I’m such a bad blogger. I swore to myself that I was going to make time to write, but blew it off for a month. again.

*sigh*

In case you were wondering, here’s what happened with what I now refer to as Gaz & The Great Homework Debacle:

Gaz (who is also a neglectful blogger, but hey, she’s ten and doesn’t type so well, so we’ll cut her some slack) has settled into 5th grade quite well. The whole shit load of homework was actually class work that she looked at and said, “OMG! It’s the same thing over and over and over again, someone just shoot. me. now. I’m totally doing this when I get home.” She was bored to tears in class, not by the subject matter, but by regurgitating said subject matter on worksheets in which the same question was asked about the same material about 14 bazillion times.

*gag*

I ended up going up to school, talking to her guidance counselor, which was a joke. I ended up calling one of the Special Ed counselors who had done Rico’s initial testing to get into PPCD. She’s now a counselor at Gaz’s school. We talked for a bit and caught up about Rico and then she asked me a bunch of questions about Gaz. After about a half hour, she asked if I had ever requested that Gaz be tested for the Gifted & Talented program. My response:

Gifted & Talented? Gaz? My Gaz? You’re kidding right?

I know, I’m such a good mother.

She said everything I described about Gaz pointed to a highly intelligent, yet bored child. Gaz is this in-your-face, shiny happy, social butterfly, “normal” kid, so yeah, she’s smart, but we assume she’s just slacking off. I felt so bad. But it totally makes sense. She plays the blond card so well that I just assumed she was average. Sneaky little thing. She’s so grounded. Kidding.

Anyway, I had e-mailed her teacher earlier in the day in regards to the amount of homework and we talked about Rico’s counselor’s revelation. Solution: She would give Gaz the work she gives the G&T kids and have Gaz tested so that she’s officially G&T. So that’s been working out well. Oh and we laughed about the whole U.S.S.R. thing.

Rico has been a little stinker in the morning when it’s time to get ready for school. He, too, is a consummate scam artist. See what I have to deal with here, people?!

Rico: I hate school! I wanna stay here with you, Mommy!
CE: You have to go to school and learn things. Besides Mommy has work to do.
Rico: But you’re staying home.
CE: Hence the term “work from home”.
Rico: Fine! Then I’ll go to work with Dad.
MEH: What?

Yeah, that was it pretty much every morning. It’s a total scam. MEH has been driving Rico to school and Rico’s having a blast at school. Here I am thinking they must be torturing my child for him to hate going to school so much. Turns out he’s a con artist. Nice.

His teacher told MEH that he’s been reading. Yes, people, reading! And writing at least 7 line stories. And reading (!) them to his teacher, then to his class. Yay!

Oh, and I’m not allowed to refer to him as “Baby” anymore. He made this perfectly clear the other day when I picked him up after school:

CE: Hey, Baby! How was your day?
Rico: I’m not a baby, I’m a kid.
CE: I wasn’t saying you’re a baby, I just called you Baby, you know like how I call you Sweetie sometimes.
Rico: I’m not a baby, so call me Rico.
CE: You mean I can’t call you “Snoochie” or “Buddy” or “Cutie” either?
Rico: No, call me just Rico.
CE: Okay, Just Rico…
Rico: NOT JUST RICO!!! JUST. RICO!
CE: Fine, cool your jets, RICO. Do you still want McDonalds?

No sense of humor whatsoever.

When dinosaurs walked the earth I went to elementary school. Every year, my mom would buy me a composition notebook or two, some pencils, a new ruler (because I always managed to lose them), a bottle of glue, an eraser and the year I had my tonsils out, a really cool Peanuts pencil box. It was shaped like a school bus and had Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Sally and Snoopy’s faces in the windows. The pencil sharpener was shaped like Snoopy’s doghouse. It had a tape dispenser and an eraser shaped like Woodstock. It ruled!

We were never given a list of supplies. And I’m sure if a list existed, “12 glue sticks” would not be on that list. Like Chrissie, the lists I got for Gaz and Rico are about a mile long. So the other day I was talking about going school supply shopping. Ugh!

Here’s Rico’s list:

3 boxes Crayola crayons, 24 count
1 box Crayola markers, fat tip, classic colors
12 #2 pencils
2 pink erasers
1 pair safety scissors (no plastic blades)
2 bottles white glue (4 oz.)
12 glue sticks
2 boxes tissue (200 count)
1 plastic school box (cigar size)
4 spiral notebooks, standard (wide) rule (70 pages)
6 pocket folders with brads
1 box Ziploc bags (boys - gallon; girls - quart)

I brought in all Rico’s supplies on Monday and put the notebooks, folders and school box (green - containing his scissors, markers, 2 pencils, one eraser and 1 glue stick), in his desk. Everything else went into baskets because they “share”. Yesterday afternoon Rico came home with a notebook that I didn’t purchase for him. Well, at least it was green, his favorite color. When I opened it up to see what he did for the day, I saw it was college rule. This just pissed me off to no end. I’m sick and tired of going out and buying supplies and paying attention to the freakin’ list and then have my kid end up with a notebook that’s college rule because some dumb ass parent bought the 10 pack at Target for $2.99. I’m calling bullshit. My kid should not have to write in tiny little letters on tiny college rule lines because I BOUGHT HIM THE RIGHT NOTEBOOKS!!!! AHHHHH!! Then I pull his daily folder out of his backpack. I always buy plastic pocket folders because the paper ones get trashed in backpacks. It’s a paper folder. It’s also green, but THIS IS NOT THE FOLDER I BOUGHT HIM!!! WTF??!?! Why give me a fucking list then send other people’s crap home with my kid? Why?

Am I the only one that’s pissed about all this? Surely, I can’t be.

Oh wait, it gets better. Rico came home with a second list of supplies for his Autism class. I have to go out to the store again. Great. It also means I’ll have to pick through what’s left at Walmart, Target and HEB to hopefully find everything on this second list. Wish me luck.

2 sets of 5 tabs dividers
2 boxes of Kleenex
1 bottle of hand sanitizer
2 rolls paper towels
2 shaving cream
1 pack glue sticks
1 regular glue
1 scissors
1 package of markers
1 box crayons
1 spiral for communication log
5 pocket folders
1 gallon bags
1 sandwich bags

Why am I sending paper towels to school? Can someone tell me this? Crap.

Gaz is in 5th Grade. Here’s her list:

1 box Crayola crayons, 24 count
1 box Crayola markers, thin, classic colors
1 box colored pencils, map colors
8 #2 pencils
1 pink eraser
2 ball point pens (black or blue)
4 red ball point pens
2 highlight markers
1 pair Fiskars scissors - pointed
1 bottle white glue (4 oz.)
1 glue sticks
1 box tissue (200 count)
1 zipper pocket
1 12″ dual-scale ruler
2 sets of dividers (8 pack)
1 pack 4×6 index cards
2-4 1-subject spiral notebooks - wide rule (70 pages)
1 composition notebooks
4 packs 200 count looseleaf paper - wide rule
3 pocket folders with brads
1 box Ziploc bags (boys - gallon; girls - quart)

I put my foot down and made an executive decision and passed on the spiral notebooks . We bought a 3-ring binder because normally the kids tear their homework out of the notebook and turn it in.

We went to “Meet the Teacher” for Gaz on Monday afternoon and found out that she needed a cube of Post-it notes, a ring binder and two more composition notebooks. I congratulated myself on the whole 3-ring binder decision. Yay me! Since I’m addicted to post-it notes, finding an unopened cube of cool neon ones wasn’t a big deal. The two extra composition notebooks, however, was another story. It would have been nice of the teacher to tell me this little requirement on Friday when she called to tell me Gaz was in her class because — holy shit! — I went to Target, Walmart & HEB and there are NO COMPOSITION NOTEBOOKS. Anywhere. Really. I gave up and bought two 6×7 spirals at Target and sent them in with Gaz yesterday. Luckily, Michele found some in her mad rush to find 12 x 18 construction paper and she picked up two for me. Michele rules that way. If anyone has any idea where to find 12 x 18 construction paper in various colors in the central Austin area, please let me know, because I don’t think it exists and Michele still needs some.

I think next year everyone is getting the supply pack the the PTO puts together. If I remember to fill out the form that comes home at the end of the year, that is.

*sigh*

Today is the first day of school. We’re really excited because Gaz & Rico both have great teachers this year. We’ve been pretty lucky so far in that aspect.

Gaz’s teacher is one of the toughest 5th Grade teachers, but she’s really high energy and is a total Science Goddess. So this year should be a total blast since Science is one of Gaz’s favorite subjects.

Rico had a wonderful 1st Grade teacher. She’s cute and creative and decorated her whole classroom with a cowboy theme. That scored major points with Rico when we met her yesterday. Despite this, he wasn’t really happy about the whole going to school this morning as evidenced here:

He’s so not a morning person.

Gaz always asks for stuff when we’re in the store. Sometimes it’s normal things like a pack a gum other times it’s some ridiculously over-priced thing to decorate her room. Like this $499 chaise from Bombay Company.

Curse you Bombay Company, you evil, over-priced, yet awesome store! Because 9 times out of 10 she knows the answer will be “no” — or in the case of the above-mentioned chaise, “Oh hell no!” — she has adopted as her personal motto is “if you don’t ask, it’s an automatic no”.

It’s become a joke between us. She takes it to the extreme sometimes, especially if we’re in Home Depot. We’ll pass the power tool section and she’ll point to something like this and say, “Oooo, can we get this??” I’ll roll my eyes and she’ll add, “for Daddy!”

Rico, on the other hand never asks for anything unless we’re in the grocery store and there’s some new Disney-inspired cereal on the shelves. Like this Little Einsteins cereal that is still sitting in our pantry after about 3 months.

I’m a pushover when it comes to Rico asking for stuff. Whether it be Airheads, gummi bears or Sour Patch Kids. I almost always say yes. It’s his little face. He’s got those chubby little cheeks and he looks so sincere and hopeful when he asks, “Mommy, can I get these gummi bears, please?”

Yesterday I ran some errands with Rico and Gaz. We were in the store and Rico said, “Ooo, Mommy can we please, please get this movie?” He caught me on an off moment when my ADD was in full swing. I said yes. He had picked up this:

OMG! RSM warned me that these cartoon charaters were evil incarnate. Did I listen? NO. AHHHHHH!!! This DVD is in heavy rotation in our house now. WHYYYYYY! Oh why do you exist Wonder Pets??!?! Ugh! That freakin’ song:

Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets!
we’re on our way
to help a friend
and save the day!

We’re not to big
and we’re not to tough
but when we work together
we got the right stuff!
Go, Wonder Pets! Yeay!

Someone kill me.

Now.

Please?

Apparently, the answer is yes. So to avoid any further harassment, I’m updating.

I haven’t blogged in a while — holy shit has it really been 2 months! — because nothing really interesting is going on. Well, okay a couple of things:

MEH got hired on permanently by the company he was contracting for. YAY!!!! I’m really happy about this for all obvious reasons, but more importantly, because MEH is a super-smart guy and it looks like he’s working for a company that appreciates him. Also, he (and hence, we) finally has all the lovely benefits of being a “real” employee. Like medical coverage , paid vacation, paid holidays and some other cool stuff. Like a 25% discount for our cell service (they contract with his company) and then his actual employee discount on computer related stuff that his company sells, buys, repairs or processes. This company will remain nameless, for obvious reasons.

My bestest friend in the entire world, Michele, and her clan are moving back to Texas. Dude, it totally took us over a month to find them a house. It was very stressful to say the lease, but they’ll be here next week!!!! W00t!

While Michele was here, she re-did the red in my hair and put in the black sections. I hate it and when she gets unpacked, she’s totally got to fix it. She doesn’t know this yet, so….

Gaz’s hair is back to its normal color again. We re-did the pink twice this summer and then she decided to not wear a swim cap when swimming, so her hair turned green. There are some people that can pull off green hair. Gaz is not one of them. School starts in two weeks, so she’s back to normal.

Rico is adorable as always, but he drives me crazy sometimes. He had a lot of fun this summer and grew about a foot. He also gets pissed at me when I address him as “Baby”. He says, “I’m NOT a BABY!!”

I’ve been watching re-runs of “America’s Next Top Model” on MTV. I love the new show “Burn Notice” on USA. I’m on the fence about “Damages”. The way the timeline of the show jumps around is kind of annoying. It’s trying to be “Heroes”.
Both kids recently discovered Webkinz. And OMG! It’s crazy. I had heard about these cute little stuffed animals from one of Gaz’s friend Claire’s mom. I went to a couple of different toy stores and two different Hallmark stores that the store locator referred me to. Ugh! No Webkinz. Well I took Gaz shopping at Limited too to use her birthday gift cards. Limited too now has Webkinz. Let the madness begin.

Meet Coco:

The whole Webkinz concept is really cute. You register your pet and the site gives you an webpage for the animated version of your pet.

Like a virtual stuffed animal. Pretty genius if you ask me. You play games and answer questions to earn KinzCash to pimp out your pet’s room and to feed it, dress it, etc. Rico liked playing with Gaz’s so much I went out and got him the Golden Retriever.

He named him Goldie:

The cool thing is that there’s this whole section called Quizzy’s Corner where the kids answer 50 questions at a time about Math, Language, Science, Arts, Health, Social Studies, etc. They earn KinzCash for correct answers. So they’re learning while they’re playing. It’s educational entertainment or as we refer to it in the Evil Household — edutainment (vocabulary word).

It’s pretty funny, Rico will get on one PC and Gaz on the other and they’ll play this game called Link’d against each other. It’s like Connect 4 online. Okay, so why not just play the actual game? I don’t know. But they’re having a good time and they’re not fighting. Also, they’re both spouting off random facts like, “manatees eat lettuce”, “dolphins are mammals, not fish” and “Leonardo da Vinci was from Vinci, Italy”.

So that’s pretty much it. So I updated. Happy?