The village idiots

In case you didn't know, we moved. We packed up our house, traveled across a few states, unpacked, changed schools, found new places to shop and play and are trying to make a life in a new state. I will admit that the HARDEST part of moving was leaving our friends, family and just comfort zone in general. But every day I put on my big girl panties and tell myself to suck it up, shut up and keep moving forward.

One big transition has been the school. The girls are in a great charter school that has a completely different curriculum than anything I've ever seen. The girls are in 1st grade and just finished studying Egyptian culture and Mesopotamia. For heavens sakes, I don't think I studied that until the 6th or 7th grade. Now they're on to world religions. A little deep for 1st graders in my mind but I assume they know what they're doing.

Recently however I received the following letter for each of my twins.

To the Parents of >>>>>>

Within the first 45 days upon entry to our school, we complete a comprehensive screening of all new students. Your child's teacher noted a concern regarding your child's cognitive or academic abilities.

Our teachers work diligently to implement interventions and strategies to address these concerns and we will continue to share the outcomes and progress with you. By this time, your child's teacher should have already communicated with you regarding these areas. Please continue to stay in contact with your child's teacher. If your child is not making adequate progress with the appropriate interventions in place, we will schedule a meeting to review the data and make further decisions.

Thank you,

HHHHHHH

Dean of Academics

Upon receiving this formal letter I was quite worried about my children and the deficiencies in their cognitive or academic abilities that I didn't know existed. All this time I thought they were bright happy children but apparently I was wrong and just another biased mother. So I sent an email to the teacher to inquire further regarding the concerns she had (because she sure hadn't reached out to me).

This is the my email to the teacher.

I received a letter this week from Dr. ????? stating there are concerns regarding both of my daughter's cognitive and academic abilities. Could you please provide additional information or more specific information on your particular concerns?  What steps can be taken by the school and we as their parents to help remedy these concerns? We would be happy to work with them at home on any areas in which you feel they are lacking. Please let us know the best course of action to implement the appropriate intervention. 

 

Here was her response

 

Thank you for emailing me.  I am not sure what the letter stated, but my concern is their sentence structure.  When they are writing there is no spacing and many capitals mixed in.  The capitals in words are normal for beginning of year, but it is all one word when writing.  I will send home a journal for them to write in and practice.  I have been telling them to use 2 fingers between their words.  If you want to reiterate that with them and also point out the capitals in the middle of words at home that would be helpful.  The important thing is to make sure that you don’t worry about correct spelling at this age, but trying to sound it out.  If they are getting frustrated with it just have them take a break and return to it later.   I thought we could go into more detail at conferences.   If you would like to talk more before conferences we can set up a time.

 

Thank you,

 

ARE YOU KIDDING ME. I got a letter because my girls miss use upper and lower case letters and don't have correct spacing. I thought that was a common problem/area of study for most 1st graders. But apparently they are too busy studying about Mesopotamia to focus on core learning. I'm not sure I'm cracked up to be in this school. Perhaps if the school spend less time sending home superfluous letters and more time teaching correct word spacing my children would be able to quickly overcome their academic deficiencies.

 

The End

It's been a while

It's been a while since I blogged, but you already knew that. This year has been a rollercoaster and I should have journaled more of it but for the post part I'm trying to forget about what's happened so maybe it's better this way. Either way we're back and full of great stories. Enjoy the ride.

I stopped counting after 5

Last night wasn't pretty.

We all went to bed at a normal time and expected a normal (for us) night. But it wasn't.

Around 2:30 some kid wandered into my room crying because she had wet the bed. She had changed herself but her bed was still wet. I told her to just climb in bed with me. She cried because I wouldn't get up and start the wash with her blankets (I'm a jerk like that around 2:30am).

A few minutes or hours later (things are bleary this time of night) I had to check her blood and adjust her pump settings so she wouldn't go too low.

A few minutes or hours later some other kid wandered in and wanted to be in bed with me and was crying because someone else was in bed with me. I suggested she either go back to bed or sleep on the floor. She suggested she sleep in the middle of the bed-wetting kid and me. I wasn't in favor of that and gave her the same two options again. She went back to her bed crying until she finally relented and brought her blankets in to sleep in the floor.

A few minutes or hours later a diabetic monitor rang because she was going low. I made more adjustments to her pump and went back to sleep.

A few minutes or hours later the bed-wetting kid woke me up to ask if I had done the laundry yet and if her blankets were clean. SERIOUSLY? I'm nice but not nice enough to do her laundry at 3 am just for the fun of it. I told her no and to go away from me.

A few minutes later some other kid come in crying to me because her sister wouldn't share the ipad with her. I told her to take my Kindle and go away from me.

After a few more minutes I got up and dealt with all of those naughty children and tried to figure out how I was going to survive the day.

Some how I made it through and I am praying for a better night tonight. Wish me luck.

Potty time

Our family had the opportunity to visit Disney World last week for a great family vacation. We loved the parks, being with cousins and being with the children's father. One thing I didn't love was constantly taking people to the bathroom. I tried to mitigate this as much as possible by taking group trips to the bathroom but emergencies always seemed to arise. One such incident took place at the airport on the way home.

The children's father had caught an earlier flight to a different state for work so I was on my own with the girls. My in laws were but were also helping with other kids. I decided to take the girls to get something to eat at the airport because our flight had been delayed. The nearest restaurant to the gate was Nathans hot dogs. Not exactly my favorite food but I knew it was something the girls would eat. Before we went to the restaurant we took a group trip into the bathroom and everyone was told to use it. We then proceeded to the restaurant. I ordered our food and no sooner had set it on the table when Cricket declared that she needed to go to the bathroom. I asked if it could wait and she demanded that it could not. The bathroom was right next to the restaurant so I thought I could swing this. I asked a very nice looking couple at the table next to us to keep an eye on the girls while I ran Cricket into the womens bathroom. I then positioned myself in a location where I could see both the girls at the table and the girl in the bathroom when she came out. A few minutes into this 10 minute long process (she isn't a quick pooper) by brother in law came into the restaurant to order something for his family. He saw the girls and asked where their mother was. They explained that I was in the bathroom with Cricket. The sweet couple watching over the girls got a little nervous at this point because my brother in law about 6'2 and a pretty big guy. They asked him who he was and he replied "their uncle". To which the couple said "that's what they all say." They protectively watched over the girls as my brother in law watched over from a distance because he could tell he was making them nervous. Eventually Cricket finished up in the bathroom and we were able to return to our gourmet meal.

No sooner had I started to cut into my chili cheese dog then Dolly decided she too had a bathroom emergency (I can't make this stuff up). I told her she would just have to wait and we'd eat quickly. We hurried through our meal and as I cleared our table I glanced over at my naughty little 3 yr old to notice she had her pants around her ankles and her bare bum was floating in the breeze. People all around were laughing at this sight as I frantically pulled up her pants and took my children (and what was left of my pride) out of the restaurant. I thanked the nice couple who had watched out for my children and walked back down the concourse with my head hung low. I used to be a person of respect and dignity. Now I pull up pants in the middle of restaurants and consider a chili cheese dog a good meal. Maybe my self respect will return after the children have moved out.

Princess Couture

My husbands children don't lack for much. I would definitely say they walk on the spoiled side of life. But I will admit that I am mostly to blame for this. If they weren't so darn cute and fun to dress up I could probably save more money. But as it stands, they have a lot of fun clothes. This Disney trip only necessitated in my mind the need for a new costumes. I NEVER like buying Disney souvenirs on property and always try to bring our own from home. Luckily the Disneystore.com had a great sale the week before we left and I was able to buy some fun things for them at great prices. I had the order shipped directly to our hotel to ensure it's timely delivery (heaven forbid they go without).

Upon their arrival the girls were presented with a new costume to wear at the park the next day as well as new jammies, flip flops and hair accessories. While at the Magic Kingdom we saw a store called Princess Couture. I laughed out loud as I read the sign. The girls wanted to know what I was laughing at and what the sign meant. We then had the following conversation.

Girls "We need to go there and buy us some princess presents."

Me "Raise your hand if you got a new costume this week?"

3 hands went up in the air

Me "Raise your hand if you got new princess jammies?"

3 hands went up in the air

Me "Raise your hand if you got a new princess shirt?"

3 hands went up in the air

Birdy "Raise your hand if you need more princess clothes?"

3 hands went up in the air

Unfortunately the only hand that matters when it comes to buying new princess clothes is the one holding the money, and it wasn't theirs.

But for the record my sister in laws and I did a little research to see how much our prepurchasing of souvenirs saved us. We found the same flip flops we'd bought the girls at the park for $17.00 each. We on the other hand had only paid $3.75 a pair. Crazy.

Little Einsteins

Dolly has been obsessed with pulling her pants down lately. I don't know where this came from but I hope this phase fades quickly.

We visited Hollywood Studios and had a character lunch with the characters from Disney Jr. The girls were thrilled to meet Special Agent Oso and Handy Manny but Dolly was particularly excited to meet June from Little Einsteins. So much so that she had something special in store for her. As June approuched the table next to us,  Dolly told me "I want to show June my bum!" It was at that point that her observant mother finally noticed that she was completely naked below the belt. I frantically pulled up her pants and again discussed proper dining etiquette with her. Luckily she was between me and the wall so I don't think many of our fellow diners had the opportunity to see her special gift to June.

Vultures

We rode the safari at Animal Kingdom. The girls loved seeing all of these beautiful animals but my Birdy was particularly intrigued by the vultures. I told her that vultures eat dead animals as part of the circle of life. With panic in her face she had the following question after I told her that.

Birdy "So if they eat dead animals do they eat dead humans?"

Me "Well I guess they could but they probably don't find many dead people laying around, just dead animals."

Meanwhile I still haven't remembered that we just buried one of our grandma's a few days before we left for Disney World.

Birdy "Oh no, the vultures are going to get Grandma Afton and Grandpa Harrison's bodies and eat them."

I tired to explain caskets and 6ft under but she was still concerned during the remainder of the ride. I think she forgot about it though when I bought her a Mickey shaped ice cream bar. I know that always makes me feel better about life too.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

While we stood in line for the rides we had time to do some people watching. Unfortunately for me, the only people watching/criticizing my 3 yr old did was of me. She told me over and over again that I have a fat belly and asked when is the baby coming (there's no baby and hasn't been since she occupied that space). I tried to ignore these comments but eventually had to address them and discuss what is not appropriate to say to someone. Ultimately she was threatened with timeout if she said it again. These incidents left me to conclude that:

1. My husbands child needs some manners

2. I need to do a few more crunches and sit ups.

3. The shirt I was wearing wasn't nearly as flattering as I thought it was.

and finally

4. Even though I was walking my butt off while pushing a double stroller around Disney World it didn't make up for all the churros, jalapeno pretzels and Mickey shaped ice cream bars I was consuming.

The gifts that keep on giving

I received an email from the girls school stating that they needed to bring a shoebox to make a Valentines box in class. So I began my hunt for a shoebox (or two in our case). First stop was the children's fathers closest. I recalled seeing some in there and was doubtful that he had been hit with a cleaning bug and thrown them out. As luck would have it, I was right. I quickly discovered two shoeboxes that will be perfect for his little Valentines to make their own Valentines boxes (what a good Daddy).

 

I opened the boxes to make sure they were empty and to my surprise discovered they were not. This is what I found in one of the boxes.

 

 

These are the gift cards that I had given their daddy over a year ago for Christmas along with the new shoes he received.

 

There are three interesting things about this discovery.

 

1 - It just goes to show you how often he cleans out his closest if he had an empty shoe box sitting on the floor for over a year.

 

2 - It just goes to show you how much these gift cards meant to him if he never went looking for them or tried to use them.

 

3 - I know have my Valentines day shopping done for the children's father.......he's getting a gift card to Subway and itunes. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

 

Serves him right! I wonder if he'll use them this time or let me recycle them again for Christmas 2013.

My little Pony - MacGyver style

Who needs a Swiss army knife when you have a My

 Little Pony from a Happy Meal.

 

Today was one of the rare moments when I locked my bedroom door. I'm tired of being interrupted in the shower and decided to lock my door for 20 minutes while I showered and got ready for the day. My husbands children didn't like this very much and decided to start their criminal careers at an early age with some breaking and entering.

 

I walked out of my bathroom to discover two little children standing in my room, next to my previously locked door. The little one was holding my car keys, the 6 yr old was holding this little tool in her hand. She was so proud of the fact that she found a tool (the ponies wing) to open mommy's locked bedroom door.

 

 

 

I give them credit for creativity but didn't appreciate my unlocked door. We may want to give the Juvenile Criminal Justice System a heads up that they have three smart ones headed their way in the next few years. Let us pray that they start to use their gifts and talents for unlocking the worlds mysteries rather than unlocking doors of things that don't belong to them. Or I may be visiting them in Cell Block C some time soon.