sometimes the smallest thing gives you new perspective

Thank you all for your word of kindness and wisdom on my last post. I appreciate them all. (And especially to Blythe and Manic Mommy who suggested just keeping Shout in the class with all boys, because Laundry Dad made the same suggestion and I scoffed at him, but you both made me re-think that, and although it's not ideal, it might be ok. She plays with her brothers just fine, but she IS very girly. Also, Blythe, your comment about syllabi made me laugh all day! I tried to email you but it didn't go through.)

Shout had kindergarten testing yesterday at the school where the big kids go. I'm not really sure what it consists of, some playtime, writing, drawing, cutting...

Of course I have my concerns.

When it was over, I wanted to chat with the kindergarten teacher for a second and as it turns out, she wanted to chat with me also.

She saw a few red flags. And I was surprised, but they were not the same red flags that I have. (For example, how did I never notice that among all the other things she can't do, my child cannot use scissors?) In the end, it wasn't that she didn't "PASS" but the teacher mentioned that it would be ok if she ended up spending 2 years in kindergarten.

I wanted to scream. I don't WANT her to spend 2 years in the same class. I just don't.

Honestly, I think deep down, I was hoping that teacher would come out and say "I don't know what you are worried about! She did great! She is totally ready for kindergarten!" and instead, I got the hard truth - that she is borderline. There are issues. She might NOT be ready. Truth that I already knew. But hearing someone else say it feels like a slap in the face.

When I was pregnant with her, I had a zillion doctors appointments, and although, all things considered, most of them were fairly positive, after every single one, I got in my car afterward and cried. It was just a constant reminder that things were not as they were supposed to be.

That's how I felt yesterday. It's just not how it was supposed to be.

But then, this morning, I was at the party store (because my Ladies Night is tomorrow night... woo!... and by the way, thanks for the words of wisdom on that too... I'm providing food and drink and a kid-free house, does it really matter if my curtains have no hems or there are Polly Pocket shoes in the couch cushions?)... anyway... back to the party store... I found myself in front of the Abby Cadabby birthday party stuff. And I immediately thought of Maddie because that's who I always think of when I see Abby Cadabby. And damn if it wasn't like the slap I needed upside the back of my head.

I GET TO WORRY ABOUT THIS.

I have the privilege of worrying about whether or not my kid should go to kindergarten.

That kid who they told me wouldn't live.

The kid who they told me might not go to a regular school.

The kid who we expected was always going to need special services.

Her.

She's SO CLOSE to being ready for kindergarten, that we're just not sure.

THAT is not just a miracle, it's a whole constellation of miracles.

For her, being almost ready for kindergarten is a TREMENDOUS achievement.

This is the kid who couldn't sit up until she was a year. Who couldn't walk until she was almost two. The kid who had 8 doctors following her from the day she was born.

SHE'S ALMOST READY FOR KINDERGARTEN!

But she's not. I'm ending all the wondering and worrying right here and saying She Is Not Ready. Wherever she goes next year, it will not be a full-day kindergarten. And that is totally fine. I don't know where I will put her, but I'll find something. And if she's in a class with all boys, we'll stick a tiara on her head and send her off to be Queen of the Boys.

And if she doesn't like being Queen, we'll find something else.

It's NOT exactly as it should be. It probably never will be.

I need to stop waiting for that day. It's not coming and it's ok.

What we have instead is so much better.

what it's like inside my head

Messy. It's very, very messy in here.

I found out yesterday that my school plan for Shout for next year may very well be ... um ... not the plan anymore.

She will turn 5 in August. Techically old enough for kindergarten. But one of youngest in the class. And she still has areas of concern that we are working on. For example, she can't say her ABCs. She can only count to 9. And that is after working intensely for a YEAR.

But she is socially mature. She has a complex vocabulary. She has memorized some sight words. She can spell a few words and write her name and all her letters.

But given everything else going on with her, and the fact that she is tiny and that she will probably fall behind her peers socially when she gets close to middle school, we have been thinking of holding her back from kindergarten for a year.

But she needs some academic challenge to catch up. So her current preschool has a 1/2 day kindergarten. A kinder, gentler version of kindergarten. Taught by a fabulous teacher.

So that was the plan. A year of that, and then move on to all-day kindergarten after.

Except yesterday, I heard that Shout is the only girl in the class so far. The ONLY GIRL. There are still a few spots open, but I am worried. The class doesn't always fill up. This COULD be it.

Which? Um. No. Despite the fact that it's the perfect fit in almost every way, she would HAVE to have other girls to play with.

So I'm taking a hard look at identifying a Plan B.

One option is a pre-K class at the school where my big kids go. (And no, we STILL don't know what our tuition will be next year, and thus I don't know if my big kids will actually GO to that school next year.) But the kids who are signed up for that class seem VERY young to me. And I learned this that it's financially unfeasible for us.

Another option is kindergarten at the big kids school. Which is what I was hoping to delay. I think she would survive but not necessarily thrive. But the class size is small and there are 2 teachers.

Or there is kindergarten at the local public school. Where they would at least have services for her if she does have a learning disability. Except I'd have to get her testing to see. But that involves either spending several thousands of dollars or climbing the nearly-insurmountable mountain of the school system's office of special education. And the class sizes are much bigger. And I just don't know where exactly she will end up in the long run. Catholic school? Public school? I'd need a Magic 8 Ball to figure that out.

And can I say here, that I spent about 45 minutes thinking about where I wanted to go to college. I think I've taken 45 years off my life worrying about this, just this week.

Balance. Need some balance.

like the wind

So I realized I left a teaser in my post about standing in line at the grocery store FOR TWO HOURS... about how my legs were sore when I got there and BEYOND sore when I was done... and I never got back to explaining WHY they were sore to begin with.

Well, before these damn three feet of snow fell on my life, I *WAS* going to the gym on almost a daily basis and RUNNING.

Yes. Me. Running.

I haven't run anywhere since high school P.E. Except to chase sprinting toddlers.

Our neighborhood hosts a 5K every spring as a fundraiser for the local elementary school. And someone challenged me to run it.

I hate running, but I hate backing down from a challenge even more.

So I printed out the Couch to 5K Program(in 9 weeks program). I had just enough time to get through the 9 weeks and practice on the actual course.

Until the 3 feet of snow. Where I didn't make it to the gym, or ANYWHERE for 13 days. The only running I did was to the cookie jar. And unfortunately, since my house is small, in the dash to the cookie jar (and subsequent ingestion of cookies) I apparently GAINED 4 WHOLE POUNDS. (Yet another reason to hate that fluffy white stuff.)

I'm hoping to get back on track, but the big kids have a 2 hour delayed start to school all this week which means I have exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes to run all the errands I didn't run for 13 days, clean up, study (more on that in a minute) and get to the gym. Guess which of those things I haven't gotten to yet?

Speaking of studying and food and exercise, my nutrition class started this week. It's an online class. I've never done one of those before. As soon as it was posted, I got on and printed out the syllabus.

It's long. Really long. And, I dunno, just kind of... BOSSY.

Read this. Take this quiz. Turn in this assignment. Do that or you lose 10 points. Do it this way or you get no credit. Geez.

I'll get used to it, I guess. It's been a long time since I've been in school.

But I'm learning good stuff. Did you know that most people make over 50% of their food decisions based on convenience and not nutrition?

Now stop buying prepared food and get back to the farm fresh stuff. You're welcome.

be prepared

Shout talks about being married and having her own kids EVERY DAY. Many times a day. Whenever anything exasperates her, she yells out "I can't WAIT until I have my OWN KIDS."

It's her way of saying she can't wait until she doesn't live with ME anymore.

She also knows who she is going to marry and what her kids names will be. And she has narrowed down to 2 houses that she will live in.

Long range planning can be good. And not good. (But that is a post for another day.)

A few weeks ago, we were riding in the car and she was BEGGING me to go to a store where she could try on wedding dresses.

WEDDING! DRESSES! My 4-year old!

I have no idea where she gets this because while I love a good Say Yes to the Dress marathon, SHE'S never seen that show. Or any other wedding-type show.

So can you imagine walking into Kleinfeld and asking to try on wedding dresses... "in size 4"...

DRAMATIC PAUSE while the bridal consultant gives me the once-over and chuckles to herself at MY FOLLY in thinking that I could fit into a size 4...

before I finish my sentence with "T".

(photo from TLC)

peeps

I've been reading lots of blogs lately, and it seems that all bloggers have a required cadre of BFFs. Who take pictures for them, or make things for them. And do all manner of BFF type things. I won't bother linking. You KNOW who I'm talking about. EVERYONE.

Except me.

I've been feeling very disconnected from life this year. I do have friends. I have my Birthday Girls Club. And neighborhood friends. And high school friends. And other assorted friends. But we are busy. Or I am busy. I feel disconnected. (I am connected to my online friends, but you can't just get all gussied up and go for a girls night with them. Or watch each others kids or swap casseroles or make Christmas gifts together. In some ways online friends are better, but there are some things you just can't do.)

So why don't I have that cadre of BFFs? What's wrong with me?

Is it because I grew up in a houseful of boys and it took me a long time to even figure out the female species? Is it because I'm too busy with my kids? Is it because I am introverted? Is it because I tend to keep my head down, focused on the tasks at hand, and rarely look up at the forest around me. (Is it because I use lame analogies?)

It took a few days of pondering about poor little me until I came upon a thought.

Perhaps it's ME. Maybe, to be a BFF in real life, you have to pick up the phone. Or throw a party. Or organize a ladies night.

Instead of waiting for my BFFs to come to me, maybe I should be INVITING them in.

So I promptly figured out how to set up an Evite and drew up a list of ladies whose company I enjoy and who all have something in common with each other and I invited them over for a Ladies Night.

And except for one, THEY ARE ALL COMING.

My cadre of BFFs is about to be born!

Except, I am a little sensitive about the state of my house. Which on a good day, is abysmal. But I had nearly 4 weeks to decrapify, straighten, clean and organize. (And, ok, yes, a bit of redecorating involving a trip to the upholstery shop and new window blinds. Perfect, right? I purchased paint and ordered blinds and planned trips to the craft shop and stalked Etsy.)

And then... Laundry Dad decided to spend his birthday knocking down walls in the basement. Which involved relocating all of the CRAP from every corner and closet of the basement into... wait for it... THE LIVING ROOM.

And then there was the whole Snowmaggedon thing... where my kids and I (and various and sundry of their high spirted friends) have been trapped in this house for THIRTEEN DAYS.

Pause for a moment to try and imagine the mess. Just imagine it.

My ladies night is in less than 2 weeks. I have little hope of even repairing the current damage, much less taking on new projects like upholstery and painting.

So my current plan is to dim the lights, get some lovely scented candles, LOTS AND LOTS OF WINE and some tasty treats. (And perhaps a dozen few large moving boxes filled with crap that will be stashed in the garage for the night. Shhh... don't tell.)

My BFFs are waiting.

still stuck

We ventured out to Target yesterday. A colossal mistake. The parking lot was downright scary. What with all the MOUNTAINS OF SNOW and people ditching their cars willy-nilly and the BACKING UP when you realized you were stuck at the end of a row and there was a 6ft tall pile of snow at the end and cars parked on both sides of you. Not to mention the other stir-crazy 600 million people inside. All of whom where standing in line at the Starbucks (yes, inside the Target) thereby depriving me of my vanilla latte which was really the only reason I ventured out to begin with.

I had to take to my bed for the rest of the day. My nerves are frazzled. My house is a mess. I'm sick of cooking. My kids are trying to kill each other. And I have 4 bags of garbage on my kitchen floor because the trash cans outside are full and GOD ONLY KNOWS when a garbage truck will get to us again.

But, trying to look on the bright side, the Winter Olympics have begun! I wrote about my love affair with the Olympics at DC Metro Moms. Normally, I would be tempted to jump on a plane to Vancouver, just to get a taste of Olympic fever. But right now, the only plane I want to jump on is one headed directly to the face of the sun. It's warm there, right? Pass the sunscreen. (Along with the tissues... you have to make the jump to see why I need tissues.)

PS. My nutrition class starts tomorrow and I could not be MORE IN NEED OF MENTAL STIMULATION right now!

migration

Reasons I Have Considered Moving to Canada:

universal health care
FREE Catholic school
my friend, A
The Canada Moms Blog
I'd like to develop a Canadian accent, eh?

Reasons I Decided Not to Move to Canada:

no Washington Post delivery
SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!

Guess what I have seen neither hide nor hair of this week. (Hint, it's black and white and read all over town.) And? I think we have AT LEAST AS MUCH SNOW as most of the habitable parts of Canada right now. (And I bet those free Catholic schools are still open when there is snow on the ground.)

another day of domestic bliss

And by "domestic bliss" I mean, trying to keep the kids from killing each other, keep the clothes dry, keep anyone from standing under the edge of the roof so as not to be killed by an avalanche of sliding snow and icicles 3 feet long, (seriously? the icicles are something out of a horror show!), managing the social lives of 4 people (NONE OF THEM BEING ME, UNFORTUNATELY), raking toys off the living room floor, feedings the masses (and having to get a little creative as we are starting to run out of basic ingredients), trying to ration my last 1/2 bottle of wine (and seriously, THAT makes me want to CRY!), wondering if I will EVER be able to drive my van again, and just generally getting NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE DONE because of the constant interruption and general MALAISE that has taken over me.

How is YOUR DAY going?

bracing for impact

(preface: I wrote this yesterday but never had time to add the pictures. As it turns out, I have NO FREE time when there is a blizzard (hence the lack of posting - my apologies!!!), what with all the outerwear that needs to be dried, kids that need to be pulled back UP the sledding hill, hash that needs to be slung and OMG THE FIGHTS THAT NEED TO BE BROKEN UP. So much for that stack of magazines I bought that I was hoping to read. And? Our Wii is now broken after someone who shall remain nameless Shout shoved a game into it when there was already one in there. She nearly got sent out to sleep in a snowdrift. And? Now it's snowing again! About 10 more inches so far but the power is still on! SnowOverThis!)



We're alive! We're alive!

We made it through Snowmaggedon Part 1. We got approximately 30 inches of snow here, which is more snow than I have EVER SEEN. Trees and branches fell, shrubs are crushed.



Our power was off Saturday but fortuntately was restored after less than 24 hours. I know many are still without power and haven't seen a plow yet.



But we have been having fun! For the first time in memory, the local sledding hill still has snow on it, even after several days of sledding. (It usually turns into a mud slick in about an hour.) There are forts and tunnels and the most GIANT SNOWMEN I have ever seen.



The roads are HORRIBLE. Even the major thoroughfares are sheets of ice and packed down snow. I had to go to 3 stores yesteday to find milk.



And I was out buying milk because... WE ARE EXPECTING POSSIBLY 20 MORE INCHES OF SNOW TODAY.



TWENTY MORE INCHES. ON TOP OF THE 30 WE ALREADY HAVE.

I'm no math wiz, but I think THAT IS FIFTY INCHES OF SNOW!

I'm thinking it will be March before my kids see the inside of a school again.


This is the sign for the elementary school on my street.
I'm pretty sure it says SEE YOU IN MARCH under there.

snowmaggedon

three five bottles of wine - check
8 packs of cookie mix - check
4 gallons of (warm) milk - check (see below)
4 boxes of hot chocolate and 2 bags of marshmallows - check
every size battery manufactured - check
2 camping lanterns - check
cellphone and laptop charged - check
trashy celebrity magazines - check
4 sleds - check
snow shovel INSIDE the house - check

We are ready for SNOWMAGGEDON. Or pretty ready anyway. I did discover that I left the basement refrigerator door slightly ajar last night, after standing in line at the grocery store for TWO HOURS to buy my precious gallons of milk!

Yes, you read that right - TWO HOURS IN THE CHECKOUT LINE.

I have never seen anything like it. You couldn't even get to the food because the checkout lines went all the way down every aisle.

I had to follow a woman across the parking lot and unload her groceries for her just to get a cart. (She bought six BOXES of wine, by the way. SIX. And she told me her life story. Which was long. And somewhat strange. And OMG, just let me have the cart so I can hurry up and GET IN LINE.)

Another guy had an entire cart full of beer.

There were students with a single personal-sized frozen pizza and a 2 liter of soda. Waiting for TWO HOURS to check out. They are clearly not business majors, because HOLLA kids, 7-11 has NO LINES. Check it out.

I made 5 phone calls. I sent 6 tweets. I ate some chips and drank a Frappuchino.

My legs were already hurting when I got there. (More on why that is tomorrow. If our roof hasn't caved in from all the snow.) When I got home, they were SCREAMING CRIES OF ANGUISH. I had to pull out what the kids call my Very Special Socks. Also known as compression socks. They are SEXAY. But they got the blood circulating again.

This morning, by the time I got everyone to school, it was almost time to turn around and start picking them up again. (Early dismissal... because? SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! PANIC! EEEEEK!)

I ran through Target where I saw 6 of my neighbors. I bought more toilet paper (really that is the LAST thing you want to run out of) and batteries. And lanterns. And a new Wii game because I'm sure the kids will be driving me bat shit crazy bored.

I'm thinking it will be a week before we see signs of civilization again. Like school and Starbucks.

I have heard from multiple sources including a highly covert, secret, intelligence-oriented mucky muck that we could be looking at up to FIFTY INCHES OF SNOW.

FIFTY INCHES.

That is almost taller than Shout will be when she's fully grown. And way taller than she is now. And OMG, FIFTY INCHES!!!! THE ROOF WILL CAVE IN!!

Apparently, they are keeping this information hush hush so as not to incite panic.

PANIC? Have these people BEEN to a grocery store? We are full on past panic. We have people buying GENERIC CORN CHIPS, Natural Lite beer and soy milk. (No offense to actual soy milk drinkers... but that's all that's left for us cow's milk drinking folk. To me, it tastes like baby formula.)

We passed panic when I saw people buying toys that have batteries included JUST TO GET THE BATTERIES.

I passed panic when I picked up the xanax refill.

My kids are excited beyond belief. I'm trying to think of how to keep the roof from caving in. I'm pretty sure SNOMAGGEDON is more fun when you are a kid.

snOMG

Here we are, hunkered down in near-blizzard conditions.



Oh. What's that you say? That black stuff. Out there? Oh yes. That is THE STREET. That is COMPLETELY CLEAR OF SNOW. There's even some bare grass there.

Hmmmm...



And this? That's my driveway. Also clear. And you can see the bit of snow on my car that could easily be cleared with a quick spin around the block.

Ahem.

So WHY, you may ask, is school cancelled?

WELL, I HAVE NO IDEA, ACTUALLY.

Ironically, it's Parents Appreciation Day. I'm feeling underappreciated.

It IS pretty.

Outside.







Inside? Things are getting a little ugly.

(UPDATE! Someone just told me that we are supposed to get slammed with THIRTY INCHES OF SNOW this weekend. WHAAAAA???)

10(-ish) red things

I got tagged last week by Tracey to post SEVEN red things from my house. Except I remembered it as 10 red things. And then, somehow, even though I distinctly remember COUNTING TO 10, when I uploaded the pictures, there were 12. But I like them all, so I'm changing this to A Bunch of Red Things.

I DON'T like that some of these pictures are a little blurry, because it's gloomy here and I do not have steady hands. (But I'm trying not to use my flash.) But if I wait to fix these, or take better pictures, I'll NEVER post, though, so here it is.

I'm terrible at tagging (and usually at following through when I'm tagged), so considered yourself tagged. All of you! (Yes, you in the back. I'm looking at YOU.) Come back and post to your photos in the comments so I can come visit.