Happy Easter!

E being E

The Easter Bunny brought hats from what will be their High School

M in Peep Heaven.
He lives the whole year just for Peeps

Special Days...

E's preschool is a Co-Op. For all of you non-preschooler having people out there, that means that the pre-school she goes to keeps the cost of tuition down by enlisting the help of a parent each day, rather than having the cost of another teacher in the room. The day that the child's parent is designated to be in the room is considered their "Special Day". Theoretically, this is supposed to rank right up there with Christmas and Halloween in the big deal department.

Not with my daughter. On her "Special Day" she wants me to go away.. far far away.

Tuesday was her day for March. When it's your Special Day you get to wear an additional tag on your name tag. It's yellow and says "Special Day" on it. ( go figure ). She has anxiety until someone takes this tag off for her.
Then everyone gets in a circle and sings a song for the special person.
It's super catchy and goes like this:

"Hooray for ( special person name )
Hooray for (special person name )
Someone in the crowd is saying Hooray for( aformentioned person)!
1234 who ya gonna shout for?
(Special person ), That's who!"

I can e-mail you the music, if you want.

While singing, E is supposed to either shake a pom pom, or shake a tambourine.
( By the way, the pom pom is exactly like the ones I used as a cheerleader in 6th grade. It gives me flashbacks to Candies tennis shoes and Legg's pantyhose. )
Anyhow, E wants nothing to do with either the pom pom or tambourine and instead of standing in the middle of the of the circle, climbs on my lap and burys her head in my shoulder. When the song was over she asked me to go away. Several times.

The other big deal is getting to be line leader. Which she doesn't want to do. She holds my hand in the back of the line.

Here's the catch. This is not a shyness issue. She is the center of attention in the classroom when I'm not there. ( She MIGHT get this from her dad, I'm not sure. ) This is a mom's-in-the-room-and-I-am-embarrassed issue. Do you remember the christmas program in which she didn't sing? I heard SANTA was his name-O everyday in the car. She loves to sing. But not in front of a group while I'm there.
So in past Special Day's I have spent part of the day in other classrooms. Tuesday I stuck it out in hers. I need MY Special Day, after all.

Trip to the Zoo

For whatever reason E has been begging to go to the zoo. Lately, with sub zero windchills, that's been a really bad idea, but last Sunday it was nice enough that we went. ( Nice is relative, I guess ). The Zoo has their "Frozentoezen" deal going on in February. So we weren't the only crazy people there.



On a not so lighter note, I volunteered in M's class on Friday, and when I walked into the main office to sign in, found H sitting there all teary eyed. And another kid named Zane also sitting there. With a bloody nose. From my son. Seems that Zane and some other kids were calling H names, and H finally had enough and pushed Zane to the ground, which caused the bloody nose. There is a discrepency as to whether or not perhaps Zane pushed H first, but by most accounts H did the inital pushing. So I , in my naivete', finished up with what I had to do in M's class and went back to the office to talk to the principal and calm H down. Both boys were still in her office, along with a couple of witnesses, so I continued to wait. 45 minutes later, she finally called me back in her office. I really genuinely thought that we would have a nice chat about the incident, H would get a stern warning or maybe a detention. HA HA HA. He got suspended. SUSPENDED!!!! In this day and age of Zero Tolerance, there is no warning system whatsoever. Just suspension. She did let me know that it was supposed to be for three days, and she knocked it down to one. So he is home with me today, very remorseful, very sad, very upset to see the bus come pick up his brother and not him. Those of you that know him know what a great kid he is, this day is killing him. But I think he has learned his lesson.

Howie's the one on the left...

Howie got to meet Eddie George tonight at a fundraiser for Make-a-Wish. Pretty Cool.

What we're watching...

Part of our philosophy regarding music is basically that we refuse to listen to the Wiggles, the BackYardigans, Barney, Disney or anything remotely juvenille in the car. At home, fine, but when we can't get away from it, like in the car, adult music, please. Laurie Berkner made a brief appearance in the car when it was just me and E and not Howie. The boys had a CD by "They Might be Giants" that was made for kids, but technically they're an adult band, right?
Therefore, the kids have gotten a lot of exposure to the Beatles, Elvis, BNL, artists that are catchy, kid friendly, and bearable for those of us over the age of 7.
Enter YouTube. This site has enabled me to find anything that I want to expose the kids to. I can pull together references to music that they understand. Elvis singing "Burning Love" on the soundtrack of "Lilo and Stitch"? Found the real video clip. H making fun of Micheal Jackson? ( FYI in the fourth grade in 2008, comparing someone to the King of Pop is the ultimate putdown.) I found the whole video of "Thriller" and "Billie Jean", trying to prove that at one time MJ was the epitome of cool, a little cheesy, but still cool. Any Dan Zanes video E wants to watch is on YouTube.

Here are two of her favorites at the moment. The one of Mika we found because one of the contestents on American Idol sang part of the song, and I liked it, the other was on some MTV countdown the otherday. I suppose if I was twenty, I would know all about these artists, but I don't, I just know the songs are cool and E comes running whenever I put them on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPUpxIBkcjM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGTDRztaCCw

Basketball Pictures

H's last game. The picture is fuzzy because I used the zoom on my camera, which never works right.

M and couple of his teammates from the neighborhood. Notice H in the background. I am so proud.

The great end of the season celebration.....mmmmm...Cheez-its and Capri-Sun. What more could you want?

Would the real "Guitar Hero" please stand up?

So after weeks and weeks of waiting...( OK just three days, and we tracked the thing on the UPS website ), the real guitar made it to our house safe and sound. Someone please call me crazy. It has an AMPLIFIER. Of course, H being H, is completely convinced that he already knows how to play. Every 5 minutes he his calling me down to hear some awesome chord or riff that he magically figured out. Do you remember the scene in "Back to the Future" when Marty McFly is disappearing at the dance and is still trying to play "Johnny be Good"? Yeah, sounds kind of like that. I pray for his new teacher.


By the way, Happy Valentine's Day. Here they are waiting for the bus this morning. E is holding a Baby Beanie Baby she got. It's a pink sparkly unicorn named Frilly, which she insists on calling Emma. Go figure.