I promise to get better about writing more often! I will! I will!

Things have been busy! In the past week, I got a note from Benjamin's teacher, James failed his speech evaluation and I got a job! Never a dull moment!

So, to start with James -- I decided to have his speech evaluated because I cannot understand him much of the time. The strange thing is that he has many of the more difficult sounds to pronounce: the L, the V, the TH sound. I still cannot understand him. The speech pathologist spent about 10 minutes with him and then failed him. She is recommending speech therapy starting within the next month. When you get a speech evaluation, you also have your motor skills, social development, and vision and hearing checked at the same time. Motor skills and vision and hearing tests were a breeze, but the social development stuff (which includes the ability to pay attention for more than a nanosecond and the ability to comply with directions) didn't go so well. The tester suggested that James might not pass this section of the test. I hadn't noticed a problem with his attention span until I was sitting at the back of the room while the tester was asking James a bunch of questions -- it was like trying to pin down water. James didn't sit still for a moment. He had decided that he was done answering questions -- and said so VERY clearly. It was awful. The only good thing about this is that if he fails in two areas, he gets to go to preschool free... and that wouldn't be so bad, as long as any issues were rectified by kindergarten.

Now, Benjamin has gotten two notes home from the teacher since school began 4 weeks ago. I have decided that Benjamin's teacher doesn't like him. I don't get this, but not everyone is going to like everyone else. However, if she doesn't like him and keeps sending stupid notes home, there is going to be a problem. Ron went totally bonkers when he read the note, which said:

Ms. Howe: Please work with Ben to complete this math page. We did it
all together and Ben chose not to pay attention. Our class did every problem
one at a time on the overhead. Miss R

Now, what seven year old do you know that would sit still and pay attention to the teacher (in a dark room) doing 32 (!!) problems on the overhead projector?? I don't know any -- and I am sure that Benjamin didn't make it. Benjamin told me that he was confused about what was going on -- in other words, he wasn't paying attention. He then told me that Miss R had told him several times that he had gotten everything on the worksheet wrong, which she told him when she made him bring up his worksheet to her desk (after everyone else had put their stuff away), so she could check it. I asked Ron to check over the sheet and work with Benjamin on it. It took Benjamin about 2 minutes to do the whole thing-- it was very obvious that it wasn't hard for him. I didn't say anything to him about paying more attention in school. I think that is his teacher's problem -- I cannot change how much he is paying attention in the classroom. I am not there.

On Wednesday, I took Elias back to the dermatologist to get his warts worked on again. Since the last treatment, they have tripled in size and he is getting very self-conscious about them. Generally, they are on his hands, but the one on his nose looked like it was thinking about coming back, so off we went to the appointment. The derm thought that the one on Elias's nose wasn't coming back, but he was getting one on his forehead and on the edge of his lower lip. Obviously, this is totally unacceptable. So we treated them again -- and Elias is looking terrible. The effect of the stuff is that the warts (and the skin around them) turns into a giant yellow bubbly blister. Horrendous. I called the school Thursday morning and warned them about how he looked and told them that he wasn't contagious or anything like that. It didn't help that Andy and Elias had bashed heads and Elias had a huge goose-egg in the middle of his forehead. Between the goose-egg and the wart issue, he was looking pretty bad.

All three of the guys are in soccer now -- we have at least one soccer practice each day after school. The guys seem to be having a great time, and Ron is coaching Elias's team. I know he is having a blast!

Now, my job! I saw an advertisement for an office manager position that was on my side of town and paid very well for part-time in Tucson and I thought, what the heck? I may as well call and see what they are looking for. Well I went for an interview last Monday, and I started the job today. It is 4 hours per day, 5 days per week. I am doing office manager stuff and accounts receivable and billing and stuff like that. It isn't the most intellectually stimulating thing in the universe, but I don't have to think about it before or after work and really, that it what I wanted -- something that only existed during my work hours. I am going to be working from 8:30am to 12:30pm every day, until things are more settled. Then, I am planning on riding my bike to work. It is 9.6 miles one way, so I would get in about 100 miles per week, before my regular rides! This would be fantastic! The only problem I had today was when my boss told me that the kitchen was fully stocked up and I should feel free to help myself to anything in there.

So I wander into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and what do I see? The mecca of CRAP food. You wouldn't have believed it --- twinkies, ding dongs, hostess cupcakes, Little Debbie oatmeal pies, danish, Cheez-its, and, WORST OF ALL, a whole drawer in the fridge is filled with mini Snickers and Milky Way bars. Do people REALLY eat this way??? It has been so long since I ate anything like that, I am in shock seeing it all there. Worse, now I have to exhibit a little self-control and NOT eat that crap! It is going to be hard...