Where Have We Been?

Well, we've been lots of places. I have been so busy since school started that I actually had a screwed up heartbeat last week. I noticed all day that my heart seemed to be beating extra hard, but I thought it was because the football game was such a crusher (that ref!! Good grief!!) Anyway--that night when I went to bed I noticed it again. I started counting and every third beat it would skip, and then it would beat extra hard the next time. . .to make up for it, I guess. I don't know. I couldn't go to sleep for about 4 hours, because I was so scared. (S. paid attention for a grand total of 3 minutes, and then fell asleep, so I worried alone.) Anyway--the next day I decided that I had to make one of my famous lists. I was so overwhelmed by the stuff I needed to do, that I was freaking out about it. I needed it written down by deadline date, because I kept thinking I was doing something that could wait, and something that needed to be done right away was getting skipped! It was making me freeze and not do anything!



So, this weekend is my first event as the PTA Family Nights Chair. I do not think it is going to go well. I have only presold about 73 tickets. I was hoping for about 300 people to attend, so I'm not excited. We'll see what happens. That has been consuming a lot of my time. Every time I think I am going to sit down and blog, I feel guilty because I should be doing SOMETHING to get ready for this silly thing! But, Friday at 8:30pm it will be over--good or bad, so that is nice.



I have also been having a sort of crisis with my house. I think it is because we have been here so long (2 1/2 years!!) and I am feeling like we are filling up our house with all kinds of useless JUNK. Usually we clear things out as we are packing out, or at least when we get to the next place as we are unpacking. Since we didn't leave this summer, that didn't happen, and I am tired of all the stuff. So, I am going room by room and putting my hands on EVERYTHING in this house. Opening every drawer, looking at every paper, etc. I have thrown away mountains of stuff, and have a huge amount of space in the garage filled with stuff to get rid of at a garage sale or as donations. I don't know when I am actually going to HAVE the garage sale. I don't want to set a date until I am finished with this purge, because then I will rush through to get stuff out of here, and I'll end up a few months later looking at things and saying "I should have gotten rid of that too!" And, we have soccer every weekend between now and Thanksgiving, so that will put the garage sale off for a while too.



We are going to spend our Thanksgiving week at Disney. We are all very excited. This is very much in keeping with my philosophies of NOT establishing traditions that are locked to a specific day or holiday and not ever cooking a turkey. I would much rather eat cotton candy and ride a roller coaster, and I think my kids would too.



The kids have been playing soccer for the last few weeks. The second week, N. got kicked in the side at warm up time. (Did I already write about this?) No--I just checked. I haven't. Anyway--he played the first half of the game, but was still holding his side (he made some AMAZING saves, by the way!) At halftime, he was still complaining. He started the second half as a forward, and about 3 minutes in, started asking for a sub. He NEVER asks to come out of the game, so I knew something was up. By the time he got to the sideline, he was crying and saying he couldn't breathe. I asked if he wanted to go to the doctor (always my trick to see the seriousness) and he said "Yes, and I want to go right now!"



That freaked me out, so I snatched him up and took off. I didn't have my purse, so I took S's military ID and off we went. It turned out that he had a bruised kidney, and he was quite interested to learn that there was blood in his urine. For some reason, that seemed completely bizarre to him. It took about a week to get over and then he was fine.



THEN--the next week, he fell out of a swing and broke his arm. Both bones. Fortunately, they were both fractures (one hairline and one "mushroom"). It didn't have to be set, but it is in a cast. He is out for 3 weeks. He is NOT happy about it. It happened last Thursday, so Saturday he was still in a lot of pain. Now he is not, and has already asked what our league's rule is about playing if you have a cast. Apparently, if you wrap it in bubble wrap it is ok, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I am at least making him sit out one more week. We'll see about next week.



J. is doing a lot better at school. He doesn't cry anymore when I leave him. He likes his class, even though he doesn't really play with any of the other kids. I don't really see any of them play together, so I guess they are still in that "tandem play" stage. He sometimes says things like "They are mean to me" but I know that isn't true, so I think he is just thinking he doesn't want to go. But, once he's there, he is fine.



He has gotten bored with soccer, which is good. S was letting him play with R's team, but now we have 2 new kids, so there really isn't time for him to go on the field. Although, most of the team gets sick of the game WAY before it is over, so I guess J will be able to play if he wants to. He pays much better attention that several of the boys, and he is definitely big enough and coordinated enough to play with the 5 year olds. I've decided that for baseball, I will sign up to coach Tball, so I can have him on R's team. He just wants to be a part SO BAD, so if I can make that happen, I'm going to do it!



R. is playing fantastic. He is really aggressive and has scored several times in each game. That is really cool for him. He is also AMAZING in school. I am shocked. I really expected him to have trouble paying attention since he is so "easily distracted" at home. But, he is a model student. He sits perfectly still at carpet time and listens and participates. He sits at his table and does his work without ever ever getting in trouble. He has even gotten a citizenship award, and got a prize from the principal. When he gets home he is basically spinning in circles, but we are cutting him a lot of slack because he must have it all stored up inside from being so good at school!! It is very important to him to give me a whole rundown of the day's events, behavior wise. He tells me who lost their playtime, who earned it back, who got a citizenship award, who is friends, who is fighting, and who had to switch tables because they can't be quiet.



He still talks like he is 15. My friend Cathi was doing his class's "reading assessment." She showed him a book and said "R, this person's name is blah blah. Who do you think that person is?" He said "Well, it could be two people. It could be the author--which is the person who writes the words of the book. Or, it could be the illustrator, which is the person who draws the pictures of the book. Does this book have pictures?"



She then showed him the first page and said "R, what would you say if I asked you what this first page says?" (They don't want to say "Do you know what this says?" or "What does this say?" so they don't put the kids in a spot of having to feel like they've failed at something.) Anyway--he said "Well, I would say 'I don't know how to read yet, Miss Cathi!' " He is hilarious!



He loves to quote his teacher, Ms. D. Her word is basically gospel. He tells us the rhymes she says for learning to write letters and all the different things she teaches them. The other day he said "There was way too much chit chat at the green table, so Ms. D moved James over there to see if he could provide a little bit of leadership for that situation." I don't know if he even knows what that means! He knew that James wasn't in trouble, but I think that might be as far as he got it!



Anyway--I will get some soccer pics on here soon, but the camera is downstairs, and I'm just too tired to go get it and download photos. I guess I better do that before Friday, so I can try to remember to take pictures at the barn dance. We'll see!