The Eve of the New School Year

Can you believe it is already that time again? Summer is over.

The boys start the new adventure of second grade tomorrow. Clothes are picked out. Lunches are waiting in the fridge. Backpacks are filled with supplies. The sign is ready to capture their first day excitement and looks...

But we're not ready.

We are not ready to go back to school and schedules and early bedtimes and homework.

We are definitely NOT ready for our summer to end.

I'm not going to lie. There was a little bit (or a lot) of sad mixed in with the excitement as the boys headed off to bed.

We're not ready because we've thoroughly enjoyed this summer.

While we've done quite a few things this summer, in reality, our summer has been fairly unstructured and relaxing -- something I think we all really needed, something we're not ready to give up.

So yes, we are going to really miss the summer.

We learned today that the boys will have our desired teacher next year. She is upbeat, energetic, and caring, exactly what you'd expect an elementary teacher to be and the complete opposite of what we had last year.

Please let this be a better experience this year. (I don't think it could get much worse.) Fingers crossed!

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

He can't quite figure out how to do it without trying to drown himself.

Man, I love this kid!

#Microblog Monday - Car Trouble

After I had the boys, I searched and searched for a car that would be roomy enough for us as a family but was still comfortable to drive. When I found the SUV I currently drive, I knew right away that it was the car I wanted.

It drives like a car, yet it has got the room of a larger vehicle. It is higher so I can see over the other cars around me. It has heated seats and individualized temp control for the passengers. I love my car.

With Is,aac doing more and more with the boys (school drop off and pick up among other stuff), he is driving my car more often, which leaves me with his car. There were even a few weeks there toward the end of the school year when I had not driven my car at all. Sigh.

I hate driving his car. It is low to the ground, which gives me the feeling of riding in a low rider. I can never get the seat to adjust right (and I do try not to move stuff too much because it is his car), so I am always uncomfortable. I also hate not being able to see what is happening on the road ahead of me.

I suppose it makes me a spoiled brat to get this frustrated over not getting to drive the car I want. I do try to be understanding to a point, but I can't quite get over the feeling that he is getting the best of both worlds here. In fact, if our financial situation was better, I'd have him go find his own car to drive that would accommodate all three of the boys and their car seats, too, so we could avoid car sharing all together.

Is.aac says he doesn't get what my problem is. It's just a car. And it is...but it's not.

What do you think? Would being forced to drive another car in this type of situation bug you, too?

Stop by Mel's for more #MicroBlog Monday posts.

#Microblog Monday

On Friday, we got our first official notice from the boys' school about next year. I opened it, glanced through it, and quickly put it aside. I am not ready for school notices already. Then this weekend, I saw the first advertisement for a back to school sale. I imagine if I actually looked, I would find the aisles in the store dedicated to school complete with signs happily declaring it the "Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

In this area, we have only been out of school for 18 days. Some schools perhaps a week longer. Still, no one goes back until the end of August.

Why is it almost unthinkable to sit back and enjoy the moment? Why must we rush to the next milestone on the calendar? What is the hurry?

Sigh.

18 days into summer and I have read (gasp!) two books already--definitely not as many as I'd like but a luxury nonetheless. It's glorious I have to admit.

The boys have declared their boredom and then moved off to find something else to do.

We've started working on the backyard. We have cleared an area for a large inflatable pool. We've started working on a garden box for planting some veggies.

I don't want to rush onto the next big date.

I don't want to think about the end of summer.

I want to relax and every moment of the time we've been given.

In fact, I'm planning on doing just that!

Stop by Mel's for more #Microblog Monday posts.

Friday Night Leftovers

It's been a rough couple of weeks, so rough, in fact, that it is hard to not feel like we have some sort of black cloud of doom hanging over us...

Somewhere around Memorial Day I got sick. Actually, a number of us at work got sick. Unfortunately, while everyone else quickly kicked their illnesses, I only got sicker. And sicker. My sore throat morphed into a sinus infection (which the doctor refused to give me meds for until I got much worse), which in turn turned into an ear infection, which then led to a ruptured eardrum. In the middle of all of that, I was diagnosed with a UTI, because hell, why not go all out, right? Sigh.

Two antibiotics later, and I am still getting over it all. My energy levels are still not back up to where they should be.

It has been brutal.

~~~

It was at about that time when the boys' school sent home notices from the county health department that they had been exposed to Pertussis. Now, yes, they are fully vaccinated. Still, I don't exactly want to test their immunity by having them (or us for that matter) directly exposed.

~~~

Is.aac also got a notice from the un.employ.ment office that he had been overpaid back in January of 2014. He was required to pay back $350 immediately or go to a hearing. It's a convoluted story that would take forever to explain, but in the end he was not overpaid. Still he lost the hearing and he has to appeal the finding. Now we are fighting to contact the un.employ.ment office. It has proven to be nearly impossible because it looks like they don't actually want to talk to anyone. (Seriously, they work 4 hours a day, have an automated phone system that reroutes you over and over again without any option to actually speak to someone or leave a message...it's awful.) We will see where this goes. It feels a lot like they are trying to break us so we just pay them the money to stop the headache. I hate bureaucracy.

~~~

We had to call the electric company because we kept losing power to half of our house. Apparently that happens when the connection that leads from the power lines at the pole to your house get corroded. It took them 10 days to make it to our house after repeated calls. It took the guy 10 minutes to fix the issue. While we were waiting, our television quit after one of the outages. Awesome.

~~~

We had a series of issues with the boys' teacher. She has repeatedly angered me in how she treats Sh.awn. The latest examples included her giving out "yearbooks" she created to the class. It had all of the student ID pictures, as well as a few pages of snapshots from the things the class did throughout the year. Sh.awn wasn't in a single picture outside of the ID picture. To top it off, she wrote a note in Ja.son's yearbook but didn't in Sh.awn's. I asked Jay if he asked her to write in his book. He said no, she just came over on her own and wrote in it.

I can't tell you how angry I am. I am so glad we are done with her.

~~~

Is.aac and Jack dropped my laptop and broke the heads on the hard drive. The hard drive is now unreadable without replacing the head, and that gets pricey. And no, I hadn't yet backed everything up. And yes, I will have to pay (probably a lot) to have the data recovered. This is after having to replace the hard drive. Awesome again.

~~~

Sh.awn lost another therapist. Sigh. He is not good with change, and I fear there are going to be some transition pains. Here's hoping the new one is decent and the transition goes smoothly.

~~~

All of the above is on top of some stressful things happening at work. I am hoping with the onset of summer vacation that things will get less crazy and stressful. Fingers crossed.

Stop by Danifred's for more Leftovers. I'd link to her blog, but I lost all my bookmarks when my hard drive died and I am not feeling the whole searching thing right now.

Speaking of dead hard drive, I need all your blog addresses again. :( You could leave them in a comment and I won't publish them if you would rather me not...

This and That

The end of the school year is upon us. Like every other year, I am under intense stress with the unshakable feeling of having way to much to do yet not enough time to do it.

I am dragging myself toward the finish line, Just 15 more days. I hope I can make it.

~~~

I went on a field trip with my boys this week. Watching my boys' teacher AVOID her eager and fun first grade students while we were at the zoo for the day truly shocked me. It was an eye-opening experience that spotlighted that she is really just not very good with kids at all. This revelation is simultaneously a relief and a major disappointment.

Now I know the issues we've had this year had less to do about my kid and more to do with her struggles as a teacher/person in general.

Less Than 7 Weeks

I get out of school in less than 7 weeks.

More importantly, the boys get out of school in less than 7 weeks.

I am back to being frustrated with their school. Sigh.

I have yet another IEP meeting on Monday. It's looking like I get to go back and fight. Again. Over the same damn thing.

~~~

This week was Teacher Appreciation Week. The boys made cute little vases and candy flowers to take for theirs. I have to say that it was a challenge for me to be excited to make a gift for the boys to take to their teacher this year.

I am less than fond of her.

Like not fond at all.

There have been a things popping up all year long...and I have the strong feeling she doesn't like one of my kids. You can feel any way you want about the students in your class. Sometimes, there are even kids who are challenging and not your favorite, I suppose.

But you NEVER let them know you don't care for them. And you better make sure the parents don't get that sense. In our case, all of us know. It's obvious she likes one boy; it's even more obvious she doesn't like the other. Sigh.

Anyway, I wouldn't have sent anything to her and feigned forgetfulness, but there are some support teachers who I do like and wanted to acknowledge. So I sucked it up.

Let me tell you, finishing up gifts for a teacher I don't care for while knowing that my own students will likely not even acknowledge T.A. Day for me was like pouring salt on the wound.

The boys were happy. The teacher responded in an appropriate manner. The support teachers were thrilled and made sure we knew it. In the end it was okay.

~~~

We have started our testing at my school. We have blocked four weeks of testing for students. They are going to take somewhere around 10 hours of tests (they are untimed) on the computers and approximately two hours of the standard bubble in tests.

It is ridiculous.

The worst part is that I'll only have a few weeks after testing to finish all that I have to teach. There is not enough time! I always feel the crunch for time at the end of the year, but this time it feels even worse than it has in the past.

~~~

Less than 7 weeks left.

Bring it.

I'm done.