Mixed Bag

The Five Most Regrettable Acts of Last Week

1. I called one of my new Sunday School co-teachers "Melody." Her name is "Harmony."

2. Melody, I mean Harmony led an activity whereby the adults folded a piece of paper in half, traced the childrens' right hands with their thumb touching the crease of the fold, and then cut the hands out with thumbs in tact on the fold so that when you opened the paper, there was a set of joined praying hands. It took me four tries to get it right to where the hands were actually joined and not two separate pieces.

3. I have this pesky skin problem that I'm self-conscious about. So I use all manners of cover up and concealer on my face when I'm applying make-up in the mornings. The other day, on the way to take Grace to school, I dotted my red spots with concealer (noticably darker than my skin tone) and was going to let it set for a few minutes before I blended it. I walked Grace in, had a serious quick chat with Grace's teacher about some of her issues, and was horrified to get back to my car and look in the mirror to discover that I had forgotten to blend.

4. Browsing around on MySpace I found the site of a guy that I recognized from Grace's school. He looked very familiar at the Open House and I was pretty sure I knew him or of him in undergrad and I was pretty sure he was in a band. I recognized his face and his last name and identified him as the father of a little girl in Grace's class. So I sent him this random MySpace message entitled, "I thought you looked familiar"and proceeded to identify myself as Grace's mom and that we were at Carolina at the same time in the early nineties and how does your daughter like school and hopefully I'll see you at drop-off sometime, blah, blah, blah. I got a very nice message back saying, "Hi, Sarah, that is my twin brother M..."

5. Getting out the door in the mornings is always a struggle. The other day as I shuffled Grace into her car seat and all of my stuff up front, my arthritic thumb gave way and my coffee spilled all over the front passenger seat and all over Grace's sweater that I was going to put on her on the walk up to school. We were both near tears, but by the grace of God, the coffee didn't get on me, and by the grace of Grace, she was fine with wearing her brown hoodie.

The Years Go By

David and I celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary yesterday. (Yes, marriage has turned him gray!) I've been going through old pictures of just the two of us (dating back to 1994) and it's fun--and weird--remembering that we had a life together, just the two of us, before the kids came along. You know how anniversary years have specific gift-themes, like the 1st Anniversary is paper, the 5th Anniversary is wood? Well the 9th Anniversary is pottery and willow. A contemporary theme of the 9th Anniversary is leather. Looks like we'll go with that one this year, because we're celebrating big this year...at Van Halen next weekend!!!

How do 9 years of married life look on us?

1 year of wondering together whether Grace will be ready for traditional Kindergarten.

2 years of having fun with this blog.

3 years of my never-ending health issues. The latest is I think I have arthritis in my left thumb.

4 years of diapering, dressing, feeding, bathing, brushing, reading to, hugging, kissing, teaching, singing, buying for, nagging, playing, adoring...times two.

5 years of trying to stick to a set household budget but breaking it everytime if there's book you want to order, a CD you want to download, a pair of J. Crew pants you just have to have or a pizza that I can't live without.

6 years of loving every episode of the Sopranos together.

7 years of thinking our house is too small/too cluttered/too run down in places, and then after one evening of sitting outside our big, private yard, realizing that we love it here.

8 years of daydreaming about going back to Greece someday.

...AND...

9 years of living with, laughing with, and loving your best friend.

This-N-That

Wow, where to begin? First of all, I can breathe again. The summer heat was oppressive, but with the break in humidity, being outdoors is once again enjoyable.

Goodness of Fit
I really, really, really, really, really like the MSW program. I'm taking a History of Social Welfare class and an Individual and Family Development class. I like them both. The difference in undergraduate and graduate school is that as an undergrad, I figured out ways to skip out on my readings so I could have more time for going out; as a grad student, I'm trying to figure out how to find more time in every day so I can do all the reading. Because I want to do all the reading--it's interesting. I love that the field of social work is so interdisciplinary and that already we're incorporating history, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, etc. into class discussions. The Wilmington Massacre of 1898--fascinating! The resiliency of families for individual and group therapy--totally captivating. I entered the program feeling sure I'd go the "Macro-Broad-Based Human Services" route. It took me two weeks to realize that the path I want to take in this program is the "Direct Service-Children and Families" route. Yes I have an interest in macro social work practice and I could see myself as the director of a non-profit social service agency one day. But I'm already the top staff person at a private Foundation, so I know I could get a job in human service administration in the future. What I don't have is the clinical experience and that's what I'm going to take advantage of at Carolina. This program is a perfect fit for me.

Grace
David's observation on Grace and Kindergarten sums it up pretty well. Over the weekend he said to me, "When you were little you liked to play school. Grace is school." Her life revolves around it. She's consumed with it: her teachers, her friends, her activities, her homework, lunch, recess, art, music, PE, being a helping hand, getting a green at the end of the day. She assigns us all different school personnel, and so far I've gotten to be the lead teacher, the assistant, and the art teacher. David got to be the PE teacher and Johnny got to be the lunch lady. She's rockin the sight words and is excelling in Spanish class. (I hope she gets extra credit in Spanish!) She gets Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Resource assistance in and outside of the main class. In a recent IEP meeting, the EC coordinator asked whether Grace would feel awkward carrying around a special picture schedule just for her. Her teacher already has Grace figured out. She said, "Well, I don't think Grace would mind...it might be an issue for the other kids, but not for Grace."

In other exciting Grace news, she got her first paper cut last night and we all celebrated accordingly.

Johnny
Johnny (and Grace) got new shoes yesterday and he loves them so much that he asked me if he could sleep in them. I said he could. Flash forward to the difficult teen years--I can picture saying, "Don't talk to me like that, young man, I let you sleep in your new shoes when you were 4."

On the way to a kids' birthday party on Saturday, after a long traffic jam due to the football game, I announced that we were almost there. Johnny said, "I just got a feeling in my tummy like when we go over a tickle bump." I love that he could articulate that sensation. I get the same feeling in my tummy every time I think about the upcoming Van Halen concert.

David
David's the strong and steacy force behind our family that keeps it all together. In the name of recycling, on Sunday he spent a great deal of time disassembling on old futon frame and refurnishing the wood into a structure for the kids. Maybe it's a stage--maybe it's a table without legs, maybe it's a platform that will go in the Tee-Pee he's making. Our maybe it's a skateboard ramp--right in our own backyard.

Another Reason It's Not a Great Idea to Mix Your Personal and Professional Lives

At work when I send out large group e-mails, with the help of our IT guys as the middlemen, I use a company called Constant Contact that sets up professional looking "email campaigns" and keeps up with who's read the email, who didn't get it, who says they didn't get it but really did, etc. So, when people get group e-mails from me when I'm announcing our program calendar or an upcoming lecture or other event, their e-mail message appears in the same format as our company's homepage. It's pretty snazzy.

If email recipients only have "text-only" capability, they won't see the web-page images, but they can still read the text of my message.

So, I recently sent out an "email campaign" and have gotten a few replies that have been truly baffling. A couple have been RSVP responses to an invitation that went out in April, for an event held in April, where people actually replied, "I'm sorry, I won't be able to make it." That little snafu was our IT guys' fault--they didn't clear out the last campaign or something of that nature. They assured me that ONLY people that opened the email with "text-only" capability saw the former invitation and out of 350 + people it was sent to, it's probably not that many.

So, yesterday I get a reply from someone (who's replying to the correct, recent email) and it's all good, but in her reply to me, I notice she has picture attachments, 2 gifs and 1 jpeg. I was curious why she'd attach a picture file to an email reply to me, so I opened the attachments.

One of the attachments was of several images and I only discovered this by scrolling my mouse roller up and down. One was our website heading, one was a spacer, but then--sit down for this--one was of JOHNNY! As a BABY!
It totally freaked me out so I immediately forwarded that message to our IT guys and got the director on the phone and said, "Open the attachments! Are you looking at a PICTURE OF MY SON??" He insisted that no, he saw the webpage header and the spacer and all business-related images, but none of a fresh-faced baby. Without a satisfactory answer from our IT guy as to why this happened, I hung up and immediately deleted all personal photo files I could find on my computer at work. Because, God forbid, what if people accidentally pulled this up?
Or this one?
Or even this?
Or what about this?Well, that would actually be funny.

Good Times at the CVS

Many close to me know that I LOVE shopping at CVS. Not only is it convenient for me to shop there (there's one right up the road from me), I love their merchandise and I REALLY love their end-of-season sales. I have learned, though, that not all CVSes are created equal. A store located near a retirement community might have a larger stock of beach umbrellas than, say, a store located next to a university that might boast the largest selection of beer huggies. So what do I do during the end-of-season mark downs? I travel to all three corners of the Triangle searching for the best CVS deals I can find. I've had my mind on other things this season so when I casually walked into a Morrisville CVS today for batteries and saw the "90% Off Summer Merchandise" sign, I nearly flipped. The pickins were very slim and the only decent things I could find worth buying were 1). A Spiderman sippy cup for .29, 2.) 4 sheets of Spiderman room and window decals for .99 and 3.) a doll that resembles a "Groovy Girl" for .49. I grabbed all three, pretty happy to be getting these treats for my kids for under two bucks. They honestly don't need a thing right now after two big rounds of summer birthdays. But a mom never knows when she might just need that special new thing at just the right time.

When I got up to pay for my batteries and 90% Off Summer Merchandise, this woman with a very Jersey-sounding accent declared, "Oh, my gawd, That doll's aDORable. Where'd you find it"

"Over there, see under the 90% Off sign. But I think this was the last one."

"Oh, it's so CUTE. This little girl in my church would LOVE it."

I smile as I run my debit card through and get my gobs of coupons back that I never use b/c they're never for the items I ever need or want.

"This little girl at church? She doesn't have a doll and this doll would just make her day."

"She doesn't have any doll? Look, she can have this one."

"Oh, my GAWD, Honey, that is so sweet of you. So sweet. Are you shuuuuure? Let me pay for it."

"No really, my daughter doesn't need any more dolls. And no, don't fish out your quarters. I don't want any money."

"Thank you SO much, this is really just going to make her day."

The sale making my day. Me making this lady's day. The doll that's going to make this girl's day. All for less than half the cost of an order of biggie fries.

The Goodness of Colors

Grace's Kindergarten class has a color system to track and report kids' behavior throughout the day. It goes like this:

Everyone starts on green. Green is what you start on and green is what you want to end on. Green is good.

If the child does something against the rules but stops the behavior once the child is reminded by the teacher, the child moves to blue. Blue is ok-- not as good as green, but not as bad as yellow.

You get a yellow, if you are repeatedly told not to do something but continue to do it anyway. Yellow is not good. But it's not as bad as red.

Red is when the behavior doesn't stop after the reminders and warnings, and it requires a note home the parents. You do not want to end the day on red.

At the end of the day, the child's color is recorded on a calendar that gets sent home for the parents to see. Grace has gotten a green every day so far except this past Wednesday, and on Wednesday, she got a yellow. She got a yellow and a note home to us which the assistant teacher explained is not exactly with their system. Usually, a note isn't written home until the child gets a red. But because Grace wasn't clear that getting a yellow wasn't good, the teacher thought to write a note home in hopes we could talk to her about the goodness of the colors.

Grace's infraction is that she won't stay quiet and still during naptime. (No shocker to us). Kids aren't forced to sleep or even close their eyes (if I knew how to force this I'd be doing it on the weekends!) but they do need to remain on their towels and they are not to talk to their classmates. Grace is having great difficulty following these rest-time rules. So, at the end of the day when she got a yellow, her response was "Yay! I got a yellow!"

Wed. evening I explained to her that even though yellow is a perfectly nice color and all, it's not a great color to end the day on. Green is good. Green is what we want to end the day on and you need to try as hard as you can to follow the rules in her classroom, even when it's really hard. David even took it a step further and said that if she got a green the next day and continued to get greens, he would go shopping with her and they could buy some running gear and begin to run together. Deal? Deal. With a hug and a handshake, Grace got it.

Thursday she came home with a green and we all celebrated. Even her former teachers and director at SFFA, where David takes her after school. They all know the system and grill her each afternoon on what color she got.

So yesterday when I checked in with David by phone in the afternoon, he told me that he did something bad. He said that when he picked Grace up from school at 2:45 PM and asked her what color she got, she smiled and said, "Green." "GREEN??? AGAIN??!!" He was furious and reemed her out while her bottom lip eventually began to curl. She sat in the back seat all the way to SFFA with Daddy cross with her for getting a green at school. Again.

They walked into SFFA and the first thing Adriana asked her was, "What color did you get, Grace?" but before Grace could answer, David said disappointedly, "She got green again. Can you believe it?" "But green is good, no?"

When David told me this I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Kindergarten is a major time of learning new things....for all of us.

When All Else Fails, Head to the Great Southern Buffet

All summer, David has been wanting to get our camping gear down from the attic, organize it all, and then for the four of us to go to one of our favorite mountain sites in NC for an overnight camping trip. He hadn't ever even been camping before he met me; but now, some of our favorite memories are from camping trips taken in NC, VA, and CO, both at music festivals, and with the unlikely--but intimate and sorely missed--core group that included my mom, David, me, Kate, Western Otto, sometimes Walter, and give or take a tag-along here and there.

We picked this past Saturday to drive up to Boone/Blowing Rock and camp at the Julian Price Park campground. Due to the knotted-stomach-inducing week I just had trying to get everything done, when Friday evening rolled around, camping--with my kids--was looking less and less appealing. We'd already committed to driving up to the High Country so Daniel and Sheila and my dad could give Grace her b-day gifts from them, and so we could give Sheila and my dad their b-day gifts from us. When I began checking online for available hotel rooms in Boone and the only two options I could find included terrible ratings that were entitled "Room for Hell" and "Meth Alley" (for $98 a night, no less), camping was looking better and better by the minute. But the kids had "hotel" and "free breakfast" lodged in their minds and refused to get excited for camping. I decided that I did NOT want to go camping with kids who did NOT want to go.

The fact that I am compelled to search for available hotel rooms when three of my family members live in Boone--in different residences--both makes no sense to me and at once perfect sense--but even I had to draw the line, impose boundaries, and establish Plan B.

Plan B was for us to meet in Wilkesboro at the biggest kid-friendly buffet we knew about, a place that used to be called Ryan's and is now called Fire Mountain. David's and my astonishment at the amount of food available for consumption was topped only by our astonishment at the waistlines of the collective consumers. David was the skinniest guy in there. People were there to chow.

Our table stuck out--not only because four or the five adults in our party were the slimmest ones in the rooms--but because we paraded in with bags of birthday gifts, and leading the march were Grace and Johnny, dressed like Cinderella, and Superman, respectively. We became a spectacle, but one from which we could all walk away when the evening was done, back to our communities, where, who knows we might have actually been embarrassed at the attention we called. Because, I don't know--is it me? Or do you have family members that redefines all-you-can-eat buffets to all-you-can-eat-in-one-sitting AND-can-wrap-up-in-a-napkin-to-stuff-in-your-pockets-to-take home?

When Daniel asked me for a hint for what to buy Grace for her birthday, I asked her if there had been something she'd really wanted but hadn't gotten for her birthday. She said, "Yes, a Chou Chou doll." I passed along the hint, and when Grace opened a Baby Chou Chou Make Me Better Doll, she beamed from the inside out and said, "It worked, Mommy!" It was a moment that I'd like to bottle up and release and re-live when we need to be reminded of how non-corrupted and grateful and sweet Grace really was on September 1, 2007. I realize, though, that I can't have the have the impossibly sweet Grace memory without the vision of the pocket pork-chop. It's ok--I'll take em both.