Random Tid Bits

1. My older sister stopped by to give Mica a bag of clothes from my oldest nephew. Get this Mica's taller than him. The bag went to Isaak. He took in most of the pants. The shirts that my sister raved about were from J. Crew. I thought maybe Isaak wouldn't like them because they had pink on them. Not the case. He didn't like them because they are button down. "Mom that's just too much work!" He has a lot of clothes already, so I didn't push the issue. 





2. Travis is taking a class where he has art critiques on his work. It's pretty hard because his work takes so long to produce. He's been trying quicker things. He's making things out of found materials more and more. I guess the class is good in the fact that it's pushing him to use different materials other than bronze or steel.
   
   He has to read gobs of pages, for the class. Much of it is very abstract, and hard to retain. Then they discuss it. That gets hard with having kids. 


3. We had flash flood warnings on Thursday. If this is going to be another year like last year, I don't know how the farmers are going to last. :(


4. We've had some turn around with Admissions Reps. This isn't a bad thing. I actually like the person in charge way more than the other guy that was in charge before. Someone was hired under her. I don't know him at all. We were sitting in a staff meeting. I had my mug that says, I survived another meeting that should have been an email. No one has said anything about it the last 2 or 3 meetings. A few people saw it, and laughed. New Guy pointing at it, "So what do you mean by that?" I replied with, "It just means I'm silly. I even make fun of myself." He didn't respond. I don't think he approved. 





5. I decided I'd spend an evening entering giveaways. I hadn't purged in doing that for awhile. Many are multi blog giveaways. Ones where you have to like 15 blogs Instagram posts, some comments, then they send you to 15 FB pages, on to 15 Twitter pages, and it just kept going...Do you like these types of giveaways? I just about had carpal tunnel after entering a few. When you look at the entries it's 1,000's of people. My chance of winning is like 0 to none. 

Open House

I just went to his Open House last night. His teachers have nothing to say bad about him. He's able to joke around with them. Except for his Math teacher. She's all about just teaching ONLY. Isaak saw her name in Scrabble letters on her desk. He pointed to it and said, "That would be invalid. It's not a word." She said, "Stop. Ok I have to see another parent now." I was thinking, Geez lady lighten up! He calls his homeroom teacher, "Mama Stone" because she has a Family Tree up of all her homeroom students. She calls them things like, "Son Isaak". It's a joke, but fun. He's happy to play along.

His favorite teacher is his Piano teacher. I so wish he could continue Piano lessons! Maybe he will. His teacher is from Ecuador. Not that it matters where he's from. He has a slight accent. When Isaak first got him, he's like, "I can't always understand him!" He must understand him now. Isaak lit up when he went into the room, and the teacher had an energy about him. Isaak said that he tells stories. He bought a horse for his wife. When he was training it, he jerked on the horse, and shouldn't of done that. He treats his students much like training a horse. Gentle and firm.

He writes his own music, and has the kids play along. When Isaak was playing his teacher came up to me and said, "I really think Isaak is a joy. He loves music, and I can tell." I wanted to hug him.

Isaak seemed ok at school, when he was showing me around.

He actually seemed to enjoy showing me around his school.

Ice for Anxiety

Isaak still has anxiety issues. I have yet to find a Therapist. The one the Pediatrician gave us has daytime hours. There's no way I'm taking Isaak out of school to see someone. That's like adding stress to stress.

I do plan on sending Boys Town a long message about Isaak this weekend. They have people that will give feedback, for free. It's a non profit. Doesn't hurt to get more opinions.

If you missed it he started crying during homework time last year, which was a bad year for Isaak. This year he likes his teachers, but starting middle school is hard! It doesn't help that Mica hardly has homework, and Isaak always does. I remember myself being socially unable to talk to all these groups of people that already seemed to know each other. I was like a deer in headlights. Moving to each class, but unable to talk.

As soon as we got in the car, after his school's Open House happened, anxiety happened as well. He said some kids call him annoying. I never know where some of this comes from. Maybe he's annoying. He's charming, funny, and sometimes shy too. We all can be annoying. No matter what I said, it didn't seem to make a difference. He knew he had homework to do, and two tests the next day. It was already dark out, so he was feeling the pressure. I never understand why teachers give kids homework on days when there's an Open House at school. It is what it is.

Travis was telling him to calm down when we got home. No one calms down when they are told to. I've been guilty of telling him the same thing. Isaak called Travis, "A Jerk" many times. I tried to apply techniques I got from a video on anxiety.

I got out an icepack, and applied it to Isaak's face. Soon after he kept applying to his own face.

I didn't think the icepack trick would work. In my mind I thought it was rubbish. It worked amazingly well. 

I said, "Isaak I'm not going to do your homework, but I am going to sit her with you. I can read things to you, if that helps you process things better." I found out that he did the Science reading, and answered the questions. He only answered what he could remember, and didn't think to go back to the reading for other answers. He finished his homework with minimal tears. When he was done I said, "You might want to check with Dad on this one. He's better with Science than I am. Before you do that please apologize about calling him a jerk. He's not really a jerk." It took some coaxing, but he did apologize. 

I think that was a winner of a night. Even with a break down. 

WW: Grandpa {Linky}

Last Tuesday I didn't post a WW because I was miles away at a funeral. I thought about not posting this, but death is part of life. I wrote about my Grandpa passing away, but never wrote about his funeral. I say - he lived to 93 years young. I have nothing, but happy memories from my Grandparents on my Mom's side. My Grandma died many years ago from Alzheimer's. My Grandpa just like most people at 93 was really forgetful. The brain has to age just like the rest of your body.

Just this year I taught Grandpa how to take Selfies.

A few months back he went to the hospital, and lost 1/2 his blood. Even the doctors were surprised he made it through that.

This time he fell really bad. He was all bruised up, but didn't break anything. They did find a tear in his vertebrae by his neck, that was from an old fall. He was doing well, sitting up, and eating, had a massive seizure, and that was it. I'm so glad he went that way. They wouldn't have operated on his neck. Living with pain isn't the way to go.

I felt like I was doing ok at the funeral. Mica was a Paul Bearer for the first time.

My cousin asked if they should line up in age order, or height order? Mica at age 14 is 6 foot.

Isaak wasn't a Paul Bearer, but sure was cute. 

He's with his youngest cousin Edison in this photo.

I saw my Great Uncles and lost it. I know they are so close! One lost his wife, his daughter, and now his best friend and brother, my Grandpa. The other had just gotten out of the hospital two days prior to the funeral. On all there were seven of them.

To top it off, when we went to go to the graveyard one of my Great Uncles was using a cane my Grandpa had made for him. The cane broke, he fell, and had to be rushed off to the hospital. He's ok. Just a big egg on his head!

We had a military service. My Grandpa went into the Navy.

Kind of random, but my Grandpa always had a stash of hard candy in hidden in his car. He loved Root Beers, Butterscotch, and Coffee. I passed a few out to people I was around.

Each Paul Bearer left their boutonniere on the casket. I have no idea if that's a tradition, or not.

We left roses on our family member's graves. My Grandma was Dorothy.

So much of me thinks of life being like a circle. One person dies, another is born. Just like seasons, and our calendar revolve in a circle. 

Who is the closest person to you that's passed away? 

I'd have to say my Grandma Dorothy was to me.