Mother For Life

As we were sorting through things to take with us in the move, the hardest part was going through the books. My kids had more than I did, an amazing feat actually. We decided to pick our favorites and share them with you. These books have stayed with my kids from the time the oldest was old enough to read.

1.  IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE ~ Laura Joffe Numeroff

My kids love the funny mouse and all his wants, the pictures do great for the younger kids as well.

2. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE ~ Maurice Sendak

Short and sweet, with only ten sentences, the pictures are absolutely amazing.

3. ANY AND ALL DR. SEUSS BOOKS ~ Theodor Seuss Geisel

These books are great for their rhyming and pictures. Easy for little ones to learn to read with.

4. THE BOOKSTORE GHOST~ Barbara Maitland

My six year old son picked this book out and read it to me a month ago, its fast become a favorite here.

5. THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR ~ Eric Carle

An oldie, but goodie. This picture book is perfect for younger children to explore. We still have our ten year old copy.

6. GOODNIGHT MOON ~  Margaret Wise Brown

The ultimate bedtime story, I used this one to put all of my kids to bed when they were younger.

My kids had many more favorites they wanted to add to this list, but I had to put a limit somewhere.  We love to read in this house hold, and now that my youngest son is reading to us as well, it has become quite fun. I started reading to these guys at such an early age, and I’m just grateful that they all love to read now as well. Don’t get me wrong, we did go through phases where my daughter had no interest in reading, it became a chore for her. But I left her alone about it, and now she reads almost as much as I do.

Happy reading to you all, and feel free to add your own favorites in.

My middle son D is having trouble remembering his homework again. This time its in math, as he has forgotten it three times this month. Each time I have to sign his workbook. The other day, I told him to not only grab the sheet he forgot, but ask his teacher for extra work to make up for it. This is the response she wrote back in his book to me:

“No math again today. He asked for extra work due to his grade dropping. I will not give him extra work when he isn’t finishing this expected work”.

Now, to a point I can understand his teacher. You don’t reward a child for bad behavior. However, he wasn’t asking for bonus work, or extra credit. He wanted more work to bring back up his grade. I remember back when I was in school. When you forgot your homework, not only did you have to do it during recess, but you were given more! Maybe its just me. I’m not excusing him for not bringing home his math work, not one bit. But if a child is willing to work harder, why not give him that chance?

The one thing I really wish is that the school would get together an honest to goodness honors program. When we moved here last year, they didn’t have one. During the summer they realized how many kids his age should be in a more rigorous program and they threw together a split class. I give them credit for recognizing the need, but not for the half backwards way they went about it. The first half of the year, they worked these kids like crazy, as should be. So far this year, nothing. No projects, no essays, not a thing they wouldn’t do in a normal class.

The whole point to an honors program (which he was in for two years before we moved here), is that the kids need extra. They need harder work, more challenging subjects. Otherwise you end up with bored kids who start to disrupt the class. For now we will work harder on what he does have, and I will continue to let him do the extra worksheets his sister brings home from middle school for him.

Dear Mr Black Cloud,

I’d like you to go away now, you’ve caused enough damage. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, well I’m tough enough already please. Don’t you think its time you moved on to someone else? You’ve been following me for eight years now, aren’t I boring enough for you yet? Haven’t you done almost everything you possibly could to me? Let’s have a mini re-cap shall we:

1. Stuck me in a marriage with an abusing shallow excuse for a man.
2. When I was brave enough to leave that, you took my home away from me and my kids.
3. When I caught a break and found a friend to stay with, you made sure he attached strings I wasn’t prepared to pay for.
4.When I found a new home, you left me alone for a few months, long enough to find my love, and get a sense of confidence back.
5.Then it was time to hit again, you made sure that after I finally got my license back,  you broke my brakes.
6. When I fixed the front ones, you broke my brake-line.
7. When I fixed that, you gave me a car accident.
8. After I paid for that, you shut my water off and got my building condemned.
9.When I finally got a break and found another home, you made sure that I couldn’t keep my water source on for the little time I needed it.

There’s plenty more Mr. Black Cloud, but those are just the biggies. Please stop now and quit raining on my parade. I’m one of the good guys. I don’t lie, cheat, or steal my way through life. I work hard, and love harder. Any bad deeds I must have done in a past life have surely been paid for by now. I’m trying to look at your silver lining, but you are making it very difficult to do that. I have the addresses of a few nasty people that you would find much more to your style than me. Please move on now.

Sincerely,

The woman who’s fighting her way through your darkness, but could use a little help here

Well I’m back. Haven’t really been on, no real reason other than I didn’t want to. If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. Or in this case, if you only have babble to write, write nothing at all. I wish more bloggers paid attention to that bit of advice.

My oldest child turned twelve years old yesterday, edging me further into middle age again. I thought I would share some tidbits with you about her, nothing too personal, and of course no picture of her. (So take that Mr. Pedophile).

My daughter is the miniature image of me, along with quite a bit of the attitude. She loves to be the boss, and I often remind her that I am the mother and not her. She’s been my little helper since she was a toddler and I had her younger brother. I remember on her second birthday when he was only 5 months old, I managed to catch her feeding him a bottle. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied “He was hungy mom, and you’re slow”. She also cut his hair when he was two and she was four, surprisingly he sat still for her, something he had yet to do for me.

She is my “girly girl”, loving pinks and purples as much as I cannot stand them. She hates wearing pants, and prefers her dresses and skirts (even in -10 degree weather). She is as bad in math as I always was, and yet has finally come to love reading as I do.

My daughter is the one thing that had me go from being a responsible young adult, to a very mature one.  She helped teach me a bit of patience at a time when I had none, something she still does to this day. She’s more of a follower than I ever was, and we continue to work on that one daily.

We had a great day yesterday as we all went out for our traditional birthday dinner. The birthday person gets to pick where we eat, and no one gets to argue. We ended up going to Bob Evans, had a lovely dinner and a lot of laughs. It’s funny, no matter where we end up we always have quite a bit of laughter. Went around to some stores simply window shopping and we came home and looked at old photographs.  As we were driving home, my daughter actually thanked me for a great birthday. I looked at her, told her she was welcome, and then told her that her maturity was showing.

Unfortunately said child is now home with a stomach bug, and of course today I bring home the ice cream cake. Hopefully she feels better by then.  As much as I cannot stand scrap-booking, this blog will work perfectly for her to see just how much I do understand her, and love her more and more everyday. No matter how many times I yell, or she rolls her eyes and stomps her feet at me, she will always be my baby girl.

Happy birthday my child, I love you so very much.

I need a little input  from all the dads out there. So for all you moms who read my blog here, I have a scenario for you to share with the dad in your life. Whether its first time dads, or fathers of teens. Read the following problem to them, and ask them what they would do. Then leave me a comment here if you could, and I will add all the info together in another blog in a day or two. Don’t worry, there really is reason to my madness.

You have the kids for the weekend, just you. Your 11 1/2 year old daughter has a terrible migraine, again. You give her one junior strength Tylenol, but it doesn’t seem to be working. You don’t want to call your ex wife(aka me), or current wife and let her know you don’t know what to do. You have the following options:

A. Give her another junior strength Tylenol

B. Give her an adult Aleve

C. Call ex or current wife and ask her what to do

D. Call your mother and ask her advice

There you have it ladies and gents, the problem at hand. I will be sending this question out over many sites so I can get as many answers from dads as I can. Thanks in advance, and I think this will be a new part of my blog. A poll combined with the correct answers and advice would be a nice thing. Don’t worry, I won’t stick just with dads, this will be an everyone poll at times.