Big boy

Well, this is H's last week as a little boy. He starts preschool next week. I will take him Tuesday morning and the plan is to put him on the bus to come home. Supposedly that works for most kids....Anyway, he goes two days a week for 1 1/2 hours. Then I'm kind of guessing about 20 minutes either end for bus time. It sounds like he will be the first kid on and last kid off. There are probably only going to be about 4 kids in his class and 3 teachers. It will be interesting to see if he is still going by post time next week...

We are off to the neurosurgeon for both boys tomorrow. H has a post op follow up (from last fall). My initial thought is based on his December scan he should be fine. Of course his sleep patterns have been changing. Yesterday he fell asleep at about 3 and slept until almost midnight. I am a little surprised he didn't just sleep till morning. Of course since he's only taking a nap ever 2-4 days, I'm willing to write it off to that rather than assume it's the shunt failing again. I'm sure he will be carsick on the way up tomorrow, but is that his normal carsickness or the shunt. I guess I really wish he was a little more dramatic when it came to shunt failure. W is getting his first "official" visit to decide what to do about his little dermoid between his eyebrows. I'm guessing we will just have that removed over summer since she's so busy we couldn't possibly schedule it for spring break. That's going to cost us a Nintendo DS, and a lot of grief.

So, I emailed W's teacher this week about his math homework. He seems to be guessing about the less than/greater than/equal to with his fractions. I just wanted to let her know that, for all I know he's fine with them at school and just didn't want to do his homework here. Anyway, she emailed back saying she had noticed his work slipping. At conferences last month he was pretty much at the top of the brackets for everything. Now that she's sitting down to do report cards, he's not. They had some statewide math test last month and he failed it, but she was quick to point out that it was given the day after we put the cat to sleep. Well, I didn't think he even liked the cat. (she was such a cat, a pet on her own terms, but when she was done with you she was apt to swat. So, he would never even pet her). Of course he had that ear infection, plus I wonder about the dye in the antibiotics bothering him for that week. And he's freaking about this appointment tomorrow and had been worried about getting a shot at the ENT last week. And I don't know that his allergy medication is working as well as it should and that could be making him a little miserable. Anyway, I talked to him about the cat and he said he did miss her so much sometimes he felt like he was going to cry. OMG, how bad are we as parents to not notice that?? Then D told me that he'd noticed when W went to bed he would lay there and meow for a little while. Good grief. W has started asking if we can get a new cat now. I'm still not totally convinced that he wants a cat to have a cat or if he wants the litter box back so he can have that extra allowance for scooping. I think we will start with changing the allergy medicine first and go from there...

I have been trying to come up with ideas for western crafts and activities for day camp. Yesterday I had W make up a batch of arm pit fudge. He was VERY skeptical at first and wanted nothing to do with putting a baggy of gunk under his arm. Once he got it done though, he thought it was great. In fact, as we were playing his Dangerous Book for Boys game, he had the baggy turned inside out and was slurping it. Ughh. I'm thinking perfect for a bunch of boys to sit and do while they wait for the helo to drop their eggs. They should be sufficiently gooey by the time the helo blows sand and grass all over them...and then they can go home. (last year W filled a large plastic egg with peanut butter to hold his raw egg, that was placed into a stuffed Easter bunny when was sewn into an old pillow. It didn't break, but it did seem to want to blow across the range as the helo made more passes to drop more eggs.)

So D is home again this Thursday. I think he has given up on computer time and is just using his laptop in the living room. We keep thinking that business will start picking up....soooon. No word back on that city job. This is probably the worst time of the year for him to have started. Of course by next year we will know that he won't be getting a full check during the winter months, so it won't be as bad.

I have told D the next time he wants brownies, he has to make his own. For his birthday he wanted brownie. But let's see, how did he say it, no froofy weird $h1t on top, just butter and powdered sugar. Hmm, that sounded pretty weird to me, but I did it. Of course by messing with them when they were still hot, my nice fudgy brownies kind of flattened, and then the butter made them soggy. First comment...that's all the bigger the pan is?? Then he said they were too gooey. Well, I made another batch for H's birthday I decided to just make a plain batch. I mean, why get a big cake from the bakery that he's not going to eat and I thought maybe a non gooey batch might tempt him. Then D said I had to at least put some frosting on so that we could write on them. Bad decision on my part, I decided white chocolate ganache. Well it didn't set up, but the brownies were cool so they didn't flatten. D said they should be more "cakey" and said these were just like a bad batch of fudge. So, I told him next time it would just be cake if he wanted cake and he couldn't ask me to make brownies for him again. I will make mine for me and he can make his own. I mean really, brownies are supposed to be fudgy and cake is supposed to be cakey...and personally I think brownies are too sweet with a topping...I'm wondering if D is going to make me brownies for my birthday. He read one of my cook books at breakfast this morning. (hey, at least it wasn't the phone book)

So, does everyone change their clocks this weekend? I know D's parents don't in AZ, but I can't think what other sates haven't bought into funky time. I just can't believe that it was finally getting light enough that the boys don't need headlights for bus time...and next week they will again. Good grief.

Now I must go prepare for the fallout that will come after D reads about the brownies...Hope everyone has a good week and if you don't hear back from me I guess you'll know why. KIDDING, I may get "the look" though.