Conferences

Today was the Parent-Teacher Conferences for Dylan and Maddie.

First we had Maddie. She's right where she is supposed to be for reading and math. Her writing struggles a bit. I thanked the teacher giving her the love of learning. She said Maddie gets a little distracted in class and daydreams a bit and sometimes loses focus (nooo....not MY Maddie??? lol), but she's learning and keeping up with the class so that is definitely what is most important.

I got a little emotional at Dylan's conference. First of all, he brought his grades UP despite the fact that he was sick for a whole week. His GPA rose from 3.5 to 3.8!!!!! His math teacher said he was a rock star. I should be used to this by now but when I hear perfect strangers telling me how fantastic my kid is, it kind of gets to you after awhile. He would have had a 4.0 but he had a B+ in math, which the teacher said really would have been an A now since he made up his math work from when he was sick.

Anyway, now I'm off to enjoy the rest of my day.

Why so cold?

Last night Joel's parents wanted some time with the kids (read: we wanted some time alone) so we dropped them off there and went out to dinner and ran some errands. I swear that stopping at 4 different stores and then having dinner takes 1.5 hours LESS when you have no kids with you. Why is that? Never mind, I know why.

We are now officially ready for Halloween!! The kids have their costumes. I don't have the candy to hand out yet because someone (Joel) will eat it all. And if I hide it real good someone will eat it anyway (me). So I'm going to go get some on Saturday. We don't need much because we get maybe 10 trick-or-treaters at the most.

Today is their last day of school for the week. Maddie just went back to school YESTERDAY. They have conferences on Thursday and Friday. Actually, my kids have conferences on Thursday. That should be fun. As always.

New Picture ^^

Another picture that is a true depiction of the relationship between my children. No words necessary. Really. It says it all.

Music Monday

I am keeping the Madsters home from school today. She's not even that sick. It's hard to describe, but I'm now 90% sure she does not have the "S" word. She had a fever starting Friday at 3:30 until Saturday morning and then had one right before bed on Saturday but not again since. She's fine most of the time (hey, that's a lyric from a Ryan Star song...) but you can tell she just doesn't feel "right." She's certainly bringing cranky back, that's for damn sure. So she's hanging out with me today, which should be fun in the not-very-much way.

Dylan started his new job yesterday working for my dad and earned $15. He felt pretty proud of himself. He's learning good work ethic and I am really grateful for it. It was raining and everything but he went out and did his duties. It's about time he started earning his keep. HAHA No, he's saving up for video games of course, even though I thought he should start pitching in for groceries. He nixed that idea speedy quick.

One of our toilets got a little backed up yesterday. Dylan blamed Maddie....Maddie blamed Dylan...I knocked their heads together. I thought I'd have to make a run to Wal Mart this morning in the rain with a sick Maddie to get some Liquid Plumber or something but it seemed to have resolved itself. Aren't you glad you know that now? Thank God it did cause it's frickin pouring outside and I do NOT want to go out in it.

...and because it's Music Monday, I decided to leave you with Ryan Star's new video, which is more than just your typical music video. It features real people looking for jobs. It's very inspiring. It's a great video and a great song and of course, there's Ryan.....

Seafood Overload

Maddie was feeling way better last night so I made the decision that she could come with us to dinner. It was seafood night at the Casino Buffet and it was so worth it. I think we ate our weight in crab and clams and oysters and prime rib. Maddie didn't eat much, but she hates seafood so she ate some fruit and some BBQ pork. She had dessert of course though.

Afterwards the kids wanted to go to the Halloween carnival at Maddie's school. What a disaster that was. It's nearly impossible to get anywhere or find anything and I could see Maddie breaking down while we were there so we left.

By the time we got home she was crashed. She laid on the couch watching TV for awhile and then went to bed. I was a little worried cause she felt a little feverish, so I checked on her a bunch of times but she seemed fine. She woke up cranky, but really, that's rather normal for her.

She isn't as perky and bouncy as she was yesterday during the day, but she doesn't seem *that* bad. I will probably keep her home from school t0morrow just because. Unless she has some sort of miraculous recovery. I'm not 100% convinced it's swine. Maybe that's just the denial talking.

As you see I changed my blog background and decided to add a picture up there. I love that picture of my kids because it is a perfect depiction of their personalities. Dylan's the serious one and Maddie's the goofball. At the time I was trying to get a picture of them for a Christmas card and Maddie wouldn't stop goofing off and Dylan was getting totally annoyed with her but every once in awhile she'd do or say something that made even HIM laugh.

Round TWO

Yesterday Maddie came home with a fever of 101. Do you smell bacon? I definitely smell a pork product of some kind. (sorry I just watched Wayne's World for the 200,000th time).

Anyway, I am not going to take her to the Urgent Care so they can shove a swab up her nose and tell me what I already know. She slept "okay" but she woke up with a fever. She won't let me check her temperature anymore, so I may run and get one of the forehead or ear ones later. I only have an "under the tongue" one.

Today is my dad's birthday. Our original plan was to go to the Casino for dinner at the buffet and then go to Maddie's school carnival. Can you hear the sound of the brakes squealing? We've all been looking forward to this. I'm trying to work it so we can still go. Either Joel will stay home with her or Mam will come watch her. Or, if by some miracle it's not the S word and she feels better, maybe she'll come. That's about a 0.004% chance.

We got our computer back yesterday and thanks to my father's connections (that sounds very "mob-like" lol) we got a big discount on the repairs. YAY

We decided that this is the last time we fix this beast. If it goes down again - it's new puter time.

Well.....suck it

Suck it seems to be the phrase that runs through my brain pretty much all the time right now. At the moment nothing seems to be going my way.

I thought we were having a swine flu relapse last night as Dylan wasn't feeling well but he woke up feeling better.

Maddie only slept until 4:00 this morning. Seriously. Tonight is supposed to be Friday Night Movie Night, but I think it's going to be Friday Night Cranky Girl Night. Maddie will probably be cranky too.

I'm supposed to get paid this weekend and since it falls on a weekend it's a crapshoot whether it gets deposited on Friday or Monday, depending on how the bank feels at the moment and based on the current suck it state of mind I'm not going to be suprised if it's Monday simply because I could really use that money right now. Broke would be an improvement.

This morning I tripped going upstairs. With a mug of hot coffee in my hand. I had laundry clean laundry in the other. I caught myself with my forearm because I was trying to save both of the above-mentioned held items, but instead I spilled the coffee on me, my laundry, the carpet, the wall and oddly enough the curtain that was about 6 feet up the stairs. I'm not burned, but I have a wicked rug burn on my arm.

If you do not watch the show Tosh.0...you should. It's on Comedy Central. Joel and I watch it religiously every week and we both laugh until we cry. There was a clip from last night I wanted to post here, but it's potentially offensive to a certain group of people. Just imagine that it was funny.

Maddie-ism

Yesterday on the way to the bus stop I asked her about her conferences and what she thought the teacher would say to me.

She said "Well, sometimes she gets mad at kids when they talk too much."

So I said "Would you be one of those kids?"

She was quiet for a minute and then said "Well, mom, I can't really help it if I have a lot of friends!"

So this should be fun....

Greetings from the Hole

It's been awhile since I posted and I have good reason for this. My computer is down. I have my work computer but I am not supposed to use it for anything other than work, not to mention it's rather primitive and slow and if I have my work system up and the internet up at the same time it works at a snail's pace. I decided I should risk it for a few minutes to update my blog since it's been like a week.

Dylan has recovered nicely from the Swine. He had a fairly mild case of it. Other than the fever and cough, he was pretty much good. By Friday his fever was finally gone on it's own and he was feeling better and driving me totally batty from cabin fever. By Saturday he was 100% better and I wanted to throttle him. I almost missed the kid who laid on the couch all day watching TV to the one who wandered around the house whining about being bored and creating new ways to use his mouth for evil. He did fold a load of laundry and change the sheets on his bed after only being asked once, which is some kind of world record. Boredom will tend to do that to someone, make them do ANYTHING in order to be doing SOMETHING. Or maybe he just had a momentary lapse of pre-pubescent rebellion.

The computer died on Thursday morning. It started up fine and then I walked out of the room and came back 15 minutes later to having it continuously restarting. Oh.Crap. So I took it to the PC Doctor, who were formally my favorite people in the world and as of last night they couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. They couldn't even boot it up. Double Crap.

We went to the pumpkin patch this weekend and got pumpkins and carved and painted them. I have pictures but of course, I can't get them on this dinosaur, we have to wait until the money sucking computer gets back from the doctor.

Nothing else too exciting. Dylan went back to school yesterday. I think he was just as glad as I was. I am pretty sure he was just as sick of tripping over me as I was of him.

Joel got his deer on Saturday. It was a 2-hour hunting season this year. Amazing. I'd show you pictures but he kind of shot it in the face and it's not really "visually bloggable." You can thank me now.

Dylan update

Dylan's doing good. He goes in phases. He gets better, he gets worse. The cough and the fever are the worst of it. He slept good last night, which was a good thing. His fever was up when he went to bed and when he woke up. It must have broke while he was sleeping otherwise he would not have slept as good. It's 101.2 now.

It's a rainy Wednesday. A good day to stay inside and do nothing. I have to make it over to the school later to pick up his homework for the week though.

Rachel was a saint last night and brought over a TON of games and movies to keep him busy. He is so psyched. He's planning what to watch and when. At the moment though, Maddie herself is glued to Harry and the Hendersons.

Don't Come Around Here No More

This morning Dylan tested positive for the swine flu.

Do not enter the house of ill unless you dare to be exposed to the swine.

He's pretty sick, but to be totally honest I'm more worried about him dying of boredom since he can't go to school for the rest of the week. He's been home 2 hours and is already bored.

If anyone has any movies or video games that might interest him, feel free to set them on the doorstep, knock on the door and run. I wouldn't blame you if you did.

Hopefully this is the end and not the beginning.

It's a Monday

Today the kids have no school. No, it's not because of Columbus Day - it's another Learning Improvement Day. Before I started to complain about that I looked at the calendar and it looks like they don't have another one of these until just before Thanksgiving.....I was EXCITED. But then I realized that just because they don't have another LID day until then, doesn't mean they don't have days off....they have 2 days off at the end of October for conferences. So my excitement was short-lived.

Nothing special happened this weekend. I got a lot of cleaning done and Joel finished his hunting shopping (hunting season starts on Saturday). Maddie watched Toy Story 2 by herself yesterday (we forgot about it Saturday because we were busy playing the Wii). She LOVED Toy Story 2 and now I think I have to buy it for her. She said "When is the 3rd one coming out again?" Not soon enough. Dylan started in with a cough yesterday so I'm keeping him resting for a bit because he can't afford to miss any school. He needs to keep up. He knows that though.

It's been really nice having TV back again. I mean like, new episodes of shows, not the actual TV itself, we've always had that.

Here are the shows we're watching:

Californication
Amazing Race (Zev and Justin were my favorites and also the Globetrotters)
Desperate Housewives
How I Met Your Mother
Accidentally on Purpose (a new show that I don't totally hate yet)
The Big Bang Theory
The Biggest Loser
Modern Family (LOVE LOVE LOVE this show)
Cougar Town (scratch that, we stopped watching it last week....it wasn't that funny to me)
Survivor (barely....I'm really tired of the "Russell show", when they showed the other team last week I realized I didn't even know who these people were.....WTF?)
The Office (yay for the wedding!!!)

That's all I think. Oh yea, I'm also watching My Antonio. As if there was a doubt I would. I'm rooting for Brooke all the way and have since the beginning. In the land of silicone and collagen, she's a breath of fresh air.

That's all for today. I wanted to go for my walk today and I told the kids that they were coming with me today since they're home but with Dylan's cough I don't think it's the best idea. He's now legally old enough to stay home by himself....and babysit.....haha, yea right. I would come home to the two of them beating each other with Wii remotes. Fun.

To Infinity and Beyond!!!!

Last night we had Friday Night Movie Night (yea, we skipped our newly anointed "new game night" for a week). We had originally planned to go see the 3-D Toy Story 1 and 2 in the theater this weekend but many factors contributed to our decision to bag it - one was the fact that 3-D movies make me dizzy; another is that although Maddie does do well in the movie theater now, I'm pretty sure two movies would be too much for her attention span. So considering those things, we opted to rent them and watch them at home - one at a time of course. Last night was Toy Story 1. Of course, everyone but Maddie has seen it - in fact it was the first movie Dylan had seen in the theater. I spent many a Saturday and Sunday movie taking a nap to that movie (lol). Anyway, Maddie loved it although she claimed on numerous occasions that she would hate it. Tonight we're watching Toy Story 2. The Husky game is also on so I think it will be a mom, Dylan and Maddie movie night with dad going back and forth between TVs.

It was a crazy day yesterday. First of all, Dylan had home work to finish so I had to wake him up at 6:30 to get it done (yawn). He ended up taking wayyyy too long to eat his breakfast so I had to wake a very unhappy Maddie up to take him to school because he missed the bus. I decided to take this up-and-at-em moment and pick up a few things at the grocery store for dinner. By the time we got home from that Maddie had about 5 minutes to eat breakfast and get dressed before school.

I've changed my walking routine a little bit. Instead of leaving from my house after Maddie gets on the bus, I started taking her to school and then leaving my car in the parking lot and walking from there. I walk the same amount of miles and time, but it's safer because there are sidewalks everywhere I walk. Some mornings it's pretty foggy and it makes me a little nervous walking on the busy road with no sidewalk or much of a shoulder to speak of. Dylan sees me walk by his school too, which he thinks is pretty cool (so he says anyway).

After my walk I had 30 minutes to shower and get dressed so I could meet Joel for lunch. We ate at a Thai restaurant on BI that he sometimes eats at. It was so good. After that I went to Hollywood video to rent Toy Story. It wasn't there. Of course not. I spent Dylan's birthday gift card in Game Crazy for Dylan. They're closing and everything is super cheap. Of course, they don't have very many good games left either....but I did what I could.

Since HWV did not have Toy Story I decided to head to Wal Mart and just buy it. Guess what.....they didn't have it. The sales girl even looked it up and they don't even flipping carry it. I called everyone I could think of that might have it to borrow it and nobody had it. I decided to go back to HWV and just get something different and disappoint my family. I told the guy at the counter about how they wanted to watch Toy Story and he called the Silverdale HWV and they had Toy Story in, all I had to do was pick it up. YAY. Unfortunately at this time it was 1:50 and Dylan gets out of school at 2:30 and on Friday's I pick the kids up from school. Damn. So I waited for Dylan to get out of school and then we ran to Silverdale to get it. We made it back with 10 minutes left before Maddie got out of school. Anyway, I felt like I had been out and about all.day.long. If you know me, you know I just like a day at home by myself.

Dylan got his midterm grades yesterday, which were excellent. I'm 100% sure I never got any grades that looked like this, not even midterm. He just needs to keep that up and I have no doubt that he will.

Randomness

I felt like blogging, but not about anything in particular so here are some random thoughts flying out of my brain this early morning.

• For some bizarre reason whenever I watch The Biggest Loser, I get the munchies. All those big people trying to lose weight makes me hungry. I'm just doing my part to even out the weight of the world.
  
• I've discovered that now that Dylan has to be up by 7:00, he sleeps in. I've had to wake him up nearly every day. Never mind the fact that he was up and at 'em by 6:30 all summer long. Now he chooses to sleep in. When I wake him up he wakes up in panic mode. This morning he flew out of bed and said "I want to sleep on that side." ?WTF? I don't know. Strange child.
  
• Last night we had the most beautiful sunset. It cast a beautiful pink shadow all over our yard. It was gorgeous.
• Maddie is feeling better and went back to school yesterday finally (yay me). I finally got to go on a walk again.
  
• Our neighbors house was being painted this week. I went out my garage door to take the garbage out and I had the most undelightful pleasure of seeing one of the painters taking a pee. Yea, dude. I could see you. My eyes burned with pain.
  
• Last night I had to ground the kids from the Wii for the first time. They were playing a game together when Maddie hit Dylan with the Wii remote (she claims it was an accident, but I will never know for sure) then he hit her with his and then we had a regular Wii rumble going on. They sat in their rooms for 10 minutes and then were grounded from it for the rest of the day. I told them the next time they turn a Wii game into a physical confrontation they're grounded for 2 days. Hopefully it won't happen again, but who am I kidding? Can you imagine if Joel and I did that? We were already laughing that the neighbors probably watch us in there and think we are fighting....lol
  
• The kids have yet ANOTHER 3-day weekend this week. I swear we just had one....they're killing me with these days.
  

Dear Garbage Man:

I do appreciate you coming to our house every Wednesday and picking up our garbage. I understand that you have a schedule to keep and all, but would it be too much to ask to come maybe a little later??? Between 6:00-6:30 is just too early for me. It wouldn't be so bad if your truck wasn't so loud. It doesn't help that we live in a cul-de-sac so you have to actually turn around right in front of our house and make that godawful beeping noise right in front of Maddie's bedroom window. I'm thinking 8:00 would be a better time for all of us.

Thanks for your understanding.

Video and Maddie update

1) Maddie feels better tonight. She laid on the couch all day long and pretty much did nothing, ate nothing, drank nothing. She watched Scooby Doo, Willy Wonka, and even Barney. Her fever was high all afternoon and it wasn't until after 5:00 that she finally got off the couch and said the best words ever "I'm hungry." She had a whole thing of yogurt and my day was MADE. Her fever had broke and she even wanted to play the Wii. She ate a little dinner, but not a lot. She seems to be better, but not 100%. I probably will keep her home again tomorrow unless she makes a miraculous recovery between now and then, which I can't see happening.

2) Remember that video I said I made for Dylan's birthday? I finally got it uploaded to YouTube successfully....WOOO

Here it is. Watch it. It's only just a little less than 8 minutes long. It's not that bad. It could be worse, trust me. It was over 10 minutes before I did some editing.

Four years in the making

Last night Maddie woke up at 2:00 in the morning complaining of ear pain. I know that her 6 year molars are currently making their way in so I figured the symptom was from that. However every 5 minutes for the next few hours she was either crying or whining from her bed or standing next to my bed. After about an hour of this I figured it had to be more than just the teeth. Finally at 6:00 this m0rning I took her downstairs and put her on the couch with a movie and she ended up falling asleep (finally). I hoped that a little sleep would make her feel bed. WRONG. She was worse. So I hauled her butt to the urgent care where she was found to have her first ear infection in 4 years. The first one since the glorious tubes were put in. She had a fever too and was generally miserable. We then proceeded to go through the most horrible Wal Mart Pharmacy experience ever (after Rachel's of course). Finally, another 4 hours later we have our prescription. There is nothing worse than standing around Wal Mart with a 6-year-old with a fever, an ear infectiou and no sleep.

Now I get to spend my afternoon working. At least she finally has some meds in her and hopefully she's going to be back to what would be a semi-version of normal in the next 12 hours. Mama and Maddie BOTH need some sleep. ASAP

Dancing in the dark

Today is Dylan's first school dance. I was actually surprised that he wanted to go in the first place, because that boy hates to dance about as much as he hates broccoli. He said he was going to go so he could hang out with his friends. Joel and I lectured him about dancing with girls when they ask, which made him horrified at the thought. I told him that if a girl asks him to fast dance, politely say "No thank you, but I could slow dance with you when a slow song comes on" and he thought that was a good idea. I taught him how to slow dance - the old fashioned way, not the hugging-while -moving-way. I told him that turning down a middle school girl for a dance will scar her for life. It hurts her self esteem and crushes her (yea I exaggerated, but if you know Dylan, you have to be harsh or he doesn't get it).

I had to promise not to ask him if he danced with any girls. He said he won't tell me no matter what. That's fine. That won't be me peeking in the windows, either.