Rambling

Well, we're sort of in our groove now with a schedule. Sort of. Jay starts classes next week so that will change some things. Like my ability to boss him around whenever I want. Now I'll have to wait for him to get home sometimes. My life is hard.

The school the kids are in seem to be a good fit. Avee came home with a note from her teacher the other day---basically just praising her for being caught paying attention. Wow. That same day, Bo's teacher wrote a note in his book that he needed to work on paying attention more. I felt the boy's pain. I spent a good majority of 2nd and 3rd grade daydreaming.

Speaking of daydreaming...I started my classes this week, and today is my 3rd class. I totally got busted zoning out in my first class. One whole wall is windows, people were letting out of class, I couldn't help it. Only, I was sitting in the front of the class and the teacher suddenly says, "You okay Nobody, you suddenly look confused by what I'm saying..." I was terribly embarrassed for a couple of reasons. I had been caught daydreaming, in grad school---AND, my daydreaming expression is one of confusion!!! All these years...

I had no choice but to confess to my adult ADD. One of my friends in the back was laughing hysterically at me. My professor was very kind, and allowed me to redeem myself a few minutes later. But still.

My first two classes seem to be really good and interesting, and I'm looking forward to them. Kind of. One is Group Therapy and we have to actually participate in 10 sessions of group therapy, facilitated by a counselor from the community. It feels a little nerve racking, but I'm pretty excited to learn the process and be a part of it. Since that's the main meat of the class, there is only one big project and two smaller writing assignments, so I'm excited that there's limited outside class work. The OTHER class is going to kick my hiney though. It's Intro to Counseling and basically these two classes are designed as filtering/weeding type classes, so if they thinks you ugly, they tells you. Or something like that. We have to video ourselves counseling other classmates and then watch them all together and get critiqued. Whaaaaa!?? Yeah well, better now than 10 years down the road, right?

Tonight's class is theories or something like that. I have aaaaaalllllways loved theory. Just ax my high school piano teacher.

Yesterday I was running errands with the kids after their dentist appointments. I love toodling around with Bo because he gets really chatty then. So he says to me, "There's another new kid in my class and he must have gone to a school that let him do anything when he was there. He talks without raising his hand, he gets out of his seat whenever he wants, he was totally laying on a row of chairs in the cafeteria because the ones around him were empty."

I was thinking, maybe he came from a much more lax school (Bo's last school was the opposite of lax in just about every way possible), or maybe he's just not very well-behaved in general. None of those "offenses" seemed like too big of a deal to me, and it was interesting to me that at 8, Bo was already noting them. He also wasn't blaming the kid, he was blaming the training, which I thought was funny. So I asked Bo, "What school did he go to before this one?" And Bo answered, "I don't know. I asked him, but his mouth was full of food when he answered and I just couldn't understand him." For some reason, that REALLY made me laugh. I think it might be more about the kid and less about what school he came from. I do love that Bo was simply observing and not judging.

In fact, I've noticed him doing that a few times recently. In potentially confrontational situations, he kind of shrugs off the other person's behavior. One time was this summer at the pool. He was standing behind a Hispanic kid and in front of a Black kid. The Hispanic kid turned and gave the Black kid cuts in line for the slide, and said to Bo, "It's because we both have brown skin---you need to get a tan, you're too white." Now, this could totally have made him feel bad or ticked him off at the ridiculousness of it, but instead he related the story, totally laughing that they actually thought he could get brown like them. "I'm always going to be this white. Or red!"

Danyo started preschool as well. The first three days he was ridiculously late. As in, they had to come unlock the door for us to let him in, late. I realized just before the 4th day that preschool actually started 15 minutes earlier than I had thought. So, I made an extra effort on the 4th day to get him there early. I was a rockstar. Then, two and a half hours later J forgot to pick him up. My rockstar status was totally negated. I loved answering the phone and saying to his teacher on the 4th day of preschool, "Um yeah, we forgot, my husband is on his way right now." That was awesome. I was worried about Danyo being traumatized or whatever drama he felt like having that afternoon, but he just said to J, "Dad, you took foh-EVOH!" That was funny to us because he says the same thing about having to brush his teeth, put on pajamas, eat his food, "But it takes fo-o-o-o-o-ohEVOH!" This time he was actually right.

When we moved into our house, the main floor was painted somewhat modernly. The living room entry area was a chocolate brown and the dining area (it's one great area that's all open) was red. I kind of liked it. Then the brown started getting old to me. So J and I talked about painting over the brown, but never got around to it. But now, we've got some time, and he painted it all himself, including a coat of primer, in a day and a half. And the day he spent painting, I was at work so he managed that as well as the three kids. Totally impressive. Plus, he's a good painter. I am not. No matter how easy I think it is---I manage to make a huge mess of things.

So, now it's painted and has totally lightened the room and I love it. Only, it's had a strange side-effect. Every once in a while, for the last 6-8 months or so, I would smell cat pee. It was somewhat faint and often fleeting, but it was always in the same area. No one else could smell it though, so I just assumed it was my hyper-sensitive schnoz doing unnecessary overtime. Well, now I smell it when I walk in the door, and I want to throw up if I go anywhere near the offending area. And even J says he's smelled it. Not like me, but still. And it's all been since he's painted. Which is just weird to me.

So then I got on a "let's pull up the carpet" kick. And we went to look at laminate and realized it was a $1200 project, which we didn't have to spend, after spending an hour looking at it. We're totally responsible like that. Then our friend mentioned he thought that the original hardwood floors would still be there and might be worth the look. So we looked. We (J) tore up a little 10 square feet area which took us (J) like two hours---it was ridiculously difficult. And it's ugly. The boards are long and skinny. So now we're back to laminate when our ship comes in, but in the meantime we have a patch of hardwood floors and the nice aroma of cat pee to compliment it.
Poor Jay. He has the choice of annoying, complainy, wife or torn up trashy house, and he chose the latter. That should tell me something.

Well, I guess I better go do some real work. Peace.

First Day of First Grade. And Third.

Last night I came home from work and kissed my little Kindergartner for the last time as she lay in her bed asleep. She kicked her legs and swung at me like she always does when I kiss her while she's sleeping. I slipped into Bo's room and couldn't reach him on the top bunk so I kissed his hand. Life has been such a whirlwind since they finished school last May, I haven't thought much about having a First Grader and a Third Grader. It has hit me now!

They started a new school today. They were both nervous but so brave and mature about the change. I lived in the same house and went to school with the same group of kids my entire childhood, so I don't really know what this is like for them.

Already, my experiences with staff have been about 180 degree difference from the previous school. Most notable is, when I walked into the school with my two children, I didn't feel like a criminal trespassing. That was nice.

I feel such different things saying goodbye to my two kids. As I watched Avee walk into her class with a confident stride (when did she get so big!?) I felt pangs of sadness to not being spending my day with her. Watching her hang, swing, flip, and climb from different things in the house. Or tease her about being addicted to tv. Or be the recipient of her random and plentiful hugs and kisses throughout the day. I'll miss her quietly narking on Bo, so he won't hear her tattles. I'll miss her sparkling eyes and quick grin when I remind her not to tattle. And I hope she knows how good and smart and darling she is, and that no one will say or do anything during the day to make her doubt that.

As I walk away from Bo I hope he won't try too hard to be funny and bug his teacher. I hope he won't be bored and turn to mischief to entertain himself. I hope he will make a friend. I hope his teacher will treat him well. I hope he will tell me all about his day when he gets home. I hope he will love school as he should.

I hate giving my kids to other people for so long. But, I'm a big girl. I can do it. :)

Danyo starts preschool on Thursday. Based on how swimmingly he and I get along most days, I wonder if I will feel much more than sheer relief dropping him off. I have high hopes for some maturing this preschool year. I'm also really looking forward to not being screamed at to carry him everywhere. That will be nice.

I start classes next week myself. I've been in denial about what taking a full load of classes and being 6, 7, 8, and 9 months pregnant will be like. It should be awesome. I think it will be really cool when pregnancy brain fully kicks in and I forget what I'm saying mid-sentence.

We did find out the baby is a girl. I'm so completely thrilled by this news. Not half as much as Avee is though. She's agreed we can name the baby Avee Junior, as long as we don't say the Junior part, because that's kind of wee-yod.

Last month, actually, about 5 weeks ago, the day after we got home from vacation---J lost his job. I actually gave him a high five when he told me he'd been fired. I've just written and erased about 5 sentences trying to sum up his boss briefly. They all sound petty or childish. He doesn't know the business, he isn't honest, and he needed J out of the way to find a soft place to land because he'd flubbed up his own position by losing accounts. We've known about that last part since January, but we really didn't think he'd get away with it since it was so obvious to everyone what he was doing and it really just wasn't okay. But, it happened. And besides the obvious financial distress being suddenly unemployed can cause, it truly has been a blessing.

Because the aforementioned putz was trying to get rid of him, he had been making life miserable for J for several months. J handles everything in stride, but seeing how he is now without that stress in his life, shows me so clearly how miserable his work life was. So, just eliminating that stress alone has been great. J had been actively working toward going back to school this Fall, and being fired instead of quitting, really made that transition an easier decision, and financially more do-able. So, that's pretty awesome. If you want to know the "reason" cited for J getting fired, just think of the most politically correct and HR-approvable way you can say, "You hurt my feelings with all those big words and stuff, and I don't like how stupid you make me look". Hahaha. I just thought of that. But it's totally true.

J starts school in a week also. We are going to be one edjumacashun-gettin' family! J just needs to get a handful of prerequisites to apply to a Master's program.

Danyo just called his friend's house to invite her over to play. He was talking to her mom and about 1 minute into him barely answering her questions and giggling randomly, he yelled, "You ah taking fo-evoh!" Apparently she was supposed to assume he was calling to invite Emma over and she was supposed to already be at our house, while listening to him be a weirdo on the phone. It's not just me he is demanding and unreasonable with. That makes me feel a little better, actually.

Well, I told J I'd clean the bathrooms while he mowed the lawn and I think he just finished mowing. Oops, I better get to it.

Our camera battery wasn't charged this morning, but I will take like 57 pictures today after the kids get done with school. I'll post them all.