Amber Loves Giving

Amber's school has been collecting "Pennies for Patients." Every year they encourage the children to bring in their spare change to donate to children with cancer. This year Amber got to sit in on an assembly about cancer. A child was there who was now in review (what Amber called remission) who talked about cancer. Evidently this has all made quite an impact on Amber because she has new questions about cancer every single day.
Amber is a collector. No more like a hoarder. It is difficult with her to part with certain things. Scrap paper, rocks, and coins. She has a habit of doing something with one of those things every night before bed. Cutting the papers, sorting her rocks, counting her coins. So I was super impressed with Amber last week when she gathered up every single coin she could find and brought them into school to donated to pennies for patients. She even sacrificed the coins in her reward bucket. (A reward bucket is a small container that when the kids do something above and beyond what is expected of them that they get pennies for. When they collect 50 pennies they get something special.)
The other night, well I should say morning, there was a small knock on our bedroom door. I can always tell who it is by the knock. Amber knocks ever so softly which is so not her. Julie practically knocks the door down which is also so not her. Mommy I need you. I open the door and Amber is holding something in her palm. My eyes are not adjusted. What is it? My tooth, it fell out. Wow, you felt it fall out? No, I was awake. Alrighty. So we get her mouth rinsed out, get the tooth put in a safe place, I think it's too late/early for the tooth fairy and back to bed she goes. The following night the tooth fairy comes and brings Amber $5 which she promptly takes to school with her that day. I assume for the school store which she loves to shop at. Where in the world does she get such a shopping habit? :::looking around::::: Anyway, this morning I ask her what she bought at the school store yesterday and she looks at me weird and says nothing, why? I ask what she did with her $5 from the tooth fairy and she said I gave that to pennies for patients. OK don't cry, don't cry. I almost cried. My kids and John already think I am a weiny and cry about everything so it probably wouldn't have matter if I did cry but I am so stinking proud of her. She holds her money so dear and for her to give it away so willingly and get nothing in return, I am just blown away. I think I am going to give her a refill for her reward bucket and also give her something special to reward her, just so she realizes that she did something very good.

Schtuff

We have been extremely blessed to have gotten a loaner Dynavox for Jewel to use until further notice. I am just in awe that we have had such a thing loaned to us. There are such good people in this world and stuff like this restores my faith in people. So today when Jewel goes for her augmentative therapy appointment I will bring it along and am hoping they will want her to use this device instead of the static boards to practice with while at home. I will also find out today if the therapist has spoken to the school's social worker and see what her feel for them getting the device is. The school claims they will do whatever is best for her, but these things take time and I am truly not holding my breathe.
I am super busy today. My glasses are finally ready to be picked up, I am going to get my nails done which was a valentine's gift from my sweet husband (who also helped me dye my hair a couple nights ago, he is the best), Jewel has her appointment, and I need to find something to put together for dinner in case I am running late tonight. I feel like I have a million things going on and am just not feeling much of any of it. Amber has been recommended for intervention and referral services at school which did not come as a shock to me, but that's another thing we are in the process of. We explained to her there is a strong possibility next year that she may have to repeat 1st grade. She took it a lot better then we expected. She actually said she thinks that it may be better for her. My jaw almost hit the floor. We shall see what the next few months brings.
It is still straight up winter here, minus the snow sadly, and I am just ready for it to be done. I am ready for spring, ready to go outside and not shiver. Ready for the windows to be open and to air the house out. Ready to start our seeds inside, ready for it to be warm enough for them to be planted outside. Ready to take the dog for long walks at night and not rush it so we could get back inside and stop freezing our tuckuses off.
Anyway I guess I need to get off my butt and start doing some of these things that need to be done today. I have a feeling it is going to be a really really long day.

Monday, Monday, La La, La, La ,La

The kids went back to school today and believe me when I say it, I am thrilled. They were getting on each other's nerves so badly, in turn getting on mine. They were all excited about going back so I do not feel that bad sending them on their merry way.

I *think I am going to stop Amber's therapy. She is not just a good match for Amber. They get along great and all but Amber plays her like a fiddle. I tried making it clear from day one Amber needed someone who was a bit firm. Well it didn't happen. I think a large part of Amber's issue was she wanted some of the same attention Jewel was getting and she got it. A lot of what were her problems have gone away, so I just don't know what to do at this point. I also have been meaning to post a video of Jewel talking on Myspace which I haven't done in forever. I think I'll try to get to that this week.

This week I will find out more about Jewel's therapy to train on a device. I have to find out if these devices are rented because if they are, I will gladly rent one and not travel. My van is dying such a slow death and we don't know when it is going to just give out on us. We do have the truck that I will be using but I do not want to travel that far with the truck. I hate driving it.

Today I am really starting to crack down on myself with portion control. I am not going to deprive myself of anything because that does not work for me at all, but I will be very careful about how much I eat. Also I will be working on the Wii Fit daily, now that the kids are gone for some time and I can have a chance with it. I am also going to blog more often, even if I have nothing exciting to say like today. I am going to use this as more of an outlet for me the way I used to when I first started blogging.

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.

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.