Mom, I’m internimal…

What!?! you say? That’s what I said anyway. David said you know, it means when you can’t sleep at night like me and you need to sleep during the day. I said oh, you’re nocturnal – yea!!! he says. My poor guy, sleep is still that elusive thing we pray for and dream of. With the medication it’s fairly good, without it – sheer hell. I didn’t realize until bedtime last night that I only had 1/2 a pill left for him, which turned into him not falling asleep until 1:00am. I let him sleep late and checked him in around 10:15. He missed a large portion of his day, but I didn’t want him to miss the whole thing.

We had a neat thing this weekend, it was David’s turn to bring home Bruce the Bear from school. He did lots of fun things with us and we have to write his story and provide pictures and send him back to school. Here are a few of the things David and Bruce did this weekend.

Mack Truck 3, Me 0

That is how I have felt the past week or so. I had decided maybe it was mono since I was so tired. Where a grown married woman would get mono – who knows, but it sounded good in my head LOL. Anyway I called my doc Monday and he had no “sick appointments” so I just headed on to Pri-Med. Turns out the fever, dehydration, fatigue, etc. etc. were something all right. 3 somethings – sinus infection, UTI and upper respiratory infection.

Wow – no wonder I didn’t feel so good. Thank heavens though God gave brains to docs and pharmacists because with medicine I am rejoining the land of the living.

And what you ask does the “land of the living” consist of: cooking, driving carpool, laundry, paperwork, looking at houses, playing, brushing the dog… should I go on. Makes me tired so I’m sure the doctor would want me to “ease” back into it. That’s what I’m telling Dan anyway ;-)

The worst part of being sick was missing Bible Study with the girls on Monday night. And I was supposed to lead. But the girls are awesome and so is God – so we will be back on track next week and I will try to get us through Acts 13.

Friends & Tie-Dye

Emily’s friend Sara visited from Virginia this past weekend and the girls had a great time catching up, swimming and doing t-shirts. David and Toby also got in on the fun!

fund raising

Holy Cross doesn’t do typical fund raisers, thank Goodness!! Because I despise them. Just give the money to the school and the prize to the kid and let’s bypass all the junk. I do however try to buy from my nieces and nephews and from Emily, I just dread it. So I guess we can add this to one more reason I chose HC, LOL.

Anyway – I digress. A few of the things that HC does do, I need your help on, if you’re so inclined.

1st is can tabs / pop tops (you know the little movable part that you open a can soda with). These are being collected at school and will be given to the Ronald McDonald House at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, by the 6th Graders. This is a program at all Ronald McDonald Houses across the country; they take it to a recycler and sell it for cash and use the funds to help pay their bills.

2nd is box tops – you know the ones on probably 1/4 to 1/2 of your pantry items and heck even can goods and refrigerator biscuits and stuff this year. We take these to the school and they are turned in by the PTF. If you are not familiar with this program and aren’t sure which products have box-tops, here is a link: www.boxtops4education.com

3rd is Coke Rewards – the “reward” items come on 16 & 20oz lids, 2-liter lids, 12-pack boxes, etc. Coke Rewards has a school program along with the personal program. Here is a link, in case you’re interested. http://www.mycokerewards.com/mcrSchools.do

Thanks in advance for your help on this. And David says thank you too! He doesn’t quite get the bigger implications of these projects, he just knows it’s fun to take a bagful of stuff in school and he knows if his class has the most in a given time period they get popsicles or something fun!!

Just let me know if you have a bagful and I will pick them up or you can mail them to me!!

mommy, why…?

Are you like me and you hear this question about 100 times a day (and that’s on a school day when he’s away from me). Well the questions are all over the place and sometimes entertaining and sometimes annoying. They do however actually make sense based on what we’re doing, what he recently learned or saw, etc.

I have never been one to have patience. In my job impatience was always listed as a cause for concern on my performance review. But somehow when you become a mom God gives you that extra dose of daily patience – kind of like a vitamin :)

So this morning as David’s awaking for the day he starts to tell me about his dream and how Sissy (Emily) and Toby (the dog) are under this big bridge with rocks and water and he has to go down and get them, but he can’t cross the bridge. Then he says all excited – and mom it was a talking dream!!!! You, he says – a little accusingly – were on the other side of the bridge and wouldn’t come to me and help me. Oh… I say, not really knowing what to say. I go with well you know dreams are just our imagination because you know I would always help you. He just kind of looks at me :-). Then I say well why didn’t you come to me and he says – like duh – the bridge was rubber and it was way to scary to walk on!

Oh – so the lesson is mom’s should do all the scary things!!! I didn’t say this out loud, LOL. I just said oh well that makes sense and it sure does sound like a scary bridge.

a day in the life of my kindergartener

I'm sure many of you have heard me extol the virtues of Holy Cross, since it's a subject I never tire of :-)... I decided to tell you guys about a typical school day for David. I think it will be a good journal post to look back on one day and I think it will also help clear up any misconceptions about what they actually do in kindergarten.

On the drive to school we talk of random things. Friends, travel, the sky, experiments, what dissolves in water, planets, cars, speeding, cops... And we also sing. David loves all the popular songs like Airplane, Billionaire, Alejandro, etc. so I bought him the Kids Bop CD of the songs and we jam to that on the way. It takes about 12 minutes to get to school so after this burst of conversation and a few songs we pull up at school. David is a drop-off kid - heaven forbid if you want to walk him in. That is NOT COOL!!! So I pull up to the car-pool line and Coach opens the door and watches (no help, mind you) David jump out and put on his backpack and stroll confidently in the door.

If he’s dropped off before 7:50 then he goes down to the Extended Day room and visits with friends until the first bell. If he’s dropped off at 7:50 or later he goes straight to his classroom. Upon arriving in the classroom he turns his “I’m present” card around, hangs up his backpack and heads to his seat. Once in his seat he plays with math pattern cards or blocks or links. Once everyone is seated his teacher goes through her morning greetings and then has them line up for Chapel. They go outside and walk the short distance to the Chapel and have their daily 20 minute service (on Wed. it’s longer because of visiting priest and Eucharist).

After Chapel they return to the classroom for lessons. Some of this is taught at their desks, some is taught on the floor in circle-time style. Some is taught in centers. They learn a concept with lecture, interactive talk and activity; sometimes a craft type, sometimes a worksheet, sometimes a game, sometimes by acting, sometimes on the computer, sometimes in centers, etc. One of the funny things to me is if you go to the board and are asked to choose an answer from what is up there you can swat the correct answer with a flyswatter. That is so smart – what 5-year-old doesn’t want to swat something!!

After lesson they have morning snack. This consists of whatever you send from home. Snack is either at their desk or right outside their room at the picnic tables on the veranda.

Following snack they head to their 2 enrichment classes of the day. Each enrichment has its own teacher and its own classroom so you get a change of pace. As I said there are 2 a day and they are 30 minutes each. The enrichment classes are: PE, Spanish, Music, Art, Computer and Library. Now this doesn’t mean they don’t have recess everyday and Spanish, music, art and computer in their actual classroom. These enrichments are just concentrated times on that activity with a teacher who specializes in that.

After enrichment you come back to the classroom and usually recess. Recess ends a little before noon, which is dismissal time for Kindergarten. A small handful of children are picked up at noon and the majority stay for lunch bunch. A different teacher takes over for afternoon care. She does lunch with the kids, takes them outside to play and then brings them back in and gets them settled for quiet time. Some kids are picked up after lunch bunch, but again the majority stay for the day. Quiet time lasts for an hour – some sleep, some don’t. However, you have to stay quietly on your napper during the hour. Once quiet time ends you have snack and then go outside again. After outside you come in and play.

David loves every aspect of this. I don’t think he ever gets bored. He is on the go all day long. When I pick him up each afternoon he is always mad that I didn’t let him stay longer and lately he’s been asking to spend the night there.

When we load up to go home he is talking non-stop about his day – he can’t hardly get a breath he is talking so much and so excited. It’s just amazing to me!! And we have had some serious behavior issues with David at home and also at his 3-year-old preschool, but here we have none. Twice in his 4k year he was put on yellow and so far this year he’s stayed on green. I really believe all the components of his day keep him so occupied that he doesn’t get bored, which leads to his bad behavior. Also there are only 12 kids per K class so he gets plenty of attention.

Well, if you’ve stayed with this post I am really impressed. It went longer than planned. But – if you’ve ever wondered about kindergarten, now you know. And I hope I have covered the concerns re: too much structure, too much time at their desks, kids need to be kids, etc. I know that was a concern I had before becoming a part of the HC family and now I know there is much more to a great school then the desks!!!!!!!

David's First Day of Kindergarten

Wow, our little guy is officially in kindergarten. I cannot believe just 5 years ago he joined our life. Everyone said the little 6-pound football in my arms would grow and change so fast and they were so right. Here are a couple of shots of our little man when he was still a baby. Now of course you can't dare say that word!!!




















Here are some pictures from the first day of kindergarten. Wow!!!! He is thrilled to be back at Holy Cross and Dan and I are still so happy and blessed to have him there. When I picked him up yesterday he wanted to stay there and not go home. When we got in the car I asked him about his day and all the usual. He said I had sooooo much fun and I was as good as I can be, but tomorrow I may do even better!

Vacation at the Lake

We had such a wonderful week at Lake Jordan. Time well spent with family and friends. Lots of games, swimming, boating and fellowship. Here are a few pictures from our week. I'm having some trouble with blogger so here is a link to the photos instead.

The kids and the bigger kid, Dan, love to ride the intertube. The only bad thing was David doesn't weigh enough to ride this new tube by himself so it would submarine on him. The ducks were funny - Dan and I noticed them and the kids weren't paying attention to that side so he turned the boat and pulled them right next to the ducks. David thought that was hilarious.

Toby is a little over 13-weeks now and he really enjoyed his time at the lake. All the new smells and leaves and sticks!!! He wore his little orange life jacket on the boat for safety and he was so cute.

Dan and I did a little house-hunting while up there and we have determined what we want and especially what we don't want. Now we just need to make this new business venture happen and hopefully by next fall we'll have our own place up there!!

I need Grace

Mistake = an error or fault resulting from defective judgement.

Why is it that we can have the best/purest intentions, but when discussing feelings things just don't always come out right. It really wants to make a girl give up dealing with it. I may just borrow my dear friends "whatever" and use that :-)

Before resorting to the famed whatever, I found a wonderful Catholic prayer that I printed out and will pray this week. Here's a link.

Ok - off the lake with prayer in hand!

How did we ever fix anything?

Before the internet how did anything get done? I swear the internet is my answer to everything.

• When should the first tooth come in / when should it come out
• What is the best food for small dog
• How to keep our tomatoes from splitting on the vine
• How to keep the worms out of our cucumbers
• How to cook something new with my chicken breasts
• How to clean the brick on my fireplace
• Where to buy a new intertube for the lake
• What is the best deal on laptops
• What are the side effects of this medicine?

And the list goes on and on, I bet each of you could come up with at least 10 things in 1 minute and we could all come up with hundreds if we thought on it for a half hour. And now that the internet is on my phone - wow I look up everything. Dan will say I wonder why ____? And I look it up :-)

Yesterday around 2:00 or so I noticed that my phone was not on and it would not turn on. So I put it on the charger and came back to it an hour or so later. Still wouldn't come on. So I just whined about it, tried to get battery cover off (couldn't) and figured I would go to the Verizon store today, which irritated me because I have a lot to do already today. It occurred to me to maybe look it up, but hey I usually do that on my phone and my phone is dead.

Then, this morning over coffee, my brain kicked in and said hey silly person you do have an actual computer, duh! So I came in here to get on the internet to see why "my palm pre won't turn on" and "how to remove the battery from my palm pre" and "how to reset my palm pre". In less than 3 minutes I had the phone working.