Ok, it looks like my volunteering plan is coming together. I work in Jax's class doing "production" work for his teacher once a month from 8:20-10:30. Every Tuesday, I am in Cars' class helping out with the Literacy Group and I am planning to teach art on Dex's class on Tuesday afternoons once each month. I say planning because I am meeting with the teacher tomorrow to discuss dates. The kids have nothing specialties on Tuesdays (no gym, library, music) so that would be a nice break for them.

So, now that everything is set, I can go about enjoying my "vacation" year. Guitar lessons, working out, shopping (gotta stop that), etc. Now I need to figure out how to fit housework into the schedule. ;)

The third week of school, we had Curriculum Night where parents met with the teachers to understand what is expected of their children this year, the curriculum for each class and any other information. Because we have three kids in the school, we got to be there for all three sessions (from 6pm-8:40pm). I signed up for volunteering (it all has to happen on either Tuesday or Thursday afternoon because I am being selfish with my time!).

Anyway, the last session we went to was for Cars' kindergarten class. The teacher went through her packet of information and opened the floor up to questions.

Parent A: My daughter went to a Montessori preschool and she learned to write in CURSIVE. Must she go back to PRINTING?
Teacher: Yes, we teach D'Nealian Handwriting and expect the children to become proficient at it.

Parent B: I want information about any "Highly Capable Program" so we can look into getting our daughter into the program.
Teacher: The program starts in First Grade and is called "Quest". Testing takes place in the New Year. I will give you the number of the program contact at the school district.
Most Parents: [waiting with poised pencils]

Parent C: Our child is reading already. Is she going to be dragged down by the other children in the class who aren't?
Teacher: Children will be working at their own levels once we test them all individually. We assess their reading levels using the "DIBELS" assessment which is also used as the determining criteria for Quest testing.
Parent C: Who is the contact for the highly capable program again?

Stephen: Cars is still asking for help in the bathroom at home. Can you tell me if he is wiping his own bum at school?
Teacher: Did you really think he was ready for kindergarten?

Ok, Stephen did not really ask that question but those other questions were asked. Apparently most parents in the class thinks that their child is gifted. This is a completely different attitude than we encountered in half-day kindergarten (although there were a few parents like that there too).

Also, I feel like I am at a bit of a disadvantage about getting to know the kids and parents too since Cars takes the bus to school. With Jax and Dex, most of the parents stood around outside of the kindergarten classrooms waiting for the kids to be dismissed so we would get to talking and get to know one another. However, I don't have that with Cars because of the bus. I have been picking him up on Wednesdays but mostly I was intercepting him at the bus but now I've set it up to make it official that I get him over by the kindergarten gate. Maybe I'll get to know the parents a little better and try to figure out which child is the cursive writer and figure out who all of the gifted kids are too. ;)

There is not much going on. Today it is warm so we worked in the garden and yard. My neighbour had a huge pile of mulch sitting on the road in front of her house since the beginning of July. She has been digging away at it all summer but there was a lot still left over. She told me I could take the rest. I filled up the wheelbarrow 8 times and only managed to fill in half of this little "island" that is in my front yard. But, the road is now cleaned up and I got a good work out. Next year we'll really need to do a lot of work in the yard and garden to get a handle on it all.

My vegetable garden was a bust this year. I got six measly carrots out of it, three snow peas. My tomato plants finally sprouted some tomatoes but they are still green. Not one of my pumpkin plants have sprouted fruit (although they did all flower). Next year, I will plant the seeds much earlier or only put in plants rather than seeds in May.

Here are a few pictures:

Green Tomatoes

Pumpkinless Pumpkin patch


Six carrots


Need more mulch

One nice thing is my yard is my hydrangea bush which is very happy living next to the hot tub.

My very happy Hydrangeas

Are You Doing It?

I went for my annual mammogram today. I love the centre that I go to. They hire the warmest, friendliest women who are kind and caring and make a huge effort to make one feel comfortable and relaxed during a rather uncomfortable procedure.

Our centre recently moved to digital mammography so I had the "benefit" of being able to get some extra images taken. The tech explained to me that in the past, when film was so expensive, they just took 4 standard images. Based on what she saw (nothing serious, just fibrous tissue), she knew she would need to take additional images whereas in the past, I would have had to wait for a radiologist to review the films then call me back in to have images taken at different angles.

She also showed me where I have a little marker in my right breast from my past stereotactic breast biopsy. Cool but weird at the same time.

All this and it took less than 15 minutes.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Remember that early detection is the key to surviving breast cancer. Ladies, if you are over 20, do a breast self-exam every month. Have your doctor do a breast check at your annual pap check (you are getting that done too, right?!). If you are 40, schedule a baseline mammogram (or at age 35 if your insurance pays for it*). Go for an annual mammogram. Do it!

Great information can be found at:
Feel Your Boobies
Susan G. Komen
National Breast Cancer Foundation

* I had a baseline mammogram at age 36 and a half (I was pregnant and nursing at age 35+). When I had a follow-up mammogram at age 40, they were able to see a clear difference between my baseline and the new images. Follow-up images and a stereotactic breast biopsy ensued. Fortunately, it was "almost certainly" not cancer. These teeny, tiny calcifications would never have been felt with a breast self-exam.

Cars' homework last night was to put something "brown" in a paper bag and then at school today, he would give hints to the class and they would try to guess his brown item.

Now, my children are notorious for getting the most obscure item, giving the lamest hints, then getting upset when no one guesses what they have (Jax and Dex have had similar homework). So, I tried to steer Cars towards some really obvious brown items such as pine cones, some dirt, a twig, a plastic horse that was brown, etc. Cars would have none of it. Jax tried to convince him to put a brown paper bag in the brown paper bag (apparently this is very funny to 10 year old boys). Nope, Cars did not like that idea either.

When Cars finally decided on his brown item, I groaned. He wanted a piece of cardboard because "cardboard is brown". Ugh.

"What hint will you give?", I asked him.

"It comes from trees", he said.

Well, yes but that makes it sound like it is a pine cone or an acorn. I tried coaching him. "It is made from ground up trees" and "Boxes are made from it". He was so dismissive when he said "I don't want to say that".

So, I cut a piece of cardboard off a box. Then I tried coaching him again "It is very stiff paper". All he wanted to say was "It is squiggly in middle", which is true but too vague.

Anyway, off to school he went with his square of cardboard box in his bag. After school I asked him about his project and he said in disbelief "Nobody even guessed what it was!" He had apparently told them the "It comes from trees" line and he was indignant when someone guessed "pine cone".

Hopefully his next oral assignment will go a little better. In the meantime, he wants to keep his little piece of cardboard because it was his "homework" and he was proud of coming up with the idea all on his own.

I made the call and canceled my surgery. Even though I had already decided not to go ahead with it, just making the telephone call to the doctor's office was an even bigger relief. Whew! Well, I just left a message for the doctor's nurse.

Today I also had to go out and buy my annual pink bra for my mammogram which is scheduled for Thursday. I stopped by Nordstrom's first to see if they had any pink bras in my size on their clearance racks but no luck so it was off to Victoria's Secret. It was so dead at the mall today so I cannot believe the service I got at VS. Made me feel a little special (when really, I think they were all just bored). Anyway, I used my $10 off coupons that they seem to send me every other month so it was a good deal.

So, I left VS feeling special with my pretty pink bra (and free panties!) and thought I would treat myself to a hazelnut creme truffle at Godiva. When I walked in the store I noticed a few customers hanging around the counter but no salesperson. I walked over and spied the yummy one that I wanted and I waited and waited and waited and waited for a salesperson. No salesperson materialized. One of the people waiting at the counter walked out and another drifted away to look at something else. Still I waited. Finally, I heard a voice from the back say "Oh, do you want something?" and I said "Yes, I want to buy something" and she said "I'll be out in a minute. I am just doing something for a customer who called in". And I replied "Well, I am a customer and I am right here waiting to pay". One of the others who had been waiting snickered. But the salesperson did not come out so I said "Well, I was a customer but now I am leaving your store". and I skipped out of the store. Drats, no chocolate! But, I had some smug satisfaction of saying what was on my mind. I laughed out loud as I walked back through the mall.

I did not really need that chocolate anyway.

I have several email addresses but one of them is my favourite. It is justmyname@#####.com. Yes, just my first name! How lucky is that? No weird characters or spelling or random digits at the end of my name. I signed up for it years ago but I did not use it regularly until about two years ago. Now it is almost my main email address.

The problem is that other people out there with my name seem to think it is THEIR account. I get shipping confirmation emails from potterybarn.com, amazon.com, requests for renting the same dub equipment that is used on The Hills (?), etc. Someone even tried to reset my password since they could not "remember" it. Um, you cannot remember it because it is my account!

So what happens to your information/emails/stuff when you can not remember your password (or perhaps even email account)? I heard an interesting program on NPR last month about computing "in the cloud" which is what it is called when you work and store documents, emails, files, pictures on the internet. Problems can start when you forget your password and cannot get it reset. How do you access your information? What rights to you have to that information or those files? Ever read the user agreement? Probably not (who does?!) so you'd be surprised by the answer!

Anyway, if you are interested in reading (or hearing the article, you can find it here.

And all of you who think you own the account that is mine? Hands off!

A little less crazy

I am feeling a little more in control of my emotions today. I have decided NOT to have the surgery next month. I am just not ready to die. ;) Seriously, I am worried about recovery time and this time of the year is just too busy. I'll wait until January. I need to call the GYN's office tomorrow to let them know.

Just making this decision has been a huge relief. I am getting some control back. I think that is part of it. I am a control freak and when things are out of control, I do not handle it well at all. My time was not my own last week plus I made a mistake scheduling the garage sale for this time of the year. Next time (if there is a next time), we do it in the spring.

I also need to get back to exercising. The week before last I did some long walks (and one trip to the gym) but nothing last week. I need that exercise to keep me sane.

Oh, and chocolate has been helping too.

Today it pissed rain so our garage sale was not as successful as I thought it would be. I did sell the dinosaur bedding from Cars' crib, along with the custom pillows that I made out of an extra crib bumper, the curtains I customized with blue trim and the two dino paintings I painted for the room for a good price. I loved that bedding so much and wished that I had purchased the twin-sized quilts too (of course, that never would have happened because I think that PB is expen$ive and I bought the crib quilt and bumpers on clearance and they were already out of the twin-sized quilts).

I have a lot of things to take the Goodwill on Monday (the Goodwill trailer behind Safeway fills up on the weekend so I will just wait until Monday when they bring a new trailer). Our garage will look more like a garage than a storage unit.

As I mentioned, the rain is back. It has been pouring all day long and it is cold. I think we'll have to turn on the furnace in a few days as the temperatures are supposed to keep dropping. Brrrr!

I just re-read my post from yesterday and I have a typo (not should read now) plus an unfinished sentence. Man, it was just a bad day.

Today was day 1 of the garage sale. I am STUNNED that people dicker over stuff that costs 25 cents. Seriously, T and I price our stuff very inexpensively (we've been told our prices are too low) and yet people still ask for free stuff (or to knock money off). I can understand bartering for things that cost more than a few dollars or if you buy many things that comes to $5.50 and asking if you can get it for $5 (sure!). But to want to buy three 25 cent items for only 25 cents. C'mon!

I managed to get rid of two old dressers that would otherwise have meant a trip to the dump. T sold a lot of her furniture that she brought over plus a lot of kids' clothes. She was re-folding an old skirt of her dd's and felt a lump in the pocket. She reached in and found $16! Good thing she had not yet sold the skirt. Also, in a bag of "old toys", she found a brand-new Webkinz of her dd's. She figures her dd was playing with it in the basement and left it there then it was shoved in a bag with the old toys. Boy, someone really could have scored at our sale!

Day 2 tomorrow.

Today was a super busy day and I am still feeling completely stressed out about the garage sale. I have priced most things (except for clothes) but the rest of the stuff I cannot do until tomorrow morning (move bikes out of garage and start putting out stuff for sale). My friend, T, with whom I always have the sale, has tons more stuff than usual so our garage is jammed packed. I will be happy to see it all out (and sold!).

I still have to make signs for the sale and should be doing that and out putting them up but I am super stressed and am at a point where I had to walk away from it.

The stress is not just from the garage sale (this is just the immediate stress). I have a laundry list of things that are making my mind churn:

1) Dex tics - no, I have not yet called the neurologist. I figure there is no rush because we won't get in for 8 weeks anyway and the tics will be long gone by then anyway
2) I am about to fall off the roof and when I do, I am to call my GYN and schedule the surgery to remove the endometriosis that is seeping out my c-section incision. Except now I am terrified that I am going to die on the operating table. Or worse - end up with a hysterectomy. Why I think that is worse, I don't know. I am not thinking of putting off the surgery until January because
3) My mother bugs me every other day to find out when my surgery is going to happen because she wants to make sure we trek up to Vancouver to see her when she is there watching Lola but
4) Stephen's passport expires in November and it needs to be renewed (and returned) to us by mid-November because we are going to a hockey game in Vancouver so we either renew now and possibly not have it in time for my mom's visit or renew it after that and not have it in time for the hockey game. And yes, I know we've let it late and typically they can be renewed within 2 weeks but it would be just my luck...
5) I have been so weepy lately. I cry at everything and even cried today at MOPS. I would like to think that no one noticed but I am sure people did. To be fair, it was God's love and compassion that drew the tears today but once they started it was almost impossible to stop them. I am just glad that I did not blubber like an idiot. Just lots of tears.
6) I blurted out to my guitar teacher that I was having a shitty week and I almost burst into tears again (this was after MOPS). He told me that he was a trained counselor (as well as a recording artist) and started talking a bit about it and I am now sooooo embarrassed!

I am so looking forward to next week.

So I am having a garage sale this weekend and am so ill-prepared. I have everything in the garage but nothing is priced or sorted. I also need to put an ad on Craigslist and make signs. Ugh! I had planned to do the signs tonight but something happened today (a friend lied to me and my kids and just putting out the fires from the fall-out).

And tomorrow is the first MOPS meeting of the year then I have my guitar lesson (I only practiced 4 times this week!). Then tomorrow night is Curriculum night at school (from 6-8:30!!). Aargh!

I don't really want to say this out loud because then I am am admitting what I have been trying to ignore for a few days now...

Dex's tics are back.

I guess Zyrtec was not to blame. It was almost exactly six months since he exhibited any head-shaking. I guess it is time to call the neurologist again as he wanted to know if they came back if Dex were not on Zyrtec (and I was so confident that we would never need to call him again since there was no way I was ever giving my kids that poison again).

*sigh*

Stop the Bus!

Good lesson for my kids today. A little girl got off the bus at their stop. She looked lost and she was! She was supposed to get off at the previous stop but the driver drove off before she got to the front of the bus (I think a lot of kids get on/off that stop as it is beside an apartment complex). She decided to get off at our stop then because it was the next one. But then she did not know how to get home. I had her call her mom on my cell phone (her mother apparently does not meet the bus). Then I walked her home (via my neighbour's backyard as she has a gate that opens to the church property that is between my next-door neighbour's yard and the apartment complex. Anyway, we met up with her mom and then I took my kids home.

I never, ever, ever considered what might happen if my kids missed their stop. I guess because I am virtually always there (twice I was on my way to the stop when the bus arrived). Also, Jax and Des rode together last year and this year all three of them ride together. But, there might be a day when they have to travel on the bus by themselves. They now know the plan which is to stay on the bus and tell the driver so s/he can either bring them back to our stop or take the kids back to the school and I will pick them up there.

And I hope that the mom of that girl meets her dd at the bus stop from now on. The girl told me that she just walks to her apartment after she gets off the bus. Maybe I am waaay overprotective but I think meeting the kids at the bus is probably a good idea.

We heard from Stephen's cousin today. She lives, well, lived, in Galveston, TX. She believes that she has lost all three of her homes (two rental homes supply her income). She wrote that she hopes to get back home very soon to see if there is anything that she can salvage.

I worry about my friends who live in the Houston-area. I know that Robin evacuated but I hope her home is ok. Pley, MissFish and Tabitha - are you guys ok?

edited: Doh! Just realized that Tabitha is not in Houston...still hope you are ok though!

I spent the day rummaging through the garage. I am going to have a garage sale next weekend. Since we put our house on the market and moved rather quickly last year, we just packed up all this junk rather than spend the time sifthing through it. It is now time to get rid of it. My garage is a spider haven but I do not have the same fear of them there as I do in the house.

Stephen and I went to the movies tonight. We saw Tropic Thunder. It was very funny and I will even mention that Tom Cruise did not make me gag like he normally does. I actually did not even know that he was in the movie and would not have gone to see it if I had known. Anyway, I am still boycotting his movies but since he was a minor character, I guess this does not count as a "Tom Cruise" movie.

I started guitar lessons today! Finally! I am so excited even though my first lesson consisted of learning the parts of the guitar, learning how to hold a pick and practicing moving the fingers on my left hand up and down. Next week, I am going to learn how to re-string my guitar. This is great!

Book club was this evening and I took Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies from The Pioneer Woman Cooks! They were so good! I am definitely going to make them again.

And I feel as though I should write something profound and thought-provoking about 9/11 but all I have to say is thanks to my friend Jill, who was pregnant at the time, for naming her dd Hope when she was born. Hope gave me hope and whenever I despair about the state of the world, I think of Hope. Jill (and Hope) also helped me make the decision about having a third child and really there are not enough words in the world to thank them for that.

Jill and Hope will forever be in my hearts when I look at my baby. Even when he is a man and I sneak into his house to rock him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. ;)

The driver is trained to administer epi pens so onto the bus the kids went this morning! Hurray! Of course, I then jumped in my car drove to the school to spy on the kids to ensure that when their bus arrived, Jax and Dex would walk Cars to his classroom lineup outside and wait with him until there were a few other kids there. They did a great job!

I went home and read the newspaper, had a cuppa tea, went to the club to work out and stopped at Target on the way home to buy my oldest some DEODORANT! He suddenly has become so stinky. I noticed yesterday after school. He says that he has noticed that his armpits smell a bit after he plays wall-ball. I bought him some Tom's of Maine Deodorant (unscented) because I did not want him to start using antiperspirant yet. Anyway, we'll see how he smells tomorrow after P.E. Oh, and OMG my baby is growing up!

Oh and speaking of my baby...I read "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch (good Canadian author) to Cars tonight. You know the one with the song in it:

I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always.
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be

Ok, so my cousin gave me a copy of the book just after I was married and wrote that she hoped one day I would have kids and that I would love the book. This book totally creeped me out! What kind of psycho mother would drive across town, break into her son's house and rock a grown man while he slept? The creepiness of the book was reaffirmed in my mind when, on a visit home, my MIL told me that it was one of her very favourite books. ICK! Typical "mother of boys", I thought. That will so NOT be me. No way.

So, I think over the years I have read this book to my kids exactly twice. Once to Jax and once to Dex and so I thought, to be fair, I will read it to Cars before I get rid of it (garage sale next week). I cracked the book open (it is virtually brand-new although I've had it for 13 years) and started to read. By the time I got to the page about how the little boy grew and he grew and he grew and then he was a teenager, I could feel the tightness in my throat. Then I even teared up when the mom drove across town (still friggin creepy!). However, the waterworks started when the mom calls the son to say that she is old and sick and he has to come see her. I was almost sobbing! Poor Cars was looking at me and then he put his hand on my arm. I could barely finish the book. I closed it and said "I don't like this book" (but now for a very different reason) and he said "I don't either. I don't want to read it again". (ok, I am all choked up just writing about this!).

So, I still don't like it. However, I will admit that it is less creepy than I used to think. Who knew it could make me cry? And, I have put it back on the bookshelf. It will not be going to the garage sale.

Today we went here:

From Fall'08

And we sat in the "peanut controlled" section that was cordoned off:

From Fall'08

And although the seats were up really, really high (I used a 3x zoom in this shot):

From Fall'08

We all had a fantastic time! Thanks to the Mariners for providing two small sections for people with severe peanut allergies to safely attend a game! They rock!

From Fall'08

My plans for the day were scrapped when Dex woke up sick. He has a bad cold/virus, he has a fever and he is miserable. I spent the day telling him to blow his nose. I did not do any of the things on my to-do list such as go to the gym, go to the post office or pick up some books that are on hold at the library.

And since he has a fever, I really should not send him to school tomorrow...unless his fever breaks in the night and he feels ok then perhaps he should go. Ok, we'll see.

Cars: [while watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark"] Some people call him "Dr. Jones" instead of Indiana Jones. Why do they do that?
Me: Indy is a professor at a university and went to school for a long time to get a degree called a doctorate so people can call him Dr. Jones instead of Mr. Jones.
Cars: Oh.
Me: You know your dad went to school for a really long time too and he can be called Dr. Pez instead of Mr. Pez.
Cars: I'm just going to call him Daddy.

Well, we survived the first week of school. The bus driver is not trained to use an epi pen yet so we are still driving back and forth to school. I don't mind so much as I can chat and get caught up with some of the other parents.

I spent the day cleaning my house. My plan was to start at the top and work my way down, leaving the kitchen for last. I cleaned all of the bedrooms and two upstairs bathrooms, vacuumed and dusted the living/dining rooms, ironed a table cloth and put it on the dining room table, did three loads of washing and dusted 3/4 of the family room until I saw a HUMONGOUS, GARGANTUAN, MAMMOTH spider. It was HUGE! I started to shake a little bit and left the room. I kept running up the steps to the kitchen and trying to think "Ok, Spy and Ash will be here in...too many hours to wait to have them kill the spider" then running back down to make sure it has not disappeared. Then I would run back to the kitchen and think "Can I justify calling Stephen to come home to help?" and "I wonder if Spider-Killer Old Neighbour up the street is home" then back again to make sure the spider had not moved. It was HUGE!

I finally decided I had to bite the bullet and expose my irrational fear to one of my current neighbours and ask if they could help. I peeked out the dining room windows and saw that the new neighbour was home (at least his van was in the driveway) so I snuck back down and through the family room, into the laundry room where I slipped on my shoes and out through the garage. As I was walking up the driveway, I noticed that my other neighbour was home and out the front of her house so I went over and shouted "ARE YOU AFRAID OF SPIDERS?!" She was not so she came over and squished the beast for me (not without a bit of a chase - these monsters are FAST!). ~shudder~

Then, she took the corpse outside and proceeded to tell me that it was a hobo spider and they sometimes chase people. OMFG. I did not need to hear that. Even if it is not true, I did not need to hear that.

Now I will be walking around, jumping at every little piece of something that I see on the floor. I will probably not enter the Lego room without shoes on for the next month or so. Geez, I hate spiders.

15

Today, I have been married for 15 years. Stephen and I went out for a nice steak dinner. We chatted some which is something we do not do nearly enough.

September 4, 1993
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

From MoreMisc

I am not exactly sure the date of this photo but I believe it is Summer 1987. Look how adoringly Stephen used to gaze at me (though, it could have been the beer... and yes that is me when I was thin).

From MoreMisc

First Day of School Part II

Good thing that we are not taking the bus because we would have missed it this morning. The driver came five minutes early. I will have to make note of that once he is Epi Pen trained and the kids get to ride.

So, Cars' first day of school went well. I showed Jax and Dex where Cars lines up and made them swear on their skateboards that every single day they would ensure that he gets into line after getting off the bus. Cars was very, very quiet today which made me think that he was nervous. When the first bell rang, the teacher came out and promptly handed each parent a piece of paper with a poem on it that I could not read because I suddenly had tears in my eyes. They filed in and Cars did not look back. I walked quickly to my car and burst into tears. Wow - that was unexpected. I mean of course I am sad that he is in kindergarten and won't be with me all day or for half days but I have been so looking forward to this "me time" (or vacation as I have also been calling it) that I really did not think twice about being that sad. Yet there I was, crying in my car as I drove home.

Also, I am not nearly as terrified of his allergies at school as I was of Jax's when he started kindergarten. I guess because Cars is not allergic to peanuts and I don't imagine any kid will bring in walnut butter or pecan butter (I don't even think anybody even makes that). So no little smears of deathly butter to worry about. I have confidence that his nut allergy will be a non-issue at school. He will not eat snacks that others bring in (he has his own "safe snack" box at school for birthday celebrations).

And as for Jax's 504 Plan, the letter went home today. I sent a note to the principal and school nurse and they found out that the teacher did not put it in the packet as she thought it would get more attention going home with her regular communications on Friday. I can understand her reasoning but the point of it is to alert the parents of the allergy ASAP and hopefully any of them with a heart will not send in pb with their kids. Of course the kid sitting next to Jax today had a pb sandwich. Jax seemed to take it in stride (the kid did not tell him until after he ate it) but we'll see if that sets him back a bit on his anxiety level.

Dex is just as easy-going as usual and he is happy that a lot of his good friends are in his class again this year. He is striving to be the class clown and I have already lectured him about it. *sigh*

Here are some photos from the past two days:

From Fall'08

From Fall'08

From Fall'08

First Day of School Part I

Jax and Dex started school today. We walked to the bus stop and waited for the bus to show up. It arrived with a new bus driver who has not been trained to use an Epi Pen so back home we went and hopped in the car so I could drive the kids to school. I met them at the park after school today and will continue to do so this week until the driver is trained (hopefully by the end of this week).

Cars starts tomorrow and I am so happy. I am happy that he is going to school and happy for him because he is so excited! However, I did get choked up tonight and I now know that I am going to bawl tomorrow. I don't want to let him see me cry though so hopefully I won't cry until after he has gone into the school.

One disappointing thing about today is that Jax's 504 Plan was violated(Stephen is mad that I am using that word but that is what it is). The violation was that no note was sent home in the first day packet stating that there is a kid in Jax's class with a life-threatening allergy. I cannot believe it! I mean, it is in his 504 Plan, we covered it at the meeting last week with his teacher and the school nurse. Sh!t! I called three other parents in Jax's class to make sure it was not just our packet that was missing the letter but no. I have sent a note to the principal and nurse (there is a new school counselor but I am not 100% sure that she is the 504 coordinator so I did not copy her) asking what happened and when will it be rectified. I hope that there is one in Cars' first day packet or I think I will lose it. Incidentally, there was one in Dex's packet as there is a kid in his class with a peanut allergy so I know that the letter was at least published for this year (standard form letter written by the district and signed by the principal). *sigh*

Back to the Grind

Well, for Jax and Dex. Kindergarten is on a staggered start so Cars starts tomorrow. I had to drive the kids today because we have a new bus driver who has not been trained to use an Epi Pen. He should be trained by the end of the week though.

I am not looking forward to the deluge of paper that will be coming home today (and tomorrow). Every year I try to keep myself organized but to no avail. Last year, I bought a bulletin board to keep important papers on but I would end up pinning up note on top of other notes and losing track. I am going to try the binder method again this year (it failed for me a couple of years ago but maybe this time...).

I filled up safe snack boxes for Jax and Cars to keep in their classrooms. They will eat from them when other kids bring in birthday snacks. We stocked up on the snacks in Vancouver. We went for an overnight trip this weekend (I will spare you the details of the 45 minute border wait one way and the 2 hour wait the other) and bought $100 worth of snack items - all peanut/nut-free and made in peanut/nut-free facilities (thanksDare)!

It was great seeing Lola this weekend too. She is so sweet and so funny. She seems to really like her cousins. Here she is with a chop stick "helping" Dex with his game.