Month: November 2009

We went to the kids’ parent teacher conferences yesterday – both kids are doing well and enjoying school, they both like their teachers (we like the teachers too) and are having fun. It would be nice if they were in the same school (Vince asks quite often when Edda is going to go to his school), but they are not. At least not for now.

I think that since Edda is so severely disabled, I have been very much an easy going mom regarding Vince and his schoolwork. You know, Vince has so many things he can do like walking, talking, and feeding himself and it looks like he will be able to be employed when he is of the appropriate age so, really, I haven’t stressed out too much about the reams of schoolwork which come home each week.

If I had two typical kids, I’m sure I would know exactly which classrooms are the accelerated classrooms, which are the teachers to avoid, which kids are popular etc, etc… – all things that moms gossip and talk about. But I don’t know any of these things – I’m keeping myself out of the loop.

Also, I haven’t really been on the ball and fully prepping him on spelling words (MS Word spell check helps me out a lot), handwriting (who writes by hand anymore anyways?) and math drills. I actually didn’t understand that we were supposed to do these things with Vince, so the last few tests have been less than stellar. So at Vince’s meeting, his teacher carefully explained, spelling tests every other Friday and math quiz every Weds. and like the clueless mom that I am, I’m like, ohhhh! So that’s why you send home the yellow folder full of flash cards.

Jeremy spent some time cleaning the garage:

Here are some short videos that RSRT and Hope for Hannah have put together to raise awareness for Rett Syndrome. I’m not a natural optimist – yet as some sort of self-preservation mechanism, I have a little unspoken mantra – It’s OK. Edda’s OK. We’re OK. Everything is OK. And the thing is, it’s true. We are OK. But watching these little videos is hard – because, well, you know, Rett Syndrome is a pretty big downer.

Anyhow, here’s a shout out to my little brother – you didn’t donate yet this year – go to the side bar and pick out your favorite Rett charity and donate this year! It’s all tax deductible. 😛

The library is a weekly stop for us, usually it’s only one of the adults to do a quick dash in to check out some books for all four of us and then a quick dash out. However, this Saturday, everyone went to the library. Edda had fun going up and down the stacks – we are always on the look for stories with a rhyme or rhythm for her. Vince is on an Encyclopedia Brown kick. Jeremy’s reading about the Brooklyn Bridge, I’m into murder mysteries.

Today, Vince, Ruby and I participated in Scouting for Food. The cub scouts tie grocery bags to the front doors in a neighborhood and next week, we go around picking up the bags, hopefully full of food for needy families. It took us about an hour to distribute all the bags this morning.

Started out well, full of enthusiasm and energy.

The grumps settle in the last 15 minutes or so…

Finished up with 3 powdered donuts in the tummy, on the lips and on the shirt.

There really is nothing like going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark to put one into a good funk. Grrr. I do not like being in the darkness a lot. I came home today in not a great mood – I was thinking about Edda (which is what I always do when I feel funky), it seemed to me that she wasn’t high-five-ing as much these days and with the extra rigidity that is settling into her arms, I was all concerned about her having lost this one cute little thing that she could do. I know in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a huge loss, it just seemed so sad that another line of communication or back and forth interaction between us was being closed off. Who doesn’t like a good high five? Anyways, I was also grumpy that it seemed we had lost Edda’s DVD collection with her top 10 favorites and I was going to have to go around scrounging for used ones on eBay or something so we won’t be bored to tears watching Finding Nemo 17,000 times.

As soon as I got home, I grumbled these complaints to Jeremy – he said that Edda high-5ed him at breakfast this morning and that she still does it just fine – that she doesn’t do it for me because I just sit there and say hi-5 Edda! without adequate reason for her to do it. Vince heard my complaint about the DVDs and said, “I know where they are, they are under the couch!” (Perhaps Vince has known this for more than 36 hours, who knows, big mystery…). Jeremy looked me squarely in the eye and said, “The real reason you are grumpy is that you are going to work from home soon…” I protested and said that that wasn’t true. It certainly isn’t really what I’m thinking about, but I sure am finding reasons to be a little grumpy.

For whatever reason (well, really because I like to suffer and I hate to drive), I’m moving my office files and random supplies home a little every day this whole month. In this load, I’ve got an amaryllis plant, some post it notes and a chemistry reference book.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/11/05/1632204/Computer-Failure-Causes-Gridlock-In-MD-County

We went to the Udvar-Hazy Center this weekend.

1. I can’t believe how much I look like my mother.

2. I can’t believe that we sent people to space and then they came back all safe and sound before most people in America had color TV. Those people were CRAZY (both the people who went to space and the people who watched TV in black and white).

3. The centerpiece of the museum is the SR-71 Blackbird. I had never heard of the Blackbird before, but Jeremy spent some time telling me about it – fastest plane ever (can outrun all missiles), the pilot and copilot needed to wear spacesuits, and most time behind enemy lines spying. While we were eating lunch at McDonald’s, I told him I was kind of surprised that he knew anything about the Blackbird because he’s really never expressed interest in military equipment. I said it must be just that he’s a boy. He said that the Blackbird is one of the most famous planes there ever was and that knowing something about it wasn’t that impressive and that he just picked it up reading the newspaper or some other mundane source of information. However, at work today, Jeremy polled his coworkers (all leafy-green environmental type folks – pretty likely group not to know so much about spy planes), all the boys knew of the Blackbird, none of the girls. There you go. So if you are a girl and know about the Blackbird – speak now or forever hold your peace. Ha ha.

Jeremy spent a good part of the afternoon digging a large piece of black plastic from out under part of our yard. It was probably left there when they were building the house and then accidentally buried it with a load of dirt. We could see a few square feet of the plastic that wasn’t buried – but we didn’t know how large it really was.

About a year ago, I started to try and dig this piece of plastic out, but I couldn’t see the end of it, so I gave up. Jeremy is much more determined than I am. He is also going to be very sore tomorrow.