My son is sporting....

a black eye. He received it courtesy of being in the wrong place at the wrong time while his sisters were fighting.

I went to the gym to meet my friend Mel at 9 this morning for a cycling class. The class was full, so we settled for running and then we went to yoga. I could only stay for half an hour because I had training at 10. After two hours of sweating, we headed home. I wish they had all day child care, as it was downhill from there.

I showered and we left so that I could go to work at my other job. Made it over there when the fighting between the girls escalated. I managed to squeak out my work and then we hit the road again. Tonight it's an early bedtime and a date with my DVR. I even thought about taking the girls to dinner, but I think we will settle for oatmeal again.

I rediscovered my curry spice in the cupboard, so I am eating it on everything and it makes everything taste better. I hope I don't start sweating it though!

The first plane of Soldiers from Gunner's unit returned today. Unfortunately we still have a couple months to go, but we are down to single digit trash days! There is light at the end of the tunnel...

Hmmmm....

So all of my children's grades are accessible to me online, and I can even have texts and emails sent to me if they have something entered below a certain grade. I wonder why they don't have a spot for immediate notifications of office referrals? the bad thing is that all of my parents have access to my student's grades. I will hope for the best!

Em went to a dance at school tonight. She's growing up. Nothing big or fancy, just a way for student council to make money I guess. She had a good time, and I went out to eat with the outlaws. Abs ordered this chocolate dessert, I had a bite, and I was in heaven. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, but this thing, whatever it was called, just melted in my mouth. I'm in love.

Tomorrow is a work day at school, that I desperately need. I am hoping to crank out a million things in a short amount of time. I also need to hit the gym, and hard. I have my second training session on Saturday and then start with my twice a week on Monday and Wednesday. If you see someone stumbling around post, that would be me.

Em had a friend in the car the other day, and when I loaded Junior in, he meowed. Without even batting, Em said "My brother thinks he's a cat" and then went back to her conversation. Everything is normal in this house I guess. I wonder what they will say about their childhood one day. Might be a good thing I am not around to hear it!

Another day, another referral

I had my planning day today, so I am sitting in the conference room when an email with the subject line "Discipline Referral" came through. I cringed.

It said:

I’m writing to inform you that Abs was witnessed fighting with another student at lunch. After investigating I was forced to write both of the students up. I just wanted to inform you so that you would not be surprised if and when the office calls.

I emailed back to see what happened. I got this:

Apparently, (I had to do some investigating) Abs spilled pickle juice on another girls lunch bag. On purpose or on accident... I don’t know. The other student wanted to get the pickle juice off her bag (was she mad? I don’t know) so she spilled it on Abigail's jacket. According to witnesses Abigail started crying and threw a lunch bag at the other girl. I don’t know who hit first because no one saw it, and of course Abigail says that she didn’t hit... But other students did see both girls hitting each other. Neither student tried to tell the aid what was going on.

I don’t blame either girl for getting mad, but I am unhappy that neither one of them made the right choice.

I think I’m going to have to eat lunch with my kids or assign seats or something... This is getting ridiculous.

Then the office called. 1/2 day of ISS. Last time she loved going because she was the only one in there and the lady sat there and helped Abs do all of her work. So while talking to the principal, I ask to speak to Abs. We go over how I am not happy and then had this conversation:

Abs: What’s all that noise, where are you?
Me: In the office because I had to get a call from your principal
Abs: I’m in the office too! (said with great enthusiasm because we are in the same place)
Me: I know, I am not happy about that.
Abs: What’s going on in your office?
Me: We are not here to compare and contrast what is going on in our offices.
Abs: Oh, okay, well I love you. (she was disappointed that I didn't want to trade notes with her)

I wonder what Gunner did when he was little that made him deserve a child like this! I love her anyway.

Run, Run, Run

It took an hour to get into the daycare at the gym today. All these people that have resolutions need to get out of my way! By the time I finally got to a treadmill, I had battled Junior and Abs for that hour and was ready to burn off some something.

I ran. I did the stairmaster. I worked my abs. I felt guilty and went and got the kiddos who were less than thrilled to see me. Apparently I ruin their "good time" at the gym. Never mind that we needed to get them fed and into bed. The kids had a delicious dinner of cheerios and corn chex--with milk! We followed up with frozen gogurts. Now they are tucked into bed and I can clean, get ready for tomorrow, do some exercises, and contemplate cleaning out the car.

--I think Junior ate something fluorescent green (maybe a crayon?) because his diapers have been "glowing" that color. Better than the acorn he left me one time.

--Abs is fixated on selling those drippy cards for her school that cost $10 a piece and you get local discounts. I refuse to let her sell them in order to earn stuff that we can buy at the dollar store. Apparently if you sell 15 of these cards you get a limo ride to a pizza lunch at Cici's. She described in great detail how the dollar store does not sell limo rides. I've never been in a limo either.

--I took away Ab's lightbulbs so that she would sleep at night. I just wrestled a flashlight away from her. She hit her head on a chair coming out to go to the bathroom and stepped on a lego going back in. She asked for a lantern. Wonder if an outhouse is next on the list.

--Em is so responsible, with occasional streaks of being an 11 year old. Had a meeting with her teacher after school today. Apparently she had her glasses on her desk last week, but never wore them. I asked her about it today and she told me that she didn't like them anymore. They are cute on her! I'll have to take a look and see how they checkout since it has been a while. Maybe it is time for a new prescription.

--I always write these posts and never post them till the next day.

Screaming Children

According to the ugly faces that were made at me while I was at Walmart today, my child is the only one who screams throughout the store. After dropping the girls off at Girl Scouts, Junior and I headed to the gym so I could get in a workout. The daycare was packed and had about an hour wait, so I decided to head to Walmart and get my shopping out of the way since I had to get the girls around that time.

I entered the store with a screaming baby and it just went downhill from there. I had to go get diapers and stuff, so it wasn't like I could walk out. We ran up and down the aisles grabbing a few other things that we needed while Junior continued to scream. At one point after the millionth person gave me a dirty look (remember I was at Walmart in Killeen, so there probably were a million other people there), I was ready to scream with him. I looked at bras because my size is hard to find and he proceeded to fill the cart with bras. Got him untangled from the mess of bras on his head and hung them all back up while he sat on our loaf of bread. I'm sure squished bread tastes better anyway. I tracked down some fat free mayo and then grabbed bananas on the way out the door. By this time he was trying to escape from the cart and they sent someone over to load up my groceries while I held on to him.

It.was.great.fun.

So no workout today I suppose. Maybe tomorrow we can make it to the gym, not have to wait too long, and Junior won't bite anyone and I can run, run, run.

Volunteers Needed

Today I met with a woman by the name of Kelly Rossetto who is currently working on her PhD at the University of Texas--I won't hold that against her (Sic 'em bears!). She is during her dissertation on studying the effects of deployment on families in order to help practitioners to develop resources to help us. Anyway, she can visit with you if you are in the local area (The Great Place) or she can call you on the phone if you would rather go that route. Junior loved her, although she might have been wondering about the little boy who runs around with mittens all the time! She was very nice and professional, and I am all about helping get additional resources for military families. I know that there are plenty of people out there that can provide valuable information to help her as most of my readers are on their first, second, third or even 4th deployment or more.

If you want to get in touch with me to pass on your information, feel free or you can email her at krossetto@mail.utexas.edu.

The day is still young and I just have about half a million more things to do before I hit the sack tonight....

Are you ever ready?

Hmmmmm....depending on when Gunner actually comes home, we might be down to single digit trash days. Is that possible? Am I ready? Not.even.close.

So let's recap, just a few days, you know how the military can change things. We had no orders and were staying here for the next million years. Then Gunner got orders to go to a school at Fort Knox, enroute to........Fort Carson. Just what I wanted a few days ago! But since we didn't get them, I had moved on, made plans, and accepted everything. So now I guess we are going, but it opens up a whole new set of problems.

His school ends after school would start for the girls at Carson. School won't have started in Texas though. And all this boils down to that I just spent thousands of dollars to become a teacher, and now I can't teach?? Geez. It'll all work out, it will just give me something to worry about in the here and now.

I never made it to the gym yesterday after I carted children around, sat in class, worked, carted children around and finally ate dinner.

My mom took Abs and Junior and I to Luby's last night because it used to be buy one adult meal, get a child's meal for free. The place was deserted, so that should have been a red flag for us. We get up there and they have done away with the free kid's meal and raised their prices. Trying to stick to my new meal plan that I paid the big bucks for, I asked the guy behind the counter if he had anything that wasn't cooked in butter, fried, or greasy. They came up with something like a hamburger, which I am sure they didn't use the lean meat for. I passed and didn't eat at all. The people were extremely rude, and when we asked if they were closing they were non-committal about everything. Strange. If by some miracle they aren't closing, then they will be soon since they have such poor customer service. My mom showed me the receipt where they charged us for a drink that we didn't get, so I took it up there and they told me the ticket was from Burger King. That was a nice ending to the horrible meal. Guess I should pay closer attention!

Fell into bed last night after talking to Gunner, just exhausted.


So much to do, so little time.