Grades, ailments, and tires

Yesterday I had parent/teacher conferences.

Maddie's went pretty well. As I suspected, she's below grade level, mostly with reading. She has made HUGE advances in 2nd grade so far, just in the two months she's been there, but it's not enough. She's going to be getting special help from a one on one reading tutor. She's also going to be seeing an occupational therapist about her penmanship. She's going to evaluate the left/right handed thing. The teacher thinks there is a possibility that she's left handed and we never noticed. She always reaches for things with her right hand, but it's possible she could write left handed. We'll find out. She may go to speech therapy too. She has a slight stutter, although it's more of a hesitation, and it's only every once in awhile. The teacher was also very pleased with Maddie's progress. Maddie shows a love of reading and a desire to learn, which is huge, especially when you are a little behind to begin with. It shows that she CAN catch up. I don't expect perfection from her. I just expect her to do her best and I'm very happy with the results.

I don't know why I bother going to Dylan's. It's just an ego boost for him. The teachers rave on and on about what a great kid he is. His math teacher is going to use him to help other kids who struggle with math. How much can you say about a kid whose short and long term goals are to get straight As, not A-'s? I don't expect perfection out of him either, he just has a higher level of expectations for himself. I wish he felt that way about his room.

I'm sick for the first time in a REALLY long time. It started about a week ago and it got better and now it feels like knives in my throat. ARGH. GO AWAY. Although, honestly, I'd rather be sick 365 days of the year than have my kids or Joel sick.

Joel had a flat tire two days ago after hunting and this morning he got rear ended. His truck is monstrous and the car was not, so his truck is just fine.

Halloween is Sunday. Maddie will be a lady bug and Dylan will be Dylan. Apparently 13 is the magic age of not dressing up anymore. It's become a tradition now for Joel to take the kids out and for me to hand out candy to the 3 people who show up at our door. This year, I have to work, and Dylan is staying home and handing out candy.

I once was lost....

Today was one of those days as a mother you never want to see again. I've lost Dylan three times in his whole life.

The first time, he was 3. Joel, Dylan, and I were in Target looking at boys clothes. Because Dylan is a boy, and needed clothes. As a 3-year-old boy he had no interest in looking at such clothes so he was zipping in and out of clothing racks pretending to be a motorcycle or some other such Dylan-like situation. After awhile, I could no longer hear the vroom vroom of my son's engine. Joel and I called for him. Nothing. We searched. Nothing. He went one way, I RAN the other screaming his name. Over the sound of my mother screams I hear "Will Dylan's mother please come to customer service?" He wisely went to the front of the store and told him his name and that he was lost. He did the right thing. He learned it from Sesame Street.

The second time, he was about 7 or 8. It was after school. It was actually about 15 minutes after the bus was SUPPOSED to have dropped him off. I had Maddie here, who was a baby. I was hysterical that he was picked up by some stranger in a white van as soon as he got off the bus. It's not like the bus driver really cares. I called Joel freaking out. He was calm and told me to be calm. He was almost home so he said he would check the neighborhood. He got home. No Dylan. The phone rings. Strange number on the caller ID. My mother mind is thinking it's someone calling for Ransom or the police to tell me they found his body (although they did not even know he was missing). It was Dylan. He was at his friend's house down the street. He wanted a ride home. This time, he didn't learn this from Sesame Street. He did learn what "grounding" means though.

The third time was today. Here is the story.

Here's the back story. We have a large amount of forest behind our house. Dylan and his friends spend a lot of time there. He was really excited to show it to Jordan.

Jordan and Riley were spending the afternoon with us. It was wet, but not raining, so they went for their walk in the woods, just Dylan and Jordan. After awhile it started to rain. HARD. Like biblical rain. Get your Ark and paddle rain. I called his cell phone and said he needed to come back. A few minutes later he called and said "what's the worst thing I could say right now?" My heart sunk. It could be just about anything. He said he was not sure where they were. I had just started my shift at work and I had Maddie and Riley here playing. Thankfully, my neighbor was home so I shuttled the girls over there and her husband came with me out in the woods. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. They couldn't hear my yelling. I couldn't hear them. Joel got there and sat at the edge of the forest honking and they couldn't hear that. They were deep in the woods. They were getting scared. I was terrified. Thankfully, some clouds broke and showed some blue sky and we were able to direct them to walk with the patch of blue sky to their right, which would lead them south, which was the direction of home. They found a house finally and knocked on the door and found out where they were and Joel came to get them.

Scary is an understatement. As a mom, I was terrified. I knew that we would find them eventually. They were in a section of forest that was probably 5 square miles, but my biggest fear was that they would get hurt and we figured drawing them out would be easier than finding them where they were.

I'm very much ready for this day to be over.

Nothing and Nobody

I recently switched my hours at work. This is my first week doing it, but so far I like it.

OLD SCHEDULE:

Sunday 1:00 to 9:00

Monday 1:00 to 6:00

Tuesday 1:00 to 5:00

Wednesday 1:00 to 5:00

Thursday 1:00 to 5:00

Friday and Saturday: OFF

NEW SCHEDULE:

Sunday 1:00 to 9:00

Monday 10:00 to 6:00

Tuesday 1:00 to 5:00

Wednesday 9:00 to 5:00

Thursday, Friday, Saturday: OFF

The reason I am doing this is because:

1. In an 8-hour period I tend to be far more productive than in a 4-hour period.

2. I pick Dylan up at 2:30 and Maddie up at 3:45, so my work is interrupted two times in a 4-hour period, which hinders production INTENSELY. Adding hours to the day makes it so I can be super-productive in the morning and pick up the kids without really causing a decrease in my production for the day.

3. I wanted a 3-day weekend.

4. If for some reason I want or need hours, I can work Thursdays and still have two days off. I'm trying to lessen the chance of me working Saturdays, which seems to be what I have been doing every Saturday.

Maddie is a total smart ass. This is nothing new, but it's now rolling over into school. The other day she came home with a piece of paper and a note that said she need to redo it with "more appropriate sentances." When I use the words "innappropriate" with Maddie it usualy means she's showing her butt or doing something nasty. I was scared. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either.

She had to draw a picture of a squirrel. She had to fill out the questions.

What is the Squirrel's name?

What does the Squirrel like to do?

Who is the Squirrel's best friend.

Her answers were "No", "Nothing", and "Nobody".

Better than butt, pee, and poop. I guess.

For the birds...

My family is the best. They sure do love me.

ahem

My fear of birds is well-known to everyone. This is true. My family like to use this to their advantage, like for instance...spending extra long amounts of time at the bird display at the fair....placing bird feeders in the backyard.

Here's a visual story for you. Picture it playing out in your head.

We're on the ferry. We are outside in the front waiting to get off. There is a bird just chilling on the railing. A seagull, to be specific. Joel starts walking really slowly towards the bird. I am not sure if he was trying to scare me or the bird, or a combination of the two. He got up right next to the bird and it did.not.move. He was literally inches from this beast. I was NOT amused. The kids were. Quite amused actually.

They slowly made their way over there too, so now my three (formerly) favorite people are hanging out with the enemy. Honestly, in retrospect, if I had not been frozen in terror it would have made a great photo. Good thing the bird did not attack, because I was NOT coming to anyone's rescue. They would have had to learn that lesson the hard way.

Cloudy with a chance of misfortune

Yesterday the boys went to the WWE Monday Night Raw show. Gag me with a spoon. What a tool fest that is. It's just a soap opera with waxed, oily men in their underwear and trashy women. It's disgusting. Dylan took over 200 pictures last night.

Guess who had to weed through that garbage this morning? You're looking at a winner here.

Maddie has caught herself a little cold. That bites. So far I haven't had to keep her home from school, although if it hadn't been for Joel's dad this morning, she would have been staying home for other reasons. That reason was....

I woke up this morning with a flat tire. Double bite.

I have been working A LOT lately. Mostly just volunteering to work extra, but when you need the money, you gotta do what you gotta do, and so far my millionaire card hasn't been drawn so I'll just keep pounding the keys. I've actually been dreaming about work. That bites hard.

Don't you love posts filled with sunshine? Yea, me either. Keep moving.

Yada, Yada, Yada

Today is Friday. It's my day off, yet I'm working. Yea, shocking, I know. I work so much that I considered actually just permanently going full time, but I kind of like the option of *not* working if I want.

Our movie for tonight is Karate Kid. We had a backup in case Redbox was out, which is not only a possibility, it's a probability; our backup was Teen Wolf, which we already have. Since last night was Thursday, which is Grandpa night, he took the kids to Wal Mart and got them a few things - one of which was Karate Kid. Awesome. Saves me a dollar. Now I can have lunch today.

Dylan got his 1st quarter progress report. It was all As. Actually, there was one B, which was supposed to be an A except there was a paper he turned in that the teacher didn't record in time so it was a B, but she said it should be read as an A.

This weekend will be a dull one full of lots of work, as usual. Joel and I both.

Monday is the WWE Raw in Seattle that Joel and Dylan are going to. Thank God I don't have to go to that barf-o-rama. What a nightmare.

Maddie's been really into Anne of Green Gables lately, so I introduced her to Little House on the Prairie. She didn't enjoy it as much as I thought and to be completely honest, I didn't really enjoy it much either. I guess memories do grow fonder with age. Or perhaps disappear altogether.

Job Description

Being a grown up is hard. Everyone knows this. Except children. Being a child is easy. Everyone knows this. Except children.

My children have a good life. An easy life. I don't impose many chores, or any chores for that matter. I simply ask for a little common sense and respect among those who have to live in the house. The job description of a Rogers child is easy.

You wake up. If you're cranky - don't get out of bed until you can compose yourself like a person I'd like to talk to. (I'm talking to you Maddie).

You eat breakfast. In our house we have several (and I mean SEVERAL) choices of breakfast. When I was a kid we had cereal. Now we have hot pockets, toaster scrambles, toast, cereal, pop tarts, bacon, oatmeal, and even occasionally I throw in a day of hot pancakes or french toast, and on the exciting day, they have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (don't laugh, this is a TREAT for them...they love it). Anyway, back to the topic - with all of these options of breakfast, whining about not having anything to eat is ridiculous. So stop it. There are no other options unless you want to go outside and eat some grass. Enjoy yourself.

You get dressed for school. This means clean socks. This means clean underwear. This means clothes that match or at least do not hurt my eyeballs. This means clothes that are weather appropriate. Shorts in December is not. A sweater on a 75 degree day is not. A dress on PE day is not .

You go to school. Unless you're projectile vomiting or spiking a temperature there is no way out of it and arguing about it will only bring bad things to you. Trust me. There is nothing you can say to me to get you to stay home just because, so suck it up and go.

You come home. I realize being in school for 6 hours is a pain in the butt. I went to school. I hated it. However, you are home now. You should be happy about this situation instead of being a thorn in my side.

You do your homework. There is no way around this activity. Homework must be done. Putting it off, which is not allowed, only cuts into fun times like watching TV or playing with toys, which can't happen until homework is done anyway, so again....suck it up and do it. Also, doing it neatly and correctly the first time means you get done faster and can move onto other exciting things. I know it's fun to erase an entire math worksheet because you blew through it and didn't do it correctly or neatly, but we try to avoid this situation.

You eat your dinner. I don't care what it is. If it's on you're plate, it has a one way ticket to your belly. There are no free passes. There are no negotiations. I am not a bad cook, I know this because I eat my food too, so you eat your dinner and then you smile and say thank you. (ha)

You leave me alone. Sometimes, mom wants to sit down and read a book. Sometimes mom wants to use the potty without having a conversation through the door. Sometimes mom wants to fold laundry (not) without having to refold it after you dive bombed the bed.

You keep your room looking semi-normal. Dylan apparently hasn't grasped this concept yet, and as he gets older it gets worse. I went to clean it for him the other day and I was scared. I am pretty sure there is a family of 4 living under his bed.

You sleep. Hopefully, you sleep good. If not we start the day over again in a cranky fashion.

Seems reasonable, right?