Umm, is it really September?

Seriously, I don’t want to be in this month. I’ve got a kindergartener (EEEEEEKKKK!) and all sorts of things to get done.

Blah.

But the upswing of all of this is that I’m going to (for the second year in a row..) be late for the faculty meeting.

Can we say trend anyone?

 

Coast to coast burritos

There are few things that really get me going food-wise to blog about. Frankly, there are enough food bloggers out there that I really don’t feel like I need to do that to my tiny readership. But sometimes, just sometimes, I have to. This is one of those times…

When I was in undergrad, student teaching at Ghetto Middle School (it’s closing…I’m not shocked. When people hear I student taught there, they have a whole new level of respect for me. It’s that bad.), we often ordered from this place that you could get to and back in a lunch hour-Bombers Burrito Bar. The choices were a mix of traditional and oddball, and there were vegetarian options for those of us who were veggies. That wasn’t me. I fell head over heels for a pulled pork burrito…yum!

Then, I moved out west. the burritos were different, but just as good. I became a fan, through school again, of El Pollo Loco. Their burritos were just good…but not my beloved Bombers. On top of that, the west coast also introduced me to the breakfast burrito-which I have yet to find an equivalent of around here. Perfect food for on the go mornings where there was just too much to do to really eat something.

When my parents visited me on the west coast, I introduced them to El Pollo Loco and to the beloved breakfast burritos of mine. They didn’t quite get the breakfast burrito thing, but I guess you have to live it to really get it. I also introduced them to a few other traditional burrito options that I had in SoCal. Yum…but not quite my pulled pork burrito from Bombers…and that was one thing I missed from the east coast.

So, when we moved back, I tried every excuse I could to find a way to get back to Bombers for a pulled pork burrito. But, it was not in the cards for me, until they opened a location totally near my house! Doug was so sick of hearing about my burrito cravings that the other day, he kicked me out of the house, saying “would you just GO and get a stinkin’ burrito from Bombers? I’m so tired of hearing about that place! “

So, I did what any self respecting person would do in this situtaion-I went to Bombers, and got my pulled pork burrito.

That lead me to the inevitable fighting off of the small boy that happens when a new piece of food shows up in the house. I got the “you need to share” lecture from him…and how sharing was good, and how Mami needed to share her food, because it’s a nice thing to do.

Seriously? did I just get a “sharing is caring” lecture from a 5 year old?

I told him this-share your blankie and I’ll share my burrito. He wandered away for a few minutes to ponder this…as the blankie is the most prized posession in his arsenal. He came back, sans blankie and tried to scam burrito.

I wonder-is this a side effect of being in a day care center with Mexican Abuelas for the first year of his life?

Small boy food scammer aside, it’s an interesting experience eating burritos on both coasts. I think my Mexican friends would be just appaled that I’m eating bbq pulled pork burrito, and my east coasties would be just as flabbergasted that on the west side, I’d be eating something like a carnitas burrito.

heck, in my universe, I know there’s room for all of them-but here in E. Nowhere, I can’t find a decent non-east coast burrito, so I’ll stick with the ones that would make my SoCal buddies die of “that’s not a burrito!” anguish. Isaac, well…as long as he can scam some..and not give up the blankie, he’s fine.

 

Wacky neurologists and booster doses

Friday, we took Isaac back to the wacky neurologist for a med check and to make sure we didn’t have any tweaking to do. After any sort of ADD/ADHD med trial, you have to go back and talk to the doc. Plus, you have to get a new scrip for any sort of ADHD med every month-there’s no refills on them!

Argh! For the love of all things holy-I understand the need to regulate these drugs, but a new scrip every…stinkin..month? Hello annoying!

We had a few concerns-one being the times when Isaac needs to focus after the medication wears off. It’s hard knowing when that is, as when he’s home, it’s right around dinner/downtime/bedtime, so he can be all sorts of wacked out and be just fine with us. We noticed at VBS that he was having a harder time focusing on things about halfway through, so we asked Dr. WackyNeuro (Oh, this woman IS wacky-I was warned about her from the social worker  and head teacher in Isaac’s school as well as the new PT at the new school! She lived up to all of her reputation for being oddball…but she’s damn good!) and she had this solution…

Isaac is on Vyvanse. You can’t do any sort of Vyvanse booster because of a release time. So, she figured that an immediate release adderal would be the perfect solution-in his system fast, out of his system fast. This would give him the control he needed to focus and keep his stuff together through the later part of the evening.

Hrm. Ok. Sounds good to me…

So we test ran it-Oh, my…what a complete difference this made! It made one of the parents even ask me what they did and how she could get it for HER child that has the same problem with later nights and the Vyvanse.

Now, for all of the people who think I’m  medicating my child around the clock-here is my answer-I only use the booster when we need it. When Isaac is struggling to keep it together later in the evening and when he’s expected to function properly (and so wants to, but can’t) past the normal cut off time of the meds, that’s when we boost. Otherwise, those adderal stay in the bottle.

We’ll see how things roll with this when the boys go to Arizona. Hopefully the adderal will STILL stay in the bottle…

 

The backpack saga

As if this kindergarten experience hasn’t been irritating enough, we’ve had to endure The Great Backpack Fiasco of 2009.

The one thing we were sure of this year was that we were going to get Isaac a new backpack for Kindergarten. It wasn’t an option. He’s had the same LL Bean backpack since 2 year old program! It’s this amazing pawprint camo, and is showing hardly any sign of wear…but this is kindergarten. Plus, he’s asked for a RED backpack.

Mom had this extra 10.00 bonus gift card from LL Bean, and wasn’t going to use it, so, she passed it our way. Hey-it made the backpack effectively half price! I can get behind that! We ordered it at the end of May, before all of the lists came out, because a backpack is a backpack and we frankly didn’t want to lose the coupon.

Based on a few reccomendations, we ordered the Junior pack, thinking that it woul make it through the first two years of public school. Plus, Isaac’s a peewee. He may be strong, but he’s pretty slight. We figured, based on both of our backpacking expertise, that this wouldn’t be overloaded and he wouldn’t go over.

Then the LIST came home. The  list that has been giving me nightmares. Stupid Crayola glue sticks anyone? But this isn’t about the stupid Crayola glue sticks..this is about the backpack.

The LIST stated that it had to be a “large” backpack. Yes, a large backpack. So, I get on the phone with the school and find out that the backpack that we’ve purchased IS NOT LARGE ENOUGH! Lord love a duck. First the stupid glue sticks and now this? Argh.

So, I call LL bean and tell the tale of the too-small backpack. I get told to bring it in, and they’ll swap it out for the next size up. I’ll just have to pay the difference. No biggie. Easy…or so I thought.

The first time I went, they didn’t have all of their packs in stock, and the size that I needed wasn’t there. I was told that the rest of the shipment would be in by the 21st, and the size I needed would most likely be in at that point. Ok. Fine. No biggie. I can get behind that.

So, on the 22nd,  I call the store to make sure that they have the proper pack in stock. I’m not running down there for no good reason, because we’re on the way to speech, and it was just supposed to be a fast pit stop. I get told that they have what I’m looking for, which was an original backpack in red. Just plain red. No camo, no sports patch. Just red.

I bring Isaac in with me, and start the search for the backpack. I find where they’ve got all of the packs, and I don’t see the original. I see the deluxe and the original plus, as well as rolling ones, critters and sport packs…and the dreaded junior pack.  NO originals. None.

So, I flag an associate down to help me-I ask her to point me in the right direction of the original book packs, and she gets on the radio asking for a JUNIOR pack. umm..no, that’s not what I wanted. I made that clear-I told her-I wanted an ORIGINAL pack, not a junior.

This is where I start beginning to smoke at the ears and see stars.

So, she gets the person who I talked to on the phone and that person starts in on me about how she didn’t know I wanted a JUNIOR pack-I cut her off, and told her I didn’t want a junior pack-I just wanted an original. Not a deluxe, not a super sport not a messenger bag, but an original. It’s just a small step up from the junior, and I wanted it in red for the small boy who was getting more and more antsy by the second.

She begins to go on this insane tirade about how I’m going to overload his backpack and ruin his bones, and how she would not even think of selling me a bigger backpack than the one I had in my hand. We went back and forth and back and forth and finally, we had to leave or Isaac would have been late for speech. I still had the dreaded junior pack and was just two tons of more confused than I walked in.

I let the junior pack sit in my car for the rest of the week. I couldn’t take another run in with LL Bean people who were trying to make me keep what I had in my hand that I knew wouldn’t fit the bill.

So, today, after our latest adventure with Lowe’s Build and Grow, I convinced Doug to make the trek, once again, this time, for the FINAL time in this escapade to LL Bean. I made him come in with me for moral support and I just decided-I wasn’t going to go to the backpack area until I had successfully returned the backpack and had the credit from the gift cards in hand. That’s all I wanted….if I ordered or not, that was a different story-who knows…

We had Isaac with us, so he could make the final call regarding his backpack. For cripe’s sake, this is HIS. He needs to have the final word.

So, I walk up to the register and tell them that I had ordered this pack and it wouldn’t hold all of what Isaac needed for school, so I needed to upgrade it. I paid for it with a gift card, so a gift card was just fine for the refund.

LET THE LECTURE BEGIN!!

Person at the register began to start the argument that this was the right sized pack, ect, ect. I told her I knew that, but, this wouldn’t hold everything we needed on a daily basis, and we just needed the original that was a step up from what we currently had. It wasn’t a big deal. So, I let her go through the motions of suggesting a critter pack and a sports pack, which I knew Isaac didn’t want. He just wanted a red backpack. Nothing fancy, just a red  backpack. I politely told her I would go peek at them, and she did my return.

I asked Isaac what he wanted- a critter pack (choice of shark or spider to match his lunch box..) and he said he wanted red.

I knew it. I don’t know why I even bothered asking…

So, I wandered over to the kiosk, and thank goodness, I didn’t need an employee to help me, as they’ve put a new function in that automatically does the freebie shipping thing.  I got the order done and then disaster hit…

The computer had my old addy in it! The one from when we first moved back here!
Oh, no, that backpack is NOT going near that old place! So, I had to grab an employee for damage control. They quickly picked up the phone and did that lovely damage control and changed the addy on the shipping thing so that it comes to my house now instead of the ghetto apartment.

The email confirmation said that it would be coming here…so, now we wait for the pack to show up and transfer the bag tag from his current pack and finally attach the dinosaur patch that he so wants on his red backpack.

I swear. I say this over and over and over again, but it’s so true-Kindergarten should NOT be this hard!

 

Yet another customer service debacle

But lo and behold, it’s NOT MINE!

I was over on the Consumerist, and saw an article on this guy who had United Airlines baggage handlers break his guitar…by throwing it. Now, I’ve had stuff stolen out of my luggage and my luggage mangled by said handlers at O’Hare, so I’m not too shocked by this. Hell, my luggage went to Philadelphia once when I came back east from living in SoCal.

So, since guy is a musician, he’s written 3 songs and is producing 3 videos about hsi ordeal with United. Hrm. Wonder if these videos will force United into submission….

But, here, for your pleasure is my attempt to help him stick it to United.

this is….United Breaks Guitars.

Wonder if this being on the Consumerist and getting tons of hits on Youtube will shame United into paying for this guy’s guitar that they mangled!

Oh, and I adore the sombrero wearing backup singers!

 

Happy 4th of July!

Have a great fun, safe 4th..and Happy Birthday to my darling sister!

I figured some muppets were in order today…so here they are!

 

As if things couldn’t get much more complicated…

As it is, it is the end of the year, and I’m all sorts of going insane. Between IEP hell and the insane amount of paperwork due by June 24, I’m already going slightly insane.

So, let’s just add some more insanity to the fire here, and toss me on crutches! Yep! That would be me, gimping around again. I took a spill at a local grocery store on Friday. Their floor was slick, unsigned and basically a hazard. One of their employees even fell as well, going in the opposite direction as I was-and then putting up a caution cone. Yeah, a bit late for me.

So, here I am, with a sprained ankle and knee to boot, and having to deal with this at the worst time of the teaching year. Plus, I can’t even be a game geek until I get this all healed up, as there’s no option for sitting at all.

At least today I can wear normal shoes…I was living in my Adidas slides all weekend, because my foot didn’t fit into any of my shoes…today, I’m air-casted and ace wrapped, so I can actually wear my comfy shoes to work! WOOHOO!

But really, crutches and gimping around is the pits.

 

Special Needs and Kindergarten, take 5.3

Here we go again…round and round and round and round…

So, I get a hold of the notoriously hard to get a hold of School Psychologist, Dr. C, and  it was on the first try! I was actually impressed! They are giving us what we want-regular kindergarten, a shared aide, a 45 minute resource period and almost all therapies outside of academic time, save for one push in group session.

Ok, I can live with a push in group session. It’s really not taking him OUT of the classroom and he’ll be a ton more compliant with that.

We’re now fighting the morning versus afternoon kindergarten session, because the school district here in E. Nowhere has half day kindergarten, even though we’re considered a “premier district.” Yeah, right. Without full day Kindergarten, that’s so far from the truth! 

Today is the big kindergarten transition meeting. I’m really kind of wacked out about the whole thing. Not sleeping, sick feeling, dying for some serious bagels…but after today, this should be over relatively quickly. We should know what we’re doing and what we want out of everything. I am going to try and nail them down for morning vs afternoon so I can fight for morning, as Isaac works so much better early in the morning. 

 

Now, we have to nail down the wrap program for Isaac-I’m really kind of torn-there are two decent programs, equally priced and I just have to see what we’re going to go with for him for after-k.

I think I’ll feel better after the meeting today…or I hope I will. I just need all of this kindergarten drama to go away. Seriously go away. I want my end of the year life back, which boils down to grading, trying to tie up loose ends and working on all sorts of end of the year projects. Bah. 

So, hopefully this will be the end of it, even though I’m going in loaded for battle.

 

Special needs and Kindergarten, take 5.2

Another installment of “where does Isaac go to Kindergarten??” is here! 

This was an unexpected installment, because I thought I had it all figured out until Wednesday, when the IEP meeting hits. Yeah. Notice the word thought. 

So, here goes…

We had pretty much ruled out the private kindergarten because of cost. It was astronomical, enough to make everyone and anyone choke. So, after crunching some numbers, we decided that we couldn’t swing $850/month for one year of kindergarten, as wonderful and super as this place may be. 

Yesterday, I was home, getting Doug all recovered from some oral surgery (he was SOOOO looped out!), when I got a phone call. It was the director of private kindergarten. Umm..I thought we had said no….

WELL, she was calling to do something that she’s never done before…offer a scholarship to a child-and that would be MY child for kindergarten next year. We’re looking at tuition that would be on par with the private school I work at, the aftercare programs that I would need for Isaac next year and pretty much everything else under the sun. 

Hrm. 

So, now, my perfectly honed plan has gone into tizzy fits and screams. And I have to make a choice by Friday. 

BLAH!

 

Oh, and you think the school district has given me any sort of heads up on what their recommendations are for Isaac?

Nope. Not a clue. 

So, I’m getting ready to call the school psychologist and find out what their ideas are for next year, as I have to know by tomorrow. Plus, it’s disgustingly unacceptable that I have no idea what their idea of the plan is right now, and meeting is on WEDNESDAY. 

Save me.

 

So, anyone got any good ideas? Anyone want to make the choice for me, because I just don’t know what to do.

 

Like I keep saying-getting into Kindergarten should NOT be this hard. It really shouldn’t.

 

Wordless Wednesday, 5/13/09