“So, do you have a good dental plan?”

Yeah. My friend asked me that. She’s lucky I’ve known her since high school and I have one of her kids in my computer classes at school AND is my favorite pampered chef consultant… Otherwise, I’d have to whack her.

What brought her to ask me this pivotal question?

What did I do to make her wonder about my dental coverage?

I signed Isaac up for youth hockey.

Yes, you all read that right. Youth Hockey. This level is called “learn to skate for hockey” and is the first in the progression towards full out hockey. How did this all come about? Frankly, I’m still in shock that I did this, but it all started, as it always does, with an announcement from the shrimp…

“Mommy. I want to join the River Rats.”

(do you all hear the sound of forehead hitting hand here?)

After a long explanation that first, he couldn’t skate and secondly he was too young-he announced this:
“mommy-I want to play hockey.”

Ok, I can get behind that. It must have been providence that I opened my email the  next morning and saw that the school PTO email list had sent out a list of activities and announcements (they do it every week) and one was a “learn to skate” and “learn to skate for hockey.” Hrm.

So, I made some phone calls on my break at work, and found out that it was an option for us. I quickly signed the small boy up and proceeded to update my facebook status to “oh, my, what have I done?” or something like that.

I didn’t let the small boy in on the whole thing until Sunday morning. I just didn’t want to hear all weekend about hockey, hockey, hockey. Meanwhile, I’d been quietly scoping out where to get certain hockey items that we can’t get through the loaner program-and wouldn’t want to…Really-I’m not allowing my child to use someone else’s hockey undies. No thanks.

Sunday morning rolls around and I get the small boy dressed and we head off to the open house. He thought we were going to take him to play on the trains at Barnes and Noble. Nope. Not at all. We drove to the ice rink, where we found that it was colder inside the rink than it was outside the rink! YIKES!

I then asked my darling crazy child if he wanted to still learn how to play hockey, and he excitedly yelped at the top of his lungs and ripped off his seat belt.

Thank goodness there were the coaches to help us gear up. We made a choice to use loaner gear for this season, as hockey costs add up FAST. Hardcore fast. For just pads and things, you’re looking at 100.00 on the low end of things. YIKES! And being my child is supertiny, and still growing, he’ll most likely outgrow things faster than we can buy them! eek!

Starting in November, I’m going to no longer be soccer mom, I’m going straight to hockey mom!

And yes, I’ve already put Dr. Nancy, Dr. Jen and Dr. Jason on alert…

 

It’s just got to be hockey season because…

We not only had a pre-season River Rats game here…

With lots of fights, because now, we’ve got a NORTHWAY SERIES BACK!

Isaac got his face painted at the game and some silly gear courtesy of Nana…

and then we had opening night…

Can I begin this tale of hilarity by saying that I had a target on my chest? I was hanging down at the boards with Puddle (as she does) and Isaac, who seems to love all of the banging around of warm ups, and toward the end, a puck came flying over the boards. Normal occurance. Seriously normal. WELL, it came and hit me in the chest-bounced off me and went down on the ground. Isaac scrambled and got the puck…and I grabbed Puddle’s phone and put up the following status…

Just got hit in the hooters with a puck! must be hockey season!

Yep. it’s true. I did. Yes, it’s hilarious. I think I deserve one of those hot as all get out 3rd jerseys for my humiliation and pain. But I digress.

My little guy got a new hat…

and we watched a very young team really try and pull it out.

Isaac watched Mommy go slightly nutty yelling….

and exercise huge restraint in not throttling the old, grumpy geezer in front of them who thought children didn’t belong at a hockey game, and told a few parents so.

Then, we went down on the ice after the game for the Meet the Players session.

Isaac was beyond excited that we got to go onto the ice. He could NOT believe that we were actually walking on ice. He asked me a few times for ice skates. I told him he had to master the art of soccer cleats before he could even THINK of getting on skates.

Isaac got his hockey stick signed by the entire team, save for the coaches. They didn’t come out. I think the assistant coach was trying to find ways to tell them of the Curse of Meet the Players Night…but I digress.

Then, asked Isaac if I could do one thing. Take his picture in the goal…

We’ll be back for more games. I know it. I just know it.

I’ve finally corrupted my son to the dark side…Hockey is the appropriate sport…

 

How to…

Prevent Swine Flu.

courtesy of my Mom…

 

why I don’t have an xbox

Thursday night, before I went to pick up the boys from their Arizona trip, I went over to  Blogless Renee’s house to geek out and play Rock Band. No, I don’t have it for my Wii, but she’s got it for the xbox 360.  And she’s got drums. Seriously. Drums. The last time I was over there, I made my own character-seriously red hair and all, and slammed out to Green Day and all sorts of other things.

(Interjection-21st Century Breakdown is the BEST Green Day album since Dookie. And yes, I have a special fondness for Dookie…but seriously. The new album rocks-and you can play it on Rock Band-21 Guns is a killer drum track…interjection over.)

We fire up the xbox and get the game in and Renee’s all loaded up, and I’m loading in…and the game freezes.

Oh….crap….Oh…crapcrapcrapcrap!

Renee and I reboot the system and see                    it.

the worst thing that you can see on an xbox-

The Red Ring of Death.

We both gasped in horror. serious horror.

I made a panicked phone call to the game store to confirm that there was nothing we could do-because this is her BOYFRIEND’S console. NOT hers, and we were both going to DIE.

So, Renee’s boyfriend walks in and looks at us…as we’re probably looking beyond guilty. Renee looks up and says: “I just tried to reboot it…”

Boyfriend notices the red ring of death and goes off the deep end.

I grab the computer and start peeking for fixes. I also jump on twitter…

Well, crap! @neanea18 and I just tried to play Rock Band on the x box and got the stupid ass red ring of death. *!@*#$%#@! Dumb Microsoft!7:58 PM Aug 27th from web

Yeah, seriously. We were both NOT happy about this. Definately not happy.

So we gave up on the xbox, with boyfriend saying “Man, crappy night all around. Both of my teams are losing, and I’ve lost my lover-Not you, Renee, my xbox!”

And with that we moved over to the wii…and this is what happened…

Umm. I think we now need a battery run. Stupid ass batteries. Stupid ass xbox. Stupid ass microsoft.8:00 PM Aug 27th from web

And then this:

ok. the wiimote lives. No, it’s not.8:01 PM Aug 27th from web

and the final insult…

Fine. we give up. We’re going for ice cream and batteries. Video games NOT in the cards tonight!!8:02 PM Aug 27th from web

All of this drama equals why I don’t have an xbox, and I use a Mac. Seriously. No one needs this kind of a headache. Seriously. We ended up at Stewart’s and then at CVS to get batteries for the wii. It was all we could do. Then, we played wii Tennis. So there.

Stupid Microsoft. Stupid xbox.

 

A sign of the Apocalypse

Since I never saw the goals for Isaac’s IEP until it showed up in my mailbox about 3 weeks later, we had to have a few goals removed, added and changed. I was NOT going to round up a CSE/CPSE committee to do this-and the director of Special Ed said we could do it by agreement-meaning ONE FORM! I’m all for one form. I got the form, signed it, sent it back and on Friday a copy of the updated IEP and a letter appeared in my mailbox.

The letter said this:

August 24, 2009 (yes, that was the date written on the top of the letter..)

Dear Mr. and Mrs. F,

Regulations require that you be notified when the Board Of Education has reviewed the proposed changes to your child’s IEP.

On July 10, 2009, the district received your consent to the proposed amendments to the IEP without the necessity of a Committee on Preschool Special Education meeting. On behalf of the Board of Education, I am writing to inform you that the Board has formally met on August 24, 2009, and supported the proposed amendments on the IEP which you have already received.

Previously you have received a Procedural Safeguards Notice that explains your rights regarding the special education process, but if you need an additional copy, please contact our office.

If you have any questions regarding this notice, please do not hesitate to contact our office.

Sincerely,

CSE/CPE chair

well, now…notice that this is all sorts of a letter from the FUTURE! If the board HAS MET in August, then am I still in July?

I swear, this is a sign of the apocalypse. Letters from the school district from over a month away.  I think I’ll be putting that on my list of calls to make on Monday. There is a VERY large list of those, but this will be RIGHT up there!

 

Songs that were just not made for retail…

Doug, Isaac and I were on a mall expedition yesterday evening, when we walked by an establishment that sells clothing. It was playing music at a pretty loud volume. 

the song?

Been Caught Stealin’ by Jane’s Addiction. 

 

I don’t think that song was made for retail. Seriously. 

just sayin.

 

When Preschool and 8th grade collide…

This happened during a review on the tools in Microsoft Word, and the class was loud as all get out, and I was just in one sarcastic mode…

8th grade Student: “Mrs. F! I did it! I did it!”

me: “Ok, Dora the Explorer. Did you avoid Swiper?”

8th grade student: “Mrs. F, I’m Diego. Get it right. And I have a rescue pack!”

Oh, and did I mention this kid has (not kidding) 4 brothers and 2 sisters…and  his youngest brother is in the Nursery 3 program and his youngest sister is 1 1/2?

 

Best.Excuse.Ever…

I was doing detention duty and I had a few students who wanted to get out of it. I had one raise their hand and give me the following excuse:

“Mrs. F-I need to go home. I’ve got Swine Flu. I just sneezed twice and coughed twice. I’ve got it!’

 

Yeah. Sit down, get a tissue and finish your detention.

 

Best part of this?

I told his mom when I saw her and her response was…

“Bonehead.”

 

Can’t sleep, Clowns will eat me!

 

And I thought I’d seen the be all and end all of stupidness

Just when I thought that working at the ‘bux and teaching had shown me all of the stupidness that life had to offer, I find something else that tops the list. 
So, here’s what happened. 

 

Last night, darling child of mine announced that he wanted a birthday party. I had not planned on this. It was going to be a similar thing to last year, where we take a friend and do something special. Then, a few other factors came into play, and a full out party became (believe it or not) the most practical thing to do. 

So, I go and order a cake. I hem and haw and hem and haw. I settle on Speed Racer.  Cool beans. This cake has the Mach 6 and Racer X  on it in a race scene. COOL. 

So, since Doug wasn’t with me when I made this choice (I was coming home from Faith Formation day. The store was on my way home…) I pulled up the design to show him on the computer.

The place that was selling the decorator kit had the following disclaimer on it:
“Icing and cake not included.”

 

Yes, you read that right. Icing and cake not included.

 

Yeah. Really?

 

This is just a seriously sad state of affairs when this has to be said outright. Really sad.