Family Fun Day in NYC!!!!

Friday we had a Family Fun Day in NYC!!!

The girls and me being goofy!



Our first stop was the Statue of Liberty! Declan has been asking to go for 2 years now and this year we made it!



Ben and the monsters at Lady Lib! It really was a beautiful day there. Not too hot, a great breeze and best of all, the kids got their National Parks Passport stamped!




Then off to spend ALL Daddy's money at:

We had been promising Killi a new doll for sometime now. She had a tough year in school and worked very hard and for all her hard work she earned a doll, that she could spend the summer playing with! Time to be a kid!

And Maggie is lucky enough to be little and cute so her dad could not deny her one:)


And as you can see, Killi was having no trouble at all with spending Dad's money! And Dad having NEVER been to the store didn't really get how it worked and spent WAY more money than mom would have! It's nice to be daddy's little girls:)

Don't be sad for Declan. He did get to go to the Statue of Liberty and yes he was dragged to the AG Store, but Wednesday night he gets to go with is dad and PopPop to the New Yankee Stadium! That in his world is a very big and exciting thing! And when he goes with Pop, he NEVER comes come empty handed!

Better Days!

After a rocky start the first day, summer vacation has been much better the last two days! We have spent countless hours at the pool and what very few hours were left in the day we fit in packing, sleeping and an ice cream trip with friends!

This year at the pool is a bit different than the 4 previous summers. In years past I have sat mostly alone talking only in passing with people I knew only from the pool. I knew almost nobody's name and I was okay with that. I would sit and watch the kids play and the hours would pass. Not this year! Now that the kids are in the neighborhood school, we know EVERYONE and moreover, everyone knows us! I thought it would be good to join the PTO, which brought me lots more friends(?).

Don't get me wrong, it has been a good thing. It is just a bizarre experience to go from a Nobody to this:) Me with friends is such a novel concept:)

1st Day of Summer Vaca...

SUCKS!!! It is cold and rainy. The kids got up too early and the only game they seem to be able to play is "make each other cry". Thankfully, I have an awesome(and very crazy)friend that took all three monsters to her house for a few hours. I am not sure they'd have made it through the day without it.

Tomorrow the rain is supposed to tapper off to scattered T-storms, so maybe we can get to the pool. Same for Friday. Then we are off to NJ, where the rain never seems to stop! The forecast says 67 and rain for Saturday up there!!! Hope that changes or our beach trip is gonna suck!

I guess I should vacuum or pack-

An Interesting Meeting.

I've waited a few days to share this story because I have been considering whether or not I wanted to publicly discuss this, and I have decided that I do! I rarely hold back here and now is no time to start, especially since I'd love to hear your thoughts.

As anyone that reads this knows, My sweet Killi has not had an easy school year. Learning, in a traditional manner is very difficult for her. She went into kindergarten not knowing her letters or numbers. Her fall "test" scores while passing were very low(and by low I mean 60 points less than her brother's the year before). Anyway, Ben and I spent a good deal of time at the school working with her primary teacher and the support teachers hoping that Killi would "catch-up".

At our mid-year meeting in February, the teachers told us that she was not progressing and had been placed on the retention list and selected for summer school. Ben and I had decided that retention in Kindergarten was not an option for us as she is already one of the older kids in class, but we were open to summer school.

Finally, in April(the 20th, I believe)she received an IEP for speech. That's correct, after "failing" the speech assessment is November, she was finally tested and receiving services at the end of April! Which ended up being a joke because she went to speech a total of 7 times I think. I am not angry about the 7 times since the end of April, I am angry that it took until then to start!

Last Wednesday, I went to my end-of-year meeting for Killi. This is where they wrap everything up and let me know what next year is going to look like. At this meeting do you know what I heard? I heard that my baby is on grade level for everything! That perhaps she will not need or receive support from the PST(small group instruction)like she did this year. Sure, she is not the strongest academically, but she is also not the weakest.

While I was delighted for Killi when I hear this news, I was also angry! Angry that now after she has worked her ass off and we have fought our asses off, they want to drop her! Just leave her hanging. It is like hand-feeding a baby animal from birth and suddenly, with no warning placing them back in the wild!

I'm not sure where to go from here, but I need to go somewhere. Any thoughts/suggestions?

Declan

Let me tell you about my boy, he is smart,sweet,kind,responsible,friendly and gentle, sure he has some bad qualities like he runs-his-mouth, knows EVERYTHING, and is a bit too sensitive:) Lately, it has been difficult to balance the positives and the negatives and some of the positives have been negatives for him.

We have had a few instances where Declan's sweetness has deterred him from standing up for himself. Not that Ben and I advocate fighting, but we do want him to be strong and not be bossed around or hurt by others. Sometimes he just doesn't do that! He allows himself to be bullied or hurt when he should stand-up for himself! For some of this I take the blame as I often tell him not to tattle instead of hearing-him-out and offering solutions to deal with the problem.

I want to make him stronger and wiser! Understanding that it is not okay for people to treat you badly. And when they do, you have the right to defend yourself and not be in that situation any more! I wish I had the answers. I wish that parenting was easier! Thank goodness kids are forgiving and very hard to break:)

2 Left!

We have made it to the home stretch! Only two days left in the 2008-2009 school year! I am very ready for it to be over! You can imagine it has been bad if I am looking forward to two weeks at the in-laws!!!

I hope that next year is better!

Tricky...

This morning we had very bad Thunderstorms, again! We have had the a lot lately. Anyway, due to the storms and a very late night, with little sleep, the kids did not make it to school. Yes, I am an incredible slacker! There is only 5 days left and I am a slacker! I just felt so awful this morning that I could not bring myself to get showered and dressed to walk them into school, as we were late because the alarm didn't go off because of the storm. So, they were home and I was i pain. I went back to the doctor this afternoon and I am still in pain.

Moving on, tomorrow(really later today)Killian is receiving an award at school! She is so excited! She has been waiting all year! We do not know what it is for yet, but we are excited! She got her grandmother to buy her a new dress for award day! I will post pics of the dress and award later today!

CAUTION: This post has a PG-13 rating!!!!

Last night Ben and I tucked the kids in to bed, I took some heavy duty pain meds and off we went to the living room. What took place next was a bizarre sequence of events, so bizarre in fact, I had to ask Ben this morning if it actually happened or if it was the pain meds.

Back to the living room, Ben and I are sitting there and all of the sudden Maggie comes out crying that she is scared. So, the two of us(not sure why both) go to tuck her back in when she refuses to lie down and stats screaming and crying about...the TOOTH FAIRY!!! Yes, the very scary tooth fairy! Not just crying either, there was shaking and hyperventilating,too!!! This went on for no less than an hour. We could not calm her down. We tried all we could to calm her short of telling her that there was no such thing! Nothing worked! So, after an hour of this Declan comes out and says,"Look Maggie, this is crazy! The Tooth Fairy isn't even real! It is just daddy." Ben and I said nothing, just sat silent.

With that, Maggie went to bed!

What I am wondering now is, are we off the hook for the money?

Gone!

Last night was the first night in over 8 years that I spent ALONE! That's right, ALONE! No babies or husband to be found! It was amazing. Weird, but amazing! Ben was on Childcare duty tonight because I was having some friends over, but instead of having to entertain them alone he decided to make a fun up to NJ for the weekend! I wasn't sure if he was going to make it out the door with all three, but he did and they all seem to be having a great time!

My in-laws have a new pool that the kids have been dying to get into since Christmas and today they did! It has been awhile since they had seen Pop Pop and Grandma too, so this was a perfect plan! On top of the new pool, the kids got their first trip of the summer, to Pt. Pleasant Boardwalk in so they are in heaven!

I enjoyed my night last night and my day today, but I think by tomorrow I will be missing my monsters! And I will admit, I was a little happy to hear that at least one monster missed me tucking her in:)

8 Days Left!!!!

We are at 8 and counting, and the next 8 school days cannot go fast enough! I am just ready for it to be over! I am ready for some good relaxation! Days of relaxed bedtimes and no plans or schedules! Trips to the pool and the beach! Family dinners and fun.

Just some time for us to step outside the rat-race and enjoy life a little! Trips downtown, play dates that run late, a spur-of-the-moment camping trip, all the things we cannot do during the school year!

It does seem that the summers are getting shorter and shorter though:)

So Proud!!!!

I love days when my kids are proud of themselves!It makes me so happy for them!

Today Declan received a medal for running at least 25 miles during PE this year! He worked really hard to reach that goal! He was so proud of himself! I was so happy to tell him that I was proud of him too; proud because he worked that hard for something he wanted. I am not sure he fully understood that, but he was proud!

A Great Day!

This is my first year participating in this


and I am so happy to be doing so. Last year I had hoped to, but got busy and forgot! Not this year!

Over the past few years, Gay and Lesbian Family Rights have become a important to me. I have met many people over the past few years that have help me see the injustice that these families are facing and I want that to change! I want families to be treated equally and marriage to be open to all adults that want to marry! I want my children to grow up and barely remember that people were discriminated against for loving the someone.

I want to thank all the friends I have made throughout the years, mostly my blog friends, for answering all the questions I have had along the way. I hope that each one of these annual blog days brings more and more awareness to how much more "alike" than "different" all families are!