Sam in the wheelchair

Yesterday in the car while I was driving the kids to school, Mia started telling me how everyone in her class but her was teasing a boy in a wheelchair. She kept telling me how she was the only one who was nice to him and the other kids were mean to him. It was breaking my heart. I asked Mia if he was new to her school since I don't recall seeing a boy in a wheelchair at her school.
Mia: No.
Me: Is this something that just happened or has he always in a wheelchair?
Mia: He's always been in a wheelchair, his name is Sam.
Me: How do they tease him? What do they say?
Mia: They make fun of him because he can't run.
Me: Well, it's nice that you're his friend it must really hurt his feelings that the others are mean to him.
Mia: Yeah, I'm the only one that gets to push him too. Not fast though. The other kids tried to push him fast and made him fall out of his chair but I don't go fast...unless he wants me to for fun.
When we have gym with Mr D. in the gym he has to stay with Mrs. Thornhill because he can't run.
When we dropped Mason off at school we included Ms Elizabeth (Mason's teacher) in our conversation.
Miss E: That's not good that the other kids are not nice to him. Maybe you need to tell your teacher.
Mia: I told Mrs. Thornhill but she didn't believe me.
Miss E.: Sometimes you need to tell adults more than one time....
Mia: I did that already but she didn't believe me.

Miss Elizabeth and I both talked some more with Mia about how to be nice to Sam and to tell an adult that the other kids aren't being nice. It just really bugged me all day especially as I visualized some poor boy falling out of a wheelchair so I asked Mrs. Thornhill about it when I picked Mia up from school.
Mrs. Thornhill: We have a Sam but he's fine. He's not in a wheelchair. I'd just say Mia has a very creative imagination.

Creative or Scary? Should I be worried that she fantasized Sam was in a wheelchair?

Today when I picked her up she was telling me about Josh (a boy in her class) kissing her in the coatroom. Vhat? Not only do I have to worry about boys and girls starting to like each other but now I don't know when a story is totally made up. I suspect it is.....but is it?

Say "Chuck E. Cheese"

We had a little Birthday party for Mason at Chuck E. Cheese Saturday. I figured the kid NEVER gets a birthday party since his birthday is Dec 24th so I wanted to do something for him. Since he is obsessed with skulls and skeletons I figured doing it around Halloween was easy to find things for a skeleton theme. Since I didn't have it at home a theme was really just the cupcakes and goody bags. Mason saw these cupcakes on a flyer so I tried to recreate them for him. I think they turned out pretty decent. He was happy with them.

I wasn't up to having a big party at the house (like we've done for Mia's parties) so I just invited the kids from our "kid's swap" so just two other families. Although we've never been to Chuck E. Cheese before I've heard other kids talk about so I thought it would be a good place to try. It was not crowded and the kids had a great time running around. I was thankful that my friends stayed and that there wasn't very many kids because I can't imagine trying to keep an eye on a LOT of kids running around. The kids want to check out everything so if they're not in the tunnels they are looking at different things in different places. At any rate, Mason was very excited and very happy with his party.

Madonna Wanna-be

Mason had school pictures at preschool today and Miss Patti the photographer always does a terrific job so I brought Mia too. She nicely agreed to take a joint picture even though Mia doesn't attend school there anymore and I had just enough time before I took Mia to Kindergarten. We also had our Moms & Tots Halloween party this morning so it was a mad rush getting them out of their costumes and into decent clothes to take a picture. Mia wanted to wear a dress (jumper) so she could wear her new dress shoes....so far so good. Mia wasn't sitting so nice in the car with her dress so I had a discussion with her about how tights are kind of like underwear and it's not nice to show everyone our underwear. Fast forward now to me picking her up at school. Mason and I are standing in the hall as her class marches by us out to the playground for one last recess. There goes Mia walking past us in her shirt and tights! She sees me and happily waves.

I say, "what happened to your dress?".

Mia: "we're late for recess" and continues out the door.

I'm standing there with my mouth hanging open while some of the other Moms I know that are standing by me have a good laugh.

Mrs. Thornhill tells me how she just took her dress off and she tried to get her to put it back on but was unsuccessful. They pretended the tights were leggings so nobody said anything. Then she proceeded to tell Mrs. Thornhill how I said it was OK to just wear tights.... Guess who is getting soap in her mouth tonight for lying. Just to be clear, she's not getting soap in her mouth because I'm some sort of fashion nazi, it's for the lying. Man, I think I need to have a little evening drink tonight. Maybe I need to go buy a bottle of wine......

This is the best picture I could get of the tots and my kids this morning. You'll notice the most cooperative models are the "under one" year olds on the floor. They were laughing up a storm. Probably at the Moms attempting to get one picture of all children looking in one direction....Silly Mommies.

The Pumpkin Patch

Today we had lots of plans but since Mason had an ear infection we cancelled on my parents. Mike went to the OSU game but I didn't want to travel anywhere with Mason since he had been so whiny, crying and grumpy. Of course, he woke up that way this morning and was that way until about 10:30am then he seemed better. I decided to run to the store....and when the kids were OK..... took them to lunch at McD's......and when they were still OK took them to the Post family farm. My plan was to go out there get some pumpkins, donuts and cider maybe do the hayride and come home. Well, since I had never been there before I didn't realize how much they had to do for the kids. We paid an admission (Mia had a free admission coupon from her school) and the kids got to do whatever they wanted over and over. We got there around 1pm and didn't leave until 10 min. to closing. I can't believe we were there for so long and Mason was just fine. Figures. I feel bad that we didn't go to my Mom's now but at least we did get to enjoy the nice weather. Especially, since we won't have a lot of nice weather for too much longer.

Tomorrow Mia is to sing in the Children's choir at church for the first time. I'm hoping she behaves as she won't be sitting by us and out of my control. I'd like to get a picture of her sitting in the choir but don't think that would go over during mass if I went down and starting snapping pictures.

Buckeyes for luck

We saw a Buckeye tree near one of the parks last weekend and according to Mike Buckeyes are good luck. I had an empty apothecary jar in the kitchen that's supposed to be for decoration and Mia and I decided to fill it with Buckeyes. So Monday when she had no school (but Mason did) we went and collected all the Buckeyes. I figured we could use all the good luck we can get.

I'll do it tomorrow

That's what I've been saying for over a week now for blogging. I'll post tomorrow. I guess I'm in one of my famine periods. I put a lot of stuff of since school started thinking "once I get into the routine schedule" I'll have time to make my mind up about things. I feel like I've been running with my head cut-off since school started. I've been at the church 3 times this week not including mass and this was our off-week for Moms & Tots. Tomorrow is a "no school" day and I was wondering what I was going to do with the kids since Friday is usually my cleaning day. We have a busy weekend planned and as soon as we came home from the church today Mason laid down on the couch, grabbed his ear and started screaming. He held onto his ear for a good hour before the drugs I gave him finally kicked in and he passed out. Looks like I'll be taking him to the doctor tomorrow. I guess it will give me the opportunity to have a little "chat" with Dr. Rutkoski about some other issues;) My "girls" know what those other issues are, I'll vent that one out in another post.

In other news, I have started the "bottlecap" craft craze and think I'll mostly use the ones I make for bows. Here are some necklaces and a bow I made. WO is West Ottawa our school district for those wondering.

The necklaces I used scrapbooking bottlecaps that already had the image on them but know I do my own and I can use any image I want. Anyway, hope to catch up on some blogging although I guess that will depend on the sick kid.

Bits of Brilliance

I am always shocked when the kids throw something out that they obviously learned at school. A couple of years ago, Mia saw a bee in the yard and said something of it doing good work. At the age of 3 she mentioned how the bee was pollinating the flowers. I almost fell over as the word "pollinating" came out of her mouth. This spring and summer she would explain "migration" to us.

The latest started with Mike's mom. She had given the kids a couple of little tootsie roll suckers. When Mason saw them he kept saying, "Why did Grandma give us those suckers?" I'd say because she loves you.

Mason: But they're sweet.

Me: Yes, they're a treat. That's why Grandma gave them to you, she thought you'd like a treat.

Mason: WHY???? (more of a yell now) Doesn't she know they're sweet?

This goes back and forth for awhile until the subject is dropped.

Monday after lunch I told the kids they could have their suckers in the car on the way to school. Mia opened hers up immediately and started eating it. Mason passes his back up to me and tells me to keep it up front. When I pick him up from school and start down the road he says his tummy is growling.

Me: Well, you can have your sucker if you're hungry. I still have it up here.

Mason: WHAT! I can't have that. That's sweet!

Me: That's OK (then I'm cut off)

Mason: It's at the top of the food pyramid! It's purple and it's sweet and Ms. Heather says you can't eat it all the time.

Me: That's right. You can't eat it all the the time but it's all right once in a while.

Mason: No!



Sheesh! You would have thought I was trying to poison the kid. Of course, I haven't seen the new food pyramid to know if he got it right but I was floored that the words "food pyramid" came out in conversation.