Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving I am thankful that this week is Thanksgiving and I have the perfect excuse to say to the outside world a big EFF YOU.  I don't know what went wrong these last few weeks other than I stopped scrapbooking and everything else went to hell.  But if there was ever a time for me to escape from reality and celebrate my family, now is the time to resume it.

We met with the principal of the elementary school who was in no way helpful nor sympathetic to our situation.  What was suppose to be a meeting about this teacher's negligence, turned into a full on argument about one homework assignment that we as a family chose not to do because there was alternate material that would be more meaningful.  One assignment.  Do you really want to open a discussion as to the shortcomings of the district's homework policies and lack of differentiated instruction?  This is about my child's teacher refusing to comply with a simple request to make sure he goes to the bathroom twice a day.  Now he is on a power trip and had us wait until Wednesday for him to make his decision, which he didn't do.  He refused to return my call Wednesday morning and when my husband went in for answers, he said, "What can I do for you?"  Like all had been forgotten.  Supposedly the switch will occur Monday and go into effect Tuesday.  Thank you, dear Mr. Principal, for fucking with my son's education.  

Then there is my work.  I have been under ridicule from my boss for the past few weeks because apparently I have had inappropriate communication with a couple of my students' guidance counselors.  What was so inappropriate?  One of my students is recuperating from a serious back injury and is going through pretty intensive physical therapy.  I wanted to know from the counselor if he was physically capable of meeting the weekly required hours and how much I should push him.  I know!  Isn't that an awful thing to communicate as one professional to another?  Apparently, it's not my job to ask those questions.  The second one was because through a dialogue with one of the counselors, I replied to a message of his without a formal address, such as "Dear Mr. Counselor" and didn't follow the script in our handbook.  We were having a discussion about the ongoing progress of a shared student, a student who suffers from bipolar disorder.  My boss actually rewrote the email for me highlighting the greeting and closing.  Once again it comes down to a matter of control.  We must micromanage every little insignificant detail, once again at the expense of the student, in order to feel important, in control, and God forbid not to possibly have me look more competent than you.

For the next four days, my goal is to not stew, as best I can.  My work is just that, work, so if they want me to play the game, then I'll play the game.  And as for Eli and the school situation, my fears are that the principal will continue to play games and not make the switch on Monday.  I wanted Eli to go back to school Monday with a fresh start, but that's not happening.  Hopefully, we can actually start back on Tuesday.  That is what I will be praying for this weekend so we can settle back in and resume some sort of normalcy for him.

Can I take a minute and just let you know the kind of kid Eli is?  I think that's what makes this all so painful.  Eli can make friends with anyone, and usually does.  He has a very encompassing energy that just draws other kids into whatever is playing out in his imagination.  All are welcome.  Eli is the kid that hovers over me making his lunch because he cannot go to school with a peanut butter sandwich.  He loves peanut butter, but one of his best friends is allergic to peanuts, so he goes without.  The other day he was at his soccer banquet and was eating some Doritoes.  His teammate was sitting next to him and somehow Eli learned he was allergic to Doritoes, so Eli got up and threw away his plate and wouldn't eat them either.  That's the kind of kid Eli is, and he doesn't deserve this.

I have seven page layouts to go.  The plan is to finish them Friday and then Saturday and Sunday work on the embellishments.  I'm behind in my plan, but maybe being behind at this point is a good thing..more to do to occupy my mind.

I'm also reading Bridget Jones's Diary.  There are about four, maybe five books, that have caused me to literally laugh out loud.  Tina Fey's Bossypants is one, and that one had me laughing the entire time.  My husband thought I was seriously losing it.  There was also a Sophie Kinsella book, not the any of the Shopaholics, but the one about the girl who loses her memory.  That had a funny part in it that had me laughing for awhile.  And both Bridget Jones books (haven't seen the third one yet).  And there might have been a few others, but these are the ones that stick out in my memory.  I had thought when I initially picked it up again that it would lighten my mood, but reading Bridget as a happily married 38 year old, versus reading it as a single 21 year old certainly had a different effect.  God, she's annoying and really and truly messed up. I also cannot get the image of Renee Zellwiger out of my head, with her weird, fake pouty lips and screwy British accent.  There had to have been a better choice.  But, it's a fast read, so I'm almost through and then can jump into something more my 30-something speed.

So that's my Thanksgiving holiday.  I pray that soon a door opens for me that will allow me to make some changes for myself and my family, and in the meantime I pray that life settles a bit.  Have a blessed holiday!

Where the F**K is my bathing suit??

I thought that maybe the spring, summer, and beautiful fall we had might have helped my body to make a full recuperation after the bitterly cold winter we had last year, but this week temperatures dipped below freezing and I immediately went into full on hibernation/depression mode, donned my stained sweatpants, ordered Taco Bell, and began ranting about how much I hate living where I do and searching for houses in much warmer climates.  I'm pretty sure last winter did permanent damage to my body.  Just like my butterfly bush almost died, as did many of them around us, and no hydrangeas bloomed this year, I think something inside my bones will never be the same again.

And guess where I get to go tonight?  An indoor water park for a kid's birthday party.  Have you ever been to an indoor water park?  I had my first experience last year at my niece's.  It is sickeningly warm and humid.  It's like the hottest day in July but you're surrounded by hundreds of strangers.  Yes, strangers.  In a confined space.  The floors are slimy.  Everything you touch is slimy.  And people brush their wet, sticky bodies up against you because there is no room to move.  

I was at first questioning if I needed to stay.  But, yes, I need to stay.  It's a freaking water park!  I'm not leaving my eight year old to fend for himself at a water park.  Then I thought maybe I don't need to wear a swimsuit.  What am I thinking???  Of course I need to wear a swimsuit.  My kid is a selective mute.  He has severe anxiety in crowds.  There's no way in hell he's going to go off with his friends without me.  Nope!  There I'll be sitting in a 100 degree room with 90 percent humidity with a lanky, gangly eight year old strewn across me refusing to leave my lap.  Damn, where the fuck did I put my bathing suit?

[SKIP AHEAD TO MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, CAN'T SLEEP, EMOTIONALLY WRECKED]

I began this post early on Friday, November 21st and at that time my biggest worry was that frickin' waterpark and finding my bathing suit.  It turns out that waterpark was the best part of my day, after the horrendous drive there.  This place, traffic-free, is probably no more than ten or fifteen minutes from my house, but an hour later fighting with Turnpike and 295 traffic and the DAMN NEW JERSEY JUGHANDLES (I made so many loops, cursing Friday nights and New Jersey and my husband for not cleaning his windshield and I'm sure adding to my son's anxiety which will probably tack on a few extra therapy sessions) we finally made it. 

Before I recount the night's events, let's back up a bit to parent conferences.  Report cards came out last Friday.  Wednesday I took the boys for their flu shots and happened to mention to the office staff there that Eli was having bathroom issues at school and despite my efforts, i.e. pleading with the teacher to ensure his use of the bathroom, he was still not going.  He was embarrassed and afraid to ask her or say that he had to go.  They said they'd have the doctor write a note and it'd be ready the next day.  That night I get a call from the doctor himself telling me to get the kid in the office to be tested for a urinary tract infection because, you know, he's got that alien kidney and all.  My husband and I joked that if she didn't start making sure he went to the bathroom, we'd pull the kidney card, but we never actually thought it'd hurt him.  I don't know why I didn't think the situation would hurt him.  His kidney has never been a serious threat and we've finally gotten to the point of putting it out of our minds and moving past it.  Thanks to this teacher who refused to say, "You must go and try to use the bathroom," my son who has made it this far with no problems is at risk. 

OK, so we meet with the principal before our conference with her about that issue first and foremost, but also because the child continues to have behavior issues and we continue to get no communication from her aside from a bunch of stars on a piece of paper, or no stars, given the day, and the kid is thoroughly confused because she also has a behavior ladder and some days when he gets no stars he's at the middle of the ladder on "blue" and other days he gets a whole bunch of stars and will be low on the ladder on "yellow" or "orange".  And not only is he publicly ridiculed on this ladder, but she decided to mark down his participation grade in all subjects because of this so-called behavior and it actually prevented him from getting an "Outstanding" in reading.

The meeting with the principal went well and we thought maybe there could be some progress made...AND then we met with her.  She, who had told me Eli was reading at an advanced level and would bring in chapter books and enrichment material for him, turned around and said she doesn't see that he's reading above grade level.  She's the one who told me!  She condescendingly praised his behavior that day, but couldn't tell us what color he was on.  We turned around to find him on "yellow" because she failed to move him up the ladder as his behavior improved.  She said she was inconsistent because the half days were throwing her off.  This isn't the first time she's made an excuse for her inconsistency with the chart. 

As the conference continued, we were upset but really holding it together and she suddenly makes the statement that she wants to help and support our child but she can't do that when she feels under "attack."  Uh-huh?  OK...I'm trying to support these multiple behavior charts.  I hadn't yet presented her with the doctor's note about him using the bathroom.  How am I attacking her?  Homework.  That was it.  Homework.  Every Monday night every teacher in grades K through second grade gives the spelling words to copy over two or three times each.  Eli knows all of the spelling words every week, first night.  He does not need to rote memorize words he already knows.  I politely wrote her a note saying that I reviewed the words with him, he knew them all, and had him do some more challenging work in a phonics workbook.  I had told her previously that I work with him in these workbooks because they really help bolster his skills and confidence.  I explained to her that I did it last year when he was struggling with paragraph writing.  He was being pushed too hard and didn't have the skills to be confident in attempting to write paragraphs.  He was only five.  His kindergarten teacher at first was skeptical, but she was supportive of it.  By the end of the year, she even said that Eli had made great progress and that backing off was just the thing he needed.  I told ALL of this to his teacher this year.  She initially seemed impressed by it, so I was clearly surprised when she referred to it as an attack.  Seriously, if I wanted to be insubordinate, I would have written a note saying "Homework sucks and is pointless.  We're not doing it!"  (By the way, that's how I feel as an educator and rarely gave homework.  Practice what you preach, right?)

The conversation moved onto him doing the new "challenge" that comes with copying out the words twice:  students can write a story using the spelling words.  I love it!  It's meaningful, creative, and appropriately challenging.  The first night it came home, Eli jumped on it.  The second week, he was completely frustrated.  Tears were streaming down his face.  I stopped him, and said it was OK.  We did four workbook pages in its place.  I wrote a note to her saying he was frustrated and we did extra work in its place and if she wanted to see the workbook, I'd be happy to bring it in for her.  At the conference, she questioned why I wouldn't force him to do the challenge which is an optional challenge for all the students.  I told her--again--that he easily gets frustrated with writing and pushing him just makes it worse.  She said that he's going to continue to struggle if he's not pushed into doing it.  Say what?!?!  Yeah, and then he's going to be sitting in ninth grade hating his teacher before he already knows her because she's going to make him write and then she's left with the task of undoing all the damage you caused at six years old.  Been there!  I told her I refused, REFUSED, to have tears over writing in my house.  He will NOT have negative feelings towards the task. 

She said more stuff after that, but I was done.  I stopped listening and then I realized, so had he.  He was tuning her out.  He was tuning out her inconsistencies, her condescension, her ridicule.  He was going into his little world inside that with Eli always plays itself out in the real world and there was the behavior.  He doesn't have ADD.  He's surviving in a hostile environment. I walked up to the office and said he will NOT be setting foot in her class again...ever. 

So yeah, yada yada yada, the principal couldn't see me then and I'm to meet with him on Monday first thing.  But, there's no other option and he knows it. 

I was left feeling wrecked.  I was completely "that parent" who every teacher dreads.  Being a mom is ten times harder than teaching ever was, because no matter how much you want to support educators, your child, your baby, comes first.  And then it was time for me to face the waterpark.

We get to the waterpark and there was no. one. there.  The party-goers were there, but other than that the place was relatively empty.  Sal's friends came running up to him and suddenly my kid had friends.  Lots of friends and he ran off and I didn't see him the rest of the night.  Do you know how monumental that is?  I'm sitting here in tears as I type.  He was a normal little boy with all these nice little friends.  Yeah, he was the quiet one, but he talked to them.  He played with them.  It was everything I have always hoped for him.   I have never felt such joy.

While I sat there taking in my little boy's accomplishments, I sat with a mom who was at a funeral today.  The town over lost a fireman.  He was thirty-eight with an eight year old little boy and a four year old little girl.  Sal's baseball team played this guy's son's team a couple years ago.  He was their coach.  He had gone off duty and a few hours later his wife found him dead.  Aneurism?   Probably a heart attack?  At thirty eight.  We're thirty eight.  I think of my husband, overweight, over-stressed, a wife that makes him go out for Taco Bell.  None of that other stuff matters.  All the anxiety my kids feel at school shouldn't be because all that stuff, yeah, it's good to know, but it doesn't matter.  Their friends matter.  Family matters.  Fun matters.  Taking it all in before it's all gone.  That's what matters. 

So, yeah, that's why I'm up in the middle of the night.   

Reality Bites

Now, I'm not saying scrapbooking has magical powers or anything, but this past week I haven't been able to sit and work on pages at all and let's just say I've been hit hard with that awful thing called reality.  Nothing particularly bad happened; it's just that I've been faced quite glaringly with our circumstances and I don't like them.  It's hard to remain positive and remember your blessings, and I do have many, when life is right there smacking you in the face.

The week began with me chaperoning Sal's field trip to the zoo.  It was a beautiful day.  I had four great kids in my group who I immensely enjoyed spending the day with.  They were vibrant and inquisitive and they asked questioned and listened to everything that was said.  But through all of this, I was faced with the painful disorder that is called selective mutism.  Sal has made leaps and bounds in the past few months with his speaking, but here he was in a small group with his mom and barely spoke ten words the entire day.  You see, we had a little girl in our group who is pretty much the polar opposite of Sal.  She's loud and peppy and outgoing and touchy-feely and at one point I thought Sal was going to implode from all that is her.  He has a rating system through the SMart Center to chart his level of anxiety, 0 being no anxiety and 3 being very, very hard.  He gave spending the day with this girl a 10.  And she doesn't deserve a 10.  She's a sweet, caring little girl.  But, I was struck by how out of place he is at this school.  Aside from his interaction with her, I was able to observe him for about an hour in the classroom while waiting for the buses to arrive.  There are so many distractions this teacher must deal with on a daily basis.  Sal has one of the nicer groups of kids in his school, and his class in particular this year, is quite nice, but there are still behaviors that I'm sure simply set him on edge and are out of the teacher's power to stop and consume a lot of her energy to keep in check.  She's been amazing at helping him, but I can imagine that the help is limited.  Sal isn't even aware of it, but I see a little boy with "friends" that aren't truly friends, but rather kids that are nice and he likes.

On top of that, Eli is continuing to struggle behaviorally in school.  He has "good" days and "bad" days and had another accident again this week.  I'm getting the little sheet of paper with some stars on it here and there, but no real feedback as to his actions.  His group of kids is more questionable.  They have a much darker side, some just because they are more imaginative, but others because of their lack of preservation of innocence in their upbringing.  My husband is concerned the child has ADHD, but I'm convinced his lack of attention is the lack of the teacher's ability to engage him.  Plus, how can she compete with the stories the other kids are telling?

It's a terrible feeling to have that sense of not belonging.  We have all experienced it, and it's not a new feeling for me in any way.  I remember sitting for years at dance class, friendless and awkward, and clearly not "a dancer".  I didn't belong, but stayed because despite all of that, I enjoyed the dancing.  But it was a temporary feeling.  For a few hours each week I sat awkward and alone, but the rest of life seemed to fall into place.  I had belonging in school activities and a strong little group of friends.  In this little town, I'm constantly on the outskirts of community, as is my entire family.  I can see relationships being formed and a strong sense of community, but not one that I am truly apart of.  And it's clearly affecting my boys, Sal especially.  Everyone is busy and play dates are difficult to arrange, but I see the other boys striking up friendships that will last a long time.  I see families hanging out together and kids having sleepovers and after school video game fests.  And no matter how many times I open my doors to them, they never open their doors to me.  Now at the age of eight, there are no such things as "play dates".  They are too contrived.  The kids go to friends' houses to hang out, but for us, we're still arranging and planning and scheduling.

[A little side story here.  I had a couple brothers over this summer to play with Sal and Eli.  I really like their mom.  She's a lot like me and our younger boys are like kindred spirits.  Anyway, she invited us to their block party.  Here was an opportunity for us to be social, and I completely forgot about it.  She said she'd send me an Evite, but I'm pretty sure she forgot.  My mother raked me over the coals for forgetting, admonishing me for all my "whining and complaining" about not having any friends and then forgetting to go. Feeling guilty and a social reject, I get on Facebook and see that at said block party there was a drunk guy there who has some sexual predator issues and was following the kids around and making lewd comments to them.  This mom I like told him he needed to leave so he came back with a gun (a pellet gun that he made over to look like a real gun, but still) and pointed it at her head.  Maybe there was a reason I forgot this party.  Maybe I was never meant to be there in the first place.  I know after I told my mom that she got off me for not going.]

But maybe that's just it.  Maybe I was never meant to be apart of this community in the first place.  Maybe I'm meant to be in my home and with my neighbors, but not really apart of this little town.  Maybe there is something different for us.  And that brings me to our evening last night.  I signed up to go to an open house at a Friends school just ten minutes up the road from us.  A Friends school is based on the Quaker religion. They cherish peace and simplicity.

Here is also a little bit of reality hitting me as I make arrangements to visit a school with a $11,000 per year tuition:  we hit such a financial crisis this fall what with the dog's vet bills, accruing credit debt, and a depletion of both our paychecks that we have tapped into our boys' savings what little there was.  I swore I never would touch their savings, but at one point we needed to pay our mortgage and at another point, it seemed ridiculous to be spending thousands of dollars in interest on our credit cards when there was this money sitting there that could potentially save us.  We made the decision to use their savings to help us get out of credit debt.  I'm hoping that in a few years time, it will have been the right decision and have the outcome of helping our overall circumstances and enrich their experiences.  But still....

So we visit this school.  When I made the appointment, my husband said he wouldn't be going and would stay home with all the boys.  He said there didn't seem to be any point in visiting a school that wasn't an option for us.  But, I needed to see it.  I'm sick of feeling resigned, settling for mediocre.  Both older boys were very excited to attend, and surprisingly as 5 o'clock rolled around there was my husband ready to go without a single snarky comment to be made.

Sending my children had never been even a consideration when we became parents.  I'm sorry to say it, but I stereotyped private school kids and families: rich snobs.  How could I not being a strong proponent of a public school education when I was a public school educator?  But, here we were last night at this school and guess what?  There were a lot of rich people there.  Our tour guide was a parent of two boys at the school.  She was Indian and didn't work, so I can only assume what her husband did for a living.  I mean, let's just jump right into the stereotypes, right?  When you expect to find something, you often do, but as we toured from classroom to classroom, it suddenly struck me that what I initially read as her being fake and trying to make a sale, was complete sincerity of her love for this school.  It wasn't until we went into the fourth grade classroom (potentially Sal's classroom next year) and met the fourth grade teacher that suddenly I, too, found myself falling in love with this place.  The teacher who was in her late 60's, maybe early 70's, was animatedly talking about her freedom to explore the world around them.  No burn out.  Just a love, a genuine love, for this school.  She had been a student there, a teacher there, and a parent there.  And as my two little ones started getting antsy and running around, she put her hand on my arm and said to just let them be and explore, there was nothing they could hurt in her room.  And I believed her!

And here's the truly miraculous part!  By the end of the night, Sal was freely talking in front of our tour guide and our two student guides.  He willingly said good-bye and thank you upon leaving and expressed how much he liked the school.  Turns out he was listening the entire time and easily picked up on the small class sizes and all the extras the school had to offer.  Not only did I see Sal reach a comfort level in less than two hours with complete strangers, but my Mr. Negative husband said how calm the school made him feel.  He said that it was so warm and inviting and everyone there seemed to have open arms.

Could this be the answer?  I realize no place is perfect, but... How could this be the answer when we have no way to pay for tuition?  Did I make a mistake in visiting?  In seeing something I have no hopes of having? Is there a hope?  Do I have the energy to make it happen?  Will the fates be in my favor of rewarding my energy when it seems so much of my already spent energy has been in vain?

And that's where I am this Friday morning, faced with these realities and not really sure about how to handle them.  I'm trying to figure out a way to blend my fantasy life (which is really just a slightly more comfortable life than I have right now, not with private jets or mansions, but the ability to send my kids to a school that could allow them to blossom and maybe a new pair of boots every now and then) and my real life of living paycheck to paycheck and coming up short every now and then on the mortgage or groceries.

November Challenge A Go! (in spite of my mother)

Last night I caught up on my number of scrapbook pages and this morning already completed today's layouts.  I'll probably work ahead today because I only have two layouts to complete and then Eli's baby book will be finished...six years later.  This challenge has given to me what I anticipated all of my challenges to have given me, a pleasant distraction, and we're not even half way through the month.  I will actually be sad to pack it all up December 1st, but it will be necessary to have some sort of order in the house for that month.

Last night I shared with my mother and my husband how far along I've come in the pages and how much I've been enjoying myself.  From both I get the cursory, "Um-hum", and though I can't see my mother over the phone, I sense she, too, is giving the eye roll like my husband.  My mother and husband are complete opposites when in comes to cleanliness standards save for one point--the dining room table covered in albums, papers, pictures, and a lot of, well, scraps.  It drives them crazy, and I suppose to a non-scrapbooker, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense and seems a rather trivial hobby.  Ironically, the rest of my house has been straightened and cleaned and ordered to a much greater extent than it has been in months.  I suppose the freedom to make a mess on the dining room table has somehow inspired me to order the rest of the house.

So until December 1st, when it will need to put away to make room for parties and special dinners and breakfasts, I will bask in the mess that is scrapbooking.  

One Thing New Jersey is Good For

The first week in November marks New Jersey Education Association's teacher convention, and school is cancelled throughout the state on Thursday and Friday of that week.  So for two days I get all my boys home with no holiday to plan for or trips to take or parties to go to.  This I love.  I love not having to fight over homework or getting them out the door or even getting dressed.  We had another rainy day, i.e. our second jammie day in under a week.  Tomorrow we're visiting Longwood Gardens, which is a former DuPont residence that has turned horticultural center about an hour from us.  It is frequented by older garden enthusiasts, a lot of Asians, young lovers, and my three boys.  While most people are shuffling their kids off to amusement parks or boardwalk attractions or science centers, we go to the gardens.  Don't get me wrong, we go to all of those places, too, but at those places we're on edge.  We're keeping track and counting kids and running from one ride to the next.  Longwood Gardens brings a certain amount of freedom to our family.  For one, it's a giant garden with sprawling lawns and giant, ancient trees, wooded trails and meadows.  No matter how many people are there, they could never begin to fill the space this place encompasses.  My boys run and with them so does their imaginations as they climb tree houses and explore topiary gardens and race through giant fountains.

I don't know if this is something with all kids or something I've observed with just mine, but when Sal was about two or three years old we realized a transformation came over him in two different places.  A sense of peace would overtake him and he was suddenly perfectly content.  He belonged.  There was no whining on his part or yelling on ours.  Those two places for Sal are the beach and farms.  My husband and I have since said that we need to buy a huge property on the northern shores of the Outerbanks so he could have the best of both worlds.  Eli's place of belonging we realized this summer at Longwood Gardens.  We went on one of the hottest, muggiest days of the year.  Sal was whining about the heat, but Eli was suddenly at home.  Eli has always had a touch of fairy about him.  In fact, call me crazy, but he even has a crook in his one ear that makes it appear just a tad elfish.   Longwood Gardens is practically a fairyland come to life and all the while we are there Eli is trapped in his imagination, darting in and out of bushes and secret paths crossing trails with the wee folk he is kin to.

It is very appropriate that this weekend we visit there again in an attempt to celebrate Eli's magic.  School continues to be a struggle.  I met with his teacher a couple of weeks ago who hadn't a positive thing to say about his behavior.  She described him as a total mess and I sat there dumbfounded because I didn't have a response for her.  This is all new to me.  She hinted more directly at his inability to control himself, which translated means she thinks he has ADHD.  I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure ADHD doesn't spontaneously appear.  I picked my jaw up off the floor after her ten minute tirade to question if he's this bad and this out of control, how in the world is he possibly coming home with A's on everything??  Apparently the child is reading at quite an advanced level.  He's reading above the reading program's highest reader.  She, of course, mentioned that his behavior during tests is atrocious.  She reads the test questions to the students about three times each and students are given time to read the choices and circle the answer.  Eli will have nothing done halfway through the test.  She'll give him a reminder that the test is nearing completion and the child will go back on his own, read all the questions and answers himself, and get an A.  Clearly he's bored.  She claimed she would bring in enrichment material, but has yet to do so claiming his behavior hasn't improved enough for this.  The material is suppose to deter the behavior, isn't it?

She continued to not update me on his behavior, almost like he was a lost cause; thus, preventing any intervention or rewards system I attempted at home.  I did speak to the principal about this and now just this week he comes home daily with a little sheet of paper tracking his behavior through the day's activities.  But, it doesn't make sense.  He received a "star" for reading (he apparently was one of the first ones finished with his reading test), but when I spoke to her about another matter that day, she could only say that he was a problem during the test because he was standing and couldn't sit.  Well, why did he get a star?  And what's the big deal if he was standing?  Was he running around the room?  Was he touching others?  Was he distracting others?  Or, was he simply standing beside his desk focusing on a test and it bothered her?

What was the other matter, you ask?  Even more concerning is that he's been having bathroom accidents several times in the course of a week.  I brought this to her attention shortly after the conference, but nothing seemed to changed.  And this past week on the day he came home with only two stars and wound up on "red", he had a pretty bad accident and sat in his pee for most of the day.  This went unnoticed by her, but not by several of his friends.  I talked to him that night and he opened up about having some bathroom insecurities.  He is embarrassed to let others know he's going to the bathroom, and if he's embarrassed to say it, I'm pretty sure he's embarrassed to go around his friends.  There were some issues last year where a couple of students were invading his personal space which greatly upset him.  He's also afraid he'll be left behind in the bathroom and won't be there when the class leaves for special: art, library, music, etc.  Do you know what happens when you have to pee really, really badly?  You can't concentrate, and you certainly can't sit still.  I wrote a short email to her about this, asking her to please make sure he uses the bathroom.

She hadn't responded to the email that next day, so I wanted to see if she got it and if the day had gone better.  She gave me this weird back and forth head tilt, like it was some far fetched theory, and said she didn't know if she should talk to him about it.  Huh?  Um, yes!  She said she asked him several times if he needed to go to the bathroom but he said "No" every time.  It wasn't until the end of the day that she told him he needed to try and go.  I told her to please feel free to tell him he must use the bathroom.  She retorted, "You know I can't force him to go."  Duh!  But, you can tell him he must try and he will listen to you.  She then said, "Well, thank you for your feedback and we'll just keep working on his behavior."  Feedback!  My child is wetting his pants, something he has NEVER done, on an almost daily basis and has expressed fear of using the bathroom.  This isn't feedback!  As a long time first grade teacher, I find it hard to believe this is something she has never dealt with!

Finally, finally, my husband is angry.  Finally he is going to speak to this woman.  We're even discussing switching teachers, which isn't going to be easy.  She has four students less in her class than all the other first grade teachers.  (Tell me why that is!)  But, for now, we're home.  Today Eli has spent the entire day playing with about six Beanie Babies collected during my college years.  Six Beanie Babies has contented this child for hours.  And tomorrow he can play with the fairies.

I've been continuing to scrapbook, Eli's baby book in fact, and it has helped me to refocus my attention on something other than that school.  Somehow I fell behind a day, but I'll get caught up this weekend.  I had forgotten how absorbing scrapbooking can be.  I also got my hair cut and this morning while coloring it myself, I gave myself a pedicure and foot and leg massage.  Quite nice!

And finally, even more exciting is that I'm currently rereading two of my favorite series.  About a year and a half ago I got a deal on Scholastic for the entire paperback collection of The Magic Treehouse series, all forty-five of them, for my boys.  They are short chapter books, about ten chapters a piece, that follow brother and sister, Jack and Annie, as they find a magic treehouse in the woods that takes them on magical adventures to different times and lands.  It's brilliant.  I bought up to #45 and then we found #46 through #48 newly released in paperback in the last six months and we've been reading them every week taking trips from Shakespeare's England to the Jurassic Period to ancient China and India and even visited Abraham Lincoln.  But, it was time to take a little break since the rest of the series we can only get from the library.  This was the perfect excuse to start something I have been waiting to share with them since they were born and they are finally ready...Harry Potter!  They've seen the first movie, but like all movies, it just doesn't hold the same magic as the books.  They are fighting me a bit, I think because, let's face it, Harry Potter has become something of a cliche.  But, stripping away all the movies and theme parks and Legos, we are still left with an amazing piece of literature that they need to know.  We've only made it through the first two chapters, and I'm almost glad they are fighting me because once I finally get them to settle down and snuggle in bed, a hush falls over the room as the power of Potter takes over.  Daddy has Legos, but I have books.

I also began rereading my favorite modern series The Elm Creek Quilt series by Jennifer Chiaverini starting with The Quilter's Apprentice.  I found this book about fifteen years ago and it tells the story of Sarah, an out-of-work accountant who has recently relocated to a small Pennsylvania college town for her husband's new landscaping job.  His job brings her into the company of Sylvia Compson, owner of Bergstrom Manor. Mrs. Compson has re-inhabited her dilapidated childhood estate after the passing of her estranged sister and has hired Sarah to help straighten up the place and get ready for sale.  In addition to a small salary, Sarah makes a deal with Mrs. Compson, a master quilter, to learn how to quilt.  As their lessons progress, Mrs. Compson shares her sad and tragic past with Sarah and a friendship blooms.  In addition, Sarah befriends a group of quilters at a local quilt shop finally finding her place in the world.  The series continues on as the Bergstrom Manor is transformed into a retreat for quilters and we are told stories of the women who are touched by this property both in the present and those of the past through Sylvia's stories.  Can you tell why I'm in love with this series?  Crafting, friendships, sweeping Pennsylvania farmland.

I actually had the opportunity to go to a luncheon and author reading with Jennifer Chiaverini.  My best friend, Jennifer, and myself were the only women in the room under the age of fifty.  As we sat in a sea of white heads, the women at our table leaned over to my friend and me and asked if we were quilters, because clearly every woman in the room with their hand-quilted purses was.  We said, "No, we're readers."

So that, too, is how I'm beginning my November.  My goal is to surround myself with all that is warm and simple and good.  Visiting memories of my baby's infancy, celebrating his uniqueness and magic personality, reading books that whisk me away to a life I can only dream of having, both imaginary and real.  Hopefully the power of Potter and scrapbooking and gardens and quilting can drown out all the other elements of my life that right now I can't change, but must somehow endure.

Ahhh, November

Isn't November just the loveliest month?  This November 1st we were treated to a wonderfully rainy day which left all soccer practices and games cancelled.  We stayed inside in our jammies all day and played video games and board games and even did a craft.  It was a perfect day.  And Thanksgiving is coming!  The older I get the more I love Thanksgiving.  Why?  Because it is virtually no work.  Yes, there's the cooking, but it's cooking.  You have to cook that day no matter what, so why not have a feast?  It's the simplest of holidays, and when you have three little boys, simple is so very good.

I'm sad to say I did not complete my October challenges, but I do plan on carrying them into November and find a few more ways to pamper myself.  After all, it is a much less stressful month.  Our weekly Nature Cove escapades ends next week.  There's only two weeks left of soccer.  I can take a little bit of time for myself.  

But, to get to the very exciting part, I'm already ahead of myself for my November challenge.  When I first moved in with my husband, he encouraged me to find a hobby that would allow me to bond with his sister and sister-in-law; thus, I picked up scrapbooking.  I might as well have picked up a cigarette because it's just as expensive and addictive and carries just as much guilt with it as any nicotine habit.  Here's the deal with scrapbooking.  When you're child-less, you have basically all the time and money in the world to support a scrapbook habit, but you have very little worth scrapbooking.  This kids come along leaving you with thousands of pictures and no time or money to put them all in books, and you're left feeling guilt-ridden, especially with the younger ones, who you haven't finished or even started their scrapbooks.

Such is my case.  And not only do I not have the time or money to support the habit, I no longer have the space.  There are amazing scrapbook/craft room designs on Pinterest.  My "scrapbook room" is my dining room.  I'm a very organized, Type-A person, but even the very term "scrap"booking suggests mess.  And that is what I have right now...a mess!

The challenge is to complete one scrapbook page for each day in the month of November.  A few months ago my BFF unloaded all her old scrapbooking materials on me, so I am good to go and shouldn't have to drop more than a few dollars, if any at all, to complete the challenge.  At first I was going to complete one page, start to finish, each day, but upon beginning my first page, I realized this was going to be a challenge.  With scrapbooking you have the layout involving all the pictures and paper.  Then you have the embellishments: stickers, ribbons, buttons, stamps, etc.  This means twice the amount of materials out at a given time.  So, I decided approach the challenge a bit differently.  For the first fifteen days, I'm going to layout fifteen pages, pictures and paper.  That will give me thirty pages, one for each day of the month.  For the remainder of the month, I'll bring out my embellishments and go to work on decorating and journal on each page.  I already have four page layouts complete thanks to Pinterest.

And I feel no pressure.  I did a little bit at first, but once I made the adjustment and kept my embellishments tucked away, I really just absorbed myself in looking through old pictures of my babies.  My focus is Eli's and Milo's baby books, not yet complete.  My husband even sat with me for a few minutes to look through the pictures.  It was so very nice.

Needless to say, November has been off to a wonderful start.  And this morning, a little something extra happened that kind of made my day, a little bit.  Two years ago I was struggling with the fact that I really had very little friends here.  I decided to go to a Mom's Club new members event at a park.  For those of you who don't know, a Mom's Club is a support/social/network group for moms.  I was the only mom there who had three children.  Most only had one new baby and a few had a toddler and a new baby.  Then there was me, juggling three.  Okay, fine.

Well, the vice-president of the club was there with her son, and she happened to be the only other resident of the town where I lived.  Her main topic of conversation was how they were leaving and moving to a four-bedroom house in a much better school district and what would they ever do with four-bedrooms and maybe they'd have another baby since they did now have four bedrooms.  Up comes my little Eli for lunch and sweet as can be sits at the table and bites into a peanut butter sandwich.  Only it wasn't his peanut butter sandwich; it was the kid who has four bedroom's peanut butter sandwich.  My knee-jerk reaction was to gasp and shout, "That's not yours!" leaving my own little boy in tears.  Now, here was an opportunity for her to be human and forgiving and maybe even a bit concerned that a child she doesn't know who may or may not have a severe peanut allergy just bit into the peanut butter sandwich she left laying on the table.  Nope! She took the sandwich and threw it away.  I of course offered my profuse apologies and, even though I didn't expect her to accept, offered to give her the sandwich I had packed as a gesture.  She coldly said, "It's fine," turned her back, and proceeded to give me the cold shoulder for the remainder of the event.  I felt miserable and embarrassed, and left feeling even more alone than when I arrived.

I never attended another event, oddly not because of the incident, but because their events were for moms and babies, not moms with kids.  Everything took place during drop off and pick up times for my older boys' schools.  I took it as a sign that maybe yet another social outlet was not for me.

Skip ahead two years, and I find myself at the Nature Cove with you-know-who.  She has made no effort to acknowledge she knows me, but given the energy, I am pretty sure she remembers.  Maybe not?  My husband always accuses me of remembering "insignificant" events.  Could it be that she found it "insignificant" and no longer remembers me?  She surely didn't treat it as insignificant and my embarrassment was not easily gotten over given her reaction.

So there we were standing  looking at this giant brush pile and learning about what types of animals might choose to hibernate there.  Milo, for some unexplained reason, was very attentive and very interested in the possible weasels, snakes, and groundhogs that could be inhabiting the pile of branches.  Suddenly, he and I were hit from behind with a giant branch.  Milo was hit in the head.  The sun was shining very brightly and when I turned to see what happened it appeared the branch came from nowhere, but suddenly there she was grasping her son's arm who was crying, forcing him into an apology.  Apparently, he had come up behind us and kicked the stick at us, probably unintentionally hitting us.  But, dear me, did her son make a mistake?  A mistake all little boys make?  Was it possible?  It felt just a little bit good that she stood there embarrassed.  Her kid was a monster that day, pushing other kids and being fairly unruly as opposed to Eli on that day in the park who made an honest mistake.

Does it make me a bad person that I felt just a bit giddy on the inside?  We don't see karma in action all too often, and her treatment of me that day at, of all places, a new member welcoming event, stung.  I am not a mom who has it all together.  I don't pretend to be, and though I am self-conscious of myself as a mother, I still don't put on to be anyone other than that crazy lady with three boys who loses it more often than she'd like. Maybe it makes me a bad person, maybe it doesn't, but I'm not perfect and, damn, neither is she!  Ha! Ha!

I love November!