I’ll throw this out there that I’m writing this post on Wednesday, but you are reading it on Friday. That whole post-dating stuff thing.
The trusty husband scheduled us for hair cuts today (Wednesday). Yesterday I was all excited about it. I haven’t had a haircut since August. Then this morning the boy climbed in bed with me and started to pet the cat. I was mostly asleep and didn’t notice. When I woke up I got distracted by making the boy’s lunch and forgot to take my allergy medication first thing. That path always leads to disaster. By the time I remembered to take my medicine it was too late.
All day long I’ve been in either a drug induced stupor or sneezing my head off. I’m pretty sure that I have worn off about 8 layers of skin off of my nose.
What does an allergy attack have to do with getting my hair cut? Nothing much really. Just that they happened in the same day and I had taken so much allergy medication that I nearly fell asleep in the chair.
Now if I were feeling better I would totally take a picture of my hair and show you how cute it is. Picture this:
Yeah… I’m hott like that. Keep picturing that I look like Jessica Alba and not rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Ok, my hair is not that blonde, but rather mostly my natural color with gold, blonde and red highlights with a little wash out purple underneath. It’s also a little shorter and I totally look like Jessica Alba.
No… I am not making truffles. I have been banned from making any chocolate confection until Christmas.
My girlfriend Alicia (aka Tacoma Chickadee) plastered Facebook and Twitter that she had made bacon truffles. If you will recall every time I put up the Sweet Hope nominating post at least one person suggests bacon. I refuse to make bacon truffles. Mostly because the thought of touching raw bacon totally skeeves me out. However, Alicia is adamant about the bacon truffle thing. She has tried on more than one occasion to create some sort of bacon-chocolate concoction that tastes decent. She claims she has done that. I tasted the last bacon truffles she made and they weren’t stellar by any means (sorry).
She offered me a taste of the new truffles, but I had to drive to her office to get them. Um, no. I’m not driving anywhere for bacon and chocolate. I love bacon and I love chocolate, but they don’t go together.
So now I’m asking you dear internetz. We haven’t had a good old fashioned poll here in a while. What do you think?
Loading ...When we finally arrived home with the boy he was one month shy of 2 years old. I missed out on 2 years of his life. I knew that would be the case going into the whole thing. We made the best of it. Instead of a first birthday we celebrated a first gotcha day. Instead of first steps we celebrated the first step on US soil (although none of us remember it, the photos tell us it happened). We missed out on 2 whole years.
Missing out on those years meant that the boy was 2 years closer to going to kindergarten when we got him home. He doesn’t start kindergarten until he’s almost 6 and we will celebrate our 4th gotcha day right before he goes to kindergarten. It doesn’t seem like it’s been 4 years. It does seem like it’s too soon for him to be going to “big kid” school.
Monday afternoon we went to the boy’s new school to register him for kindergarten. He was nervous. We had talked for 2 days about it and on the way home from preschool we talked about how visiting the new school would be an adventure and we would do it together. He seemed excited. The trusty husband also asked if we wanted him to go with us. I figured it couldn’t hurt. The boy knew what we were going to do that afternoon and ate his lunch slower than I’ve ever seen him eat any meal. He was totally stalling. Trouble was, it was encroaching on 1:00 and registration closed at 2:00.
We finally got the school, checked in and were sent to the library to fill out nearly as may forms as it took to adopt the child. The principal walked by and introduced himself and we talked about the boy visiting during school hours so he could get to see a classroom setting. He was very agreeable to that and seemed like a very nice guy.
I got to the immunization page of the forms and had to laugh. I just handed the lady the immunization records and the form and she filled most of it out. The boy’s immunization history is a little more extensive than most children’s. She said the nurse has a program that she inputs all of the dates into and it tells her if he needs any additional ones before school starts. That’s a good thing since I can’t make heads or tails of what he’s had done.
While I was filling out paperwork the lady registering children took the boy to the rock wall the school has. He had the chance to see the library and actually used the potty. It was a positive experience for him. This is good.
When we got home I took a minute to read the information packet included in the folder that had all of the forms. Included was a sheet that said what the basic 1/2 day kindergarten curriculum was. I read the list to the trust husband and his response was, “he’s going to be bored isn’t he?” Probably. Most of what they will be teaching is stuff that he has already learned in preschool or we’ve taught him at home. This doesn’t mean I’m not going to stop teaching him. We’ll use the upcoming school year as a way to transition him into “big kid” school. He will get used to the building, the schedule of school and his general surroundings.
I’m not regretting my choice for 1/2 day kindergarten. Especially when I saw how large the school was and how small my baby still is. How can this little boy that I just brought home 3 1/2 years ago be going to kindergarten already. I’m not ready for him to grow up so fast. I must say, he’s a pretty awesome 5 year old.
I am married to a nerd. I don’t feel bad calling him out on the interwebz because he is fully aware of his nerdyness. As a child the trusty husband would take computers apart for fun. Ask the trusty MIL about the time he did something to their computer during mid-terms during her masters coursework and she had to wake him up to fix it. No technological upgrade in our house comes without a price. It has been well documented on various blogs (here, here, here and here). I may pay the price for all of this work, but in the end it is pretty cool. My computer is custom built and our TV set-up is da bomb. It does come with written instructions for all babysitters, but it’s all good. I can stream Netflix, Hulu and LastFM from my computer to the TV. I have a DVR, Wii and Xbox. There are benefits to having a nerdy husband.
Last week the trusty husband finally received a bonus from work. It has been a very long time since he’s received a bonus or a merit increase (thankyouverymuch a-hole ex-president). My husband works his ass off. He never fully takes a vacation. He is forever checking his email on his phone and does it all with such grace it is amazing. So when he found out he was going to get this bonus he said he was going to buy himself a new TV. He is horribly jealous of anyone who has a flat screen TV. I was ok with the purchase. It wasn’t my money to spend so why not.
Let’ take a moment to also note that along with the nerdyness, my husband is a cheap Swede. This isn’t derogatory, just a fact of life.
Here’s where buying a TV gets painful.
Our entertainment center was not large enough to hold a new 42″ television thus requiring the purchase of a new entertainment center. Trusty husband looks online and finds what he thinks will work. Being the cheap Swede that he is cheap Swedish furniture is an excellent compromise. Last Thursday we head north to the big blue building where you get to keep your pants on*. When seeing the new entertainment center in person I hemmed and hawed over it. I wasn’t sure. I caved, but made a few add-on adjustments like drawers and doors. Read: I spent more money. We walked out having spent more money than he was originally anticipating. He pretty much had a panic attack the rest of the night.
By Friday he had recovered because that was TV buying day. In addition to the TV he also purchased a blueray player. I spent the afternoon at the church preparing for a fundraiser dinner that was Saturday night. When I got home the trusty husband had assembled the entertainment center and I had to do the adjoining book case. No prob. I’m pro at IKEA furniture. I slap together the book case and drawers. We go to put on the doors, but have to move the drawer hardware up because I had it in the wrong spot. Then we went to put in the drawers. They didn’t fit. A 20 minute discussion argument over doors and drawers ensued. Screw it and move on. I just want to watch TV. The Canada vs. Slovakia hockey game was on and I was missing it.
We get the TV mounted in the cabinet. (It is slightly crooked, but we are trying to ignore that for the time being) We start putting other stuff into the cabinet. Blueray player, check. Xbox… feck. It doesn’t fit into the spot we wanted it to go. Try the cable box in that spot. Nope. Does the stereo (which pretty much controls all of the sound for all of this stuff) fit? Nope. Danger! Danger! Elle is over tired, sore from standing all day and missing a very important hockey game. I gave up and went to bed.
Where we stand at the moment is more cables had to be purchased. The trusty husband also has to purchase a USB hub because apparently I either sold our extra one in a garage sale or it was in a box that went to the Goodwill. How was I supposed to know we’d need that? We had to move the stereo to the book case and cut a hole in the back so the cables will come out. He has to extend all of the speaker wire because it won’t reach the stereo. We have to return the doors we purchased for the cabinet and purchase two more drawers and to run the whole shebang we still need a PhD.
Basically, purchasing a new TV was a complete disaster with the exception that the picture is utterly amazing. We keep putting DVDs in the player just to see the difference. The new Star Trek in high def on a blueray player is almost as good as in the theater. Now if we only had surround sound**…
—————————-
*Years ago there was a radio commercial for IKEA and they were giving directions. They were it’s the big blue building where you get to keep your pants on, not the big white building where you have to take your pants off (the neighboring hospital)
**When we had our house re-roofed last fall all of the banging around loosened the surround sound speakers from the housings and one fell out and was hanging by the wires. I didn’t want to leave it like that so I pulled it down. When I did that I broke a connector so we also need new surround sound speakers.
Thank you all for your input on yesterday’s kindergarten question. Given all of the criteria we think we are going to go with our local school. The deciding factors are socialization, why we picked the district in the first place, the less likelihood of the boy getting “removed” from the other district* and the advice of the trusty sister-in-law. I should have asked her first, but I’m dumb like that.
Registration is Monday. The school’s website says nothing about assessments being done at registration time so I have no clue if I’m supposed to take him with me. It would be nice if I didn’t have to since registration is from 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and the boy is in preschool most of that time.
I did call the school yesterday morning to ask them about his birth certificate and the possibility of touring the school. I spoke with the secretary and she says I should have no issue with his birth certificate as long as I bring his certificate of citizenship. We elected to not do a re-adoption in the US and he still has a Russian birth certificate.
I spoke with the preschool teachers earlier this year about the move to the primary school and they suggested talking to the school about making a few visits prior to the end of the school year. When I talked to the primary school secretary she said that they don’t usually do that and that open house day is in August. She was kind of snide when I said he has trust/transition/change issues and this would be a good idea. Her reply, “the August open house won’t be enough for him?” If push came to shove it would work, but it isn’t ideal.
The boy’s preschool moved across the building this past summer and we spent time touring the construction area, attending VBS and generally spending time in the space prior to the start of school. We carried the boy out of the open house screaming and the first day of school he wouldn’t let me leave the room. So no lady, one visit right before school starts isn’t going to cut it. She suggested we speak with the principal when we are there Monday to see if he’ll let us make a few extra visits. My worst fear is him fearing the school and end up hating it. He’s already freaked out because his best friends won’t be going to the same school.
The good news is we will continue with hockey next season and with any luck some of his preschool friends will be on his hockey team. Two boys recently joined our learn to skate program and the parents seem as if they are interested in keeping their kids in the program.
We are planning on spending as much time together as a family this summer. We’ve made a commitment to say no to as much stuff as possible especially since I will be out of the country most of July (I’m gone almost 3 weeks). Last year we had something every weekend and it prohibited us from even taking a family camping trip. At the end of the summer the boy was so sad that he didn’t get to sleep in a tent. Our other challenge for the summer is that I might be working (besides my church job).
I’ve applied for a job at a local garden center and it sounds like they are very interested in hiring me (or at least talking to me at this point). It is a very small nursery and I don’t know if they carry extra staff over the summer. I only want to work part-time especially since retail nursery jobs don’t pay enough for child care. I also worry about leaving the boy all day long. That may seem silly, but you don’t know my boy and his people issues. Some PI kids have food issues mine has serious people issues.
So that’s the word.
—————–
*See Auntie G’s comment
