Hi, my name is Jill and I'm sleep deprived

I am not a morning person.

I have decided that the only sleep that really counts for me is what I get after 5:00 a.m.
My husband, on the other hand, is quite the morning person, he wakes up on his own around 5:00 a.m. and is actually awake!
This is a strange phenomenon to me, because my mom raised us to be night owls, she liked to stay up late, and let us stay up late too.
I remember one time in high school when on the first day of class one of the teachers had us fill out a "get to know you" questionnaire, then we went around the classroom, and everyone read their papers.
One of the questions was "What is your favorite TV show?"
Nearly everyone in the class said that M.A.S.H. was their favorite show (one of the local TV stations was airing it about 4 times a day at that time) but I answered "Late night with David Letterman"
The teacher looked at me in shock and said "YOU'RE UP THAT LATE???"

Honestly, it didn't seem that strange to me, at that time, Dave came on at midnight, and watching his show was what kept me awake long enough to do my homework.

Anyway.......

School started this week for Brielle and Aaron, (who I have decided are not morning people either) (pretty sure it's genetic) (from my side of the family, obviously)
The problem is that my alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. (and again at 7:10. 7:20, 7:30..........) and I wake them up again, and again and again.

It would probably be easier to wake them up if they weren't awake so late at night, however, my husband doesn't get home until nearly 7:00 p.m. and after we eat dinner, watch the current reality show on TV, make the kids do the homework that they didn't seem to remember they had several hours earlier, make lunches for the next day and wrestle Max into his pajamas, it's usually after 11.

Max will be starting kindergarten next week, and get this......................





I SIGNED HIM UP FOR MORNING KINDERGARTEN!!!!!




WHAT WAS I THINKING?????



I had very logical reasons for doing this (I won't go into detail, just be assured that I did) the problem is that he likes to sleep in until 10:00 or later.

School starts at 8:30.

I've had discussions with him about how he needs to go to bed earlier because it will be hard for him to wake up for school if he's up too late and he agrees with me until it's actually time to get the pajamas on.

He is the master of stalling.

So this week, we decided to have him go to bed a little bit earlier each night, to get him used to it before school starts. We had good intentions, but as it's turned out, he's actually ended up going to bed a little bit later each night.


This is going to be a long year.





p.s. I told Max that after taking them to school, I would come home and take a nap. He told me that I couldn't do that, because I would dream about missing him.

Just when I thought Halloween was over.......

Alternate title: "Costume surprise! "or "Surprise, I need a costume!"

Brielle's costume

A while ago, Brielle mentioned to me that the Drama teacher and the Science teacher were teaming up for their class and were going to have the students be in a play. They chose the subject of the solar system for the play, and Brielle was chosen to be Mars.

"I need a Mars costume." she told me hesitantly, "Just don't make it very big, I don't want to attract too much attention."

I got excited "COOL! I don't need to make it big, I can just make you a red unitard, and I can airbrush the geographical features of Mars all over it, then I can make you a special headband with the moons attached so that they rotate and then........"

"MOM! NO! I don't want anything like that! The drama teacher said that it didn't need to be anything elaborate, just something that we put a little bit of thought into. She said that we could just wear our regular clothes with some sort of SMALL costume, just so they could tell what planet we are. We're only going to be performing the play to our class, it's really not that big of a deal."

I was disappointed because really, costumes are my thing.

Brielle didn't say any more about the costume and I actually forgot about it until the other night when she said "The play is tomorrow, and I don't know what I'm going to wear, do you have any ideas?"

Naturally, she had asked me this on a night when I was too busy with my own work to help her, so I told her that she would need to figure it out on her own.

The next morning, I asked her if she found something to wear. She assured me that she had, then left for school.

When she came home that afternoon, I asked her what she came up with for her costume and how the play went.

"Well, I wore my red shirt and taped a bunch of blue milk caps all over it. When I got up to introduce myself, I said "I am Mars. I have ice caps." then the drama teacher looked down, covered her face with her hands and started shaking her head. Mr. Andrews just started laughing. They both laughed through the rest of my presentation, I don't think either one of them listened to anything else I said."

CJ's costume

A few weeks ago, CJ informed me that he needed to do a book report on a biography of someone. They were going to give oral reports, and needed to dress up as the person.

I asked him what kind of a costume he needed. He said that the book he read was about a rocket scientist.

"COOL!" I yelled "I can make you a really neat rocket costume! I can make it all white, and put a big pointy hat on your head, we can use a couple of empty oatmeal containers to make you some rocket boosters, then I can make some flames coming out of the back of them........."

CJ looked at me like I was crazy and said "No Mom, I won't wear that. We're supposed to dress like the person, not what they invented."

Seriously, these kids are really cramping my style.

"OK, then what kind of a costume do you want?"

CJ thought for a moment then said "What about a lab coat? That would make me look like a scientist."

I said "I can make you a lab coat. Can I at least make a great big sequined rocket on the back of it?"

"No Mom. I don't want a big sequined rocked on it."

"What about a small sequined rocket?"

"No rocket."

I told him that he was a party pooper.

I completely forgot about the costume until last night when he reminded me that he had his report today.

"No problem" I thought "I can whip up a simple lab coat pretty quick, I wouldn't even need to put a pocket on it, plus I was pretty sure that a while ago when we were cleaning out the storage room, I saw a big piece of white fabric in my 20 year emergency fabric supply that would be perfect for a lab coat.

I tried one more time to talk CJ into the sequined rocket, but he was really against it, so I went to get the white fabric.

I looked where I thought I saw it.

I looked in the logical places that I was sure I would have put it.

I looked in the illogical places that it might have been stashed.

I couldn't find the fabric.

I knew it wouldn't take me long to make the stupid lab coat once I had the fabric, only I couldn't find it anywhere. I was even beginning to wonder if I had really seen the fabric or if it was a figment of my imagination.

As I was looking, I ran across the Nativity costumes I had made for our Ward Christmas party quite a few years ago.

I had an idea!

I got the largest angel costume and held it up. Maybe, if I cut it straight down the front and put a collar on it, it could sort of resemble a lab coat! Sure, it would be a little snug on CJ, but hey, it's a costume!

As I was walking out of the storage room, I decided to look through one more box for the fabric. I got to the bottom of the box and was excited to find a large piece of white fabric! I cheered and was about to do the happy dance until I pulled the fabric out of the box only to discover that it was bridal satin.

So I tucked it under my arm and took it upstairs to give CJ the choice between wearing a too small converted angel costume, or a lovely lab coat made of bridal satin.

He didn't really seem to like either choice. I even offered to put some lace and pearls on the satin coat, but that just made him grouchy.

I decided to go put the two fabrics away in the storage room and look for another fabric that might work. Maybe I could use a different color of fabric.

Then, almost as if it was a miracle, I found the white fabric I had been looking for in the first place, it wasn't even in the storage room!

I brought the fabric upstairs and went ahead and made the lab coat. (It wasn't attractive, but it was functional)

CJ was working on his report on the computer in my sewing room, and when I was nearly finished with the coat I had him try it on to check the sleeve length He said it was perfect, then added "Now I just need a prop."

A prop?

great.

"What about a small rocket?" I asked, "you could make it out of a paper towel roll and make a cone on the end of it."

I could tell by the look on CJ's face that he liked the idea, but something was wrong.

"Do you want me to make you a rocket?" I finally asked.

He looked relieved and said "Yeah, that would be great if you could."

So even though it was getting late, when I finished the lab coat, I taped together some paper to make a rocket. It took me like 3 minutes. It was not pretty, but it did somewhat resemble a rocket, and CJ said it would work for the prop.

Then he thanked me for helping him with his costume.

I informed him that he would now be my personal servant for the rest of the week.

What do you think I should have him do for me first?

It's a school shopping miracle!

Last weekend, we experienced something that we have never had happen before.

Ever.

We took the kids shopping to buy new shoes for school. We blocked out several hours, because as we know from past shopping trips, we knew that we would have to visit multiple stores on different ends of the city until we would be able to find suitable shoes for the kids, and even then, we usually end up having to special order at least one pair because none of the local stores would have the size, style or color that we wanted.
In Friday's mail, we got at "20% off the entire purchase" coupon from our Famous Footwear, so we went there first.
When we got there, we discovered that they were having their "buy one pair get another pair at half price" sale.

SCORE!

But then, came the most incredible thing of all.
We found shoes for all four of the kids in this store!
They had the correct sizes!
They had the correct styles!
AND THEY WERE ALL IN STOCK AT THE SAME STORE!!!

AND THEY WERE ALL ON SALE!!!




It was like a school shopping miracle.

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Brielle and Aaron started at their new school yesterday. They were so excited about their first day that they were both awake and dressed before my alarm woke me up.
These are the same children who I needed to drag out of bed to go to school only a few short months ago.
I must say that this change has been quite refreshing :0)
We have switched to a school with a traditional schedule instead of the Year-round schedule that we had been on for the last 7 years.
This was the first time since then that we've had more than 3 weeks off for summer break. We had 8 weeks off for summer, and I think we all needed the down time from school.
The best part is that they both came home just as excited as they were when they left!

The only problem is that we're only two days into this school year and I'm already tired of making lunches.

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This morning, while Max was drinking a glass of milk, he had a few questions.
"Does white milk comes from white cows and chocolate milk comes from brown cows?"
"If we have chocolate milk and strawberry milk, can we have watermelon milk too?"

Then he pretends to hand me a glass and asks "What kind of milk is this?"
I take the imaginary glass of milk, examine it closely then say "I think it's invisible milk."
Max giggles and says "Oh, invisible with liberty? Like the pledge allegiance?"

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Warning, whining ahead.

My back hurts and I don't know why.
It could be because when I saw the picture that Jo posted of her granddaughter, I fell off of my chair due to the cuteness overload.
It could be that my posture while sitting at the computer has much to be desired, and my vertebrae are finally rebelling.
Or most likely, it could be that we need a new mattress. (pretty sure this is the problem)

I think that I need a more exciting excuse for my new state of hunchedoverness than a bad mattress.
Help me out here, what exciting, highly athletic, life endangering, daring adventure do you think caused my sore back.

Conferencing with the teachers

Yesterday was parent teacher conference.
We received good enough reports from the teachers, that we have decided not to send the children away to military school ;0)
Our last conference in the fall didn't go so well. You would think that out of three kids, at least one of them would have had a good report from their teacher.
Nope.
My favorite part of the last conference was when we sat down with a teacher and she said "I'm sure that after seeing the report card you are aware of several concerns that I have.

"Report card?? What report card??"

Apparently this child had neglected to give us the report card that had been sent home days earlier. When we saw it, we understood why :P
Also, last conference, we had several comments from the teachers like "The work that is turned in is usually 100 % correct, there just hasn't been much work turned in."

This conference was much better. Most of the work was turned in, and we actually saw the report cards before parent teacher conference.
Aaron said "I figured out, that if I just DO my work when I get it, instead of staring at the wall, it gets done a lot faster"
Brilliant.

The kids have been working much better, and have shown an improvement. All of them!

YAY!!

Now for the funny things their teachers had to say;

CJ's teacher "He's so quiet. I wish he would talk more and participate in class discussions"
CJ's response.....................silence...................
(To be fair, CJ is a very quiet kid and when he does decide to talk, he usually says something very profound.)

Brielle's teacher- "She's so quiet. I really wish she would talk a little more in class. We hardly get three words out of her all day."

Are you serious? Brielle? The "POWER TALKER"?
This is the child who begins talking as soon as she gets up in the morning and doesn't stop until she is asleep at night.
Brielle's response to this comment. "I save all the talking for home. At school, I'm just recharging".

Aaron's teacher had him read to us the comment she had written on his report card. It went something like "It would be great if you could use your calm nature to help you to focus better."
At the point where he read "calm nature" DH and I burst out laughing.
The teacher said "Isn't he calm at home?"
(Um ......NO!!)
I reply "You are the only person who has EVER used the word "calm" to describe Aaron."
DH says "He's pretty much the opposite of calm."
The teacher says "One of my children was like that. He was quite a challenge. A teacher of his once said to me "Aren't you glad he feels comfortable enough at home to act like that?"
(I then asked Aaron what we could do to make him feel less comfortable at home.)

What I want to know is how can my children be so different at home and at school?
I guess I should just be grateful that they choose to behave at places like school and church.

Letters to the drop off zone

Dear lady in the green mini van,
In the future, would you please make sure that all of your children have their back packs filled, coats on, notes signed, and hair combed BEFORE you leave for school? Please realize that there are about 20 cars behind you waiting to drop our kids off at school while we are ever so patiently waiting for you to take care of the items mentioned above.
Your cooperation in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Signed,
The mom waiting behind you.

Dear daughter of the lady in the green mini van,
Your hair looks fine. GET OUT OF THE CAR!!!
Signed,
Still waiting

Dear guy in the little blue sports car,
Did you not notice how your wheels were spinning on the icy street?
Did you not notice the slight hill leading down to the drop off zone?
Did you not realize that if the streets are icy, chances are the hill going down to the drop off zone might be icy also?
Are you aware that when you drive faster while turning into the drop off zone, that your chances of sliding increase?
Did you know that when you make a sharp turn in a speeding sports car on an icy hill, it will sometimes slide sideways, and if there is another car parked in the drop off zone, chances are the cute little sports car will run into it?
Do you think that maybe if you were not talking on your cell phone, you may have noticed the above mentioned conditions?
Do you now realize that driving a cute little (now dented) sports car on a snowy day is probably not a very good idea?

I hope you have insurance.

Signed,
Witness to an accident.

Dear lady in the white Explorer,
I realize that your cute little kindergartener probably would love to have you walk her to her classroom, but do you really think it's a good idea to park in the drop off zone, get out of your car, and walk her to the school? Do you realize the traffic back up you are causing?? Do you see all of the signs that say "No parking in the drop off zone, driver must stay with car"?
In the future, please park in the parking lot. This is what they built it for.
Signed,
Slightly annoyed mom.

Dear lady in the gray Suburban,
Are you serious?? Do you really think that you can turn left onto that busy street?? Can you see that none of the cars on the road are moving? Do you know why? It is because they are all lined up waiting to turn left into the same drop off zone that you are trying to exit. Do you realize that they aren't going anywhere until you move out of the way?

TURN RIGHT AND GO AROUND THE BLOCK!!!

Signed,
Yes, I do have all day to sit here and wait for you to turn =P

Dear Max,
I realize that Mommy said it was O.K. to bring the cow flashlight with you while we took the kids to school, however, at the time, I thought that the batteries were dead, and I had no idea that I would be listening to it moo all the way to school and back home. Please understand that Mr. Cow flashlight may be taking a vacation for a few days, and will be unavailable for your listening pleasure.
Signed,
Your loving Moom,........er..........I mean Mom

Dear husband,
Thank you so much for replacing the batteries in Max's cow flashlight.
Signed,
Your loving wife

Dear television weather man,
O.K. Enough already.
Seriously.
I admit the snow was kind of fun at first, you know, around Christmas time when all the pretty lights made it glitter.
I also realize that the ski resorts are very happy with all the snow, and also the skiers, however,
I don't ski.
I know, I know, we're in a drought...........blah, blah, blah.................we really need the water...............blah, blah, blah.............
I have a solution that will make everyone happy. If you could please arrange it so that the snow falls only in the mountains, and on the grass, not on the streets, parking lots, school drop off zones, and my driveway, it would be greatly appreciated.
Oh yea, and while you're at it, if you could do something about the freezing temperatures, I would appreciate that also.
My feet have not been warm since September.
Signed,
Frozen feet.

Dear school secretary,
Thank you so much for the lovely phone call this morning. I do so enjoy our frequent conversations.
Yes, I am aware that one or more of my children were late for school. We actually got to the school on time, however, after waiting in line at the drop off zone (behind the lady who was waiting for her lovely daughter to finish her morning grooming routine, the lady who parked the car, got out and walked her kid into school, and the crazy cell phone/dented sports car guy), it took a while for my children got out of the car, and I can see how they might have been a few minutes late.
Thank you so much for your suggestion that we leave our home a few minutes earlier, so we don't get stuck in the drop off zone. Perhaps on your way to school in the morning, you can stop by our house and drag them out of bed yourself. Maybe they will listen to you.
Signed,
I have caller ID, and I know how to use it.

Dear leftover Halloween candy that I just found in my closet,
Do you know how much I needed you today? You cannot begin to fathom the joy I felt in my heart as I saw you sitting there, alone, forgotten, ready to fill my life with your chocolaty goodness. I realize that I might have seemed a little desperate as I ripped open your bag and began grabbing at your peanut butter cups. They are my favorite. At some point during the day, I promise to relieve you of your Almond Joys, and peanut M&Ms.
I am so ashamed that I was unaware of your presence, however, I vow to make it up to you by spending the day with you and my other friend, 6 pack of Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr Pepper.

Oh the fun we will have!
If there is any of you left at the end of the day, I will use you as incentive for my children to get their homework done.
Thak you so much for the joy you have brought into my life on such a dreary day.
I love you.
Signed,
Your currently over/caffienated friend

Dear children,
How would you feel about walking to school from now on?????
Signed
Your loving (I really need a vacation) Mom