July Prek, K, 1st Grade, etc Moms

[LA98]

Hi, just thought I'd get a thread started and see if anyone's around. :) Hope everyone had a good Fourth. We had a great time on the Fourth with friends in Pennsylvania, even if it did mean I had to turn a year older. ;)

I tried to get in on June's thread so many times and never managed to. The couple of things I remember were Heather's story about that mom and swimming (I would have had a huge fit!) and Lara's scary car-breaking-down story. Yikes.

So Brian's school year is (mercifully) over. And of course it ended true to the way it went all year. They had a little "graduation" ceremony (I rebelled and called it an "end of year party" ;) ) The kids practiced a lot for it, songs and a little dance. Brian showed me the dance the night before, he seemed so happy and proud of it. That morning though, he woke up and said he didn't want to go. I tried to get a reason out of him, but he wouldn't give me one. So I just kind of reminded him of how fun it was going to be, there'd be donuts at the party afterwards, etc. The whole way over in the car he kept saying he didn't want to go. Got to the parking lot and he just fell apart. Got totally hysterical and refused to go in. I finally went in to tell the teachers not to hold things up waiting for him. Two of them came out to the car with me, they somehow convinced him to go in, but he wouldn't enter the room where everything was happening and finally we just left. He was so genuinely upset. It must have been a couple of years since I'd last seen him that upset. So once again, there were 20 kids up there, all doing what they were supposed to be doing, except for mine... Oh well.

In better news, he had his normal 6-month checkup with the pulmonologist a couple of weeks ago. Brian has been so incredibly healthy this year (Ack!! Knocking on wood as I type this!!), no respiratory issues outside of a very minor, tiny bit of bronchitis in January, and he did pretty well on the pulmonary function test. So the doctor said he can stay off the Singulair unless he has a problem or if we see allergy symptoms appear in the fall. This is the first time that he is medication-free since he was 8 WEEKS OLD! And, we don't have to go back to the pulmonologist for a whole year. Now *that's* a graduation! :D :D

Now we're just trying to keep busy this summer. He's doing summer reading clubs at two libraries and a town rec program this month. Other than that, I'm trying to fill the days with playdates. Also still trying to figure out what to do about his birthday. I think a lot of people are going to be away and that he's going to be very disappointed. Darned summer birthday. Also looking into swimming lessons. I am utterly embarrassed that he's going to be 5 years old (!) and hasn't even been in a pool, never mind knowing how to swim!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VICTOR!!!! (And Brenden too, I think??)

Lori

[hrk]

Happy Birthday Brenden and Victor!!!

Lori-
I am sure you are quite glad that the school year is over. Brian is starting at a new school next year right? I hope it goes better for him. And so glad to hear all is well with his health.

Well we spent the 4th in Florida at Disney World and it was fantastic. We got very lucky with the weather and while hot and humid, it was not unbearable, we had very little rain (always at night after we went to sleep) and there were two great side effects to the heat- the kids were happy to go into shows etc to cool off and they weren't really all that hungry, so no snacking all day. We did bring the double stroller which Logan did use and we filled the basket every morning with waters a plenty so that was an extra benefit to the stroller.
We were told to stay away from the Magic Kingdom on the 4th so we went to the Animal Park and it was empty. The kids would run from ride to ride and have no wait. We saw Disney's new Finding Nemo show which was really amazing and held Logan and Ari's interest for 40 minutes.
We did the Hollywood studios the first day where they have a cool new 3_d ride where you are playing carnival games and shooting targets the whole ride- Logan loved it!!! We also saw their Playhouse Disney show, which had Ari up and dancing.
Saturday we stayed at the pool all day and the hotel did their own fireworks that night so the kids got to see fireworks up close and personal.
And Sunday we finally hit the Magic Kingdom and again it was empty. The longest we waited for any ride was 20 minutes.
And now it is back home for a little while. Next weekend we are headed up to Long Island for a long weekend to visit DH's family and attend a graduation party. We are so busy I am actually looking forward to the school year when traveling will stop.
Hope everyone else is well.
Heather

[MrsReber]

Hello! I was wondering where everyone was!

Heather that trip to Disney sounds great. I want to take Casey and Brenden there, but it's tough to go anywhere these days. Seems all our time is taken up with work and activities.

Thanks for the birthday wishes for Brenden and Happy Birthday to Victor! We celebrated at home on his birthday. My sister was here with her 2 kids, plus her boyfriend and his son. My mom was also here for the week. Tomorrow we're having Brenden's party at the science museum. Once again, we sent out about 15 invitations and got four replies (one isn't coming). But we'll have about 8 kids, which is fine. Maybe a couple more will show up. I never know!

Our dog got very sick yesterday- the lab. DH took him to the vet this morning. It's funny because I was reading about pancreatitis on the Other Stuff board and it seemed to be the right symptoms. Sure enough, that's what he's got. The vet wants to keep him for the weekend. I knew he was dehydrated. He stopped eating yesterday morning. He threw up the night before, but since he's into everything all the time, that's not all that unusual.
I was just letting his stomach settle before giving him food, but he didn't want to eat. He got into something real good. I'm praying there's no blockage and that the fluids and IV antibiotics help. DH sounded a bit depressed when he called. He hates spending money on vet bills, but what to do when it's something treatable? I just knew Dallas would get into something. Due to recent circumstances, I'm not about to post on the Other Stuff board about any of this. I seem to get attacked when I do that and I can see the nasty grams telling me I'm a horrible pet owner.....

Anyway, I have to run and get on a conference call! It's been crazy with work- one of the reasons I haven't been here. Next week Casey's in horse camp and Brenden is in the Y camp. I have no idea how I'm going to work drop off and pick up since they're both in different directions, especially when we also have martial arts class on M and Thurs nights. Ahhh! I'll have to think about that one! I'm hoping to get to the Salem fair on Sunday, too. It's the last day. It was great last year. We haven't had the time to get there with all our company, Casey's horse show, and other activities.

[cchhbb]

We must all be so busy to have such few posts this far into the month.

We are leaving tonight for a week's vacation. I'm totally beat. DH has been working a ton of hours and I've been packing like crazy. I always think that a vacation would just be easier to stay at home since we've had the kids.

We're probably going to do a Disney vacation in October for Garrett's 6th birthday. He has a day off of school for planning so we'll probably go then and take a couple of extra days. I bet the kids will love Sea Worlds so we'll try to hit there too. Heather, sounds like you had a great time. I can't believe how much you travel.

Lara, sorry to hear about Brian's trouble with the last day. Garrett would have had a sensory overload with that type of performance. Until this year, he would have tried anything to get out of it. This year, he just turned his back to the stage. :rolleyes:

Great news about the pulmonologist.

Gotta run.
Cheryl

[HRJ]

Lori, that is fantastic news about the pulmonologist and Brian being med-free!! :) Please try to focus on that, rather than the stuff with the evil preschool.

The story about the last-day-of-school thing made me think about when I was in junior high, and my parents sent me to this sleep-away camp for the summer that was a really bad fit for me -- just the wrong type of camp, totally wrong atmosphere, for the type of kid that I was -- I didn't make very many friends and the counselors just generally seemed annoyed that they had to deal with this oddball kid (me) who couldn't get with the program. The night before camp ended, they had this big party, where everyone dressed up, etc, etc -- but all I wanted to do was get the heck out of Dodge, so I asked my parents to pick me up a day early so I wouldn't have to deal with it and feel even more out-of-sync. I know that Brian is a lot younger than I was then, and isn't analyzing and articulating things the way an older kid can, but, I don't know, it just made me wonder if maybe in some way he felt the same way, he had just *had* it and he just couldn't process anything dealing with the school anymore -- or maybe I'm attributing your feelings about the school to him. Anyway, I personally don't blame him for not wanting to do the song-and-dance routine -- I always disliked that sort of thing myself. (And BTW, regarding my camp story -- the kicker is that my parents refused to let me miss the big party -- they said if everyone else was going to be there, I should be there, too. So I went and had a miserable time. As you can see, I've never totally let go of that ... )


Heather, sounds like a great trip to Disney. Even though my mother lives in Florida, we've never been to Disney World (it's still about 4 hours from my mom's place, so not something we can do as a day-trip). Maybe we'll do it at some point.

Susan, hope Dallas is feeling better soon. Enjoy your "quiet" week while the kids are at camp.

Happy Birthday Brenden!!!


Cheryl, enjoy your vacation -- where are you going? (You're probably there right now, actually!) I know what you mean about it being too much work to get ready.


We just got back from our vacation -- we were in Maine last week. We stayed at the same cottae we have for the past few years, and it was very nice -- we had great weather, no rain and not too hot, just the way I like it. It was a pretty low-key week, DH and Victor took a few hikes together just the two of them and we just spent a lot of time relaxing by the waterfront at the cottage. Well, DH and I relaxed -- Victor hunted for crabs and sea creatures, rock, shells, etc, etc -- between his "rock collection," "shell collection" and "tree collection" (pieces of bark, twigs, etc), I think we lugged home half of Maine. The other bonus for Victor was that the cottage had cable TV, something we don't have at home, so we let him indulge and he got to watch a lot of stuff that he normally doesn't get to see.

Thanks for the birthday wishes -- his birthday was nice, I send cupcakes in to camp that day. In the evening, his friend from next door and the friend's sister came over for dinner, and then we had ice cream cake.


Helene