Friday, December 31, 2010

2010 ends ... 2011 begins

lets recap the major "milestones" of my 2010 first:

  • saige started kindergarten
  • saige started to wear glasses
  •  took my first trip to disney world (and first trip on an airplane for that matter) for saige's 5th birthday in august (are you seeing a pattern here? haha)
  • major shift in things at work
  • drifted apart from a few friends, formed new friendships with people i unexpectedly call close friends now
It was a pretty decent year honestly.  There's definitely some things I would change or do over, but when do  you ever not feel that way about something that happened within an entire year?  I'm hoping for a better 2011.  I don't necessarily mean better.  Perhaps hoping for a "different" 2011 is a better choice of words.  I want to better myself this year.  I WILL lose weight, I will NOT be this heavy at the end of 2011 ... or ever again.  I WILL find a new profession.  I want something I can call a career.  Something I can actually make a life for myself with.  Something that allows me to provide for myself and my child without assistance from others.  It's my fault that I've lived this way for this long, but this year will be different.  2011 is going to be used to better my life, thats my resolution.  I'm sure there's a whole long list of things I could write about that I want to change, but I'd rather leave it at bettering myself.  Things seem a lot more reachable that way.  I hope everyone had a safe new years eve, and that everyone has a fantastic new year!  

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

totally random post...

I look forward to these "chart topper" remixes every year this time of year haha.  I enjoy this one a lot this year, so I thought I'd share.  enjoy :)

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

on a serious note...

I had my first run in with "bullying" today with Saige.  She wasn't the bullier or the one being bullied, but she was a bystander who did nothing.  With all of the crazy suicides and things happening with bullying lately that you see on the news, this was kind of a big deal for me.

When we were driving home tonight she said that a girl threatened to beat her up.  I immediately was concerned, obviously.  I asked why and she said that the little girl who threatened her was being picked on by another girl (who i personally know from working at the daycare and don't particularly care for this little girl to begin with) and that the girl who was being picked on thought saige was involved and retaliated by threatening her.  Oh course saige swears she wasn't involved, and said that i can ask her teacher tomorrow (which i'm going to do, and she knows darn right well i'm going to so i'm sure she's not lying ...usually when i use that threat she fesses up the truth ha).  I explained to her though that by standing there and not helping the little girl who was getting picked on (not by directly involving herself physically, but even by just telling a teacher) that she in turn was hurting the little girl as well.  i also explained to her that if i find out she's ever involved in picking on a child that she'll have severe consequences that she's never even experienced yet in life.  This is a situation that i will not tolerate now, or ever.

I'm always concerned that Saige is going to get picked on, especially now that she has her glasses, because I'm her mother and all mothers worry about that kind of stuff i'm sure.  However, a thought crossed my mind when i was dealing with all of this tonight.  Why do we never worry that are kids are going to be the BULLY instead of worrying that they're going to be picked on?  After today, I now kind of question this myself, but i hope that I handled the situation well enough that she won't turn into that kind of mean girl we all dreaded in school.  Saige is a sweet girl and generally enjoys helping her friends so I'm sure she'll be a good girl (i'm her mom, i'm allowed to think positively haha).  Why is this an issue in kindergarten?!  When did kids get so mean?  Why do we allow are kids to act this way?  I don't believe that kids are naturally mean spirited, it's obviously learned behavior.  Is it tv?  bad parenting?  lack of rules?  what causes this?  All i know is that it is an issue I will be consistently re-visiting with her to continue to instill in her the proper ways to treat someone, because i'll be darned if i'm going to raise a bully, or an enabler for that matter.  I'll be speaking to her teachers tomorrow, and hopefully together this can be handled properly.  While saige wasn't directly involved in the situation, I feel that it's an issue that needs to be addressed to the entire student class.  perhaps i'm over-reacting, but this kind of stuff just cannot go on, especially when they're 5 years old.  what a crazy world we live in.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

bats & other updates

So I once again have slacked on updating this, big surprise right?  yeah i know.  i'd say i've been busy, but, I really haven't.  Oh well, here's my attempt at an update!

So about a week ago we had an interesting thing happen.  We had a bat in our house.  Yes you read correctly, a bat in the middle of december.  The story that goes along with it is even more bizarre then that!  Around 6:30 at night I went into the powder room to go to the bathroom.  As I was sitting there in the bathroom, I looked at my foot and saw this black furry thing.  Nsow, our neighbor just moved so we've been getting the occasional mouse in the house as she's disturbing her things (we live in a twin house).  The bottom of this "mouse" looked flat and wet and wasn't moving, so I assumed that my cat had gotten a hold of it and chewed on it and left it for dead, as he always does.  I turned away and finished my business and got up and walked out of the bathroom.  When I went out into the dining room I told my mom there was a dead mouse on the floor.  We argued about who was going to pick it up.  As i stood there arguing the "mouse" slowly turned it's head back towards us.  I freaked out and started yelling "it's not dead!!!!!!" and we pulled the door shut and argued about how we were going to get it out.  After a few minutes we decided on a course of action and opened the door to get it.  Much to my surprise, the undead "mouse" was nowhere to be found.  We looked around the room and didn't see it anywhere, so we set a mouse trap with some cheese in it behind the toilet and called it a day.  I went off to do some christmas shopping and no one heard or saw the thing.  Fast forward to about 11:00 that same night.  My sister starts screaming from her bedroom in the basement that there's a bat in her room.  She saw it creepily crawl across the floor and go under the baseboard heater.  have you ever seen a bat crawl?  it's gross.  Anyway, I was still saying that it wasn't a bat, that it was a mouse.  Well, after a lot of googling i determined that she was right, it was a bat.  What was worse was that since it was crawling across the ground instead of flying, all signs pointed to it being sick/rabid.  Great news right?  So after an hour of the thing not being found anywhere my sister turns her light off to get ready for bed.  When she does that she starts screaming because it came out and tried to fly, but it failed.  I went downstairs to help her get it, but the thing was wedged under the heater.  My sister looked at me and said "maybe you should call dad" and I just hung my head.  I knew he wasn't going to be thrilled because this is the third time in my life I've had to call him to come get a bat out of my house.  The first time involved me calling him collect from a pay phone because I left my cell in the house, but thats a whole other story haha.  Anyway, I called my dad and he was like "you've gotta be f&^^%& kidding me! how many times in your life do you think you plan on calling me for this reason!" haha.  He comes over and after 20 minutes, and him being macgyver, he caught the bat using only a plastic cup, a piece of cardboard, and a broom handle.  On his way outside with it he told me the thing was probably going to die because of how cold it was out.  I said "awww should i put a blanket out there for it?" and he response was "why are you so stupid?" LOL.  he threw it outside and that was the last we saw of the bat, but what a crazy story right?  It sounds better/funnier when you actually HEAR the story but you get the idea.  I just keep thinking about being in the bathroom with that thing.  what the heck would I have done if that thing came at me while I was sitting on the toilet?! I don't even know! haha, bats are attracted to me for some reason.  My sister finds the mice, and I always get the bats.  I think I'd prefer mice, but I guess I don't get to choose haha.  Oh well, hopefully thats the last one i see for a very long time.  Gross things.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

it's always something...

Last week at saige's yearly physical, the doctor determined that Saige's vision was 20/40.  Now, I had definitely never noticed her having any problem seeing, but they requested that I take her to an eye doctor so I made an appointment.  Today was that appointment.  Much to my surprise, the doctor determined that has an astigmatism in each of her eyes causing her not to be able to see better then 20/40 regardless of what lense he put in front of her eye.  He said this has most likely been a condition she's had since birth and that she hasn't complained about it because she had no idea she was supposed to be able to see better then she does.  I feel AWFUL that I wasn't aware she was having a problem.  I feel a little comforted in the fact that she is excelling in school regardless of her vision problem, and that none of her teachers have noticed her struggling because of it either.  How did i miss that though?  Geez.  Anyway, needless to say she needs glasses.  She picked out a cute little pink pair and she'll have them within the week.  The doctor wants to see her every 4 weeks for the next 6 months to keep tabs on her progress and adjust her lenses accordingly.  He feels that with aggressive treatment, such as what we're doing, that he hopes to have it cleared up within the year.  I felt confident in his decision and diagnosis because he told me that his daughter had the same exact problem when she was Saige's age and he got it to clear up for her.  We'll see.  I'm nervous for her though.  I'm nervous because he said kids have a hard time keeping the glasses on for the first few weeks because they see so differently and they don't like it.  I'm also afraid she's going to get made fun of (i know, glasses are no big deal these days, but kindergardners are pretty mean these days).  We'll see how it goes, I'm hoping she surprises me and it's just fine the day she comes in, but something is telling me to feel otherwise.  Oh well, only time will tell.

Monday, December 6, 2010

it's christmas time again...

As christmas rapidy approaches, I'm spending a lot of time going over my shopping list.  I still need to do SO MUCH shopping.  Well, I'm sure I'm just overreacting, I know I have more then I seem to let myself believe.  Of course my biggest shopping challenge is making sure Saige gets the things that I know she REALLY wants, as opposed to things she sees on TV commercials and immediately wants to add them to the already long Christmas list.  I know she could never be disappointed on Christmas morning no matter what I buy her, she's definitely not one of those kids who cries over what she doesn't get, but I want to make sure she really has a great morning.  She's not going to be this little forever, right?  That being said, her "big ticket items" this year are a leapster explorer (which I already purchased before thanksgiving because I knew it was going to sell out quickly after black friday), new sketchers, a bike (which my dad bought for her) and a barbie glitterizer play set.  She also wants a lot of other little things like barbies, clothes, and other girly stuff.

I'm finding it hard to tell my parents what to get me this year.  Is 28 too old to be making a christmas list? :)  I always ask for DVDs and then never watch them.  I want to ask for something that I know for sure i'll get a lot of use out of ... but have no idea what that is.  Oh well.

Decorating is going slow as well.  Trish was kind enough to help me slap together the tree as quickly as we could the other weekend so that we could have Saige's Christmas picture photo shoot in front of it, but I haven't finished it yet.  The living room looks like a bomb went off because there are lights and things everywhere.  I need to finish that soon.

So, all of that being said, what are YOU asking for this holiday season?  What are your family/children asking for?  How are you celebrating?  How are you decorating?   Do share, I'd love to hear! :)