that strong willed/ rigid. She said if the biopsy comes back clear and he continues to scream, she wants us to take Ian to see a psychologist (local) who specializes in helping kids overcome trauma (Ian's trauma being how painful it was for him to eat for so many months). I hope we don't need to add another psychologist to our list of people working with Ian.
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