A birthday, a new car, parties, snow, the collapse and more!

We celebrated K's 9th birthday on Thursday.  The previous weekend, we had a sleep over so that she could celebrate with her friends.  Little girl is growing up.  I had her stand next to her growth chart and she is 56" tall.  At 10 1/2, she'll officially be as tall as me.  Bless her heart.

We had family over for filled cupcakes, brownies, chocolate covered pretzel ice cream and party cake ice cream.  I mean, how could you go wrong with those choices?  Needless to say, she had delightful gifts given to her, too.  Lego Friends are a big hit, though we have two bodies in the box and one head. I'm going to have to e-mail them about that.  She wanted Kids Bop, so I picked that up for my mom along with a Spirograph.  I mean, how could you go wrong with a Spirograph?  She also received the movie Brave, a stuffed puppy and a book.  We added to her Webkinz collection, gave her an American Girl sewing kit that she wanted (clearance at Target!) and a Hello Kitty MP3 player (clearance at Target.)

Before we had K's celebration, we plunked her onto the bus with a cake container full of brownies and headed off to buy Hubs a new car.  We had made the deal on Sunday, left a locator deposit and were on the wait for the arrival.  What did we buy him?  He chose a standard shift 2013 Black Toyota Yaris.  It gets 38 MPG and when I wash it, I can reach the roof without standing on anything!  We call her the Barbie car because she is rather petite.  He loves it and I appreciate him and his decision to purchase something that is more practical and cost conscious.

We got snow yesterday!  Of course, being the first snowstorm of the year, they predicted Armageddon. They had crawls on the TV not to go out until after the advisories had lifted and things of that sort.  Really?  In fact, K is so excited right now since she is dressing to go roll around in the 2 or 3" of snow.

Yesterday was K's classroom Christmas party.  I made Rachael's baking soda/cornstarch and water ornaments.  I made 32 stars and baked them for 2 1/2 hours at 170 degrees.  The ornaments were a hit!  The kids loved them and I purchased styrofoam bowls for them to take the ornaments home in.  We stapled the bowls together to make a container to take a wet ornament home in without wearing the glitter, glue and other things that were stuck to them.  We had a delightful buffet of snacks, even though no one could tell me that they were sending anything in.  I was kind of sweating that one.  It all worked out okay.  Hubs came to volunteer with me and the teacher was thrilled.  We don't see that many dads at our school.  We had another mom who was able to come to help.  She has a great boss who allowed her to cruise on in to help.  I thought that the ornaments would take far longer than they did, then I realized that we had a half hour left.  I did my "unhang man" AKA building a drawing of something other than a guy hanging.  I drew a snowman, a Christmas tree and Santa.  The kids dug it.  We only got the wiggly widgets the last 5 minutes, so I call that a success.

I came home from the party, drew myself a bath, put on my pajamas and hopped into bed.  We had no obligations last night and I was beyond dog tired.  I had run for two weeks straight without stopping, having multiple meetings, breakfasts, work, other school obligations and such.  I knew that we could all take a quiet night and kick back and rest.  I ended up taking a nap (which I never do) and the fell asleep at 10 and slept all night long.  Hubs commented this morning how I was "dead to the world" and must have been beyond tired.  He said that the ADD keeps me spinning and the fact that I was down and resting kind of threw him.  I wasn't sick, but I was pretty convinced that if I didn't stop, I would be.  I needed to listen to my body and listen I did.  He chose to work out last night and K decided to watch the movie Brave three times in a row.  We aren't big with TV with her and doing that is a very rare thing, but she's been exhausted, too.  Kiddo needed to decompress, so she rested, played with her dollhouse in the middle of the living room floor and loved the quiet time to herself.

Today is Happy Home Day!  Today is the day that we celebrate that K came to be with us.  (Most people call it Gotcha Day, but that title doesn't ring real well with me.  I wanted something more meaningful to us and a little less slang.) We like to take her to see Christmas lights on the evening of Happy Home Day.  There have only been a few years that we've missed it, but we always like to do something special with her.  (One year had the stomach flu and last year we had no lights where we usually go.)  We'll have fun this evening for sure!

Having spent every single day at the school this week, I can tell you that our procedures for different things have been tweaked all week.  The tweaking is definitely a good thing and everyone seems to be fairly obedient about it.  I texted my PTA peeps to let them know that they needed to print badges as well as wear their lanyards, we needed to give specific whereabouts to the office and are absolutely under no circumstance to let anyone in at all.  (We already knew most of those things, but it didn't hurt to reiterate.)

I have to jog out to the land o' retail madness today.  For those who speak with me by phone, they will be thrilled to know that Santa (my parents in this case) will be gifting us a new cordless phone!  The phone system was a hand-me-down from the neighbor and it has gotten so beyond that it doesn't beep when the battery is low anymore.  It just hangs up.  People know that I will call them back, but still  . . .

K is out shoveling snow from the neighbors drive.  She is moving snow to probably make herself a mini sledding hill.  She loves playing in snow more than I can even express.  There is more coming basically everyday.  To her, that is the greatest gift.

Have a wonderful weekend!

The dinner time talk with K- about the shootings.

I don't want my child to be scared to go to school.  However, I do not want her to be blind sided by the information that may very well come up on Monday.  

"K-.  Dad and I need to have a serious talk with you.  You did nothing wrong.  We do want to talk to you about something very bad that happened.  You'll probably hear about it at school.  Something happened very bad at a school very far away.  People were hurt and people died."  

"What happened?"  

Hubs answered that someone came in and did have a gun and shot a lot of people.  I was hesitant about giving so much information, but she asked and we told her.  We told her that it seems like he was mad at his mom.  The people in the school did nothing wrong.  

Tears rolled down her face.  "But I just feel so bad for all of those families."  

"We do, too."  "We want you to feel safe.  Do you feel safe?"  

We reviewed different policies and how lock downs are done on a regular basis.  Again, I'm thankful that I witnessed a live lock down that was not a drill.  That does make my heart feel so much better.  

We explained to her that her school is always locked, but it is important not to open it up for anyone.  "They need to get buzzed in and make sure you never let anyone in, even if you know them because we want to follow the rules."  

I'm sad that we had to have this conversation with her, but I wanted her to have some time before going back to school to digest the information in as much as she can.  She knows that she can always ask us any question and this allows her processing time before re-entry.  

I told her that I suspect that Miss W (the school counselor) may be having a talk with them sometime about it.  I also said that I wouldn't be surprised if they have a lock down drill this week.  

I just wanted to prepare her, but we don't want to scare her.  Still . . .

Nothing that I could say seems significant enough.

I was busy dashing around to get ready for K-'s party yesterday when I read a blip on Yahoo about the school shooting.  At that time, they didn't have any information to give other than big, bad things had happened.

My cousin came over to help assist in the process of painting and whatnot and was talking to me on the side about it.

How my heart breaks.

Mr. B, our principal, used our weekly All Call to reassure parents, grandparents and guardians that we have regular lock down drills, have certain sign-in procedures for a reason and you could tell in the quiver of his voice that with this being an elementary, it hit particularly close to home.  He knows each of our 530 students personally.  He stands at bus stops, stops by homes, calls regularly truant children in the morning to make certain that they are up to get ready and be on time for school.  Our kids are his kids.  He asked that we hug them a little extra tight.

I can write that I've been in the school for a full lock down.  It was not a drill and I saw the entire school buttoned up in well less than 60 seconds.  Each child has been locked down in every area of the school, so they know what they are to do if they are in the gym, art room, hall or the cafeteria that has a full side wall of glass.

I had 4 additional young ladies stay over with me last night.  I told their parents that I did not turn the TV on on purpose.  I told them that if they wanted to approach the subject with their children, I wanted it to be on their own.  I just wanted the kids to have one more quiet night of fun before reality of another mass shooting came to light.

I could ask, "What makes someone do this?" Obviously this is not a new thought.

"How could we stop it?"  But then, you have people accusing each other all the way around.  This one is right and that one is right.  In the end, we have death.  A mass death.  Let's not lay blame.  Let's lay prayer.

I have a child who just got past the anxiety of the OAA.  I can't imagine the anxiety that she might have over worrying about a gunman coming into her school and wiping out a classroom or more of children.

I was awake in the middle of the night, listening to the little snores of the sleepers in my living room.  I can't imagine not having any one of them around.

I just can't imagine.  It's safe to say that I'm sure that Newtown wouldn't want anyone to have to feel their pain.

We lift the families, the community and everyone concerned in prayer.  How my heart breaks.

5200+ e-mails made my account blow up.

I have a confession.  I have admitted it to you before, but it got absolutely no better when the computer crashed.  I was behind on clearing out old e-mails.  The computer crashed and I could only access those e-mails on the Kindle.  When you erase them from the Kindle, they don't erase from the actual account. (Or at least, that is what I found.)  When the computer got replaced with a machine that works willingly, I had 5243 e-mails.

Yowza.

I was dealing with them bit by bit.  I went in one day and noticed that my e-mail had now become one page with many additional spaces left for more.

Juno ate them.

It's okay.  The account needed freed of the clutter.  Still, 5243.  Really?  If I was that stuffed full of e-mails from the Vitamin Shop, Old Navy, Bass Pro and more, I would explode, too.

I've since been very good at clearing out the old.  I've also blocked e-mails and changed subscription notices.

A New Year's Resolution?  Keep better control of the e-mail.  I promise.

I touched hundreds of little faces.

We had our Santa Shop and Winter Wonderland event at the school yesterday.

Sweet Pete, I was tired.

I was the face painter.  I had a few young ladies helping me, but it was primarily my gig.  I had 4 designs for them to choose from.  Still, I had the "but I want a monster!"  "Darlin', you can choose from these different designs here.  Would you like a snowflake, an ornament, a star or a tree?"  "I want a monster."

I was not paid by the hour as a party painter.  I was a free volunteer and happy to do so.  Still, to keep the line moving, I had to be that lady who made them stick to the four designs.  Oh, and I had to have them stick to the one cheek per kid rule.

I would say I was no fun, but I did sing silly songs to kids.  Some were impressed.  Some could care less.  Still, I had my hands all over hundreds of little faces.

The good news is that no one bit me.  :)

I'm preparing to go be the cupcake decorating coordinator at our church.  We're having a Happy Birthday Jesus party and it is me, and me alone, who will be manning the sprinkles and icing.

Lord be with me.

Still, I'm happy to do it and we want the kids to have fun.  We anticipate 70 children, but since we put out over 1600 invites, we're hoping for a lot more.

Frosting knives raised and prayers of patience.  Have a great day!

ETA:  We went.  We enjoy.  We iced, sprinkled, sang and ate.  We ended up with 96 extra cupcakes, so we had the older kids ice and sprinkle the additional cupcakes so that we could put them up for our Family Promise families that will be arriving this weekend.  Something tells me that they won't be in a want for cupcakes any time soon.

The Third Grade Guarantee

We're breathing a sigh of relief in our house tonight.  K- passed the Ohio Reading Achievement test enough to qualify for promotion to 4th grade.  It is very sad that this child got so stressed out about a test that could potentially hold her back that she took half of a day off as a mental health day.

Poor kiddo!

She scored above their required score, but just a few points behind where they want the kids to be at the end of third grade.

Considering the massive amount of stress she felt, we think that is awesome!  On a general day, she could do better, but having never seen it before, she did fabulous!

It is sad that it has come to that, though.  It is ridiculous what they put these poor kids through.  The teacher made no mention of the 3rd Grade Guarantee specification and neither did we, but other parents told their kids who were a little free-wheeling with the information.  Between that and the difficulties in math, the kid has been a complete wreck!

She takes the reading test again in April, along with the math achievement test.  About a week ago, the kids had a reading test for the city that took 2 1/2 hours and K- said it was 31 pages long.

Do I need to remind y'all that K- is 8?

I have a hatred for standardized testing.  I know it has its place, but I'm not a fan.  Argh.

:whew with a wipe to the forehead:

That is a hurdle that we've jumped over together.  Now if we could just get that math thing licked!

Tales from the Trenches: Don't worry, I'll bend down.

My daughter is growing.

And growing.

And growing.

This is where I remind you that I'm 5' 1".

This morning, I woke up about an hour later than I usually do.  My alarm usually goes off at 6:09 AM with two options to have alarm smack-downs, then up at 6:30.  Since I failed to set the alarm, I did not have that this AM, but with the bus coming at 7:40, we had enough time.  (And I even had to pack lunch!)  I ran down and grabbed K's uniform parts off the line, started packing her lunch and grabbed up breakfast for her.  I was brushing her hair, she popped up to brush her teeth and then she stopped.

She bent down for me.

"Mom, don't worry.  I'll bend down for you."  You see, it's getting harder and harder for me to part her hair without her being seated.

My baby?  She's growing older and taller.

:smirk:

I even bet that she'll be taller than me.  That's okay.  Hubs told her that she'll be 6' 4" (which she won't be) and I'll still be putting her into time out.  All she could do was to laugh.  I told her that I didn't care how tall she was, she just needs to remember that I'm mom.

A short mom.

Have a great day!