Science!

This year all three kids are participating in the science fair, and yesterday they kicked off their experiments, following a supply acquisition expedition to the hardware store, the garden store, and the grocery store.

Elizabeth is doing her own experiment, testing whether plants will grow faster with water, apple juice or gatorade, while Parker and Miranda are collaborating on their experiment, testing the evaporation rates of water, gatorade, grape juice, and coconut water. And no, it was very important that one experiment be apple juice and the other be grape juice.

Chess Update

So Parker is now a much better chess player than I am, and beats me soundly whenever we play. Out of the last nine games we've played, he's beaten me in 7, tied one, and I beat him once. And the tie was because he was shrewd enough to maneuvre me into a stalemate when I had his king on the run. He later remarked, "I know what your weakness is, Dad. You don't know your basic check-mates, so I can always play you to a draw." Most of the time, though, he doesn't have to bother.

I'm either going to have to start studying chess more seriously, or I'll have to start asking Parker to play levels with me.

Totally bummed

After almost 6 days of a significantly improved back, it all went away and I'm back to constant and serious pain. I was so excited and hopeful this past weekend but now I'm back to being hopeless and depressed. It sucks.

Miranda's show

Miranda's after school theatre class had a show yesterday. It was all pretty silly but it was also pretty clear that although Miranda wasn't the best at memorizing lines, she was absolutely the biggest ham with the strongest voice. I'm very glad I got her in a two week theatre camp this summer. She'll be in Peter Pan in mid August. Can't wait.

More Rock City

Amy and Julia came to visit this weekend. We didn't do much but on Sunday afternoon at the girls request we went to Rock City. They all had a ball.

Back Injection

I had my back injection today. They did both sides. The numbing and the first side hurt, but nothing major. The second, left, side was one of the most painful things I have ever felt. They told me to keep breathing as I was gasping and crying. Michael was in the waiting room so that kinda sucked.  They wheeled me out to his car afterwards as my legs were numb.  When I texted Michael that I was done, he said, "Are you texting from Heaven." Then added, "I didn't think you'd be there." Hilarious.

Nice to not be dead.

I forgot.

We took Parker to a ADHD screening today. We don't actually think he has it, but I guess we'll find out. Michael and I are skeptical of the entire process as it involves his teacher filling out an evaluation of him.  There's a lot more to say about it, but I don't have the energy.  I will summarize it all by saying this:

We asked Parker if the doctor there told the kids (it was a group screening) why there were there. He said, "The doctor asked us if we knew why we were here. One kid said he did."  I said, "Well, what did the kid say?"  Parker said, "I forgot."

Parker Weekend

Parker had another long weekend of activities this past weekend. On Saturday, he had an all day chess tournament.  6 matches. 10am to 5pm.  He and 14 classmates represented Wildwood as it was a school vs school tournament.  He won his first two, lost his third, tied his fourth, lost his fifth and won his sixth. He came in 5th out of his teammates and he was pretty bummed about that because the top four get big-ass trophies. BIG ones.  Wildwood placed third out of 25+ schools so that is pretty good. He was tired that night but had a good time all day playing with his friends and playing chess. The most impressive this day was that he beat a 1102 rated player. Parker is only rated 551 so this was quite a thing!

On Sunday, he had a swim meet where he swam 4 events. 50 free, 50 back, 200 free, and 100 breast. This was his first meet as a 9-10 year old so the competition and the time cut offs were much tougher. He did great though, coming in 9th, 9th, 8th and 10th in his C division. (the lowest). He did make a B time on his 200 free so he'll be competing against even faster kids in that one. An A time is the one you want to get to and it will probably take him until he almost 11 to get there.  He was very happy with his results and pleased with his one ribbon (top 8 in each division each event) get a ribbon.

He spent a good deal of time re-organizing all his medals, ribbons and trophies on Sunday evening.

Big books don't scare Elizabeth anymore

Elizabeth still enjoys climbing a robe.

Kaiser

It's a damn good thing Michael has a good job and health insurance because I've been spending a lot of time at Kaiser lately.

Two days ago, I went to pick up the kids camp forms from their doctor. They each needed a written assessment to send in.

Yesterday, I went to the spine clinic as a follow up to a second MRI on my back.  It was fairly depressing even though she showed me clearly on the MRI where my vertebraes are narrowing and out of line and where my discs are bulging (not good).  But she also said things like, you need to lose weight (duh) and we'll get you in physical therapy (which I told her didn't work.) So....on Thursday next week, I'm going to have a steroid injection in my spine. Risks include death and paralysis so I'm pretty excited about it (not). My back is so bad lately that I pretty much don't have many options left. She wrote on the notes "delay consideration of back surgery" so I guess there is still that option. Michael has to go with me and then deal with the kids the rest of the day which should be challenging with swim team/baseball, gymnastics and theatre class drop offs and pick ups.

On Tuesday, I go to the knee clinic for my patella thing. I doubt they will tell me anything useful, but it's the first step in getting any treatment.

On Wednesday, Michael and I take Parker in for a behavior assessment. His teacher was "concerned" about his "anxiety" (hand/finger sucking) and we are all a little concerned about his in ability to follow simply instructions or remember basic things like to change his underwear, bring his equipment home, turn his homework in and many, many other things. He can remember all 28 seasons of Survivor, who won and what the tribe names are, but he can't remember to take his backpack when he walks out the door. I spoke to a therapist and they want to "rule out ADD". Not sure we will, but we shall see.

I'm also back to having major sleep issues and my trusty Advil PM has very unpleasant bootie side effects.

Getting old sucks.

Guitar lessons!

Shredding

Skiing!

After considering it many times, we finally took the kids up to the snow.  Everyone in Piedmont has ski homes, and ski shares and many of our friends have their kids on "ski teams".   The kids had asked many times why they hadn't been to Tahoe, but it just seemed like such a giant hassle in the past, we just couldn't deal.  But with parent teacher conferences this past Thursday we took advantage of them being off for two days and went for it.  We drove up Thursday stopping at Soda Springs to do some tubing.  They each did about 5 runs and were done. Then we went to the hotel where we enjoyed the hot tub and then the free breakfast in the morning. The kids were a little confused as to where all the snow was. (There was none in Truckee at all.)  Then Friday morning we were the first ones at Donner Ski Ranch, a ski place many friends suggested for a first time trip. It was perfect. There was no on there. We never waited for a lift, the kids had only 5 in there ski lesson (including them). And it wasn't crazy expensive. Sure, half the mountain was closed due to the lack of snow, but it was perfect for us. The kids did their lesson while Michael and I skied and then we all skied together for the rest of the day.  Miranda was the most fearless, but all the kids did fantastic.  Miranda didn't want to leave at all, but Parker and Elizabeth were done by about 3pm. Which was just as well as the snow was quite slushy and dirty by then. I remembered how to do it even though I haven't done it for over 20 years. Michael had a tough time at first, but then got the hang of it and did much better. He couldn't keep up with the kids, but that would have been tough.   There was one intermediate hill I went down and then the next thing I know, I see Elizabeth stuck on it. I took the lift up to meet her and it was rough going down the hill. I asked her what she was thinking and she said, "It didn't look too steep."  I took both Parker and Miranda on it later and both ended up wiping out, with skis off and in tears. I remember being in that position so I tried to be patient with them, but I think there was some, "STAND UP NOW, MIRANDA!" in there.  We drove home on Friday, stopping in Davis for a sushi lunch with every college student on the planet but still got home by 8pm. The kids collapsed.  But...they all want to go again. I told them, next year.  Good thing the snow will be gone soon.

Hot tubbing!

Miranda was so happy!

See all the snow?

 Snow bunny Elizabeth. 

minecraft musette....the meeting of video games and piano lessons

Conferences

We had parent teacher conferences on Thursday before we drove up to the snow.  These are usually pretty uneventful and this time wasn't really an exception.  Here is what we "learned".

Elizabeth is the model student, helpful, striving to do her best, reading above grade level and struggling a tad bit, but not much in math. She needs help with spelling but even that has improved.  Her teacher asked if there was anything going on with her because she is recently very serious and seemingly sad. She shuts down when she doesn't understand things or just randomly and has a very hard time coming out of it. Yup. That's Elizabeth.

Miranda is dong very well in reading. Reading above grade level now and is well liked by others. She too is struggling a bit with math, but not much and her teacher thinks she'll figure out it out soon.  She did say she has trouble focusing and gets easily distracted.  She takes a long time to complete her work and doesn't seem to have any time management skills, sometimes needing twice or three times as long to finish tasks than everyone else.  She asked our opinion about getting her a timer. We told her the disastrous consequences timing her usually has but told her she could try it.  Michael and I both noted that with one exception (the math part) you could have exchanged her name with Parker's for this conference.

Parker's teacher had very nice things to say about him about academics of course and noted that he "Needs Support" in following basic instructions and staying on task which we already knew.   His spaciness has increased lately and he isn't able to do follow basic and routine instructions.  His teacher also said that she feels bad for him because she thinks he thinks he has to be the best at everything and that this is possibly making him anxious or stressed.  Although always a finger and clothing sucker, this has gone to new heights in the last few months and he is literally eating the sleeves of his jackets. No amount of rewards or punishment has made any difference and he can't stop himself. The teacher sees this (as we all do).  (I actually recently got him a necklace that he can suck on from an autism website. It's called a "teen teething ring" and so far, it's been accomplishing it's purpose. But we didn't take it on our ski trip and he ate through his gloves.)  We told the teachers that we've never told Parker he had to be the best or smartest and Parker seems to be aware that others are better than him at lots of things. From his sisters to classmates to friends, he knows that everyone has their strengths.  The teacher was quick to say she wasn't blaming us, but that she really things he thinks he has to be the best. She told a story about how they were talking about "smart water" and were discussing whether it made you more smart or less smart, so the kids all said, "give it to Parker, he's the smartest" and this made the teacher sad for him. That he has to live up to this label.  I didn't handle the whole conversation well and started tearing up. Which made the teacher and his math teacher (who was there) tear up.   They agreed to reduce his additional math work in the hopes that he could be more "normal" and like the other kids and said they would help in any other way that they could. Michael and I are not fans of his teacher, but I think when she saw me cry, she saw me as a human and mom rather than the critical bitch that I usually am with her.

At home, Michael and I discussed possible ways to help him be less stressed (if in fact he is.)  The only two things I think we could be "doing wrong" are letting him do too many sports or letting him play too much minecraft.  We discussed making him stop basketball, but didn't make any decisions yet.

I'm not a fan of conferences and I'm glad I don't have to do another one until November.

Dinner in truckee

Visit to snow! First day...

Piano updates

Parker did his certificate of merit test on the piano last weekend. We got the results today: excellent on technique, excellent on performance, 92% on theory and average on sight reading. His teacher says the two excellents are rare.

Elizabeth had her first piano lesson yesterday. She enjoyed it and practiced on her own this morning. We'll see how long that lasts...

Now I just have to find guitar teacher for Miranda. 

Pitcher up!

Parker played his first two baseball games this weekend. The coach asked him before the game, have you ever pitched? He said, No. The coach said, "Do you want to try?" YES!  So Parker pitched the first inning of the first game. He did great too. He threw a guy out at first. Tagged a guy running to first and struck out the third.  His second game on Sunday was not as good, walking several runners while letting several get good hits off him. But he never got bummed and was so happy he was pitching.  He also played shortstop and first base and did great at both. He's come a long way in baseball and it's back in his favor after a disastrous fall ball experience.

Lessons

Parker has expressed a desire to not continue with piano lessons. He says its just too much practicing. I'm ok with him stopping, but Michael is not. He just did his level four certificate of merit, which I hear for a 9 year old is pretty good.  We talked it over and then discussed with Parker and agreed to give him a break for a month or so. We thought this was a better approach then potentially creating a situation where he hated piano or resented practicing.

While Parker is taking a break, Elizabeth is going to start lessons. At first she was not thrilled to hear this news, but then she seemed excited and started asking lots of questions about it.  Miranda will not be left out, but she will start guitar lessons something that Michael thought she would be interested in and good at and something that she herself has expressed interest in.

So...we'll see how that all goes.  Parker has already played the piano once during his "break" and I'm sure he will again.

Bed

We sold Parker's loft bed a while ago and he's been sleeping on the floor since then. I finally went to ikea today to get him a bed but they didn't have the cheap one I wanted.

But then I got an email from someone in the twins club that she was giving away a bunk bed that seperated into a queen and twin. I picked it up 30 minutes later and Michael set up the bed this evening. Parker was a happy boy.

I hate fieldtrips

I took Parker's class on a field trip yesterday. I didn't want to, but they were desperately short drivers so I ended up with 6 in my car. I find fieldtrips unpleasant for a variety of reasons.   The kids are so loud in the car and then when we arrive there is too much standing around waiting.  We went to Lawrence Hall of Science which as anyone reading this knows, we've been hundreds of times.  Why these privileged, white kids need to spend a day away from school experiencing this place is crazy to me. They did a class on lasers and light where they got to play with lasers and mirrors.  As Parker pointed out when he got home, my spy laser alarm does the same thing!

Friday I drive Elizabeth to Adventure playground. It's somehow tied into their science unit, but I'm guessing it will be just more loud kids, running around and some amount of waiting.

Contest

Elizabeth's gymnastics class in Albany is going very well. She enjoys going, has fun there, is improving and likes being one of the youngest. Yesterday, they had a back walkover contest for who could have the straightest legs.  They did four girls at a time and then the winners from each of the groups went against eachother. Then there was a final contest between two girls.  Elizabeth won the whole thing. The last two girls were Elizabeth and the oldest (and second best) girls in the class. Elizabeth was super proud.

Junior!

Parker was just promoted on the swim team to the next level which is called juniors. He is the youngest one on it. At first he was worried about longer, more difficult practices and swimming more days a week but now, he is totally into it and claims he will be best swimmer at Wildwood by 5th grade.   Today's work out was 30 minutes of dry land (sit ups, leg lifts, etc) and an hour swimming where he swam at least 2000 yards.  Because his schedule is already overfill with basketball, baseball, chess and piano, he'll transition slowly over the next month or so. He seems pretty proud of himself. Which he should be.

More cookies

Even though we sold all our cookies, the girls enjoyed selling them so much, we did another shift at the piedmont grocery store today.  Wasn't as busy as last time, but they still sold 19 boxes in 2 hours. Not great, but not bad.

Legos

We took the kids to see the Lego movie. Michael and I thought it was great but it was a little fast and confusing for the kids. Parker was quite upset during much of it...anxious and squirming in his seat during the conflict issues, bored during plot explanations he didn't understand and outright crying for the last 15 despite me saying "everything will be ok."  It was only the 4th movie I've taken him to and we left the other three (toy story, wall-e and up) after 20 minutes. I felt bad we took him since he clearly still doesn't like the whole experience.

But then after we were home for a bit, I saw this:

He rarely plays with Legos and usually only does the kits he gets as presents. But he must have understood some of the movie as it was all about building Legos creatively without kits.

Speaking of building things...a friend gave Parker this marble run when he got too old for it. Parker put it together himself with no help from us.  He may not like movies, but he's quite the builder.

Elizabeth girl crush

Elizabeth is pretty much smitten with this girl Rosa in her gymnastics class. And Rosa seems to be smitten with her too.

Cookies

The girls are girl scouts and the whole thing bugs the crap out of me. But they like it and all their friends do it, so we do it.  Last weekend, we all got 30 boxes of cookies to sell.  Well, each girl got 30 so we got 60 boxes.  I knew I wasn't going to let the girls sell them door to door and because our house is so close to Safeway where there is an official booth, we can't just set up shop outside our house.  So, I posted on facebook and within a few days, all the cookies were gone.  Delivered to friends nearby, dropped off at houses, or shipped to Reno, they all left the building.  Michael was upset we didn't keep more for ourselves, but I figured we could always buy more...

Here are the girls selling at a booth in a store in Piedmont in the pouring rain.  In 6 hours, they sold 138 boxes. I was shocked. Despite Elizabeth's face, she had a great time and didn't want to leave when I brought Miranda up to the shift. 

Elizabeth and her pals

Elizabeth with Greta above and Lola below.

A rare sighting

Parker doesn't pay any attention to the foster cats and appears to be quite inconvenienced by their presence.  But on this day, while watching Survivor, he couldn't resist playing with Snow White.

Mercy Watson and eclairs

I took the girls to see a play by the Bay Area Children's Theatre company (that also runs Miranda's after school class) based on the book Mercy Watson about a pig that lives with a nice couple. It was cute, albeit a bit long with a better first act than second.  Before the show we walked to get a hot chocolate and found this place called Paris Baguette which was just a long room filled with tables that looked like this. I'm always telling Michael there are no places to just pop into to get a nice eclair so you can imagine how happy I was to find this place. It's in downtown Berkeley, but I'm sure I'll find many excuses to go there now.

Kittens

Here are the girls with our latest foster kittens that got adopted today.  Well, the black one got adopted, but the white one went to foster adopt with a vet tech which was great since she has cerebellar hypoplasia which means her balance is off and she can't really walk so great. She looks like a drunk cat.  Miranda came with me again and was happy and not at all sad when they both left the building. She said, "Well, our job here is done."  Until the next one, of course.

I submitted this photo to some litter company holding a kittens and kiddos cuddle photo contest. If the two cute twins with the special needs foster kittens don't win, the contest is rigged!

Ohlone museum project

Parker had to do a small research project on the fishing habits of the ohlone Indians. I gave him some tips to get started but he did it mostly on his own.

"Watch out for this Fucker!"

Yesterday on the way home from chinese food, Michael who was in the passenger seat said, "Watch out for this fucker" referring to a car that was turning in front of me.  The girls said, "Dad!  You said a bad word."  Then we started saying things that ended with the work Fucker.  Watch out Fucker. Move out of the way Fucker. Parker was hesitant to join in, but soon enough was yelling Fucker with the rest of it. Elizabeth sounded hilarious saying it. Not sure if it is high pitched voice or her manner, but it made me almost pee my pants every time she said it.  We were all swearing and laughing. It was great. I then had to remind them about not saying those things in school, in front of other kids or parents or really anywhere. They agreed, but I also told Michael it was his fault when they messed up and told their teacher to "move it fucker."