5

Happy 5th Birthday Elizabeth!

(Just a wee bit late)

When I started this blog, your oldest brother was not even five. Adam was a few months old. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought of you, and yet, here you are. All five years of you.

Elizabeth. At five years old, you know all your letters, you can count to 100, and you can read some words. You've been writing your extremely long name for over a year now. I know your kindergarten teacher will be impressed with your beautiful handwriting. Which. GAH. Kindergarten? You are so ready for it. I, however, am not. I will sob like the baby you used to be on that day and I know you will rub my back and give me a kiss and ask me if it's okay in that motherly way you have for anyone sad or crying. Maybe you'll be a nurse one day? No, you'll be a princess, don't I know? You'll live at Disney World with all the other princesses and they'll make a movie about you too.

You love your Disney Princesses. Ariel has always been your absolute favorite, although last Christmas we went through an all Belle, all the time phase, but it wasn't long before the finned one was front and center again. Rapunzel is getting a lot of play here recently and you've decided when you get married and have a baby that is what her name will be. I remember I wanted to name my baby Imperial when I was five (after my glow-in-the-dark yo-yo) and since you aren't Imperial, I'll worry about that one when the time comes.

You have a boyfriend. You are five years old and you have a boyfriend. I hope he likes Rapunzel.

You have played with Jesse since you were babies. He bought you a Tinkerbell music box for your birthday and when he went to Disney this year, he bought you an Ariel crown with the money he was given to buy himself something. He says you are beautiful and tells you this often. He is a very smart boy. You are five and you have a boyfriend. I am still trying to wrap my mind around this one.

You have a BFF...

Seriously, ya'll were skipping around school telling everyone you were BFFs. Do you even know what that means? And I can't believe I don't have any better pictures of the two of you. I must do something about that before Sarah goes to her neighborhood school and you don't see her as often.

Your favorite show is Max and Ruby. Your favorite foods are french fries and Panda noodles. Your favorite color is pink, except on the days it is purple, but you will choose yellow flowers, paper, or crayons because it is MY favorite color. You have a closet full of dresses and I didn't realize you didn't have any shorts or pants until we had your first soccer practice and we had to borrow a pair from Adam.

So yeah, you play soccer!

Sorta.

You enjoy dressing up in your "costume" and eating the snacks, and most especially drinking the water you normally won't touch out of the tiny paper cups out of the coach's bright orange push-a-button-to-get-the-water cooler.

You also take dance....

Ballet and tap, although somewhere along the way ballet became jazz and, well, your dad might pass out when he sees that routine at the recital. I am proud of how you've stuck with it all these months when I know you'd rather spend our day off at home. It's almost over and, no, we don't have to do it anymore if you don't want to.

I have felt so much guilt these past two years for taking a job and putting you in school all this time. I still feel like I should have stayed home with you like I did the boys and I feel a little sick knowing I can't get those days back. I will forever wonder if I did the right thing or what we may have missed out on, but you have always loved school. You know where everything is at the school and you are a huge help to me in the mornings getting ready to start MY day. My students wonder every Tuesday morning what Elizabeth picked out for them to play with that week. They like that you peek in the door sometimes and wave at them and I was mighty impressed both years when you knew all their names within the first week. The joke around the teachers right now is that Elizabeth might ask to go to the bathroom while at kindergarten and trot all the way over to the other side of the building to come peek her head into all our rooms just to say hello. They all think they are joking. I fully expect that to happen one day.

You love Adam with your whole heart and he loves you too.

I don't even really think about having playdates with schoolmates because you've always had each other. I hope you always get along as well as you do now. You rarely argue, you like to play the same things, and you're friends. What a wonderful gift you were to him.

You've been a wonderful gift to me, too. I love seeing all the princesses lined up at the table in the morning. I love buying too many sweet little dresses and the shoes to match. I love that you love to sit and have actual conversations with me and you actually listen to what I have to say. I don't even mind sitting on the Polly Pockets that get left in the tub (although, I could do with less of that). With just the boys I always felt a little out of place. I still don't know all the different type of weaponry you need to become a full blown ninja, or for that matter, what an actual ninja really is, was the panda a ninja? You get me and I get you and it's nice to have that.

I still thank God every single day for you. Sometimes I look at you and still can't believe you are here. I love that our pink crayons are no longer always new. I love that our back seat is so very full. I love that I still, for now, have a wee little hand to hold.

I adore you Libby Goose.

Stop growing so fast!

Almost Five

It's been so long since I blogged that my blog has all changed itself. Anyway, on April 19 my brand new baby turned five. FIVE! Surely not. If I knew how to link back to that very day I would, but alas, I do not. I may need someone to come help me figure this out. Once I do, poor Elizabeth will get her very late birthday post. That's what happens when you come last.

Here

Is where we are....

We think Jacob will be attending middle school in our regular school district next year.

We made our choice and were okay with it and now we've started to have some nagging doubts. One day it seems like a great idea and the next day we're sure he'll be killed by fourth period. I had tiny babies. Babies I could dress up and plop in the stroller and waltz around the mall fully made up and gorgeous. I should have known when that didn't work out that the next eleven years wouldn't fare as well.

*sigh*

I know you're all like WTH? Put him the dang free school and forget about it already! And I should, I freely admit, but, man, it's harder than it seems. My kid has problems. HUGE problems. It goes much further than oh, he's got ADHD and some kids tease him sometimes. This kid of mine? He doesn't have friends. Not one. Oh, he'll try to make some but they don't stick around more than a few minutes because they figure out quickly, this kid is weird. He talks to himself. He makes up songs and sings to himself. He believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny and nothing you can say will make him think otherwise. His hair is dirty and his body stinks and his teeth haven't been brushed in at least three months. He writes stories all day long about whatever show, story, Lego, or video game he is into at that moment. He refuses to do his school work. He can't play sports and spends every gym day the target of the others who can. He plays dodge ball when they aren't even playing dodge ball. Shoot, even the coach encourages it. At the CHRISTIAN school that everyone tells me he should stay at because, OMG is it going to get worse where the teachers can't pull the Jesus card all day, because if the Jesus kids are bullying teasing him, wth will the bad kids do?

And what about all those hallways and the eight different teachers and the lockers and the four. flipping. minutes to get to class? I mean, he can't even get his books out of the desk he's sitting in four minutes.

I talked to the special education teacher and principal about a 504 plan and possible special ed services and was pretty much told to shut up already. Even if he shows "symptoms" they wouldn't test him until second semester which means he might get some help by mid seventh grade. Apparently "the middle schools" want to test kids OUT of special ed at this point so everybody can go to high school without a label. I taught special ed. In elementary school. I worked my ass off getting all those needy kids services and then GIVING them services. It was hard. I see now I should've taken a middle school position.

Jacob's teachers (he has two now since he qualifies for the private school equivalent of special ed) stop me at least twice a week to implore to my sense of compassion to please reconsider "throwing him to the wolves". As a teacher can't I see he's not ready for this? Just one more year in a smaller setting learning only four teachers and two hallways and ten whole minutes to maneuver the locker? With a cherry on top? My Gawd Woman! The humanity!

My boss says DO. NOT. CHANGE. YOUR. MIND. HE. WILL. BE. FINE. TRUST. ME. I. HAVE. LIVED. THIS. ALREADY. RICH. KIDS. ARE. MEAN.

I paid his re-enrollment fee in February. I forgot they'd send a letter stating they'd received it. My husband opened it. He was pissed at me for a while. He wouldn't entertain the thought of repeating this conversation.

Until Friday.

Seems he's a little concerned now too, BUT, uh, well, 2 kids + $509/month + 1 kid +$265/month = 1 arm and 1 leg and many beans for dinner.

I am praying like they tell me to do, but so far, just more confusion. And the need for a nighly Unisom just to get some sleep.

I'm still waiting for his to get easier. Anyone know when that will be?

Happy Easter!