Edumecation

Oh we are all about school this week. All about it.

Bug will, most likely, be starting school on Tuesday.  We will meet with his teacher on Monday to discuss goals. He will be put in an Autistic Classroom for evaluation and then we will re-evaluate at the end of the week or two weeks or a month. Glenn and I both think it will be the end of the DAY. :) But we will see. I am concerned but I suppose every mother is. He is so sweet and....determined. I hope he isn't too bossy, he can tug like no one I have EVER known. But, this will be exactly what he needs, it does not help him being home with me, it only feels better for me. I am able to protect him at home, I am able to accept or not accept what he does with his poopy diapers. And I am to see him whenever I want, to cuddle with him when I need a cuddle. Because, he is the sweetest little man.

Tay brought home the flu or some type of other crud and didn't go to school Wednesday and probably won't go tomorrow either. Poor thing. But she was OK about staying away until she was "all better", UNTIL she saw the picts of her first day. Game over after that. And then the game of negotiation began. It played out slyly. She acted like it was no big deal after I told her no. Gave it a few minutes and then said:

Mom, I need Afrin.

I said: You can't breathe?

She responded: Nope. (sniff, sniff, cough, cough)

She has had Afrin once before and it helped her sleep so I gave her a little. After a few minutes:

Well, I have my Afrin, I can go to school now.

After I stopped laughing, I said, as if it mattered : Afrin just masks the symptoms, you are still sick.

She sniffed again and said: Nope I can breathe better, I can go. (cough, stiffled cough)

I told her: Ya, no. NOT gonna happen, you are still sick and we have to think about the other kids, It's when sick girls and boys go to school that the healthy kids get sick, so you have to stay home until you are not coughing, sniffling or have a fever.

She said: Oh, OK Mom

And went into the family room to watch SpongeBob.

First Day of Preschool

Taylor has been begging and demanding to go to school for, oh, almost ever. I called on Wednesday and got her in on Friday. It was a long wait.

Taylor - before school

But Friday arrived, as we knew it would, and we got her ready to go. Her excitement dwindled, I can only surmise, replaced by a small amount of fear, but still she jumped headlong into picking out her outfit and taking her shower. Oddly she wore red. But I suppose it is a variation of pink.

Mom and Dad were here for a Train Show Dad was helping in, and so Nana stayed home with Bug. Glenn was a tad under the weather and worked from home but still dragged himself out to see his little girl off on her big day.

We left in plenty of time and arrived with a few minutes to spare. She sat

On our way in

down with us at the front desk and then we walked to her classroom to meet her first teacher: Mrs. Johnson.

Mrs. Johnson was VERY polite and schooled us about the preliminaries, whilst Taylor played, waiting for the rest of her class. She was unusually quiet with everyone, all the while, watching everything. After a few minutes she ran halfway back to Glenn and I, gave us a thumbs up and returned to her playing. We laughed and took it as: It's all good, you can go now. So we did.

We went up front, paid her dues and then went home to wait. Two hours, no Taylor. It was VERY quiet. And Bug loved every minute of it.

I went to get her and she was reluctant to leave. In fact, she told me she was not going because she wanted to paint some more. So I went in and took a few pictures, had her show me her room and talked to the rest of the children, who, had gathered around once they saw the camera :).

Look! The Alphabet

After a few minutes, and a promise to come back on Monday, we were able to leave. On the way out, she saw a play kitchen. Uh oh. We had to pause to play, or should I say *I* had to pause while *she* played. I thought she would regale us with her tales of 'preschool - the beginning' but she was surprisingly quiet.

 

Yep, THE kitchen.

Nana and Bug came with me while Daddy stayed home and napped, did some work, and medicated. We went down to get Megan and still, no stories. On our way back, she slept. AH HA! It was at that moment I knew I would hear her stories, after she awoke. And, we did.

She learned where to sit, she sang her ABC's, she made a snowflake, complete with sparkles, because sparkles make everything better, and she also told us how she learned to raise her hand before talking (OMG) and how to stand on the X (still not sure what that one was about but I am positive I will find out eventually). She said she had a blast and couldn't wait to return. It was good to see her dream fulfilled. And then she asked when she was gonna go to Ballerina School.

Only Tay. :) 

 

Great Day!

Today = Great Day!

Tay will be starting Pre-School on Friday! VERY nice woman signed her up over the phone since I have to replace the rear passenger roter and brake pads before I can go anywhere.

AND Bug will be meeting with the fine folks of Ridgeline Elementary School next week for us to go over the IEP and get him in school! So thrilled, so very, very thrilled! He is finally ready, we think.

And TWO dear friends that I hadn't heard from in a while touched base today! They must have sensed I needed it...or it's just blind stinking luck. :)

But I am really bad at the PSP. Tay keeps reminding me.

Christmas picts..LATER...for now..

Lately, I have heard A LOT, how life is not fair. How one person gets what they want and I don't. I hear Why Why Why? And I have the juvenile...but very real answer:

Because.

No deep insight there is there? It is what it is and we can obsess about why it is that way, and ponder what message is there to be learned, OR, and here's the difficult part: we can just accept it and move forward. I like that. I like accepting that sometimes there are no reasons, and sometimes there are. We look for them, we build the puzzle but sometimes, just sometimes, you lose one of the pieces. It didn't come in the box, or puppy ate it, but either way, it's not there.

Does that mean that puzzle is a waste? That you will never find that piece? Maybe. But once you search for it and give it your all, just realize that you can't find it at the moment and go about your daily business. Because we have all done it, searched and searched and couldn't find something, and then, when we least expect it, there it is. Sitting in plain view as if it was never missing.

And sometimes, we find it in a pile of shit. Graphic. Sorry. But in all the feces, there is something valuable, or that we perceived had value and there it is. Surrounded by crap. And then puzzle is complete.

So, sometimes the answers you are looking for can never be found, and sometimes they are found when we least expect them, and then again it might be in the trash. But if you really care about the outcome, you pick it out, clean it off and use it to your benefit.

LOOKING for answers is one thing, building your life and your happiness around finding them is quite another.

A very VERY wise woman once told me (via my Mother since I was bedridden): God himself could come down and explain why things are the way they are and you STILL wouldn't believe him, You would STILL not like the answer, because you had to suffer. So no matter what the reason is, it will never be good enough. I always wonder if she lived very long after that. She was 30+ years old, had 2 or 3 children and had cancer. I, was 15, and crying about being in the hospital. I didn't CHOOSE what happened to me and I do NOT think I was being punished. I was 15 for heaven's sake. And I did wonder why for a day. ONE day. And then, I looked at the drains in my leg and realized that I was wasting my energy on something that I would NEVER have the answer to. Ultimately it didn't matter HOW I got the infection, did I carry it in, was it the hospital, who was to blame? Who? Eh, who cares. It happened, and I had to move on. Once I focused my energy on getting better, on beating the infection, on getting out of the hospital...and once I had gone through withdrawals from addiction to Demerol (not ingested by me, shots to alleviate pain) I was out of the hospital and on my way to recovery.

I put in 3 days a week in PT. Three LONG, PAINFUL days a week. And had two more surgeries but at the end of 8 months I was running on the Soccer field again. Against the advice of my Doctors, but I was doing it. And I never wondered why I was able to run again. I was grateful I had worked to achieve it and had the support of my family to help me achieve it and I NEVER, NEVER blamed anyone or anything. I took my lesson: Perspective. I took *that* lesson and the ability to put a value on every little thing.  To gage what was important in my life and what wasn't. And I never thought again about fairness. About why it happened to me, because it didn't matter. What mattered more was what I did with it. What manner of a human being it would make me. About how sweet life itself really is, not just what I want and can't have, but that I breathe.

I guess I should talk about Christmas

A few folks have asked me about Christmas...where are the picts? Did the kids have fun? What did they get? So I respond:

The picts are on my computer. Some are cute, some are scary.

Yes, Tay had fun, Bug wanted to eat.

They got everything they wanted EXCEPT Tay says she NEEDS two flying horses. Maybe for her birthday...:)

Will post the picts and all the gory details later...it's coming I promise.