29 Gifts, Day 8 - Wet

Today my gift was to give a big basket of Happy Heiny's cloth diapers to my sister-in-law, who is expecting my niece in June.  People thought I was crazy when I decided to use cloth diapers for Norah (like I didn't have anything better to do than wash diapers), but when I saw the video below, I was sold. 

Being the highly impressionable do-gooder that I am, I wound up buying a bunch of cloth diapers and really liked them. I had to use disposables for day care and I also used them while traveling, but I used cloth diapers the rest of the time until Norah was potty trained just before she turned 2. I'm so glad Josh & Rachael will be able to make use of them.

Speaking of wet, holy crap we've got a lot of water! The rivers are higher than I've ever seen them (photo stolen from my SIL, Monica - note the duck swimming across the yellow line), and lots of basements are flooded, including ours.  We had borrowed a pump when we had the last flood a couple of weeks ago, and we had used it intermittently until yesterday when the water came back in full force. Our friends who loaned us the pump needed it back, so we began the hunt.  I should have just ordered one but hindsight is 20/20.

Last night I went to Lowe's and they were taking names of customers to call when they received their next shipment.  My name was at the bottom of a double-spaced list on 8 1/2 x 11 paper.  I haven't gotten a call yet.  This morning I called about 10 Home Depots, and nobody had a utility pump.  One woman answered the phone, "Shrewsbury Home Depot, we're out of utility pumps, how may I direct your call?"  I got two leads from a couple of the friendlier H.D. customer service people - Home Depot in Worcester and Russell's Garden Center in Wayland.

I called HD in Worcester and they said that they had utility pumps.  Ben drove all the way there to find out that they only had sump pumps left - we need the kind that will take water off the floor, not out of a hole.  I called Robinson's Hardware when I dropped Norah off at preschool, and they said that they had some.  I was going to go in right then, but it would have meant driving Adlani and Aliya to school and Adlani really wanted to take the bus, so I went to the bus stop first.  By the time I got to Robinson's, they only had sump pumps too.

Ben went to the hardware store in downtown Framingham (no luck), and I went to Russell's.  I haven't gone to Russell's in years and I think we were buying a tree at the time so we didn't check out the whole store.  It's awesome!!  They have EVERYTHING for gardening, plus a lot of gifty-type things - there's so much to see.  In their water garden department they had koi (giant goldfish) and were expecting a shipment of bullfrog tadpoles.  They also had pumps!  They were pumps for garden ponds, so not ideal, but we didn't have many options.

A really nice and knowledgeable guy (Tim) helped me figure out how to rig up a pump to work for our basement, and I was on my way for $139.  I took it home and explained our plan to Ben, and then jumped on a conference call.  By the time my call was over Ben was all in a lather because the pump wouldn't work.  I called Russell's and explained the problem (the water wasn't deep enough).  Tim said we could return the pump and I asked him to hold the more expensive model that I had tried to avoid buying.

So Ben went to Russell's and I went to work for back-to-back meetings.  When I got home at 6, the pressure of the rising water had obviously gotten to Ben, because he was going ape-sh*t about how the pump was a rip-off, wouldn't work, blah blah blah.  Or I should say, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I am now actively avoiding the situation.  Ben will be staying home for the third day tomorrow to try to deal with the water.  I will be finding somewhere to hide until it recedes again.

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29 Gifts, Day 7 - A-Lo's Appearances

Today my gift was the creation and facilitation of Aliya's presentations on Morocco to Adlani's kindergarten class and her second grade class.  I was amazed by how well both groups of kids listened, and the questions they asked at the end. 

Aliya did a fabulous job (video to follow).  Her Spanish is unbelievable.  She didn't have a rehearsed speech, she just chattered away in Spanish and answered questions from the teachers and kids without stopping to think about what to say or how to say it.  I was so proud of her!

Adlani did a good job of sitting quietly and using appropriate language, unlike another friend who had to leave the circle area because he asked if people in Morocco go poopie.  Yes, they do.  Especially visiting Americans who aren't used to the Moroccan diet.
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29 Gifts, Day 6 - Teachers' Wish Lists

I've officially hit the wall.  I can't do anything else.  This morning I moved mountains to get to preschool before school started to put up the teachers' wish list bulletin board (below).  The idea is that parents will pull off a leaf, each of which lists something the teacher needs for her classroom, and buy that item.  So my gift of creating the board will hopefully turn into a multitude of gifts for the teachers. 

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After I put up the board, I dropped Aliya and Adlani at school and headed home for a conference call.  I worked frantically all day on a project that I need to finish tonight, while constantly getting emails and phone calls about other things I need to do.  Aliya is doing a presentation on Morocco (in Spanish) tomorrow morning - first for Adlani's class and then for her own, so I had to get everything ready for that tonight.  Then I went to pick up my niece at work, except that due to a communication problem I was sitting in downtown Boston and she was on the train heading to Riverside.  That's an hour and a half of my life that I'll never get back. 

Now it's two quick blog posts, finish printing the Morocco stuff, a couple of hours to finish my work project, one more load of laundry, and I'm done.  Not done, like all tasks are complete and my house is in order, just DONE.  Toast.  This morning, the school nurse saw the wish list board and asked Aliya if I was this creative at home.  Aliya said, "No, our house is a mess."  I'm seriously thinking about taking the piles of stuff I'm supposed to deal with out to the yard and burning them.  What's the worst that could happen?  An unpaid parking ticket?  The feeling of freedom would be worth the risk. 
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29 Gifts, Day 5 - Facebook

This morning I came home from 1 1/2 hours of Zumba with Ali (totally awesome teacher!!) and I went to Facebook to add her as a friend.  While I was there I saw an ad for Pedigree dog food - for each person who became a fan of their Facebook page, they would donate a bowl of dog food for shelter dogs.  So I joined the group and donated bowl #336,745.  That was easy.  I also saw an ad for fake vomit (right) which was just strange enough that I clicked on it.  Sucka!

The dog food donation made me wonder about other Facebook fan pages where I could give a gift just by joining.  Little did I know that there are tens of thousands of Facebook charity groups, fan pages, and causes...too many to digest.  Here are a few of the popular ones in case you want to give a gift too:

Pedigree Adoption Drive - 1 bowl of dog food will be donated to shelter dogs per fan.
American Cancer Society - For every 5,000 fans, $500 will be donated to fight cancer.
Donate Life America - Spread the word about organ and tissue donation.

I spent most of today working on work, working on trying to clean up the pigsty we live in, working on the laundry mountain, and working on the teachers' wish list board for preschool (the gift for Day 6).  Ben took the kids to see his mom, which has become a very welcome weekly habit.  I'm sure she's wondering why I never come along, but hopefully she understands.  I've got to start being more selfish with my time because I feel like every minute is double-booked.  When I hostessed my Partylite show, the candle lady asked everyone at the party to say something about me.  When it was Aliya's turn she said, "My mom does a lot with a little bit of time."  That's the story of my life.  Maybe after I'm done giving 29 gifts, I'll try 29 days of exerting the bare minimum effort necessary.
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29 Gifts, Day 4 - The Gift of Life

Yes, today I gave the gift of life.  I spent half of the day cleaning and organizing the kids' rooms, and two hours this evening at IKEA with 8 zillion other people, and I didn't kill or maim anyone.  The thought crossed my mind, but I counted to 10 seven hundred and fifty-two times and kept my cool.  While I was cleaning Aliya's room I told Adlani and Norah to put whatever they wanted to donate to the school yard sale out in the hall.  This is what I found when I ventured out of Aliya's room:

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I felt like I needed to give a "real" gift, so I bought a dozen pairs of socks for the preschool nurse.  She had socks and underwear on her wish list, so when I was putting up the wish list board I asked her what style of underwear she wore.  She hesitated and then caught on and cracked up..."They're for the kids!!!"  Norah has come home with socks from the nurse twice, and I think she's purposely going to school with no socks on so she can get some TLC (and socks!) from Nurse Barbara.  I guess this is more like repayment of a debt than an actual gift, but it's my gift for Day 4 anyway.
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29 Gifts, Day 3 - Small Gifts

I feel like I didn't give a "real" gift today, but I gave a few small ones so I'm not going to give up on the challenge.  I gave a gift to Adlani's teachers and classmates by keeping him home from school after he coughed and hacked all night.  I'm sure they had probably all shared his germs already, but he seemed so miserable when he woke up that I thought he would sleep for a few hours after we took Aliya and Norah to school.  No such luck - no nap and no TV to distract him from driving me crazy.

If any of you are wondering when I actually work, since I'm always running over to school for something or working around a sick kid, I work almost every night from 9 until somewhere between midnight and 2 a.m., in addition to my daytime work.  This week I was asked to join a team which is headed by my boss' boss' boss' boss, which was very flattering but means a couple months of extra work.  I'm looking forward to being a part of it and I'll be traveling to Indianapolis in April for a few days to meet face-to-face.  

Aliya had her Sage presentation today so while I was there I hung one more photo on the board that I had forgotten to print yesterday.  Not a big gift, for sure, but every little thing feels like a big effort right now.  I'm officially overwhelmed.  Aliya did a great job with her presentation on cats, and I think she enjoyed learning how to do research and create her "product."


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I got my new glasses from Ilana (her son is in Sage with Aliya), and I really like them but they're going to take a little getting used to.  They definitely affect my depth perception - I feel really short when I'm wearing them.  It's amazing how clear everything is though, and how blurry certain things are when I take off the glasses.  I told Ilana that I gave her a plug on my blog...I guess that's a tiny gift.  I think Aliya likes my glasses - all afternoon she has been wearing the 3D glasses she got at the movie theater yesterday.  It's nice to be revered (at least by one kid - keep reading). 

I took the kids to the library after school, and then we went to Dairy Queen where I tipped the drive-thru girl $2 even though she took forever to get to the window.  No matter...DQ is open so it must be SPRING!!!

I gave myself the gift of Zumba this evening, which probably doesn't count but I'm glad I went.  I swear, my legs were burning at the end of the first song!  I was so tired out from the week that I laid down on the couch to vegetate and Norah was driving me absolutely crazy poking at me and hitting me with things.  I got mad at her and during the verbal exchange she yelled, "I WANT YOU TO DIE!!!"  I'm pretty sure that I didn't say that about my mother until at least 5th grade, and I doubt that I said it to her face.  This kid is 3 1/2!  What the hell are we going to do with her when she's 15??

Since all of my tiny gifts don't feel like I've done enough, I'm going to donate some rice at freerice.org.  You can answer questions on a variety of topics - vocabulary, geography, foreign languages, multiplication tables, etc., and for each right answer 10 grains of rice are donated.  Not a lot per question, but it really adds up.  In February, 1,281,469,630 grains of rice were donated.  So go test your knowledge of famous paintings or chemical symbols and donate some rice!

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29 Gifts, Day 2 - Multicultural Night

It's strange how taking on a challenge changes your focus.  When I woke up this morning, one of the first things I thought about was what gift to give today, right after I thought, "Why didn't the alarm go off 25 minutes ago?" and "Hey!  There's only one kid in my bed!"  I actually have quite a backlog of gifts I've promised, so I should be ok for the first third of the challenge or so.

A few weeks ago we had our annual Multicultural Night at school, which is a potluck dinner and celebration of another country/culture.  This year the country was Puerto Rico, and since we have so many families with ties to Puerto Rico it was very well-attended and a great time.  Our friend Eguie Castrillo put a band together and provided the music for the dancers, and we had a special presentation for our principal, Sra. Gonzalez, who is retiring this year.

My gift today was to finally put up the bulletin board of photos from Multicultural Night in the school lobby.  It was an early release day and we had Aliya's parent-teacher conference, so in between I put up the photos.  The conference was short and sweet because Aliya's a model student and is reading at a 3rd grade level (she's in 2nd).  We may have to book a double time slot for Adlani's conference.  :-P

Here are a few of the photos from Multicultural Night:

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I didn't videotape Aliya when she was introducing one of the groups of dancers (above), so I recorded it later on at home in her pjs (below):

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29 Gifts, Day 1 - Glasses

I found a link on the Year of Giving site to another site called 29Gifts.org.  The premise is simple...for 29 days in a row you commit to giving a gift each day.  It could be a gift of money, hand-me-downs, kind words, time, or even just a smile.  This is right up my alley, yet I hesitated.  Could I do it?  Could I find something to give each day?  Maybe I'm already giving something each day.  Or maybe I'm not as generous as I think I am.  Well, I guess it's time to find out.

So mid-day today I decided to give it a go.  Today was easy - I had already spent two hours at school so I gave the gift of time.  In Adlani's class I did guided reading with 7 kids, played Bingo with 3 kids, and helped in the A-B-C-dario center.  The kids are so proud of their reading and I loved having them read to me.  In Aliya's class I helped make 21 dolls out of yarn.  It's nice that she's still excited to have me in her classroom...I know there will come a day when she doesn't want to be seen with me.  :-( 

Then I went to the office for a couple of hours before I went to the eye doctor.  I hadn't had my eyes checked since 1997, and I told the eye doctor that I have eyeball-phobia so I was hoping he'd go easy on me.  He was actually awesome.  He explained everything, and didn't use eyedrops since I hate them.  He freaked me out a little when he pointed out that my pupils are not the same size, but he also said that 20% of adults have different-sized pupils.  It still seems a little weird.

The bottom line is that I need glasses.  I ended up with the first pair I tried on (see photo right), after trying on about 20 pairs.  I had gone into Optical Designs in Needham on Monday, because I went to pick up our lunch at a restaurant two doors down and it wasn't ready so I had a little time to kill.  I had worked at a school event with a mom (Ilana) who told me that her family owns Optical Designs, so I stopped in to see her.  She wasn't there but I've been feeling like my eyes were getting old and tired, so I made an appointment for today.  A couple of friends had raved about how great Ilana was at choosing frames, so I was so glad she was there to help me.  She has a gift for knowing what looks good on various face shapes, and I prefer to buy from local businesses that offer great service.  Win-Win!

This afternoon I spent 2+ hours of travel time and 2+ hours of meeting time to go to the UMass Law School in Dartmouth and meet with our law student.  The law clinic there is helping the local fire door inspectors set up a non-profit organization, and two of us are the liaisons between the rest of the inspectors and the lawyers.  It has been an interesting process and I've learned a lot, but I'm going to count it as a very large gift of my time.  On the bright side - the help we received from our law student and his supervising attorney was FREE!

So now I'm going to give myself a gift and go to bed early, since Norah snuck into my bed and kept me up last night by repeatedly kicking me in the head.  I'm beat!

Day One - Success!

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A Year of Giving

I love to help people and I love learning about people, so those who know me (except the Mean Girl on Facebook) won't be surprised that I really like this blog:  http://yearofgiving.wordpress.com/
Go check it out.  It's a cool project.

Guess What This Is?

I don't know why I couldn't resist.  I knew I wouldn't like the answer.  So what's in the photo? 

a) strawberry ice cream
b) chicken
c) plastic foam
d) something else

Click here so you can be grossed out too. 
And while you're there, check out the very cool and informative blog - Fooducate.

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Just Another Manic Sunday

I spent the entire day helping Aliya with her Sage project and working on the new teachers' wish list bulletin board for preschool.  Aliya's project was about cats, and today we had to print out all of her research and stick the blurbs onto a display board along with a bunch of photos.  It came out nice but her whining really tires me out.

The wish list board is a bunch of bushes with the wishes on leaves (photo to follow) along with a sun, clouds complete with rain, and a rainbow.  I was hoping to finish today but I still have to write out the teachers' wishes and stick them onto the bushes.  Oh well, tomorrow's a new day.

Tonight we took the kids to Ben & Jerry's to celebrate the lack of water in the basement along with the rest of the days' accomplishments.  A group of young people came in and ordered a Vermonster (20 scoops of ice cream, brownies, cookies, bananas, 4 toppings, hot fudge, and whipped cream - 14,000 calories and 500 grams of fat - 8 pounds - $40) so Adlani spent the entire time obsessing about how he could afford to buy a Vermonster because he's been saving his money.

When we were finishing up, a policeman came in and Norah yelled, "EL POLICIA ESTA AQUI!!"  I was so proud.  She then looked at Adlani playing with a toy and yelled, "MOMMY SAID TO LEAVE ALL THE SHIT IN THE CAR!!"

I did NOT say "shit" and I have witnesses.  I don't know where she gets this stuff.  Must be from Ben.

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Eavesdropping

<a href="http://www.cmt.com/video/" target="_blank">Tom Mabe: Eavesdropping</a>

Tom Mabe: Eavesdropping

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Here are some photos from the annual St. Pattypalooza at Pam & Ted's.  A good time was had by all, especially the oldies-karaoke fans.

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She's Taking on Water, Captain!!

In the 10 years we've lived in our house, we've had water in the basement a few times.  Our house was built in 1927 and moved from a location on route 30 in the 50's, so it has a block foundation.  There are hairline cracks in the floor, so when the ground water gets too high, the hydrostatic pressure forces water in through those cracks (and any other little pinholes it can find).

Sealing the cracks doesn't solve the problem - we would have to install a drain system around the basement walls and since the water hasn't been a problem, we haven't taken the plunge.  We may have to rethink that decision.

We had a few solid days of torrential rain, and even on the last day the basement was still dry.  That night, the groundwater level must have reached the height of the basement floor, so we were in the basement until 3 a.m. trying to keep the water level below the furnace.  All the stores are sold out of pumps, so we were sucking the water up with a Shop-Vac, 12 gallons at a time.  I posted on Facebook that we needed to borrow a pump, and by the time I woke up the next morning, we had two!  The power of social media.

The first pump was designed to be submersible, so it kept overheating and shutting off.  We ended up with the pump in a bucket, and we basically bailed and vacuumed all of the water in the basement (30' x 30' x 3" - do the math) into the bucket or Shop-Vac to be pumped out.  The problem is that if the water finds its way to the storm drains or the sewer system, those systems are already full so the water eventually ends up back under our house coming through the cracks.

We got the other pump last night and it's the type that sucks water right off the floor, so we ran that for a few hours last night and this morning.  At least we're not bailing or vacuuming, but it's a losing battle because until the ground water level recedes, it's going to keep coming back.

Honestly, I'm thinking Adlani's idea might be a good one - leave the water in the basement so we can play down there with boats.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery

I'm really tired so I'm going to cheat and send you over to today's post on my work blog, which is about the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.  Once this terrible weather clears (and the water in my basement dries up), it would be a beautiful place to go for an early-spring walk.  Really!

Click here to go.
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The Story of Stuff

If you've got 20 minutes, this video is interesting.  There's quite a bit of controversy about it, but in my opinion she makes a lot of good points.


The Story Of Stuff from Alternative Truth on Vimeo.

Thanks Helga!

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El Policia

This morning I dropped Norah off at preschool, put Adlani and Aliya on the bus, and went back to preschool for an hour of PTO business.  As I walked to the front door, I met up with a police officer heading in the same direction.  He didn't look like he was in a hurry, but I did notice that he was wearing his gun which seemed unusual if he was going to spend time in a preschool class.  Personally, I'd be a little worried that the shorty mob would overtake him and gain control of his weapon, but I guess he felt confident that he'd be able to subdue them.

Just inside the front door, we met Norah's teacher, who was obviously waiting for the officer.  When she saw me, she said, "HE (pointing to the officer) can help us with YOUR daughter!"

What a brilliant idea!  Yesterday I got an email from the teacher saying that Norah wouldn't get in line, yelled "NO!" in the teacher's face, pushed a kid, spit at somebody, and I can't even remember what else.  All in one day!

I turned to the officer with what I'm sure he thought was an inappropriate amount of excitement and said, "YES!  When you see the little curly-headed one, tell her that if she doesn't follow the rules she'll have to go to jail!  And make sure you say it in English, because she probably doesn't know the word for 'jail' in Spanish!"

Norah came home with her typical *fresh* attitude, so I think she's going to need another visit with El Policia.
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Hey! I know you!

Today I went into the building maintenance department for a public school system in New Hampshire. I was introduced to a woman there and she said, "Hey! You're the woman from ih@tehardware.com!"

Isn't that surreal???

I also received a comment on my work blog today from a former coworker.  He said, "Lori, this site rocks! It’s well organized, covers all the important stuff, and most importantly it’s fun! The world has needed something like this for a long time. THANK YOU!"

I'm really feeling the love right now.  I'm still working on how my fame is going to pay for 3 college educations, but at least I'm feeling the love.
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Lisa & Henry

While I was in the process of finding and adopting kittens at Christmas, there were several occasions where I wondered if I'd lost my sanity completely.  I worried that the kids would lose interest in them, leaving me to grudgingly clean the litter box for the next 15 years and then bury them in the back yard.

I'm not really a cat person.  My mother is a cat person.  We always had cats while we were growing up and I do like them, but I've got way too much going on in my life to focus on two more creatures.  I figured I'd give them a roof over their heads and two bowls of dry food per day and they'd get all the love they needed from the kids. Or so I thought. 

What I didn't realize was that we were adopting the COOLEST cats EVER!  We got them just before Christmas and the kids named them Lisa (the calico) and Henry (the tuxedo).  Close to three months later when most of their Christmas gifts are lost, broken, or forgotten, the kids still fight over who's going to play with the kittens.

And now they have to fight ME for them!  I've never known cats like these.  They are SO mellow and they just love to be held and petted.  The kids carry them around like dolls and they don't seem to mind.  So far they're not exhibiting any of that uppity cat-behavior, and they even like the dog.  She's constantly chasing them and licking them, but they keep coming back for more.

Aliya is doing her Sage project on Cat & Kitten Development and her teacher said she could bring Lisa and Henry in as part of her presentation.  Maybe they could help with the school's mouse problem.
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Quick Defense

In the interest of full disclosure, I don't get paid for talking about any products on this blog (unless you count door closers and locks because technically I get a paycheck for those).  I don't have boxes of free BMDs showing up at my door for testing, or even a free bottle of Vodka Mist.  But when I try a product and it works, I like to tell my friends about it.  Plus when I want to buy it again and can't remember the name of it, I know I can come to the blog and find it.

Ever since I've had kids, every cold I get turns into bronchitis or walking pneumonia.  Once I had both at the same time.  When I was pregnant I basically had bronchitis the entire time.  Every time I had a coughing fit the people around me stepped back in case I sprung a leak or shot the baby out.

A few months ago I felt another cold coming on, and for whatever reason I REALLY couldn't afford to get sick.  Maybe I had a presentation coming up or a trip planned, but whatever the reason, it was enough to send me to Whole Foods to find a treatment that would cut my cold short before it could develop into something bigger.

I bought Quick Defense that day, and it worked.  I didn't take 10 capsules per day as directed...I took about 4 per day for a couple of days.  I figured it might be a coincidence so I didn't run out and tell everyone about it, but I have now used it to head off 4 colds.  I really think it works!  I started to get a cold this week and I couldn't find my bottle of Quick Defense for about 24 hours, but it still worked.  I took 4 capsules yesterday and the cold is basically gone.  It's mostly echinacea, but you can check the Gaia website for a full list of ingredients. 

Next time you feel the first signs of a cold, run out to Whole Foods for some Quick Defense!  For kids, Gaia has echinacea drops that contain some of the same ingredients.  If I can reduce the number of days I have to look at snot-covered faces and crusty boogers, it's definitely worth a try!   
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Sign of the Times? :-(

Korean couple let baby starve to death while caring for virtual child

An internet-obsessed Korean couple allegedly allowed their infant daughter to starve to death while they cared for their virtual child, police said on Friday.

Kim Yoo-chul, 41, and his partner Choi Mi-sun, 25, fed their three-month-old baby only on visits home between 12-hour sessions at a neighbourhood internet cafe, where they were raising an avatar daughter in a Second-Life-style game called Prius online, police said.

Leaving their real daughter at their home in a suburb of Seoul to fend for herself, the pair, who were unemployed, spent hours role-playing in the virtual reality game, which allows users to choose a career and friends, granting them offspring as a reward for passing a certain level.

The pair became obsessed with nurturing their virtual daughter, called Anima, but neglected their real daughter, who was not named.

Eventually, the couple returned home after one 12-hour session in September to find the child dead and called police. The pair were arrested on Friday after an autopsy showed that the baby died from prolonged malnutrition.

"The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," Chung Jin-won, a police officer in Suwon, the Seoul suburb, told the Yonhap news agency.

"They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby."
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Best Friends

I love this video.

School Reorg

I walked in the door at almost midnight tonight, 5 hours after I left for the school committee meeting.  I'm pretty sure Ben thought I went out to get smashed with my friends, but nope...I was sitting in the freezing cold King Building and I've got the sore ass to prove it.  If that's not enough proof, Lana kept texting me to tell me that she could see me on public access TV, asking me whether I was wearing a bra, and offering me money to fart or pretend to puke.

The good news is that the Two-Way Program isn't moving or changing.  We are staying in our current building.  And surprise, surprise, our English Language Learner (ELL) programs seem to have been moved to the back burner now that people have less incentive to attack the reorg plan.  The school that everyone was up in arms about has been taken out of the pairings, so there's not a whole lot left for people to complain about.  After discussing ELL on Facebook for the entire week last week, and constantly saying how expensive the Two-Way Program is (it's not), ELL was barely mentioned at the meeting tonight.

Last week was rough but I feel like we've successfully defended our terrific program, and hopefully I'll never have to see a comment like this again:

"Lori, I think you should get the facts about the 2 way program before you assume it is being used as a punching bag. For the English speaking kids it's a great program but How long do you think your children should ride on the backs of all the latino kids in this community. A program is suppose to work for everyone not just the white middle class.  I understand after 6 months your child was speaking spanish and you were so excited but were the latino kids in your child's class speaking English in 6 months. If your biggest issue is a bus ride you should be thrilled..what happens to these spanish speaking kids after your child moves on fluent in spanish? do you even care? You should because if it wasn't for them your child wouldn't have this program."

I was extremely hurt by that completely false accusation from someone who doesn't know anything about me or our school.  After some tears, a vow to swear off Facebook for good, and a couple of phone calls and emails from friends, I posted this response:

"Ouch. If you actually knew me, you'd know that I do care very much, and I would never want my children to benefit at the expense of anyone else. During our 3 years in the Two-Way, I have asked the teachers and principal many questions about how the native Spanish speakers learn, and their answers have assured me that the current model is benefiting all of the kids, not just mine. Luckily, the people who DO know me (many of whom are the Latino families that everyone keeps talking about) know how much I care. Frankly, I think it's insulting to the Latino families to say that they're allowing us to ride on their backs or benefit at their expense, or to assume that we are going to use them and then leave them behind.  My point about the location was that we are not exempt from the re-org. Not that I expect to be allowed to make a point here."

I really hope we can move on now.  Anyone want to buy a t-shirt?  :-)

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1-2 Punch

Adlani started his first day of Taekwon-Do today.  I'm hoping that it helps with his impulsiveness and his lack of self-control.  If we didn't find some sort of activity for him I'm afraid he would spend every waking moment plotting how to watch Sponge Bob without us knowing.  So far, so good...he came home REALLY tired and he enjoyed the class, except for the push-ups.

He's always thinking though.  Each time the kids attend a class they get a colored paper clip to put on their belt.  When they have a certain number of paper clips, they get a star for their uniform.  On the way out after class, Adlani told me about the star, and then said, "So we can just go buy some colorful paper clips, and I'll have a gold star by midnight!"  :-P

In other Adlani-related news...he had a really horrible-looking fang coming in through the front of his gum because his baby tooth hadn't fallen out.  The dentist said the baby tooth had to come out so we made an appointment, but I kept hoping it would fall out on its own. The weekend before his appointment, a different tooth fell out.  The tooth fairy left him this note along with a couple bucks:

Dear Adlani, 

You need to do a better job of brushing your teeth. If you do, maybe I’ll leave you more money next time.

From, the Tooth Fairy

A few days later, the dentist pulled out the tooth that Adlani has been calling "my dirty tooth."  He had a filling in it two years ago and the dentist (a different one) did a terrible job because we were literally holding him down while she tried to quickly fill the tooth with Adlani screaming and writhing around in the chair.  The tooth fairy left Adlani $1 and a note that said:

Dear Adlani,

I'm sorry.  I don't pay full price for teeth with holes in them.  Please brush more thoroughly so the sugar bugs stop eating your teeth.

From, the Tooth Fairy

I have a feeling we have another set of braces in our future.  :-(
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