Conferences

Yesterday I had parent teacher conferences for both girls. They are both doing great. Both teachers gave me some work as examples of things they are currently doing. One of Bridget's things was this book that was part of her writing assessment. It was a fairly big project for first grade. They had to brainstorm an idea, organize it into a book form with the story and illustrations. (okay, I tried to get these in order, but it's taking too long).
Here is how it is suppose to go:
Cover page with drawing of cat, title is "Ice the cat"
Inside cover says "detukatide to my family"
Page one "my famely got a cat. she is nise to to me." this page has a drawing of me, Schaun, and Bridget going to a pet shop to get Ice. (total fiction!)
Page two ""She is good wen sumone come's to are haws.". drawing of me and Bridget with Ice, along with a cat bed.
Page three " I like her so much. That Id hug her." drawing of Bridget hugging Ice.
Page four "Then one day she dide. I miss her." drawing of a sad Bridget, cat bed, and Ice dead--her tongue is hanging out of her mouth. This cracks me up!
Page five " It made me crie so much" drawing of a crying Bridget, no cat, with cat bed. She even drew in the ceiling fan.
Page six "I loved her joost as much as my family." drawing of me, Schaun, Bridget all sad with the cat bed again.

Ahhhhhhhh Spring!

This is "Spring" today.

Stupid Weather

The snow storm has not started yet, but it seems it is on the way. It seems like Spring just started with trees and some flowers blooming. Stupid snow is going to ruin it all! Ugh! I'm so done with Winter!

This past week brought sad news. Schaun's grandmother, Ma'am, passed away on Monday. We went to her funeral and burial service yesterday. It was a nice service on a gloomy, cold day. I didn't take the girls with us. Bridget went to school as usual. Since I get charged if Becca is at school while I'm not working, she went to Stacy's. It was a sad time. I realized that we do not have any grandparents living now. Very sad.

Kelsie is home from her California life for a couple weeks. She came over one night last week to watch a movie with the girls. They love their Aunt Kelsie! She is coming back over again this week and they are so excited!

Becca is almost all better now. She is talking normal. I have not let her eat anything too crunchy yet-- no crackers or chips. She is hungry all the time though, but it still hurts a tiny bit when she eats. She did loose a few pounds and is trying to get them back as fast as she can. The best part is that she actually sleeps normal. No tossing and turning. No more snoring! It is amazing.

Bridget seemed to have hit a rough spot in her life. She has been acting, uh, let's say, not bad, but just obnoxous, annoying. She lost all motivation for school--she is too busy acting silly and trying to be the class clown. I really cracked down on her. This is not behavior that I think comes natural to her, I think she is trying hard at it. So I kept on her all week and it seems to have helped. She got all her spelling words right yesterday. She came home so proud of herself. I have not seen that in a while and it was good. I think since she felt that again she might want to keep that feeling and get back to work.

Tomorrow I am going to see the Phantom of the Opera and I am sooooooo excited about it! I love the music, I love the movie, and I'm sure I'll love this too!

Much, much better

24 hours makes a huge difference! Becca slept almost all night, woke up happy, and wanted pudding for breakfast. Of course, then she started to complain about pain but refused for a couple hours to take the tylenol. So frustrating and annoying, but she finally did. She wanted to get dressed, then we went outside and she colored with chalk and hung out with the neighbors. Now she is trying to eat some noodles. Ahhhhhhh, what a relief!

it still sucks

My husband informed me that I am not being very positive. Please make a note of this day--he is right. (Just on this one thing though).

Becca is still in pain. She is angry. She wants to hit me all the time. She hit Bridget last night. She did eat a little for dinner last night. She had a couple good hours yesterday afternoon. Things seems to go bad over the night hours. At 5am she told me her stomach felt yucky and then ran to the toilet. There was not much in her to come up. She started running a fever again, but she did fall back to sleep. At 8am she woke up, had a couple sips to drink then again ran to the toilet. It was worse this time. Thankfully there was not any blood.

So now, she is asleep. She still has a fever. She has not had any pain medicine for 9 1/2 hours. I called and waited an hour for the nurse to call me back. Told her our tale of woe and she said she would call me back again after speaking to the doctor. Great, that helps. I dread her waking up. She is going to hurt so much.

It takes quite a bit to bring me to tears, but this is doing it. We did this so she could sleep better. She has never dealt with sickness beyond and cold. She has never had pain to deal with. Maybe this was the wrong choice. Ugh. I hope the nurse calls with some great plan.

this sucks

Okay, so Friday was a breeze compared to Saturday. Saturday was a nightmare. Overnight from Friday to Saturday things went downhill fast. By Saturday morning, she was in so much pain and then started to run a fever. I talked to a doctor at KU and they said to give her Motrin in between the tylenol doses. Sounds great and easy enough.

Right. That was until she realized how much it hurt just to swallow anything. She says the tylenol with codeine burns. Tiny little sips of water made her scream in pain, so the medicine is just awful. She would sip and then press her hands onto her ears and scream from the pain. It was just awful, terrible, miserable. Schaun and I had to hold her down to get some Motrin in her because the tylenol was doing nothing for the rising fever. A teaspoon and a half suddenly become a huge amount.

Then in all the discharge papers they give you it says not to use Motrin because it prevents clotting and they don't want any bleeding after surgery. So it all conflicts. She is in pain still. She is running a fever still (but it is much lower now). She will not eat but she is hungry. I can hear her stomach grumbling. I have to beg, plead, and threaten her to drink tiny little sips of water.

This is much worse than I imagined. I wish the damn codeine medicine would at least make her sleepy since it is not doing much for her pain.

I hope Bridget never needs this done. I don't think it would happen for her.

Poor Becca

We were suppose to be at the Surgery Center at 8am this morning and the procedure was scheduled for 8:45. I got up early, got us all ready, and left in plenty of time. That was until I got a few miles down the highway and we realized we did not have Heart Blankie. Exit, turn around, retrieve blanket, start over 10 minutes later. We arrived 8 minutes late--not too bad.

From the start she was uncooperative. She would not let anybody look in her mouth. She would not take deep breathes for the doctors to listen to her lungs, she would not talk. Stubborn. Then when it was time, the doctor gave her a piggy back ride to the room. It took about 40 minutes before the doctor came out and told me it all went fine. She was again amazed at how large the tonsils and especially the adenoids were.

Then they take me back to recovery. I had no problem finding the right bed. Becca was screaming "I WANT TO GO HOME" over and over and over and over and loud as possible. She was throwing herself around in the bed and swinging at people. Sweet huh?

They started in on this whole bit about how it is scary for kids and blah, blah, blah. I said this is behavior I have seen from her before and it will continue for some time. The decision was quickly made to give her a sedative. Then things went much better.

They warned me that it is common for kids to vomit in the car ride home. Actually, her doctor kept saying "puke" and I thought it was funny to hear from the doctor. Thankfully that didn't happen. She slept all the way! Unfortunately, they would not give me have any sedative or let me bring any home.

Now we are home and she is all camped out on the sofa. She was hungry and ate a popsicle, yogurt, pudding, and is now waiting for me to get her some ice cream. We had a battle over taking the pain medicine--I am dreading that every 4 hours! They said today would be her best eating day and I just need to make sure she is drinking the rest of the week.

Bridget is with her Papa today. She has been so clingy to me the last couple months, this is good for her. They went and got the medicine from the pharmacy for me and dropped it off here. It was up to her if she stayed home or went back, she didn't even want to come in. So it is just Becca and me hanging out for a while.

Just some things

Today I got to chase a school bus down the road.

This was Bridget's last day of school before Spring Break. For fun, they had a movie party in her class. (They got a certain number of points for behavior and this was the prize). She got to take her pj's, a pillow, and a special snack. I sent a small pillow with her for a couple reasons. One, I didn't want her to share it with a friend. (There has been a lice issue in the school this year). Two, she has to take it back and forth on the bus, and a large pillow is just too much.

I guess a small pillow is too.

She came home and seemed really tired and looked pale. I had her chill out on the sofa. There has been a serious Strep problem in her classroom. 11 of the 20 kids have had it in the last 2 weeks--one day last week, 4 kids were sent home! So far, somehow, it has skipped her. I figured that since the last thing I want is for Becca to be in direct contact with Strep, now would be when Bridget gets it. But it seems she was just tired and I was over-reacting. She was chilling for about 10 minutes when she burst out in tears. In her tears and panic she tells me she left her pillow on the bus.

Well, she is one of the first dropped off the bus and I sort of know the route. We jumped in the van and raced around the corner to see if we had missed Mr. Wayne on his last street. I couldn't believe it when he came around the corner! So as he is driving down the street, out of the neighborhood, I am flashing my lights, honking, and waving at him. He saw us and stopped. He knew what we were after and had it ready for me at the door. Pillow saved from Spring Break on a bus.

We found out today that Becca's surgery is set for early Friday morning. My wonderful neighbor is going to be gone over the weekend, but she gave Becca an early get-well bag of goodies today. So thoughtful! She packed up a bunch of her dvd's for us to watch, gave her a huge bag of Jello and pudding, new coloring books and big coloring pages, crayons, stickers, a sticker book, a puzzle, maybe more. See, I told you she was wonderful. Thanks Lynne!

Lastly, I am happy to have American Idol back on. I totally love the new rule this year too. I not surprised about the results tonight. I would have kept Jasmine over Megan, but that's okay. People ask me if I actually call in and vote--yes I do. Last night I made many calls for Danny!

Nervous

That is how I'm feeling about life in general. Things just feel a little off so far this year. I guess it's just not me. I only see or hear a few minutes of news a week. Enough to know that things are crappy all around, but I didn't think enough to "get" me.

A lot of my feeling is Becca's tonsillectomy on Friday. For my kid that has never even had antibiotics, this is a major deal. Taking a part of her out. Yikes! It scares the crap out of me. What if she starts getting sick all the time after this? I will be so mad at myself. Why would she start getting sick though? She will just be able to sleep without interruption. That is the goal. We are doing this on Friday the13th. That seems like a bad deal. That is silly superstition, right? We do this on Friday and she will have 9 full days to recover over Spring Break. It should all be fine. I'm still a little freaked out about it.

As I worry about my things, Bridget has already started to worry and be sad about the end of her first grade year. She does not want to leave her class. She does not want a new teacher. There are only 2 months of school left after Spring Break. These are her words, her worries. Of course, those are in addition to everyday worries she has-- vampires getting in the house as bats thru the fireplace and scorpions hiding under the sofa. Poor Bridget.

Finally some nice weather!

We finally had some nice days this week! It is so much easier to get where you need to go when you are not loaded down in layers of clothes and coats.

Since I have not blogged much, I should share some of the activities we are doing around here. A couple Mondays a month, Bridget goes to Daisy Girls Scouts. I am the leader of her Troop and that has been fun this year. In a couple weeks we have our first field trip.

Every week, both girls, go to cheerleading and dance. In dance, they are working hard to learn the dances they will perform at the recital in June. They both have cute costumes this year. I did not like Bridget's construction cone orange costume last year. This year she will be in a ballet wearing pink and Becca is doing a tap performance in red. Cute!

At Christmas we were able to finally get a piano. I have wanted one for so long. Bridget loves it and desperately wanted to take lessons. Through one of her classmates, we found a reasonable teacher. This is the 4th activity of the week. Her teacher has a daughter that is in First grade at Bridget's school. Sometimes she stays at her house after the lesson to play for a while. Becca HATES when this happens. Becca does not believe that anything should happen without her. So yesterday, during piano time, Becca and I went to a park and enjoyed the weather.

Rainbow Birthday

The first couple pictures here are from Thursday, the actual birthday. The rest are from the weekend.

When I asked Bridget what sort of party she wanted, it was "rainbow". I had to be a little creative as the party store didn't have the rainbow theme ready for me to purchase.

I did find some rainbow decorations that worked. My proud moment was my rainbow cake. It turned out so pretty. We also had a rainbow of m&m's, fruity pebble and fruit loop crispie treats, rainbow goldfish and twizzlers.

I'm not going to put Saturday's photos on here because I don't know if all the girls parents would approve.

I took pictures of the cake before I baked it because it seemed interesting.

Better blogging

Okay, so I have been a horrible blogger. This is mostly due to the discovery of Facebook. But I'm gonna try harder over here.

First off, Bridget turned seven last Thursday. I can see such change in her. She can understand and reason out things so much more. She is also testing a lot. She says that she seems to know are wrong, but waits for my reaction. She is very kind hearted girl, but is trying out some mean words. It makes me sad and I have made it very clear to her that it is not acceptable here.

Anyways.....last Thursday I was off work so Becca and I went and joined Bridget for lunch and treats with her class at school. We usually go to Rain Forest Cafe for her birthday, but since they closed we didn't know what to do. I thought about going to play mini-golf but then all plans got canceled by Becca. She has this weird fever going on most of last week. So we stayed home and had Chinese delivery. Everyone was happy with that.

Bridget didn't ask for much. The thing she has been asking for is a pogo stick. She wanted one last year, but I said no. Well, I ordered her one and I don't think she is heavy enough to make it bounce. Becca wanted to get something for her too. She chose a bunny Webkinz.

We had 2 parties over the weekend--one for school friends and one for family. I'm going to post those pictures separate.

Below is the wish list she made. It is so sweet. In case you don't read as phonetic as she writes, it says: gift certificate, love, hug, kisses, crayons, pencils, Wii dance, clothes, flowers, blankets.

Warning to Pet Owners

I don't have time right now to investigate this. It was on Craigslist, so it could or could not be true. But if it is, I want everybody I know, to know this.

New WARNING for pet owners

Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don't have a pet, please pass this to those who do.

Over the weekend the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. They loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog Calypso decided that the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way. The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her morning walk . Half way through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's website, this product is HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.

Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey's, and they claim that 'It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won't eat it.'

. Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other Garden supply stores, contains a lethal ingredient called ' Theobromine'. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks. Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline. A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.

Valentine's Day Box

Last week Bridget's homework was for us to make her Valentine's Day box. She has been all about rainbows and unicorns recently so we decided on a "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" theme. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Chapstick

"Mommy, if I put chapstick on my chin, will it make lips grow?"

Guess who asked that.


If you guessed Becca, you are wrong.

Misc. things

I have not picked up my camera in quite some time. I have not downloaded any photos from the camera in an even longer time. So that is what I did this morning. There were a few there that I want to share. Since I have yet to figure out how people get captions with their photos I'll just tell you that a lot of these are from Christmas. Some are of the girls are Noah's birthday party at A Flip Zone and the last ones are the girls making (and eating) the candy necklace and bracelet set Becca got for Christmas.

Getting it done

I have been working hard at getting my house to look how I want it to.SLOWLY--but it is happening. Our dining room does not serve that purpose. It is set up as the girls playroom and it is always the pit of the house. It really bothers me because it is the room that you see first when entering the house. Well, that is all cleaned up and looks presentable now. We got a piano at Christmas and it needed a place to live. So Bridget was more than willing to help me clean stuff out to make room in there. The only think I don't like so much is that the walls are still white, but that will have to be for now.

About painting--I'm not really good at this. I discovered that when we moved in and painted bedrooms. At Thanksgiving I took on the hall bathroom. I let the girls choose the color ( and yep it is BRIGHT) but it is still not done in there. Sad. Maybe, now that I have confessed that, I'll feel pressured to finish soon.

I really want my living room and kitchen painted, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Depending if I work this summer or not, maybe then. I have the colors all picked out though.

Right now, I have over 350 boxes of Girls Scout cookies in the house. I am hoping that most of them get picked up today. We will have to deliver next week. I am wishing that we didn't have to do this is such cold.

I am so happy to see the sun out this morning. It is still miserable cold, it is just a little better with the sun though. The cold and clouds get old very quick.

Both Bridget and Becca were invited to birthday parties yesterday. Bridget has been to a couple this year while Becca has not. She was excited about it and it sounds like she had a great time.
Speaking of parties, our season of parties is about to begin. Sawyer turns 2 this week and his party is over the weekend. Then we have Bridget's at the end of February. Kristin gave me a fun idea that I think we are going to use for her's this year. We have only had family parties, but she wants a kid party too.

At work, "they" added 3 more kids to our room. That maxed us out at 24 kids. I didn't think that 3 more would be a big deal but when 24 kids are trying to eat lunch, well, it is just exhausting and so messy. I have to be a lot more careful now. Every time I move one of them is right next to me and I am tripping over them. I am glad all the new children have been girls. The group is even an even split now. If you remember we started the year with 14 boys and 5 girls and it was not a good balance. There is such a big difference between the kids too. Some kids are just not Montessori material and they just seem to exist through the days. Other kids love it and are excited to practice their lessons and get new ones.

Bridget just got a report card on Friday. She got a good report again. I continue to be disappointed with what they are working on, or what they are not working on actually. It is getting better, more challenging things I see coming home. I have really stepped back and stopped asking so many questions and tried to let Bridget "coast" through this last quarter. We work on spelling words each week and any homework that sent home (which is thankfully rare and easy). Her teacher made a special note that we have done a fabulous job learning her sight words and that she is trying to build Bridget's confidence in math. The sight words thing is funny because we never go over those. Bridget does have a confidence problem when you ask her direct questions about school work. She can know the answer and still sit there and be shy and tell you she doesn't know. It is so frustrating.

That is about it for my ramblings.

Happy New Year!

I know my family is wondering about pictures. I always do pictures at Christmas time. This year I did not want to go to the same place, so I waited. The weather has been so uncooperative that my other plan just is not going to work out. So yesterday I took the girls over to Portrait Innovations again. They do a good job. I am just a little tired of the poses and backgrounds. We didn't do the whole family portrait, just the girls. Maybe we will do a family one in the Spring. Usually Bridget is my professional at having her photo taken, but not yesterday. Becca out did her, but that is okay since I need more pictures of Becca to catch up with all the ones of Bridget.

Tonight we are doing our traditional New Year's Eve celebration--stay home and eat snacks all night. We told the girls they could camp out on the sofa all night if they wanted (Bridget is super excited about this).

I wish everyone a Happy New Year in 2009!

Winter Break

I have to say that a perk of working at a school is getting the school break like the kids. Friday was our last day. It was such a fun day! It was pajama day--I don't think I have ever gone to my job in my Pj's, but it was so comfy. The kids and their family's were so generous. I was surprised with the gifts I received--gift cards, lotions, ornaments, and lots of yummy baked goods. One of the teachers told me that the administrators get loaded with gifts, but they didn't say anything about the rest of the staff. We have a lot of thoughtful families.

I have not been very productive the last few weeks. I am still finishing up my shopping. I only have 5 people left and all but one I know what I want to get them. Not too bad. Now things need to start wrapping themselves and take their place under the tree. That would be sweet.

I have been holding off finishing the Twilight series until after Christmas. Those books were consuming me. I was staying up all hours of the night reading and I was exhausted all day. The third book left me in happy place with the characters and I felt I could stop there. I am getting weak though. I have the last book sitting on my shelf that I walk by 539 times a day. I actually picked it up last night and opened it to the first chapter, thinking I could just read a little. Then I closed the book, hit myself in the head with it. I will not be able to stop reading once I start. I must wait until after Christmas. I might have to give the book to my neighbor or Schaun to hide. I'm pathetic. Stupid vampire love story. Why do I like this? I do not like vampire stories!

Natural selection

Today ALL five chicks came out of the nest and I actually got a good shot of them all perched. The second from the right is a parent. You can sort of tell the color differences in this picture. The second from the left was the first hatched (this is Schaun's favorite one). I guess even in a cage, being watched by us, natural selection still goes on. I'm so bummed--one of the chicks, I think the youngest, (the dark one on the left) fell into the water dish and drowned. Poor thing. I have remedied the water situation so that should not happen again.

Baby birds

I went back and checked and I noticed the first chick hatched around November 17 and the other 4 hatched about 1 a day following. So all the babies look a little different each day. These pictures are how they look as they grow, which happens SO fast.

You can see in one picture, which was December 2, that I have 2 babies in my hand. One is feathery and one is not. Today, when I took the most recent pics, three of the babies are out of the nest and trying to fly. Two have not tried to come out yet. It is hard to tell because of the cage, but they all look different too. One is almost all white, one is a blonde color, and the third has a darker stripe down its back. The two in thenest appear to be darker all over, but it is hard to tell for sure.

December already

I cannot believe that Christmas is so close! Wow! Catch up time.

First, I started reading the Twilight series. I was not going to read these. I do not like vampire stories. It was getting to the point where everywhere I went these books seemed to be the topic of discussion. I was feeling left out. I decided to just read the first one, to have a little input and to assure myself that I do not like vampire stories. I am a sucker for great love stories though--and that is what this turned into. I read the first two books this weekend.

It seems like a blur of time since Thanksgiving. I feel like I am busy a lot, but not much has happened. I thought Bridget had pick eye, but turns out she has a sinus infection that I didn't notice any signs to. Becca has developed a hearing problem. It only seems to be related to hearing her parents, but it is getting to be a problem.

We have some Christmas decorations up and things are looking pretty. We put the tree up Saturday. I felt sad when it was done. After getting out the ornaments and realizing how many my Gramma had given us.

Yesterday I had a cookie exchange with some good friends. It was a good time. We do not see each other near enough. Now I have way too many cookies in the house. Yum!

I have some pictures that I have been taking of my baby birds. I'll post them later.