First day of First grade for four kids

Thought I'd throw some alliteration at you with that title. If you are scratching your head then you have been out of school too long. Ok, I sent my four babies to school for the first day of first grade and so far the reactions have been mixed, but mostly good.

I have one child in a special ed class strictly for first graders with autism. Love it, love the teacher she's awesome and loves my daughter dearly so that works out perfectly. That's Doodle on the far left of the second picture. Can you tell by looking at her here? I don't think so but the strangest thing has been happening more and more lately and that is that I have to tell people about her autism because she will do bizarre things for a girl her size that she use to get away with as a little thing (like stealing their french fries at McDonalds) but now, people are not so forgiving. If you spent some time observing her you would probably figure it out but from a picture she looks just like the rest of them and in many ways she is but in many ways, she probably never will be. Her sisters are currently obsessed with weddings and princesses and baby dolls. They ask me if Doodle will ever get married and have babies. Sadly, I tell them, I just don't know but my gut tells me this will not be. I hate to think about it. It was probably one of my top five gut-wrenching moments when I considered this for the first time. That said however, I still believe in miracles and I still pray for her recovery as often as I think about it, which is quite often. No, I don't understand why God hasn't answered me yet but I know he must have a reason. Anyway, I still believe in miracles. Onward and upward.

My other three whom I refer to often as The Three Amigos, are in the same class again. I like this for simplicities sake, same homework, same pace, and the fact that two other sets of eyes can tell me what is really going on in the classroom as far as who did what to whom which caused their "BEE" to be moved. Really it's cool in that respect. I love our school, it's in our backyard literally, so we walk to school most days. I love that we can do that. It feels very green to me and that is good considering I don't have time to recycle, ok I don't take the time to recycle but I only have limited brain space to be occupied by concerns outside of my little world. Oh wait, I JUST realized, I recycle grocery bags to hold nasty diapers!! Ok, that's not really doing anyone a favor since the biodegradibility of a diaper is severly debilitated by being surrounded by more plastic but at least I am using them twice right? Whatever.

I have one daughter in resource classes and speech.

I have one son in gifted.

I have one daughter who isn't in anything extra and doesn't understand this. I am hoping she will be my low-maintence child but really the signs all point towards a sensitive mildly dramatic version of myself at that age. She fell and knocked two teeth back in her mouth yesterday but so thoroughly enjoyed the extra attention and care she has gotten that I think she is considering a repeat. She's fine by the way - baby teeth.

I have a baby who is climbing on anything he can get to, and has learned to dismantle the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs and stealthfully scale the staircase, only to proudly announce his arrival on the second floor by grabbing the railing on the catwalk and smooshing his face between the bars while yelling "GAA!" Until he sees me looking up at him. He is 17 months, I am a little bit afraid of what he will have figured out by the time he is in first grade.

Its going to be a crazy year but I am looking forward to it. Last year was really fun and I expect this year will be no different. Here's to another year of growing up!

At the beach/ Julie and Julia

Hi to all five of you out there, ok maybe I have picked up a few more readers lately but that is beside the point. I never started this blog with the intention of having a wide audience one day. I just enjoy it. I am at the beach with my crew and in-laws and it is ohh say, 6:30 AM. Yikes, who is dumb enough to be up at 6:30 AM writing on a blog at the beach on "vacation" no less?


Me that's who. *** Side note - to anyone foolish enough to wonder why I put quotes around the word vacation, you must not be a mom. If you want to know why they are there, go ask one.





I was sleeping somewhat peacefully when I was awakened by a screaming, annoyed 17 month old in the pack and play nearby, evidently he was also annoyed - thus the screaming. This in turn set off the other alarm which is my doodle. She was sleeping in the king size bed with me and one of her sisters. So I get fussy baby settled in with me and he calms down, miraculously my Doodle does too, only now, I can't sleep anymore. So I pick up my headset and commence listening to the last CD of the book I have been listening to for the past 3 days - Julie and Julia. You may have heard of the movie that is now out with MerylStreep playing Julia Childs and Amy Adams playing Julie. Anyway, it was entertaining enough to keep me listening to the end but annoying as all get out at the same time.





I don't want to spend a lot of time on going over the plot but you can go here and watch a trailer if you are that interested. I may or may not go see the movie but I do love Meryl so that is a remote possibility. The remoteness is due to the fact that I


A. Love movies more than almost anything and therefore have a line up that is pretty extensive so Julie and Julia falls pretty far down the line and


B. I have five kids and only get to see movies when my parents are in town and


C. My entertainment budget has been severely cut back due to recent economy and current beach trip which we really can't afford but I am oh so grateful to be at.





Anyway, I love cooking but by no stretch of the imagination could I ever believe that I would be capable of accomplishing what the author set out to do which is cook her way through Julia Child's famous book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, every single recipe in one year. First of all time, second money, third I refuse to eat organ meat. Anything that is used by the body to think, collect toxins, deliver waste or purify blood is off limits. Maybe I am as culinary as a vanilla wafer but I have a healthy respect for the limits my stomach can handle.





So, Julie Powell, the author has a few things in common with me, however, there are two huge differences that really cut me off from empathizing with the "heroine" of this story -


One, she is an atheist, though not so much in a "How stupid can you all be?" kind of way, but more of a "whatever, I haven't got time for that mess" which is almost as bad. But, when I read things by nonbelievers it doesn't necessarily anger me it just means that any insight I glean from said book is worthless since its not coming from a greater place. It means no words in her writing have truly been inspired because what is inspiration if it doesn't come from the greatest Author of all times?


And, almost as bad- she is staunchly anti-republican.


Why I don't know? I am not staunchly anti-democrat. They have their few points. I don't beleaguer them that. They are green and sympathetic and have a couple of other redeeming qualities right? ( I can hear two people in my head screaming at me that this is NOT TRUE!, my dad and my best friend's husband.) So why the anti R hatred? Her parents live in TEXAS. That's a pretty conservative state right? She calls Republicans various insulting things throughout the book which I won't dignify by repeating here. But I kept thinking to myself, she has most-likely been dumped by one somewhere in her history. I don't know and it doesn't matter anyway. The author seems genuinely off-put at the end of the book because Julia is offended or critical of her project/blog and I wonder if it has anything to do with the two points mentioned above. I say, HELLO, course she is offended you twit, she was 91 when she read your blog and you say F*** every other line. 91 year olds don't like that word very much and neither do most civilized people, even if we occasionally yell it out in frustration when the kids aren't around.





Oh well, so she doesn't like Republicans, but she has effectively snubbed potentially half of her readership whom she says "don't read the Dining Section of the paper" I beg to differ, I do read that section and I have no idea where she got that idea? Just because I am against murdering unborn babies, believe in families, the sanctity of life, responsibility for oneself, keeping the money I earn to spend as I see fit, choosing which charities I donate to, smaller government and of course SARAH PALIN, this, this qualifies me as some old stogy cigar-smoking rich buracrat? Huh?





Ok, this was a really long post on a seriously random topic but it had to be done. I couldn't sleep anyway, what with the drooling monkey and his two sisters next to him in my bed.
Psst, Julie Powell, they are probably going to be REPUBLICAN CATHOLICS TOO. And well fed I might add.