Happy Birthday, Ma

I love you, and I miss you.

Sad Saturday

Brian is going back to Hong Kong today.

I'm feeling a little weepy today...

...because someone started college today. Oh, yes he did. And, just like on his first day of preschool, I insisted on taking his picture.
This is his "Mom, you are SUCH a dork!" face.The whole story behind this is yet one more thing that I had planned to include in The Post, but obviously I never got around to it. Maybe when I feel up to it...

On a related note, this is Monkey's "You talkin' to ME?!" face.
Oh my LORD, I can't stand how adorable she is!!!!! Is it just me, or does she remind you of another baby you've seen?
Well, except she's WAY cuter, of course!!

Really?!?! AGAIN?!?!

I was stunned to read this yesterday. I can't even believe it. I can't believe two people that I've had the pleasure of "meeting" through this awesome place we call the Blogosphere, and who I truly consider "friends," are both having to deal with such discrimination. It makes my heart break. And my blood boil.

What a ride...

I'm sitting here at my kitchen table, listening to the dishwasher, and checking in with all my Bloggy Buddies. Today's reading provided quite a roller coaster ride of emotions, from a sweet high to the lowest of low. Check it out if you have time.

11/8/11

Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Has anything traumatic ever happened to you? Describe the scenes surrounding a particular event

Wow, I'm not sure where to start with this one. There have been many, many traumatic things that have happened to me in my life. Maybe I could bullet-point a few of the most traumatic? (I realize that what might be traumatic to me might not seem traumatic to others, but this is MY blog, so just deal.)

• My grandpa passed away when I was 16 after suffering for several years after a massive stroke. I miss him just as much today as I did when he died 27 years ago.
  
• I suffered through two miscarriages before Stud was born. There was another after he was born.
• I lost one of my favorite uncles (one of my dad's brother) to cancer about 6 months after I was married. My wedding was one of the last "good days" he had. He ended up in the hospital the day after, and suffered through many agonizing, painful, horrible months before he died.
• In February 1994, my daddy has his first massive heart attack. This was probably the single most terrifying day of my life. He had another 2 years later which is when he had his quadruple bi-pass surgery. He later had another, a few years after that, which lead to his 3rd angioplasty.
  
• On New Year's Eve 1995 my brother-in-law (CSJ's brother) killed himself, after shooting his girlfriend and killing her. This was about 3 months after CSJ and I first separated, and played a big part, I think, in our inability to fix our marriage at the time.
  
• In 2000, at the tender age of 30, my cousin was diagnosed with cancer. That same year my sister's marriage ended, as did my uncle's (my mom's brother). That was also the year my brother called off his wedding about 2 weeks before it was to take place. He and his then-fiance had been together for 5 years. The year 2000 was not a good one for my family.
  
• In 2003, that cousin lost his battle with cancer at 32. A month after that, my grandma lost a leg due to complications from her diabetes. Six months later, my grandmother passed away.
• As you know, my brother had a baby this summer. However, the baby's mother is NOT his beautiful girlfriend of the past 12 years. Yeah, that's probably more traumatic for her, but trust me, this has been a source of untold angst and trauma for me, and my family. This is definitely one of the topics in The Post I've been promising for the past 3 months. (As traumatic as this situation may be, of course I love my gorgeous little niece to pieces, and I absolutely know what a blessing from God she is.)
• There has been a very traumatic event here recently involving Stud. (Some of you may have picked up on that when reading the Love Letter.) I'm not ready to share just yet, but the heartache and sorrow I've been feeling these past few weeks have been unlike anything I've ever experienced. I can't remember the last time I've cried this much, or been this utterly sad. I've been trying with all my might to focus on the future, and tell myself it'll all work out, but it's not really working.

That last bullet point started the water works again. Time to go cry for a while. I'm starting to hate NaBloPoMo.

How much longer!?!?!

I had to come to Corner Bakery for the sole purpose of using their free wifi, so I figured I would say a quick "hello" to my bloggy buddies. I pray to God Comcast gets this problem fixed this afternoon! Ok, I'd better get back to what brought me here...

I did NOT want to start my day like this...

Reading this story in the Sun-Times today was the wrong way to start my day. These animals deserve to rot in hell.

I need to go find some cute baby videos, or better yet, penguin videos, to get this disgusted feeling out of my heart.

5/2/11

Monday, May 2, 2011

What is/was your favourite subject in school?

Well, since I was a straight up NERD, I'd love to say EVERY subject was my favorite!! If I had to pick just one, I'd have to say math.

Ok, now that I have the NaBloPoMo stuff out of the way, I have a bit of sad news to share. My Bestest Friend called me a couple of hours ago to tell me that her sister had been found dead in her home. I'm still waiting for the details, but in the meantime, please say a prayer for Bestest Friend and her family.

Weird update?

I know I haven't mentioned BH since I left you hanging here. That was Jan. 23. The next day, I sent him a response that basically said I'm sorry I bothered him, and I NEVER would have sought him out had I have known he was still married. I know, I know, lame, right? My inner 17 year-old was still in control then. Sue me! I told him I didn't want to cause any problems for him with his wife, and I told him, given the circumstances, I had no plans to use the cell phone number he sent me.

The next day, I got the sweetest reply from him:

Hi L, There is no reason to fell bad. I have a lot of friends
that are woman and I talk to them often
We are lucky that where still here to be talking and still
friends. I was glad to find you. So there are no worries. I
prefer to talk instead of e-mail because I still can't spell
:-) It would be nice to see you and Janie says hi.

Hope you have a great day.
Your friend B

About a minute later he sent this:

See told you I can't spell. Even the spell check can't
figure it out.

Janie is his sister. She and I were very close in high school. It kind of made me smile that he actually mentioned to her that we had touched base with each other.

I'm embarrassed to say I never replied to those emails. I didn't really know what to say. "Yeah, I would love to see you, too. I can tell you all about how I had our future together all planned out." Not so much....

And, yes, I'm fully aware of the fact that we could just reconnect, get to know each other again, and resume our awesome friendship. You can never have too many friends, right? Except, that pesky 17 year-old doesn't want any more friends. She wants him to be her boyfriend!! God, she's annoying!

Like I said, I haven't replied, and I didn't get any more messages from him. I was just about ready to close that door, when what pops up my inbox today? Another message from Classmates saying, "BH stopped by yesterday. Open your Classmates guestbook." What the hell? What was he looking for? Did he think something changed there in the past two weeks? Did he think maybe I left him a message there? What? Why did he go there again?

Am I just a big whiny baby for not wanting to be his friend? Ok, you don't have to answer that, I already know the answer. I'm just not ready to do anything about it yet. The 'Valentine Season' isn't helping things, either. It tends to bring out my inner child. Oh, who am I kidding? It bring out the lonely, bitter, middle-aged woman in me! I hope I can grow up, and get past this someday soon. I really would like to be friends with him again. I just don't think I can do it today.

And so it ends...

I'm watching a live news conference on WGN, and just heard that school will resume tomorrow. Poop.

Is it Friday yet?!

Good Lord, it's been a LONG week!!! I'm too pooped to even write about it right now. Maybe I'll have the energy to bore you with it tomorrow. Then again, I'm having some my sister and some friends over for a Girls' Night tomorrow, so I can't make any promises. As a matter of fact, I need to go make the buckets of margaritas and get them outside so they'll freeze into a yummy slush for tomorrow night. Before I go, I'd like to ask you to please send some prayers to Tiffany's family. Her brother-in-law passed away last night.

RIP Jack

I just heard the news about 30 seconds ago on the evening news. This just makes me sad. I know he lived a long, full life, but it's still sad. I remember watching his show when I was a kid. I was always enamored with Jack. I can't tell you how many times I sat through his infomercial for his juicer in the middle of the night. In all seriousness, I just talked to Stud about getting one. I think I may just have to do it now, out of respect for his dedication to the health and well-being of others.

Rest in peace, Jack Lalanne. You will be missed.

I'm gonna miss that little booger....

Remember my Little Stalker, DS? Oh, I'm just kidding! I think his crush is adorable. Actually, I'm afraid I may be losing some of my pull. After finishing my DIBELS, Reading 3D AND mClass math testing (WTH!? When are we supposed to do any TEACHING!?) I saw that DS scored off the charts on all 3 tests. It was really after I tested him in math that I was blown away by his abilities.

The math series that we use at the Hell-Hole (and most other CPS schools) SUCKS MAJOR DONKEY ASS, in my humble opinion. It prepares them for nothing. It basically has them playing games and singing songs all day. Now, don't get me wrong, you KNOW I'm all for singing songs. But, this particular program has no real substance, as far as I'm concerned. And, I see absolutely no correlation between what's done in Kdg. and what they need to be able to do in 1st. I knew that before I made the move to 1st.

OK, so what the hell does all this have to do with DS, you may ask. After testing him in math last week, I went to New Principal to ask about maybe moving him to 2nd grade. Sounds radical, I know, but believe me, he's just as ready as the kids who started 2nd grade this year, if not more so. His birthday just missed the cut-off, which here in Chicago is Sept. 1. His birthday is Sept. 5. Four stinkin' days!!

At first, New Principal said there was no way we could move him because of the birth date. So then I asked if he could go upstairs to the second grade class for reading. You might remember that he already did that last year, going across the hall to 1st grade for reading. Then, I figured, what the hell, let's see how far I can take this. I asked if he could also go for math. This is REALLY the area where he is light years ahead of the other children. (Just to simplify the scoring system, the children can fall into red, yellow or green, with red being the lowest, green the highest. DS is the ONLY child who scored green in all areas. As a matter of fact, only one other child scored green in ONE category out of the six that are tested. Yikes!)

Surprisingly, New Principal said yes. Great! I talked to my friend, Mrs. F. (who you may remember had a baby back in November. She just returned this week from maternity leave.) and she was more than happy to let DS come up to her class. We decided we would start this week. Monday morning, he came in with my class from the playground, but immediately asked about going upstairs. He was totally pumped for this new adventure. He went up to 2nd grade, and I never saw him again! He stayed for the whole day! As a matter of fact, Mrs. F's class has lunch at the same time that we do, so I just assumed he would come back and eat with us, but instead, he grabbed his tray and walked into the other lunchroom to eat with the 2nd graders. I gotta tell ya, I was a tiny bit hurt. Ridiculous, right?

Yesterday, I never even saw him!! The primary teachers had a morning meeting, which made us late for picking up our classes outside, so I didn't see him outside. I had to ask Mrs. F. later in the day if he was even at school! Today, I at least saw him on the playground this morning, but he went upstairs first thing, and never looked back. I think he likes it up there. Whatta you think?

I gotta tell you, the whole dynamic of my class has changed. Most of the other babies looked to him for what to do. They waited for him to answer first, read words first, say the date first, etc. And, I've lost my little secretary! He used to so many jobs for me, since it was one of the only ways to keep him busy. He collected the morning writing papers, stamping the incomplete papers with the "incomplete" stamper. He passed out supplies, set up centers, took messages, and so on. He practically took attendance for me!

I'll be curious to see which of the other babies step up and try just a little harder now that DS isn't there to do the "heavy lifting" anymore.

I miss my Little Stalker.... :(

Why?

Some of you may remember this picture from when I posted it last November. It was taken at my uncle's surprise 60th birthday party. It's a picture of my mother and her siblings, youngest to oldest - my Uncle Ed, my mom, my Aunt Lucy, and my Aunt Marylou.

Yesterday morning, my Aunt Marylou's husband woke up to find her sitting up on the couch, no longer alive. The past 36 hours or so have been just surreal. I'm not ready to say much more, but I do plan to post some more pictures later and probably some memories. For now I'll just say, I'll miss you so much.

An ah-ha moment...

I was sitting here, blog-surfing, and stumbled across one blog from another. (I kinda LOVE when that happens!) This particular blog is yet another one of those awesome blogs dedicated to Kindergarten. Gee, can you guess what happened next? I started crying!!!!!!

I sat there, reading through her archives, soaking up all the awesome ideas she shared, while blubbering like a freakin' baby!! It suddenly occurred to me that what I was feeling was this - I'm no longer a member of this very cool, very exclusive club. I feel like I was kicked out. My membership was revoked. I was kicked to the curb. Oh my holy hell!!! I don't want to leave!!!!!

I seriously can not stop crying. I need to get the hell off the computer, and pull myself together.