school boys

B signed up for a crazy school schedule this semester - spanish II, anatomy & microbiology. i'd warned him beforehand that the 2 science classes alone were going to be hard to handle, but he really wanted to take his spanish courses back-to-back.
fast-forward a few weeks into the semester to his first anatomy test & spanish fell through the cracks [i don't blame him one bit, i think it's better to do well in 2 classes than ok in 3] & guess what?

he got an A in both parts [lab & lecture] of the test!!!! woohooo!!!
not only that, he ranked 3rd in the class, i'm so proud of him!!!

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remember Z's biography report on GW? he just got his grade on it & he got 100%!!!!
we're so proud that he got such a good grade on his first report!!!

but then i was worried & i asked B "do you think that means i helped him too much?"
B said "no, you were just being a momma bird & telling him 'that's not good enough' until it was good enough".

hammerhammerhammer....that's me!

i made sure he fulfilled everything on the teacher's checklist, he chose the pics & glued them on to a background that he cut out & he even typed the report himself. he's actually quite a good typist already, i'd say in about a year he'll be faster & more accurate than B!

Z's school is a little over the top & not necessarily in a good way

for valentine's day, Z's class had a lil shindig....it was quite a conundrum.
which it shouldn't have been, um, hello, 2nd grade.valentine's day.cupcakes. candy.rice krispy treats.chocolate.jello. literally TONS of options, right?

nope

Z's school is all healthy, healthy...to the extreme.
at first i thought it was all good, considering at the old school he was fed absolute crap in the cafeteria. seriously, one day they had pb&j that wasn't even on bread, it was like a cookie/graham cracker/sugar laden crust-like encasing that was pre-packaged along with cookies & punch!

so i get the healthy thing & yes, i like it, but come on, moderation people!

no sweets what.so.ever allowed at school. i thought about different ideas & looked & searched for things to bring to class & finally decided on zucchini bread, healthy right? well, i've never made it before & didn't have a recipe so, when i looked it up, it's not so healthy - lots of oil, eggs & sugar. not only that, when i asked teacher about it, she was not receptive at all, nor did she offer up any other ideas.

last minute i decided to make cranberry muffins, they're red & i found a recipe that only used 1/3 cup of oil, 1 egg & not a lot of sugar, basically is was flour, milk & the berries [sounds like paste with chunks - yum! & i drew the line at putting wheat germ in them...] & no frosting or icing or anything good like that. when i told Z i was making cupcakes he reminded me "no sweets momma" & i told him i found a healthy recipe, but i was going to sneak the cupcakes into school under my shirt anyways.

then get this - when i brought them to school & walked through the office, the school vice principal confronted me "i hope those are following school guidelines?" [Z's school has nutrition police?]

yes, they're chunky paste muffins with dents in them that are supposed to look like hearts [that ball of foil trick didn't work so well...]. & they went over like chunky paste muffins, i brought almost 1/2 of them home. i got to try them though, they weren't that bad, a little dry though.


& as if that isn't enough:
today when we got ready for the dr appt i gave Z 2 cough drops to put in his pocket & take school. after the dr appt, he started coughing so i told him to pop one & when we got to class i told his teacher about it so she wouldn't think he had candy in his mouth. she told me he wasn't allowed to have the other one, it had to be taken to the office & if he needed it, she would send him up there for it.

so i got the cough drop, brought it back to the office carrying it like it was nitroglycerin & told them i was told my son was not allowed to have it.

one.cough.drop.

the teacher said i actually needed to leave handwritten permission for them to dispense said drop, but they didn't ask for it.

just in time for a broken elbow update

instead, we have another emergency, bc that's how Z rolls....

i heard the sound in his throat when he was crying about something weds night. on thurs am he woke up coughing & with stridor & beings we've been doing this for awhile i decided the best thing to do was head over to the new dr office to have it documented.

yup, croup, with stridor [where's my medical degree?]

she gave us a prescription for decadron & sent us on our way. glorious target didn't carry it nor did walmart so we ordered it at our last stop - walgreens. i made sure the boy had plenty of fluids, had the humidify set on jet engine with heavy saturation & he still coughed a couple of times throughout the night & woke up wheezing.

the coughing wasn't real bad, but the wheezing was. we sat at the back slider with the door open, wrapped in a blanket with his head out the door for 15min. it helped, but not enough, so back to the ER. just getting dressed he was out of breathe, i felt so sorry for him, he already is having a hard time with the cast, now he can't breath either! guh!

[can in interrupt this lil jaunt to the ER with a little something i noticed - the only time B drives the speed limit is when there's an emergency. i'm totally serious. the last time i remember him driving that slow was when my water broke & we were on our way to birthing Z. note to self, although i realize the man is trying to keep the situation calm, it drives me bonkers, so in the future do not let man drive in emergency related scenarios. i don't know that he'll survive a 3rd trip.]

they took Z back right away, gave him a chest xray, some prednizone & a breathing treatment. Z was asked about 20x about his arm, B finally convinced him to say he injured himself wrestling sharks or something along those lines. they observed him for a couple of hours & let us go even though he was still wheezing quite a bit.

tonight will be the true test, it's past 9:30 & he's still up [the steroids]. i opened his window earlier to let in cold air & when it got too cold i closed it & put the humidifier back on; hopefully he'll we'll all have a good night's rest.

9 years

today is our anniversary.

it some ways it seems impossible that we've been married 9 years. should i go into how even more inconceivable it is that we've been together for 14 years? nah....

i made this tag in my metalsmith class on tues & gave it to B. well, actually, i gave it to him & said i needed it back bc it's not finished [the heart needs to be soldered on the tag & he asked me to make the hole bigger so he can put it on his keychain] other than that we just exchanged cards. oh & B got a cheesecake for me! [woohoo!]

B had spanish class in the morning, which he ditched so he could study for an anatomy test, then he was gone until about 9:30pm. i looked at last year's post & we did more, i guess we felt like we needed to.

lady has a baby....not a real one!

Z has never really been in to stuffed animals much, although he's got quite a collection. i've tried thinning it out over the moves, but we still have a few items from the baby shower.....
one of the stuffed animals was a cute little dog; what makes it even cuter is it's colored just like Lady - black all over with tan paws. the other day Z decided he wanted to give that toy to Lady even though he knew she typically chews toys up within a matter of hours.

for some reason, we were wrong about this one though. she's had it for about a week now; she carries it around the yard & up to the top of the hill for some afternoon sun. beings she hasn't destroyed it & she even cleans it up, i let her bring it inside the house & we call it her baby. we'll even tell her "go get your baby" & she does!

it's darling.

i took a closer look at her baby though & i think she's had it with being a mom - the baby is missing an ear & it's little tail has been nibbled off!

update thurs pm - i came out of the bathroom & Lady's baby was in pieces, motherhood was not her high point.

that's not a sticker on the wall

all kids like stickers, but Z has issues about where to place the stickers....
- he used to put them on himself, but his skin would turn red
- then he put them on his shelves, bed, dresser & they'd peeled off paint or varnish so we told him that was a no, no
- next option was the walls, which looks even more ghetto, so we nixed that one too

but he forgot.

well, no i guess he didn't really forget.

i came walking down the hallway & saw something [no glasses, so something is as good as a description as you're gonna get] on the wall, so i say "Z, you know you aren't supposed to put stickers on the walls".

Z - it's not a sticker, momma

me - [cue deep breathe in] ok, whatever the object is, which has an adhesive substance on it, to which it is affixed on the wall, said object needs to be removed? [lawyer speak 101]

so he takes it off the wall & puts it on his dresser...

1 week elbow update

Z had one week check up this morning, they xrayed him again & said he was healing fine (YAH!). the cast has to stay on another 4 weeks though, then we go back in. at that appt they'll remove the cast, xray then decide whether or not he'll need another cast. they said children's healing rate vary so much that it's possible he may need one for an additional 4 weeks.

so i'm glad all is well, but i have to say that already, i'm a little concerned.
about the smell.
worrywart, i know....

but in my defense i've never had a cast before & B does call me the super-sniffer for a reason. i think he may be saying it all to taunt & freak me out [fyi, it is totally working] but i'm already about to gag on just the thought of what that little arm is going to smell like in a few more days!

weeks is unimaginable...
F.O.U.R. of them

either i'm going to have to pour clorox in the cast or place cottonballs drenched in mouthwash up my nose.

walking & talking

remember how Z's primary dr said she didn't want him going to school until he got his cast on? girlfriend knew what she was talking about...

so the elbow incident happened mon during lunch & he didn't go to school (by himself) until fri. taking that into consideration i figured the boy would really appreciate some time at his afterschool place.

he did. so much so that within an hour i was called to come pick him up. ONE hour, that means we paid $50 for that hour of care...Ugh! he hit a kid with a stick...again.

M & I talked about it some & she brought up some good points that i hadn't considered (thanks M). i don't know how closely they watch him; did they see him pick up the stick & wait to see what he was going to do with it? did they tell him to drop it immediately but he didn't? did they see the kid get hit or were they told it happened?

not that any of it would be an excuse, you would think by now Z would know to just not pick up the fricken stick right? [playing by the rules is for pansies, Z likes to make life interesting]

so i spent the weekend looking for new options & came up empty handed; where he's at now it the best [read: easiest & most affordable] place. i sat him down & told him he really needed to make this work, he needed to follow the rules, that although i'm totally loving this time i am looking for a job & the day is going to come where he has to go everyday, that right now is just for fun.

this week i've had him go for an hour each day except mon. the weather's been excellent so i walk over to get him & as we walk home we talk about how his day went. throughout the walk/talk i'm constantly interrupting him with: "don't do that, don't go over there, stay away from the rocks, no you can't walk on them, you already have one broken arm let's try & not make it two".

if i got a dollar for each time i had to say something to him i wouldn't need a job.