Thinking Outloud

Both of the kids came home from school yesterday quite excited.  Yesterday was the day that the school took all the yearbook photos for all the kids that are involved in extracurricular activities.  My daughter, the social butterfly that she is, had her picture taken four times.  She is involved in choir, violin, fluoride and running club.  She is quite proud that she will have her picture four different times in the events pages.

My son, who is just finding himself, got his picture taken once.  He is involved with the chess club.  But as he is in grade 2, quite shy and hasn’t joined a group in the past, having his picture taken for the chess club tickled him pink.  He hasn’t quite caught up to his sister, but I’m quite confident that he will soon.  So now when the yearbook comes in I will have to buy two copies.  One for each child.

Both the kids got a letter sent home from school the other day concerning Valentines day.  My son’s grade 2 class will be giving out Valentines day cards and having a little party as well.  My daughter’s grade 4 class is leaving it up to the students on whether they want to participate or not.  The only thing the teachers ask is that if they do choose to give out cards, they give a card to everyone.  Now that she is in the older grades, there will be no party.

I have to tell you all though I had a real hard time finding her Valentine’s cards that were not too young for her.  There were tons of cards for kids around my son’s age, but not a whole lot of selection for children her age.  She ended up going with Blue’s Clues which is way to young for her, but it was really the only option for her.  She is happy with her selection, but I’m really thinking that this may be her last year for giving out cards.  If not this year, next year for sure.  That is a shame, as she really does enjoy participating in all the Valentine’s day celebrations.

I have a routine that I follow during the day during the school year.  At 1:20 pm I go out and start my car to let it warm up for 10 minutes.  Then at 1:30 pm I head down the road to Tim Horton’s to grab my daily dose of coffee and then I head down to the bus stop to wait and pick up my youngest son who is in grade 2.  Sometimes we stay down at the bus stop for the hour and wait for his sister, but on other days we will come home and then go back down around 3:00 pm in the afternoon.

Well today was a normal school day (or so I thought), so at 1:20 pm I headed out the door to start my car.  When I came back inside to wait the 10 minutes I heard a knock on the door.  When I answered the door, you can imagine my surprise when I seen my youngest son standing at the door!  Apparently due to the storm that we are suppose to get, they let the kids out early and he arrived at the bus stop early.  So instead of waiting for me, he walked home.  He was so proud of himself and he still has the grin on his face.

Well at least now I know that if there ever is another time that I’m not at the bus stop when he gets off, I know he will come home.  Big surprise, but…a happy one!

My oldest son has decided to go back to school to further his education, and I couldn’t be prouder of him. I seriously think that this is a step in the right direction, and because of his past problems in life, I think this will be extremely good for him. I did get a little nervous when he started talking about looking into getting Credit Cards For Students. But, because he is now trying to turn his life around, I have decided to help him in this process.

I have found a site over at creditcardsearchengine.com where he will be able to obtain all the correct and up to date information he needs concerning any type of credit cards. What this search engine has done is they have done all the research and comparisons for you on all major credit cards. They will help you find out which type of information like interest rates, repayment schedules and any rewards that come with each and every card. Armed with this information from this site, you would then be able to make a decision concerning which type of card is best for you.

After seeing my daughter’s home report, I am extremely thankful that there is a program available called Math Tutors to help kids out that need a little help in this area. Her math marks weren’t as good as I would have liked, so I am going to enroll her into this awesome program. She will be able to get all the extra help that she needs and will be able to improve her math grade by the time the next report cards come out. I have talked to some friends of mine that have already been involved with this program, and they have had nothing but good things to say about it. It is because of their recommendations, that I have decided that this is the best route to take to help my daughter.

Yesterday was report card day for the two younger kids.  First of all I would like to say that both kids are doing an awesome job!!  I was very pleased with their report cards and by reading them apparently the teacher’s are as well.  The only bad thing that both kids had on their report cards is that both of them are a little too social.  The thing was I wasn’t really surprised to read this in their report cards, I was just surprised that it took this long for the teachers to mention it.  So, I did talk to them about when and where they should both be social.  But, accept for this little minor problem, I have no worries that the kids are going to have another awesome year!

I have to say that this has been a really long week.  For the past three days I have had my youngest son home from school sick.  On Tuesday I took him to see our family doctor.  He had been coughing so bad that he was starting to throw up so I figured that he probably had either phenomena or a chest infection of some sort.  Obviously I’m not a doctor as I got the diagnosis completely wrong.  What he has is an ear infection??  He was not complaining about an ear ache at all so I would have never guessed that this was what was wrong with him.  The coughing came from the drainage in his ear going down the back of his throat and irritating it.  He got some medicine and he is now on the road to recovery.  So, he went back to school today and I have my house back.  Having him home for three days made is so I didn’t get much done, but with them both in school today I have a lot of plans of things I want to get done.

At my kids school, they have an awesome program called the “Rainbows Program”.  What this program entails is that the guidance counselor from the school talks to children who have recently had a loss.  This could be the death of a loved one or divorce or separation.  They discuss with the children their feelings on the event and how they can deal with the situation and their feelings better.  Since both of my two younger kids just recently lost their grandmother, the teacher’s thought this would be an ideal program for each of the kids to participate in.  My daughter who is 9 really wants to participate in this, but my son who is 7 doesn’t want to be involved.  I have left it up to the kids and I most certainly won’t force my son to participate if he doesn’t want to.  I still think that it’s a great program for any child who has experienced a loss of any kind.

After a week of waiting and my daughter biting her nails, the phone call that she has been patiently waiting for finally arrived last night.  The phone call we were waiting for was concerning whether or not she was one of the 20 students picked to participate in the grade 4 violin club.  I am happy to report that she was accepted.  So her dream that she has had for the past two years is going to come true!  She gets to learn to play the violin!  She was so excited and happy when I told her about the phone call and is extremely anxious to get started.  She knows she was very lucky to be picked as there were only 20 spots available and there was 32 kids that wanted to take it.  I know she will do great at it and I only hope that this experience is everything that she hoped it would be.

I am so….tired of fighting with my daughter over homework.  Every night, and I mean every night, her and I get right into over her homework.  She loves school and can’t wait to go every morning, but to get her to do her homework after school is like pulling teeth.  This is the first year that I’ve had any problems with her as far as homework goes and everyday I dread the moment she gets off the bus.  I realize that she is in grade 4 now and has a lot more homework than previous years, but she knows it has to be done and I really don’t understand why she needs to fight with me.  But, the fight continues and hopefully she will get it in her pretty little head that I will not give in and it will get done.