Isn't He Lovely????

I have nothing to say. I am tired, cranky, and my head hurts. So I thought I would show everyone my son. He brought home his school pictures yesterday. He doesn't like them. But I do. He looks so grown up and dare I say cute? I know he reads here occasionally so if "cute" is not an acceptable word I am sure I will hear about it. 7th grade, middle school. Where did time go? This is the first time in a long time I am actually buying all my kids their school pictures. More expensive, but we never seem to make it anywhere else to get them taken.

Is He Serious????

Okay what respect that I had gained for McCain over the past few weeks is quickly drying up. Wasn't it McCain who said like a week ago that our economy wasn't in that bad of shape. Now he is suspending his campaign and wants to postpone tomorrow debate with Obama to focus on the dire situation. What an asshat. For real. Flip flop much? Man up, get to debating, we have an election in uhhhh 40 or so days and still have for whatever reason undecided voters. Do not use our floundering economy, you know the one that was not headed for a recession according to you a week ago, as an excuse to not debate. This pisses me off. And he has called on Obama to follow his lead??? Nice try, so if he doesn't you want to make him look like the bad guy. Not working. UGH UGH UGH, I am pissed off.

Rough Morning

This morning was tough for Amber. It was a morning filled with lots of questions about Hercules. It's only been a week so I totally expect it. She wanted to know if his soul was in heaven where his body was. I really didn't expect to tell the girls about any of this, but since we expect his ashes back any day now and she asked I figured I would tell her about the cremation. She actually had a lot of very well thought out questions about it and seems to understand it. There was lots of tears though. I tried to explain to her that while we are all sad and miss him, that Hercules is very happy and healthy where he is. She has her good days and bad days and today unfortunately started out as one of those bad days. To add to it, it is Wednesday which means garbage day. The garbage truck fills Amber will huge amounts of anxiety and fear and it always seems to come to our street at the same time as we are waiting for the bus. A week and a half until therapy starts, I cannot wait. This poor girl need more coping skills than I can give her.

Politics

There is a new report out saying that it is estimated that McCain has an automatic 6 point lead on Obama due to the fact he is white and Obama is not. No one can dare say for one moment racism doesn't exist now a days, it is alive and well unfortunately. I saw on some news channel a few weeks ago an anchor interviewing people somewhere down south. Most people said race doesn't have any influence on how they were voting. One guy though, he stood there proud as anything in all his ignorant glory and said "I ain't voting for no colored boy." At the very last this man was honest. I think lots of people say race has no impact when they may even be lying to themselves. They may not think it does, but it may sway them somehow.

I am just so disappointed this morning after reading this survey. Are these people even looking at the two candidates stance on issues at all? Or can they not get past looking at the color of their skin? Okay I am more than disappointed I am disgusted. If you are voting for McCain because you like his ideas, his policies, his take on your hot issues, then VOTE MCCAIN. If you are voting for Obama because you like his ideas, his policies, his take on your hot issues, then VOTE OBAMA. Vote for the right person to do the job, not the right race to do it, because I have news people, there is no "right" race people.

Geez this news totally has stomped all over the buzz I have had going on this week leading up to the debate this Friday! Maybe I will just not watch the news until after the debate on Friday because it is such a buzzkill.

Mean Girls (and Boys)

Yesterday Amber came home looking very sad. I thought maybe she was just beat after a long week, but she told me that she didn't have a single friend in school. She told me one girl was mad at her because she tripped and thought Amber pushed her, she said her two best friends from last year were in another class, she went on with a few examples. She is really having a tough time this year. Then she tells me she is never wearing the shirt she is wearing again, which kind of took me by surprise since she made a very big deal the night before about just having to wear that very shirt that day. Well it turns out G, a boy in her class, called her fat belly.

I will be the first to admit that Amber is not shaped like most of the other children her age, but at the same time I do not think she is "fat." Yes she probably weighs a bit more than she should, but she was from the moment she came screaming into this world a bit larger than your average child. In any case, I told her G was silly and probably just an angry boy and couldn't think of anything else mean to say so he said that. She seemed to accept that answer.

Fast forward to later in the evening she asks me if I told Daddy what G said to her. I said no and she went on to tell Daddy. Daddy in his usually Daddy wisdom says you should have punched him in the eye, to which Amber giggled and said no way I am not getting detention because of G. Then she tells Daddy, I should put you in parent detention for telling me that. I then asked Amber what she did do when G said this to her and she said I unzipped my book bag. I was a bit confused so I asked for what, remembering I packed her a new pair of scissors that morning, she wouldn't have, would she???? She told me after I unzipped my book bag I put it over my head so no one could see me. Then she goes back to talking to Jewel O. M. G. (She later also told us G calls people names every day and usually gets into trouble it was just time the teacher didn't hear so he got away with it.)

I look at John and said that makes me want to cry to which he replied everything make you want to cry Holly. But I mean really how could kids be so mean, how could another child make my little girl feel the need to hide in her book bag. My heart seriously broke into pieces for her. I remember being picked on as a kid, to this day I remember how mean the kids were. Relentlessly little jerks. At the time though I took everything they said as total truth. If they were saying that about me, must be true, I must be those things. I DO NOT want my little girl viewing herself through the eyes of her peers the way I did.

I kept thinking what nasty little kids. Then I thought to myself, no they are not. I blame their parents. Totally, completely blame their parents. If these little heartless kids were brought up in homes where they were taught others had feelings and to respect others and to not say anything unless you had something nice to say they wouldn't be walking around day in and day out making their peers feel like gum on the bottom of their shoe. I bet their parents were the type of kids in school who teased me as a kid. It's a cycle. A sad vicious cycle.

So empty

It is so odd now that Herc is gone. I knew it would be hard, but it was way harder than I imagined. Things I didn't put much thought into keep coming up, his cage, his love seat at the end of our bed, his food bowl, the front door is now open something that never happened before. I noticed John took his leash out into the shed. The other dogs are very quiet. I think they know, even though the two of them and Herc didn't get along very well. The last few months Herc mostly slept all day long curled up in the corner by the front door taking up virtaully no room at all, but now the whole house seem so big and so empty. It is different, odd, not a nice feeling. I feel guilty. I know he wasn't well, he was old, weak, but maybe it wasn't time. Maybe he could have held on longer. He loved the fall when it started getting cool, he could have laid outside all day while John worked on things in the yard. This morning as I was standing at the bus stop I was thinking, he will miss that this year, maybe we should have waited, given him that, one last time. I don't know, maybe I am being silly. Lots of maybes.

Sad

Tonight we are sending our oldest dog to Heaven. We are all really sad. The kids have all had very different reactions but I think they all "get" it. Jewel kept asking if he could have more days, then started asking how he would get to God, if we were driving him, if God would pet him, etc. So sweet. Amber on the other hand at first kept looking for ways to stop it. She asked if there medicines to stop it, she asked what a booster shot was, then she said she was sorry we had him before she wished we just got him now. But now she kind of is just avoiding the topic all together. Carlos just cried, I think he will be ok. I am most worried about Amber out of all the kids, considering the other issues she is having.

We took lots of pics yesterday of everyone, last night John & I took the dog out for a walk down by the water and out for some McDonald's his favorite treat. We're all pretty sad. I think it all finally has hit John. I wish I could take away the hurt for him. I know when we get back tonight from the vet without the dog it is going to be harsh reality for the kids, especially the girls. I know this is all a part of life and something they have to experience but it doesn't make it any easier. I am trying to keep it together for everyone, I have showed very little emotion through this all, but inside I am falling apart.

Assault of the Commercials

Well September is upon us. The kids are in school. A few stray leaves have fallen. Halloween items have hit the store shelves hard. We wake to an occasional cool morning. And the dreaded endless stream of toy commercials have begun. We have just hit the halfway mark of September and I have heard see that, look at this, I need that, put that on my Christmas list, Santa is bringing me that, countless times already. Do I really have another 3 plus months to listen to this? The answer is yes, and it will only get worse. The requests will come faster and furiouslier. Is that even a word? Probably not but it works for me.

It may be because I am older, or because I am more cynical, or maybe even a bit myopic but the toys seem so oh I don't know dumbed down. Dolls that swim. Dogs that grow. When I was a kid we used our ::::gasp:::: you better sit down for this, imagination. I am all for technology allowing us to do most things, heck I don't know what I would do without my remote control or DVD player, my Ipod, oh the list goes on and on, but what I am even more for is toys that allow for fostering a child's imagination. Allowing a child's imagination to run wild. Kids want this believe it or not, why do you think they would most times rather play with the box a toy came in rather than the toy itself? Because that box has more possibilities than the toy, silly. That box can be ANYTHING they imagine it to be.

Anyway I am getting away from myself here. My original point was, I understand big business must assault us with their commercials, it's what brings in the almighty dollar. But do they have to do it so darn soon? My kids literally started school a week ago and instead of concentrating on what is important right now, even thinking Halloween costumes maybe, they are thinking Christmas lists. Slow down! That's all I ask. Slow down!

Jewel says.... (1st Day of School)

After getting dressed for school:
I no wear skirt wit pockets mama, no. Skirts no pockets mama. No want this.
(Little does she know we have about 5 in the drawer in all different colors, note to self, must go shopping, again.)

Looking in mirror, tucking hair behind ears talking to herself, smiling:
My hair pitty, I have very pitty hair.

This year Jewel has afternoon class instead of morning class like she is used to. This was the conversation from 8am when Amber got on the bus until 11:30 until we left for school:
School now mama, school now, now? Mama school! School now or I break this mama. Hear me, watch me. I here all alone, Carlos school, Amber school, me no school mama. I no like this. I go to school right now. Me mad mama!

Anywho today was Amber and Jewel's 1st day of school and it went great, no tears. I really surprised myself. =) I cried a lot last year. LOL.

Amber things

Amber turned 6 a couple of days ago so her and I were looking through her baby book. We were looking at ultrasound pictures of her. She could not believe that she was a ghost when she was in my belly. I literally almost peed my pants laughing. She has a point though, I guess those pics do look kind of ghostly.


This afternoon at lunch we had this conversation:

Amber: Mommy did you know that they named a state after Hannah Montana?

Me: No I think they named her after a state?

Amber: No, I don't think so. She is like famous you know.


Yesterday sitting in the waiting room of Jewel's speech therapy Amber decided she was too grown to sit near me so she sat across the room. The room was so silent you could hear a pin drop which is kind of unusual for the Children's Hospital but anyway. There was Amber, me, and another child's father. Amber was listening to her new MP3 player, I was reading, and the other guy was just sitting there. I looked up at Amber who was in her own world listening to music and just kind of stared at her. Geez my little girl got big. She was sitting there smiling, then her head starting bobbing to the music, ok it was coming, I was seeing it, here it was, "I GOT NERVE" she belts out. Amber. She keeps going. Loud too. Amber. She doesn't hear me. I wave my hand. She looks at me and asks what? I said you are a little loud. She says no she is not. I said yes you are you can't hear yourself with the music on and the guy starts chuckling and says she was really into it, she looks at him, turns red as an apple and runs to me where she buries her head into my side. It was hysterical. Needless to say she took off the MP3 player and didn't listen again in the waiting room.

This and that

Two days until Carlos starts middle school. Who is nervous? Is he? No. Am I? Yes! Honestly I am more nervous than sending him off to kindergarten. I mean I knew he would be taken care of in kindergarten. 6th grade is a whole new ball game. These kids are more or less on their own in a sense. In a school where there are one of a thousand other kids. Changing classes. Not every teacher knows him. Lockers, new faces, new buses, new everything. ACK! I feel like I am the one going off to a new school, my stomach is in knots, I am totally and completely stressed, and I am totally trying not to show it, making jokes about it. But in all seriousness I am petrified.

Tomorrow is Amber's birthday. 6 years ago she was born. Wowzers. Seems like yesterday. For real! We got her a pair of pink studs that are far bigger than any pair of earrings she has had so far, a hot pink MP3 player that I already loaded up with some songs for her, a Hannah Montana umbrella, and she will get a Webkinz too. It will all be packaged up in Hannah Montana wrapping paper of course and what goes with that but a Hannah Montana card. I hate Hannah, lol.

Jewel finally calls Amber Am-ba instead of Am-ma. All the time. It stops me dead in my tracks every time. So awesome! I think her speech therapist at school is going to be super impressed with the improvements she has made this summer. I know most likely everyone at the school probably thought I wasn't making the best decision pulling her out for the summer, but I think Mommy's intuition was right and my girl needed a break. It did her good!

The past couple of nights we have had fires in out chimena to get rid of some of the brush in our yard to get ready for our BBQ next weekend. Well yesterday we got the ingredients for s'mores. Believe it or not I have never had a s'more before. I have had every ingredient of a s'more before just never together. And I have to say after all the big hub-bub John said about them, I was not very impressed. Hehe. I stuck with my toasted marshmallows the rest of the night, now those I LOVE! Jewel had a total chocolate rush last night. I have never seen a child on a sugar high like this she was in a total manic mode. It was completely insane and she had a chocolate hangover this morning as well, she slept in until 11am. We learned something though, we seriously must limit her chocolate. The girls and I ended the night by playing red light green light in the dewy grass under the stars last night by the light of the fire, and I must say it was lots of fun. Although the summer is coming to a very sudden close, it is going out on an awesome note!

One more thing. Another hurricane. Even if you can only donate $2. It is something. The Red Cross does not run itself. Their money has to come from somewhere. Skip tomorrow morning's cup of coffee, or read the paper online, even something small, if everyone just donated something small, it all adds up. These people were literally just getting back on their feet, some were not even there yet. Yes, yes they don't have to live there, they knew this was possible again, but people this is their HOME. Think about it that way, could you easily give up your HOME. I know I could not and the likelihood that a hurricane or flood could wipe out my home one day is a reality. So please think about helping, if you are not convinced turn on CNN or FOX. Until we all start thinking as one, that we are in this together, things will never change. American Red Cross: Donate Now