APRIL 9TH - TONI'S BIRTHDAY!!

Warm Birthday Wishes!

Remembering you with caring thoughts and warm wishes for a wonderful day.

Happy Birthday

Love,
Dee

Okay, enough with the Hallmark bullshit!

I know this post is a day early but I was sitting at the comuter and thought "what the heck".

What can I say about Toni? Did you ever have one of those friend that you just can't live without? Well if you haven't, Toni would be the perfect fit and here she is with me!



Toni is the one who can always make you laugh no matter what she says or does. There are so many things that come to mind when you say Toni's name.

Funny, loving, caring, thoughtful, warmhearted, makes me laugh so hard I could pee my pants.

If we were ever stranded on an Island together, we would be fine. She would bring the hooch and I would would bring the booze. You can't ask for more than that know can you?

I remember when we were younger and we would have fun no matter what we were doing... walking the neighborhood, hanging with Smitty on the roof, shooting pool with Crazy Mary, working at Pizza Sub on Western, sitting at Lil' Rich's. Loitering in the Lincoln Square Plaza with all the Rich's (big, little, cookie), Hoddie, Kay the big dork! and so many more. And there was this one guy who lived by St. Mathias school, older man, Bonj was his name, he was cool. He has since died but was a cool guy who loved Jazz and loved to smoke. He had yellow fingers and all. We had some weird friends but they sure were fun times had by all.

Toni,

I am glad we have shared the last 35 or so years together and look forward to the next 35 or more.

I Love You,
Dee

The hunt is on.

Today I realized that a new job is exactly what I need right now. Don't get me wrong I like my job, the freedom my boss gives me is great. The surroundings have something to be desired.

I work in a "home office". There is too much home in this office. When I started there a year ago it was cool. I was able to take my kids to school in the morning and pick them up on my lunch break (2:00 p.m.) and bring them back to work to finish off the day.

In the summer my boss' kids were at the "Lake House" all summer so my kids got to come and hang out with me when needed, so it was all good.

Then it happened...family (marital) problems, everyone has them but since this is a "home office", I got them first hand. I have been dealing with this for over 9 months now & have decided that's enough for me.

So as of today, I am officially looking for a job. I am giving myself 2 weeks to find something. Let's see what happens.

WRITER'S CRAMP OR JUST LAZY?

My my, December 9th. I can not believe I have not written two words since then and Jessica has novels. How does she do it? Well as Jessica(and Michael Jordan)would say... Just Do It!

We are gonna cover a lot of ground here.

So much has happened since I last wrote. I left off on Basketball. The season is now over and we took 1st place. This was the kids 1st year so they were not so good when we started but as the year went on they got better. So next year they are gonna rock!



Christmas was good this year. As always, all that preparation and it is over in a matter of minutes. I don't remember being selfish when it came to gifts. I think we were happy to get anything. Kids nowadays... I want an Xbox 360, I want an Ipod, I want, I want, I want. Oh my God, my dad would have knocked me on my ass if I was like that. My kids were told long ago that Santa brings 1 gift for each of them and mom and dad get the rest so do not be asking for crazy stuff. They were good. Mary Jo's list said "Dear Santa, Please bring a Nintendo WII for me and my brothers."
Michael's list asked for a Nerf football and Marty asked for a Nerf basketball. I was so glad I had that conversation with them. Santa got what they asked for and yes dad and mom did buy more that I originally set out to buy because they understood what I told them.

January, February and March have just flown by. Spring break the week before Easter? what's that?

Marty took the week off so we could do something with the kids. Last year we went to Florida for the week. Was not what we had expected, my Father in Law had and a AAA (Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm)the day we got there so we thought we were going to have to fly home. We did not get to do all the things we had planned because we wanted to stay close to the airport just in case. He is fine now. He will get his own blog soon. This year we did nothing big. Marty and the kids went camper shopping, took me out to lunch one day, and just hung out together. The kids really loved the time they spent with there dad. I worked everyday. When you don't get paid time off, that's what you do.

How about Good Friday. It snowed like crazy - like 12 inches in March. Gotta love Chicago. For those of you who have forgotten what it looked like, I have pictures.







Then before the snow could melt(which it did my Monday), Marty and the kids built a snowman....




Now here we are pretty much up to current. I have to go feed my kids but I promise myself, I will be back.

Whew!

I cant believe how long it has been. Time is flying.

Well, I left off on Marty & School. I had a meeting with the Mrs. Wasserman (Counselor), very nice lady. She sat with me & Marty for a bit and asked questions, I could tell Marty was holding back because I was there so I stepped out and went to talk to his teacher. I don't know what it is about her but she can make me so angry.

I asked how he was doing and she said "well, a bit better but he just keeps wondering off, I think it is attention def" and she stopped in mid word. "I mean I cant seem to keep his attention". As a mom, you dread the "ADD" or "ADHD" words. I told her I would have Mrs. Wasserman meet with her when we were done.

Mrs. W said Marty is well aware of the things he is doing in class & does them because he is bored. Now what??

So every night we practice, practice, practice. They say practice makes perfect. I feel really bad for him because I know he is trying & he is a pleaser person so this has to be killing him at school, not being able to please his teacher.

I will keep praising him daily & hugging and kissing him because I know he is a good kid. A bit silly as you can see but a good kid none the less.




I am passing out now, long day and need to get my sleep.

Tomorrow let's talk about basketball.......

Poor Little Marty

Marty's teacher sent home a list..She calls it "Things to work on".

1. Follow directions.

2. Listening.

3. Not making sounds.

4. Getting work done in a specific amount of time.

5. No running in the hallway.

6. Walk quietly & correctly on the stairs.

7. No "goofing" around in the boys bathroom.

8. No tapping on desk with hands or pencils.

So with all the things he does wrong all day, what does this kid get done during the day?

I called the school and requested Marty be evaluated by the speech therapist to see what she thinks(she is my sister-in-law), and I figure she will be honest with me. After he review, she thinks we need to do intervention on him with the school counselor and get home in some kind of program after school. He has too much energy and seems to get bored easily in class because he would rather be doing artsy kind of things like, drawing, playing music and etc.

I have to schedule a meeting tomorrow to meet with everyone.

Until tomorrow....

It's Official

Well thanks to my BFF Jessica, I have officially become a blogger. I'm not sure how this is going to go or if I can come up with anything as interesting as hers but I am going to try. I also have 3 kids who think they are little comedians so who nkows, this could turn out pretty good. If not, at least I have a place to keep my thoughts now.

I am going to start out by telling you a bit about report card day.... The kids were off school so I had to bring them to work wih me which is a joke in itself. I don't know if anyone has ever had a job or a boss that would let you bring your kids to work if needed, not such a good idea. During the summer it was cool because I could let them play in the yard while I worked so I did not have to worry about them "getting into stuff" that is not ours. Every 5 minutes the same thing comes out of my mouth. "guys, you need to sit down & please dont touch that". After about 2 hours of this I'm about to lose it so the next thing that comes out of my mouth is, "That's it, I'm calling your dad, you can hang out at his work all day, I'm done"! Finally, there was silence, aaahhhh, heaven.

So I get home from work & me and the kids start cleaning, it seems like that is all we do & the house is never really clean. No one is home during the day so who messes it up? Oh yeah, I have another person living with me, his name is "I dunno" he's gets blamed for everything at my house. So home comes Marty & off to school we go for our 3 conferences.

Little Marty's was first. Now, I have to tell you that 5 weeks into school we have these progress reports come home showing how the kids are doing, 5 WEEKS IN? Have they even been there long enough for a progress report? Anyway, Marty's stunk, he was failing according to his "Diebles Test Scores" so I asked his teacher, Mrs. Carson, for a sit down to discuss any issues she may have. We meet & she tells me that Marty does not know his sight words (i.e on, in, the was, me, you, etc.) and he does not know is alphabet that well either. I'm shocked cause he know rhis stuff at home. So I go get him some early readers so he can start reading better, I practice every night with him on site words. On October 25th, he got tested on his first quarter words and got a 100%, I was so proud of him. So I am thinking this report card should not be too bad, he has improved, right? Wrong! We sit down & go over his grades, no so bad, 2 - A's, 2 - B's and 4 - C's, I'm okay with that, he is in 1st grade. We have timne to get more A's & B's. Mrs. Carson then turns to page 3. CONDUCT. My son got a D a big fat D. According to Mrs. Carson he does not pay attention, does not make wise choices, does not follow directions, does not complete his work on time, does not respect others, and is not resposible, or dependable. WOW! Can I tell you how my heart broke. I never thought I would hear someone says all those things about one of my kids. I know my boys are no angles, hell half the time I want to lock em in their room but that was harsh. My husband turned every shade of red trying to not reach across the desk & grab the teacher & also he was embarresed that our son was so bad. Well, we got out of room 112 and sarted to walk to Mary Jo's room and the dad lecture started and we know how those can be. The look on my baby's face showed me he was sorry for what just happened and he was very upset that his dad was mad at him. He has since promised to get better grades next quarter. I hope so.

Little Miss Mary Jo. We walk in to her room & her teacher, Ms. Tomich is a whopping 22 years old, was happy to see us. She is so cute and she is so excited about being a teacher. I do have to say, I am going to like her alot. Mary Jo got all A's & she made the Gold Honor Roll, that's my girl. Perfect Attendane & she won a Citizenship Award. We leave her room and as we are passing the science room, Mr. Rosensteil tell my husband what a great student she, my hubby turns to Marty and says hear that? Enough already he knows he did bad. We then pass Mrs. Carroll who tells me what a doll Mary Jo is and what a pleasure it is to have her in her class. This kids head is about to explode with all the compliments. So, off to Michael's room

We walk into Mrs. McDowells room, we know her from when Mary Jo was in her class, super nice teacher. Mrs. McDowell asks Mike how he thought he did & he says "I dont know but I hope it is good". She tells him he is right, it is pretty good. All A's & B's except 1 C. I was impressed, see Michael is my problem child. He takes after his Uncle Mike, my one and only brother, for those of you who know him, you know what I mean. Remember page 3 from Marty's story, well I was very nervous to see what she gave him. We turn the page & it's a .....B. The only problem he has is that he forgets to raise his hand before blurting out the answers. We are working on that. Since we know Mrs. McDowell so well, we decide to show her Marty's report card to get her thoughts. I think she was a bit shocked as well. She has him once a week for Social Studies and says he's not so bad in her class.

So that was my Parent/Teacher night experience. It started off bad but turned out pretty good. I have since requested that Mrs. Carson send me a copy of class rules and a list of examples of things he does wrong. I wonder what we will get.

Well that's about it for my first time.