Blog Gems #10 Happy, Heartwarming or Funny

You can visit them all at The King and Eye or visit mine directly here.

Don't Want to Marry You Yet Auto-Tuned

All Dressed Up with No Where To Go

Church was canceled.  Unfortunately, after I’d taken a shower, eaten, gotten dressed and put on my makeup.  Thus there was no going back to bed for me.  Somehow I'm sure I'll survive.  Maybe we'll have a nature show marathon.

Status Update on the Rental House we’re attempting to buy

Rental House:  First attempt to buy house in October:  Failed  November:  Failed  December: Failed and someone stole the copper pipes.

Now scheduled to close on Monday:  Status: iffy (translation I’m not holding my breath) 

Copper Pipes Status:  Replaced but we’ll have to um, “fix” a few things.  And by “we” I mean an actual plumber.

Real Estate Agent Status:  Worried that someone is sleeping in the house at night; talked the bank into replacing the front door and boarding up a window.

Our Status:  Stoked that we already have a tenant.

Days Two and Three of Will’s Personal Vacation Program

Sometimes the universe decides to drop kick me.  Fortunately, today it didn’t.  When I dropped Will off at his personal vacation program yesterday, the aides that accompanied him were quick to talk about how wonderful, good and smart Will is.  Naturally, I being the co-president of his fan club quickly agreed (you can join too for the initial joining fee of $500 – the high cost is because we are saving up for a fan member vacation … er, team building excursion to the Bahamas.  Sans children, naturally, because it will be nothing but work, work, work and I fear they would be bored.)

Anyway, yesterday the two aides took Will bowling (he bowled most of their games), then out for lunch, then to a mall to ride on a carousal.  Today Will went mini-golfing, hammered and painted a wooded giraffe, and out to lunch.  They also provided a very cute peer model today to go with Will.  This personal vacation week just kept getting better and better as they added additional activities and people for him.

Meanwhile on day 3 -- I took the rest of my gaggle of children to the Boston Museum of Science.  We saw a planetarium show, raced boats and visited the Butterfly Garden.  A butterfly landed on Lizzy’s finger.  Jake stood still forever in hopes one would land on him and I flinched whenever a butterfly flew too close to me.  Because apparently butterflies creep me out.  I now consider them small birds.  And the flapping of bird wings in enclosed spaces makes me want to cower in a corner while holding my head.  The flapping of hundreds ok, maybe not hundreds but definitely several dozen butterfly wings in an enclosed area is also creepy.  And I never plan to go to another butterfly garden ever!

Helicopter Mom

Sometimes I don’t think things through completely.  I would have made the same decision if I had thought it through mind you; but I’d had worried about it more.  I signed Will up for three day, five hour per day vacation week activity.  Since Will tends to spend his free days transcribing The Foot Book while listening to Dr. Seuss’ books read on You Tube Videos I thought it would be good for him to spend his time more productively (he can waste time once he gets home).  And frankly, there is no possible way for me to devote five solid hours to enriching Will’s life without driving myself a little insane and ignoring all my other children.

I dropped him off this morning.  He was a little anxious because he’d only met two of the adults and hasn’t seen them for a year and I doubt he remembered them.  I’d explained to him what was going to happen but I don’t blame him for being anxious.  So, I wrote him a social story with his day’s activities and a schedule with activities he could cross off as they finished.  Today the plan was to go to Plaster Fun Time, out for lunch, then back to the center for crafts and coloring.  What’s not to like?  This week they’re also taking them to go mini-golfing and bowling with lunch out every day.  Only one other kid signed up!  Crazy, huh?  It was $50 for the week and that probably doesn’t even cover the full cost of the activities and lunch.

 

I stayed for 40 minutes.  I told them to call me if they needed anything.  I had to refrain myself from offering to come along.  When I picked up Will this afternoon.  They said that the other kid never showed up.  And they raved about Will because well, let’s face it – he’s awesome, and adorable, and super cute!  So, he added three more people to his fan club.

They mentioned that tomorrow only two adults would be going with Will.  Wow, usually he’s in a two-to-one and today he was in a one-to-three.  I can see Will pulling the “I’m helpless” card with a little topping of the “batting of eyelashes” because, you know, that always works with his mother.

Growing Up Yankee

I drove Jake home from school.  He casually mentioned that he might want to live in Utah when he’s an adult because he has family there.   I mentioned that his father, Will and I might be considered family as well and we live in Massachusetts.

“But I don’t like the snow and cold.”  He stated.  “Maybe I could move to the south … someplace like New Jersey.”

I didn’t say anything then about New Jersey getting snow too because I was worried he might choose to move to the Deep South … you know, someplace like Maryland.

Of course, I decided it was just wishful thinking that I could send Will to a sleep-away camp

Because really I could not see dropping my son off at camp for five days and, while staying in an inn in the same town, not visiting him every day.  And what would I do if he wanted me to stay?  ... Well, obviously I'd sleep on the floor next to him.  And I can pretty much guarantee he'd want me to stay.  It was a nice idea while it lasted but I don't think Will would be *comfortable with the idea and I certainly wouldn't be **comfortable on the floor even if I brought my own air mattress.  So now I have to decide about whether I think the day camp will be good for him.

*And upon reflection I thought that Will wasn't independent or verbal enough to sleep over.
**Besides, I brought it up to Bri and she wasn't comfortable with the idea.

I'm thinking about a sleep-away camp for Will

But it's a little scary.  He's never slept away from us or a relative.  Marcy told me about a special needs day camp in Maine.  You pay for your child to attend and you get a great deal for the rest of the family to stay at a local Inn.  Well, I was looking at the application and noticed that it was only $250 more for the over night camp.  Hmmm, but I'm conflicted.  What do you think?

Busy, Busy

I don’t know how working mothers volunteer in the schools, et al! (But I know some who do – for instance my friend the PTO President.)  This week is killing me!  Tuesday, for instance, I made a birthday lunch for two friends, had a meeting with the superintendent, dropped books off at the library, picked up Jake from school, drove him to EmPOWER tutoring, pulled into my driveway, got a 911 call from Cheryl, drove to Cheryl’s house, worked on our power point presentation with her, went home for 30 minutes, went to the school board meeting, our PAC presented (the “woo, woos” may not have been appropriate), and walked into my house at 10:00pm.  It’s lucky I have a babysitter (Bri) and that Will and Lizzy didn’t need anything from me!

Today I taught two preschool enrichment classes at the Y, drove home for lunch, tried to return to Will’s school for a fundraising meeting (but had to wait for a funeral procession – which isn’t a big deal and I don’t begrudge the police escort and stop in the middle, but it added an extra 15 minutes, and for a hour long meeting you start to wonder if it’s worth it once you add up drive time).  Then I drove Will home, he had therapy.  Thankfully* my husband is taking Bri and Jake to their evening activities and I decided chocolate chips would work just as well as candy for their ice cream sculptures (the activity) since I forgot to buy candy.

Tomorrow Jake has a Macbeth Puppet Show in the morning (I don’t know either but I expect it to be award winning), then I’ll go back to his school to help out with the afterschool Shakespeare play because I have mad acting skills (Meaning 1.  I volunteered 2.  Not really), then I’ll go pick up Jordan, Will’s friend, for a facilitated play date, and hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in a fencing make-up for Jake (Oh, husband, the joy I feel at your desire to sign up Jake for a Saturday activity when he has to miss many of them due to scouting commitments makes me want to stuff chocolate** in my mouth!).  Don’t tell Lizzy (because she might hurt me) but I’m planning on skipping the Dr. Seuss Night at her school.

I complained to Marcy that I was never this busy before I met her***.  She said, “Me either!” and added a “by the way, I signed us up to do monthly teacher appreciation breakfasts at Jake and Dav’s school****.”

I apologize for the “woe is me” post but now I feel better!

*And yes, honestly I probably could have sucked it up and driven them since it would have included ice cream for me.

**MUCH. CHOCOLATE.

*** Mostly because I spent a lot of time watching crappy TV, and hanging out with Katherine and Alyica (who both moved, the brats!)

**** Honestly, I can’t complain about that because I volunteered her to do the once-a-year staff appreciation breakfast at Will’s school.  And if this was payback all I can say is SHE.IS.THE.MASTER. and I hope to learn from her.