The Puddles

I do have a genius for a daughter.  She is a nice combination of Chris and I.  She is so bright and eager to learn and to do well.  This is a nice combination.  There are too many children out there who are bright and not eager to do well at school. Madie had her reward night at school last week. She earned several awards. Probably her favorite award was top reader.  She had more AR points than any other student in the third grade, 300.3 points. She doubled her points from last year.  She plans to double her points again next year. That night she set her goal for next year at 600.  That’s my baby!  And I bet she’ll do it too.

And to top it off . . . she got her TAKS scores back (state wide testing). Madie scored 100% in reading and 95% in math (she only missed one).  Very few children get these kind of scores. That is really good and worth braggin’ about.

She is never going to get a ribbon running the 100meter dash or get a scholarship to play soccer in college.  These are not her strengths.  But on academic awards night at school . . . she shines!

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That’s right.  If your husband runs into your car and his insurance denies you, you apparently can’t sue your husband. Seriously.  Chris really hurt the car.  He didn’t dent the bumper. He tore the bumper in half. Geez. Why can’t I sue him?  I just need retaliation, and a little vengeance. Well, it would probably cost me more money to sue him than to just torture him.  I think I’ll just try the mental torture. That is probably more satisfactory anyways.

Of course, Chris would remind me of 1 Corinthians. Dang. He would bring in all that Biblical text.

Now I feel terribly guilty about the mental torture that I was planning. And the sad part is that I haven’t even had this conversation with him yet.  This is just all in my head.  I’ve guilted myself out of torture.  Now, I’m even feeling sorry for the poor guy who has wrecked my car.  The car is drivable after all.   It is just a car.  No one got hurt. But it would be nice to have a car with a bumper that doesn’t flap in the wind.  I’ll take it in next week to have it looked at. Hopefully it will be an easy fix.

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Took Madie to the doctor on Monday for routine visit.  The world was good.  Took Madie back to school. She came home with pink eye.  Told Chris no way I was going back to doctor.  Had to work. Chris took her in. After five hours and a trip to a specialist, she came home with a bag of prescriptions (only one for her eye). Chris swears off taking any child to doctor by himself again.

Ben’s doctor called that afternoon.  Told us to put him back on all heart meds. The weaning of one drug did not work.  Will try again next year.

Took Ainsley to her doctor’s appt. the next day (this one we had scheduled for a month). Doctor doesn’t know what is wrong with her tummy.  Ordered more tests. Included a lactose breath test in this round (that is a trip to TCH).

We are tired of all things medical.  But it is the end of school, end of soccer season, end of baseball season, end of Girl Scout meetings, and end of routine and the end of things takes energy to finish up and complete.  Presents to buy, school stuff to bring home, library books to find. This takes oodles of energy.

Things must be sacrificed in order to get things finished and to stay on top of work.  Right now that sacrifice has been laundry, dishes, and sleep.  Please come to the front door when knocking.  At least the entry way is clean. No one can see the piles of laundry or sink full of dishes from there.   It is really bad.

Even the car hasn’t had a break. Chris backed into my “Homer” (the minivan’s nickname).  It’s not good.

So . . . I just need something to go right. A doctor who says, “Don’t worry about it. That’s normal.”  A fairy who comes to my house to scrub the toilets and mop the floors.  A husband who remembers that my car won’t move out of the way with a little tap.  A school who says, “Do you mind if we keep all of your child’s work?  We want to scrapbook the good stuff  for you and throw away all of the extraneous stuff.”  Do you think it will happen? Probably not.

71 days until we go to the beach. I think I’m going to need it.

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March 6, 2011 – A few blankets and some chairs Add together and you get a really cool tent.

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April 16, 2011 – Madie is part of the Gifted and Talented program at school and this school’s GT program is guiding them to do a research project.  Madie picked to do a project on Juliette Low.

She wore her Grandma Grace’s uniform and she had my and her uniform in the display too.  She even had her Great-grandma Himes membership card from her years of Girl Scouts in the 1930’s.  It was a fun project that she had a good time doing.  She was so proud and she had a reason to be.

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I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is it that time of the year?  Have the weather patterns suddenly shifted over the last few days?   Have I walked into a parallel universe?

I think that the answer is “yes.”  Life around me seems to be out of whack. A lot of people in my world seem edgy, stressed, and just not their usual selves.  This is soooo frustrating. This yuck keeps creeping into my little world in small and minute ways.

Time to puts the brakes on it though.  We’ve got enough to deal with, without letting the rest of this ick filter into our world.

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Play with it of course!

This has been a submarine (see the periscope hole in one of the pictures), a jail, a library table, a hiding place, art studio, house, and much more.  Isn’t it amazing how far their imagination will go with just a box?  Ben and Ainsley are in the box begging me to not throw it out, but at some point . . . the best things have to go.  Don’t worry. After four months, it was time to let the box go and move onto something else.  And sure enough . . . they did.  Tonight we played “The Puddle Cafe.”

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Staying up until 1:30 to get stains out of white baseball pants was probably not my finest move.(But I did manage to get the stains to a lighter shade.) As tired as I was, I still managed to have us all dressed and ready to leave at 7:30.  As soon as Aunt Debra arrived (she helped to get Ben to his game), we left to go to opposite sides of town to get Madie to soccer by 7:45am and Ben to baseball at 8:00.  We even had team snacks for baseball today.  I was a little impressed with myself that I had all team uniform laid out on the table, two snack bags packed, and one set of team snacks ready to go on time.  I think I was running on adrenaline.

Games were successfully played under a cloudy sky so there was no repeat of last week sunburn (only Mom, I remembered to spray the kids). Madie’s team lost again (they haven’t won any so far).  Madie struggled with soccer (the whole hand/eye coordination is not her thing).  Ben loves baseball and has shown some good promise this year.  I think Ben won his game, but frankly I couldn’t tell. Ben just cares whether he hit the ball or not and did he make it base.  We joined Aunt Debra after Madie’s game was over.  Ainsley managed to pitch several fits while at the soccer game, so I was glad to leave that field and move on to another one.  Debra said he kept her awake the whole way to the game, because he never stopped talking!  The stories that she heard!!

After the games were over, we picked up Ben’s medicine and a present for a birthday party later today.  What do you get for a third grader?  After the Barbie phase of toys, I don’t know what to get. Madie found something quickly and we went home.  Ben and I vegged out on the couch (he watched the cartoon Spider Man on Netflicks and I dozed off).  The girls went to the playroom to watch their own show.  We needed the downtime. Or let’s face it . . . I needed it.  Then onto the next activity, a birthday party on the other side of town.  Home again. Then to pick up Madie and her friend to take home from the party.  Then a delightful conversation with her parents (they have a new baby and both of their children are in Ainsley and Madie’s class). Onto home, clean the house (well. . . some picking up anyways), dinner, baths, prepare for tomorrow, and bed.

Long day. There seems no end. Church tomorrow, school the next day, and on and on.  We are getting a little more prepared for summer.  We picked out our summer bridging books at the school supply store on Friday.  The kids like them, so hopefully this will motivate them to do them.  I bought lots of books to read this summer.  Chris finally brought down my entire classroom library from the attic, so we have hundreds of chapter books that we can ready over the summer now.  I am closer to being ready.  I’ve got my own countdown calendar to D-day, and hopefully I’ll be ready for it.

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The world is changing.  Human interaction is changing.  So, I’m trying to be “hip”, “with it”, “cool” (these words alone are outdated).  But I just don’t know what to think of the latest development in the world of children’s birthday parties. Ainsley received a birthday invitation last week that included a note stating that the child’s birthday list was registered at “Toys R Us.” Seriously?  I’m still mulling over in my head whether or not this is a good thing.  My initial reaction is not good. But maybe I’m old and this is appropriate in today’s culture.  Either way I’m a wimp.  I will go to the correct store and buy the correct gift.  After all the child is six . . . she didn’t fill out the invitation, but I’m sure she helped to pick out the gift list.

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Me vs. Dirty Baseball Pants.  It has been hours.  Two bleach cycles through the washing machine.  Pre-treatments. Soaking the pants in bleach for hours in the kitchen sink.  And all I’ve accomplished is a slight fade.  What is in this dirt?!  The pants look horrible.  Stains on the bottom, knees, and everywhere!  I’m sure the other mom’s on the team are saying, “Does she even wash Ben’s pants each week?”  Then they shake their head and look at Ben with a sad look, feeling sorry for the boy who is so neglected.

Since it is 12:30am, I am calling it quits after this cycle. The other moms will just have to stare.

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