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Yeah, I am that bad of a parent May 20, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Parenting 101 , 3 comments

Dick Butkus Burger: Best burger I ever had… In Hawaii, it had a nice peanut sauce over the beef patty.

Luna Burger: Sounds terrible, half a burger on a whole wheat bun with peanut butter and jelly. Ick Ick icky

But she ate it

Just not right…. May 18, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 3 comments

I apparently screwed up big time yesterday. I think. Not sure still.

We have signed Soleil up for Hebrew school on Thursdays. Now here’s our logic. She has afterschool programs Tuesday-Friday. Instead of 4 days a week, we can drop it to 3 days a week. On Thursdays, Jay will head home early and pick her up and take her to Temple. Then they will go home together and get dinner ready. She will need to start Hebrew school anyway and Thursday instead of afterschool is better than taking away 2 hours on Sunday. You know mom the kid needs her sleep!

On the application form, I added that she is bright, but has a lower than age appropriate attention span. And she does. The girl derails her train of thought faster than anyone I know, except me. That’s where I know she is okay. I can follow her thoughts. She can go from talking about airplanes to "Mom, Why did the Elephant buy things?" While Jay is getting mental whiplash, I am following that she suddenly thought of the Master card ad where the elephant uses a proximity system to buy items for his caretaker, who is ill.

The school called me to ask about this. When speaking to the woman, I felt extremely, un PC

Woman: So, is this YOUR observation at home, or something that her preschool sees?

Me: Both, we see it at home and her teachers find this the only area that she is behind her peers in.

Woman: Have you had her PROPERLY evaluated?

Me: Um, I don’t know what you mean, but we haven’t  called early intervention or anything.

Woman: So this is an informal disability.

Me: I don’t believe she has a learning disability. She is bright, she just has difficulty paying attention. She thinks too fast and jumps from thought to thought. This can be disruptive to other students and I thought you should know that.

Woman: Mrs. Spacemom, I must take the time to educate you. A "Bright" child can still have learning disabilities.  Learning disabled has nothing to do with intelligence and developmental delays are not indicative of a deficit in intelligence. I am SURE (said with a snarl) your daughter is quite bright, but she still needs to be PROPERLY evaluated to determine if she has a learning disability. Why don’t we wait and see how she can handle the class. We may need to call someone in for an evaluation.

Me: Uh, sure.

In truth, I was extending my third finger thinking "Talk to Tall Man lady!"

UGH!!
Okay, granted, she is 100% correct, a learning disability is not a sign of intelligence. But then again, a label is just a label. Do we have to be so damn correct on everything?

Listen, Soleil is bright. But she doesn’t think the way others do. Except maybe me. I see how she thinks and I follow her perfectly and I get it. But it’s not a learning disability. And I wasn’t trying to say "she’s too smart for a learning disability" What I am trying to say is "It’s hard for her to slow down and we are working on teaching her that. You should know about it to understand why she is so mentally bouncy"

Sometimes I just don’t say the right things and that just pisses me off..

Sunrise, Massachusetts May 17, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Nance , add a comment

Light breaks over the Eastern trees
The glowing orb, 93 million miles away

The dew bends the light into millions of colors
sparkling gems on the grass…

The birds cacophony transitions to a symphony
accompanying the view

What do you see in the sun rise?
What unspeakable miracles are you experiencing?

A timeless view in the mind of a child

Losing weight without speed May 17, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Kids, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 4 comments

(The title is from a Jimmy Buffett song)

This morning, at the crack o’dawn, our door opened. Soleil popped in and said "Mommy! I am going to watch the sunrise" I mumbled something and sent her on her merry way.

Between 5 am and 7 am Soleil:

Jay rolled over and asked me at some point if I slipped her some speed last night. I replied that HE put her to bed, I was the one who had Luna.

Last night, the Buffalo Sabres regained face and beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2. At least we won’t be swept. Now, if we can win one more game and make it s 6 game series, there will be some pride restored to Buffalo.

The pajama project started in earnest last night when I created a pattern based on my jammies. I first forgot to take the waist to crotch measurement into consideration and the first pattern had the crotch at my knees. After some good natured ribbing and passes from Jay, I fixed that.
The fabric is cut and I can start sewing tonight!

Tagged May 16, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs , 1 comment so far

D, Of No More Than One tagged me.

The idea is that you have to reveal seven little known facts about
yourself and then have to tag seven others to do the same.

  1. I am an Aries and surprisingly fit the description even though all logic dictates that I am a pisces (The Sun is actually in pisces on my birthday).
  2. I am really quite shy IRL
  3. I used to speak rudamentary German. 3/4 of my family is from German blood.
  4. My favorite type of music is Honkey-Tonk (not country or Western, those are different)
  5. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s before I realized that Honkey-Tonk was a racial slur
  6. I played soccer in High School (I sucked at it)
  7. When I was a child, I hated my blonde hair and blue eyes. I wanted brown like everybody else.

Okay-I’m supposed to tag 7 others. Let’s see:

Whymommy of Toddler Planet

T-Shaped girl of "Are We There Yet?"

Mary Mia of Do they Have Salsa in  China?

Baggage of Baggage that Goes with Mine

Mijita of Mijita

CL of Two Boys and a Girl (Password protected)

Kristen of Kristen’s Xanga

Sudden Sun May 16, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise , 1 comment so far

The spring time has arrived. In New England, the trees have finally opened up enough to bring out a green curtain between us and most of our neighbors. The smells of spring in New England are different than in Western New York, where I grew up. The fresh flowers seem different here. I don’t know what it is.

Yesterday, I let the girls play outside while I did the dishes. The decided to wash Soleil’s bike. It was quite funny to watch and I did for a while.

Later in the day, Luna and I played soccer at the playground while Soleil ran off with some bigger kids.

Life really is good. I enjoy the little moments I spend with the girls…

Doomed… May 15, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Go Team Go Team Go Team, Ghost in the (sewing)Machine , 1 comment so far

The Sabres are down 0-3… One more loss and we are out. Sigh… I knew we were cursed when we won the President’s trophy (the award for the best regular season record). Very few teams win the President’s Trophy and Lord Stanley’s Cup….
Sigh…
I should be used to this. I am from Buffalo, after all. Buffalo, The city of losers. We never win. We get close, and we wait for the other shoe to drop. And then, we come back for more. Yes, that’s Buffalo for you.

I bought some cool fabric and I measured my own favorite jammies last night. Tonight I will edit the pattern I bought to match my jamies. Wish me luck! I also took some time on the weekend to make 2 capes. (yes, I have the words of Edna from the Incredibles going through my head "NO CAPES"). The girls decided to use their blankets as capes and nearly choked to death. So I make them each a wonder pet cape, complete with a W on the back. Lovely. By the way, if I EVER run into Josh Selig, the creator of the Wonder Pets and Oobi, I will lock him in a room with my children and ask them to sing the Wonder Pet theme song until his eyeballs melt out of his head. I hate that song and the girls sing it CONSTANTLY.

The jeans came and I looked like a stuffed sausage. They were the right size, but the thighs were squished and the waist was too low, so it gave a huge gap (you know, about the size of the Delaware Water Gap) in the back. I sent them back and tried again. Wish me more luck. Because I hate finding good jeans.

I am still recovering from Saturday. To help Crazy H and Kobyashi, Jay went to their place to rip drywall down from the bedroom that will be their girls’ room and I took 4 kids at my place all day. Jay has standing orders to shoot me if I ever offer to watch the four kids again. From 9 until 4, I had kids from almost 5 to almost 1 in the house….
Oy!

A short series of thoughts May 11, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Life...otherwise, Dr. Jay, Fun with Crohn's Disease, Home wreckers, Go Team Go Team Go Team, In A Family Way , 4 comments

In Bullet form?

Thinking about you…. May 10, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Weblogs , 3 comments

Quite a while ago, I was given a Thinking Blogger Award by Robin from Around the Island.

 

Being the lame blogger that I am, I never got around to dealing with it. So here’s the deal.
I will report 5 blogs that make me think. And why…

In no particular order:

1. Emma-Bug: Dude, she’s got an attitude. A serious attitude. Her approach to life makes me stop and think of all of the asshats out there who need to remember to think before you talk.

2.RasingWEG: A mom of triplets who is working on her dissertation. She approaches topics with a very open mind and makes me think about my feelings on those topics.

3. The MidLife traveler: Spunky, Canadian and slightly crunchy, this on-line turned real life friend makes me think about the differences in how we parent, and how both are good approaches.

4. The Thin Pink Line: (password protected) Manuela travels through her present and past. She talks about her feelings as an adopted child and her journey to being a parent. Not being adopted, her words give me much to think about with regards to adoptees.

5. Omegamom: The OM is witty and thoughtful. She’s not afraid to call it like she sees it. Or to question things.

6. So it comes down to this… Okay, so Johnny has left the blogosphere. But his blog made me think about interpersonal relationships. And if a good steak could be made without MSG or oyster sauce.

Some good thoughts? May 10, 2007

Posted by spacemom in : Dr. Jay, In A Family Way , 5 comments

In accordance to when it rains it pours,  something truely terrible has happened.

Jay’s cousin, age 19 has been complaining of pain. She had surgery yesterday. They removed one ovary. The uterus is untouched (TG), but the diagnosis is dysgerminoma. Please keep our cousin Lauren in your thoughts. She is so young. And to have this….

We are heart broken, but we know that the cure rate is good…..