Mommathon

We got on offer on our house today...from CRAZY people. Seriously. They offered a SUPER DUPER crazy amount below asking price AND they want us to do about $5,000 worth of work to the house...including respraying the ceiling. What!!???? Why? Oh, I know, maybe because they are crazy. We are going to counteroffer, but I don't know how we could possibly find a compromise. We need to sell our house, but I would rather make house payments on a house I am not living in rather than just giving it away.

The following is an interesting exercise.... You answer a few questions then click the "find your candidate button" and the program selects the candidate who's position on the issues is most like your own... And how the rest rank according to your preferences. You may be surprised at what you find... I was.... Click the link below....

http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

We are now the proud owners of a brand new house, but man they make you sign a lot of papers. It is almost funny. Now we get to move all of our earthly possessions. That's not so funny. Ugh!

Liam got his packet of school pictures today. He handed it to me and said, "Mom, look, they cloned me."

No, I do not feel this way, but I heard these words uttered yesterday from another mom. Let me vent for a second. The other moms at Colm's KM class drive me NUTS! All they do the entire time we are there is talk about how smart their kids are. Seriously! Yesterday, I got up and moved myself down the hallway so I wouldn't have to listen to them go on and on. Now, I know that everyone thinks their first child is a genius, but these are moms who have at least two to three kids and have at least one in elementary school. They were going on and on about how their child could read when he/she was four and how kindergarten was such a waste. Have they ever sat in a kinder classroom? I have. I go and help in Liam's class every Tuesday and there is a lot going on that 99.9999999% of kinders would benefit from. Should they tell the teacher their child can read? You bet. Parents should always talk to the teacher if they think there is something the teacher should know about their child. But, to say kindergarten is a waste...I think not. Kindergarten is so many other things than JUST reading or learning how to read. They are learning how to navigate their way through a larger social network, sharing, listening, following directions, completing work, working together, becoming more independent, solving problems and the list goes on and on.

Liam has a great kindergarten teacher. They sing all the time about everything. How can you not be happy in a classroom where you sing all the time? They sing about the weather, the calendar, colors, letters, numbers, patterns and on and on. She even had the kids sing two songs and voicemailed all the parents so we could hear them singing. It was great! I think the singing part I like the best is that after the pledge each day they sing You're a Grand Old Flag, This Land is Your Land or some other patriotic song that reminds me of music class when I was in elementary school.

To say kindergarten is a waste is completely false. As with any grade, talk to the teacher if you feel like your kid's needs aren't being met. Most good teachers can come up with some sort of creative solution and chances are your little genius is right up there with all the other little geniuses in the class and nothing special will have to be done at all.

Hold on, I'm not done yet. There is one mom there in particular that drives me SUPER nuts! She is a former teacher like me and seems to think she is God's gift to the education world. When she isn't talking about how smart her kids are she is talking about what a great teacher she is, even though she hasn't taught in a number of years. She is also not short on giving out advice to anyone who will listen on how to teach your child to read. It is NON-STOP, people, she is driving me NUTS! If there was another class we could go to at a different time, I would go. Seriously. It is that bad. It takes everything I have to keep my mouth shut.

Okay, I am done venting now.

Colm LOVES Wendy's. After school today, we swung by Wendy's for lunch and he told me I was the best mommy in the whoooooooooooooooooooole (complete with arms stretching out wide) world.


Sidenote: Yes, he is wearing clothes. We had to take off his shirt because of the chocolate Frosty though.

My foot is feeling so much better! Thank GOD for antibiotics!

I am so mad! I asked that stupid doctor if I needed antibiotics and he completely blew me off. I also asked him if I needed some pain meds because it was really hurting...again, blew me off. Well, I had the school nurse at Liam's school look at it today since I was already there (and because it really hurt) and she told me that I had (insert some fancy medical word here that starts with a C and means infected-I can't remember what the word was) and that I needed some antibiotics and that the reason it hurts so bad (besides the fact that I had a blade go into my foot yesterday) is because it is infected. So my MIL is going to pick them up for me so I don't have to hobble all the way into the pharmacy to get them (no it doesn't have a drive through) with Colm in tow. God bless her!

I have never had stitches before, but now I have. Three. This afternoon Colm and I were working in the garden. I had the pruning sheers out, dropped them on my foot and well, they went in. Yep.

Colm was my little hero. He asked me if I needed a Band-Aid, he got my purse out of my car for me and brought me the phone. He also kept checking outside to see if my mother-in-law had arrived yet. The cutest part was when I was sitting on the kitchen floor with my foot in the air and Colm sat down next to me and did the same.

My MIL came and took Colm and went and picked Liam up from school. Sean came and took me to the ER and then took Liam to violin. I sat in the waiting room at the ER for over three hours while all of this was going on (and that was just how long I was in the waiting room).

My mom came and got me from the ER after the whole adventure was over and took me out to get a bite to eat.

Now my foot just really hurts and I have three stitches.

Coach


Blue Dragons!


Halftime


The most important part...the postgame snacks!

The parks and rec department sponsored this event today and it F.U.N. Not only did the boys get to climb on, in and around every sort of truck, car, rescue vehicle you can think of, they also got popcorn and a drink while they were there and a great goody bag which included a Hot Wheels car, coupons to various kid-friendly restaurants and some Skittles. They had a limo, a satelite American Red Cross rescue truck, an armored car, a street sweeper, a race car, a police car, a firetruck and the list goes on.



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Colm and I had to run some stuff down to my dad's office today. So we did that and we stayed for a while and chatted with my step-mom. It was a little past lunchtime at that point and both Colm and I were getting pretty hungry. There is a restaurant down near the office that I have not been to since I was probably in high school or college during my vegetarian days. Back then it was a tiny hole in the wall where you just might bump elbows with the person sitting at the next table it was so cramped. I wasn't sure what Colm would eat, but we were in the neighborhood and I was hungry, so we went. You can tell that they don't have a lot of children pass through their doors. The hostess looked at me as if I might be lost when we walked in and the waitress wasn't quite sure what to do with us. You could tell Colm's presence was throwing them off a bit. I asked to see a menu before we sat down to make sure there was something Colm would eat and to my delight there were a couple of things he could choose from. I am so glad we went. I had the tastiest lunch and now I know we can go back with the kids....whether they want us to or not.

Tonight we had a dipper sampling at dinner. We all had fresh green beans, fish and rolls. Normally the green beans would have sent the boys over the edge. Colm would have thrown them on the floor or on my plate and Liam would have pitched a fit. Not tonight. I didn't say much of anything about the food on their plates because I had them all wrapped up in the variety of dips I had set on the table to try with their dinner. The dips were: ranch (which my kids don't eat), italian dressing (which my kids don't eat), melted butter, ketchup, strawberry salad dressing (which they love) and honey. They were so busy seeing which dips tasted good with which foods that Colm totally forgot he hates green beans and Liam ate all of his fish after dipping it in honey, butter and ketchup. Liam even tried a green bean without putting up ANY sort of fight. He EVEN (and this is the amazing part, folks) spit out the first bite because he didn't like it, but tried it again with a different dip. He still didn't like it, but he TRIED and no one cried. Not even me. :)

Liam officially knows more Spanish than me. He was saying something to me tonight while he was stretching and I thought I just couldn't understand him because he was stretching and talking at the same time. Finally he explained to me that he was saying "I am tired." in Spanish. He then rattled off five or six other phrases. Hmm...too bad they don't offer French at his school then we could actually have a conversation.

It is raining teeth around here. Liam lost ANOTHER tooth tonight. It has been loose for a while, but he WORKED at this one. I won't bore you with the gory details, but let's just say he could have waited a while. He has tooth fairy fever, so he is willing to withstand a little pain to get some shiny coins under his pillow at night.

Liam started soccer today. He has the BEST coach. He is so good with the kids and Liam seems to listen to him. I was so proud of Liam today. The coach told him to defend the goal if he didn't have the ball and that's exactly what he did. Liam also got his first pair of soccer shoes. They are silver and he thinks he is HOT STUFF with those shoes on. (I'll have to add a picture of them later.) They had a great first game and Liam had a lot of fun and it was a beautiful day to be outside playing soccer.

Someone stole all of the doorknobs out of our new house. They weren't installed yet, so I guess that is good. I don't know how they did it since the house is always locked. They think it was an inside job a) because the house is locked unless someone is working in there and b) they were in boxes inside the kitchen pantry-not the most obvious place to look for doorknobs.

Colm's first day of preschool was today and he did GREAT! He walked in and didn't even look back or give me a kiss or a hug good bye. (He did when I reminded him though.) :) He is such a big boy!

You will never believe what I did this weekend! Where to begin...Okay, we have some things in storage since our house is on the market and and the rent for our storage unit is due the first of every month. On Saturday we drove by the place where our stuff is and I realized we hadn't paid yet, so Sean turned around and drove back. The place was closed, but they have a little slit in the door where you can drop off payments. So that is what I did. Then I realized that they would be closed Sunday as normal and on Monday for the holiday. I started to freak out a little that our check was just laying there on the floor where anyone could see it through the glass. It has our address, names, etc. on it. What to do? So, later on when the boys where in bed, I went to the grocery store and then I drove back to the place to see if I could somehow throw some paper through the little hole to cover up our check. (This was probably ten o'clock at night.) Oh my! I tried EVERYTHING and every piece of paper I tried missed. I had some Blue Clues coloring sheets, a sheet on how to pray the Rosary, some cardboard from a lightbulb wrapper....you can imagine what their floor looks like now. I am sure they are going to walk in on Tuesday morning and wonder what in the world happened. However, since the place has video surveillance all over all they will have to do is go back through the tapes and watch me looking like a complete dork throwing paper through their door. And if they didn't get it on tape, there is a bank next door that has video cameras, which probably got it all on tape. I just hope I don't end up on the evening news. :)

Love this show! We watched the first one this morning. It is great because both of the boys can participate at different levels. They did word sorts, word families/rhyming, letter ID, reading, spelling and probably some other things I am forgetting. They also used a familiar story to help solve a problem that kids can relate to. The boys like the website, too. There are definitely some elements borrowed from other children's programs though. I hope the rest of the shows are as engaging and as educational as this one. Liam is also anxiously waiting for the premiere of Wordgirl. We've got the DVR all set up so we won't miss it.

Both of the boys have had their first lesson with our new violin teacher. She does things a little differently and wasn't shy about telling me that she thought her way was better and why she thought it was better. She has thirty steps she takes the kids through. I think she is going to start Colm back at the very beginning which is fine. I am not sure what she is going to do with Liam. I talked to Liam about how it might be kind of hard at first to do things differently, but that his teacher knows and I know that he is used to doing things a certain way and we will all just have to be patient with one another. I just don't want him to get discouraged. We also went to one of the group lessons and these kids play much more quickly than he is used to. I don't know if he is going to be playing with the older kids all the time, but I hope not. I was so proud of him for trying to keep up with them, but he wasn't doing well and he isn't going to learn if he is just trying to keep up...which he wasn't...not even close. I did explain to him how they were able to play so quickly, so we have been working on that. He just isn't there yet and that is okay. He's five. His teacher also has a different way of practicing at home which has been a nice change of pace. After practicing the same way for
2 1/2 years, it is nice to do something a little different. I hope this teacher works out. There aren't a lot of good ones out there. Our first one was great, but just wasn't working out. Time will tell.

At the age of four Liam did not know what a gun was. Since the discovery of Star Wars that has definitely changed. All of the little Star Wars figures come with some sort of teeny tiny little weapon whether it be a light saber, gun or laser thingy. The boys don't walk around acting like they're randomly shooting people (usually), but if they (especially Colm) hear somebody make a sound that even remotely sounds like what their gunshooting sound sounds like...it's all over. Perfect example. The other night the boys and I were standing outside preschool talking to two other moms and their boys. One of the boys made a gun sound and they all started in. What is that? Is it genetic?

Tonight we were eating dinner and I was explaining to Liam that the reason he was eating different fishsticks than normal was because of sustainable fishing practices and that the fishsticks he used to eat did not meet the guidelines for sustainable fishing. He thought about it for a bit and asked if farmers could use a gun to shoot the fish they want to eat so that they don't hurt any of the other fish. He thought about it a little bit longer and decided that wouldn't work...it would only make a big explosion in the water.

When I send Liam to kindergarten each morning he is flesh-colored. When I pick him up each day he is black and gray. Seriously! His toes and feet are filthy! His wrists and forearms are disgusting! How is he getting this way? Recess. He, Solomon and Jacob spend both of their recesses making volcanoes out of the playground mulch. I can just see them digging on their hands and knees up to their elbows in mulch. (Their playground mulch is the bouncy kind that is like shredded black rubber.) I can tell they wash their hands, because that is the only part of him that is not dingy. You should see his bath water!
Oh well, at least he is making friends and having a good time.

Liam has had a loose tooth since May. That's three months! It FINALLY came out tonight. It took a little coaxing, but we finally got it to come out. It has been hanging by a thread for the last ten days or so, just laying on its side. It was kind of gross. Two weeks ago, Liam would never have tolerated the amount of coaxing it took for me to get that tooth out of his mouth. (I hardly had to do anything, he just likes to be dramatic about the whole thing.) But now he has some peer pressure. He has some fellow kinders who have also lost teeth and he wants to join the gang. Most importantly, his new friend, Solomon, has lost a tooth. So, I guess the tooth fairy will not be passing over our house tonight, but will be stopping in-finally.