Red flagged on immunizations

You would think that with all the shots my kids get, all the med units who check and recheck their yellow cards, all the schools we submit vaccination records for, that they'd all have far more shots on record than any child ever needs and all plenty within the right time frame.

Prince William County disagreed. According to their regulations, two shots - DTaP and Polio - have to be given on or after the 4th birthday. Jonathon's 4th dose in July 2005 before we left to Togo didn't cut it. A month before his birthday. Seriously. And it got flagged now. I got a happy little note saying if he didn't get the boosters (again) then he'd be prevented from attending school after May 1st. Seriously.

Jump to yesterday, I pulled him from school early to go to the Kaiser Perm building, called in on time, waited for 45 minutes in the room while the doc had an emergency elsewhere, waited more after I explained what PW County wanted and she was baffled, doc checked the ages DTaP is given (before 6 years or after 11 years, not helpful for an 8yo), decided to give the Polio and a plain Tetanus, neither of which he needed but because a piece of paper said so.

Ah well, it's good to have insurance and it's good that the process was painless. Just a little annoying that PW county school policies trump common sense, you know?

The wonders of the modern age

Cell phones, hybrid cars, solar panels, central heat. Glorious central heat. It is ours once again.

We highly recommend Universal Appliances down here in Woodbridge for all your heating/a-c needs. Yes, it took 3 weeks from the time the heat pump went out to it being repaired, that was thanks to the insurance people "forgetting" us, but yesterday the technicians arrived in the early afternoon with our new heat pump and spent until 11 p.m. installing it. They were back here at noon today and spent another 3 1/2 hours completing the installation.

Two Pakistani guys who noted our Indian art, they left after removing all the old parts and a lengthy discussion on good Indian food options in the area and an offer of Pakistani biryani made by the head guy's wife.

And now my hands and feet are warm, with no socks and no blanket wrapped around. Bliss.

Good grades = Modern Warfare 2

Am I the only one that doesn't see that as positive reinforcement??

I know Ian wanted the game and it managed to arrive through Goozex the day after 3rdQ report cards, and somehow it ended up as Report Card Reward. OK.
In other news, Rebecca finished her caking class tonight. She'll take a break before the next class (she could start next Tuesday, but these classes really wipe her out on school nights), but we have the $10 off incentive and the fact that she owns all the basic supplies now. Hopefully a class will be offered in June or July.
Her final project:

Here's my effort at a food creation, not quite as lovely as her cake:

I wanted quesadillas, so there they are. And they were delicious.
We are enjoying the fresh vegetables we get in season here, and I thoroughly enjoy going to the farmer's market each week so this year we're attempting to grow some of our own. The carrots are going to be a pain to separate out. The beans and cucumbers are threatening to take over. Pushy little veggies.

But really today was all about the 3rd grade trip to the zoo. I tagged along as a chaperone, there were so many of us some only had 2 kids to mind... their own and one other. Last time to the Natural History museum I had Jonathon and two boys, this time I had Jonathon and 3 girls.






I think we did pretty well with only 2 hours at the zoo, it helped the middle section of the zoo was closed for renovation so the park is split into two distinct sections. We didn't see the pandas or anything around there, a bummer but what can you do. Instead, Jonathon took photos of just about every tank in the invertebrate building.
Now my whole self has said that I need to rest, which is why I'm finishing up my tea and going to crawl into my bed with tonight's episode of "Glee."

Running Non-Stop, Trying to Catch Up

From Friday night to Sunday night, it was definitely a packed weekend.

On Friday night after we planted Jonathon's new blue spruce, a gift from his teacher for Earth Day, a tree he named Bob...



Katherine had a bunch of friends over to watch "Zombieland" on the projector in the garage. I have no idea how much "watching" was actually done since I ducked out to watch "Princess and the Frog" at the boys' school with them and left Ian to man the passel of teens. I should say I felt sorry for him (but I didn't, not really). The thing with letting Katherine do things like this is that they rarely go as planned, and she gets in this weird mood where none of the house rules are followed and in general makes decisions that make no sense. If it isn't obvious, we're not really fans of letting her have an abundance of fun of her own choosing.

In order to avoid doing her homework, Rebecca practiced making frosting roses. She did get around to her homework eventually and stayed up until midnight working on it (our house rule is weekend homework gets done on Friday night... it avoids the nagging sensation all weekend of having to do it, and avoids the Sunday night frantic...ness).

Saturday morning we drove the 45 minutes to Battlefield HS for the county wide art show. Dozens of ES, MS and HS had picks of their student work up to show off.

It was so much fun to see the wide variety of art. Some of those kids, in every grade, are quite talented.

Though the kids wanted to eat in the HS cafeteria for lunch, we dropped into Best Buy for Katherine's new alarm clock and over to Hard Times for food instead. The kids played BuzzQuiz and I learned I don't like their Texas chili. Stick with what I know... Cincy 3-Way. Since we were still a ways from home, we checked out the roller rink... packed on a Saturday afternoon with birthday parties or something... tried to find an ice rink... remember ours caved in with that last big snow and was a complete loss, but we couldn't find the Manassas rink anyway... and opted for 36 holes of fun (chilly) mini-golf. Ian played along for the first 18, but since the weather was gloomy the place wasn't busy and only $1.50/kid for the second round of 18, we let them at it.

They all played pretty bad. They didn't take Ian's score into account when ranking, but that's the norm in any game played with him. He still doesn't realize he's playing with some little kids and he tends to crush them. When I play, say, Scrabble, I'll play words everyone knows even if there's a 30-point Qi waiting. Consider it playing with a handicap, but I think it's only fair when competing with an 8 year old. Ian doesn't see things that way, he makes sure he wins every game because games are for winning. Yeah, the kids prefer playing with me or they do what they did on Saturday... toss his score out. Heh.
We got home with an hour for Katherine and I to prep ourselves for an evening out with my mom. Katherine did not appreciate being told to dress up because the evening was a surprise and she didn't know what was up. I asked for a dress, she countered with her suit, and that was that. She had no idea we were going to pick up grandma then go to my alma mater, Marymount University, for their annual alumni showing of the "Portfolio in Motion," the fashion design majors runway show.

Marymount's fashion school is small but well known in our area. The students have opportunities to travel and meet world famous designers. They are regularly finalists in various competitions, and they participate in programs like USAID's Macedonia Competitiveness Project.

Various scholarships and awards are given out, like the designer with the best men's line. Notice her outfit matches theirs.

Here's Katherine at the runway at the end of the program. She enjoys drawing and configuring new outfits for her sketches, so we're looking for positive outlets for her creativity. So along with the recent trip downtown to participate in the Anime workshop at the Sackler, we're always on the lookout for instructional programs. Unfortunately we missed the recent Japanese fashion program at the Textile Museum. There's so much going on everywhere it takes dedication to keep it all on the calendar:

Sunday started gloomy and yucky again. The farmer's market was slim, church was OK, lunch at home was decent though the sweet potatoes needed to be nuked because it would have taken another couple hours in the crockpot. It was just one of those mornings. But rather than have a full day of that, we piled the annoyed children in the car for another longish drive, this time half hour to the Spotsylvania Town Center. Part of it are brand new and empty. The movie theater and bowling alley... not open. We didn't go across the way to Funland with its indoor play park and outdoor go karts. One day we'll make a day of it over there, but Sunday we went to the mall.

Our family was split... Dippin' Dots vs. Starbucks.

For future reference, the lemon-lime sorbet is more lemon-lime ice cream, which doesn't work nearly as well.
Our day wasn't over yet, oh no it wasn't! We returned to the highway to get Katherine to youth choir practice only to hear 5 minutes into the drive that it was canceled due to the high school retreat this weekend (the same 5 minutes in that Jonathon decided he was going to explode it he didn't get to a bathroom). Hmph. We could have stayed (and at least have gotten J relieved). That was when Rebecca reminded us she had a birthday gift card and a 15% coupon for Kohl's that were burning a hole in her wallet. She spent it, and we spent more because Kohl's is awesome and I finally have a bag that's all mine and relatively grown-up looking. It makes me smile when I look at it with it's bright cheery color. There was a bag design I liked better but it only came in teal. Teal? No teal.

The girls each got new fun swimsuits for the beach. I was thrilled to see the suit options this year. Long tops, boy shorts, in abundance even with great colors and reasonable straps! Some were cut far too low in front for my girls, Becca is only 5' 2" so her torso is pretty short, still they each got one that worked nicely for them. Becca will get a new suit for Frogs too, but it's nice to have one to wear to the lake beach that's cute and isn't for racing.
We stopped into CiCi's pizza for dinner before realizing it's a buffet, which Ian actively dislikes. The kids and I enjoyed our food before heading home and calling it a night. The boys were due for showers and bed, Becca had a bit of leftover homework, Ian and I were wiped out.
Now it's off to get all the errands done we didn't do over the weekend. Groceries, we have no cat food or milk or bagels. Laundry. Again. After school Jonathon needs to get a vaccination or they'll kick him out of school at the end of the week. Tomorrow I'm supposed to be off with J and his class to the National Zoo, so let's hope the weather clears up. And somewhere in here I really need to get my geography and assignments completed, and study and sign up for the Praxis.
I seriously don't know how working moms get it all done.
Oh here's a parting shot for John and Scott.... you can thank Ian.

They look nicer than the ones we made a couple years ago, but I still think ours tasted better.

So, nyah.

Alarm Clock *%#$*!

In an effort to get Katherine more efficient and responsible, we've enforced the use of the alarm clock. Her alarm goes off, she climbs down from the loft to turn it off and thereby has control of managing her morning.

Granted this only began a couple weeks ago but it's been going well. For too long, say, since she's started school, I've woken her up in the mornings. That has led to an uncomfortable dependence, one that led her to need me to come in several times in a morning, like a living snooze button, and one that led her to blame me if she woke up late, didn't have enough time to primp, never makes it for breakfast, missed the bus, etc. etc. It was All My Fault, because in my position as "living alarm clock" if she didn't get up it wasn't her fault. And what makes this arrangement more uncomfortable is that she doesn't wake up happy. When I functioned as "living snooze button" she became crankier and crankier each time I came in to say Wake Up and gave her the time. We were all cranky pretty much every morning.

Wow, writing all that out really puts me in the light of "living alarm clock doormat," doesn't it?

Now, some of you are saying "What is up with that? My kid has been waking himself/herself up with an alarm clock since they learned to tell time." Well, consider this another personal failure as a parent. I still make their lunches and until the alarm clock thing I would gather up her school books, flute, lunch box and put it all by the front door for her. Yeah, I created this dependency.

I said it was going well. Yesterday I noticed her alarm clock was on low battery so I replaced them and... still low battery blinking and I couldn't get the light on, change the time, nothing. Time for a new alarm clock, this one is about 4-5 years old which shouldn't mean anything but for whatever reason it's dead. I asked Ian if she could use his just for today but he said he needed it for work. Fine, I figured one morning of getting her up again would be OK.

Today dawned and at 7 a.m. I woke her up, she spoke to me, I moved on. I woke Rebecca then went off to make lunches. That was when I realized Ian's alarm never rang, he'd forgotten to set it for himself and my cell phone alarm was the only one that went off. So... that irritated me. Becca gets herself together, no problem. All it takes is a tap on her door or turning on her light and she gets up easily and relatively cheerful.

Becca had breakfast and was waiting for Katherine to come down when the bus went by. Becca missed the bus... Katherine was still in bed. When I went to get her and tried hard not to yell, guess who's fault it was that the "human snooze button" hadn't functioned as she expected? How was she supposed to wake up "on her own," huh??? Didn't I know that she has to be repeatedly woken? Didn't I know that waking her once at 7 didn't cut it??

Becca was anxious, Katherine was cranky, I was irritated. I took them to school and they were tardy. This is why I gave up that role and today reminded me in no uncertain terms that she's getting a new alarm clock ASAP because I'm tired of being blamed for her inability to manage her morning routine.

Double Digits for the Big Guy

Turning 10 is a big deal no matter who or where you are. This year it's Nicholas's turn and his day was a mix. He was bummed it was on a Tuesday. It was a school day, Ian had work, the girls both had evening activities. He didn't get to open his gifts or have cake until 9 p.m.
But daddy came home early from work, he got great gifts...

...his cake was a "homemade" ice cream cake...

...and he shared mini cupcakes with his classmates and faculty at lunchtime.

I spent some time with him at lunch and I regret not moving him to another class when I had the chance early on. Yet again, I left it to "it'll get better" and "he needs to learn how to deal with some unpleasant situations too." But no one should have to deal with an unpleasant classroom atmosphere for a whole school year, and I won't let that happen next year. There are 4 or 5 girls in the class of 24 kids, and Nicholas sits with 3 of them at lunch time. The boys don't seem to like him, and honestly he doesn't like any of them either. He has friends, they're just in other classrooms. His favorite day of the week is Wednesday. Right now it's the day he does weather on the morning announcements, Signet until just before dismissal, then his after school Science Club. April Wednesdays are great.
Once again Nicholas is trying to give up his stuffed dogs. Remember this photo?

They are back in a shoebox under my bed. He carried them around all day on Monday, knowing it was the end, his last day of being 9. Tuesday morning they were popped into a box. Tuesday evening he got out of bed and asked if he could have them back. Successfully deterred for an evening we'll see what happens tonight. If he asks for them again then we'll attempt a strict enforcement of the bed-only rule. He's 10, I shouldn't be tripping over his stuffed animals in the dining room, the entry way or anywhere really, right?
His new clothes and sheets are being washed, his alarm clock is set, there's a new movie to watch with his siblings ("The Indian in the Cupboard") and he tried to ride his skateboard to school this morning. It's raining so when he fell he was soggy, but he didn't care.
He's happy. Can't ask for more than that.

Glee!

We've been back in the States for nearly a year now. How is that even possible?? Along with sitting outside while the kids play or have friends over, walking to the boys' school, driving myself around, planting a garden, being near family and the plethora of other cool stuff we can do (my version of cool and yours may differ slightly), we like watching TV. A habit we got into overseas was our willingness to fund Amazon.com's take over of the world by buying seasons of all the shows we enjoy watching. We're still doing that, partially because we have much to catch up on and partially because we don't like the idea of waiting a week for a new episode. The approaching end of "Lost" is the exception though as we yearn to drag this out as long as possible, and the intervening week allows us to ponder what we've learned... or haven't learned. We'll buy the season on DVD when it's available anyway as it's a show we'll watch over again when we go back overseas. The girls started with Season 1 a few months back so they have a while yet.

But while we're in Virginia, we're using Netflix. We *heart* Netflix. Thanks to Netflix we've caught the first season "Fringe" and the entire run of "Jericho." We're now waiting to begin "Flashforward." And rather than wait at all, Ian bought "Glee" for Valentine's Day and we're both hooked.

So what we're watching... "Amazing Race" of course. Ian likes "Caprica" but I can take or leave it. I mentioned "Lost" already. We catch the new "Mythbusters" when they're on. "Chuck" has kept our interest. "Glee" is new to our list along with "Fringe" and "V." The kids like "Merlin."

But you know what, we still miss "Battlestar Galactica."

So what are we missing that we really shouldn't?

When time disappears it's because we're having fun.

That's what I keep telling myself!

I actually need to go back through my iCal and FB entries to figure out what the heck we've been doing to make the past couple weeks disappear. Well, we saw "How to Train Your Dragon," Katherine participated in Living Stations, there was a trip downtown (reminder: never ever go downtown when the Cherry Blossom Festival is going on... madness, I tell you, madness. OK not madness but), our Easter with our egg hunt, Rebecca started her caking class, and I still need to show you the photos from the HSM show, but mostly it's been a lot of homework on my end and cleaning house. FlyLady is now back on my schedule.

First things first though, Jonathon has been released from Speech Therapy! Yay! He has successfully added the "r" sound to the end of his words enough that now it's simply practice and catching him when he misses it. We can do that. For as much influence as we parents have, our day-to-day interactions and nit-picking can sometimes be less helpful. We've all had that infuriating thought "Why are my kids so much better behaved when someone else is in charge?" Well, it applies to other areas too. When Rebecca was little, she didn't like to read. Reading was hard, therefore it was no fun and she never read for pleasure to herself. By the time we came to Arlington Science Focus in 2005, she was half way through 1st grade and reading at a beginning K level. Her teacher (Ms. Riverson, awesome teacher) picked up on it right away and within a couple weeks we had a meeting to discuss Rebecca getting one-on-one reading help several times a week before school. I felt such a sense of relief, because no matter how hard I'd tried to get Rebecca reading on her own, she refused. Having a reading tutor made the difference. Within a couple months, Becca was more sure of herself and was decoding better, and was learning to enjoy reading for the sake of reading. By the end of the school year she was at grade level.
A year later when we were posted to Togo, I wrote an e-mail to both Ms. Riverson and the tutor thanking them for making such a difference in Rebecca's life. She was finally reading just above grade level and though she wasn't reading a ton by herself (that came a few years later with, of all books, Twilight) she enjoyed herself when she did. With that, she's excelling in all her classes. Reading is still a challenge to her, I can hear it when she reads aloud, but she learned that it was a challenge worth taking.
To the same end, Jonathon was pegged right off by his teacher this year for his speech troubles, notably the lack of the ending "r" sounds. I knew he had troubles, he knew he had issues, but at AISC there was no speech therapy option at the school or outside the school. Actually, I never checked outside the school, because I didn't think having him trained to speak correctly could be achieved by a South Indian speaking English. I still hold to that. It can be an adorable accent, as we heard when a friend's daughter gave a little speech in her Indian preschool class, but it's not what I wanted for specifically fixing an American speech problem. Jonathon started pull-outs with Ms. Ware in October, and now he's worked on it well enough he's back in class full-time. Phew. Add to that he's been recommended for Signet next year. It's all good.
What have we been up to? Spring Break went so swimmingly we were all sad to see it go. Except for the heat pump dying, nothing else has gone amiss. Now that I've said that.... perhaps I should toss some salt over a shoulder and avoid black cats crossing my path. Which is hard when you have 2 black cats in the house.
We saw "How to Train Your Dragon" which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. The soundtrack rocked (check it out, someone put the whole thing track by track on youtube... try it here.), the story was sweet, and it wasn't in 3D. Thank goodness, because we're already tired of 3D. Never managed to see "Alice in Wonderland" I guess that'll wait until it comes out on Netflix. But "Dragon" was a touching story and one well worth seeing again.
The second half of Spring Break included the Easter Triduum and Katherine had several rehearsals and then the performance of the Living Stations at church on Good Friday. The teens at church perform each of the Stations while a narrator tells what's going on and the youth choir sings. It was a beautiful program and I look forward to my girls participating again next year.
Saturday was simply gorgeous, as it should have been being cherry blossom time. Our tree burst into a bright pink poof...

... which is now raining down upon us as thick as a snowstorm, but I'll take a carpet of pink over 2 feet of snow any day. We made our way downtown with one of Katherine's friends tagging along so the two girls could go to an Anime workshop at the Sackler Gallery.
We left the girls for the class and walked the rest of the kids to the Hirshhorn where I handed Jonathon the camera.


Modern art isn't our usual fare so it was interesting to see what the kids thought the pieces were supposed to be.
I took some photos too, though I think Jonathon's turned out better.

It was fun and I do wish we'd gone to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms, but the crowds were thick and no one was seriously into it but me. After the disappointment at the cherry blossom Curbside Cupcake truck, it's really no surprise we were ready to depart. DC really is best experienced anytime outside the Cherry Blossom through Labor Day season when it's cooler and freed from tourist stampedes. Rebecca said she really didn't like tourists, even when she was one. I concur.
Easter morning and off to church we went.

Those are my babies. Please don't tell me how big they look.
We had lunch at my parents' house, a feast of ham with all the trimmings...

...and an egg hunt.

Afterwards the kids were stuffed:

Periodically we try to get photos of the kids with the grandparents, so here is this year's:

Did I say we were stuffed? There's always room for cake. Becca made ours this year.

Sufficiently satiated, we returned home to have our own egg hunt. Each year we've done it by equal numbers of color-coded eggs. If they see an egg not of their color they leave it. What inevitably happens is Ian and I hide them willy nilly and then a couple are never seen again. What also inevitably happens is they'll find their eggs and then ask for another hunt. And another. And another. This year we decided to drag the whole thing out by cyphering their clues. Each kid had 10 eggs to find, each egg had a clue. But before they could start they had to figure out what their cypher even meant.
For Jonathon we did a substitution cypher. 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, etc. For Nicholas, a Caesar shift. A=D, B=E, C=F, etc. For Rebecca, a random cypher figured out by frequency. Katherine started with a substitution cypher for the first five clues. A=52, B=50, C=48, etc. For the next five she also had a random cypher figured out by frequency.
To start them all off, they each got a clue that had the same message but in their own cypher, and if they worked together they had an easier time to figure out what it said. Once they figured out the message they could then work on figuring out their own pattern. It took Rebecca the longest as hers was the hardest to start.
Once they could figure the words, then they had to figure the clues. The boys' were probably too easy, like "mail time" lead them to the mailbox, while the girls got "life is a highway" to bring them outside to the driveway or the car. Or "rubber ducky you're the one" to go to the bathtub. Or "I prefer them mismatched" led to the sock basket.

So I mentioned Becca made the Easter cake. She's really into caking. She likes watching the cake shows on TV (Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Gee I Wish Everyone Were Made of Cake...) so we signed her up for Cake Decorating 101 at our Joann's craft store. It's 4 classes, a couple hours each. Class #1 was basically all about the supplies she needs. For a $25 class fee I think we've spent nearly $100 on supplies. For class #2 she had to bring in a baked cake already frosted. They practiced some decorating methods and here is her first completed assignment:

Next week she's to bring in cupcakes and they'll learn how to make flowers with stiff frosting. She's excited but she's also a touch overwhelmed. None of us had any clue all that cake decorating involved. All I can say is thank goodness for box cake mixes. They may not be the best tasting, but they are quick and easy to offset all the time she spends working on the frosting and decorating.
I'll end this post with a cute photo Katherine took of Jonathon. They were outside with the bubble machine.