Took a down day

After all the excitement of yesterday with signing the paperwork for Ocean Grove and trying to convince the boys that they do still need to do work and then staying up too late watching a zombie movie with Mark, Mike, and Christopher...well...I was tired today. I did manage to get a few things done. I pulled all the K12 stuff off of Jonathan's shelf that we won't be using so I can box it up. I'm going to *ahem* wait a bit to send back the math text since I want to just finish it up but hate the thought of having to pay for it with our funding. I'm hoping that OG has a copy in their lending library but if not, it won't hurt anyone if we keep it for an extra month or two to finish it up. I also managed to pull out a few resources from our shelves to use now that we'll have time to use them and started researching Vikings to get ideas of how to proceed with studying that since that is what the boys have said they want to do now. And I managed to get the laundry caught up (again).

And I read. and I read some more. I'm over 60% through 1984 now. I didn't pick up Beowulf today but I'm getting through that one. I haven't found it difficult to read at all except when I have kids interrupting every few lines and I have to figure out where I was again but I have that problem with any book I read. Go figure. LOL

The big thing was that Mark updated all my virus software and ran a spyware check on my computer and got a bunch of spy stuff off (no viruses thankfully). Now my computer is being much peppier which is so nice. It was driving me nuts before. I'm also working on cleaning up some of my files and getting them onto my external drive. Mostly photos and then I want to get CDs burned of them so I can make sure we don't lose anything.

Mark's also been working on getting those books that he downloaded for my Kindle onto my computer (they are currently on his). I managed to get the few books I had downloaded first onto my Kindle tho I can't find the .pdfs that I copied over. Need to figure that out. I did find out that my favorite little Tink purse will hold my wallet, my palm, and my Kindle with a little extra room. Definitely a nice thing so I can always carry whatever book I want with me. After reading on it for four days now I'm definitely getting used to navigating it and can say that the display is just incredible. It's very close to a paper feel and is easy on the eyes unlike reading on a backlit palm. Now that I have my light coming from Amazon, hopefully I'll be able to read in bed at night without disturbing Mark. :)

104:20 The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by Lilian Jackson Braun

Polly's gone, Qwill barely cared tho I think he cared slightly more than I did. Someone died via a bee sting but it was a footnote in everything. Really, really, boring. I mean more so than the last 10. Basically nothing happened other than Polly leaving for Paris and deciding to stay. Seriously? Whatever.

This is the last of these I had in the house. I think she wrote more but I won't be checking to find out. Matthew says he wants to read them, I told him to stop after the first couple but I'll keep the set until he decides to get rid of them but I told him they are going in his room because I won't waste my valuable book space on them any longer. I'm glad to be done with them.

Page count: 190p/5675p ytd

It's here!!!!!

What a wonderful thing to come home to! Two beautiful Amazon packages awaiting me on my front porch as we got home from zoo class. One had the Kindle and the other the cover I ordered for it. It was amazing to open the Kindle, plug it in, have it turn on and have the books I'd already ordered off Amazon (the ones mentioned previously plus a bunch of freebies I've found on Amazon for the Kindle as well). I've already started reading 1984 and have been playing around with the web functions. Still need to figure those out a little more and find what limiations can be worked around and which can't but hey, I've got my Kindle! I really like the epaper they are using as it's very easy on the eyes which I can't say of reading a .pdf on a palm and I think it's wicked cool that the "screen saver" images when you put it in standby mode are different authors and the first one that came up was Poe. How much cooler can you get?

So I'm totally jazzed with my new toy. Very few complaints so far tho I'm sure many of those will go away as I get more used to it and I'll find some new ones instead. Isn't that always the way of things? LOL

104:19 The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

Wow, you know you don't read something for years after reading it as a teenager and it's amazing how something that was good becomes out of this world fantastic. It's not like I can say anything about this that hasn't already been said to death but this book deserves it all and more. But it makes it all the more amazing to be sharing it with my son. To see his enjoyment of it, to share his throughts after reading it, to see what it is inspiring within him. That is truly without measure.

Page count: 447p/5485p ytd

The Highs of the Day

Now that I've whinged about today I want to share all the fabulous news I got in a separate post where it won't get overshadowed.

I got home from therapy today and finally received a call from the Spec Ed department at Ocean Grove to let me know that Jonathan had finally been approved for enrollment! The had a few details to go over and I'm now working on finalizing things with the head of the department. There is no problem with him keeping his current speech therapist but they are looking into if they are already contracted with his current OT. They didn't suggest anyone else in the area so hopefully even if they aren't currently contracted with her, it won't be too big an issue to get that taken care of so things can continue on as they are.

Now I've been told by many people that there is a huge problem getting assigned to an Education Specialist (or ES as they are known, the person who handles all the state paperwork and helps you get your funding and helps you spend it), especially mid-year and at one point (when no one I was talking to knew there was a problem with Jonathan's paperwork) that we should pursue other schools for the remainder of the school year. So imagine my complete and utter astonishment when I get an email from our ES!!!! I've now talked with her by phone, we've exchanged a few emails, and we are meeting with her on Friday to sign all the paperwork and then Matthew and Jonathan will officially be enrolled! I'm sooooo looking forward to this since it should make a lot of things much easier around here schoolwise since I can do more unit studies with the two of them instead of everyone having totally separate subjects. It's been nuts and I'm really hoping this will help streamline things for me.

On top of all this, Mark managed to download the entire English collection from feedbooks.com which is over 2600 books for the kindle. I'm going through now and figuring out which ones were already on my wishlist and then I'll have to go through my huge lists and figure out which ones are on that. Of course this makes me as happy as a kid in a candyshop but then I get an email from Amazon telling me that my Kindle has shipped a day early and will be here on Wednesday instead of Thursday and that I can go ahead and start shopping for books right now and they'll go right to my Kindle before I even get it!!! Seriously, how cool is that?! Yeah, I know I'm geeking and just wait til I start in on the Gutenberg Press site for more books. I need to figure out how many memory cards I'm going to need to store all these. All I can say is thank goodness those are small and the files themselves are relatively tiny too.

So my new toy will be here in about 36hrs and my children will be enrolled in a new charter school 48hrs after that. Now if we could just convince Nico he's not really Rum-Tum Tugger...

A Day to Drain the Emotions

Yesterday was a lot of fun as my dad's kids gathered from around the bay area to wish him a Happy 80th. My sister Liz had collected up photos from his life and put together a fantastic photo album that was just incredible to behold (tho if she had burned those pics of my teenage years I would have been happier LOL). After all the clean-up was done tho, I just kind of hit a wall. My legs were killing me and I was just drained. I still managed to get all the grocery stuff taken care of and rearrange things in the kitchen so we are once again able to walk in there but I really felt like I was pushing. Then I had problems falling asleep but once Mark's alarm went off at 4a so he could make his flight to SLC, I had problems falling back asleep again. I was up with no problems when my alarm went off at 5:45a.

Day started okay with the boys as I was trying to start implementing the schedule I worked on all last week, until we woke up Nico. Funny how that always throws the best laid plans out the window. We got through breakfast ok but then the tantrums about playing on the computer started. No doing chores, no getting dressed, just give me the computer and you can keep your hearing was clearly what he was trying to communicate. Unfortunately all the arguing with him caused us to be late to therapy (which he didn't want to do) but when I dropped off Jonathan so I could go grab Starbucks, he threw a fit because I didn't drop him off as well. At Starbucks he told me he wanted a kid's cocoa but after I ordered and paid for it brought me an orange juice and threw a fit about the cocoa. I told him Jon could have it at which point he changed his mind again and decided it wasn't so bad afterall. Once we got to therapy, he told his therapist to stop following him and screamed at her every time she got near or tried to speak to him and insisted on clinging to my leg. She did finally jolly him into working with her 1/2 way through the session but this was pretty much the tone with him the entire day. No matter what you gave him, even if it was what he had just asked for, he decided he didn't want. I think he's a cat trapped in a little boy's body and he should have been named Rum-Tum-Tugger. I wonder how hard that would be to legally change???

Needless to say that days like this are emotionally draining on me and anyone else who happens to be near him tho the more prolonged the exposure, the worse you feel at the end of the day. Add in that we had some extreme highs and it leaves you feeling wrung out like yesterday's wash. I told the boys that all I wanted once we got home this evening (they had dinner at Mark's parents because I had a YAW parent's meeting to go to) was for them to quickly do their chores and head to bed so I could watch 24 in peace. It's literally the only hour of tv I actually watch in a week. We'll occasionally put on another show but 24 is the only one I actually sit down with intent and watch from beginning to end. One stinking hour of tv a week. That's it! Could they let me have it? Of course not. Nico threw more fits about everything from bathing to eating an apple to going to bed (which didn't happen until 20min AFTER my show!). I had to constantly harp on the kids for every little thing. It was just pretty much ending on the same note we'd been on all day.

Now they are all finally asleep and I'm too tired to enjoy a few moments peace and quiet before they are all up again. With Mark being gone until Wedn night this week (and I hope it's only til Wedn with the current weather), I'm really hoping that tomorrow goes better.

The Great Question has been answered

And no, the answer in this case is not 42. In truth, the answer will be much, much more than that eventually, just not today.

The Great Question was "What will be the first book(s) to get for my new Kindle?" A serious question that required great thought, consideration, and deliberation. There are so many good books out there, I don't want to duplicate ones I have in good condition in the house, I don't want something that I'm going to end up wanting to loan to someone, preferably something that I can read and stop for periods of time. I'm not sure my first choices will fulfill that last requirement but oh, well, it was hard enough to fulfill everything else. Of course there were the fun titles thrown out which were all books worthy of consideration for the simple fact that I want to read them but didn't meet enough of the other criteria.

So the first six books to be downloaded (in order) are:
1984 by George Orwell
A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1776 by David McCullough
John Adams by David McCullough
The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
American Lion by Jon Meacham

Next stop will be Gutenberg Press to start downloading everything I can off of there. Of course, all this has to wait until Thursday when it shows up.

Tick...tick...tick...tick

Yes, I'm counting the minutes. I want my new toy NOW!!!!

104:18 The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun

*yawn* One more left and then I won't ever pick up another book by her again.

Page count: 187p/5038p ytd

That's a first...

The mom of the other two girls in Nico's swim class came up to me yesterday to say how thrilled she was that Nico was in their class. Huh?! Someone is happy that Nico is in a class with their kids?! Wow! Apparently her older daughter (5yrs) has decided that if Nico can do it, than she can too and has gotten a bit of a competitive edge going. Her younger daughter is still pretty fearful (3½) but she's hoping that seeing her big sister and a younger boy swimming all over the place will help motivate her as well. I have to admit, Nico is VERY comfortable in the water and swims like a fish. I don't know if it's the influence of the girls in the class, not having mommy there, being on best behavior for a teacher, or some combination thereof, but he always does exactly as he is told in class, never swimming off, and always waiting patiently for his turn.

It gives me hope.

104:17 Dragonheart by Todd McCaffrey

This is Todd's 2nd solo foray into Pern and I thought he acquitted himself well. He definitely seems intent on staying in the time period he is exploring and fleshing out those characters and that time in society. I found some of the story very reminescent of the earliest books by Anne, you can definitely see the influence and even the total copying of some of those ideas tho he goes on to embrace them and do his own things with them which was good (otherwise, what's the point).

I enjoyed this one and look forward to reading more from him. On the other hand tho, I do hope that Anne or Todd will eventually come back to Pern present day (as we know it) to the characters that we grew up reading about. Yes, they are starting to fade away but their children and those that they were training were also becoming interesting in their own rights and I'd like to see how Pern adapts to its new technological advances.

Page count: 538p/4851p ytd

Stick a fork in me

Seriously, I'm done. I'm so tired of the same fights every day. It's not even a different fight. It's the same couple of fights. Every. Single. Day. and it's old. So freaking old. And I'm just freaking tired of it.

I've spent the last week working on trying to put together a schedule again. I was hoping to have it done over the long weekend so we could start implementing it this week when we had no activities but that was not to be. So tonight I tried to get our calendar system back up to do some preschool stuff with Nico. Um, where are the number pieces to the 100s counter? "We don't know" Where are all the holiday cards to our big perpetual wall calendar? "We don't know" Where are the rest of the January date cards so I can put them away? "We don't know" End result was that half of those things had dropped on the floor under the coats and the kids had noticed but hadn't bothered to do anything about it (nevermind the fact that they put them in the place from which they could fall from in the first place) and the holiday and date cards and gone with the wind tho we did find the cards for the other set. This is typical.

This is all taking place at 10p while Jonathan is still trying to vacuum but can't because Christopher hadn't actually bothered to pick up the crap that was on the floor so he could. It's a simple system. One child cleans off the tables and vacuums, the other picks up the floor (properly but that never happens) so they can while the other two bathe. Obviously, other people pitch in when it's Nico's turn to pick-up. Christopher was doing a horrid job on vacuuming so Jonathan took it over voluntarily but now Christopher does a crap job on picking up. I had to call him over to pick up the same area 3xs and then a 4th time because all he'd done to pick it up was throw the stuff on the table that Jonathan had just cleaned. Seriously?! WTH?! This after he spent his afternoon rearranging the kitchen drawers and cupboards because he never bothers to put the dishes away where they actually belong. He just sort of throws them in the general direction and considers himself done but when I go to find something to cook with, it takes me forever to pull it out and then put away all the other crap I had fall on me while I was pulling it out and I'm sick of that too.


And of course the kids are complaining to me about how they can't see to pick up their room because their ceiling light burned out. Well, it burned out days ago but the floor in there is such a mess that your dad doesn't have anywhere to put the ladder so he can reach the freaking lightbulbs!! You've only been told every single day of your lives to pick up your toys when you are done playing with them. I've gone through that room more times than I care to imagine (I believe the number is a multiple of a googleplex) to help them sort through their toys, get rid of stuff so they have room for everything, make sure they know the place for everything so that nothing EVER has to be on the floor. But yet, it never fails, within 2 days of me spending my entire weekend in there, the room is just as trashed as if I'd never ever set foot in it. Disheartening doesn't begin to cover it.

And they treat the rest of the house the same way. Pick up something, walk two feet and drop it on the ground, and then keep walking. Why? Just because. I seriously can not believe the level of slovenliness they display as a matter of breathing.

Obviously, the first thing at the top of my list is to try to change these behaviors but I've been trying everything I can think of for years and they just keep wearing me down. It's exhausting trying to follow after 4 of them all day pointing out every single time they don't put something away. Yes, I've heard that whole FLYLady thing of just keep working on making the house neat and they won't want to mess it up. Sorry FLYLady, but that is soooooooo not the case here. They see a flat surface and they can't wait to put a pile of crap all over it. Christopher's desk is the perfect example. It has wires up above to sort his books by subject and wires to hold his file folders neatly to the side. Every single day, every single subject he has worked on is on the surface of his desk. All he would have to do is rotate his chair and put out his arms to put his folders away and that is too difficult a task for him. Let alone the unthinkable act of actually standing up to put the book in it's place. Yes, reaching out an arm or standing up in place are both too difficult if it's to put something away but if it's to hit your brother, well, no effort is too great.

So get out the pitchforks and let's make a bonfire. I'm thinking I should just set it all ablaze and then they can just live in the ashes. I'm not sure they'd notice the difference.

Double the fun **Warning, gross content**

Thankfully Morticia is still with us. Unfortunately, we aren't 100% sure what we are dealing with. The good news, it's nothing systemic, all congestion appears to be located in the nasal cavity, the lungs sound clear. The bad news, as the vet was telling us it was likely just a head cold but we'd do antibiotics to make sure, Tisha spit out a tooth. The roots were still attached so it didn't rot out and there was a bloody hole where it had come from. Best guess, abscess. Less likely but possible, cancer. Problem is the diagnostic procedure for this would run around $700 that we just don't have right now so we are doing the antibiotics and hoping that it's just the abscess.

But this means that in addition to having to administer meds to Padme 2-3xs/day, I have to make sure I know Tisha has eaten so I can administer her meds once a day. Wheeee!!! This is more fun than dosing kids. NOT

Sick Kitties :(

Padme started sneezing up a storm today so Mark and Matthew took her to the vets. She was running a fever of 104F plus has worms. Lovely. She has a pain medicine with anti-inflammatory liquid we have to give her once a day for the next three days plus an antibiotic 2xs/day for the next 2wks. The vet also wants her separated from the other cats for the entire two weeks. We are hoping for a week before they all drive us nuts. We made sure to get worm pills for all the indoor cats tho Leia decided that it would be more fun to vomit it back up rather than just take it. Yep, she's the pain.

As if all that weren't enough tho, when Morticia came in tonight we noticed that her breathing was labored so I've put another call into the vet to bring her in tomorrow. We are just praying she lasts the night. She's almost 14yrs old now and has lost several teeth and has just generally been showing her age lately but this is Christopher's cat. We brought her home when he was just 6mos and all his photos for the next several years at home had her in them. They were just inseparable. Considering he still has a hard time with Pugsley's death which was 3½yrs ago, I can't imagine how hard this would hit him. We are trying to prepare him for the possibility that this is her time to go but also telling him to hope for the best and we will do everything in our power to see her healthy again. I'm just praying she's around for another couple of years.

And to top the evening off, Mark lost Nico's melatonin so he's wide awake and refusing to settle down. It's not pretty. Not pretty at all.

ETA: Of course, after I posted this, the melatonin was finally found. Of course, now he's overtired tho, still wound, and super cranky. I can only pray it works quickly.

Pretentions Book Meme

The pretentious book meme
Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read ENTIRELY
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X+
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X+
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X+
6 The Bible *
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte *
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman *
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X+
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare *
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X+
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger *
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X+
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X+
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky *
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X+
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame *
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X+
34 Emma - Jane Austen *
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen *
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X+
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini *
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X+
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X+
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel *
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X+
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley *
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez *
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas *
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac *
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville *
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens *
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X+
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert *
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle *
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad *
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery *
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams *
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas *
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare *
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X+
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo *

So if I counted right that's X-29, +-14, and *-27.
But why is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on there along with The Chronicles of Narnia? Last I checked, it was part of those Chronicles and not a separate thing.

(and I just checked and there are another 15 on my wishlist)

Expensive day

So the boys finally saved up enough money that with Mark trading in his PS2, they could afford the PS3 bundle at Costco. Mark also traded in some My Points for Amazon GCs so the house will buy that from him and that meant it was only an extra $60 for the Guitar Hero World Tour bundle. Big problem was that after trading in the PS2 he found out that yes, earlier models were backwards compatible but newer ones were not so all of our PS2 games would not be playable on the new system. Can you say "What a piece of crap?" Yeah, thought so.

So he moved on with the plan which included taking Nico to TRU and using his birthday money to buy Rock Band 2 for the PS3 and then taking the boys to Game Stop where thanks to the lack of backwards compatibility, the boys turned in their disks not for a new game for the PS3 but an older, used PS2.

Then they get home and we find out that Nicholas had stuck his favorite powpow game (and the one that was Jonathan's present from Santa) into the old PS2 before we turned it in. It's still there. It's also about a 30min drive away. We decided it wasn't worth the time to go get a $20 game back. So mom to the rescue, I ended up buying the PS3 game they wanted and the PS2 game that was lost but which they will have to pay me back for.

But you know, since I was on Amazon...

They had this thing in the corner about the new Kindle 2....

And it will read .doc files, browse the internet, read .pdf, and do some of the other features I was looking for.

So I bought it.

My bookshelf is thanking me.
A lot!

I'm going to have to go see if I can import my contacts and calendar onto the Google or some other private internet site so I can have access to that stuff and then I can say good-bye to my palm and just have the Kindle.

I'm totally psyched and can't wait to get my new toy!

104:16 The Cat Who Went Bananas by Lilian Jackson Braun

Seriously reaching on the book titles. As per the new norm, Polly is busy in something so Qwill is upset. Enter in some new people we've never heard of to keep him busy. Koko is too busy stealing banana peels to do any sleuthing except to be gone when one person shows up. Whatever. Only two more of these in the house to read and then I'm never picking another one up as long as I live. There even losing any appeal as bathroom reading at this point.

Page Count: 223p/4313p ytd

104:15 Men of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong

A collection of tales that really revolve around Jeremy, the Alpha of the WolfPack. We find out the strange circumstances regarding his birth and find out more about why his father had such animosity towards him. We then jump to his early 20s when he finds and saves a young Clayton and how their relationship evolved, all from Clayton's point of view. We also get to see his ascension to pack leader, again from Clay's pov. The last short story is set in the modern day where he is already involved with Jamie. In it, he learns things about his past that he never even imagined.

A wonderful book. I really enjoyed learning more about Jeremy's mysterious past and I feel like I have a better understanding of him now. I can't wait to see how this plays into things later on down the road.

But now I'm all done with the series until a new one comes out and I don't even know when that will be. I wonder if stalking her would speed things along???? LOL

Page count: 369p/4090p ytd

104:14 Living with the Dead by Kelley Armstrong

This was a slight departure from the norm as the main protagonist is not a supernatural but rather a friend of Hope's (from Personal Demon) and ends up involved in a murder mystery where the true murderer is a clairvoyant and the detective investigating is a necromancer. This one is also a little harder to follow as we end up with 4 distinct characters telling the story and we change pov with each chapter, some of which are only a few pages long. I can see how some people found it a little disjointing but I rather enjoyed trying to keep track of all the different plot lines and who knew what and when, made it more of a challenge than a straight read.

Definitely a lot of fun and I'm continuing to really enjoy this author.

Page count: 372p/3721p ytd

Lazy Days

Yep, I'm basking in the happiness that comes from a much anticipated 4 day weekend followed by 4 days of minimal activity. Today was the first day of the long weekend and I spent the day catching up on the laundry, working on my desk a little bit, doing some general pick-up but a lot of the day was spent reading and relaxing...letting my brain just stop for a bit. It felt good and I'm looking forward to getting some more catching up stuff done but also making sure I get some down time in over the next week or so. Mommy needs a recharge and she's going to make sure she takes advantage of the downtime to get one.

Big Boy Swim Class

Today was Nico's first big boy class at swim. The one with no mommy and just the teacher. They no longer do a transition period so to say I was apprehensive is mild.
He's in a class with two sisters, one is 5 and the other 3½. None of us had any idea how he would react to a new teacher, new classmates, new style of class, and no mommy...
But he did awesome! He is fearless in the water but followed the teacher's instruction at all times, never leaving the step or island until she told him he could.
He listened intently to what she wanted from him and did it with no fuss.

I'm not sure who switched my normal child for the one in swim class and then switched him back as soon as we got into the showers (where he proceeded to shower me all over and have a fit on the way home because I wouldn't buy him a BK snack). I sort of liked the idea of a biddable child, even just for a short time.But really, I'm so very proud of how well he listened and behaved. He even got to go down the slide now because he's 3. Big brother Matthew was on hand to put him half way up. I tried to get a shot of him going down but had my camera on the wrong setting and he was on his way before I could fix it. Next week, I promise.

He loved it tho and I'm so happy he's so happy.

How can you be 3?!

How did this happen? It seems like just a few days ago I found out that we were going to be blessed again and then just yesterday you were born but now I turn around and my memories don't mesh with the reality that is before me.Now instead of a tiny baby here is this incredible little boy. You are not even a toddler any more despite how much I've tried to deny it, you are growing up before my eyes. One minute shy, the next running around with a maniacal laugh, and then just as suddenly you are kicking back with your brothers whom you adore.It's just amazing. Your personality has blossomed this year and while there are still moments where "Nico the Destroyer" makes his appearance, the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde shifts are definitely not as often and we see much more often the sweet, loving boy we all enjoy.And speaking of loving, I'm loving your new command of language and how much more you can tell us now, all the stories that are in your head are finally finding their way out but the most precious things are when you come up to me just to tell me "I luff you mommy". That one phrase, especially when combined with your sweet smile, will always and forever melt my heart.That's not to say that everything is always rosy around here. You, my dear son, definitely seem to have inherited your mommy's temper (I'm more sorry than words can say). You have your definite opinions about pretty much everything and we are still subject to a lovely temper tantrum when you don't get what you want when you want it. If/Then statements and logic don't seem to sway you well yet but I'm starting to see the glimmer of hope that you will eventually figure out that all good things do come to those who wait, you included.But in the meantime, we enjoy all the good times we do get with you as they are many and we try to keep up with your boundless energy. Your favorite phrase is "I run!" and run you do. Everywhere, all the time. You are always on the go because there is always some other fun to be had or new thing to see or some trouble to find and you are bound and determined that you are not going to miss anything that life has to offer. You truly grab life with both hands and hold on tight. Never lose that ability.This year has seen other big changes for you which have made life nicer for the rest of us. Your sleep has gotten tons better which has made so many other things better all the way around. At this point you sleep on the futon in your brothers' room between Matthew and Jonathan almost all night every night and even fall asleep in there about half the time. You still enjoy your cuddle time with mom and sleep is still not something you like to think about so we continue to use the melatonin to help you settle down and many times you still fall asleep in my arms but you know what, that's okay with me. I love that extra cuddle time with you and I know that all too soon that too will be gone. You also finally weaned this year at 2½ tho it was not an easy time for either of us. Being stubborn, you didn't want to give it up as you wanted the comfort and it was hard to get you to understand that the end of nursing did not mean the end of my love nor less time and attention. It's not like there is any way we can ignore your presence. You make sure of that. But it was time for both of us as the world was just too interesting to you and I was ready for regular clothes again and now that it's been a few months, it's all good. I'm really hoping this coming year will be the year we say a permanent good-bye to diapers.Yes, you've grown in so many ways but as with your brothers, you will always and forever be my baby. I keep in my heart all those memories of your younger days close knowing that every day you get a little bigger and more independent. I love seeing the child you are becoming and will enjoy seeing the man you will become but I will always cherish the baby you were as well. We had firsts this year. Your first trip to Disneyland that you could enjoy. Your first roller coaster. Our first trip to Salt Lake City. Your first classes that were for you and you alone, at the zoo and the pool. Your first ER trip and the first of our children to get staples. You've just about learned to dress yourself and are trying to operate the microwave. You are an excellent guitar and drum player on the PS2 and apparently can hold your own on the Star Wars games you play with your brothers. Heck, you manage to hold your own with pretty much everything. No matter what, you always end up exceeding our expectations.For your birthday, we spent the day doing things that you enjoy starting with zoo class in the morning, hanging out at the Playstation store in the afternoon, dinner with the family including Grandma and Papa and Uncle Mike at the Rainforest Cafe, and then dessert at Ghiradelli. You spent most of the day with a huge smile on your face and bestowing many hugs and kisses and I couldn't ask for a better thank you than that. I love you, Nicholas, my baby, my angel, my 3 year old son.

Nico's "Happy Birtday Pahty"

It was a happy day for the soon-to-be 3yr old. He had his "deetohs", a Cars bounce house (that his lame mother didn't get a picture of), and was surrounded by friends and family. Add a Cars pinata filled with candy and Cars toys and then presents and well, life is pretty much perfect as far as he was concerned.
He really got into the whole cake thing and ended up blowing out the candle about a dozen times during the course of our singing happy birthday to him. Then he insisted on opening up all the presents that were in Cars wrapping paper first. LOL What can I say? That kid knows what he likes. LOL

There were, of course, many tears shed by the 7yr old but for the most part the day went well. There was little to cause stress and everyone seemed to have a good time. The winner of the most ironic event was everything concerning the bounce house. Last time it arrived an hour late so I put down our start time as an hour earlier. So it showed up 1hr15min before the start of the party. Then they showed up 1hr30min late to pick it up. It was pouring down rain so Mona and I ended up waiting in the car and chatting until the guy finally got there. Thank goodness for friends who will wait around with you is all I have to say.

A week in my life, Day 7

So thanks to Nico's deciding he didn't really need to sleep last night, I got my 4th crappy night's sleep in a row and thanks to that, I was too freaking tired to do the dishes after Mark cooked dinner so I woke up this morning to a kitchen looking like this:
I personally don't think this is fair. I think if you don't get enough sleep for several nights in a row, the house cleaning fairy should visit and at least take care of the dishes. Unfortunately, after 2½yrs of sleep deprivation I know this doesn't happen but I keep hoping it will nonetheless.

I will admit that we all got a pretty late start this morning except for Nico who awoke 7hrs after falling asleep roaring and ready to go. Unfortunately, there was just zero energy or motivation to be had for the rest of us and I think I saw a sloth passing us on the way to getting caffeine out of the kitchen. Sort of sad really.

Once we finally got started tho, things did go pretty well. See, Matthew even worked:

Yes, it was a shock to us as well. Or maybe he wasn't shocked. Maybe he just finally got a whiff of the dirty socks he had left on the table near his chair:
Seriously, I do not understand why there are dirty socks on my dining room table. The only explanation is that I have boys. I'm still trying to figure out why that explanation seems to explain so many things when it really isn't an explanation at all....but yet somehow it is.

We did manage to find the energy for swim class today:

I only managed a few pictures of the big boys swimming since I was trying to keep Nico from jumping in and then had to get the two of us ready for his class. I was so thrilled to be there when the two big boys came down the slide and found out they had both leveled up! I thought they were working on their white (M) and red (J) ribbons but apparently their teacher decided they were close enough to those not to worry about earning those but working on the next levels. I'm very proud of how hard they've been working in class!

It was also a big day for Nico but a bittersweet day for me. With his birthday coming next week it was time to start looking into putting him into a big kid class with just a teacher instead of in a Mommy and Me class. They did some testing with him and it was decided that he looks like he is ready so next week he'll switch to a 2p class before the big boys but with their teacher now. I'm really bummed he couldn't keep his teacher but unfortunately she doesn't have a compatible class at a workable time. He did say he wanted to do the switch because it means he'll get to go down the big slide now. I really hope it will go well unlike when we switched him to a more structured class in gymnastics and he decided he didn't like it anymore.

When we finally got home from swim class, everyone did a little collapse for an hour and then did some pick-up and finished schoolwork so we could head to the homeschool game night.
The kids really look forward to this every month and always have a good time. It's nice when Mark is there as that means that I can find some time to sneak away and talk to *gasp* other adults.

Of course, I had to end the night at the grocery store. Apparently I can't seem to stay away from it this week. You think if I just hand over my wallet they'll let me go more than a day without visiting?

I got home to find that Nico had taken a 30sec nap in Mark's car when he drove him home and woken up when Mark brought him inside. Even after being dosed with melatonin, he again refused to go to sleep. I had the joy of uploading the pictures for this while having shoes pitched at me before being assailed by a whirling Tasmanian devil with fists of fury flying. It was such a delightful experience I'm thinking about turning it into an attraction and selling admission. I think I need to market it to those crazy people who bungee jump. "For the ultimate adrenalin rush, see if you can escape the cage with your body parts in tact!" Has a catchy sound to it, no?

At this point, he hasn't been in to hit or launch missiles at me in about 20min so I'm hoping and praying that he's decided to go sleep with his brothers. If I dont' get some sleep tonight, there is the very real possibility that I'll start really believing I'm Tinker Bell and can fly to Neverland.

A week in my life, Day 6

Yes, I know technically this is the next day but this was the scene at my house at 12:30 this morning:Yeah, I wasn't enjoying it either, nor the temper tantrum that ensued when we took the cobbler's bench away and told him he wasn't an elf to be making shoes for the cobbler in the middle of the night and he could resume his duties when the sun was out.

This was, of course, after a rather long tho tedious day. We had several errands to run on our way to zoo class which meant getting everyone up and out of the house by 9a. In our case, 9a turned into 9:20a but hey, close enough right?!

We finally headed out and started with dropping off bags of stuff at Goodwill for donation and then dropping off the bags of Nico's toys with a friend before heading over to pick up Mike for some extra hands at the zoo with of course, the obligatory Starbucks stop (especially since two of my brood had decided against eating breakfast before we left...don't ask, I don't get it either).

Zoo class was fun. Nico really does enjoy it so I'm really hoping we can find some way of getting things to work out with Jonathan. Last week was good and he didn't run off this week but he still wasn't doing much work. *sigh*

This week our zoo class was invaded by a bunch of strange looking giraffes eating leaves...
A bit short for a giraffe tho, aren't they? Here's Nico getting his groove on during music time...And this week's animal visitor was a chinchilla (which even the teacher said wasn't related to the giraffe in anyway but is a fun visitor anyway)

Nico decided he was more hungry than interested in seeing the giraffes so we headed towards lunch when Jonathan twisted his ankle. He spent the rest of the day hopping or being carried by Mike.After lunch we went to go visit the zoo's newest addition, the baby giraffe. We saw her last week when she was only two days old and still staying in the barn but they were allowing her outside this week and we got a great look. 6' tall and 128lbs at birth...Good job there Mama!

With Jonathan being injured, we decided to head out. We dropped Mike off at an appointment and then headed over to Party City for the last of the party supplies for this weekend's festivities. That was a fun trip with Jonathan in the stroller (which I might added carried him nobly but he is definitely too big for) and Nico helping to push while having the monkey on his back. We managed to get everything except the invitations for Jonathan's party in April and then off to pick Mike up again so we could then drive him down to Redwood City and drop him off with Mark where he's working for the next couple of days before finally heading home.

Of course, Nico fell asleep in the car and refused to wake up after we got home despite numerous attempts. He slept for 3hrs or why he refused to go to bed. I was exhausted when we finally got home and ended up vegging for a bit before getting into the schoolwork with Jonathan. We did manage to get some done but it also meant that Mark got to cook dinner when he got home and we didn't sit down to eat until 9:30p. A bit late to be sure but that's just the way this day seemed to go.

104:13 The Private Life of the Cat Who... by Lilian Jackson Braun

What a waste of paper. Yes, I know I complain about the formula of the other books but there is not a new stitch of writing in this entire book. It's really just a rehash of the first couple of books and a few nods at some other books with the occasional new poem or postcard story thrown in. Absolute rubbish. I finished it in less than an hour and wished I'd had that hour back. I only did it because I just wasn't in the mood to delve back into Beowulf and wanted something lighter. This was brain-numbing tho.

Page count: 137p/3349p ytd

104:12 The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun

Ho-hum. Take formula, come up with new names for the standard new characters, ignore the dead people until you decide it's time to wrap up the book and then tie it all off in less than 20 pages. Whatever.

Page count: 181p/3212p ytd

A week in my life, Day 5

You know, some days are just more exciting than others. Some days the kids do and/or say the cutest or funniest things or someone else does something totally boneheaded or nice and it's so easy to come up with a post.

Then there are days like today.

In a nutshell, we spent the morning at home. I did laundry while reminding them constantly to get their chores done. This lasted until 10:30a when both were finally accomplished simultaneously. Then we started in on the schoolwork. Or should I say Christopher went to his office and says he did his work (considering how often he came out to ask questions, I'm going to guess it eventually got done) and I worked with Jonathan while Nico sat on the other side of the table on his computer. With a triumphant "Hahahaha", he announced that he had managed to get onto addicting games (a site he loves and I despise). Of course, Matthew is sitting next to him and every time I look up from my lessons with Jonathan I see him staring at the computer game Nico is playing. Yeah, I believe there is a lot of work going on there. At least Jonathan worked well on his own for a bit so I could go through all of Nico's toys and purge the stuff he's outgrown. I'm actually amazed at how little is going. You'd think with #4 it would be a lot more but we did so much purging after Jonathan that there hasn't been a ton of hand-me-downs for Nico and we've been trying not to go overboard for him since we know he won't play with half of what he owns anyway. LOLGet kids fed and then off to bowling. I'm becoming more and more convinced that bowling is NOT a good idea with a 3yr old. Apparently it's fine for a 2yr old but 3yrs is a pita to bowl with. He runs off constantly and it takes as long for him to bowl one game as it takes for most others to bowl two. Today for the last 3 balls of his first (and only) game, I had to pick him up, take him to where the ball was, use his arms to pick up the ball, walk (ok, drag) him over to the lane, and then "help" him throw the ball down the lane. It was tons of fun. Really. You should try it sometime. Or not.

We got home from that fun trip only for me to remember that I didn't stop at Goodwill to drop off so I got to kick myself about that. We finished up the school day and then it was time to take Christopher off to acting and do the grocery store.

Please remember that if you have a soon to be 3yr old and he has older brothers, he is going to hear all about his birthday and will tell you that he "need that for my birtday". This is how you end up with bags of Cheetos in your grocery cart because they are his absolute favorite and it's not worth the fight.Thankfully things settled down a bit once we got home from the grocery store. I played tetris with my freezer and fridge and got everything to fit and then we sat down to watch disc 2 of Fellowship of the Ring and eat soup and then popcorn (cause what good is a movie without butter laden popcorn?!).

You've got to be kidding me!

So as I was teaching the boys today, I went to check my email and found I had a notice from the Special Education Application Specialist from Ocean Grove Charter School that they still had not received the correct IEP forms for Jonathan and that if they did not hear from me within 10 days, they would assume that we were no longer interested in enrolling and would discontinue his enrollment process.

WTF?!

I got a message that they were missing signatures on the signature page of his forms back on November 20, 2008. I found the page, signed it and faxed it over making sure to email him to let him know that I'd done it. He emailed me back telling me he was still missing signatures on it. I looked at it again and found another place that needed signing so I took care of it and faxed it again. Again I made sure to email him letting him know it was done and to please call me if there was an additional page or anything else that I needed to do. I never heard back from him. I called OGCS in December and January to inquire about the application status for Matthew and Jonathan. I was told in December that they were likely holding up Matthew's enrollment so that they could enroll both boys together and that IEP students take longer to enroll to make sure everything would be in place for them. When I called in Janauary, I was told that all they knew was that no teacher was assigned to them but they had no idea why. We all assumed that it was because there was no teacher available.

Now we know the real reason. Why the heck it wasn't noted on the account anywhere is beyond me. Why the Applications Specialist took 2½mos to get back to me to tell me that he still didn't have the paperwork is another wonderful question. I called him today after getting the email as well as emailed him telling him exactly what had happened and asking him to please get back to me so we could resolve this. I also called and spoke to someone in the head office to let them know that this was ridiculous. The guy did call me back and low and behold, someone must have thrown the second fax out because it looked just like the first one so he never got it. It was in the digitial archives tho so he does have it now and will be expediating the clearance process tomorrow morning and then calling me again to follow up. None of this explains why after I emailed him a second time telling him that I had faxed a second copy to him he never responded nor why it took 2½mos to find out that this was the hold up.

Unfortunately, I've heard that this crap getting into OGCS is standard and that there can be a lot of issues to contend with once you are in but that the educational stipend is worth it so I'm trying to keep that in mind. Of course, I've also heard not to keep your kids in there for high school under any circumstances so I'm glad that fell through with Christopher.

I can only hope that they know they have the right paperwork, things will start actually moving towards actually having Matthew and Jonathan enrolled there.

A week in my life, Day 4

Well, the day started off like every other Monday. First, get kids up and moving. This requires shock collars a lot of coercion and buckets of ice water the occasional nudge. We did manage to leave the house on time but of course, Nico makes sure that things don't go that smoothly. He took off as I was gathering stuff up and led Jonathan and Matthew on a merry chase. This has, unfortunately, been the trend with him as of late. None of us are amused by it...except for him.
After dropping Jonathan off at therapy, I headed over to the post office to mail a package. I think the notice that of the state budget crisis has made it's way there and seems to have affected performance. I took the package to get weighed so I knew how I was going to ship it based off the price. I was told that first class was $9.31 and Priority was $10.95. I told the nice lady behind the counter that Priority would be fine so she gave me the appropriate tape, label, and customs forms. I filled everything out while Nico ran amok through the place with Matthew half-heartedly chasing him. I go back to the same lady with my package and forms all ready and she tells me that it's now $22.95 to ship the package Priority! WTH?! When I ask what happened to the original rate I was quoted, she then tells me that it was for a small flat rate envelope. Um, excuse me, does it look like it's in a small flat rate envelope to you?! I told her that I wanted to change over to 1st class so then she sighs and rolls her eyes about what a production this is going to be, hands me the other customs form and then starts telling me how I need to paste over the priority mail tape now and blah blah blah. I told her to just give me a big black marker and I would take care of it. She kept trying to hand me this brown paper to tape over the priority tape and I kept asking for a big black marker. I finally got the marker and colored over the priority mail markers but geesh, a simple thing turned into a huge production and took almost a half hour even tho there was no line there! Good grief!
From the post office, I went to drop Nico off at therapy with Matthew to help out with him so I could run a few more errands. I ended up having to talk to the therapists about some things and in that time, Nico managed to poop in his pants. Of course, he doesn't want to be changed so I had to drag him kicking and screaming out to the car for the process. Once we get done and I'm trying to get his pants back on, he decides to jump up out of my arms and smack his head on the top hatch of the back of my truck. I'm so thankful that he managed to miss the metal spikey part of the lock and hit the plastic instead. Considering he is sporting a lovely bruise on the side of his face from running away from a diaper change yesterday plus he still remembers the staples in his head, well, you'd think he'd learn to just let us change the flipping diaper already!

Once I managed to get out of there, I headed over to Curves for my workout. I was able to drop off some of our Bright Minds materials at the local copy shop to have the bindings cut off so that's one thing to cross off my list. I didn't get a full workout in but got about 2/3 done so I felt better.
So this is what a normal schoolday looks like in our house. And a typical conversation overheard today was "Mom, it's okay for Nico to play this game. It's not violent or anything. The bombs come down and bounce off you and then make these really pretty explosions in the sky when they hit the airplanes!" Um, apparently I need to go over the definition of "violent" with Matthew again.
Then the fun part of every day we have KSW, finding the uniforms. I really can't understand but apparently when I say "Remember to put all your uniform stuff in the bag and zip it up" what really comes out of my mouth is "dump that stuff wherever, if you could maybe throw it in the general direction of the bag but whatever you do, please don't zip it up and keep it contained". *sigh* This past Saturday I had told all the boys to make sure their stuff got in the hamper so I could wash it all for the Grand Master's seminar today. I found after washing it this morning that I was missing a belt. I asked after it and was told that it was in the bag. Of course, when I tell the boys at 4:20p to get in uniform we discover the belt is not in the bag. I wanted to leave by 4:30p to make sure that we got there early out of respect but instead we spent almost 30min tearing apart the house and truck trying to find it. No luck. Great, now we are showing up late AND Jonathan is out of uniform. Ugh! Thankfully we got there right on time and the visiting masters were understanding and he got to participate. Unfortunately, there is still no sign of the belt and I'm now beginning to wonder if maybe he didn't leave it at the grocery store or something on Saturday. Oh, well, at least they all had a great time at the seminar. I'm guessing it was a much more enjoyable time than I had. I got to do grocery shopping with Nico and then listen to him scream at me to "Go get my brothers RIGHT NOW!" When that didn't work, he told me "I NEVER going to have my brothers home ever again!" Gotta love toddlers. Why did they want me to get him speaking again?

Once we picked them up he was in a better mood, that is until we got home and I told him it was bath time, not play tv time (ps2 time in Nicoese). Then we had another round of temper tantrums and then another chase through the house because he was poopy yet again. Finally we got him in the shower and I finished folding laundry.
I got 6 loads done today and there is another 2 loads waiting to be folded plus some hanging stuff that needs to go through the dryer for a freshening up. And just when I thought I had finally gotten the kids down to bed so I could watch the last half of 24 in peace, Nico came out and screamed at me that the child who had taken two bites of dinner before declaring he was full and putting his dish in the sink was now starving and needed to eat tons of food. Ugh! And of course, all eating must be done while sitting directly in front of mommy who is trying to watch a little tv. Seriously, what is up with that? I watch 1hr of live tv a week and he can't even let me have that.

I think tomorrow when he wants to play on the ps2, I'm going to stand in front of the tv and see how he likes it.