KINDERGARTEN - MY KIDS ARE DROPPING LIKE FLIES ;)

Today I am happy. Today I am sad. Today I signed my son, my one and only boy, up for Kindergarten. :'( 

We usually do online enrollment here in this open district but I forgot. Then I had them send me the paperwork, then  it got lost, then I called and asked them to send it again, then they never returned my call. So, we trudged across town and filled out the paperwork.  The good news?  It's an easy thing to do. The bad news? The school we wanted him to go to is full so he will be going alone, without his sister. This is the one thing that I was afraid of, he is a shy boy and doesn't like people very much and now he won't have his sister there to back him up...yet.

We signed him up for a different school relatively close to our house and put him on the waiting list for the one his sister goes to. 

We thought about transferring his sister to the school he is going to, but their second grade is full.  Not only is this a pain in the ass because they will be receiving two totally different educations, but now I have to drive to two different schools and I HATE DRIVING KIDS TO SCHOOL DAMN IT!!!!!. I love school busses. ;)

He can be bussed, but I would have to drive him to the nearest bus hub which is about as far away as his school is.  So there goes that idea.

So here is what we know:

 Mr. Insane will be going to school A but is on the waiting list for school B

Miss Crazy will be going to school B but is on the waiting list for school A

One way or the other the kids will be going to the same school eventually!!!! 

And this is important not only because I want older sister to help younger brother to acclimate  but because both schools start at and end at the exact same time so one will always be left waiting.  So annoying! 

I need to put all of this aside and focus on the fact that my baby boy is GOING TO SCHOOL FOR THE FIRST TIME SOON!!! Oh my, it is one of those mommy moments that brings tears to the eyes, especially since he is my only boy. I will stop the proud tears from The Senior's graduation just in time for the proud tears for Mr. Insane going to Kindergarten to start.  My head is going to be stuffy a lot this year. :/

We have so much to do. Make sure he knows his ABC's properly and his first 15 numbers and make sure he can write his name and know his address and phone number.  Dang!  This will be a busy but fun summer I think.  Come August I will only have one child still at home, it will be bittersweet. I will get to have alone time with my last baby, which will be great, but I'm going to miss my son. We've had some great times together the last five years!

Until Next Time...Do not take things for granted when it comes to your kids..  Children  hit milestone after milestone so quickly that we blink and they are grown up, married and have kids of their own. (It seems like just yesterday The senior was starting Kindergarten and now she's graduating!) 

Also, if your kids go to an open school district, if you can't run away screaming, do not ever miss the open registration days or you may be spending your whole life driving your kids to different schools, which when they are involved in activities, is such a pain in the butt.  And bussing will be a nightmare too. On second thought....JUST RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!! ;)

APRIL (SNOW) SHOWERS

You know, sometimes I wonder why in the heck we moved to Wyoming  9 years ago.  (See my blog We Be Hicks) On April 6th is was exactly 9 years since we pulled up in front of our new home 505 miles from our old one. When it is summer and the temps are in the high seventies and low eighties I am loving my life here (i.e. I'm not getting physically sick because of the heat). When I walk outside in October and I don't sweat and I actually breathe in cool, clean, fresh air, yeah those are the times I love it.  But when I woke up this morning and checked the weather I was like "why the f#$% did I move to this godforsaken place? Why? Why? Why? :'(  You see, the weather forecast says snow today and tomorrow - winter storm warning. This in and of itself is not unusual. It happens, usually this time of year it melts quickly and the roads stay clear because we've had a few days in a row of sixty degree temps.  So what did it say today that made me react so differently?  13-16 inches of flippin' snow!!!  What the heck, we rarely get that much snow in one time during the middle of winter!!!! Why in April are we getting a foot of flippin snow when my kids have finally started to get outside and leave me the hell alone to get to go outside and play a bit?

And when I read that we were getting strong winds with it, I almost cried some more.  I hate the wind. I've always hated the wind. I will never like the wind. I was almost crushed by a shed when I was a kid because the wind picked it up and brought it towards me (then thankfully changed direction and blew it back). And what happens when you mix wind and snow - blizzard like conditions. And then I remembered that the hubs has these two days off so at least I wouldn't have to drive in that shiz alone. But still people, come on, it is April and I want spring.

The only good thing I can see coming out of this is that maybe it will tramp the allergens back down for a few days and my poor family can get a break. Maybe. Little Butt and The Senior have both been sick from all of the blasted weather changes and allergens and wind. We need a break here right?!?!

So, we went to the store and stocked up on everything we might need to last us through a possibly big storm and now we are just waiting for it to start. I'm sure the kids will have to go to school tomorrow even if there is a foot of snow on the ground and blizzard like conditions (my kids don't need visibility to cross a somewhat major street to get to the bus stop!) You see, if our district has too many inclement weather days the football players would have to miss the private football camp they are sent to every year and God forbid that would happen. Who cares if parents and students aren't safe certainly not the Natrona County School District #1!!! Sports always must come before safety and academics right?  Wow, I've been kinda sitting on that piece of info for years and it feels

good to shout it out from the roof tops!!! (or the blog tops).

So, what is my point in today's babble?  I really don't have one.  I just wanted to write about things that have bugged me recently so I thought since it was all related to the weather, I would give it a go. :)

Until Next Time...????? Enjoy the good weather when you've got it?  Yeah, that's it.  I'll have something more thought provoking next time.  <3 and love to you all!

THE IMPORTANCE OF READING

There has been a lot of reading going on in our house lately.  Between school books and pleasure books and extra books for school (reading race) we haven't done much of anything else.  Most of my reading has been my novel rewrites, but it is still reading.

As I was getting married and planning a family I always wondered if my kids would be avid readers like their father and I. I sure hoped so because I derive so much pleasure out of it.

 When The senior was born I had high hopes...only to have them dashed when she seemed to have no interest in books whatsoever. We would try to read to her and before the first page was through she would be gone, off playing somewhere.  She would never bring us a book we would always have to coax her over to try to read one to her. When she started school her interest in reading did not increase at all.  By the time she was in the second half of first grade we knew there was a problem. She could not read well at all and when we tried to make her it resulted in meltdowns that almost matched her little sister's. She struggled for years and in 6th grade she was in danger of failing her reading class because she refused to read the extra books required, the ones she had to choose herself.  I was at a complete loss, she needed to be able to read properly to get good grades and I believe to succeed. And then one day I suggested she read funny, crazy books that I liked, I figured they might finally spark her interest.  And you know what, it worked!!! I actually recommended Janet Evanovich to an 11 year old.  Yes, I know, not the best parenting move, but damn it it worked! She started to read and slowly moved onto other books and other interests.  She is rarely without a pleasure book these days even when she has more important school books to read for her AP classes.

The Freshman was the exact opposite. From the time she could grab one off the bottom shelf herself, she was never without a book.  She slept with them, she ate with them and she took them everywhere with her.  If I wanted to read to her she was there with a smile on and would sit through book after book.  If I didn't want to read, she was there asking to be read to. But it still came as a shock to me when at the end of her Kindergarten year, she came home with books from school and read them to me.  These were starter books with simple words and I thought that maybe she had memorized them when her teacher read them to her.  I called the teacher...come to find out that they were just learning their sounds and just starting to do a technique with learning to sound out words with these books. Freshman had never seen them until five minutes before class let out.  She had literally taught herself to read. By the second grade she was reading the same books as her fifth grade sister. And to this day she is an avid reader although she will only read specific kinds of books. She also is very rarely without a pleasure book even with all of the school work she has with honors classes.

It makes me very happy that my kids love to read (and not just because I have free proofreaders for my writing!) I think it makes their life richer and they will always have a way to escape the everyday if they need to.

I truly do believe that reading to children is important. Whether it is done at home or at school, it doesn't matter. There is a whole list of reasons why and I won't bore you with them (but Google is a great place to find them). I wish I had continued to force the issue with The Senior so maybe she wouldn't have had so many problems early in school.

 I read to the other three kids now, even if they wander off, I continue to read.  And they always see someone in the house with a book in their hands. I truly hope this helps them in some way.

 What is really exciting for me is to see Miss Crazy in action.  It is so thrilling to sit here and listen to her read Junie B Jones to me when just last year she could only read words like the fat cat sat on the rat (haha).

Until next time...Read to your kids and let them see you read even if it is just magazines or newspapers. There are varying opinions on the subject, but I believe it helps them have the foundation to succeed.