Blowing off the Dust, and A Few of My Favorite Things

Hey! I haven't been here in forever! And it's realy dusty... just like my house. Man, it's incredible how much faster my house gets messy at this time of year. All the extra stuff is like a dirt magnet, I swear.

The kids have actually been off for well over a week now, because the snow made such a mess around here (ie, the state can't handle it) that side roads were pretty much screwed until most of it melted. The big problem is, here in MD, everything is run by county, so if even one town in the county is impassable, the entire county is shut down. Since there are many, many towns in a county, and since our town is surrounded by rural places, every time anything happens at all, the whole place is closed, even when our own area is fine. Thus, the mall in town was PACKED all three days when the schools were closed due to 'treacherous conditions', so much so that it took some friends of mine over twenty minutes to circumnavigate the parking lot (once you're in, you pretty much can't get out).

Our Xmas has been great. The doorbell didn't ring for many days, and neither did the phone, which was wonderful. Usually, there are kids all over the place around here, and the bell rings several times a day, setting off the dogs, interrupting me constantly, and making family time nearly impossible. Also, with my classes over, and the kids at home, and all the extra activities over for the break, we've actually had time to play games and hang out, just the four of us.

The Elf Project I ran ended on the 18th, and in the end, we helped thirty-one kids from fourteen families. It was awesome. Most of the families were really nice. I hadn't been sure what to expect on pick-up night, whether people would be friendly, or shy, or what. Almost everyone was really friendly, and only one person was downright nasty, which I think is a pretty bug success. I got to meet the boy whose presents I bought, which was a treat since he's 13 and I didn't think I'd ever see him. He doesn't know it was me, of course, but just from meeting him I know he'll like what he got. Seeing the families made me sad, but also happy that they were there. I feel like I learned a lot, and got at least as much out of it emotionally as I put into it.

Patrick has a 'testing' date for the magnet program we've applied to; we're going at 10am on the 9th, so less than two weeks away. I'm nervous, but also excited for him. I can't go in with him, and he's never taken a test like that before, so I'm wondering what it will be like, and how he will take it. I haven't talked much about it to him, because I don't want him to psyche himself out over the idea of a test, especially since I have no idea what it will be like. His current teacher refused the idea of my sending in anything extra to take up his time, and the 'enrichment' teacher refuses to work with him, so we're back to square one. I'm really frustrated. She noted on his mid-term progress report that she's providing challenging work herself, which seems to me to be crap, since he's bringing home the same work he always has.

I can't help but wonder, a little, if some of this isn't a bit of backlash for what happened with Josie's teacher last year, and the letter I wrote that eventually was used to get her removed from her position a year ago and fired at the end of the school year. It wouldn't surprise me if everyone knew what I'd done, and while I don't regret it, I guess I didn't think about future repercussions other than having to run into Her in the hallways, etc. I suppose anyone who liked her (I can't imagine) would think I'm a pretty big dillhole.

Anyway, interestingly enough, since telling Patrick that we no longer care about his 'color', he has gotten ALL GREENS (the best behavior). ?!?!?! WTF?! Here's a funny thing - his teacher asked what we'd been doing differently, and I had to tell her that it was nothing other than telling him that we didn't care anymore. HA! So, I don't know if this was one big attention ploy on his part, or what. I'm going to cancel the appointment with the doctor for his ADD eval, because it's in only a few days, because I want to see what happens in the weeks after break. More and more, I think it's Nothing To Worry About. No one other than his teacher thinks there's a problem, not his karate instructor, his friends' parents, or our relatives, including my SIL whose child actually *is* ADD. So, we'll wait and see.

Tomorrow, I'll write about the cool games we've updated our cabinet with. We're big on games in our house, and we got a lot of fun ones this year! I can't wait to catch up on all your things; I've missed everyone, but also haven't felt like parking on the computer. After being chained to it all semester, it was nice to just look at email as I walked by and be done at that. I knew you'd all be right there when I came back. :)