Oh...where to begin...

So the last couple of weeks have been...interesting, shall we say? We went to an outdoor birthday party last Sunday...and it stormed. Oh, that was fun. Kids banging away on a piñata (one that strangely enough made a metallic clanging sound if they hit it right), while all around us thunder boomed, lightning flashed, and the rain blew sideways under the pavilion roof at us. Yay!

Wednesday was a half day at school, and it was another fun day. I had a doctor's appointment in the morning, only an hour and a half before the end of school. I was lucky enough to get there early, and they were able to get me in early. But then...the boys had appointments for eye exams that afternoon. And all that time I saved in the morning...was lost. And then some. Three hours for eye exams. The only plus to that was that their eyes haven't really changed. Which is good, but also makes it all the more frustrating that we were three for THREE hours!

But, the really exciting news is: J is done with speech therapy! They scheduled a meeting for last Thursday at the school, and when I went in, they told me he'd met all his goals, and was graduating from speech therapy. That absolutely made my week. I am so proud of him. He worked so hard and tried so much to overcome the impairment and he did it. He still can be hard to understand when he gets very excited or if he is very upset, but if you tell him to calm down and tell you again, he will. He also will stop and think while he's talking to make sure he uses the right word and says it clearly. It's a technique they taught him to cope with the speech impairment, but he's really taken it to heart and it makes a huge difference to how he speaks.

They are having the World's Fair at school next month. This is something they do every year. Each classroom does a different country, and they do all kinds of little projects to display, and they learn tons of little facts about the country their class is working on, and on the night of the fair, they always learn a fact or two about all the other countries, in order to get a stamp on their "passport". It's a wonderful learning experience, both for the kids and the parents. J's class is doing the United States. His teacher always tries to get a picture postcard from each state. They almost had all of them last year. This year...well, she's going to have quite a few. With D being a truck driver, I've enlisted him to help with this little project. I figure he's the ideal person to help us get a lot of postcards. J's teacher is quite excited at the prospect. I figure J will be excited when he begins receiving the postcards.

Some of my friends at the school and I have been contemplating how to get rid of the principal. The school has gone downhill in a serious way since he took over this year. He's alienating the parents, and doing nothing for the kids. There is a substitute teacher that is terrorizing the kids, the daughter of one of my friends in particular, and the principal is doing nothing to stop it. D has offered to create a website on which we could start a petition to try to get rid of the principal. If things continue, though, I think it may come down to a bunch of parents getting together and just going directly to the school board to demand he be fired.

Well, there's other stuff going on, but I'm tired and my brain just isn't functioning right now. Oh, wait, there is this:

We were at the eye doctor, waiting for them to be called back for their exams. C had found this plant and plucked a piece off of it. While he played with it, it broke apart into several smaller pieces. C held some in the palm of his hand, came over to me, hand outstretched, and said, "Here, Mom, have some weed."

I couldn't even speak, could barely breathe, I was laughing so hard. Then, once I was under control, all I could think was that I hoped no one had heard, because how could I explain that he had no idea what he was saying, and how would I convince someone that he hadn't heard that at home? Thankfully, no one heard. But I will never forget the day my son unwittingly tried to make his first sale...by offering a sample.