Where do you think you are

All has been quiet. No peep from the crazy woman. Hoping it stays that way. I was over due with having bad luck with a complete moron.

Teddy started preschool this past monday and we are so relieved that he likes it. There are 5 adults in a class of 20 kids. The class is blended, and there is one girl in a wheelchair and a few others like Teddy who have an IEP. The special ed teacher has been great. Today was tricky because my mom took Teddy to school and picked him up. So we'll see how he adjusts to the new routines. I will officially start potty training this weekend. That will be interesting. Hopefully he sees all the other kids going and that will inspire him. Because of his IEP there is a teacher's aid that changes his diapers. He is the youngest in class and all the kids have been so nice to him.

One mother approached me about running for office on their school board. I am very friendly at pick-up and drop-off. After what happened with the other moms at the previous school I would rather lay low. I feel bad because when Ricky was in preschool I was always very active - always the Room Mother, always baking, always the chaperone on every single field trip. Of course I would run for office, that's in my personality, but because of stupid people, I find that it's not worth the trouble. Let someone else do it.

Collecting rsvp's for Ricky's 7th birthday party. We're having it at a bowling alley and Ricky had asked us to hire breakdancers back at Thanksgiving so I started looking and found a group of 7 guys to do it. We invited his friends from his old school and all the boys in his current class in his new school. We didn't invite our friends' kids and I feel bad about this but it would be too many kids. Need to look for a cake and fill all the goody bags.

On the friend front, Mark and I have really not socialized all that much. It's been so busy with the kids that we don't see our friends as often as we used to. I have a friend from library school who I have grown apart from - not purposely. She lives about an hour away and is also busy with her 3 kids. I have tried to email her to get together and she doesn't respond (been a few times this has happened in the last few years) yet she still sends us Christmas cards. I can't understand where she wants to be in my life. If you send me a Christmas card, then you still want to be in contact. If you blow off my emails to get together, then you aren't interested in being friends. Which is it. Decide. Unless you just want me to be on your Christmas card list with no contact whatsoever. Kind of a waste and kind of stupid. I get the busy thing - but please email me. If not today or tomorrow, maybe in a few months? Just email me. Sometime.

My cousin was messing around with my facebook account last year and accidentally press "hide" on this friend's feed and her husband's - and a few others. I never undid the hide (no reason) so I don't see their feeds unless I go to their pages. So consequently I never "like" or comment on their facebook stuff and I wonder if this sends the wrong message. If something happens with them (birthdays), Mark tells me because they are on his feeds. It's kind of sad. I really liked her. She made me laugh a lot in library school.

We have a group of friends we probably see 6 times a year. The rest of our friends we probably see once a year if we are lucky. But we are busy and so are they. No hard feelings. We are probably the least social people lately because of the kids and the recent move. We used to have Halloween parties every year. We haven't had one in a few years - our friends have taken over. A few friends thought that *we* hosted the party and didn't invite them because they saw the photos on facebook. Darn facebook!

Anyways, busy weekend. Ricky has cello and orchestra. He's doing very well. Then he competes in his very first karate tournament on Sunday. He is a little nervous but he'll do well.

The Dreaded Guest List

Ricky turned 5 over the weekend and I still can't believe that MY BABY IS FIVE!! Anyways, we had 4 days of celebration - Thursday we had a party for him with all 15 boys from preschool at one of those jumpy places, he had a party at school Friday, a small celebration here at home Saturday with just us, and a big family party for him Sunday. We're all wiped out!! I think there's a Berenstain Bears book that should be called, "Too Much Birthday."

The weird part about his birthday was that he wanted to invite all the boys from preschool. We couldn't invite all the boys and girls - because that was too many kids for the jumpy place. So we didn't invite our other friends who have girls or boys, or boys who don't go to preschool with Ricky. We didn't invite a lot our friends and that felt wrong and very strange.

While adults were free at the jumpy place, our party was for 15 kids - and that's exactly how many we had. Each additional kid was $10. It was a drop off or stay party for the parents. There are a few friends we would have loved to invite but they live in the suburbs and would have had to bring the younger siblings along - which would have meant 12 additional kids to pay for that were just siblings. So we didn't even bother inviting them. It was hard to draw the line and I hope there are no hard feelings. If Ricky had a summer birthday, it would be great to just have a huge barbeque bash at a forest preserve and invite everyone.

I talked to some of my mommy friends about it and apologized for not inviting them and they all assured me that no offense was taken. My friends who have girls said that they plan on having all-girls parties - or all girls parties with only 4 girls invited. I have a friend whose kids are older - in 3rd and 4th grade - and she assured me that it's normal practice among all the kids and everyone usually understands. But even still, there's a part of me that can't help feeling bad.

There are so many parts of Ricky's birthday I want to blog about - I'll have to do it in bits and pieces.

Preschool Drama

I had my first parent-teacher conference in my life on Monday. Given that Ricky is only is 3 year old preschool, I know this was the first of many. The reason for the conference? There is a disruptive boy in his class who has a behavioral issue and he has been hitting, pushing, dumping sand on Ricky every day since the first day of school. His name is Max.

Ricky is in a class with only 9 kids total and every month the parents are asked to volunteer to be Room Mom (or Dad) and help out. I decided to help out early on and volunteered the second week of school. The suspense as to what actually goes on in there was killing me. He is attending a Catholic school - the same school my sister and I attended. I really like this school and it means a lot to me that he goes there.

I knew after the first 5 minutes of class that there was a serious problem. Max was continuously disruptive and interrupted everything. The teacher and the aide always had to have him sit in their lap to restrain him. During circle time the teacher always had to stop to tell him to stop whatever he was doing - thus losing her train of thought and having a hard time maintaining the interest and attention of the "good" kids. When the teacher read a book, she had to stop every page to do the same. I can't even tell you what that book was about.

I asked the teacher and the aide about Max and they said that he was in the 3 year old program last year but got kicked out after a month. So this is his second attempt. Apparently he has 2 older brothers who are just as bad who go to the same school too.

On top of that, Ricky had been telling us every day that Max hit him (with a toy usually), pushed him, told him he "wasn't cool," told him he was "stupid" and all kinds of stuff. So this kid is physically and verbally abusing Ricky. The other day, I sent Ricky to school in a robot shirt - a pretty cool one if I do say so myself. When he came home, he said that all the kids liked his shirt, except Max and Ryan said his shirt was stupid. NICE.

So at my conference with Ricky's teacher, I explained my concerns. First, that because of Max and all the disruptions, the quality of the class is suffering. If this is what goes on in the class day in and day out through the rest of the school year, this is not what I am paying for, and I will have a big problem with this. Secondly, we discussed the whole physical and verbal abuse thing.

I know it's early, but we're already worried about cliques, teasing, and bullying. So sad.

The Room Mom today told me that Max is actually improving and he left Ricky alone. I am Room Mom again on October 23rd and I better see some improvement!! Otherwise, it's to the principal's office!