Mothers

I wanted to post a pic or two that celebrates mothers. The first one is Connor's early Mother's Day gift to me. I had taken a picture (or 1000) of the boys when we would visit Seaside. In my picture, Maclain was a month shy of 2 and Connor would be early 4's. (Ahhhh) Connor painted it for me in his art class. He goes to a local studio and only works in oils at this point. A little impressionistic, wouldn't you agree?? Post back and let him know what you think.

Also, the boys have been training at a pool about 20 minutes away due to the fact that their pool is being resurfaced. The good news is it is a long course pool and their next meet is there, so it will feel like a homefield advantage. Isabelle and I walk around the campus and found a pond with a Mother duck and her little gaggle (?) Is that right . . . a gaggle? Anyway, she has 12 of them . . .okay, even though she laid eggs and did not have to birth these little things the way we do, that is still a heap of eggs to sit on!! So that is my second set of pics. The "mom" factor in the pond.

So, an early tribute to Moms.

Lost, I tell you . . . LOST!!

It's official. My cell phone is lost. I hear a collective gasp. Seriously . . . I cannot tell you how much of my life was tied up in that little device/tool/ball and chain. We went through the entire tracing of the steps, cleaning out of the van (that was a positive consequence) and searching the condo. Hey . . another plus! Going from 3000 sq. feet of living space to under 1300 made the search faster. But the results were still the same. The little thing is lost and with a dead battery at that so we cannot search by calling it. Can you imagine a day in the life of a Realtor with no phone. Not pretty. So, I now have a new phone but am painfully trying to input my phone numbers. Those of you who are regular readers, please give me a ring so I can input your name into my contacts.

Our weekend in Winter Haven was great. The boys swam well for a their first long course meet (50 meters) and Connor swam a couple 100's. Maclain won one of his heats . . . . 50 meter breaststroke (I think) and got a heat ribbon so he was pumped. Then he got DQ'd (disqualified) on his 50 meter Butterfly. He came out of the timers box so bummed, he didn't want to talk to his coach afterwards. I told him we take the good with the bad and to get is little surfer dude rear end over to the coach to discuss his event. The boys have really strong strokes . . . just not a ton of speed. Connor is a bit more tuned into that fact as he swims with the 11-12 yr old boys and some of those little Olympians are fast. We just ask them to do their best.

I did a Priceline.com deal and we got a great room in Orlando near all the parks. Priceline books smoking rooms first so I always call the hotel to confirm our arrival and make sure it is nonsmoking. We were upgraded upon our arrival so that was even better. We went to Downtown Disney Saturday night and waited for our table at the Rainforest Cafe. While we waited we did the Lego store and a couple others.

We finished the meet by mid afternoon on Sunday and headed home. It was only about 1.5 - 2 hrs so not bad overall. Lots of orange groves to drive through.


We are back into our routine with the school week and work. I am picking the kids up after school so I don't feel as productive as I have over the last several months. My prayer is that I will find peace in that.

Have a super week.

A Little Update

Thanks to Miss Becca and Mrs K. for their input into our "don't-touch-the-sunshine-state-books" dilemma. It pretty much blew over. I can walk into a dark room and find Maclain in one little patch of light creeping in from another room . . . straining to read. I'll start saving for the glasses. He still loves to bury himself in a book and can do so with all sorts of activity going on in the room . . so overall, the little incident did not wound his desire to read . . . that's a blessing.

Not much going on around here. I put a townhouse under contract after I just listed it 14 days earlier. That is a record for this market. And it is nice to be on both $ides of the transaction.

The boys have a swim meet in Winter Haven this weekend so we will head up to Orlando for a couple days and enjoy that. They have been training extra hard the last week or so and Maclain is pooped!

Dale is doing a lighting job right now and was able to take the boys with him after school to assist. They get a big kick out of that . . . and a few bucks as well. We match what they put in the savings so they are pretty excited to see how 5.00 can become 10.00.

Belle is getting ready for a "mini meet" at gymnastics. I will try to get pictures. It is not until the end of the month but she asks about it every day.

Connor is on the downhill slide to Middle School. Can you believe it? He is not so sure about it but I have a meeting with the 6th grade counselor next week.
In middle school they only carry a three ring binder. That's all. No backpack. No books. They have a set of books at school and a duplicate set of books at home. I chuckle when I remember trying to bring a book home from Farragut Intermediate School. We were told "no" so many times I confess I snuck it out for him. Don't get me started! The books are also available online . . .

I have been picking the kids up right after school instead of them staying until about 3:30 or 4:00. (They get out at 2:00) I liked it b/c they had homework club. Since I started picking them up at about 2:20 (Connor is a saftey so he has duties) Isabelle has been falling asleep in the car on the way home. We only live about 1.5 miles from the school. Wish I could take a nap everyday!

That's about it. Nothing too exciting. Jordan rocked on American Idol tonight. She reminds me of Miss Becca. May we all keep the victims and families and students/faculty at the VT massacre in our prayers. And the parents of the gunman. Can you even imagine?

Have a peaceful rest of the week.

Get Out of Maclain's Way!

I caught a glimpse of myself in my middle child today. Boy was he ticked! I have to go back a couple weeks and fill in the pieces and then I think you will understand where we are.

The kids have AR reading at school. Overall, I think the program is fine. My boys have pretty lofty 9 week point goals and thankfully, they adore reading so it is not a problem to consume the higher point value books. You will recall that Maclain had that extra year of Pre-K so he entered Kindergarten as an independent reader. Well, our school/state has a "Sunshine Book" program. Basically, there are new selections chosen each year. The Sunshine Book program begins in the third grade. Maclain is reading and testing at a 6th grade level. A couple weeks ago at his library time, he chose a book called Chasing The Falconers.

He was very excited because he had seen Connor read the series. Well . . . (Mrs King will get a kick out of this one) when he went to check it you could have felt the earth shake. He was told he could not read that book, that it was only for those in the Sunshine Reader Program. He was embarrassed, sadly. Don't misunderstand. We have a fabulous media specialist and a wonderful library system. When he came home and told me, I at first did not think too much of it . . . I mean . . how many other books are there he could choose, right? But then I got to thinking about it. I explained to him that the Sunshine Reader program only has so many books each year and they have to keep those available to the 3-5 graders . . . Easy enough. We just made a fun little trip to our public library and checked it out ourselves. No big deal . . . one would think. He took it to school today and was informed (again) that he was NOT allowed to read that book. When he got in the car he was tearfully trying to explain the situation to me and then he exploded.

That is the part of me I saw in him. To feel strongly about something and then have others holding you back. I can feel it in my core. Well, certainly his teacher did not understand it was not one of the school library books . . . that we had checked it out on our own as to not mess up their little system. So I called her. I calmly explained to her that I had an upset son in the car and needed some clarification as to why he could not read that book. She went on to explain it was for 3-5th graders. Fine. We are not using their book . . . got one of our own. "Well, the other children will see him reading it" and then if she makes an exception for him . . blah blah blah. She said she is just trying to follow the rules and to please understand her position. I told her I understand rules and to please understand my position and our plan of action: Maclain WOULD be completing the book at home, he will not test on it for his point goal (stupid anyway) but that we would be rewarding him at home for finishing it and for choosing a challenging level book that is at the top of his range. I told her I would hate for Maclain to finish out the year with a negative feeling about reading for a kid who challenges himself and has consumed more books than I ever have.

So. Mrs Kubo. You're a 3rd grade teacher. Give me your thoughts. Did I handle it correctly?

Mrs King. You are #1 in my book when it comes to book selections and library stuff. Give me your thoughts.

Last note. Their school has been one of the top Elem. schools in the state. Their teachers and admin. are under a tremendous amount of pressure. His teacher is dear, professional, tenured, and as is typical, has a couple firecrackers in her class that exhaust her. She adores Maclain. Not sure how she feels about his Mom at this point, however.