Wardrobe Wednesday

The girls go back to school tomorrow, and while I wasn't planning on buying them any new clothes until the weather started to change, I did cave yesterday when we were out buying a few last minute items and let them each pick out one new outfit to wear on the first day.  As soon as they cut off the tags, they insisted on modeling their new outfits for me.

My Mom Is A Farmer

Mae's sentence writing practice.

Last Day Of School

Random Tuesday Thoughts

Wow, has it really been 2 months since I last participated in Random Tuesday Thoughts? Well, according to my archive it is! Goodness, where do I start?

It's rainy and cool here today. Not a good day to get any outdoor gardening done but maybe a good opportunity to continue some Spring cleaning inside the house. Last weekend we rearranged (and cleaned!) the whole upstairs to find a home for a sofa that some friends were getting rid of during their recent move. (The sofa happens to be an exact match to our living room furniture and with kids and dogs in the house I thought a couple of extra cushions would come in handy.) We managed to get the giant sofa up the stairs and around the turn of death and finally situated it up in the sitting room after relocating some other furniture including moving most of the houseplants into Mae's room in front of her south facing window. Hopefully she will remind me to water them...

Binny brought home a bunch of Easter projects from school (public school) yesterday including this Easter egg craft. She beamed as she told me about the Ts in the middle. Ts huh? I asked her why Ts and she said that the teacher's helper laid down the glue in the shape of a T and she glittered it. Ts huh? For Easter??? It's not the crosses that bother me, it's the lack of respect for any religion other than Christianity, or no religion at all (from our experiences with this school district, at least) and the thought that all kids must know that Easter equals Jesus died on a cross for us.

Baseball officially started yesterday! I listened to the Brewer's lose their first regular season game of the year. Go brewers!

I talked with my grandparents last night. Grandpa was in the hospital again last week but is home now and regaining his strength once again after a nasty bout of bronchitis. They called to tell me they are sending me a 'VCR' (I swear that's what they call a VHS tape. Don't even try to convince them otherwise.) from their Anniversary party last month. There is even footage of me waltzing with a sweaty old man they all call Shorty. Now I need to dig out that old VCR that we no longer use to watch the tape...

I started a new blog! I know crazy right since I barely have time for this one. The new blog is all photos and very few (if any) words. I figured that if I am going to seriously pursue photography in an effort to make a little money, I should really have a website with sample photos that has nothing to do with this little rantbox. Check out the new blog here. I still have some tweaking to do, but it's up and running!

That's it for me today. Be sure to stop by Keely's blog for the whole Random Tuesday line up.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

Alright, time for an update. I feel like I haven't blogged in a bazillion years but I guess that's what family togetherness feels like... damn near an eternity. Holiday get-togethers and birthdays have sucked up every spare minute of our time in the last few weeks. The kids have been bouncing off the walls since sometime early last week, it's been way too cold to send them outside to hurl themselves down the snow drifts in our yard and our DVD player is on the fritz. That means my children have been doing one of two things from the time they open their eyes until they pass out way after their normal bedtimes. Either A- Fighting, or B- playing with their new toys which include a really loud horn for Mae's bike, 2 plastic recorders (yes, one for each) a keyboard, and a pogo stick. Thank you Grandmas for giving my kids the most annoying and dangerous gifts ever. I'll remember this the next time my kids decide to make a home made craft for you. I see lots of glitter in your future. You know, glitter is the gift that keeps on giving.

So as much as I love my children and really I do, it was nice to know that they would be going back to school yesterday. They were both super cranky after school yesterday and I had them both in bed by 8:00 last night. I was shooting for 7:30 but it didn't happen. The Gardener is working odd hours this week so I'm doing the dinner and bedtime routine solo.

Our tree is still up but at this point it's more of a fire hazard than a festive Holiday decoration.
I'm hoping to take it down today and reclaim my living room but I will miss the glow. Actually it was the Gardener's idea to take it down today. This morning just after the kids left for school he said, "You want to take the tree down this morning? I'll help." now he's taking a nap on the sofa.

The Catholics pissed me off yet again. This time they messed with my Soap Opera. Yeah that's right, yesterday the local TV station decided to air the installation of the area's new Archbishop instead of my trashy daytime favorite, Days Of Our Lives. The nerve I tell you.

That's about it for me today. Click over to Keely's blog for more randomness.

So Long Leroy!

Your eyes are working correctly, that is in fact a photo of my Binny in praying position. That can only mean one thing....... Why yes, the Public School Holiday program was last Friday.

My long time readers will remember that last year I threw a bit of a stink* over the program because of some of the content. I was disappointed that the music teacher chose only Christian songs to celebrate the Holiday season and conveniently left out songs that represented any other religions that happen to celebrate this time of year. In addition to the Christian slant, the play portion of the program included a character named Leroy, wearing denim overalls and a John Deere hat, dancing around the theater while the 8 year old singers on the risers sang Leroy The Redneck Reindeer.Even with the inclusion of Binny's class singing Go Tell It On The Mountain (...where Jesus Christ is born), I have to admit that this year's program was a HUGE improvement over last year. There was no acting thrown in between songs and most certainly no mention of Rednecks, just each grade singing 3 mostly non-religious Holiday songs. Mae's class didn't even sing a religious song at all. After last year's Jesus and Redneck extravaganza, I tried to set up a conference with the music teacher this year to discuss my concerns, but the day before our scheduled conference, she had to cancel. She wrote me a note requesting to reschedule but never returned my calls. Whether or not my complaint to the principal had any influence on the the changes, I was pleased that the music teacher decided to make the changes, period. No, it wasn't void of Christian references but the teacher made an effort and I appreciate that and agree to compromise as well.

On our way out of the building I spotted the principal in the office and decided to turn back and give her my opinion on this year's program. At first as I explained to her who I was (Last year we only spoke on the phone, not face to face.), a concerned look came to her face but as soon as I told her how much I enjoyed the program and more importantly the changes, a smile returned to her face and I'm sure she also felt a sense of accomplishment that she's doing her job.


* Links to the posts I wrote after last year's program:
My initial post.
Follow-up after another blogger challenged my first post.
Follow-up after I spoke with the school's principal.

RTT- High On Easy Off

Well it's Tuesday and the best way to get everything out there is to pull out the Un Mom's Random Tuesday Thoughts badge and get to it.

Shall we?

After three years of dealing with an oven door that doesn't completely seal, I decided to call sit on hold for 20 minutes with the extended warranty people and request that a service person come out and fixes it. After I scheduled the appointment I took one look at the oven and was overcome with a feeling of Holy shit, I can't let someone work on this filthy thing. So I rolled up my sleeves, put on a pair of kitchen gloves and huffed Easy Off for an hour and a half. I'm still not sure what bubbled over and was crusted on the bottom, but it was a real bitch to scrub off. This was a long time coming and I knew that a good cleaning was in order because every time I would heat the oven above 350, the smoke detector would alarm. My kids have mastered the art of waving a dish towel at the blaring thing though.

While still high on oven cleaner I decided to keep the cleaning going and vac'd and scrubbed the floors until Binny arrived home from school. I don't know about anyone else but a clean house makes me happy. Maybe if I did it a little more often... Or if the house could stay that way longer.

As Binny bounded off the school bus yesterday she told me of a surprise that was in her backpack. Not hand turkey time yet (a Thanksgiving thing) but it was even better. I took out the surprise, read 2 pages and put it away so that we could all enjoy it as a family after dinner. The children in Binny's Kindergarten class are learning their addresses and phone numbers and as a fun project, the teacher had the children draw a picture of their homes and explain how to get home from school. The teacher then typed out what the kids said and attached the directions to the drawings then bound it all together in a folder to take turns going home with each student. The Gardener and I could not make it through the entire book without laughing so hard that I thought we were going to lose consciousness. The adorableness of it all was too much. So much in fact that I immediately typed out all of the directions and because I'm sure I'm not the only one who will find this completely cute and hysterical, here they are:

"Go around the circle. Turn at the next turn. Go straight. Then there is another turn. Go straight. Turn onto Elm Court. Look for the tan-ish brown house at the end."

"Go straight. Take a sharp bend into the road. Go straight and turn again. Look for 266 Washington Lane."

"Turn, then turn again. Than go into the country. Turn by a blue house, then drive a little to the brown house."

"When there is a turn don’t turn, go straight. Turn at the stop sign and it is next to a stop sign."

"Go close by Jack’s house. Go straight and you’ll find a gray house, that’s mine. Oh yeah, make sure you see a dog.

Drive to Town. Look for a white house but DON’T go to that one, Go to the next white house."

"Go straight that way. It is a white house on a black road."

"You go straight then turn. Go to the gray house and turn again. Turn down another road and in the middle there is a gray house."

"You go into Town where you see the brown house with the pool, trampoline, and dogs Ginger & Drake, that’s my house. If you see Emma’s house mine is right across the street."

"Go straight. Turn, then turn again the other way. Go straight. Skip a little bit of houses. Look for a blue house with a gray car in the garage."

"Look for the Smith’s house, then look for the yellow house and pull in the driveway."

"I live in Town."

I changed all of the names for anonymity. Not mine, the children.

Tomorrow is Mae's follow-up appointment with the immunologist down at Children's hospital. I talked with the nurse practitioner last week about Mae's test results and the idea so far is that Mae has an immune complement disorder, meaning that a very specific part of her immune system is out of whack. She said that there isn't too much to be done about such a diagnosis other than keep an eye out for any infection that should arise. I guess we'll find out more tomorrow when we see the doc.

That's about all the randomness in me today. Have a great day!

Wardrobe Wednesday- School Picture Day

Some mornings I feel like the bus can't get here fast enough. Today was one of those mornings. The girls were cranky. They didn't want to get dressed. Especially not in those terrible clothes I picked out for them. "But you need to look nice today, it's picture day." I hollered from the kitchen as I was trying to make them something to eat that they wouldn't complain about. "Well I'm not wearing that dress" Binny whined while pointing her finger at a very cute sweater dress that has never been a problem up until now. "The button in the back gets caught in my hair." After holding up outfit after outfit I started to lose my cool. "you will wear one of these 3 outfits. I don't care which one but I'm not running upstairs any more, this is it!" Finally she chose another dress. "Fine, now go eat your breakfast" I say as I brace myself to go through the same song and dance with Mae "But I only want bubble gum for breakfast!" says a sassy Binny as she stomps off toward the kitchen.

On to Mae. "I want something pretty. Why can't I wear what I wore yesterday?" "Oh you mean the dirty outfit that is sitting in the hamper? Not happening Mae, find something else." "But I don't have any pretty clothes, all I have is rags!" (note to self- get rid of the Cinderella DVD) "Go upstairs, find something and come down to eat breakfast. You are 7 years old now, you can get yourself ready."

We made it through breakfast and no Binny did not have bubble gum.

Since last year's school photos were a waste of $60, we decided not to purchase any prints this year. Binny had a weird hair flip thing going on and the photo company never offered re-takes. And since I take hundreds upon hundreds of photos of my children, getting the school photos are not necessary. Even if the children aren't ordering a photo package, their photo still gets taken to be included in the class collage (which at the last minute I decided to buy for $6 a pop).

Not that this was the morning for such an endeavor but I figured as long as the girls were dressed for school pictures, I would take a few outside as we were waiting for the bus. Staged, school portrait style. I hauled out a stool from the kitchen and my camera. Binny by now had some food in her tummy and was being somewhat cooperative. She plopped herself up onto the stool and smiled, while her hair again had a mind of it's own.
Mae, our hard start in the morning anyway was still not in the mood to cooperate and certainly not in the mood for me to photograph her. This was the best she would give me, a half smile. Between clicks, the half smile would turn into a full scowl.
The bus pulling into view was the most beautiful sight on this cloudy Wardrobe Wednesday. Amazing how my kids seem to turn in their devil horns for angel wings when they hop on the school bus. Their teachers and bus drivers never have a bad thing to say about either. "They are both such a delight!"

For more Wardrobe Wednesday (and most likely less drama) head on over to Heathen Family Revival.

Random Tuesday Thoughts: First Day of School

This is my first go at RTT (that's what the cool kids call it) and today I'm feeling especially ADD so this should work out. Let's see... (and go visit the unmom for all of the RTT details)

~First off, today is the first day of school for Mae and Binny. Mae will start 1st grade and Binny will start 5K. Let me say that again. I have a first grader! I know, shocking! We I decided that Binny would be better off in the half day 5K rather than the all day 5k the school also offers, so she will be gone mornings and home with me in the afternoon. I know everyone has an opinion on this topic, especially people without children, go figure, but I think this will work for our family. Last year Mae was in the all day 5K class and she did fine, loved it, etc. but I felt that the afternoons were filled with too much *fluff* including lunch, 2 recesses, rest time, and a snack all in a place that had at least 4 lice outbreaks last year. No thanks, keep your lice and your mandatory rest time, I'll take Binny.

~Yesterday we met my brother in the back of a Target parking lot so he could take my Grandpa to a radio station that plays only Polka music. They have a retail store where they sell loads of Polka CDs and cassettes to guys like my Grandpa. He came home with 2 CDs and 4 cassettes that were in the bargain bin. Needless to say, Grandpa loved it! The rest of us went shopping for new school shoes which also led to a few new school clothes as well. Damn Gymboree and their way too cute dresses.

~After we picked up Grandpa, I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. 3 stops later including ice cream for lunch was it for me. Nothing like kids on a sugar high that makes me look forward to the first day of school.

~Last week I took some really cute photos (if I do say so myself) for the Gardener's cousin and I'm so happy with how they turned out. I hope she likes them.Antique look:

~My house still smells like pickles.

~Tomorrow is Mae's appointment with the Immunologist down at Children's hospital. I'm excited to finally talk with the doctor about all of Mae's health issues but at the same time I'm a little nervous about the kinds of test he may order and possible diagnosis, if any. My boss read some article about kids with immune disorders and freaked me out a little with talk of bone marrow blood tests and lymph node biopsies. She's helpful like that.

I think that's about it. Have a great Tuesday everyone!

The Kindergarten Picnic Wouldn't Be Complete Without Tears

Yesterday was the big Kindergarten picnic in the park. Mae has missed too many fun events lately as a result of her illness, so this was extra special for her. The teachers had everything planned to a T so that all of the children and parents were included in the fun. There was a big playground...Bubbles...

This little boy was the ultimate bubble blower

(I tried to get this photo without the woman in the unfortunate hot pink sweat suit but she was unavoidable)

Chalk...Parents looking goofy using their digital cameras...

I know what your thinking, yes I do have a digital camera, but I hold mine up to my eye, not 2 feet in front of my face.

And the big event of the day, a parents against kids kickball game...

The kids won!

There was one emotional moment for Mae when I exercised my parental veto on the wheelbarrow race. I thought it wouldn't be a great idea if something happened to Mae's PICC line (inserted in her right bicep). Mae cried and the teacher apologized, but hey, that's the way it goes sometimes. There are, and should be limits to her activity, after all she was hospitalized with a serious bone infection less than a month ago.

The Importance of Underpants

This morning as I helped my girls get undressed for swimming class, there was a little girl on the other side of the locker room having a bit of a meltdown. She was all done with her lesson and was getting dressed, but quite upset that she had not packed any undies in her swim bag. She couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 and was not accompanied by her mom, just 2 other girls roughly the same age. I walked over and tried to calm her as I instructed my girls to make one more pass through the bathroom before their lesson. I tried to calm her down and suggested she just dry up and get dressed without undies, but she wailed louder. I asked the other girls with her if there was an adult along. The oldest girl said the crying girl's dad was waiting outside. Go figure!

There was nothing more I could do. I offered to help her get dressed but she was still inconsolable. I left the locker room feeling terrible for the little girl. I scanned the hallway for her father, but he wasn't there. This little girl probably would have been fine on her own during normal circumstances, but this was too much of a deviation from the normal swim class routine. And where was her dad? Come on parents! It's not another parent's responsibility or right to calm, dress or console your child. I was willing to help but she wanted her dad and not some stranger, understandably.

It would have been fine if her dad had come in to help her once things got out of control. By that time the locker room was pretty much cleared out and left were only small children being helped by their moms. Definitely not child porn, no men allowed type of environment.

At the end of class when I went back into the locker room to help dress my girls, she was gone.

Pushing for Perfection

As parents we all think that our children are the brightest, most talented little creatures that ever lived and it's our job as parents to encourage and support our children. However, there is a line that occasionally gets crossed. We all know of those crazy soccer parents who are at every practice with a mug of coffee, a whistle and obnoxious commentary from the sidelines, or the parents that push their children into learning the violin at age 3. We all want our children to be the best and have happy healthy lives, but realistically they can't all be sports stars or masters of the violin, or in Binny and Mae's case award winning artists.

Hubby and I have encouraged art in our children's lives since the moment they were able to grasp a paintbrush or pencil. We see art as an expression of one's self and an outlet for their emotions. I can tell if Binny's having a good day or bad day based on a drawing and same for Mae. We never criticize their art and rarely ask "what is it?" because does it really matter what it is? Not to us. They are old enough now to draw things that are recognizable and they'll tell us what they drew, for example Binny drew a picture of me recently and came right out and said that it was a picture of me getting out of the shower. I couldn't have instructed her to draw such a thing; she thought of it on her own, drew it on her own, presented it to me on her own, and hung it on the fridge on her own. She feels a great sense of accomplishment when she can do something all by herself, why wouldn't she, she's 4.

At school, Binny's class has been learning about families for the past week. The children brought in photos of their families, practiced writing the names of all of their family members, and so on. Yesterday she brought home a handmade book with the title "My Family." On each page of the book was a drawing of each family member. One for mom, one for dad, one for Mae and one of herself. As I paged through the book I was quite pleased with her progress... until I got to the picture of her.

The picture she drew of herself reeks of adult "help." The hair, the eyes, the nose, the perfectly round face. That's just not Binny's style, and not the work I would expect out of the average 4 year old. I know she didn't draw this because I know my child and her drawings, and frankly I'm irritated that a teacher had the nerve to take a crayon from a child's hand and destroy the beautiful work she was creating. Her father and I know that she's still developing her drawing skills and we feel that she needs to learn this on her own or by example on A SEPARATE PIECE OF PAPER. I don't mind someone reinforcing that she needs to include all the features of a face, or instructing her to maybe use more than one color, but taking over and doing it for her, not my idea of constructive teaching.

To us, art is a very personal thing and judging someone by their artistic abilities just isn't fair. Either you have it or you don't. No different than the ability to sing (in a pleasing way- forget American Idol), dance, play an instrument, etc. If she were uninterested or had a short attention span I could maybe understand, but I know that's not the case and if so I would like to hear about it. Her report card came home yesterday, with all high marks and no concerns from the teacher. What gives?

These are two of Binny's recent drawings, both of herself.

School Update

I heard back from the principal today. She listened to me, kind of. Our whole conversation lasted less than 3 minutes. I could tell she felt uncomfortable about the whole topic of religion in public school and quickly ended that by saying that when she started as principal this fall, she brought up the issue but was convinced to leave it alone because of strong community support.

If we ignore it, it will go away.

And the "Leroy the redneck reindeer" song. She asked "what didn't you like about it? I gave her the definition of redneck and said that I thought the use of it in an elementary school program was inappropriate and offensive. What may be acceptable in adult comedy routines may not be taken the same way when it comes from the mouths of children. She took no claim for any of the song choices and said she would pass my message on to the music teacher.

I still feel unheard and now singled out as the wimpy- can't take a joke, heathen. :(

I think I 'll just let it go until next year. Before the practice even begins, I will have a conversation with the music teacher and express my concerns. What other choice do I have?

What Would Jesus Do?

After being rescheduled twice, the elementary Christmas program went on yesterday. Mae had a great time singing and all of the children did a great job; it was the adults who stunk up the auditorium. The music teacher, with a month extra to practice, didn't have her shit together. The music cues were all wrong, microphones were constantly being adjusted and the song selections were absolutely awful. The program was "A Country Christmas" with several country songs mixed in with a few traditional. Who thought that Toby Keith was appropriate for 1st graders? Remember that's the "We'll stick a boot in your ass, it's the American way" guy. That's not the song they sung, but crappy none the less. Another great selection was a song called "Leroy the Redneck Reindeer" one line I can remember was "jingle bell and the rebel yell" very classy. Then much to my surprise, each grade (K-4) sang a religious song. Not just a mention of the birth of Jesus but full on gospel type songs. My daughter's class sang "Jesus Christ is born" and the second grade sang "Mary did you know?" What the hell? This is a public school! I know this is a community with strong Christian beliefs, but come on, this is a government funded PUBLIC school for EVERYONE, regardless of religious affiliation. It seems that I 'm always fighting the issue of what kinds of religion my children are being taught behind my back. Am I just making too much of this? Does this happen in other public schools?

I can't decide how I should handle this. Should I talk with the principal who obviously supported this program, complete in her overalls and bandanna? Will I get anywhere with a letter? I know Mae's teacher is the children's' choir director at her church, so that's a dead end. I can't seem to find an unbiased Christian to complain to. Maybe I need to go even further up the ladder, but at the same time I don't want to alienate my children as the ones who can't participate in holiday activities.

I feel that this type of religious content has no business taking up valuable school time. Perhaps time would be better spent on teaching the children about healthy eating habits and exercise. Is Jesus OK with childhood obesity? Just a thought after watching all 5 grades pile onto and off of the stage yesterday.

Curly Cute

Mae's Elementary school was supposed to have their Christmas program last Friday, but we ended up with 10 inches of snow instead. The school sent a note home last week saying that if school is cancelled on Friday the Christmas program would be on Monday.

This morning I answered a robo-call from the school district saying that school would be 2 hours late today because of the still nasty weather outside. Then, right before the bus came to get Mae, we received another robo-call saying that the Christmas program would be rescheduled for Jan. 9. After Christmas?!!!!

Mae was so looking forward to it and had been practicing her songs all weekend in anticipation. Even asked me to make her hair curly cute.

Heeby Jeebies

For the fourth time this year (since September) Mae has come home from school with a note saying that someone in her class has (umm. how do I say this without grossing everyone out?) Freaking HEAD LICE! Ewww! My thought the first time this note came home was, who's dirty parents brought home fucking crabs? I know that's not completely fair but after 4 times I'm starting to think this is a problem. Really, this in not OK and I am angry, to the point that I would consider home schooling , OK, not really but I'm pissed!

Seriously head lice, who even gets that and why are they bringing it to school? I was at work last night, and when I got home I checked the pile of school papers right away, saw the note, grabbed Mae and picked through her head, no lice but she did have these mysterious bumps all over her neck, back and tummy. At this point I start to freak out. Mae was quickly whisked into the shower, her clothes and winter gear thrown in the washer with Fels Naptha soap (in case it's some other irritant) in hot water. It doesn't seem like head lice, but how the hell would I know, we've never had it. The bumps she has look like a poison ivy-type hives thing but who knows. I made sure she washed really well in the shower, gave her some Benadryl and slathered her in lotion because my hubby thinks it's just dry skin. Dry skin, my ass. That kid has something, and it's creeping me out.

My hubby and I were discussing how this happens and what the hell to do about it. He said that when he was young (for the boys at least) you could tell who had the head lice because they would come to school with shaved heads. Well, that's not going to work for us, Mae has the most beautiful golden blond hair that is finally at a manageable length, and hell if I'm letting anyone shave her head. I can't even think of it without itching and examining my own scalp for creepy crawly bugs. This was not on our Christmas list and I hope we figure this out before Christmas otherwise we're all getting lice shampoo in our stockings.

Leave me a comment if you started itching while reading this post...sorry about that.

Snow Day, No School

So I guess my lunch menu post was a bit premature. I got the robo-call from the school district this morning, informing me that school has been cancelled for today. Hooray!

If the weather calms down, we might go out and play this afternoon, but right now it's pretty nasty. I went out to shovel the back porch. By the time I gave up I was covered in snow and cold.

I asked the kids if they wanted to watch a movie, and Mae suggested we watch "Hoots and Ears"

Me: "excuse me?"

Mae: "Yeah mom, you know, the one that's on the grinch dvd?"

Me: "Do you mean Horton Hears a Who"

Mae: "Yeah, that's what I said"

Off to watch Hoots and Ears. I swear, it's G rated.

What's for lunch?

Looked at the school lunch menu for today.

Mock lasagna (what does that even mean?)
lettuce & dressing (hardly call that a salad)
Pineapple (I would assume canned)
Apple wedges (probably brown)
french bread (most likely hard as a rock)

Mae's taking a cold lunch today. We have a hard enough time getting her to eat real food. Not much has changed.

Forgive me, I took 2 Sudafed Severe Cold before I wrote this

***This isn't heavy machinery....Right?***

I'm too sick to be funny today, so instead I give you photos of my children. It's just a cold, but it's hard to be the mom when all I feel like doing is sleeping. Lunches still need to be made, dishes need to be washed and put away, and the cows still need to be milked....... what?


Last week report cards were sent home from school. Get this, Mae got a needs improvement for Art class. Ridiculous right? Do you think I can ask for a refund for all of the arts classes she's taken?




Binny didn't get evaluated in Art.


And just for fun, here's an oldie of Mae on her first day of Art preschool way back in Sept. 2006










I found Binny's too. They had taken down the big chair by then, so she just stood in front of the big glass doors.





Happy Weekend!

I Hate Mondays

I just drove Mae to school because the bus was a whole 10 minutes early! 10 minutes is the difference between having breakfast and getting her hair brushed or leaving the house hungry with bed hair. So I chose to feed her, put her hair up in a ponytail and drive her to school. That also meant that Binny had to come along, I know my hubbby would have thought about turning on the TV, giving her a bowl of cereal and just leave her home for the 5 minutes it would take to run to school and back home, but that's not me. I don't even leave my kids in the car when I pay for gas, probably because I also leave my keys in the car. How would I explain that one? "Officer, I was only inside for a minute and when I came out they were gone."

So being stressed from having missed the bus, I hurriedly dressed Binny, put coats and shoes on the girls and we all jumped in the car and headed to school (me wearing PJs and sandals.) Mae hopped out of the car and headed for the door of the school, when finally after all this time, and seeing the weather report this morning I realized that it was only 30 degrees outside and had forgot to pack hat and mittens. Bad Mommy! I thought about just ignoring it, but I knew that she'd be complaining during recess, and I be the parent they're referring to in the note about proper winter dress, that would undoubtedly be coming home with her after school today. So I called her back over to the car and hollered "get back in" while all of the other parents who dropped off their appropriately dressed children were waiting for me to move my car out of the driveway.

On the way back to our house we got stuck behind a tractor going not more than 15 and couldn't pass until we were almost home. I ran into the house to discover that her mittens were missing so I had to give her Binny's mittens and a mismatched hat, then promise to buy Binny new mittens before she goes to school this afternoon.

Mae made it to school on time, now I'm just wondering if the hat and mittens will make it back home or if I should just stock up for the season.