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.

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.

insert title here

I've opened this a hundred times since my last post, but I've closed it each time not knowing what to say. I hate when i get "blocked" like this. However, I've been nudged to blog so I'm going to do it :)

Where to start ... lets see. It's now Sunday night at 10:30 and I just ate my first "meal" since friday evening. When I say meal, i really just mean I had a cheese stick and some pretzels. What a weekend it's been. Friday night I went out to dinner at Lonestar with Stacie and Saige (as a belated birthday present for Stacie's birthday, which was Monday). After dinner all was well until around 11:00. I was laying in bed reading a book and my stomach started feeling very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable quickly changed to crampy, which quickly changed to feeling beyond sick. I spent the next 10 hours in the bathroom getting sick. When i say sick, I mean I just couldn't stop. It got so bad that I was dry heaving because I had nothing left to throw up but my body still felt like it needed to take that action. It was a terrible night. I was chalking it up to being sick from the steak I ate at dinner, but then a parent from work commented on my facebook telling me that her daughter started throwing up around 9:00 that same night. That same little girl insisted on giving me "goodbye kisses" before i left work that night (she's 2, love her), so thats obviously where it came from, because her mom ended up with the same thing the next day. Apparently Stacie ended up sick at 5:30 am saturday with the same thing, so we're figuring she got it from the little girl she carries around a lot at work who had it on thursday, because her father is sick today (co-worker). I felt a little better knowing it wasn't food poisoning of ecoli, but I was just praying for it to be over. I finally stopped getting sick around 9 am, but I was freaking out because saige had to be at tball by 9:45. Normally I would have just had her skip it, but of course it had to be picture day AND I was snack mom, so there was no way i couldn't go. I was practically in tears trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the next hour and a half outside, when my mother saved the day by telling me she'd heard me up during the night and had cancelled her plans to take saige to t-ball for me. Talk about a life saver. After tball was over my mom drove her to her other grandparents house for the night, who thankfully were already planning on taking her for the night, so I just laid in bed for the next 10 hours. After I stopped getting sick, the tail end of the bug kicked in which apparently is awful body aches and a fever. So i dealt with that until around 9:00 that night and I finally felt better. Around 7 I had attempted my first "food" of the day, which was a handful of dry plain cheerios. Those stayed down but didn't feel that great so I didn't push it any further with more food. Around 10 I decided since i felt better that I needed to get out of the house and get some air, so I met hinkle at the sly fox. Probably not my best idea, but it was alright. I sat there less then 2 hours, sipping on water (because I couldn't even handle my diet coke that I usually drink 10 of while i'm there) and then called it a night.

Thankfully today, sunday, I woke up feeling much better. I took it pretty easy for the first half of today. I finished my book ("safe haven" by nicholas sparks, good book) and watched some jersey shore reruns (grenade grundle chodes, bahahah, it just never gets old) and then I did some shopping (kmart and the dollar store) and came back to tackle this DISASTER of a bedroom. When I say disaster, I don't necessarily mean there's trash everywhere and stuff, it's just clothes clothes and more CLOTHES. and most of them are saige's, so thats even more frustrating haha. I decided last week that I'm having a yard sale this coming saturday so I started sorting and pricing everything. It doesn't look like I did much, but I really did accomplish a lot for once. In between all of that, Saige and I did her homework project (she had to make a number book, she used an ocean theme, it was cute) and then she watched the new tinkerbell movie.

Saige herself had a good weekend. She went to the grandparents house and then her father actually decided to spend the day/night with her. They went to a fall festival at her grandmother's school and then they cooked out for dinner and then saige, her cousin, and her father "camped" out in a tent in the backyard for the night. He said her cousin went inside around midnight because she woke up and wanted to go inside, and then Saige made it until 2:30 until she decided she was over it and woke up and wanted a real bed haha. Today they went to one of those home depot kid workshops where she build a wooden sailboat and got a cute apron and stuff. She came home around 5. I'm glad she had a good weekend, she definitely deserves it after last weekend. I'd like to think that he'll keep this up, but I'm not holding my breath. I guess we'll see what happens.

Well, this blog got crazy long! it's almost 11:00 so I should probably get ready for bed. Get to start another wonderful week at work tomorrow morning. keep your fingers crossed that the stomach bug doesn't come back and hit me a second time, it's flying around work (obviously) and I know a little girl who's had it twice in the past 3 days so apparently you can get it again. UGH, awful.

i don't even know ...

the last time saige saw her father was september 4th. he's never really been all that interested in her, and his parents have been more steady in her life then he ever has been. this past weekend everything came to a head. saturday afternoon around 3 he talked to saige on the phone and told her he was going to come get her in a while. well, he never showed up, so i was left with a crying heartbroken 5 year old. when i called him he never answered the phone. i finally called his mother to see if she'd heard anything and she hadn't talked to him all day, so he obviously never had any intentions of coming to begin with. now, he's done this before ... he's told me he's taking her or coming for her and never showed up, but he's never told HER. i've always been smart enough to not tell her he's coming until he's actually standing at the door because i never know for sure when he's actually going to come through and show up. the fact that he had the nerve to tell her he was coming and get her all excited and then just not show up or even call .. well thats not ok. i finally left a voicemail the other night telling him exactly what kind of parent i think he is ... which, i guess wasn't mature or the right thing to do but what can i say, i'm only human and i was really upset. now today is wednesday and he still hasn't called me or answered the phone when i've called. what am i supposed to do with this? i can't put saige through that anymore .. it's really not fair to her. the only thing i think i can do at this point is just ...stop calling him. if he doesn't want to be involved he doesn't have to be. i gave him that option from the second i found out i was pregnant with her, but he swore he wanted to be involved. yeah, that worked out well. i feel bad that i've given saige one of these fathers who has better things to do then spend time with their child. i think if i haven't heard from him by this weekend that i'm going to go talk to his parents about it all. i'd never cut them off from seeing her, she loves them too much and they've always been great with her ... but him ... i don't think he'll care much anyway. such a depressing situation.

it's always something

so I drive around today and my car's fine. after work i decide to take saige to the mall to get her an early birthday gift (unicorn crocs) and get some dinner. on the way home my car starts bucking and shaking and not driving right. of course that threw me into a panic attack because i had saige with me so i immediately call pat. i get my sister to pick me up and leave my car in valley forge park. pat comes down and drives my car home (thankfully, there's no way i could have done it) and he thinks it's the coil (whatever that means?) and he's going to fix it tomorrow. thank goodness, he really does come in handy, no matter how much crap we give him. thankfully i'll be able to take my mom's car to work tomorrow, so at least i'll be able to get around. well, at least saige is really enjoying her new crocs! we bought her backpack and lunch box for when she starts kindergarten in a few weeks too ... i still can't believe it! :( I can't believe she grew up so fast! time needs to slow down a little bit. well, it's time to end my crazy day on a positive note ... jersey shore!! haha, i love my reality trash!

the never-ending case of the whines ..

Don't get me wrong, I love saige more than I could ever love anything .. but this week she's really trying my patients haha. She started bible camp two weeks ago which is during nap time. This means she no longer takes a nap during the day. I figured this was a good time to start breaking her of a nap because once she starts kindergarten she won't nap anymore anyway. Well, I think the combination of no nap and being outside/active most of the day is taking a huge toll on her. So far every day this week when we've come home from work she's been whining SO much, and she's actually fallen asleep twice on the couch at like 5:30 which never happens. I'm at a loss as to how to fix this. I could just take her out of bible camp and let her nap instead, but she really loves bible camp so that would upset her if she couldn't do that anymore. No idea what to do in this situation! I'm hoping Thursday and Friday go a bit better, I'm not sure how much more whining I can deal with!