Spring Break Wrap-Up

Friday 3-21: Took Maddie to have her first Haircut at Kids Kuts. They did an ok job, didn't take credit/debit cards, didn't post this fact clearly, and pissed me off. But at least the girl had straight bangs for Easter. Went grocery shopping. Felt like ass all evening, went to bed at 8:00.

Saturday 3-22: Sick all morning, must be this flu that Bob had, it's been going around all winter, worse than usual. Resolved to get my butt out of bed and went w/ family to a cousin's 4th birthday party. Actually felt better once I ate something, so maybe it wasn't flu (because everybody I know who had it threw everything up). Gave Maddie her Easter present early, because it would just be cruel to give her the drum & instruments Easter morning and then say, "Sorry, you have to leave the coolest toy in the world now and by the way, we'll be gone ALL day."

Sunday 3-23: Easter! Looooong day. Get everybody dressed to the nines and out the door by 7:45, early service with handbells & Maddie in the nursery, did Easter breakfast at Nana & Pop's, went to Grandmom & Grandpop's, went to Aunt Cyndee's for dinner & egg hunt & the ridiculousness that was their 3-step sunken family/dining room. Wood steps onto ceramic tile, a jarring fall for any 1 year-old. No gates. And this was the house that was preferable for the little kids' Easter egg hunt because...? Actually, the swing and trampoline outside was a nice diversion.

Monday 3-24: Took Maddie to her grandparents', Bob and I spent the day cleaning out the back yard. Raked and raked and raked leaves, sticks, rocks, dog poop, you name it. I raked every inch of our back yard. And we have a big back yard. Huge by suburban NJ standards. And I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this to whine. My back still hurts. Picked Maddie up, had take-out at Bob's parents' house.

Tuesday 3-25: Bought Maddie her first swing set. She falls down a lot, wants to climb up the slide and sit on the rock-climbing thing, but she likes it. Cleaned out the guest room (that's the room where we dump stuff we don't know what to do with), sorted stuff, and Bob talked me into going out for dinner to Don Pablo's - mmm, Tex-Mex, baby! Fabulous fajitas. Maddie loved the place this time, unlike my birthday dinner, where she apparently got indigestion from the decor.

Wednesday 3-26: Ikea junkie! Got a new dining set. See previous post. Love it. Love the rocking toy, "ee-kee-ya" as Maddie calls the rocker, and its place of origin. Plus, it was the first time we bought her a kids' meal. 99-cent mac & cheese w/ drink. Yay Ikea.

Thursday 3-27: Gymboree! Music class was fun. Free trial class. Maddie was into the other kids some, but mostly she just wanted to run around the room dancing or play on the low window-ledge. Then they got out the instruments and she was VERY into that. Talked to the teacher, mentioned that Bob & I are music teachers and she got all bright-eyed and said they needed teachers there for summer. Hmmm...but can I stand other people's kids all summer, too? Put away the snowman collection that was taking over one of the beds in the guest room. Put away the 9-12 month clothes of the girl's. Yes, she's 16 months old. Shut up.

Friday 3-28: More Gymboree - did the gym class, which also involved music. The guy running it is an '06 grad of E-town college, right down the road from our dear old alma mater. Pretty good class. Maddie had fun. It's $216 for 12 sessions of class. Bob and I have to decide if that' really worth the money. I'm leaning towards NO, and hoping to just get her together with some teacher friend's kids once a week or so for playground or mall socialization. Went grocery shopping. Put more stuff away. Cleaned more stuff. Went shopping for Maddie for some spring clothes. You know, long-sleeved, light weight shirts and pants, maybe a jacket or two. Hah. Problem is, it's already July in the stores. There was hardly any short-sleeved things (all sleeveless tanks and whatnot) let alone nice spring-weight clothes. Bought her a pair of capri-length pants, sweats, and a hoodie. I figure she's wearing whatever I've got for her, and if it's cold, boom, hoodie. My poor child. Mamma didn't know to shop for spring in January.

Saturday 3-29: Holy cow, when did it get hard to get out of the house? Forgot to wrap presents for birthday part #2 (for my friend's 2 year-old twins) barely got out of the house by the time the party actually started. Very fun. Lots of kids, tons of toys, Maddie did beautifully, plus they have a giant play room full of toys and a big-fenced in front yard full of my toys, and did I mention the toys? Dang. Plus my gym teacher friend swears he walked into the bathroom to find two older female family members of the hostess kissing - like, KISSING, kissing. So Monday's lunchtime conversation should be titillating. Had Bob's folks over to dinner to dine on our new lovely set, plus Bob makes this fabulous rigatoni dish with red peppers and sun-dried tomato sauce and shrimp.... mmm.

Sunday 3-30: That's today. Today we're getting the house straightened up, getting ready to go back to school - ugh - spending time with the girl, and counting how many school days are left so we can put giant count-downs in our classrooms when we get in tomorrow morning. Actually, the worst part of the school year for me is done. The long haul from Christmas to Easter is always drag-out, gray, boring and troublesome. Observations. PIP reports due. Concert prep. Ick. Of course, now it's crunch time. Yearbook, concert, church, everything. Again, I say ick. And tomorrow, we're back.

Too damn early. In the morning, that is. I know we had 10 days off, and they were a very sweet 10 days. My daughter learned new words every day, we took her places, tried new things, and had a ball. (And none of the places we took her involved the Caribbean, unlike most of my students' spring break activities. Must be nice to be rich.) We enjoyed mornings of sleeping till 8, unhurried breakfasts together, much playtime, walks, and romping the back yard, shopping, ordering out a little more often, and finishing stuff that we'd been meaning to finish. Good stuff.

And now we've just got to get through 81 days, 2, hours and 33 minutes till summer. There are weekends in there. And Memorial Day. We can make it. Right?

The junkie gets a new dining room.

The has struck again. :-)

It was time. The kitchen/dining room table was 3rd generation and the chairs were wedding presents. But unfortunately we picked them out before we realized that chairs are supposed to last more than a year, so we picked out and registered for the kind that fall about in about 6 months. Our bad.

In Celebration!

I've added a little ticker at the left. You see them on reflux support websites, celebrating the owner's children's success stories. Yesterday was Maddie's first day without reflux meds. Yes, we'd been on them that long. About a year ago was when she really started to get bad, peaking in June - when I pretty much lost it and demanded a second (third, really) opinion from a specialist and a friend helped us get Maddie into CHOP. Wow, those days were awful at times. I remember colleagues at school asking me why I looked so concerned. I remember lots of supportive friends, and few ignoramuses who claimed that reflux was an over-blown ailment thought up by parents who don't understand that 'babies just cry and spit up sometimes'. Ha ha. Worrying about whether my baby was eating while I was away. Worrying whether she was going to throw up whatever we could get into her while on her back and choke or get spit-up in her eyes and nose. Worrying if she was getting deaf from the white-noise blasting - hey she ate when we blasted it, it calmed her. Feeding her Pedialyte by syringe on Fathers' Day because that was the only food she'd take. She spent so much time being fed that I felt like that was all we did with her. Several nights I remember getting home, attempting to feed her till dinner, letting her play during dinner, attempting to feed her till bed, and putting her to bed with maybe 3 oz. in her stomach. What a great life for a baby. Not to mention her parents. But her doctors (grrrr...) said she absolutely must have 25 oz. a day. Again, ha ha.

Now, we've been blessed with a wonderfully healthy child. Besides being strong and developmentally healthy, she has had but one real cold her whole life, and she's 16 months old this week. (I give credit to the high level 'antibodies' my house must build up in her!) But those reflux days...wow. I've never worried, laid awake at night, or agonized over anything like that in my life. I had just gone back to work around this time last year - talk about guilt layered on top of guilt - and I honestly don't remember much of what I was teaching, because that's just not where my mind was all day. I do remember guiltily enjoying some days just before my spring concert, because I at least HAD to focus on something other than reflux worry for a few hours. My friends tell me I'm so much more laid back and content now - well after worrying like that, nothing else really seems like that big a deal. Moms, you know what I'm talking about. That combined with the whole unexpectedly-natural birth, and I'm pretty sure I could tackle anything. And, thank God, in the grand scheme of things, our issues were nothing compared to what some parents have to worry about. Still...*whew* I do NOT want to go back there.

I have to admit I was a little nervous yesterday morning, not giving her any acid medicine at all. Of course I know she's fine, and probably could have been weaned off these meds a few months ago, she's been so healthy. But still, those few months were bad enough that I just gave a little 'gulp' as I put the medicine droppers away.

But hey - now we're done. So here's to no more reflux meds for my girlie! I'm so proud of you, Maddie! Every now and then, when she shovels pieces of cheese, chicken nugget, and green beans into her mouth - all at once - and then chug-a-lugs from her sippy, I remember that it used to be an awful battle to convince her to drink an ounce of liquid. And I'm beyond grateful for how it is now.

Late 20's?

No, 27 is not late 20's. 27 is still mid-20's.
And so is 29. And 32.

Lord I'm old.

Bob's mom brought Maddie in for lunch w/ me at school on my birthday. :-) So fun to show my girl off. She waltzed right up to a 2nd grade boy and tried to climb up him. And I must say that I'm now quite a fan of cute little girl dresses, now that she can walk. This is going to be a fun spring/summer. Damn she looks cute in dresses.Oh well. Feminists, sue me. She was SO adorable.
She caused such a distraction in one classroom when we walked by that the teacher asked us to come back in and let Maddie walk around - and give the kids a subject for their journal entry of the day, "What's Maddie Up To?" Cute cute cute. Later we went out for Mexican, gorged on nachos, and other combinations of tortillas with cheese, meat, and vegetables (that's really all Mexi places are, face it!) and threw cheerios all over the floor. Bob, like any smart husband, got me jewelry. And a DVD.

Bob's mom said 'officially' that she's on board for watching the kiddos. (Maddie plus sibling.) So we started talking about when this sibling is coming. And we started realizing that if we want this kiddo while Maddie is 2, we gotta start seriously thinking about this kiddo soon. No, not SOON, but earlier than I thought. These things just creep up on you. I feel like I just got done being pregnant. It wasn't particularly fun, beyond the extra cutesy-futesy attention and excuse to get lots of gifts. Blood sugar testing sucks. Sleeping on your sqashed left side constantly sucks. Not being able to tie your shoes sucks. Babies rock though, so they're worth it. But Maddie's birth, hospital time, and first few weeks were not exactly easy, and I'm a little scared of repeating them. Who knows if it will be the same, but I'm naturally a little apprehensive. *sigh* But on the other hand it will be SO awesome to have 2 kids. Well, I don't have to consider it JUST yet.

Well, my 5th graders are looking slightly less on-task. Time to go to work. They're writing rhythm compositions in rondo form. This is loud, but fun. Probably should have picked a quieter activity for the week of the NJ ASK testing. Oops. The kids need to cut lose and have a looser assignment this week, I think.

And they're gone. I like this altered schedule, I actually have 10 minutes in between classes to set up! Imagine!
Well, 1st is on their way. We're having a ridiculously easy week. I'm doing individual assessments while they watch a movie. I call them back one by one and have them do a rhythm and pitch assessment at my desk, then they get to go back and watch a MOVIE (treat of treats, they don't get that joy in my room much) and it's a very easy period for all of us. Which if fortunate, because grades are due next week and I'm about to be buried in them with all the evals I'm doing this and next week. What fun.