And the Mets did NOT disappoint today! They beat the Reds 2-1 today. Now they need to keep this kind of play up. Lets Go Mets!
For me, spring doesn't really get here until baseball officially starts. More specifically not until the Mets officially start. And today is the day. Mets play in Cincinatti today. I can't wait. Lets Go Mets! 2009 is going to be their year.
Here is this weeks Week In Review for March 29 - April 4, 2009
Sunday: I was lazy for the first half of the day. Still trying to catch up on my soaps. I made a pork roast for dinner. After dinner I ran a bath for the girls and washed the dinner dishes. Then I did a load of laundry. I went through CJ's clothes and got rid of some of the stuff that is too small for him. When the girls got out of the tub I ran a bath for CJ. Then we put the kids to bed and I went and cleaned out my bedroom closet. I got rid of clothes that either don't fit me or I just don't wear anymore. That was a little depressing. One of the skirts I had in my closet was the skirt I was wearing when Joe proposed to me. Is it sad that I remember that? Anyways I don't think I'll ever be that size again so I decided to get rid of it. I am giving it to the FRC's tag sale they are having this week. Joe realized that we are getting a free preview of Starz this week and Ghost Rider came on at 9:00. So he watched that. I wasn't too interested in that so I continued doing laundry and played on the computer. Then I showered and went to bed.
Monday: A hard morning to get up. I had woke up at four in the morning with an ear ache so it was hard to fall back to sleep. So when 7 rolled around and the girls were up and making all sorts of noise I had to drag myself out of bed. Got everyone ready for school. Put the stuff for the FRC tag sale in the car. Got the cash box ready for the book fair and brought the kids to school. Went down to the book fair and discovered some books were $3.99 which meant we needed pennies which I didn't have in the cash box. So I ran home to get some of that. I checked out some of the books at the book fair. I'm not too sure we'll be using Scholastic again. We'll see how it goes, but the prices were a little higher than we would have had them if we had shopped for the books ourselves. We chatted with the ladies in the FRC for a few and they want to hire me to make pancakes sometime in April. I definitely could use the extra $150 so I told them no problem. It's nice that they think of me. We then went to the grocery store. Spent way too much money, but I had to stock up on meat. Came home and put CJ down for a nap. Had to wake him up to feed him lunch. Wrote a letter to the principal about Kaitlyn. Got a phone call from the doctor that I could schedule the girl's physicals for sometime in August so got those scheduled. Went to pick the girls up from school. We then went to find a tea set for Kaitlyn's birthday party. We found a tea pot with roses on it and some cups and saucers which have flowers. Not matching the tea pot, but whatever Kaitlyn likes it and it only cost me $13. The children didn't want tacos for dinner so Thursday nights dinner of a hot italian sub got moved up to today. So a nice quick dinner while the kids did their homework. They went to play in their room and CJ came out with a lolly pop. I asked the girls about it and I got lies from Kaitlyn and a huge attitude from Natalie so they were sent to bed early. Then I spent the night mentally preparing myself for my crazy Tuesday.
Tuesday: My day pretty much went exactly how I said it would in this post. The only difference was in the evening I met with the principal during the book fair for about fifteen minutes to discuss Kaitlyn. The book fair is going great and I had 31 of the 63 Avon orders picked up too. So just about half of them with two more pick up days to go.
Wednesday: Brought Joe to work in the morning. Came home to shower and get the kids ready for school. Natalie pushed Kaitlyn because she wanted to use a new utensil we bought the other day. Yeah, I don't get that. So Natalie then had to clean up CJ's Cherrios that he threw on the floor. Then we left for school. CJ had playgroup. It was outside on the playground today. He wasn't too sure about walking on the wood chips. He finally started climbing up the playscape though and even went down a slide. He got stuck in the middle, but he was ready to do it again. It was time to go in though for snack, craft, and a story. Then it was time to go. I went upstairs to talk to the principal about Kaitlyn, but he wasn't in his office. So CJ and I came home. I put CJ down for his nap and washed some laundry. I made lunch for the girls and woke CJ up from his nap. I fed him lunch and then we went to the school to work the book fair and hand out Avon. We were swamped today. The Avon orders didn't get picked up as well as they did the night before. I'm worried I lost at least one. It's possible the person came and picked up without speaking to me. It was hard even with two extra people to keep track of it both. I am hoping that's the case and I am hoping they don't say it wasn't picked up because if they do we are out the money. I spoke to the principal about Kaitlyn and he's going to schedule a PPT for her. We left the school at 4. We had to pick Joe up from work at 4:30 so I just went right there and picked up something for dinner. Then we came home and the kids started their homework. I started cooking dinner. We ate and then I told the girls to clean their room. They had a meltdown and had a bunch of their toys taken away from them until they can prove that they can act their age. Once they got their room clean we sent them to bed. Everyone was really over tired. Joe and I watched Marley and Me. I wish I could say uninterrupted, but CJ wouldn't go to sleep. So he watched a little with us. It was a great movie and I'm so glad we didn't see it on Christmas day when it came out. I wouldn't have been able to watch the whole thing then.
Thursday: I was up early, before everyone. Although, I didn't get too much free time. Quickly everyone got up. We had to bring Joe to work again. Then we came home, had breakfast, I caught up on dishes, and then off to school. I brought the cash box down to the book fair and it's a good thing too because neither one of my officers who were working today were there yet. So I had to hang around. I talked to someone in the FRC about me helping out with the April/May RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) program. I'm going to be paid to make pancakes with the kids, woohoo. So I need to come up with an invoice for that. I bought books finally for the kids from the book fair so maybe they can stop bugging me. Oh, who am I kidding they'll still bug me about buying more books. I think $40 on books is more than enough though. Besides, Natalie had a $15 voucher she already spent on books for reading the most minutes in the school (over 6000 minutes, way to go Natalie!). Kaitlyn had a $5 voucher so they both already bought themselves some books. They should be well stocked now. I found my missing Avon order. It was all school staff not communicating with the one person (me) they should be communicating with. And it's not like I'm not easily found or reached either. So that was a load off my shoulders. We came home and CJ went down for his nap. Then it was back for 1 to pick up the girls from school (another half day schedule). I brought them home and they had lunch and did their homework. Then we picked Joe up from work. Afterwards the girls played outside for a little while. Then we went out to grab a quick bite to eat to go to the book fair. We worked the book fair from 6-8. I also had Natalie's conference which was great. We came home and put the kids to bed. Then we watched TV and went to bed.
Friday: Got up this morning to find out that Natalie couldn't find her PAWS shirt. They are having a Calypso at school and were supposed to wear their PAWS shirt. So she had to wear last years shirt instead. I brought the girls to school and did the final day of the book fair. We were only open for 45 minutes because Scholastic was coming to pick up the books. So we had to pack up the books and then put the library back together. They left three women (me, my VP, and Treasurer) to lift tables and chairs and put them all back. So I hurt my back. I came home and watched our recording of the final episode of ER. It's sad that that's over. We were interrupted before we could even really start watching the final episode though by a phone call. Joe's brother called because the home their grandmother is in was trying to reach their sister. Their grandmother is not doing too well. While we were waiting to hear more news about Joe's grandmother I got a few calls about our Avon Fundraiser. One wanted to come to my house to pick up the Avon which I said okay to. Then another one called from the school and had put her order in a student's order. That student had actually put the orders in herself so I knew a parent wasn't coming to pick it up and all of her orders were from staff. So I ran to the school to get those orders out and spoke to the principal about our book fair. It looks like we did an awesome job. We should get at least $1000 from it which we are going to split with the principal. Then when I came home Joe had heard more about his grandmother and he wanted to go down there to see her. So he called out of work, I called the parent who was to pick up a fundraiser to cancel that, and once the girls got out of school we headed down there. We got there about 4:30 and two of his sisters were already there. Joe's brother and nephew then showed up and finally his sisters kids came there so it was a crowded room. She hung in there while the kids played and all. We ended up leaving at 7:30. Joe said his goodbyes and told her it was okay to just let go. We went out to the car and Joe's nephew was still there so we chatted with him for a few. Then we went to get something to eat and finally home to bed. It was a long day.
Saturday: Joe's grandmother made it through the night I guess. We didn't get any phone calls during the night. CJ was up at usual time even though he went to bed so late. So I got up with him. When Joe got up he called his sister to check on his grandmother and she made it through the night. So he went to work. When he came home we got ready to go to the Penny Auction. It's always so much fun. Tonight I was ready to walk out of there though because Joe was such a huge crank. We stuck around though, but didn't win anything. It was another late night though. We came home and sent the kids to bed. No phone calls from Joe's family about his grandmother so I guess she has made it another day.
Check out more Week In Review posts!
Can you imagine being on this earth for 102 years? Can you imagine the things you would have seen in that time? Can you imagine having survived well beyond your husband, all of your siblings, your own daughter, and your own granddaughter? All that heartache in one life. Oh but all the joys too. Giving birth to a 10 pound baby girl. Moving to the United States from England to give that girl a better life and accomplishing it. Watching that daughter graduate from high school. Go on to get married. Have six amazing grandchildren. Then 18 great grandchildren. And even being around to see two great great grandchildren! That's a lot more than most ever get to see in a lifetime.
Joe's grandmother is 102 years old. And this is her life in a nut shell. She is a Scottish woman who married an Englishman and they had a daughter together (Joe's mother) in 1935. Her husband passed away and when their daughter was just 3 years old they came over to Ellis Island to start a new life in America. It was a good life. She worked in a hospital for many years giving her daughter whatever she could. Her daughter grew up and graduated high school and went on to marry and have a child. That marriage did not work out and she divorced and remarried a man whom she had five more children with. Joe was the last of those six children in all. Sadly in 1985 Joe's mother died of COPD, but Nanny plugged on. The grandchildren all grew up and began having children of their own. Then the oldest granddaughter died in 2006 ironically of the same disease that killed her mother. Nanny still plugged on though.
Now we are facing the very real possibility of losing Nanny. We got a phone call from Joe's brother yesterday that she wasn't doing too well. After the girls got out of school we drove down to see her. She slept the whole three hours we were there. On oxygen and morphine. Very shallow breaths with large gasps for air every so often. She's so frail and skinny. Not at all the woman Joe brought me to meet almost 11 years ago. At 91 she was still a very vibrant active woman. And now sadly she just laid there looking so helpless. All of Joe's siblings (except of course his oldest who has passed away and his brother in CA) were there last night. As we all left they all leaned in for possibly one last kiss and each of them whispered a little something in her ear. Probably much like what Joe said to her which was, "It's okay to let go Nanny." We just want her to be free of pain. She has lived a long and good life. Nanny, go home now to be with your husband, your daughter, your siblings, your granddaughter, and your 2 great grandchildren who have died before you. It's time Nanny. It's okay, we'll be okay!
Natalie has accomplished something in school I was never able to do. She got straight A's this marking period. I met with her teacher last night and he really believes the sky's the limit for her. She's reading at grade level and maybe a little above. The only thing holding her back there is she doesn't challenge herself. So we're going to work on that by reading some more challenging books together.
Her teacher was telling me that he wished he had 19 more students just like her. He sees her having a very bright future. He is going to a high school graduation this year of one of his former students who was the top of the class and that child is still the top of the class. Getting a full ride to college. So that very easily could be Natalie. Oh, that would be so awesome. Just thinking about it gives me shivers. I know she's smart and a hard worker, but hearing it from her teacher that he really thinks she will shine in whatever she does is just amazing!
Not only is Natalie a straight A student, but out of the almost 400 students in the entire school Natalie has read the most minutes of everyone. She read over 6000 minutes from the beginning of the school year until March. And in all honesty I know she's read even more than that because she doesn't write down every time she reads. She reads to her brother and sister all the time too. I love that she enjoys reading so much. It has been a week filled with great pride in my oldest daughter. I'm proud of them all, but Natalie has really shined this week. She totally rocks!
I am a planner. In my head I always have something going on. I might not act on it until the last minute, but I have things thought out in my head.
Birthday parties are my thing. I love planning parties for the kids. I do have a tendency while planning one party to find other things that might be fun for sometime in the future.
Natalie and Kaitlyn's birthdays are 11 days apart. So years ago I really started getting into party planning well in advance because I possibly had two parties to plan. I'm always checking the month of April to figure out when Easter is going to be to decide if I'm doing one joint party for them or two separate parties for them.
So years ago it was pretty much Christmas was over and I started seriously thinking about birthday parties. Do I want to do it at the house? Do I want to take them somewhere? If I take them somewhere then where? Well, that depends on cost too. So I research. This goes on for a few months where I go back and forth until I have to figure it out sometime around mid March for sure. And then I'm full force in party planning mode for a month.
Now over time I have become more busy. The kids are older now and can help with a lot of the stuff. I have a lot going on so I've pulled back a lot. I still love throwing that big bash. However up until mid March this year I wasn't even entirely planning on having a party for the girls. We were supposed to be moving to TN before their birthdays so there wasn't much point in planning a party. I figured we'd just go out to dinner or something small on each of their special days. All that had to change though so now I'm in party planning mode. I haven't entirely gotten into it I would say.
But Kaitlyn is my driving force right now. She tells me whenever we go to the store mommy you need to get stuff for my cupcakes or my cake. Okay Kaitlyn, that can wait until next week. Her birthday is a week from Saturday. She'll tell me what she wants on her cake (all sorts of things I can never do in a million years). She wants me to put Tinkerbell on her cupcakes for school. She was not happy when I said I couldn't do that and offered to put pixie dust on instead. She has since decided that magic pixie dust is a good compromise though, thankfully. Yesterday she informed me that I HAVE to start baking her cupcakes for school on the 8th. Well, she is right. She'll bring them in on the 9th since her birthday is on the 11th which is a Saturday and the 10th is Good Friday so there's no school.
I think I might have created a monster though. This could be a good thing because she's keeping me on task with it so I get everything done that needs to be done. And next Saturday when her party is all over and the guests have left I'm sure she'll be giving me some ideas for next years party ;).
So remember two months ago I was very concerned about Kaitlyn's reading. I met with the principal about my concerns. Well, those concerns have never actually gone away. Then last week I got two pieces of mail about Kaitlyn's progress in school. The first was a Literacy Action plan which was performed over a month prior without my knowledge and with a teacher whom I did not know. Then a few days later I got something stating that based on Kaitlyn's reading scores in January she would need to go to a summer reading program. If she did not attend 75% of the classes (basically missed more than 4 days) then she would HAVE to stay back. I also needed to decide if I wanted to sign her up for this by April 9th. But if I didn't and on the May DRA assessment she still scores significantly below the state reading level, then she MAY be kept back. This has been my major concern all along. I DO NOT WANT HER STAYING BACK! Everything else she does just fine in. She will never be the same age as most of the kids in the class because of her April birthday. I'm worried she would get bored doing all the math that she's already way above her peers in and begin to act out. Retention is definitely not in her best interest. And I thought the school agreed with me there.
So after having spoken with my SIL last week who has dealt with dyslexia evaluations for all of her children I decided I need to step up more for Kaitlyn. My SIL has a son who's 9 months older than Kaitlyn and he was evaluated and diagnosed with dyslexia last year when he was in 1st grade. So that says to me that these sorts of learning disabilities can be determined at this age. There really is no reason to wait.
Then I was speaking to another friend of mine who knows a lot about special education laws. She has two sons who are autistic. She has been dealing with the school system for many years and getting her sons the services that are the right fit for them. She has been walking me through what I need to do which has been great.
First of all she told me I needed to write a letter to the principal. This I knew and I had done when I previously met with the principal. I just ended up not handing him the letter at that time because he had me worried that she would not qualify now, but later she might but they wouldn't be able to test for three years. So she told me that the action plan should not have been done without me present and I need to make sure that I make it clear in the letter that I want to be present for all discussions pertaining to Kaitlyn. I also need to request that they test. So here is what I wrote:
Dear Mr. Audette,
I am writing in regards to my daughter Kaitlyn Barnes being required to attend summer school. Also I would like to discuss the reading plan which was made for her without my knowledge or involvement.
If Kaitlyn needs to attend summer school because of her sufficient delay in reading, then I would really like to see an IEP put in place for her. Outlining some goals for her and what exactly the school is going to do for her. To protect her I would like this in writing in a formal IEP. I would like a formal meeting scheduled about her IEP no later than April 9, 2009. And I also strongly feel that some testing should be done on her at this time to assure that she is getting the proper help in reading.
Also an action plan was made for Kaitlyn in February. I just received it in the mail last week and was very disappointed to see that I was not involved in making this plan. I am requesting now that any and all discussions or action plans pertaining to Kaitlyn must be done with me and/or my husband present.
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. I hope that we can work together in helping Kaitlyn learn to read. She enjoys school so much and I would hate to see her become discouraged if there was anything we could do to help her.
Sincerely,
Monica Barnes
I handed it to the principal on Monday. Yesterday he came to me and asked if I had some time last night (this is conference week and conferences were occurring from 6-8) to discuss what I had written. So I said I did. He actually had a whole team of people to meet. He was there along with Kaitlyn's teacher, the reading teacher, and the other teacher on the action plan who I didn't know. Turns out I do know her, but I don't think she has really ever worked with Kaitlyn. Anyways, I have put them on the defensive now. They started off by telling me that they do not HAVE to mail me the action plan until right before conferences. Okay, that's fine the timing of it wasn't really the issue. The issue is I want to make sure that this isn't going to be something that is taken away from her and I want to make sure that my daughter is being taught in the best possible way for her. And that could mean that the traditional methods used to treat children who don't have difficulties aren't going to work. They told me that they believe that they are giving her the best possible help they can. Honestly, I feel they are giving her the best possible help at the lowest cost to them. And that's fine, I get that that's their job. They have to keep costs down and what not. But it's my job to advocate for my child and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
They didn't tell me last night that they couldn't test again if the tests don't show anything now for three years. They clearly do believe something definitely could pop up, but they just don't know what. However, Kaitlyn is being pulled out of class now to work with the ST on phonemic awareness so there was something that the ST thought was significant enough to take her out of class. So I need to get her protected with an IEP so if the ST ends up with children on an IEP and no longer has time for Kaitlyn they don't just drop her and say well we did what we could. If the special reading help they are giving her gets too full I don't want that to stop for her. Most importantly I don't want her to become discouraged. She is becoming discouraged. She told me yesterday she hates phonics. How long will it be before she hates all parts of reading and she stops trying? I am always hearing what a hard worker she is. And I know she is. I know she wants to read as well as her peers do, but we need to figure out the correct methods to get her to that point and so far we haven't figured that out.
Now their excuse is if Kaitlyn is labeled special ed then they'll have to stop the reading group she's in now and a special ed teacher will have to come into the classroom to teach her. That's what the law says. Little do they know that I know a little about that law they are talking about. It actually says that whenever possible you have to give special ed services in the classroom so a child is not left out.
So they are telling me normally they would test a child the second half of 2nd grade, but if I want they can test Kaitlyn in September instead. Or if I really want they can do it now and keep what she has already in place. I said I feel like we should do the testing now, but that I needed to speak with my husband first. So I spoke with Joe knowing full well that he would pretty much go with whatever I said. I just wanted the night to mull that meeting over in my mind though to make sure I am doing what's best for Kaitlyn. I know that I am though. I tried to speak to the principal this morning, but he wasn't in his office. So I'll catch him this afternoon to tell him to go ahead and set up that PPT. We want to get the ball rolling with this and not put it off any longer.
I am still being told that it's the principal's choice to keep a child back and he doesn't believe keeping Kaitlyn back is in her best interest. I think I need to get that in writing from him though because I am very adamant about her not staying back. He said even if we don't send her to the summer program she would move forward and he's confident that I will work with her over the summer. I don't know where I am just yet on sending her to this summer reading program. It's hard to make that choice three months in advance. I have two other children to think about as well in this decision. This could mess up summer plans and I definitely do not need Natalie making Kaitlyn feel guilty because she didn't get to do something she wanted to do over the summer because of when Kaitlyn had to go to summer school.
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