School – Melrose Mom-ing

And that’s the FOURTH letter of notification

Of two further positive COVID-19 cases in my kids’ school.

Fortunately (and I cannot believe I’m typing this) these individuals had been previously identified as close contacts of one of the preceding cases.

So no new infection right? Especially as they hadn’t been in school since they were notified.

Except that Massachussetts is running a fucking ludicrous “Test and Stay” programme which means if you remain symptom free after an exposure and agree to daily tests you get to stay in school.

*Yup yet again I’m breaking out one of my favourite memes*

So yet again my anxiety is spiking and I await the news on the test reports for my children – as they are tested every Monday..

No, they aren’t impressed by this. Especially #1 Son – he hates it. But they both understand why they have to do it.

But I have overcome one level of anxiety and have agreed to sign #1 Son up for Choir after school every Thursday from next week. This technically counts as an “out of school” extracurricular so we shall see how we go on this. I’m telling myself it’s only an extra 30 minutes – but it’s with the entire 4th and 5th grades. Or at least all those that want to sing – there’s no auditions. I can’t decide if this is a good thing or not.

*Still they **are** only 9-10 years old so* 🤷🏻‍♀️

But it’s still an additional level of exposure. I hope to God that they let the kids keep their masks on, else I will be yanking him out faster than you can say Jack Robinson.

Another Positive Case

That’s two in the school since the start of the year. Which may not sound like a whole lot, but the first one was Day 2 and was a staff member!!!

This next one is in #1 Son’s grade!

Though fortunately not in his class!

And so round and round we go again. I’ve told both kiddos and reinforced my masking rules again. Fortunately they are part of the pooled testing programme so get tested every Monday morning anyway but it does not help my anxiety.

I simply feel like we are just waiting for it to hit again. And please allow me to explain just what it is I fear – exactly.

It’s not that I’ll lose my kids. Statistically I’m aware that’s improbable. They’ve had a version of the virus before. Though over 8 months ago and not Delta.

It’s the long term effects on their health and overall well being I’m terrified for.

For example, #1 Son still has his cough. And there’s little data on long hauler syndrome in children. But we’ve seen the effects on previously star athletes and similar.

Forgive me for not wanting that for my children.

So just at the point I was beginning to contemplate relaxing my grip on my anxiety, the midden has hit the windmill again.

However tomorrow I will probably begin discussions on one of the highlights of my year:

Fat Bear Week ❤️❤️❤️❤️

The more things end

The more they stay the same.

Tonight was a hard night for me. Two of my favourite shows aired their season finales.

Star Butterfly Vs. The Forces of Evil

and Game of Thrones.

In. One. Day.

It’s just added to the list of shows that I love that are “done”.

Adventure Time
SvtFoE
GoT
Big Bang Theory

I find myself torn. On the one hand I don’t want to spoiler things for anyone. On the other hand, I want to say one thing.

I am unexpectedly happy with how both shows ended.

I know right? Complete and total shocker!

I don’t know what I’m going to do with my Sunday evenings for the moment though.

Anyway, a metric tonne has happened in the rest of 2019.

Our Green Card applications are moving forward which is nice. It’s complex and complicated but is happening.
#1 Son has almost finished First Grade and is doing amazingly well. And there’s a chance that he could keep his current teacher into Second Grade – which would be awesome for him. He has also been signed up for the Summer Learning Academy again and that should really help keep his progress going. He is starting to read automatically and independently – only small things right now (signs etc) but it’s becoming muscle memory. He’s a sassy bugger too which I love. He has also lost three teeth – which his sister is now convinced is happening to her on a daily basis 🙄
And speaking of his sister… TT is… well, she’s a bloody handful is what she is. She’s a boundary-pushing stroppy ball of not-hormones. Honest to god it’s like looking into the future at times. But she can also be so sweet and so caring. Again the difference between the two is so utterly marked. She continues to idolise her brother and can’t wait to “go to school” long may that continue 🤣😂
The hus-creature just returned from his second business trip to Seattle, and I didn’t commit infanticide, nor burn the house down; so I consider that a big tick in the plus column.

That’s it for now. I’m going to make a better effort from now on. I’ve missed the blog!

It’s the differences that hurt

I started writing this post in late May this year. Mostly to quietly vent. I’m not sure if I ever intended to publish it. But I feel I should. It’s important to be honest, with myself as well as everyone else.

I’ve been ruminating on this post for a while, and I suspect that it will be a good few days in the writing before I hit the publish button to be honest.

We all know that I have my two kidlets:

And

And I love them both to death. I do. I would both die and kill for these two. I have been a mama lion for #1 Son over the last year or so, and will continue to be for as long as he needs or wants me to be. But, can I admit something?

I get so tired.

It’s so hard. So so hard. And half the time at least it’s just not his fault or anything to do with him as himself. He continues to be one of the kindest, funniest, sweetest boys that anyone would be lucky to know.

But it’s his condition. It’s his disability (and I bloody loathe that word).

He is not a standard child. And this world is set up for the standard. For the “normal”. And everyone else is left to sink or swim.

TT is growing up. Every day it seems she does something new.

And she is blowing right past him

I don’t mean like for like now, at almost six he still ahead of her, but at their comparative ages she’s miles ahead.

She plays with toys.
She has proper imaginative play.
She is capable of playing on her own.
She wants to play with her brother. She idolises him if truth be known.
Her language skills are amazing
She has concepts such as sharing down. Admittedly mostly when they benefit her but she’s got them.
Milestones such as crawling, walking etc she already blew past him with.

There are more, so many more, but these are the ones that stick in my head.

It’s almost daily that I will look at the hus-creature and say:

He was never like this.

He never did this/that.

And I wonder if he has somehow been short changed by my just not knowing that he was non-standard.

How did I not know? Well for a premature child and a boy, he was hitting all the relevant milestones within the age-appropriate ranges.

We didn’t see a problem until he first started formal schooling.

I worry for him. I worry about him. If I, as his mother, can get upset and frustrated

And I do, believe me I do

Then how will the rest of the world cope? How will he cope with it?!?!?

And that is where I stopped. I couldn’t carry it on.

I think my pain, worry, fear is quite obvious no? But, I’m pleased to say, that things are once again on the upswing.

He’s had a few knocks since the start of the school year. For example he started leaving class again, particularly after we got back from England. However that was two weeks ago, and he’s getting better.

I still haven’t had to visit the new Principal (which is great) and he’s making great strides in his reading, writing and math.

I’m just so proud of this kid.

He’s a trooper. He’s my best boy. And I will continue to be the Mamasaurus that he needs me to be.

He got that star in his first week and we have also had another since.

Summer update

Wow it’s been a while (again) hasn’t it?

The issue is that for us, summer rolls on and on and therefore nothing really changes on a daily or, even weekly, basis.

#1 Son finished his summer camps. The reading one keeps trying to coax us into a fall programme for a mere $199 but given how disruptive he was for a good period of the first one, I really can’t justify that.

The Summer Learning Academy was much more successful, and I really hope we can build on it from August 29 when he starts 1st Grade.

Don’t know who his teacher is yet, nor have the supplies lists been issued, so I await that with bated breath.

He is signed up for Education Stations (basically after school club) for one day a week – pending cashing of cheque as I let that little bit of house admin slip past me!

Which will give him a little socialisation outside of school hours with his peers. I’m hopeful about it. It coincides with knitting group as daddy needs to pick him up so that seemed smart.

The wonderful A has agreed to pick him up from school for the rest of the week for the foreseeable. Yes, I will get my MA licence – I’ve just been terrified. I’m actually considering learning to ride a bicycle instead. I mean, it’s good exercise, but it’s mostly because driving here scares the beejeebus outta me!

As for me? Well I’ve lost almost 20lb and can fit into dresses I was wearing four years ago! Admittedly those are merely a (U.K.) size 16 but hey it’s progress in the correct direction.

I have finally gone to the dark side of men’s sandals but goddamnit they are comfortable. And they don’t look too bad with the dress – which is actually loose in this picture as it’s (U.K.) 18 but I felt good.

I’ve been baking more and it’s nice to find my zen.

These are the stages of a butterscotch pie – so good. I will be baking that one again!

Next up this week is homemade lemon curd.

TT continues to amaze and amuse. Her language is coming on in leaps and bounds. She is such a determined funny little person. She seems to finally have accepted that daytime clothing is a good thing. Occasionally she even lets me brush her hair!!!

She has also rediscovered her love of baths and even occasionally asks for a hair washing!

We still haven’t made it up to the damn beach as every free weekend we’ve had, the weather has been shite.

Not unlike Old England really 😂🤣

So the current plan is for the hus-creature to take a midweek day off and we will either head up to the beach or to the local indoor water park we’ve found.

In less than a month we are heading back to the U.K. for about a week for the wedding of my gorgeous sister in law and her handsome soon-to-be husband and I cannot wait. I’ve missed them so much.

We will be crashing with my parents, so I get to see everyone which is awesome.

My best friend lives within short driving distance of mom and dad too, so we are going to pop and see them too before we head back. I need my bestie cuddles too.

It’s not long enough, but we can’t keep #1 Son out of school for longer than a week (including jet lag recovery time).

He has a doctor’s appointment today for a Polio shot (he’s going to hate me!) and an IEP update. He’s decided he wants his daddy to take him. Am I a little miffed? Well not really – it’s lovely that he feels able to state a preference for the parent he wants. Daddy is more practical and won’t weep so I get it. I’ll stay home with TT to keep her out of the way, and the boys will go for ice cream after, to deal with any residual trauma.

I have a checkup with my own doctor on the 27th for blood pressure things – maybe I can also get some anxiety meds but we will see.

I also have my six month post operative check up on the 22nd. Since I’ve lost 20lb (and there’s still a little time to shift more) since they last saw me, I’m hopeful I won’t get too big a lecture on not having completely broken up with dairy 🤣😂

I shall sign off now. There might be changes in post formats to try and encapsulate more stuff “as it happens” rather than trying to wait for enough to write an epic.

I leave you with a recent collage of my offspring. Because I’m bloody proud of them 💗

The Second week of camp(s)

So Wednesday this last week was Independence Day. And because his teacher (not unreasonably) had booked a little extra annual leave – well it’s not really annual leave when you’re not supposed to be working is it – #1 Son was only in “summer learning Academy” camp for two days this week.

Monday was fine. He had a great day and everything was brilliant. You see, they send home daily worksheets of the things that he’s been doing; and I’ve seen such an improvement in them that it reassures me that this was definitely the right thing to do for him.

However Tuesday? Tuesday was not so good. The wonderful H’s daughter did the pick up run as H herself was I think feeling under the weather due to impending dental torture and it just wasn’t a good day. The report I got back was that he had not done anything and had really gotten grumpy with the teacher. What I got out of him (and I’m actually impressed he told me) was that:

They had been learning about dolphins again and he had already learned about dolphins 10, 20, 100 days before in real school and he did not need to learn about them again.

He also claimed that he had tried to tell the teacher this and that she just hadn’t listened to him and didn’t understand him. Now I’m a tad sceptical about this as I’m fairly sure this teacher knows what she’s doing (as they seem to have a lot of experience with neuro-atypical children) but he felt that she wasn’t listening and he ran out. Of the classroom. First time he’s done that actually in a good few months. I can’t say I was impressed with the behaviour but I am impressed that he at least told me the truth. We then had a nice talk about it and I try to explain (as I have done many times before) that he’s got to learn the simple stuff before he can learn the more exciting stuff.

I also tried to explain that the teacher didn’t necessarily have a good clear indication of which children had already learned about dolphins versus which children had not as these are kids who come from across the town and across the different primary schools that may even be cross district but I doubt that actually, as it does all seem to be the Melrose schools rather than some of the others that they seem to have around here.

Not sure exactly how much of it sunk in but he cheered up a bit and we had a better day the following day. Hopefully this means a better week this week as he is back at camp Monday to Thursday this week.

Another potential issue is that his current therapist is leaving the practice where we’ve been taking him since last year sometime I forget exactly how long and is going into private practice. I panicked a bit when the hus-creature told me this because quite frankly I can’t go through the changes again. However she did say that she will continue to take our insurance so hopefully we could just knows him across when she leaves in August. I can’t I just can’t go through explaining it all the new therapist, getting him to see the new therapist, building up that report again it’s just not going to be good. So hopefully we’ll have a clear indication this week what she plans on doing about her current clients.

I mean I can’t blame her, there is so much more money in private practice, but we’ve been through this before. Still, at least this one was able to be honest with us about it and not just leave us in the lurch.

Wednesday was pretty uneventful really. I recently made a new friend – another friend who previously only lived in my computer and is now part of my real life.

We are currently educating each other on films. Apparently if you’ve never seen “The Princess Bride” you must forever be shunned in this country. So he has educated me (and to a lesser extent the hus-creature – who is normally playing video games and rolling his eyes whilst we watch films and act like children 😂) on:

The Princess Bride
Red Line

I have introduced him to:

Labyrinth

I also have The Dark Crystal and Leon on my side of the list 😂🤣

It seems to be becoming a somewhat weekly thing, and it’s nice to have another friend who lives in-state.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful until Saturday when #1 Son had Reading summer camp.

Which apparently went a bit better than the week before. Which is great. He’s still so bad at focussing, but he’s coming on in leaps and bounds so I’m confident he will be at the level he needs to be at come end of August.

The new principal of his school has been elected, and it is Candidate A – who has the PhD in Education Administration and the neatly trimmed beard.

While I think I personally would have preferred candidate B – who was keen and had not yet had a principal-ship I knew A would get it, and from the talks they both gave, both have a style that ought to benefit my son, so we will attend whatever “Meet And Greets” are held and go from there.

TT has been her usual happy self and there have been some wonderful days:

And me? I’ve taken my mental health in my own hands. I have been walking in the evenings. Usually a minimum of 2km a day. It started because I needed to return books to the library and it’s just slightly too far away to easily take the kids.

And then I rediscovered Pokémon Go (look it up and if you have a Smartphone go get it) and for the last week or so I have been simply “following the pokéstops”.

See, one of the benefits to living in this country is that everything is on the grid system so you can pretty much wander in a circle except it’s not really, and you will eventually find yourself back home after doing either a giant loop or maybe a lollipop/balloon shape on the map.

I mean yes, I do also have Google Maps which I use to cross check, but more often than not I simply find myself back on Main Street after about 45-60 minutes of rambling and then I just toddle home.

And the scenery is beautiful:

And I’m learning the local geography, am getting my heart rate up and am not getting bored. All bonuses really.

And catching Snorlax 🤣😂

No, really, I did – and without the stampede!

School Science Fair

Well not really, but sort of.

On Thursday #1 Son had his Kids Enquiry Conference. It was 18:30-19:30 and attendance was strongly encouraged.

I can’t say that I was particularly happy about it as it was after TT’s bedtime and ran past his own for a school night. Still, since it was the school making him go, I figured that they could just suck up any residual issues potentially caused by him being late to bed.

As it turned out, it was more of a “kids showing parents what they had been up to during science” in the same manner as the writing wherein we learned all about dolphins

(Please to be remembering that it is, in fact, about dolphins):

And the Maths one I previously wrote about.

So daddy took him up as someone needed to stay behind with TT and I had seen the others. I felt it would be good for #1 Son to spend some time with daddy.

I think they had fun?

😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

It was all pretty standard. The class had been doing group projects building bridges out of cardboard, egg cartons etc.

We also had the school reading and maths lists for the summer sent home.

Big stuff to do sigh. I just hope we can get most of it done.

We are now all signed up with the Melrose Public Library now at least.

And I am also endeavouring to ascertain whether all the reading he does must be off of the prescribed reading list. I’m hoping not.

Snow Days

So, we have had (another) blizzard. Which has included more school closures.

Which normally means that the children have to make up all the relevant days at the end of the school year (the week is already built into the calendar).

However this year the Melrose school district has decided to pilot a School Cancellation Project system to limit the number of additional days required. Which I personally think is great, as teachers need their summer vacation as well as the kids.

So the idea is that per snow day the children pick from a list of published and publicised activities to do an hour’s worth of work. This is both worksheet based and is recorded and signed off by an adult in charge.

Sadly under the current “rules” (as it is a pilot system) if there are two consecutive snow days, the second must be made up in the summer. Which I find ridiculous but I’m presuming that it has something to do with the fact that the teachers are the ones compiling the extra work and it was a system only put into place after the first snow day of the academic year.

Anyway, #1 Son did over two hours worth on his first day – which was mostly with Nanny as I was still in significant recuperation mode. I do hope he gets credit for it.

Day One:

Snow Science – where he was to ascertain water in its solid, liquid and gaseous states. Nanny got him to try two examples – which meant we had a plastic beaker full of snow on our mantelpiece and on the front porch. In snow. Much to the amusement of our neighbours 😂🤣
Snowman Craft – we did several of the listed options, which included a snowman face (which I managed to get a picture of)
Snow Book Report – the children were allowed to choose their own book for this, so he chose Robot Rumpus which is one of his cycle of favourite bedtime stories.

Day Two:

For this there was a different set of exercises, which was a crying shame, as I had prepped loads of ideas based upon Day One’s remaining options. However, all was not lost, and this time we completed:

Teen Number Practice – which was a maths based colouring worksheet.
Roll A Sight Word – the USA ones are different to those taught in the U.K., as phonics are not taught in schools as standard, so that is… fun. However I downloaded a dice app onto my phone and we completed two sets of these on separate sheets. As expected, #1 Son did not enjoy this activity as much.
Snow Book Report – yes again. He enjoys them, as he doesn’t have to do the reading himself (listening to someone else read is fine) and he loves the drawing part. So this time we read Kitchen Disco which is another firm favourite.

Sadly there was a consecutive snow day so holidays are affected, but hopefully the snow will soon be over.

Many things

It’s been a busy few days.

TT is (whisper it) 100% reliable during the day on the toilet when it comes to doing a wee!

We have also had two days in a row where she has successfully done a poo in the correct place*

We have had no accidents all week thus far.

Night training is not happening, as we are attempting to wean her away from her middle of the night bottle and it’s just cruel to do both at the same time…

That and the one night we tried it she screamed bloody murder, fully woke up, and then actively refused to go back to sleep without said bottle – she won that round!

But she’s doing amazingly – especially when you consider she’s only 26 months old!!

Okay so she doesn’t now need the “cooling” pull ups we bought, or the plastic pants. Bugger. Ah well, we live and learn. And if we hadn’t have bought them, we would have needed them.

Sadly we had a bit of a backslide with #1 Son on the behaviour at school front today. He ran out not once, not twice but five time today, and even ran back into school at pick up time whilst the Mothership was talking to his teacher about the previous five occurrences.

I received an email from her this afternoon confirming that he had had an “emotional” day (stating that no-one would play with him and that he felt that no one loved him 😰) outlining her strategies for helping him tomorrow and giving us a framework to talk to him.

One of the problems is his refusal to accept that other children might just want to play games of their own choosing too – we are working on this…

He has had two more party invites though (one of which is ice skating – but thankfully with options for non skaters) which ought to help a little.

The other is a bouncing party – your guess is as good as ours on that – but that should at least be fun for him.

The lovely H brought up some presents for the kidlets today and he completed one of them

Momma and I are hoping that H will be able to join us on a small night on the town on Saturday.

His reading has come on in leaps and bounds. He actually asked to read with mom when he got home from school!!!!

He still hates writing, so I think that will have to be the next point of focus, but it’s amazing to see how well he is doing.

Mom met up with his teacher on Tuesday afternoon to discuss his progress and ensure that we (mostly her) are not confusing him compared to how they are teaching him in class.

It meant she got to meet his support team, and see his little cubby that they’ve built for him to (effectively) escape into when he gets overwhelmed.

Yes, it is literally a cupboard – it works for him.

He will also be having weekly sessions with his therapist every Tuesday at 07:15 – this means he won’t be too late into school, thus not impacting on his daddy’s work day too much.

As for me? I’m slowly getting back behind the wheel. I’m not great, but at least when I screw up I’m following through and have not (for example) crashed into a roundabout, nor ran a red light, nor turned into oncoming traffic without signalling.

Which are all things I did back in England prior to passing my U.K. licence

So I consider that I am doing okay. I need practice, and I need to pass my theory test (yet again) but I am studying and having gotten through half of the USA equivalent to the Highway Code today.

I’m now exhausted and have an incipient migraine 😂🤣

I also had my second post-op checkup yesterday.

My doctor is very pleased with my progress. I am to increase my doing of things, though not to lift anything heavier than a gallon until I’m the full six weeks post-surgery.

He does however want me to break up with dairy 🙀🙀🙀

(I mentioned I wanted to lose weight)

At the moment dairy and I are merely agreeing to see other people 😂🤣

I can cope with losing chocolate but not my cheese. And I’m trying to work out what I could put in my tea instead of cow’s milk.

But I’m going to try.

He next wants to see me in six months, and this appointment is already booked 😱

Mom and I also went up to knitting group yesterday and had much fun 👍🏻

*With many apologies to the non-parents in my audience, this sort of thing is big news when you are a stay at home parent!

Several important milestones

So yesterday wasn’t your average Sunday.

I was going to walk to the pub with mum but it was raining really heavily. So we all had a baguette meal at #1 Son’s request. Both children really enjoyed themselves and actually ate real food. TT also tried various adult foods such as horseradish cheese and Gorgonzola dip. No, she didn’t like them but at least it was funny when she tried.

TT has been trying bunches again:

I’m not sure she approves yet 😂🤣 whatever we do she yanks out within 10-30 minutes anyway sigh.

We decided that it was a good idea to actually get some exercise, so when we discovered we were almost out of cat food (I know right how did I let this happen?) We decided that I would go to Shaws with the sprogs and the hus-creature, and get some fresh air.

Well we managed it. Nobody ran off, broke anything and I didn’t collapse. Then something very amazing happened.

I drove the car home!!!!

Yes, me – who hasn’t been behind the wheel in over six months!!!

I was probably more than a little aggravating to the other drivers, but I made it home.

#1 Son even told me “you have done well Mommy, good job”

And trust me, I needed to hear that!!!

We went out tonight for a small spin around the immediate estate and to the train station and back – a bit of road position practice mainly. Again, nobody died and there was only one instance of my getting my side of the road screwed up – approaching a one-way gyratory on the left whilst turning left fired up my dormant muscle-memory neurons, but I moved over before there was an issue and didn’t even get beeped so all is good.

I need to be able to do the school run before Momma returns to good ole Blighty.

Tosay #1 Son voluntarily tidied TT’s room – it was done very well. What was amusing was TT checking all the cupboards in her little kitchen to see what he had put in there.

TT is now very upset to wake up to a wet nappy, and for the last two nights has insisted on “wee wee” within 10 min of her bedroom door closing.

So tonight we cut down her bedtime bottle amount and as of last night have cut out her 11pm bottle 🙀

We will be attempting to sit her on a potty at 11pm instead after getting #1 Son up for his middle of the night toilet break.

Both of them are growing up. TT is now almost 100% reliable on the #1 front, so now we are working on #2.

Night-dry may well be possible much sooner with her…

I’m also three weeks post-op now. Time flies when you’re “having fun” I guess.