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 |  Being a stay at home mom is never as cut and dry as you think it is. |
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Originally my pregnancy blog, now continuing on as the life of a mom and her two wacky kiddos thing till I don't want to write in it anymore  . So come on in and see what's going on in my world for a bit if you like...Be careful where you step, as the kids have all their Pokemon cards out! Feel free to hug a Hello Kitty plush! Come join in the fun, Super Mario Bros. and Hello Kitty style!![Merit Badge in Parenting
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Congratulations on your pregnancy*^*Smile*^*. You already are a wonderful mom to your son and I know this baby will be very blessed also
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In the midst of how you are feeling right now, know that it can be fixed & I'm proud of you for writing the poem that reflects how you feel. The love of your children clearly shines through. *^*Heart*^*](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Family-584.gif) ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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I'm so glad to be back blogging and reading yours. The kids have grown so much! I'm so glad that you, myself and T are still here journaling together!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Journaling-2180.gif) the wonderful badges my "Sister", silversara, graced me with. Thanks Sis, I  you! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Thanks to all of you for your support, your comments, your love, your generosity and your time! Never met a greater bunch of people then on here! Besides, who else would want to listen to a rambling crazy mom, both during and especially after pregnancy?
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| Went over to my friend Jenny's house yesterday and baked up a storm! We baked for 12 hours yesterday, and made A LOT of stuff! Jenn is very ambitious, so we had a lot of projects, but it was all worth it! My Christmas present from her was getting to keep some of the goodies we made! We're going to have a delicious Christmas! Now I feel kind of silly that we have break and bake cookies for Santa though, because we have a bag full of homemade sugar cookies, a bag full of homemade chocolate chip cookies (that I made myself! I'm so proud!), and a bag full of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies (my favorite!) that we could put out instead. Oh well, it depends on if that email from Santa shows up or not that I make the break and bake ones. Looks like our Christmas shopping is completely finished too! We just have one thing to pick up for Ryan, and then we're good to go. I think we're going to have to exchange pants that we got Ryan for Christmas to a different size though. I hope I can find the receipt for them. If not, I'll just print off the e-receipt that I got from Old Navy and try to exchange them from that. Jenn said that Target has boys jeans on sale for $8.99, so I gotta go check that out and see if I can't get him some of those as well. Tonight we're doing my Christmas gifts-we're going to Olive Garden for dinner! I've been excited about this for ages! Olive Garden is my favorite place to eat. It's my Christmas gift for us to get to eat there. Then we'll see about getting me a Kindle for Christmas as well...but if we can't, I won't be too sad. I'll just wait for tax time to come to get one. Other than that, not much else going on! Getting to sleep in is nice...my internal alarm clock only lets me sleep till 8:30 am though. Being off of my sleeping pills really makes a difference. My sleep patterns are much more normal. If I don't see you all again before then, Have a very merry Christmas, and a safe and wonderful new year! Happy holidays to you all! |
Well, almost ALL the Christmas shopping is done! Except for maybe a couple things here and there, it looks like we got everything! Whew! My biggest concern was paying off the layaway for Ryan's big gift from Santa. Got that taken care of no problem! We went out last night after getting a baby sitter to get some jeans for the kids, some pajamas, a few sweatshirts, some socks and underwear. I know kids aren't thrilled to get that kind of stuff for Christmas, but they need it, and it's good to get. Santa may get all the fun stuff, but we get the practical things. Besides, when they find out the truth about Santa, they'll realize that we were able to provide both the fun stuff AND the practical stuff for them. For now, we'll let Santa take the credit.  So far, the kids have kept true to their promises. Ryan hasn't been nosy in a very long time, and Journey remembered to bring her homework home for the last three weeks. Ryan keeps asking me when I'm going to call Santa and let him know this LOL. I told him I'll get around to it soon, when I feel it's time. I guess he's worried that Santa will run out of time to get his 3DS if we don't message him right away. Other than that, we're just hanging out. Holiday break has started from school (it started yesterday for them technically, because they took the day off school to come to Don's Christmas party at work), so me and the kids will be hanging out, sleeping in for the next 15 days! Ahhh, to have no alarm. A girl could get used to this! |
| Hooray! I have $40 to put towards a gift card, including my $5! 7 people finally participated! I have 2 more people to go, to see if I can make it to $50. I wrote them an email today, hoping they'll get it and send in the $5 so I can have $50 for the gift card. Even if they don't, I'll just get the $40 gift card and say it's from most of the class, which it is. I had to shake down a few people at the Big Blast party (which is a school party for the kids who sell enough items in the school's fundraiser) to get some $5's, but it was worth it, and now I can finally put together a decent gift card donation for the teacher! *Does happy dance* Got into a discussion on my facebook about how "Happy Holidays" is a more tolerant way to wish someone at this holiday season time, and got blasted by a supposed "friend" that is a Holy Roller. She decided to be rude to me and tell me that the holiday I celebrate is NOT Christmas, and should NOT be called that because I'm agnostic and choose not to believe in Jesus Christ. She then inferred that if I'm going to have my own holiday for my beliefs, that I needed to do it at another time of year and leave HER Christmas alone. Christianity has done some really crazy things and has made a LOT of RUDE people. I thought Jesus was all about love and good will towards all? Isn't that what he teaches? Then why are Christians like my "friend" so rude and arrogant? Sickening. Oh well. I'm celebrating the Christmas that deals with decorating trees and having Santa visit, and giving gifts, and visiting with good friends and family. And love, lots of love. Because, that's what MY heathen Christmas is all about. So fa la la la la to that! Nothing's going to keep me from enjoying holiday time, not even pious, rude people like her. |
| I'm so disappointed and grumpy. I came up with the idea to get both the teacher and the paraeducator $50 gift cards to Olive Garden for Christmas, from the whole class. All it required was everyone in the class send in $5. You'd think that would be easy enough, don't you? Apparently not. I don't know WHAT the problem is persay, but I know that hardly anyone is interested in this idea. My cohort and I (the other room mom I mean!) decided to split up the class list again, and she would ask her 10 parents, and I would ask my 10. So we got on it. Sent out emails. She actually got responses from 5 people, and so far has collected $10. Me? Not so much. I had two people respond that it was a great idea, and one person send me $5. NOTHING from the other 8. So what do I do? I don't want to bail on the idea, because I want to give something to the teachers, they deserve it. But I can't spend my own $50 and say it's from the class, because that's MY $50. It's ludicrous to believe I'd need to spend my own $50 for this anyway! What is WRONG with people?! It's not like I'm going to take all the credit for this idea, take all their money and say "Look what I bought you!", no, I'm putting that it's FROM THE WHOLE CLASS. But how can I do that if NO ONE in the class participates? So angry with these people! I talked it over with the other room mom, and suggested that if worse comes to worse, maybe her and I could split the cost 50/50 of getting a lower denomination gift card for each of them, and just say it's from us room moms, and for those of them that sent us money, we'll just send it back. That's the only thing I can think. I mean, this is ridiculous. These parents are willing to spend $10-$15 for party supplies and snacks for class parties no problem, but when you ask them for $5 for a class project, this is how they respond? AGGRAVATING!! ARRRGGHH!!! So other than that, not much else going on. Thought it would be nice to finally update. Sorry it's not about something nicer. Guess rude people put me in a bah humbug kinda mood. I'm half tempted to send an email that says, "YOU PEOPLE ARE KILLING THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS!!", because they are. Jerks. |
| Today was the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and it was adorable! We got there early, started buttering toast (luckily two moms brought their 4 slot toasters, toasting went quite quickly!) and set up the plates so everyone got a piece of toast, some pretzels, some jelly beans, and some popcorn. Everything went quite smoothly. The only hitch was the mom that was supposed to bring the waters for the kids forgot to bring them. She didn't come in either, so we missed out on that. It wasn't that big of a deal though, because the kids could just get drinks from the drinking fountain. I knew I should've sent out a reminder email though...oh well. So tomorrow I'm going in to get a few things done. Firstly, I need the new student's parents information, like email address and/or phone number, and then I'm going to show the teacher the two crafts that I was thinking of getting for the Christmas party and seeing which one she wanted to do. Otherwise, I'd just stay home tomorrow because it's the last day before school ends for the kids. But I have things to do, so in I go! Me and the other room mom are planning on getting everyone in the class to send in $5 for us to get two $50 gift cards to Olive Garden for the teachers for Christmas. I have to get the new student's information first before I can send anything out, so I'll wait til after tomorrow to get that email sent out. I want to be on top of it though, because I want to be able to give them the cards before the Christmas break comes up in school. I'm going to have to plot this email thoroughly and then send it to the other room mom so she can get an idea of what to write hers to say, and then we can send them out and get moving on this. I hope we can get it all figured out and done before Christmas break comes! I may just give $15 gift cards to all the teachers for Christmas from Yankee Candle...I don't know, I haven't thought it through yet. I was very surprised to get a gift for Christmas last year from Ryan's teacher. I'm not expecting the same again. But I do want to give to the teachers. Other than that, not much else going on. Next week, Journey has her annual IEP meeting. We're going to meet with the occupational therapist, the adaptive P.E. teacher, and the speech therapist again, see if we can't get her anymore necessary services. Last year she was tested for speech therapy, and they turned her down, saying whatever she needed to be taught for it could be taught through her special ed for her developmental delay. After an episode where she was crying and upset, and couldn't word properly what was wrong or why she was crying, her special ed teacher decided it would be a good time to look into speech therapy again. She's looking into adaptive P.E. as well, because Journey isn't very good at P.E. when it comes time to take that class during the week, her gross motor skills still need some work. That's also why we're looking into the occupational therapist. I hope we can get a few more things done for her if possible, and I hope it helps her a lot. The special ed teacher said she's doing really well on her goals, and they're probably going to set her up with some new, harder goals. I say as long as they can get her to work on it, and do her best, then go for it. According to the special ed teacher, she can recall most of her day with great accuracy, sometimes even better than the special ed teacher can! But I find that news, because when I ask her about her day, she only says a few things, not really going into everything. I still have to rely on that daily progress report. I'll be sure to let her know that at the IEP meeting. |
So I sent the email out yesterday to coordinate the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving party. I was going to split duties with the other room mom, but she's on vacation at Disney World right now, and I didn't want to take up her vacation time worrying about the party, so I went ahead and sent out a mass email to everyone. I didn't mean to steal some of her thunder, it's just that she was very busy, so I thought I'd help her out by sending it out as soon as possible. Also, the other reason why I sort of just took over was because if we would have waited till Monday to send all this out, it would only be one week until the party, and I wanted to give everyone more time than that. I was going to send out the email on Tuesday, but I thought I'd let the other room mom know what was going on first before I just took over. I waited till Friday, when I finally got a response from the other room mom, and I knew she was busy on her vacation, so I thought sending it out for both of us so she can have less to worry about on her vacation would be helpful. I hope I didn't overstep my boundaries and upset her, I just wanted to get it out there as soon as I possibly could, to give everyone enough time to get off from work for the party and to gather supplies. I was looking at it more from a time constraint point of view than anything else.Justifying it this way is the only way I can make myself feel better.  So far, the donations are coming in pretty good though! We have all but the water bottles covered, and we need a couple more people to bring their toasters. I'm not sure how many volunteers we have to help set up and butter toast and put the buffet out together, but I know who's bringing what so far. I'm very excited for this! I remember when we did it for Ryan's class when he was in kindergarten, I brought a 2 year old Journey in with me and we buttered toast and popped popcorn, it was a lot of fun! This is one of the parties I've been looking most forward to. Speaking of parties, Journey was invited to two birthday parties this month so far. The first one, she had a lot of fun, but I didn't really. A lot of the moms snubbed me, and I felt socially outcasted. I didn't do a lot of socializing, and the only 4 people I would've socialized with were busy throughout the party. Maybe I should've tried harder, I don't know, I just felt really awkward, and no one was talking to me, so I just kind of sat in the background and let everything go on. Today's party was less awkward for me, I socialized with a lot of moms, and we talked about the upcoming Charlie Brown Thanksgiving party. It was nice to have people to talk to. Journey was also invited to a friend's house, which we enjoyed! I feel like I get to make friends too when she goes over to a friend's house. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to drop her off or stay with her (I've never done a house playdate before, this was a first for us!), so I stayed and talked with her mom while the girls played together. All in all, I'm enjoying my time this year. It's nice to be able to talk with other adults (considering I stay at home), and I'm loving going in to be with the kids! |
| Journey's special ed teacher sends home a daily progress report. It tells me things like how much of her lunch she ate, what center she went to, who she played with, what she learned about for the day, and what she did with the special ed teacher. Today, on the back of the progress report, she wrote to tell me that one of Journey's classmates had said aloud "Where is Mrs. Rankin? I can't do my work without her here!" I cracked up! It's touching to me, because that means the kids are getting used to me coming in and helping out in the class. It also means someone was stalling doing their work today, waiting for me to show up! They are all such sweet, funny little kids. I love each and every one of them! |
| We had the kindergarten class Halloween party yesterday. It turned out very well! Everyone came with the donations they promised to provide (we even had some grandparents that came with extra treats!) and we had a lot of parent volunteers to stay and help out! I passed out the craft for the kids, and all were helped to put them together. They came out very cute! I was thrilled with how well the kids did, they were all very creative! I'll be even more excited to hear if any of them used them while trick or treating! Journey's teacher said this was the least stressful party that she's ever had thrown in her class. There was no need for anything, everything was provided. Her paraeducator was so thrilled with the party that she hugged me! Her teacher also called me the most dedicated parent in the whole classroom, because I offered my services to help with the pumpkin picture frame craft that the teacher has planned for Monday. The paraeducator echoed the sentiments. It feels so good to be wanted and utilized! I'd offer to be in the classroom every day if they let me! I high fived the other room mom and told her "Hive five for a successful party!" Everyone laughed. Now we're gearing up for the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, where the kids will actually eat what the Peanuts were made by Snoopy for Thanksgiving-toast, popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans! It's a very cute snack, and the kids love being able to sit out in the halls and eat it all together! When Ryan was in kindergarten, I brought Journey, my toaster, and a box of microwave popcorn to help out. I spent a good 20 minutes buttering toast and popping popcorn, but it was loads of fun! I'm thinking maybe this year I'll help out by popping 4 bags of popcorn before I make it over to the school, bring a loaf of bread and my toaster. I'm not sure if we have to make enough for the entire kindergarten, or just our class, but I'm sure that there will be parent volunteers from other classes helping out...at least, I hope so. That's why I don't know what to bring and how much to bring! I'll be keeping in touch with the whole kindergarten to see what they have to say. Looking forward to Halloween on Monday! Don got into the spirit of it and bought a Luigi costume, so it's a Mario Bros. themed Halloween! I'll take pictures of all three of them together and post them on Facebook! |
| Monday was Journey's field trip to the pumpkin patch. I got to be a chaperone for it! However, Journey made it kinda difficult for me. Everything was going just dandy, I got my group of kids, we were ready to roll, when we got to the barn and Journey started freaking out. She was backing out of the barn saying "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO..." loudly. I carried her around, but she wasn't having any of it. Her teacher suggested I take her to the playground and let her play until it was time to go get a pumpkin. I felt really bad about leaving my group with someone else just because Journey freaked out, but her teacher assured me it would be alright. So to the playground I took her. When they came out of the barn, we walked over to follow with them, but stood out farther because they were just visiting the lambs and the goat, and then the pig. Journey was not having any of that. I find it strange, because we went to a farm last year to get her pumpkin, and she had no problems with it. She saw the goat, she saw the cows, she saw the horse. She wasn't afraid or anything, and even fed the horse some corn. This year was completely different. At least she enjoyed the part where we got to pick a pumpkin. Just today, Journey got glasses! They're for doing her school work with, mostly for reading, writing and coloring. I'm going to have her wear them all day in school, and then take them off when she comes home. She doesn't need to wear them on weekends either. Just for school work. At first, she was really excited and happy to wear them, she thought it was great...and now, she's not so keen on the idea anymore. She started crying when I told her she was to wear them all day tomorrow. I told her that glasses were a good thing, and that I wore them, and Daddy wore them, so it's okay for her to wear them too...she very reluctantly agreed. I hope I don't have to fight her tomorrow to wear them.  |
| As room mom, I'm busy organizing for the Halloween party. My co-room mom and I sat down to lunch on Friday and conspired what we were going to do to get this party together. I emailed the teacher and asked her a few questions, and advised her that I would be sending the email to her as well so she could tell me if it's what we're looking for. So this morning, I got an email from her teacher, and it started out like this... "Hi there.. Party plans sound great! Wednesday is perfect to send the email out..You are very organized and I knew you would be a GREAT room mom :)" Talk about the highlight of my day! That's one of the HIGHEST compliments I've ever been paid! Honestly, I'm just trying to get this together as best I can. I basically learned how to be a room mom from the room mom that ran Ryan's class from kindergarten to 2nd grade. She did a FANTASTIC job, and I can only hope to be as good as she was. According to Journey's teacher though, I'm doing a fantastic job of it! The real test of how well I do will come at the Halloween party though. Hopefully we'll have people offering their food and time for the party. I'm already bringing the water and the crafts. I pray that other parents will help out and offer up some fruit for the party so I don't have to do all this on my own. We'll see how we do, shall we? Tomorrow is my second time going into Journey's class. I can't wait to be in there! |
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