On and on

"Is this real . . . or has this been happening inside my head?"
"Just because it has been happening inside your head doesn't mean it isn't real."

I just finished the 6th Harry Potter. I like how the author tied all the books together in it. There were several of us at work reading it, but we started at different times so we all had to wait until the last person had finished to talk about it. It was kind of funny, those that finished first were using the new IM to talk to each other about it.

The new IM is one of the (few) good things from the upgrade. We can now IM anyone on duty, signed into their MDT/MDC. (Quite a discovery nightmare for those on the legal side of things.) At least it passes the time. One of the deputies and I were making up a story the other night line by line. It was actually fun and kept me awake until 1am when I finally got off work.

Hopefully the 1 am stuff is over soon. The person out on sick leave causing the 2 hour hole in the schedule is being checked off for duty this week. Yay! I just can't seem to get caught up on my sleep even when there is the opportunity. Like last night, I finally drifted off around 11:30, then the dog started to bark at midnight, Bubba had a nightmare around 3am (which brought him to our bed) and then Punkin Head woke around 5. So much for a good night sleep. And tonight is a possibility, but Bubba is talking about dinosaurs and what happened to the cavemen ("did they get eaten?") so I have a feeling it could be another nightmare night. I think that he's stressing about school.

We went for his Kindergarten assessment on Thursday. The school district where he will attend was using an assessment test to determine if kids would be in all day or 1/2 day Kindergarten classes. The "low-level learners" were being put into a full day class and the other were being put into the 1/2 day classes. Guess what Bubba will be in? Yeah, 1/2 days. The assessment went something like this:

"Hi I am Mrs. A and I will be doing the assessment for (checks her clipboard) 'Bubba' "
The first thing they assessed was his recognition of letters. They had a piece of paper with rows of letters on it and he had to point to and identify as many letters as he could in 30 seconds (I think). So off he goes. He gets to the end of the second row and says "Hey, why were there 2 H's in that row?" (So much for full day classes)

The next 20 minutes are a blur of questions like "What is another word for vehicle?" "How are a boat and a car different?" and "What rhymes with mat?" Some copying shapes (not letters) and then number sequencing. Mrs. A said a number and Bubba had to repeat it back to her. She added a number up to 5 in the sequence. When it reached 5 he says "I can't do that many." And he was done.

They were rating the kids 1 or 0. 1 meant they answered the question correctly, 0 meant that they didn't. Bubba might have had 10 zeros out of maybe 80 questions. Pretty sure he's going 1/2 day. Last year I wouldn't have minded, this year I think he's ripe for a full day experience. Oh well. (Maybe I will send him back to Montessori for the second half of the day? hahaha).

And then there's Punkin Head. She's . . . I don't even know how to describe her right now. Growing? I took her a bottle at 7:30 this morning thinking she would drink it then get up since she went back to sleep at 5 without any trouble. Apparently I was wrong. She slept until 11:30!! I could hardly believe it. She then took a nap from 3-4:30 and back to bed at 7:30. So I wonder what tonight has in store for me? She won't eat, she won't poo, she won't behave nicely.

Everyone seems to be going through a transition. Its making me crazy and angry. Nobody listens to Mom, they all just insist on disobeying. If this is the way the next few months is going to go, I am going to ship them out until they are better. The only thing they are doing nice is trying to play together. For about 5 minutes. But at least they are trying.

So that's the last week. I think. It was a long work week. We did get to take the boat out though. That was a highlight, how could I forget? We invited some friends of ours to go along. They were single and didn't have kids when we first started to boat together. Now they have been married 12 years and have 3 kids. It was a good time!

Today we took down the pool. It got, well, lets just say I could have sustained a pond with the water. It was a nice shade of green. So its all cleaned up, put away for next year. And soon the top will be on the jeep too. That's a sad day. Maybe we can get away with the soft top for a few months? Its so nice to have the top off, just the way a jeep should be driven right? Maybe we could take it off road once this season? Just to say we did. There's still Labor Day Weekend.