From the Mouth of Babes

Recently Kelli and I were working on her homework, when she looked at me with eyes wide open. She got this huge smile on her face and said "I love your hair, when did you get highlighted?" I looked at her funny, because I haven't got my hair colored in a year or two and it was barely combed and knew it couldnt look very good. I told her that I hadn't got my hair done for a while. She said "yes you did," and she reached up and touched the hair on my temples and said it's highlighted right here. My sweet Kelli thought that I had paid to have the gray hair that is setting in ever so quickly added. I of course smiled and told her I didn't have it put in, that she had given it all to me. She of course never missing a beat came back with, "and you didnt even tell me thank you."

Just Another Morning

Im thinking I need to cancel all days off from work and just work continuously to save my sanity. And thats just plain sad, because work is driving me crazy too. A new chapter, (although it sounds strangely familiar too all the others) in.....
Just Another Morning at Nanz
I woke up early today, feeling good, well rested and ready for a nice peaceful day. I thought I would do a little cooking, some light housework, catch up on all the boards online and maybe take a little nap this afternoon. Silly me.The ongoing saga of Princess Kelli, drama queen continues. Yes we had drama this morning. Since it is my day off, Kelli again decided she had a bellyache and was mortified that I made her go to school. Now let me explain a little something before you think what a mean mom Nan is. Kelli, bless her heart has had a bellyache now, for my past 4 days off that she is in school. Not sure if there is a name for the virus she seems to be harboring, but strangely enough it only occurs when i am going to be home. The symptoms come on quickly as soon as Daddy leaves for work. She starts holding her stomach, an occasional moan and constant reminders of "Oh my tummy hurts so bad." it then moves to "I have such a bad headache" and finally "My throat hurts so bad I may not be able to eat." Usually she can muster up just enough strength to get to the van, while we take her brother to school and then ask if we can pick some breakfast up on the way home. This is where we see the short term memory loss, I have to remind her, that she shouldn't be eating anything greasy with that horrible tummy ache she has. "Oh thats right mom, I didn't think of that. Good thing your a nurse" Quite sad that she cant remember really, since its the same thing everytime this illness overtakes her. Then its time to lie down, she takes her poor frail body to bed where she has a nap about 2 hours or maybe a little longer and upon awakening "You know I think I'm starting to feel a little better." So I feed her a little broth and jello and have her lie back down. By 2 pm, it seems to have passed completely and she announces she can go to school now. Have to remind her, only an hour left at school and its too late to go now. "Oh ok Im sure I'll feel better tomorrow." Ok back to today. Of course this morning we have the bellyache, blah, bla, blah... and I make her go to school. We drop off John and come home to get ready. All ready to go except the glasses. Where in the world are Kelli's glasses? I search high and low and find them nowhere. I have tore this house apart looking for them for about 5 hours now and they have vanished. She, Daddy and her brother forgot to mention that she didnt have them for church yesterday while I was at work." So now Im steaming. I still haven't found them. In the midst of all that I get a call from John who is at school and he forgot his ID, so we have to make another mad dash to the High School to drop it off. Back to Kelli, who is now in tears, because she is going to get in trouble for not having her glasses. Had to clue her in, she was already in trouble with me. Bawled all the way to school and somehow is trying to make this my fault. "Whaaaaat?" I say. her reply is "Well Im only 7, I need to have help." Eyes closed, deep breaths, meditate-hummmmmmmm.... "Lord grant me the serenity......" I have about had it. so now I',m taking a little break from looking, I need to chill out. Did I mention the house is in shambles because we are building a new room for John, so he is without a bedroom right now. Most of his belongings are in the living room and Kelli's room. Truly is a disaster. In my living room, is his matress and all the essential of daily living through his eyes anyway. you know the important stuff, TV, Video games and game systems. And then of course I go to let the dogs in, from the fenced in backyard and only 1 is there. Seems my Max, Harry Houdini of the dog world ahs decided to go on an adventure. Never mind he doesn't have his tags on, since I bathed him the night before and hadn't put it back on yet. I have a fenced in yard right? So hop in the van yet again to go look for my wayward pup. Travel the entire area looking for him with no luck, feeling guilty that he is out without any kind of identification, distraught, because he's my Max and just plain stressed to come home to find him sitting on the front porch wagging his tail. Left out that when I discovered he was gone, I grabbed my keys and went without thinking about the chicken, which is now boiling over, all over my stove in the kitchen. All before 11am, Yippee Skippy.

Just My Dumb Luck

It never fails, things never seem to work out.
Pat and I had planned on camping tonight, but I asked him if he minded if I stayed at home and try to sleep in in the morning. Been feeling pretty drained when I get up, so I thought it would be nice to just get up whenever. I love to camp, but out there I'm always up at the crack of dawn. So he agreed and I told him to go ahead and that Kelli, John and I would come out tomorrow.

John is staying with Grandma, since he has to be at the church at 7am. He helps them out with the SHARE program. So it was just Kelli and I. We colored and made paper dolls all night and laid down at a decent hour. She is sleeping soundly, in fact I think she was out he minute her head hit the pillow. Here I am, its 230am and I can't sleep. At this rate, I figure I'll fall asleep about the time Kelli is waking up.

I Give Up.

Forget the morning coffee, I need a real drink

Monday- September 17th, 2007 should be declared:
They're Gonna Drive Me To Drink Monstrous Monday

It started like every other morning. Pat and I were up and getting ready for work. Things were quiet, the dogs were romping playfully, breakfast was good, the weather was already nice and the forecast looked beautiful. We could hear faintly some birds singing outside and then it happened, yes thats right, we had to wake the kids.

Not sure what could have led to this truly disastrous morning. Maybe it was change in the moon patterns, maybe the planets were out of alignment, could have been some bad "karma" floating in the air, whatever the problem, it had affected my children. Grouchy, Grumpy, Fussy, Whiny. Need I say more?

So the kids are up and actually things were moving rather smoothly at first except for the scowling and whining from my little princess about how tired she was and how we just didn't understand or care that she was tired. Then we got an Oscar Winning Performance on how she has to "work all day at school with no nap, no snack, no fun, and no air conditioning. Work! That's all they want out of me and I'm just a little kid!" It was a heartwrenching performance with tears that I really didn't really have time for, so I was less then sympathetic. Before you think what a mean cruel mom I am, know that my princess has a flare for the dramatics. The kid can turn on the water works in the blink of any eye. She really is quite good and could fool the untrained eye, but she forgot who she was dealing with.

Just as we are about to leave, I notice princess is not wearing her new glasses. So I ask " where are you glasses?" Standard response "I dunno." So I ask dear husband where are her glasses, because I worked the day before and didn't notice if she had them last night or not. His response,"I dunno, She had them on at church." Ok so, its only been 21 hours since he last saw her wearing them. So now the blood is beginning to boil, I need to be at work in 20 minutes. Lucky I live close. So the search begins and they are nowhere to be found. I give up and tell them we will look tonight, her response "I guess I'll just have to stay home, since I'm blind without them." I remind her that she has spent the last seven years without them, so I think she will be ok for one day as long as she isn't driving or operating heavy machinery. I can tell you that I now know that without her glasses, she is still able to roll her eyes like a professional.

So we are ready to get going, when John who has been so quiet, getting himself ready and has been sitting watching TV for quite some time now, says "I cant find my bank information."
I tell him its in the lockbox and I don't have time for it right now, but that I will take him to the bank tomorrow when I am off. "No," he says "I want grandam to take me!" I repeat myself, something I rarely do and in a huff he turns around and slams out the front door to meet his sister who is waiting for him. Mad at me, he gives her a little shove. Kelli in turn lets out this warhoop, that sounds like he just cut her right arm off with a dull butter knife. And so the fight is on.

Kelli who now has decided recently that she know karate, never had a lesson, "I taught myself" attacks. Legs flying, arms karate chopping and all the while screaming this HA! WHA! HIYAA!
John trying to hold her at bay, by putting his hand on her forehead, yelling "mom do something about it!" So I'm heading for the front porch to break it up, but of course Dad beats me there and he begins screaming. He's gonna beat there butts, Kelli then grabs on to the cheeks of her bottom and begins pleading ever so loudly "Please don't beat us Daddy!Please, No! Please don't beat me!" Like they get daily beatings or something. Jeesh! So of course Dad is still yelling and I have about had it. Did I mention its 630am and they are in the front yard probably waking the whole neighborhood. So I mange to break up the rumble and everyone leaves on their way.

Barely make it to work on time and just get started and get a call from Grandma at 8am, the skirt Pat packed for Kelli for school is one from a couple of years ago. Way to small. So I leave work, rush home, change Kelli's clothes and head back to work. Quite a morning, all before 8am. I could go on to tell you how my day went at work, but I'm trying to black that out. Besides, by the time I got done with that story I would sound like a raving lunatic.

It's Time

One of my favorite commercials of all time came out a few years ago, for Staples Office Supplies I think. It showed a father pushing a shopping cart filling it with school supplies and dancing down the aisles, kicking his feet and grinning ear to ear. Two not so happy kids were following behind with scowls on their faces, arms folded, eyes rolling and the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" was playing. Great commercial and exactly how I feel this summer.

It's time for some quiet time for mom. Has been quite a summer. My folks spent most of the summer taking the kids on hikes and just keeping them company. I do believe this is what saved Johnathan from a complete breakdown. He decided he would babysit Kelli this year. First day this summer, he called me at 8am, "Can you do something with her, she doesn't mind." Imagine that. Of course Kelli is on the other line tattling about how John was trying to "boss me around." I guess she forgot the talk the night before about how John was in charge. That selective memory, selective hearing and selective interpretation that she seems to be a chronic sufferer of now. Anyway it was going to make for a long summer, so Grandma and Grandpa came to the rescue.

Has been a long summer, Miss Kelli has became quite opionated, but still keeps us in stitches too. She told me tonight that she had a boyfriend, and that they were in love. I have been forbidden to mutter a word of it to anyone, Lord help me if she reads this, but I sure can't confide in her dad or brother. They would probably tease her terribly. She is very concerned about going back to school, since she is sure that another boy may want to be her boyfriend and then she won't know what to do with two of them. I just giggled and she looked at me with a very stern look on her face and said "This is serious Mom." More drama, thats my Kelli.

I got Kelli registered for school yesterday and John today. Just a few more days and I work most of them. Not very often I look forward to work, but lately I haven't minded.

It's Time...

Nan Is Not Happy

Coming from a small town and a small school, I have always worried about sending my kids to Danville High. I always wondered how could they possibly know what kids were up to? How could they possibly keep my child safe? I know there are much larger schools and kids do fine, but I still wonder how do they manage not to get lost in the system? I just told myself that everything would be fine and decided to let him go to DHS. After all he would be entrusted to a well educated, caring individual who would over see everything. Right? Boy was I ever wrong. I now know just how naive I actually am.

My son soon to start his freshman year started marching band camp today. With heat indexes greater then 100 degrees I was concerned, but knew that surely the well educated, caring director would make sure the kids were doing alright. I asked John to call me on his break this morning to let me know how it was going and fortuntaly he did. Imagine my horror when he called today and I asked how things were going and he replied "Not too good, I collapsed twice." Collapsed? "Everything got real bright and I couldn't control my legs, I just went down. My hands and knees are pretty skinned up. I feel a little better now though." Now I'm thinking this happened twice and no one called me? Was the band director aware? "Yeah he knew. Some of the kids helped me get up and I sat for awhile." You've got to be kidding me, my kid has collapsed twice from heat and know one notifies me. Just when did heat exhaustion possibly leading towards a probably heat stroke not become an emergency? I am understandbly shaken and angry. Furious. So I called my mom and she said she would go to check on him. So mom arrives to find John layed out in the grass, in the hot sun while the band practices on and the director tells her "He's been like that most of the morning" What? She asks if maybe she should get him checked and his response "Probably, I'm not a doctor. He can come back tomorrow or whenever if he's ok." Wow the concern is overwhelming. So mom decides to bring him to me, so I can check it out. By this time, John's legs are so weak, he can't walk, he's dizzy, and light headed. Asking for a little help getting him to the car, the director motioned at some kids to help her, never offering a hand or even showing a bit of concern. Fortunately for her, the two drum majors assisted her and they managed to get him to the car, but it was not an easy feat. I told her to take him straight to the emergency room and thats where we met. By this time he had cooled off and was doing better, but was still a little wobbly. The emergency room staff were a bit surprised that no one had bothered to call, but made me feel that we had done the right thing by bringing him in. When all the tests had been run and everything was within normal limits, it was decided that he had suffered from heat exhaustion and would be fine.

I now am left to wonder, had Mom not picked him up, what would have happened? I know what could have happened and that's what scares me. Would that director have let him lie there in the sun and have a heat stroke?
Does no one read the stories every summer about kids dropping dead on football fields from the extreme heat?

I am absolutely dumbfounded and furious about the lack of concern, and the lack of common sense by a so called educated professional.

What A Small World

I come from a large family, so its not unusual to meet people who know someone in the family. My daughter Kelli has had a little friend for the past couple of months down the street. They get along so well and really enjoy playing together. Tonight as we were leaving to go to my Moms for a party, Kelli's little friend asked where we were going. Kel replied to my Grandma Doggetts, at which this time the other little girl exclaimed "I have a Grandma Doggett too!" So after talking with her a little, I realized her Grandpa and I are actually first cousins, whom I have known my whole life. Its getting hard to keep with all the grandkids etc., as I see so many of my cousins' kids growing up and having kids of their own.
Needless to say both of the girls were thrilled to find out that they are cousins.

Northeast Elementary Magnet School 10 yr Celebration

This afternoon John, Kelli and I revisited Northeast School for their 10th anniversary celebration. Johnathan attended K-5 there in their early years. I loved Northeast, Parent involvement was a requirement for enrollment. We had to volunteer 26 hours a year for him to be there. Was never a problem for me, seemed like I lived there sometimes, with being a Scout Leader, helping in the classroom and the various after school activities that always went on there.

It was nice seeing the teachers and other staff. It was amusing to see the look on their faces when they would ask John what grade he was in. Hard to believe he's on his way to high school. They had musical entertainment, a very nice buffet and the halls had pictures, scrapbooks and yearbooks from the past years. It was fun to see the pictures of John when he was just a little guy, especially since he's taller then me now.

I'm so glad that I decided to take the kids. I didn't want to do anything earlier and had made up my mind that we weren't going, but you know how kids are. They harped and nagged me until I gave in and for once I'm glad that they didn't give up. (but don't tell them that)

Sometimes I Just Want To Scream

So often we hear that todays kids don't respect authority. We hear how out of control they have become. We blame T.V., Video Games, Movies etc, but maybe we are overlooking one major factor, the people that are raising them.

Tonight I attended my son's 8th grade graduation. For the past three weeks we have received many notes on graduation etiquette. The administration at the school asking that people show a little decorum during the ceremony. Simply asking that parents would show respect for all the kids. They explained that they would like all to hold applause and cheers till after the presentation of diplomas, so that all parents could hear their childs name called. They again reminded parents before they began. Unfortuantely it fell on many deaf ears. Some followed the rules set forth, but many did not. People yelling out, applauding, whistling and some just simply screaming. I heard my sons name, but many other names were drowned out. If all this wasn't enough, people were talking, laughing, cellphones ringing and I could hear some people making fun of what some of the kids were wearing. About 3/4 of the way through the the naming of the graduates, the principal stopped and again asked people to refrain. Did it get better? No actually it got worse. The people got louder and many were laughing when others called out. It was embarrassing to know that these were adults behaving like a bunch of animals. What a sad representation of our community.

How can we expect our children to grow up to show respect, and behave appropriately when the
very people who are raising them can't follow a simple rule? Rules that were made by the people that we have told them to listen to when they are in school. Kids learn by watching us and it is our responsibility as their role models to show them a good example.

I guess I am still in a state of shock. I laughed at all the notes about graduation etiquette that came home, because I couldn't imagine that it would be a problem. I was so wrong.

My babies aren't babies anymore

Last Wednesday, my Kelli graduated from kindergarten, much to her dismay. She was wanting to do another year. Nevermind that this was her second time around. lol She proudly told me the first day of school this past year that she was the "smartest kid in her class." She really did well this year and I think she thinks she could go for genius rankings if she hung around and done it again.

And tomorrow, no wait tonight, its after midnight, my Johnathan graduates 8th grade. Moving on to high school next year. He's had some ups and downs this year, but really got himself in gear the last 2 quarters and was awarded most improved in Science at the 8th grade honors banquet. So here we go, another milestone, I suppose.

Forty! Who me?

Sunday May 13th- Mothers Day just so happened to be my fortieth birthday. Do I feel older? Can't say that I do. I am always amused by people who say they cried over a birthday or feel that they are "getting old" simply because of the number of years they have been on this earth.

What changes has the birthday brought me? I finally decided it was time to put a member of the family out of her misery. My dear old Bessie, 1990 Ford Aerostar whom I have driven for the past 12 years. She had 229,ooo miles on her, when I decided it was time to let her go. Poor thing, completely rusted out, at times we would have to tenderly break off parts that were jutting out, so the kids would not cut themselves on her. The AC hadn't worked in 10 years, the horn was nothing but a distant memory and the power windows worked only on one side. Her muffler had rusted and fell off ages ago and you could hear us coming, long before you seen us. While the engine was still clicking along, everything else was falling apart. Her steering wheel shook while you cruised along, the brakes were getting worse and the fumes from the exhaust were beginning to get into us. It was time to let her go. Pat and Johnathan were thrilled. Pat had wanted me to get rid of her for past several years and John, my teen found her to be "embarrassing". Nevermind that she had driven him all over the place since he was in preschool.
My poor little 6 year old Kelli however was pretty much devastated at first. She begged me to keep her. "Just keep her in the yard, we could plant flowers in her." lol I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm sure she's headed to the scrapyard. She's hoping whoever buys her "loves" her like we did. I just let her believe that and she seems to take comfort in it. Kelli decided that she wanted to name the new van. I thought what the heck, and let her choose the name. So now The Colleens are driving in style in their new Pontiac Montana "Juliett."

Just for starters

Not sure just why I decided to start this or what I think I might write. I have never been very creative. Will just have to wing it I guess. Won't be anything too awe inspiring, nothing mind boggling or anything earth shattering, just simple thoughts, maybe a daily journal of sorts or most likely the ramblings of a long winded, grouchy old nurse, mom/driver for 2 pretty neat kids.