Back in the Saddle Again...

School has started.  We missed the first day because we were in TN!! visiting my parents.  That will be another post.  Wish we were still there.

Anyhow!  The kids first day of school was on August 23, a Thursday.  It was 'early out' the whole three days of school that week (two for us because we missed the first one).  

The month leading up to school starting I was a wreck!  Every time I thought of BoyTwo being in school again and I would have serious anxiety.  I would start having trouble breathing, my heart would race, I would panic.  Odd, I thought, that I am so stressed out about this.

Then, while I was in TN, I decided to clear out a bunch of text messages I had saved that I had sent to Huz.  They were all about BoyTwo.  Shocking, I know:)  As I started reading them I vaguely remembered thinking that it would be a great way to look back at all the progress he had made during the school year.  

hahahahhahahahahahahahha.

not.

There were over 300 texts about his bad behavior.  

THREE HUNDRED!!!

People.  There aren't even 300 days of school in a year!!!  These weren't texts that talked about sassing his teacher or refusing to do his work, because let's be honest, that was an every day occurrence and not worthy of a text message.  Nosirreeeee, each of these texts were about more serious offenses.  i.e. chair throwing, punching, kicking in the groin, choking, stabbing with pencils and screwdrivers, stealing, etc.

As I read through these I started having trouble breathing, my heart was racing, I felt panicked.  Hmmm.....  Could this be WHY I was dreading the start of school?!

I had been feeling that I should only send BoyTwo for the morning hours of school.  I knew that he did the very best when he was in his classroom in a very controlled environment.  I knew that every. single. day. at lunch there was a problem.  Most afternoons were less than stellar.  It seemed obvious to me, but I was getting a little push back from various sources which made me question my gut.

Then, I knew.  I knew that the real reason I had kept those texts, which I hadn't known clear back when I was saving them, was to remind myself that I knew what was best for BoyTwo.  I let everyone know that BoyTwo would be coming to school in from start time until lunchtime.  Each day I meet him as his class comes down the hall for lunch.  The turn left into the lunchroom and we turn right and get into the car and drive home.  He eats lunch with me, we read together and he takes a nap.

And so here we are, day four of school (we also missed Tuesday of this week to take a 'Family Day' where we went to see a temple that has been built near us and to have lunch together) and I'm confident that this is the best decision for us right now.

School for the others?  I like all of the kids' teachers.  I am doing a lot of 'ironing things out' with BoyOne's curriculum, but this is to be expected.  The kids are happy.  Yay!!  I have met with the girls' who have IEPs and 504s teachers and the meetings went well.  I really need to post about SPD sometime.  It's one of those invisible disabilities that is difficult for others to understand.  It's been a journey.  Another time.  

Here's a real quick 'a day in the life' story for you.

Third day of school, Monday, August 27.

Before school, 8-8:15a.m.:

BoyTwo has a bloody nose.

Four grabs the hot curling iron with her bare hand.

Riley, the dog we just inherited from Huz's parents over the weekend, runs away.  grrrr.  

Three throws up all over herself at the breakfast table because she is so stressed about having to read.

How was your day? 

f.y.i.

the brakes went out on the suburban today

dead serious.

Not the Best Day Ever

So it's getting to be time for the kids to go back to school.  As in they're starting to drive each other bonkers which in turn is making me craaaaazy.

Friday evening, One and Two both had birthday parties to go to down by our old house.  Sweeeeeeet, thought I.  I planned to make a couple returns, buy socks and underwear for the kids, get the very last of the school supplies (paper towels, clorox wipes and ziploc baggies), eat some ice cream or a snow cone, or hey, possibly both, I deserved it (see above paragraph), and maybe take a nap while I waited for the parties to end.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha.

After not being able to find One's party, we finally did and were able to then drop off Two, after which I headed towards the stores.  I was pretty hungry at this point and really wanted a CafeRio salad.  This may not seem like a big deal, but when you live in the middle of the mountains, you hardly ever get to eat out and so it is a big deal, especially if you know it will be months before you get out again.  I decided against CafeRio in favor of chicfila, or however you spell it, for two reasons: 1) it would be cheaper, and 2) they have ice cream so I could get a head start on my dessert(s) for the evening.

Let me back up a second.  I am driving Huz's car.  It has 196,000 miles on it and you cannot use the air conditioning because the car will overheat.  Bearing this in mind, I always pay extra attention to the temperature gauge as a year ago, the radiator hose blew up while I was driving his car (without the air conditioning) and scared the crud out of me, not to mention cost a lot of money.  Huz drives this car to and from work every day.  He goes to lunch every day and will often sit in a drive thru line in this car (idling) without incident.

K.  Back to the story.  I wait in line about 5 minutes and place my order.  

'Oh!  You know what?  We just. ran. out. of . ice cream!  I'm so sorry about that!'

said the little voice through the microphone.

Really?!  Who runs out of ice cream on a Friday night at 7?!  Sigh.

And if that wasn't a foreshadowing of what was about to become, I don't know what was.

me: 'ok fine, cancel the ice cream, no problem' I lied through my teeth because you see, ice cream is really important.

And then she gave me my total and I pulled forward and heard this HUGE

pop!!!!

and immediately steam/smoke starts billowing out the hood of the car.  I killed the engine instantly, grabbed my phone and called Huz and checked the temp gauge all at the same time (okay, I think I actually checked the temp gauge right before I killed the engine) and jumped out of my car.  I walked to the guy behind me and asked him if he'd please push my car forward for me, which he so kindly did.

At the window the chicfila dude noticed the billowing smoke/steam and he and another worker came and pushed me the rest of the way out of the drive thru (I did get my food minus the ice cream at least) and into a stall.

And then I sat there for almost an hour while the car continued to steam/smoke and cool down.  All the while everyone and their dog is at or near chicfila because of the recent controversy surrounding said establishment.  So yes, dear friends, I had quite the audience.  Be proud.  I didn't even swear.  I finally started the engine up again and turned the heat on full blast.  Temp gauge read normal so I made my way to the store where I did my purchase of undies and socks, along with some antifreeze.  Fortunately I had already hit Sam's where I bought the last of the school supplies.  I also made my returns, literally, as the stores were closing.  (Pretty sure that's every retail employees dream ending to a day.  Some crazy/sweaty lady racing into the store as you are trying to put the bars down so that nobody else will come in but she does anyhow and breathlessly and desperately begs you to allow her to make this return even though it's time to go and this return will hurt your sales for the day.  -side note: it was a BIG return as I found a better deal elsewhere)  Then I headed back to the car hoping/praying that it would be able to get me home.

Except when I got out to the parking lot I realized I didn't have my key so I had to go back into the store and beat on the door until they let me in (a second time much to their dismay I'm sure) to search for the key that I had brainlessly left on the check out counter.  

So then I go out to the parking lot, again, and get into the car and guess what?!  It has officially stopped steaming and the temp gauge is back to normal and so I start to drive.  Approximately 1/2 mile down the road, the gauge snaps over all the way to the right (hint: that's really bad.).  It didn't even rapidly climb, it just jumped there and I knew I was in trouble.  But I was in the middle of a really busy intersection (6 lanes of traffic) and the light was green and I was now a few minutes late to pick up Two and I still hadn't had my ice cream so I just kept driving.

I make it to my dear friend's house and her husband helped me put antifreeze into the car.  Huz was on his way to meet me at the mechanics where we would drop off the car and he would drive us home.  My friend, Kristen (hey there Kristen!) drove me to pick up One and her friend, whom we also gave a ride to.  As we're filling the car with antifreeze another kind neighbor comes over to see if we need help and so we start trying to find where the leak is coming from because the lid was still on and the hose is still in tact.  And then we see that the coupler (this is the plastic-ish part that attaches the hose to the thingy which may be the radiator??) has broken right off, so I'm not going anywhere.

I call Huz to update him while my neighbor gets his truck out to tow me.

I hug Kristen and am so glad that I have such great friends and the girls and I get into the car and start for the mechanic.  The girls are pretty hyped up about being towed, this is a first for them.  Luckily it's nighttime so there were hardly any cars around when the rope we were using to tow me with snapped and I was stuck in the middle of the road.

Seriously???

Kristen's husband retied the rope and we continued on to the mechanic where Huz was waiting.  Because it was now after 11 several of the kids were 'done' as in weepy.  Huz and I are pretty awesome at being optimistic and even laugh about the bad luck I seem to always have.  Always.  So when I get into the suburban we start to joke about it.  I tell him that I haven't even had ice cream.  He offers to buy me ice cream at the DQ we're about to pass.

Except they just closed.  So, no ice cream.  But that's okay, we're still laughing about the whole night when One yelps from the back seat, 

"my nose is bleeding really really bad!"

And I hand her a wad of napkins.

30 seconds later

"i need more napkins it's soaked through already!"

and I hand her the last inch of the napkins we have.  Blood is dripping everywhere so Huz pulls over and we run into a gas station bathroom.  It takes us about 10 minutes to get it to stop bleeding and then clean her up.  We hit the road again.  By now Huz and I are pretty much 'done' too, minus the weepy.

Finally, at 11:45 we're almost home when out of nowhere a dragon swoops down from the sky and carries our suburban away!

Okay, that last part about the dragon didn't really happen, but would you really have been surprised if it had?! 

Getting Ready for School

Last week we decided to take the kids to buy their school supplies.  This was a nightmare (for the parents) and pure bliss (for the kids).  I mean, really, who knew it would take 20 minutes to pick out a pencil box???  And backpacks?  Holy Moses.  We did that one a few weeks ago but it took an hour.  The kids alternate years for getting new backpacks.  This year is the girls' year.  Last year was really, but with so many expenses associated with bringing the boys home, we just had them switch around instead.  It worked out great because the backpacks were still in pretty good condition and lasted almost the whole school year.

Today we've been going through all of our clothes.  Girls stuff gets a little complicated because the youngest three are soooo close in size that we have to do this every few months.  On the bright side we hardly ever have to buy anything and we just move the clothes from one drawer to the next.  The boys are a different story.  BoyOne is quite a bit older than his brother and therefore quite a bit bigger.  He's growing out of his clothing so quickly though that everything is in really good shape, so we are just stashing it in the closet for a few years.  Hopefully styles don't change too much.  (it's worked for the girls.  Four is starting kindergarten this year and has some clothing that One wore in kindergarten.  One starts 6th grade this year!!)

I'm happy to report that BoyOne is officially out of size 12 clothes and BoyTwo is officially out of size 5.  They have both grown so much!  BoyTwo is still suuuuuper scrawny and I'm thinking about having him drink straight cream until he can pack on some pounds.  haha

BoyTwo got a lunch box this year.  I didn't really want to buy him one because 1)I don't think he'll be staying at school for lunch, and 2)if he does happen to stay for lunch, I hate making home lunch.  There's just too much to do in the mornings.  If the girls have home lunch, they make their own.  BoyTwo is not capable of making his own lunch so it would just be easier to have the school take care of it.  Anyhow, I ended up letting him pick one out because every once in awhile I like to be the nice parent.  On the way home from the store he said to me, 'Mom, you know?  I never had a lunch box before.  This my first time!  Thanks!'  It made me happy to see him happy.  

It's funny, when we brought them home, there were a lot of things they had never had or seen or done.  They owned absolutely nothing.  The clothes they left the orphanage in, including their underwear, were clothing that we brought for them.  We bought them stuff they needed and took them to do things they had never done (because it was fun for us to show them around and more importantly to spend time together as a family).  For the most part, they weren't especially grateful or pleased to have 'things' or to do 'things', which we knew would be the case, but it is always surprising to other people when they find this out.  Now, almost a year later they are learning to be grateful for things.  While we are not in it for the 'thanks', it is nice to know that they are learning to appreciate things and that they are grateful for us, just like we are grateful for them.