Available at 
Tweet
I guess I'll start with the kiddos:
Andrew is deeply entrenched in his new teen lifestyle: Nothing short of a nuclear reaction wakes him up in the morning for school, and he would sleep in all day on the weekends if we didn't come in and wake him up. He has hit the zone when it comes to school and is still knocking it out of the park. Getting high marks has become the norm now for him instead of the exception like it was last year when he was floundering at the new school. I'm so relieved and so...proud of him. He has worked so hard and I really see him growing up a lot. Most recently, we had a great conversation about Elie Wiesel's Night and his feelings about the Holocaustt really blew me away. He helps out a lot more with the little ones and has only forgotten his saxophone twice this year....so far! Our biggest struggle for him continues to be social.
Amanda. Hmmmmmm. Right after my most recent blog entry, I had her first school conference back at the middle school. I was anticipating that it would go smoothly because every paper Amanda has shown me has had good grades on it. She seems relaxed and happy and I didn't suspect anything might be...well, you know...wrong!
Her teacher set me up:
"How do you think Amanda is doing?"
"I'm relieved that things are going so smoothly for her this year!"
I could hear the crickets chirping in the background as the silence between us grew.
"I feel like I'm off target here. Can you fill me in?"
And fill me in she did. Apparently, Amanda had not turned in homework for American Studies since Sept. 9th. She was so far behind that she was basically failing the 7th grade.
"I don't understand why this comes as a shock to you. You have signed her missing assignment reports."
Turns out I hadn't....and for the most part, neither had Thomas. She had signed them herself with Thomas' initials.
If you had looked out over the skies after I got home, you might have noticed the fireworks over our house that night! I wanted to be calm about it all and approach this from the perspective of a caring, involved mom. Somehow, that got lost as the words left my mouth! I was so angry and disappointed. She was grounded from seeing any friends until she got completely caught up and that took two weeks. She still continues not to have her cell phone or fun computer time....until...I don't know....until I get over it that she lied like that!
Something else that bothers me about this is the complete lack of communication that happened between me and the school up until conferences. Once Amanda caught up with her missing assingments in science, the teacher sent out a "positive referral" that arrived in our mailbox within days. Where was the negative referral as she was getting behind? Also, after years of parenting, I have become more cynical. Homework is a contract between the teacher and my child, not me and my child... If it isn't done, let me know when to pick her up from detention and ... I'll also make sure to have there be a consequence on my end. I can't be responsible for every little piece of busywork that is assigned. Even more infuriating? The missing assingments have been confirmed to be turned in and yet even this Friday, they were still on the missing assignment report. How on earth can I consider the report to be valuable if it is not updated?
Sigh.
Moving on to Alex.: Fortunately, he is having a great year. Even though Fall has given way to winter here, the boys in the neighborhood still congregate here or at one of the other homes every day after school. Basically, Alex gets off the bus, comes in and grabs a snack and says "Can I go to Nick's house"...and then the game of musical houses starts. I think the kids eat their way through each others homes.
Cookies at one house, drinks at the other....LOL His newest passion is a Penguin chat game online that all of the boys in the neighborhood are paid members of. I ended up caving and signing him up too. When the boys aren't hanging out building teepees and playing video games, they are playing games with each other at the Penguin Chat. Alex's school conference went well and things are on track for him at school too. Sometimes he is so 'easy' that I feel like he gets the short end of the stick around here. We are always busy with Andrew and Amanda's issues and then the little ones keep us so busy. Alex just handles it all with style though.Aidan turned 5! FIVE. I can't belive it. Kelly and I were talking about how she held him when a newborn and now here he is getting ready for Kindergarten in the Fall. It's just unbelievable. The older I get, the faster the time seems to go by. We of course engaged in the traditional trip to Space Aliens.....
The Birthday Boy!
Alex and Aidan:
Amanda:
Andrew: Don't take a picture of me, Mom!
Zoe reacting to Aidan opening his gifts: "That's MY present!"
Me, winning the Jackpot on a game!
Thomas and Aidan:
Then, yesterday, we had his actual birthday party. This is the first year that Aidan has ever had a party outside of our home and invited more than 2 kids to come. We invited all of the boys from the neighborhood and the son of a friend of mine who is Aidan's age. A great time was had by all....with a little kink, of course!!!!
All week, Thomas was coming up with reasons why he might 'need' to stay home instead of come with me to the party. Hey...it isn't like I don't understand....these parties can be stressful. At the last minute though, he got a call from an internist here and had to go in and see a septic patient. WHAT?! It was mighty convenient. I ended up doing two hours alone with this crowd:
I had Zoe with me and she was like crazy, wired on sugar, noise and pop toddler! No other parents stayed and so the last dad to arrive ended up staying to help out. He had to stick with his son though, who wasn't able to skate at all. I had to manage all of the rowdy boys, and do the pizza, cake and presents all by myself. The party ran over by 30 minutes while I tried to get everyone's skates off and manage everything. Thomas showed up to help drive some kids home and said "Hey, I thought it would be done already. I don't have time for this. I have to go back to the hospital to see another patient."
Umm, yaaaah. Sorry for the inconvenience, dear.
Even worse is that I know the internist who paged him, so I sent her the pic via my iphone with a little, funny "feel guilty" message and wouldn't you know it but my iphone didn't have service and then it kept sending it over and over again. It is now listed in my sent box 6 times. I had no control over it and couldn't get it to stop. I feel like such a wacko. I hope it didn't show up 6 times. Boohoo for me! LOL
Zoe is busy, busy, busy! She is truly like the tasmanian devil of mess. Everytime I turn my head she is into something else and it is always something...BIG. A couple of weeks ago, she found a blue sharpie pen in Thomas' desk drawer. She used it to color on our brand new beige, leather sofa and the wood floors.
I tried everything to get them off and finally succeeded on making it not noticeable on the floor. The sofa was a whole other story. I ended up removing the blue with acetone. Now, the sofa is white where it once was beige. It is still quite obvious...though at least it isn't....blue! We haven't even had the sofa for 2 months yet! Sigh...there are no big deals, right? I keep repeating to myself "It's just a thing, it's just a thing, it's just a thing....." Mmmmhmmmmm.
I am still enjoying my Anatomy class very much. I had a rather unfortunate quiz on Thursday though. Andrew wouldn't get out of bed and I ended up having to drive him to school. This put me on campus late. I walked in and a pop quiz was already underway. I only had a couple of minutes to trace a drop of blood from the right thumb to the left leg and I just choked...as in ....holy crap. We turned in the quizzes and then 30 minutes later I realized how badly I did. In fairness to me, I only had about 2 minutes left to take the quiz. I hadn't had my morning coffee, and I was so angry at Andrew for making me late. I just couldn't focus. My other grades are good, so I'm trying very hard to let it go....but it still ticks me off at myself.
I'm so happy that I went back to school though. This is exactly what I needed in my life right now!
And my final bit of news? My MIL is coming for a 3 week visit. She arrives on Tuesday. I'm trying to see her trip as an opportunity for me to get organized in certain areas. I want to try and be positive about it all. My mom is also coming for a week and the visits will overlap. Hopefully, things will go well. My MIL has already agreed to give me every morning to myself, which is new! I am going to use the time to get ready for my final exams in lecture and lab.
Kris