Another bad Mom story

I can't believe it! Nathan was 7 years old a week ago today and I never took the time to mention it! Add that to the bad Mom tally. The score has to be like
11 good Mom and 35,657 bad Mom.

Yeah!

In the past several years, Loramie has begun to announce at the end of the school year who the kids' teacher is for the next year. I had been dreading this moment because I did not want Nathan to get Mrs. D. Everyone says that she is a great teacher, but she must give out hours of homework every night. At the beginning of the school year every year there is a fuss with parents about the amount of homework. I had a hard time getting Nathan to do what little homework he had in kindergarten, so I knew it would be a huge fight every night to get his homework done once he was in 1st grade.

I did not want to be one of those parents that call the school and request any teacher but her, so I prayed and hope that both of us would get lucky. When we had our last parent teacher conference for Nathan, I asked Mrs. Knouff if she had any say in who the kids got for a teacher the following year. I told her that I only ask because while I know Mrs. D is a good teacher, I cannot fight him every night to do hours of homework. Nor do I have the time to. Mrs. Knouff was very good in saying that all the teachers give about the same amount of homework, and that they were all good teachers.

When I sent Nathan off to school on Wednesday, I had an ache in the pit of my stomach. I was so afraid that he would come home and tell us that he had Mrs. D next year. When I got home from work Bruce told me that Nathan got Mrs. D. My jaw dropped. I thought I might cry. I let out a wail. Then Bruce said, "Just kidding. He got Mrs. Poeppelman." Whew! I know 1st grade will still be challenge, but that was a load off my mind.

Captian Underpants!

I admit it. I don't make my kids take a bath every night. Sometimes there is just too much going on, and if they didn't sweat to hard, I don't force the issue. This morning, because Darren did not have a bath last night, I made him change his underwear when he was getting dressed for the morning. To my shock and amusement, I discover that Darren had two pairs of underwear on! I guess he decided to pack a spare!

Sunscreen anyone?

Last Friday Nathan had a field trip to the park and enjoyed a picnic lunch. As he was getting dressed that morning Nathan said that he had to make sure he put sunscreen on. I finally asked why and he said that his teacher said that he had to. I told him that he does not need sunscreen because he tans so easily. That the warning to wear sunscreen was for the kids in his class that are pale and not used to the sun. Sure enough, when he gets home Friday, you can see tan lines.

Saturday night fright

I don’t think our babysitter will ever want to come back to our house. This past Saturday we had Clair watch our boys, and I had remarked that she would have it easy as the older two had already fell asleep for the night. As we walked outside to get in our vehicle, we hear an incessant buzzing. We finally realize that we can hear the smoke detector going off in the neighbor’s house. That presents a dilemma as he is in the nursing home, so the house sits empty. We do not see or smell smoke, so we didn’t think that it was an emergency. We got on the internet trying to find a phone number for the neighbor’s brother. However he must only have a cell phone number and not a land line because it pulled up his address but no phone number. Unsure what to do, and reluctant to leave two sleeping kids home with the sitter in case there really is a fire and they would have to evacuate, we try calling the town cop. Only there is no answer and the recording says to call the sheriff department. Bruce calls the sheriff department and explains the situation to them. We then go outside to wait for someone to show up, and soon we see a former neighbor walking down the street from his parent’s house. He explains that he is on the fire department and heard the call from the sheriff to respond. Once he appears, we are trying doors to see if we can get in and determine where the smoke detector may be only to find the doors are locked. As the guys are trying to figure out their next move, another fireman showed up in his personal truck. Quickly they explain the situation and they start looking for a way to enter the house when they realize that the noise is coming from the porch. They find a garbage bag and pinpoint that the noise is coming from there. They put on some gloves, dig thru the trash and find the defective smoke detector. Crisis averted!

We head to Versailles for a house party at one of our friends, and saw how black the sky was. I remarked that it looked like it was raining pretty heavy over to the northwest. We drove thru some rain, and about a mile from the house we realize that the radio was turned way down. We turn it up in order to hear a storm warning saying that a tornado was spotted in Piqua and the path was going to hit Newport, Ft Loramie and Minster. Uh-oh. Bruce and I talked about going home, or at least calling home, but decided that we didn’t want to scare the sitter. After we were at the house for about 10-15 minutes, Bruce gets a call from the sitter that said her Dad was going to pick her and the boys up and take them back to her house. We then talked about going home, but didn’t think that an actual tornado would hit and we would be driving home in the midst of the storm so we just stayed put. When we got home later that evening, the kids were home and sleeping. What a scary Saturday night for the sitter!

The boys were excited the next morning that they got to play on a Wii and they said that played other games in the basement too. No scary moments for them, only fun times!

Eyes in the back of my head...

After watching the weather Sunday morning, I decided to start weeding out some of the boys winter clothes and putting in summer clothes. As anyone can tell you, that is a long, drawn out process. It took me over 2 1/2 hours to make the switch!

Since I was hanging out in the boys bedroom, the boys decided to hang out with me. At one point all three boys were laying on the bed and laughing and dancing when a good song came on the radio. I know that I was being hypocrite by allowing Justin to jump on the bed and yelling at the older two to knock it off. I had just told Darren that if jumped on the bed one more time, I was going to make him sleep on the porch that night. I turn around to hang some clothes in their closet and I hear, "Squeak, squeak, squeak." I know that he is jumping on the bed but as soon as I turn around to catch him, but he happens to be sitting on the bed looking all innocent. I told him that he needs to quit jumping on the bed! He gave me a look like, "How did you know I was jumping on the bed?"

Still here

I realize that I have not posted in a while, but I don't want to post my next story until I take the time and figure out how to download pictures on my computer. Week nights are always too hectic, so keep checking in over the weekend!