Parent/Teacher Conferences

Charity is the winner. Yes, we were trying to figure out the schedule for Parent/Teacher Conferences. The confusion started with the official school calendar that we received the first day of school. It had the conferences down for October 28. The week Jay was gone to convention we got a note sent home saying the elementary conferences were the 28th and 30th, with ours being 6:45 on the 28th. I had assumed Jay would have the same schedule so I wrote him off as being gone from home Tuesday and Thursday. Monday morning Jay called to ask if I knew that he had conferences that evening. I got concerned that maybe I had down the wrong day for Cade’s conference, but I had the right date for that. So then I thought Jay also had them Tuesday night, until I looked at the schools website Tue afternoon. The school calendar had them for Mon and Wed nights. Great, the only night we were going to be home for the week (Wed) appeared to be taken by the conferences. That’s what prompted our confusing text conversation. We got it straightened out, we are home tonight and we made it to Cade’s conference last night, Tuesday the 28th at 6:45 pm.

So how did the conference go? I’m sure you all are wondering…
It went fine. No, we didn’t get any glowing reports of how great of a kid Cade is, how great he does in school, how unique his personality is, etc. It wasn’t like last year. His teacher showed us his report card, told us his grades and really didn’t elaborate much on anything. I’m not taking that personally because I think that’s just the way she is. I think Mrs S has been doing this for so long that she knows he’s a normal 1st grader. I’ve already e-mailed her once about him and school and when she didn’t respond in 12 hours Jay went in and talked to her. Mrs S first words to him were “Jay, he’s doing fine”. We got the impression she thought we were worrying over him a little too much. Sorry, but we’ve never done this parenting thing before. Anyway, he got E’s (which is excellent) on his spelling, reading and classroom behavior. He got S’s (which is satisfactory) in writing, math and listening/responding. This is where you can tell Jay and I are on different wave lengths when it comes to education…..

Since she didn’t really elaborate on why she gave him an S in those areas we tried to drag it out of her. Jay is really concerned about his math. Since I was never good at math and I'm surviving working with loans, it’s not one of my top list of things to worry about with Cade. So while Jay jumped in to ask her about his math and what we need to do to help him and how much he needs to know by the end of the year I sat there and wondered about the listening/responding thing. I can’t remember exactly how it was listed on the report card but the term they used had me thinking Cade wasn’t getting along well with others. It seemed like Jay and Mrs S went on forever about the math thing and all I wanted to know was do the other kids like my baby. I mean we have a 6 ½ year old who is an only child who plays by himself in his own little world ¾ of the time, he as an unusual infatuation with the Civil War, is extremely anxious and today for Red Ribbon hat day he couldn’t decide between his Civil War hat and a boat captain’s hat. Yes, I was concerned that Cade was not relating well to the other kids in his class. What if the other kids were making fun of him? All of this was floating through my head while Jay talked Math. Then there would be a break and I would try to ask my question but Jay would beat me to it with another math thing. Ahh, finally they quit talking math and I was able to ask my question. I’m still not sure what she was looking for from Cade on the grade card criteria, but he is getting along well with the other kids. He does have someone to play with at recess. What a relief.

Jay and I both have our obsessions – he isn’t too concerned about him fitting in, but he wants him to know how to add and subtract. I don’t care nearly as much about if he can count to 100 by 5’s, but I don’t want the other kids making fun of him. I’m not saying I want him to be popular or to do whatever it takes to be with the “in” crowd. I just want him to be accepted and to be friends with a wide variety of kids….and I guess knowing a little math wouldn’t be too bad either.

These are the times I jump back and forth between these two prayers:
1. God, if you’d give us another child at least we wouldn’t be as obsessed with every move Cade makes.
Or
2. God, I know why we only have one child. We couldn’t handle obsessing over two, Cade keeps us both busy.

Texting

I haven’t been on the texting bandwagon for long. The whole process takes entirely too much time in my opinion. I hate having to punch a key 3 times to be able to get the letter I want. I also have no idea what the abbreviation is for some of the words so I end up typing them all out…which takes FOREVER. Jay though has been texting for quite some time. After a very irritating phone bill last November concerning a wedding and a Razorback game we added a texting package to his phone. It really was necessary though, because of the number of kids who text him about practice times and what not. Believe me I’d much rather have the kids texting him than calling our house, especially when its midnight before they realize they don’t know what times the bus leaves the next morning.

This past week I finally broke down and added a texting package to my phone. I’ve learned that if I need to tell Jay something during the day I’m much more likely to get a response from a text instead of leaving him a message on his phone or sending an e-mail. So the smallest package is $5 for 200 texts a month. Since I was paying about that much a month for individual texting, it seemed like a good deal. The only problem is I think Jay and I have reached the point where our age and technology are not coinciding very well. You know how husbands and wives have that special way of communicating, they will have many of the same thoughts, they can finish each others sentences, they know what the other one is going to say before they say it. That has all gone out the window with us when it comes to texting. Our conversations are actually quite painful. This is our texting from today….

Me: Do u have pt conf 2night or tomorrow? I looked @ hs cal and im confused

Jay: Tonight @ 6:45

Me: I know that. Im asking about u. Cal shows Wed night.

Jay: Yes I do

Me: (If I could’ve figured out how to do all caps it would’ve been ALL CAPS) 2night or tomorrow. U r hard 2 communicate with by text!

Jay: Yes tonight and that is it. Can we all say Amen brother

Does anyone know what we were trying to ask each other? Can you tell we were both confused? Geez, I prefer a phone conversation when were trying to figure out our schedules.

Christmas is around the corner.....

In honor of the fact I received the official FCS 2008 Christmas cards last week and have started working on them today, here is a countdown ticker.

Yes, I've started on the cards early. 1)I hand address almost 300 cards each year for work and 2)things are very slow in the finacial world right now, but who knows what it will be like closer to Christmas. As of right now I've writen George, Tom & Crystal...George, Tom & Crystal about 75 times. Only 225 more to go!!!!

Have you started on your holiday plans yet?

Today

Today....Jay left for National Convention with his state winning ag mechanics team. Tomorrow Lyle leaves on a bus with the rest of the kids. Tomorrow Jay's team starts their first half of the contest.

Today....Mom came over to take Cade and I out to dinner. We got to the restaurant and I looked down at my shoes. I had slipped my shoes off when I got home from work and had put on two different shoes to go back out. I had on a dark brown sweater, khaki pants, one brown shoe and one black shoe. Cade asked me if I was crazy.

Today....Cade learned what flirting is (thank you mom). A little girl at the restaurant kept turning around smiling at him. He kept ducking down and acting goofy. He asked why she kept turning around and mom told him it was because she was flirting. So of course the next question was what is flirting. Mom explained that she liked him and Cade's face turned a really dark shade of red, but he had a huge grin on his face. When the little girl left she walked by our booth and gave Cade a huge smile. I also learned today that I'm not ready for that!

End of Football

Cade's football season ended on Saturday with two games. I don't know if there is a football term used to describe two games in one day like there is with baseball? I know I had a few names for it, but they probably aren't the best to actually record in our blog. I'm sure most of you can use your imagination to figure it out....I told Jay that I'm usually somewhat indifferent when Cade ends a particular stage of his life. When baseball ended, I wasn't exactly sad, but I also didn't mind going to the games/practices. If we had frozen time during baseball season I would've been ok. I don't think I've ever been as happy to see a phase end in his life since his cranky stage before he could walk as I was when they called time on the last football game.

Apprently I wasn't the only one feeling that way....After the last game was over Cade's fan club was hurridly grabbing the chairs so we could make a very quick exit because we were tired of football and we were also freezing. Cade ran off the field to us, put his hands up in the air and yelled "Yeah, Football is over!!!" It was the most excitement he had shown the whole season.

Cute vs Not So Cute

Cute would be the two dogs playing together......

Cute is also Sadie giving it all she's got to be able to look over the side of the truck like Charlie....

Not so cute is the hole Sadie's put in our screen door that seperates our laundry room from the garage...

And again not so cute - the fact that the hole is now Sadie Sized and she's turned it into her own personal doggie door......

The Cycle of Nagging

In the last post I mentioned about Cade nagging me. I’ve started observing a cycle of nagging in our household. I nag at Jay – have you fed the dog, did you remember to call ____, did you write Cade’s books down, etc. Then Jay nags at Cade – get up, get in the shower, have you scrubbed yet, get your clothes on, get your shoes on, etc. So then to make the cycle complete Cade nags at me – why did you throw these papers away (I have to bury his school papers in the trash), why didn’t you run when I told you that commercial was on, you forgot to tell me it was PE day and I wore my crocs, etc. Yes, we all have someone to nag in our house.

Cade has been telling us that he wants to be the black Spiderman for Halloween. I started looking for the costume around the end of September and didn’t have any luck. I even checked Toys R Us and since they didn’t have it and they are the authority on all things toy related I assumed the costume didn’t exist. I’ve tried easing Cade into this bit of information but all it did was result in nagging – Have you looked?, I know it’s there, you really didn’t look did you. So imagine my surprise when Friday afternoon I found one at Walgreens of all places. It was like the clouds parted and the sun shone down on this one arm sticking out of the mess of costumes shoved together. I pulled it out and I heard music playing as I realized that it was his size. I called Jay to find out if I should go ahead and get it or let Cade pick out his own the next day. Jay told me to purchase it.
All the rest of the afternoon at work I kept thinking about being able to surprise Cade with this costume. I knew he was going to be so excited. I couldn’t wait to get home.

I stopped and picked up a pizza and then headed home that evening. What could be better than having the perfect costume and pizza to go along with it. I carried in the pizza and then yelled at Cade that I had a surprise for him. When I got back in the kitchen he was standing there with his eyes closed. I told him to keep them closed and I pulled out the costume and said “SURPRISE”. He squealed with delight and then dropped the bomb on me – “where is the mask”. That’s when I realized our perfect costume didn’t have a mask, it was missing. Then the nagging started – you should’ve checked for the mask, you need to go to the store and tell them there was no mask, why did you buy it if there wasn’t a mask, etc. I felt terrible and Jay ran from the room to keep from laughing. Cade was so distraught that he didn’t even eat any of the pizza. So much for the magical surprise that evening.

The next day we went to Springfield and started combing the Walgreens in search of the black Spiderman. We came up empty handed after two of them and we were starting to get concerned. Jay then started calling the other stores and lo and behold there was one in town that had it. We raced to that Walgreens to exchange ours for one that had a mask. I walked out of the store proudly holding the new costume for Cade to see. All was right in Cade’s world (and my world) again. There was no nagging from anyone for the 30 minute car ride home. Cade was happy and Jay and I were too relieved to speak much at all.

A Lump of Coal

Last night there was a FFA thing at the school so Cade and I went. I wasn't planning on staying very long because 1) Cade had homework and 2) the CSI series premiere started at 8:00. Of course if anyone asked me, my reason for leaving would've been 1) rather than 2). Jay thinks I'm weird because I love that show. It is my favorite and has been my favorite since it came on. That show has been a constant through our newlywed days, my pregnancy (even though I had to catch the re-runs during the summer because I passed out by 8:00 every night), my time as a new parent, Cade's toddlerhood, infertility and now adoption. Me, our recliner and CSI have weathered many a Thursday night together. I wasn't about to miss the season opener due to a chili supper/slave auction. Yes, call me unsupportive, but I'm territorial with the 8-9 time slot on Thursdays. I did show up, we just left before everything was done. If you polled the people leaving last night I don't think any of them would've noticed.

So last night I was a little hard on Cade at the auction indirectly because of CSI. In the afternoon's he has somewhat of a free reign around the school. Besides the FFA event there also was a volleyball game so people were everywhere. I did not want Cade running wild because I was concerned about him and I didn't want to hunt him down when it was time to go. I did not want anything to interfere with me getting home by 8:00. Needless to say, there was some disciplining going on in the school halls along with whining.

Once we got loaded in the car we had exactly 10 minutes to get from the school to the house. I knew we were going to be close so I was concentrating. Cade picked that moment to start asking me about our weekend plans. That created 7 solid minutes of him asking in another whiny voice "well what will we do after that". He wouldn't take I don't know, or we'll see as answer. Finally after 7 minutes of this I told him that was enough, he was not to whine anymore. He sat there for a little bit and then said he thought he would get cold. I told him the car was hot, there was no way he could be cold. The he yelled it louder that he was going to get cold at Christmas. I told him that yes, it usually was cold at Christmas. Then he screamed at me because I was being dense that he was afraid he was going to get coal in his sock. I was thinking about CSI and was mistaking his coal for cold. I don't know where this came from and I really wasn't in the mood to discuss it last night. Discussing things with Cade is like talking to a wall and well to put it bluntly he's really started to nag me. He is always nagging me about something I did wrong with his homework - he never nags Jay, even though Jay has actually been the one who's forgotten to write the books in the log. This morning he nagged me because we had read his homwork stories out of order. I assured him his teacher wouldn't know, he argued back, I tried to convince him it was ok, etc. Yes, I am hearing myself come out in my child and I'm not liking it.

Back to the coal - I said why do you think you're going to get coal? He said it was because he was whining and had been whining a lot (isn't admitting the problem the first step to recovery?). I assured him there was plenty of time to turn things around before Christmas. He wasn't convinced that Santa could ever see the good in him. This is where the nagging comes in - he said "Mommy, when I do get coal don't give me that look and say oh Cade you were bad and got coal." "You need to just say nice try Cade, maybe you'll do better next year." Doesn't that sound like something he's heard at school? Luckily we pulled in the driveway and he forgot all about the coal before I had to respond. I guess according to Cade, our shopping should be relatively light this year. I asked Jay if it would be too damaging to put coal in his sock as a joke. I wouldn't ever do that.....that would be too traumatizing, right?......

Homestudy Update

Last night the Homestudy went fine. Nothing earth shattering occurred. The only rooms she looked in were Cade’s and the Green Room, which was mostly because Cade enticed her there. I can’t say that we even talked much about adoption – we did discuss some changes we made in regards to our levels of openness concerning race and medical issues. That was even mostly us telling her our changes, she didn’t question us about them. It was pretty much what we expected, just a formality. It’s easy to get irritated at the fact we had to take the time and money to go through this again. I know I’ve had a lot of questions about why we are having to do this again. It’s the way it is – things can change a lot in a year. Luckily for us last this last year was somewhat uneventful, but we all know how quickly things can change. We had to go through it again because our agency is a responsible one, they care about all the families they are serving (adoptive and birth) and I’m pretty sure it could be the law. I’m not 100% on that last one but if it’s not a state law then it should be.

Homestudy Tonight

Our Homestudy update is tonight. I was just looking back at what I posted last year the day of and the day after our visit. It seems like I was pretty excited, nervous, and ready to get the ball rolling on it so we could be officially in the program. I had our house spotless, I had re-read all of the questions that we had originally sent in to the agency. I had an idea of exactly what account balances I had written down and how much they had changed since our first balance sheet. I was prepared.

Today I'm feeling somewhat indifferent to the interview tonight. My house isn't perfect, I have no idea what our account balances are (with today's market who knows and she didn't ask for them last year), I don't even remember what sappy things we might have wrote on those questions almost 18 months ago. I'm ready to get it over with. I'm not worried, nothing has changed drastically for us this past year in our lives, our finances or our home. Unless you count the hole in Cade's ceiling from Hurricane Ike, but I think I can explain that one to her. We still don't have a criminal record and we still want a baby. That pretty much sums it up. We're ready and we're trying so hard to be patient. We will be officially waiting a year next Monday, October 13 and I'm trying not to give into the little voice whispering to me "So how many times do you think you're going to have to go though this".

Cade's Always Listening

Cade is always listening, even when we think he's not. It was apparent this weekend that he's overheard his dad discussing the status of the Razorbacks, which isn't good by the way.....

Cade and I were on our way to his football game Saturday night. Jay and Terry went to the Arkansas game that morning so I called to check on his estimated time of arrival. After I got off the phone Cade and I had the following conversation:

Cade: Who won the game?
Me: (Since I don't keep up with it I had no idea) Well not the Razorbacks
Cade: Yeah, So who won the game?
Me: (I knew he wouldn't let up so somewhere from the back of my mind I pulled out who I thought it was) Uhm, Florida I think
Cade: Man, the Razorbacks really suck don't they
Me: (trying not to laugh) Yes, it seems that way (then turn up the radio to divert the conversation)

And I found out who the anonymous poster was on the last comment - it was Jania. I had a feeling it could be, because she's the one I sit by each game and she knows how much attention I pay to each game. We did win Friday night, in overtime. I think Jania and I did pay attention then, mostly because we were cold and ready to go home. So our record is 6 - 0. Did I do that right?

About Us

I haven't posted much lately. I've started several, but didn't ever get them to the point of where I wanted to post them so here's a rundown of what's been going on with us.

Charlie & Sadie - Seem to be pretty good friends. Charlie is making great strides towards actually staying in our yard. Last Saturday Jay and I were outside so we let Charlie loose. He'd visit the other two houses on our lane for about 5 minutes and then he'd come back. Jay and I were very encouraged by his behavior until we heard the neighbor across the lane yelling at him. Our new neighbors appear to be nice but I'm getting the feeling we're one dog crap in the yard away from a disaster. I wanted to tell him "buddy, you have no idea how much better Charlie is now". I think getting Sadie was a step in the right direction for Charlie's Behavior Modification Plan.

Our New Internet - Part of the reason why I haven't updated the blog. It's been broken more than it's been on. I think right now we're going for a record - 72 hours of still functioning. Maybe, just maybe we'll make it to 96 hours.

Our Roof - Our wonderful roofers left one little bitty hole in the roof. Cade's room now sports some damage from Hurricane Ike. We got some pretty torrential rains because of Ike and all of that water ended up in one spot on Cade's ceiling. Jay spotted the damage the next day (Sunday the 14th) but didn't tell me because he knew I'd loose my mind. I was at a baby shower so he was able to call the roofer to get the roof fixed. When I got home it looked like this....

When we put Cade to bed imagine our surprise when it looked like this.....


We asked Cade how long his room had looked like that and he said "Mommy, I tried to tell you but you wouldn't listen". I remembered coming home and being physically/emotionally drained so I laid down. Cade came out and told me he had a hole in his ceiling that I needed to look at. I told him that I'd already seen it. Apparently he was talking about the big hole, not the original hole. Our roofer has patched the ceiling, but we're still waiting on him to finish the job (surprise surprise).

Cade and School - We've had our same typical problems this year - Cade and anxiety. He is stressing about it again. His teacher has a new theory, which could be very valid. Since Cade is an only child and spent 4 years as an only granchild on my side and still is the only on Jay's he hasn't experienced competition. He doesn't understand that people work at different paces so he can't handle it when someone finishes before he does. And face it - every move Cade has ever made has been watched by many many eyes. I think he's trying to settle into the real world so it may take some time. I hope it happens quickly because I don't think I can handle the "I don't want to go to school" routine for the next 11.5 years.

My Job - We've been hearing rumors for two years about some restructuring that is going to happen. I think we are getting to the point where we may know something around the end of the year. You might keep this in your prayers because I could be faced with some decisions shortly and I'm going to need some very clear direction on what I should do.

Football - I think we're up to 3 touchdowns for the season??? They are looking better but we're still getting beat badly every game. Here's a name to put in your memory bank for the next 10 years. Mt Vernon has a kid who's first name is Rilley. He's in the 2nd grade and his calf muscles are more defined than a lot of adults that I know. If he continues along this route he'll be playing college ball someday. My thought on football is that I that I'm read to get the season over with. I'm not finding this to be quite as exciting as baseball for some reason.

Our Adoption - For starters we've been anticipating a phone call for our homestudy update since the middle of August. She finally called this past Tuesday so we'll have a visit next Wednesday. We weren't getting impatient, but I was ready to get that monkey off my back. It's like this big project that you need to get finished and you can't. This year's review isn't bad, next years will be a pain. We really hope we get a placement before we have to go through this a third time.

My emotions have still been all over the place because of the adoption. The end of June we had gotten a notice from the agency about a potential situation where they ask all of the families if they want to be shown or not. We of course agreed and for some reason I had a really good feeling about this one. It's my own fault for getting myself built up but I kept thinking this one could be it. Obviously I need to ignore my internal feelings because they are never right. We got our third quarter updates from the agency today and that couple has picked a family. Since our phone isn't ringing it's safe to assume it wasn't us. Honestly, we are both pretty disappointed about it. I keep trying to repeat over and over that God is in control, he knows what we need, etc but that is getting harder and harder. Then a few hours later I got another e-mail from our caseworker talking about the plans for her maternity leave. Yeah, that was also a little hard to take. It will be a year this month and we are getting weary.

Our Weekend - Tonight we are going to a HS football game. We are 5-0 and tonight's game is supposed to be our biggest competition. We've already beat a team who previously beat this team so it could be exciting. Tomorrow Jay has a Razorback game and Cade and I are going to a jewelry party in the morning. Yes, Cade will be totally thrilled, so thrilled that I haven't even told him. Then tomorrow evening Cade has another football game....just thinking about it makes my rear end ache.