Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Sicko

I've been hit with some bug or another and I'm feeling pretty crappy. I've actually been trying to fight this off for awhile now. Me and the generic Dayquil have become good friends the past week. Sunday night while getting some gingerbread men made up for j.'s class to decorate I started to feel exceptionally yucky. I went to bed at 9, passed out and was unable to wake up early for scripture study with the family. Yesterday M. had a "concert" type thing where she played the ukulele (and yes I had to use spell checker for that word). They've been learning to play that in her class at school and they put on a performance during the schools Monday morning assembly. Unfortunately it was first thing in the morning and I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed. But M.'s been really looking forward to showing off her new skill so I got myself and j. ready and out the door we went, after taking my new friend Dayquil. Got to the school and sat down for the program and realized I would be very lucky to make it through this. I'm glad I went M. did a wonderful job. She played Camp Town Races, Jingle Bells and Holly Jolly Christmas. I came home and crashed on the couch, calling T. to see if he could come home and help me out since I still had to get j. to and from pre-school and do crossing guard. Thankfully he was able to come home early. Not early enough to get j. to school but my wonderful mom was able to come and do that for me. I laid on the couch for the better part of the day but I did get up and do the dishes and make dinner. Which I really didn't want to do but, oh well.

Today I'm still feeling cruddy. Not as bad as yesterday but still bleh. G. came home from school yesterday and went straight into his room and laid down. So we knew something was up with him. He's home today. I can tell he's feeling better. I do okay until I try to get up and get something done, like taking T.'s grandma to get a haircut and then sitting here typing this. It's really worn me out. The thing that ticks me off is the timing of this bug. I really can't afford to be sick right now. I am only about half way through with shopping for Christmas (the other half I did last Saturday) and we have my family party on Thursday. For which I am supposed to cook a turkey and make stuffing. I am so tired. I couldn't sleep last night so I went upstairs on the couch so I wouldn't wake T. I don't think I fell asleep until 1 a.m. and then we were up at 5:30 for reading. I did go back to sleep off and on but not for a great amount of time. I'm grateful that J. and M. have learned to make pancakes themselves and can take care of breakfast now. That has been nice.

So now I need to go crash out on the couch again.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

'S Up.

The day after J. had his talk with the VP I asked him if he had had any contact with the kid who threatened him. Here's how the conversation went.

Me: "So did you see that kid today?"
J: "Yes"
Me: "Did he say anything to you?"
J: "Yep. He said 'S up. Mom, that's slang for 'What's up'."
Me: "Ah. Gotcha."

I was chuckling because, amazingly I already knew what 'S up meant. So far so good. J. hasn't had any more problems with this kid. We actually were able to talk with both VP's when we went to Parent/Teacher conferences. They were held that same day that J. had gone in and talked with the VP. We've had contact with the one VP before but this was our first contact with the Mr. N. He was very nice. Actually he played football for T.'s dad when he was a coach at the high school so I guess that's a plus.

J. is doing okay in school. He struggles with handing things in when he is supposed to. He doesn't do homework very well. It's not that he doesn't understand the stuff it's just hard for him to keep organized and on top of things. We got positive feedback from all his teachers and I am grateful for them. I swear, all Jr. High teachers need to be given sainthood as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't deal with those kids day in and day out.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Update

The VP called me while I was right in the middle of a dr's appt. with j. I didn't eve look at my phone to see who was calling. If I had I would have answered it. He left a good long message though and I'm wondering if T. and I could stop and chat with him tonight at P/T conferences.

He said that J was able to identify this kid and he called him into his office to ask him about it. The kid said that he only knew Jona slightly and that he never slammed his locker or threatened him. (I don't know why I expected this kid to own up to it.) The principal said that he felt that the kid was telling the truth but he told him that if anything was happening that it needed to stop immediately. He also told J. that if anything else happens to go directly to him (the VP) right away. Hopefully this will be the end of things. If it isn't, I tell you what. That bully messed with the wrong kid. I will do everything in my power to protect my son from kids like him and I know T. will probably go twice as far as I would.

So that kid better watch his step! J. should be getting home from school in a bit. Wait, there's the doorbell. Off to check on J.

He Thinks I'm FOXY! (and some serious stuff too)

Well I went for it and tried to go blond. It's more of a really light strawberry blond on top and a light red on the bottom in the back. What happened was my friend got the blond coloring and thought that one bottle would be enough to color all of my hair and it wasn't. She got the top half and the front part colored and ran out so she had to run to the beauty supply place and get some more. So the top part of my hair had more time to process. Then after we did that first color all over she put a more powerful gray covering blond over the top of that. It turned out really cute! I like it, and I've had many compliments on it. But when I came home asked T. how he liked it he looked at it for a few seconds and said "It looks like a fox butt." Because of the different colors that it is in the back. "I said I know it's two different colors but I like that, it's the style." And he says "But have you SEEN it?". Me, "Yes, I've seen it and I like it!"

Well, at least I can say my husband thinks I'm a fox! :)

On a more serious note J. came home from school yesterday a bit late and told me that a boy at school had threatened to beat him up. :( J. says that he doesn't know the boy but that this kid has been slamming his locker shut for a few weeks now. He said he knows one of the kids that hangs around the one who threatened him, I guess he's in his Health class. So I got on the phone with one of the vice principals (not one that we've had dealing with in the past, she wasn't there). And I explained the situation to him and told him that I was calling, one because my son was threatened and two because he has Autism and doesn't know if someone is joking or not.

For example he told me that this kid who hangs around with the "threatener" is his acquaintance and that he's asked J. if he wants to go fishing with him. J. told me "It's illegal to be truant from school and I know that there are no bodies of water on school property that sustain fish." That is J. That is how his mind works. He is very literal.

The vice principal was very nice and told me that he will call J. in first thing this morning and have him look at pictures of all the kids (we're thinking it's another 7th grader) to see if J. can point him out. If he can then the vp will call down this other kid and have a talk with him about how that isn't appropriate. I am concerned that this could make things worse so I told J. if this kid keeps bothering him then the very first time he does something or says something that J. needs to go to the office and let them know that he hasn't stopped. I'll be driving J. to school this morning and dropping him off just before the bell rings and I'll pick him up after school as well just to be safe. We have parent teacher conferences tonight and I'm considering mentioning it to the teachers just so they can keep an eye out as well. I had hoped that something like this wouldn't happen. J. seems to be handling it okay. T. told him that if anyone tries to hurt him and they won't stop then J. needs to fight back. I hate to have to tell my child that but I'm not going to have him think that it's not okay to protect himself yk?

Well my living room is piled under Christmas decorations and the tree still isn't fully decorated. I need to run to WalMart for some white lights to go on my garland so I better get my but off this chair and get moving. I'll keep you updated.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Back to Normal

Well Normal for me anyway. I had my nice break and I'm very glad that I took it because things have been back to hectic in the blink of an eye. December is a busy month anyway but it seems extra busy this year. We went and picked out our Christmas tree last night and I would have taken pictures except for all the signs saying absolutely no photography. I can understand why because the place where we went had a bunch of beautifully decorated trees and fun Christmas crafts and stuff. I'm sure people used to come in and take pictures and rip off their ideas, which is too bad. I actually took some pictures inside before G. informed me of the sign that I missed when walking in.

Our tree is very pretty. It's not huge but it fits our front room perfectly. I told T. that I thought we would be ahead to buy a really nice fake tree that way we would have the money that we spend on the real tree to put towards other things but he won't have any of that. He hates fake trees. We actually have one that T.'s grandma gave us last year that I'm going to try to put up downstairs. I've always wanted to have two trees. One with family ornaments and one with a "theme" I saw an adorable tree at that place that had a bunch of different old wooden sleds on it. I would love to do something like that.

We have T.'s family Christmas party this weekend. We'll make gingerbread houses and exchange gifts with his side, next Saturday is our ward party in the morning. They have pancakes and ice cream, which I find slightly revolting. Santa comes for a visit and I can usually get a good shot of the kids with the man in red then. The next week we have j.'s Christmas program and J.'s band program on the same day, thankfully at different times. We also have my family party the day after the programs and then it will be the weekend before Christmas. I can't believe how fast it's coming up. I really am not ready at all. We are trying to scale back a bunch on the gifts that we get and focus more on the gifts that we give. I've talked with the three older ones and told them that this year things are going to be scaled back. Hopefully they understand.