The New York Times reported yesterday that Barnes and Noble is planning on closing 30 percent of their stores. I think it's the end of the coffee shop bookstore. This makes me sad. Mostly because I love shopping at bookstores. But honestly, I have to admit that once our local bookstore closed many years ago, I didn't drive up to the huge shopping complex to do most of my book finding -- I went to the library. It comes in particularly helpful as a mother with a child who loves to be read to. Plus, I never have buyer's remorse. Free is good.
However, there is something that goes on in the CU area each February that I love. I treat it like a birthday present to myself. The Children's Book Center at the University of Illinois has a sale of all of the books they've gotten in over the year. It's awesome. All of the books are at a discounted price $2 for paperbacks and $5 for hardbacks. I take one canvas bag over, which, when full, is usually around $75 worth of children's books. If you have kids or grandkids, it's a great way to fill your bookshelves.
The trick is that it used to be free to go, but a few years ago to control the crowds of libraries, reading tutors and schools coming to get cheap books they had to start limited the number of people there (it also prevents a 2-hour wait outside the building). Anyway, it's now $20 per person to get in (and don't take your children). But I find it worth the $20.
I e-mailed in my reservation yesterday, got a confirmation and have the check in the mail today to hold my spot. The sale is from 1-4 on Sunday, Feb. 17. Then, whatever is left over is open to the general public (at no admission cost) starting that Monday and continuing through Wednesday.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Adapt the Plan
In the last few weeks, we've run into a couple snarls in regards to moving. The first is the massive fall of the Fruit's stock. The second is the fact that we're prepared to likely not get what we paid for our house out of it. The third is that there is a shortage of homes in our favorite area, so we've expanded our search to three other different school districts in the area. Only one of which has the whole "walk to school" situation available.
Our stock is only able to be used at certain times due to capital gains and option vesting issues, so it's not like we could have cashed out last September. It is what it is. And it was free -- so no complaints. The house is worth more now than it would have been last summer, but I think MacTroll was thinking we'd get what we paid for it and a little bit more to pay the realtor... and we've been told that that probably won't happen due to low assessments.
Our California realtor, however, has been very supportive of the other neighborhoods we've been looking into. She has good things to say about them, so we just have to hope the stars align or we'll be in a rental situation either here or there for a while. It's not ideal, but we'll make it work. You just have to roll with it, ya know?
Our stock is only able to be used at certain times due to capital gains and option vesting issues, so it's not like we could have cashed out last September. It is what it is. And it was free -- so no complaints. The house is worth more now than it would have been last summer, but I think MacTroll was thinking we'd get what we paid for it and a little bit more to pay the realtor... and we've been told that that probably won't happen due to low assessments.
Our California realtor, however, has been very supportive of the other neighborhoods we've been looking into. She has good things to say about them, so we just have to hope the stars align or we'll be in a rental situation either here or there for a while. It's not ideal, but we'll make it work. You just have to roll with it, ya know?
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Celebrations
I have to admit that we sat around on Saturday like three lazy-boned people. It was great. The sun was shining through my bedroom window and MacTroll and I snoozed pretty much on and off the whole day with a variety of fuzzy animals. X-man was busy playing by himself for a while, and then MacTroll went and played the Wii U with him. In the afternoon his friends from down the street came over and played for a couple of hours, too.
Today, was a bit different. It was miserable outside. We were still kind of lazy (in bed until 9:30 a.m.) but then we watched "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." We finished the book a couple of weeks ago, and X-man wanted to see the movie. We did have to fast-forward through the end fight, but other than that, he did pretty well. What was great was that throughout the movie, he was pointing out things that were different from the book. It was amazing not only how much he comprehends, but how much he can recall from finishing the books two weeks ago.
He also started his private swim lessons with Ms. Ellen at the Y again. He finished them last July, and due to my surgery, wasn't able to start them up again. So, he had six, 30-minute sessions. Today's were on Sunday but the next five will be on Monday evenings at 6 p.m. For the first time ever, though, he was able to swim from the deep end of the lap lanes in the family pool to the shallow end. It was 25 yards. It was all face-in-the-water doggy paddle. But it worked. Ms. Ellen was impressed, because all last summer he was scared to go too far. He was thinking about it too much.
While he was at his lesson, I took roughly 14 minutes and went up to the track and walked/ran a full mile. It's the first running I have done since March 2012. It was a big deal. It felt weird, but there was no pain. Afterward, when I dropped X-man off at Skateland to go play laser tag with MacTroll at 2:50 p.m., I swung by Body N Sole and picked up "The Orb." As I ran, my calf was tight. It worked, but I really had to concentrate to push off using my toes. I seem to push off on the lateral (or outer side) of my foot. This means I have a tendency to supinate. It's something I get to talk about with my doctor when I see him on Feb. 4 for my final "post-surgical" appointment.
It's possible he may want to make me custom orthotics, so that I don't lean out on the outside of my foot, which is called supination. It's easy to feel, as I'm running that I lean on my peroneals, and I don't want to risk another tear. Since 90 percent of runners pronate versus supinate... I often wonder if it would drive a podiatrist mad to try and make inserts that actually perpetuate pronation in order to prevent supination and work up muscles in a different part of the leg. I guess I'll find out!
But I did the mile. I didn't have to walk in between (i.e. I felt I could run longer and wasn't winded when the time was over. I was advised by my PT to try it out first and to go slow, and I'm a very compliant patient. I'm hoping that I'll get to do it again on Tuesday.
The only other thing we did this weekend was play an 8-hour game of Monopoly. We ended up calling it a three-way tie because it went on for so long. But we noticed that X-man was totally adding up the three die (we use the speed dice in the championship game) and adding and subtracting the money really well... into the hundreds.
I hope everyone had a restful and fun weekend, too!
Today, was a bit different. It was miserable outside. We were still kind of lazy (in bed until 9:30 a.m.) but then we watched "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." We finished the book a couple of weeks ago, and X-man wanted to see the movie. We did have to fast-forward through the end fight, but other than that, he did pretty well. What was great was that throughout the movie, he was pointing out things that were different from the book. It was amazing not only how much he comprehends, but how much he can recall from finishing the books two weeks ago.
He also started his private swim lessons with Ms. Ellen at the Y again. He finished them last July, and due to my surgery, wasn't able to start them up again. So, he had six, 30-minute sessions. Today's were on Sunday but the next five will be on Monday evenings at 6 p.m. For the first time ever, though, he was able to swim from the deep end of the lap lanes in the family pool to the shallow end. It was 25 yards. It was all face-in-the-water doggy paddle. But it worked. Ms. Ellen was impressed, because all last summer he was scared to go too far. He was thinking about it too much.
While he was at his lesson, I took roughly 14 minutes and went up to the track and walked/ran a full mile. It's the first running I have done since March 2012. It was a big deal. It felt weird, but there was no pain. Afterward, when I dropped X-man off at Skateland to go play laser tag with MacTroll at 2:50 p.m., I swung by Body N Sole and picked up "The Orb." As I ran, my calf was tight. It worked, but I really had to concentrate to push off using my toes. I seem to push off on the lateral (or outer side) of my foot. This means I have a tendency to supinate. It's something I get to talk about with my doctor when I see him on Feb. 4 for my final "post-surgical" appointment.
It's possible he may want to make me custom orthotics, so that I don't lean out on the outside of my foot, which is called supination. It's easy to feel, as I'm running that I lean on my peroneals, and I don't want to risk another tear. Since 90 percent of runners pronate versus supinate... I often wonder if it would drive a podiatrist mad to try and make inserts that actually perpetuate pronation in order to prevent supination and work up muscles in a different part of the leg. I guess I'll find out!
But I did the mile. I didn't have to walk in between (i.e. I felt I could run longer and wasn't winded when the time was over. I was advised by my PT to try it out first and to go slow, and I'm a very compliant patient. I'm hoping that I'll get to do it again on Tuesday.
The only other thing we did this weekend was play an 8-hour game of Monopoly. We ended up calling it a three-way tie because it went on for so long. But we noticed that X-man was totally adding up the three die (we use the speed dice in the championship game) and adding and subtracting the money really well... into the hundreds.
I hope everyone had a restful and fun weekend, too!
Friday, January 25, 2013
Raising a Jedi
X-man's therapist, April Keaton, devised a new reward system for him. He's currently working his way from being a Padawan to becoming part of the Jedi Counsel. We picked some of our key executive function issues like "Behaving during specials" (meaning Occupational Therapy, Behavioral Therapy and Mathman) and "Not whining, complaining or generally being rude or grumpy in the morning" along with four other behavioral goals on his list. And he's advancing 1-2 levels a week.
The fun part is, he likes it so much, that he's actually inserted his own "Clone Wars: Jedi General" level, so he can extend the chart longer.
At the end of each level he earns something special. At the beginning of the training Jedi Master MacTroll and I sat down with him to ask him what he thought good rewards were. He picked things like: Make my own lightsaber out of a swimming pool noodle, play laser tag, extra Wii U time, go to the Children's Museum in Normal, etc. We were supposed to play laser tag in Dallas, but that didn't work out timewise, so MacTroll is going to take him this weekend, while I pick up the swimming noodle and some duct tape.
Either way, outside of two outbursts of frustration with technology on Wednesday, we haven't had an uncontrollable tantrum since he became a Padawan. Now at the Master Jedi level. He's doing GREAT!
The fun part is, he likes it so much, that he's actually inserted his own "Clone Wars: Jedi General" level, so he can extend the chart longer.
At the end of each level he earns something special. At the beginning of the training Jedi Master MacTroll and I sat down with him to ask him what he thought good rewards were. He picked things like: Make my own lightsaber out of a swimming pool noodle, play laser tag, extra Wii U time, go to the Children's Museum in Normal, etc. We were supposed to play laser tag in Dallas, but that didn't work out timewise, so MacTroll is going to take him this weekend, while I pick up the swimming noodle and some duct tape.
Either way, outside of two outbursts of frustration with technology on Wednesday, we haven't had an uncontrollable tantrum since he became a Padawan. Now at the Master Jedi level. He's doing GREAT!
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Insanity
There are a few words in the English vocabulary that make my skin crawl: anniversary, cummerbund, zit, slacks, blouse, etc.
There are two phrases that drive me crazy with annoyance. One in particular, that my husband uses non-stop. "I'm going to hit the bathroom." The other is, "Can we be adults about this?" (Which, for the record, MacTroll has never used.)
The first time the second phrase made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, I was in college and some guy that my freshman roommate had been doing something with while she partied away her weekends was basically whining into our answering machine. He'd done something stupid and insensitive. And in response, she'd gotten mad, and spoken her mind to not only him, but to her close girlfriends (who also happened to be partying with his close guy friends, so I'm sure he was most annoyed that his friends were having to hear about how he was a jackass).
And so I began to notice that when people used the phrase, "Can we be adults about this?" It was usually when the person who speaks those words has done something utterly juvenile in the first place. And on that observation alone, I immediately discount that person as having any valid complaints and not worthy of the seconds or minutes that they want to put into "fixing" whatever was wrong so that they can feel, on some emotional level, like they're okay.
It's kind of like lying to someone, feeling guilty, and then coming clean -- to make yourself feel better, while you make the other person feel terrible (insert half or more of the politicians caught in any kind of public relations scandal). You effed up. You should live with the terrible burden. Why hurt the person (or people) who didn't do anything wrong with your admission? Oh, yeah, because you want forgiveness, so you can start feeling better about yourself, which to me, is another selfish act on top of the initial selfish act. You're human. Try to figure it out and make it better. Tell the truth when it's required and live with the consequences of your actions. It's all you can really do.
The other problem is the "Can we be adults about this?" often implies the person NOT saying those words is acting irrational when, more likely, their emotions are right on target. They're feeling something. They're not shutting down and suppressing. They're letting you know that they're angry, sad, annoyed, in disbelief, etc. That's how it's supposed to work with someone that you have in your life. You're supposed to be able to have emotional responses. You're supposed to talk in I statements and talk about how you feel -- postive or negative. And if someone tells you that your I statements make them feel in some other way than you're feeling -- that's not on you. That's on them.
But it doesn't help your ass get out of the fire that's for damn sure. You're just stuck in there with them looking at you like you're this demon from hell, when, really, you don't feel in your heart that way at all.
But they're telling you how you feel over and over -- because to them that's the truth they want. Because that makes them feel better.
But they're telling you how you feel over and over -- because to them that's the truth they want. Because that makes them feel better.
Even thought it's not the truth you've spoken, and that ain't right.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
504 Update
Yesterday, MacTroll and I met with X-man's "team" at Carrie Busey. The team is made up of various teachers and administrators who have various specialities and can do observations of children to see if they need any special interventions/accommodations.
When we last met, we talked about X-man's emotional issues. He gets stressed out very easily and could only have successful academic interactions with one other student in his class. He had difficulties making his letters. He had spatial awareness challenges sitting in a space on the carpet or standing in line going to specials (music, art, etc.). He was fidgeting and constantly pulling at his socks or putting things in his mouth.
So we put our heads together and came up with some things to try. His teachers followed them and then reported back on his growth.
The awesome news was that most of the feedback were celebrations. He's not chewing on as many things (although he still has no fingernails). His OT is helping his handwriting and he's making giant improvements. He has an emotional thermometer where he records how he's feeling throughout the day that has made a giant difference in letting him know when he's getting aggravated and needing some chill out time. He also meets with a social thinking group that utilizes the Zones of Regulation to help children become more aware of their emotions and to regulate them before they get to a breaking point.
His one challenge remains special awareness. He walks either at the front or the back of the line to be the most successful, but he seems to have trouble sitting up during carpet time. He has a special stool to sit in, so he can swivel around and keep moving without the danger of leaning back and tipping his chair.
What this means is that since we've seen improvements because of the accommodations, he has a 504 plan. If he hadn't been improving, we would have to take another six weeks to do a full case study and work toward an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
He takes his 504 with him to California when we move. And we'll have to sit down with the new principal and talk to them about how they operate and where they think the best place will be for X-man.
The administration and teachers at Carrie Busey have been extraordinary. They even told us to feel free to have his new school call if they want any additional information on the plan or on X-man in the school.
When we last met, we talked about X-man's emotional issues. He gets stressed out very easily and could only have successful academic interactions with one other student in his class. He had difficulties making his letters. He had spatial awareness challenges sitting in a space on the carpet or standing in line going to specials (music, art, etc.). He was fidgeting and constantly pulling at his socks or putting things in his mouth.
So we put our heads together and came up with some things to try. His teachers followed them and then reported back on his growth.
The awesome news was that most of the feedback were celebrations. He's not chewing on as many things (although he still has no fingernails). His OT is helping his handwriting and he's making giant improvements. He has an emotional thermometer where he records how he's feeling throughout the day that has made a giant difference in letting him know when he's getting aggravated and needing some chill out time. He also meets with a social thinking group that utilizes the Zones of Regulation to help children become more aware of their emotions and to regulate them before they get to a breaking point.
His one challenge remains special awareness. He walks either at the front or the back of the line to be the most successful, but he seems to have trouble sitting up during carpet time. He has a special stool to sit in, so he can swivel around and keep moving without the danger of leaning back and tipping his chair.
What this means is that since we've seen improvements because of the accommodations, he has a 504 plan. If he hadn't been improving, we would have to take another six weeks to do a full case study and work toward an Individual Education Plan (IEP).
He takes his 504 with him to California when we move. And we'll have to sit down with the new principal and talk to them about how they operate and where they think the best place will be for X-man.
The administration and teachers at Carrie Busey have been extraordinary. They even told us to feel free to have his new school call if they want any additional information on the plan or on X-man in the school.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Yee Haw!
We spent three days visiting the Supers in Colleyville, Texas, a burb between Dallas and Fort Worth. It was great to see the kids running around and giggling and to get caught up. The Supers found a very lovely house with giant ceilings, a pool and a nice yard for Cooper to run around in. The girls were very happy and it returning to a land filled with sunshine rather than fierce winds definitely suits them.
While we were there, we visited the Stockyards. X-man got to take in the Longhorns and ride a pony. It was Sunday, so a lot of the country western stores were closed (which made SuperShawn sad) but MacTroll and I took the older kids for cupcakes at La Bella. They gave them two thumbs up.
Then on Sunday night, after we went back to our hotel in Southlake for some quiet time/nap time, MacTroll and I got a special treat. We got to go out to dinner with one of my childhood friends, O. O has lived in Dallas since graduating from law school at the turn of the millennium. He has a "newish" wife, Hil, who is very fun. We met for some Tex Mex in Irving, Texas, and I had more tequila than I had had in a long, long time.
On Monday, SuperShanna, MacTroll and I took the kids to the Fort Worth Zoo. It was warm enough to just wear sweatshirts. We saw a very ROARY lion, some adorable penguins and a lazy, loveable meerkats (among many other animals).
It was nice to get some sun on our faces, even if it was only 52 degrees. It felt like spring, and it was their winter. It's odd to think that in a year, that kind of temperature could be our "winter."
Last night we returned to Savoy where it was a whopping 10 degrees when we got off the plane. X-man was put straight to bed and was dragging a bit this morning.
I'm off to physical therapy and then to workout with Kari, while MacTroll goes and gets Lily from Doggies on the Farm (See the flash of black in the front of the line, that would be ours) and then waits for the home inspection guy to come check out our house. The realtor comes tomorrow to check out our place. And then I have some "finesse" work to get done, now that the house is basically dejunked.
It's hard to believe that in six to eight weeks, people will be going through our home.
While we were there, we visited the Stockyards. X-man got to take in the Longhorns and ride a pony. It was Sunday, so a lot of the country western stores were closed (which made SuperShawn sad) but MacTroll and I took the older kids for cupcakes at La Bella. They gave them two thumbs up.
Then on Sunday night, after we went back to our hotel in Southlake for some quiet time/nap time, MacTroll and I got a special treat. We got to go out to dinner with one of my childhood friends, O. O has lived in Dallas since graduating from law school at the turn of the millennium. He has a "newish" wife, Hil, who is very fun. We met for some Tex Mex in Irving, Texas, and I had more tequila than I had had in a long, long time.
On Monday, SuperShanna, MacTroll and I took the kids to the Fort Worth Zoo. It was warm enough to just wear sweatshirts. We saw a very ROARY lion, some adorable penguins and a lazy, loveable meerkats (among many other animals).
Then we had lunch at Mooyah and played at the girls' favorite park.
It was nice to get some sun on our faces, even if it was only 52 degrees. It felt like spring, and it was their winter. It's odd to think that in a year, that kind of temperature could be our "winter."
Last night we returned to Savoy where it was a whopping 10 degrees when we got off the plane. X-man was put straight to bed and was dragging a bit this morning.
I'm off to physical therapy and then to workout with Kari, while MacTroll goes and gets Lily from Doggies on the Farm (See the flash of black in the front of the line, that would be ours) and then waits for the home inspection guy to come check out our house. The realtor comes tomorrow to check out our place. And then I have some "finesse" work to get done, now that the house is basically dejunked.
It's hard to believe that in six to eight weeks, people will be going through our home.
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