Hooligan

None of us wants our child to be the one hurt on the school playground. On the same note, we also don't want our child to be the one hurting another kid. Which is worse? Having physical pain inflicted on your son or daughter and feeling indignation on behalf of your child? Or the embarrassment, mortification, and doling out punishment when your own child is the bully?

I'd have to say the latter is worse. And yes, it's from recent personal experience.

Every time our phone rings and I see "Town of Millbury" on the Caller ID, I get nervous. Calls from the school show up that way. With all of Dominic's allergies, I dread calls from the school, always wondering if today is the day I'm going to get the call saying his Epi-Pen was needed, they called the ambulance, or worse. Fortunately, the school administration usually start the conversation with "This is so-and-so from the school - Dominic's okay..." before they launch into the reason for calling.

One of the dreaded "Town of Millbury" calls came today around 3:00 pm. The guidance counselor from the school introduced himself, let me know that Dominic was okay, but that there was an "incident" at recess. I immediately figured he fell and got hurt or maybe another child hurt him. Boy, was I ever wrong. Apparently, Dominic decided to throw a rock at recess. Apparently, his friend Aidan was standing in front of him. And apparently, the rock struck Aidan in the forehead and made him bleed.

I think I'll just crawl into a hole with my hooligan child, thank you very much.

Dominic spent the rest of recess and all of lunch in the Vice Principal's office (whom I despise - if you look up "bitchy" in the dictionary, her picture should be there). Tomorrow he will spend recess with the guidance counselor so they can have a little talk. I believe that's entirely appropriate - he needs to have some consequences for his actions and hopefully will feel bad enough about it to never do it again.

Now, the rock throwing wasn't meant maliciously - even the school administration told me that. Dominic wasn't aiming for his friend or trying to hit anyone. He merely wanted to throw the rock but unfortunately he doesn't have the best aim and his throws tend to end up anywhere and everywhere - this time at his friend's forehead. Even so, I want him to realize that throwing rocks is not appropriate, especially in a crowded playground! Here at home, he isn't allowed to play with his friends/neighbors or have any screen time (TV, computer, Wii) for a week, which is basically until Chris and I leave for Rome next Tuesday.

And as if it isn't bad enough that it was my child who was the thrower, I also found out how big the rock was...

The size of a small orange.

*sigh*

9 Days and Counting...

In 9 days, Chris and I are headed to Rome! It's the free trip I earned from my Usborne Books business. Well, free in that my airfare and hotel are paid for, but since I decided to take Chris, I'm paying his way from the profits I made last year. I figure he's worth it considering he does a lot of my loading & unloading of the van when I go to events. He even has his own special IBUBH t-shirt (International Brotherhood of Usborne Book Haulers). It has a top 10 ways you know know you're a book hauler, my favorite of which is "You've ever made the UPS man cry." I don't know about cry, but I'm sure I made one quit! :)

Anyway, Chris called our credit card company today to let them know that we would be using our Visa in Italy. How horrible it would be if they thought it was stolen and canceled it! We're also going to call the credit union to see if we can get any Euros before we go so we don't have to immediately change money there.

I've also been planning out or days. Not Clark-Griswold-every-minute-accounted-for planning, but a general idea of when to see certain sights with specific things we have scheduled as well. For example, on Friday at 10:00 am, we have tickets for a tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Then at 3:00 pm, we have tickets for the Vatican Necropolis - the underground excavations that they only let 200 people through each day. On Saturday, we have a day trip to Pompeii on a bus filled with other Usborne consultants & their families, then on Sunday we have tickets to Palm Sunday Mass at the Vatican. *whew!*

We arrive in Rome Wednesday morning, April 1st, at 7:00 am and then wait for a bus to our hotel. I'm thinking Wednesday may be a wash considering we'll be exhausted from losing 5 hours and flying at night. (We leave Tuesday at 5:00 PM, so when we arrive in Rome it will feel like 2:00 am our time.) I'm hoping hoping hoping we can check in early at the hotel, take a nap for an hour or two, and then wander the streets of Rome for a little while before our group reception/welcome from 5-6 pm. So no plans for Wednesday.

Thursday we're going to the Colloseum and the Roman Forum, then wandering and eating the rest of the day until dusk. Our plan is to have dinner and then follow the "Night Walk" from the Rick Steves' Rome travel guide, which ends very close to where our hotel offers a round trip shuttle service so we can get back there easily. No plans yet for Sunday afternoon or Monday, then we leave early Tuesday morning to come home.

I'm getting excited! I have our packing list all typed up and was doing a bunch of laundry today to get caught up and start putting aside clothes I want to take on our trip. Now I just have to cross my fingers that the time change and travel anxiety don't mess up my system too much..... Say a little prayer for us next week!

Spring Has Almost Sprung

Mother Nature is giving us a teaser of Spring, and we're taking advantage of it! The kids spent two hours playing outside today. The sun was out and the temperature was teetering on fifty degrees - a great time to run around and get some fresh air. Scout and Logan from next door were also drinking in the sunshine, so the four of them hula-hooped, kicked a soccer ball around, threw a frisbee, and hit a ball off a tee. I took a few pictures - enjoy!

Here's one of Dominic with his goofy grin:

Here are a couple close ups of my beautiful girl...

Fun Saturday!

It's Saturday again - one of my favorite days of the week. Chris is home and we have a lazy morning before dance class at 10:45. Sometimes I wish dance class was earlier so we could do something afterwards before lunch time, but I have to admit that I do like just lounging around in our pajamas until 10:00 on Saturdays. :)

The kids are finishing up lunch and then we're headed to Target for a birthday present. The party is today at 2:00 so we're going directly there from Target. I have a gift bag, tissue and the birthday cards the kids made ready to go! The party is at the Ecotarium in Worcester, so the kids will get to see some animals and ride the little train around the grounds. They're very excited. I'm not sure I'm quite as excited - it's still pretty cold outside with the wind.

Last night I hosted an Usborne Mystery Hostess show where I gave away the free and half-price books to my guests. We had a great time - everyone was fun and friendly - plus I booked four home shows! Two of them are for the last weekend this month, which is 2 days before we leave for Rome. That means I'm going to be busy trying to finish my taxes, sending invitations and preparing for the shows, and packing. Wish me luck!

Okay, we need to get moving - more soon!

Another Weekend Over

It's Sunday night again. It seems as though I wait all week for the weekend, when Chris and I and the kids have all of that time together. No work, no school, just fun family time! Then I blink and it's Monday again. Where do the weekends go?

We did get to play outside today - it was near 60 degrees! The sun was behind big clouds much of the day, and the breeze picked up in the afternoon, so it was still chilly. But it was nice to let the kids ride their bikes around the driveway. We even took a walk around the neighborhood with Rogue. The poor dog usually does nothing buy lay around inside the house or lay around outside, so hopefully a little exercise will do him good! (At least he doesn't have a nibble bell... Okay, long story for another day, but my mom will get that one!)

But somehow, even with two whole days, I still managed to not touch my taxes once. Or make any Usborne phone calls. I know we all deserve some down time and some lazy time here and there, but I really need to somehow get out of the rut that I'm in. Perhaps once Spring finally gets here - and stays! - I'll feel more energetic and less blah. Well, I'm crossing my fingers.

The kids are doing great. I had a parent-teacher conference at Francesca's school last week. She got check-pluses in the "Always" column for many of the skills they report on, and the others were mostly all checks in the same column. She did get an "almost always" on dressing herself (shoes, coat, hat, mittens, snapping her pants after using the potty, etc.) That's mostly because she's lazy, not so much that she can't do it (except the pants snapping - that can be tricky.) The only thing she got lower on was trying to sound out works as well as recognizing some simple sight words. Oh man, bad mommy! Bad mommy! With Dominic, he taught himself to read within a day or two of his 4th birthday. I don't have any practice helping a child to figure it all out!

Francesca's teacher recommended making flash cards with their list of sight words and practicing them at home. I tried it today - there are about 20 words on the list. Halfway through, Francesca was DONE. To be honest, so was I. She doesn't like to sound things out - she'd rather just look at the first letter and pick any word out of her head that starts with that letter. When I try to get her to look at the written letters to see if those sounds are part of the word, she is not only uninterested, but whines about it. She needs to start doing it, but I don't want it to be miserable for both of us. Not only will it drive me crazy, but she's not going to learn if it isn't enjoyable. I'm at a bit of a loss. I guess I'll just try even a couple of words each day. I might have to resort to bribery.... Hmmm... maybe a mini marshmallow for every word she reads correctly!

It hit me today that she'll be 5 years old this summer. Five. FIVE. Crazy! And then she goes to kindergarten in the fall! Oh man, I hope she's ready. I hope I'm ready. At least I won't have an excuse to not work my Usborne business or not exercise once I'm home alone all day. I just hope I can handle it mentally. I have a tendency these days to have anxiety, feel lonely, and find it difficult to muster up motivation. I think I'm going to need to really schedule my days this fall so that I don't find myself wasting away in the house accomplishing nothing.

And on that happy note, it's bedtime! Supposedly we may get 2-4 inches of snow tomorrow. Oh yeah, 63 degrees today, snow tomorrow. What the heck??? I'm just hoping school isn't cancelled - I need a little time to prepare for my team meeting tomorrow night!