sandy's general musings

I hate to admit this, but i am loving the last week without kids. probably one of the reasons is that I do know that they exist, are happy, and are coming back, aka I dont think I would be this happy if I did not have the kids. But while they were away.

1. went out almost every night . not good for waistline though. did get to check out some cool restaurants. When the kids are here I hate to go out and pay for babysitting. Also saw one movie and one baseball game. last night we went to Harrys (our version of a farmers market that is owned now by whole foods) . No kids whining and tagging along. Today we are doing habitat.

2. Got so much done in the house. Cleaned/decluttered. the office and laundry room. Cleaned the fridge and the washer/dryer themselves. basement is also cleaned. All laundry is done.
While I am gone felix is to do the garage and his car (that has crayon melted in it,ARGG the car is leased).

3. Slept in this morning. Though with the kids here I can sorta do that now at times as well.
Also not having to make sure kids are entertained is nice.

4. The maturity of Alyssa. STaying with her cousins and being the "big cousin" has been great for everyone. Jack, on the otherhand, is the "good boy who does wise ass things and doesnt listen". I have got to crack down on that.

Well on tuesday I leave to NJ to visit friends, family, and see the kids. I bring them back next Sat and then let the chaos begin! School starts a week later. I do have all my back to school stuff.

S.

I guess its nice that the kids are not here . I am definately pms'ing.

This morning I called to talk to the girls and wish them happy birthday, as well as talking to Alyssa. My brother says that JAck is a wiseass and that he will straighten him out. THis bothers me very much. Even if Jack is a wiseass at times , its not my brother's place to say anything. JAck , I believe, acts this way, because he is unsecure and being the "class clown" makes he feel better about himself in some ways. I know that. The only reason why Alyssa is staying with my brother is that a while back, when we were having problems, he said "let her stay here, we will straighten her out". I never thought that by her staying with them that would " straighten her out", but figured I would call him out on his offer. The problem is that my SIL is the one that gets stuck all day with 3 kids. the good news is that Alyssa is very well behaved when I am not around. The other thing about this morning's comment is that I sorta said back, well you were one when you were a kid, and he denied it! Jack is so much like his uncle. I guess we have our own revisionist history here.

I tried to call my dad and ask him what is up with my brother's comment and all I got was that I call too much and to leave everyone alone. I dont think that calling a few times a day is bugging everyone. And I have not bugged them to what they are eating, what they are wearing, going to bed, etc. As a matter of fact, they drag Jack out late and then he falls asleep in the car.

Today I do have a valid concern. my mother drove the girls and my SIL to the city to the American girl place. I fear driving into NYC. So I hope it goes ok. Alyssa brought her doll with her, so she will be so happy. When they open up here, it will be a mob scene for a while..

Bored at work today. was a bit busy, but not much. have been all over the web today. nothing exciting. going out to eat tonight AGAIN! . kids gone and I am gaining weight.

s

The kids left Sat with my mom. So far everything is fine with them. They are both behaving and doing well. Alyssa is with my brother and is very helpful. her cousins adore her. In the meantime, FElix and I have a lot of work to do. We are cleaning all the clutter in our house. We started with the office and also the art bin the kids use. So far 3 hugh garbage bags have been filled. We also saw the movie knocked up on sat night. It was pretty good. Last night we went to the braves game. got Tix off craigslist last minute. In the morning we went to the gym. Felix has lost 5lbs this month. I am so proud of him. If only I could lose weight. I am toning up, but not losing as I eat junk. I wish I could get back on track. The thing about our house, is that we have the clutter issue and also the cat smell in the basement issue. my mom was very critical of both. Used to be that my parents were critical of my weight, but I guess the way I keep house (and in some cases raise my kids) makes better topics now. I let my mom know how much work we are doing so that its almost as if taking the kids had a "reward" to it. KWIM.?

Jack got into pokemon right before he left and got some cards. I dont know how they work. Its something I should probably learn more about. Alyssa, after years of having an American girl doll is all of a sudden into it. My mom might take her to the store in the city this week. We have one opening up here in Atl near our house soon. I am so happy that my brother in law/niece gave Alyssa her doll a few years back. those suckers are so expensive!!!

I am always thinking of things to write and how I should be writing in this blog more often. I guess the novelty has almost worn off.

I was elected to the neighborhood association board. Well at teh 1st meeting I was given the slot of "president"!!! Being so noconfortational I am not so sure if I can do a good job or not. I also have to be assertive with everything and have all the bylaws memorized. The good news is that the secretary and treasurer and 1st vice know what they are doing. I was suprised they wanted me to take this large a position. Luckily our neighborhood is not that large and most of it "runs itself". we also have seperate committee of 3 that go around looking for violations, approve fences, etc.


This morning Alyssa had a meltdown over a stupid toy that grows in water. She tried to bring it to camp and made her bag all wet. I then took it away. The drama, oh boy! I am almost scared to put her in drama classes for fear that she will take that skill and snowball me even more.
I did take this mornings drama with a grain of salt. My next worry is what she will eat/drink when she in NJ at my brother's.

Well back to work.

Trying to coordinate the fall stuff is driving me crazy. Too many unknowns. When is Jack's baseball practice? Whcih drama class will Alyssa take? When will she skate, aka still private or now group?

Then trying to coordinate my short visit to NJ and trying to get to see everyone.

Then there are those darn cats!!! on top of spilling cups all the time,, now someone is peeing where they shouldnt. I am so frustrated with them.

WE also have ants in our kitchen, but the exterminator cannot come until monday.

Sandy

well its been wet around here lately.I dont want to hear the word drought again. The funny thing is that all of sudden I have this fear that my house will get hit by lightening whenever we have a storm. I guess I have been too many pictures of house fires from lightening on the news.

Last night at the club the swim people said that I would have to put Alyssa down a class because she never learned side stroke or elementary backstroke. THis doesnt make too much sense as she can do the more advanced stuff. So I may have to go private first before I can put her in surf 3, which is more of an endurance and stroke tweeking class, which is what she needs! This is so frustrating to me, as I can never find what I need , when I need it.

My other issues is scheduling for the kids stuff. I dont know what days of the week baseball will be. games on Sat and swimming also on sat, might conflict. I should have done fall soccer for jack, but he prefers baseball. He also wants to do gymnastics, but Alyssa doesnt want to do the theatre like classes at roswell rec, so I cannot coordinate them. So I could do gymnastics on friday, but Alyssa would be bored since she would not have homework to do. When the weather is nice she could go to the playground though. I could do friday in the fall and then switch days in the winter.... Alyssa has skating, tuesday night hebrew school, and one other day with a theatre class. thinking of one near me wed 5-6. Sports is the killer, with practices and games. The other stuff is once a week. Jack also has speech. I wont do a winter sport with jack, minus swimming though. Believe it or not, I mostly dread , when school starts, sunday school and hebrew school for the kids. I dont have a carpool this year, but sunday we are not 8:30 anymore but 11am. Kills our sundays. plus i have to volunteer in the office or do shopping for the religious school as well. But this is something that is important to do.

So now we know what I lie awake at night thinking about. Since Alyssa has been back she is moving to the guest room around midnight/1am . She doesnt wake us up when she gets up to move (though sometimes I hear her), but I am not happy that she has night wakings again. This morning though, she finally woke up in a good mood. she was calm, and even made her own breakfast and did her own hair. I wish I had more of this calm alyssa than the wild bossy one.

They are in outdoor camp this week but like I mentioned, the weather has sucked, so they have not gotten in the swimming. luckily this camp at the rec center can use the indoor buildings. Alyssa is in camp with her BFF (who is missing today). On thursday night she is spending the night with us.

Work has been ok. I have been logging in earlyin the morning, dropping the kids off at camp, and then going to the office.

What I posted in my december list on thursday:
I freaked out about this whole sleepaway camp. I never heard fromAlyssa and she was not in many pictures. Also they had color war ,which has athletics in it for the last few days. Add in her sometimessocial issues and I was so scared she would have a bad time.Well my daughter had the best time! she cant wait to go back next yearand wants to go back for 4 weeks instead of 2! SHe even liked colorwar and was great at cheering for their team (red, which won).Her "sport" was sand castle building.We managed to unpack and wash everything already. She also loved heernew room when she came home. I had gotten her a new dresser and deskwith hutch. She sttill had her dresser from when she was a baby.

What has happened since. She is back to the "I am injured". She hurt her ankle at camp. Funny how that did not affect her doing cartwheels on thursday. yesterday morning she pull the I cant walk bit. And Felix was taking them to the amusement park. I wanted to put her in a camp and have felix just take Jack, but he would not do that. It was very upsetting to me that not 24 hours home and Alyssa was pulling her usual stunts. Then in the afternoon, when they go home, both kids were asleep in the car. Jack got up, but it took a while to wake Alyssa. When I did, she wanted to be carried. I told her she could walk. So she stayed in the car. Then she starting honking the horn, etc. so felix made her get out of the car and she sat in the garage. She said that we did not care about her because we dont believe her about heer ankle. Well when for the past 3 months something is ALWAYS hurt, what are we suppose to believe. I thought we had resolved this before camp. apparently not. It is very frustrating to me. I have tried ignoring it, sympathizing, reasoning, and of course getting angry. nothing works.

Other things I found out. Her bunkmate became mad at her because she would not return some posters. Alyssa says the girl gave them to her and then wanted them back. So we went out and got some from one of those magazines (where the other came from.. aka tiger beat). and will mail them with an apology. Alyssa was friends with a couple of girls but not everyone. There is this one girl she was closest to, that we will try to get together with. My best friend actually knows her since she lives around the corner from her. Alyssa still had a blast. I just have to remember that for her, its not the social thing that is most important now.
We also talked about friends and such and she says that kids think she is strange. She thinks she is strange as well, but she is fine/happy to be strange.

nice to know that things are "back to normal" here. Its actually 7:45 in the morning and both kids are sttill sleeping. Thats pretty amazing.

boy has my brain been in a fog! Yesterday thru me off because Alyssa's furniture arrived so I worked from home in the AM. I hope she is pleasantly surprised. I just need some pins for her corkboard on her hutch. That was the part she wanted most. I got Jack from camp and completely FORGOT about speech for him. So instead we got cat food and got his hair cut.

Jack has really been into cartoon network and pokiemon. I had to pry him off the TV after 1 1/2 hours. I would almost prefer the computer. The weather was very overcast so I did not have him play outside. For dinner I made something that my dad makes --scrambled eggs with salami. first you fry up the salami and then add the eggs.

Anyway, Alyssa still being at camp affects me. Its just that I wish so much that she made friends and wants to go back next year and had a great time. Yesterday they had color wars and had all the pics up. there was one picture with her bunk and she, as usual , is off to the side. I just dont know. I wont know until Thursday. Either this is "it" for her, or she liked camp, but not this one, or now hates it. Which, when she is older, she might change her mind about it. I guess I am scared for her as before she left she had a fight with her best friend that she rarely sees. 3rd grading will be starting up and within school she doesnt have any good friends. This was suppose to be the thing that helped with all her social issues. That is the main reason whyI am so worried.
Now here is news--Jack made a friend at camp. When I dropped him off this morning the other kid even called Jack over to play. I am not as worried about him, as Alyssa, but started to think about social classes for him. Why couldnt I have gotten at least one social child? I guess the gene pool was stacked against that (my brother and I both had issues as kids and I believe FElix and his brother were not the most social).

Back to Alyssa. I want to go get her on thursday but Felix thinks its a bad idea. I need to make sure everything is coming home and I am dying to know about camp for her. If I knew that all along she was happy (not just as of last Wed), then I probably would have enjoyed the time off from the chaos more.

Tomorrow I am working the peachtree road race handing out water. Better than running it :)

I know I should post more often. Just havent felt like it. Not because of anything in particular. Still missing Alyssa with her at camp. I now want to go get her on THursday but felix thinks that is a bad idea.

Working the big road race here on Wed mornign. Will be up at 5am. Handing out water around 7:30 ish. Not really into doing much for the 4th. Dont think Jack cares about fireworks.

Jack got to swim at the Olympic pool (96) for this area wide meet. he was 90 out of 140 kids for backstroke. that is not too bad.