My sister - My baby shower

This is a vent.

So my sister is trying to help my SIL plan my baby shower. She's seems adamant about doing so and will take no help from me to even help with food. I could go on about the details but I'll get to the meaty stuff.

April 2004, my sister had her first child, my nephew Kyle. Her best friend and I talked about throwing her a "surprise" shower but never got knee deep into details before she had a tizzy thinking that no one was throwing her a shower b/c neither her or dh had heard anything. I tried telling her that that's what a "surprise" was all about but she wouldn't hear of it and just got pisssy (went as far as calling me liar) and told me to forget it that her husband was going to throw her shower - so he did but not before things got really ugly between us due to her behavior.

Now...

Can you guess?
It's being thrown in my face. Just today I heard how someone should've thrown her a shower blah blah blah... I told her that we tried but she threw a tizzy and she said, "Poor Kyle" (like he missed out on something) "You still could've thrown one." and then "I'm not getting into this..." and logged off of IM without me being able to say another thing.

Why does my family have to be so difficult? I never asked her to offer to help with my shower. I have so much stress in my life right now with the bathroom, Austin etc... and all morning my sister was trying to help relieve my stress when she throws this on my shoulders. I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to do anything for me but she didn't let me.
I can't say that I didn't expect this sooner or later...

31wk sonogram

First of all, everything looked good.

He's still a boy (we saw testicles) and his heart rate was 134.I was exactly 31wks yesterday and he measured 31wks 1d and approximately 3lbs 9ozs. He's also head down.

We got 4 pics and they aren't that great. The sonographer had several great photo opportunities and didn't take any of them. The picture I uploaded to SN, Jack looks like he's going to cry but just a second or two before he looked so peaceful - if she would've only snapped it then... Oh well. He's still cute.

The sonographer was really nice and I think at the end she was trying to get us more pics but I asked if it was ok that I bend my knees b/c my back felt like it was breaking and she said it was fine and asked if I was ok. I was but then a few minutes later I had to ask if I could sit up b/c I can't breathe on my back and it was starting to make me light headed so she ended the sono then... darn it. I know she was doing it for my benefit but I wanted a GOOD pic. Again, oh well.

And one last thing -
Surprise! Surprise! My placenta is anterior which is why I can't feel him so much. As we were watching the screen she said, "Did you see that? He's kicking you." And I said, "I don't feel a thing." She said, "I do." (b/c she was holding the wand).

So stressed out!

I'm ready to curl up and cry.

We are remodeling our bathroom downstairs and we had the wallpaper taken down in the bedroom and the walls painted - this is going to be Austin's new bedroom. However, the contractors are now going on a month since the bathroom has been demo'd and it's still not complete. They told me it would be finished in 7-10 days once the demo was done. The demo was done in a day and now a month later we're still waiting for it to be finished.

This stresses me out b/c I can't do Jack's room until we move Austin into his room. We can't move Austin until the paint and bathroom is finished. I'm going out of my mind worrying that I won't have everything done in time for Jack's arrival. The room & bathroom are a complete and utter mess. I'm going to have to take days off of work when it's finally done to clean and get things in order and to get Austin moved.

Add on top of that, everything that I'm going through with Austin and his teacher and I'm about ready to have a melt down. I really hope that something gets resolved at our parent/teacher conference on Friday. I emailed the teacher today requesting that a guidance councelor or vice-principal be present at the meeting b/c I want to walk away from that meeting with a sense of accomplishment knowing that I'm helping Austin. I don't know where to go from here and I'm not about to take advice from his teacher. I'm afraid I won't have an open mind at the meeting and I need to make that a priority. Please pray for me to have the strength I need to get through this.

On a good note, Bill came home last night. What a relief. With him gone, I felt I was carrying the load alone and I was really getting weighted down.

Also, I get a sonogram tonight and I'm really excited about that. I can't wait to see Jack. I can't wait to see him in 3D! I'll post pics tomorrow!

Flippin' teacher

She strikes again!

First let me point out that they had THREE (3) tests last Thursday - a bit much for 5th graders in my opinion but at least it was all of them and not just Austin...

So I ask him yesterday if he got his tests results back for math and social studies b/c those were the only 2 I knew about and he said, "No, but I got my spelling test back!" I told him I didn't realize he was having his spelling test on Thursday as well and asked his grade (he's a GREAT speller, I have no worries here). He said, "a B+" A little confused I asked him which word he missed and he told me that he missed a couple of the BONUS words.
Here he didn't miss ONE spelling word but at the end of the test she gave them 5 bonus words and he missed 2 of the 5 and ended up getting a B+ - INSTEAD of which, in my opinion, should've been 3 pts towards extra credit.

I'm about ready to explode here!! I'm trying to contact ex or his wife - since Austin was with them last night - so that they can verify that they saw the test with their own eyes and what Austin said is correct before I call the school and raise a stink!

I have an announcement to make:

We have a name for our newest bundle of joy that is set to arrive on 12/13/2006.


Jack Alexander

I'm so glad to finally have settled on this. There's no significance to the name but Jack is derived from John which happens to be my dad's middle name and my FIL's first name so that's cool even though that wasn't the intent/purpose for the name.

I could cry.

Austin brought home a progress report from school, which showed him completely failing EVERYTHING. :(

The teacher did write on there that so far they've only had 2 tests and everything else is homework or in class stuff and there are 4wks left of the grading period so there is time to recover. But I got on Austin for it and told him that I want to proud of him and that his grades are disappointing. He plays it all off but when he came out to do the dishes (Bill was mowing the grass so it was just the two of us) I told him to come here and I just hugged him and he started crying. I didn't even say anything so that broke my heart. Deep down he is stressing about it and every time he gets a bad grade, I tell Bill and then I tell his father and he has to hear about it from every side. :( I told him this morning that I loved him no matter what and that I know he can get good grades, he got ALL A's & B's last year (not ONE C) so I wasn't going to say anything more about it (outside of checking his homework) until I see his report card.

Honestly, I think the grading is a bit unfair. I'd bet a lot kids got progress reports. They grade EVERY single paper done. There's no margin for error. They screw up one paper and it goes against them - for example: one of the papers he brought home the other day was an F, he got 3.5 out of 6 right or something like that and he said that he didn't have time to finish it b/c he went to the bathroom and when he came back, math was over and he had to turn it in... Now, maybe he took a while in the bathroom, who knows, but can't that be expected from time to time - crap! - they are only 5th graders (9 & 10 yr olds)!!! Austin doesn't want to fail nor does mean too. We all know he's smarter than that and I think that things were drastically changed on all the students this year from last year - they GRADE homework! I'm hoping it's just an adjustment period for him and once he gets used to the "new" ways, things will improve.

Remember, he got ALL A's & B's last year - not one C!!!! Now he's failing??????????

I really don't know what to do. Like I said, I'm hoping things will improve.

Teacher conference

I had a parent teacher conference yesterday and I get a strong motherly feeling that Austin's teacher doesn't like him. She didn't say anything nice about him except he was “smart enough to get by" and I'm really peeved by the whole conversation. I was really hard on Austin when we got home but I didn't yell at him. I told him that this was his future and only he can change things. I took his away his game boy and play station privileges until I heard a better report from the teacher.

The teacher was basically saying that Austin is a distraction and she thinks he shows several signs of ADD. Well, I'm not comfortable putting Austin on drugs. I explained to her that he was also the youngest in her class (he always is) and she was quick to say that his behavior would not be acceptable in 4th grade either. Grrrrrr… She also says he's disorganized. Why? She tells me it’s because they sit in groups of 5 and he's the desk on the end - well - the 2 desks in front of him are empty a lot of day and he uses them to put his notebook and papers on and the teacher doesn't like it. I said "he's probably using them b/c he can!" but no, she says he's disorganized.

She said that Austin went around the room asking for a pencil today and no one would give him a pencil. She said when he got ½ way around the room she started listening to him. I said, “Why doesn’t he have any pencils?” She said, “I don’t know.” And then asked him, “Austin, do you have a pencil?” He reached in his bag and pulled out a pencil. She said, “Is that yours?” He said, “Yea.” She said, “Then why were you asking everyone for a pencil today?” And his reply was, “I needed a yellow colored pencil.” She said, “Do you have a yellow crayon?” He looked in his bag and pulled out a yellow crayon, to which she replied, “Well you could’ve used that.” If she was listening so closely earlier than she would’ve known he was asking for a yellow colored pencil and then directed him to use a crayon instead but no, that’s not what happened. She was trying to throw him under the bus in front of me. Basically her story backfired.
She gave me another example of him not handing in his revisions yet for his science paper so again, she asked him about it in front of me. He said that when she came by his desk she told him that he was missing a bunch of stuff so he just decided to do the whole thing over – he even asked her “don’t you remember?” And she, of course, didn’t so he explained again and now she says, “Oh yes, I vaguely remember that now.” Again, she tried throwing my son under the bus in front of me and it backfired.

When I mention advanced classes, they all say absolutely not b/c he's not organized enough or this or that plus there are too many kids in the class already blah blah blah. At the same time, I wouldn't want to put him in an advanced class if he really shouldn't be there... Yet her only grade for him so far was 100%... I told her that she’d be pressed to get any less than an "A" on a spelling test from him.

Plus - every year we get the same complaints from/about Austin - EXCEPT for last year, last year we didn’t get ONE complaint and when his dad went to the parent/teacher conference she praised him - the only difference in last year is that the seats were in rows and all the other years the seating was grouped in 4’s and 5’s. That's when the teacher said to me, "That teacher doesn't complain about anyone." Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr – bitch

I asked her what I could do to help her and she said nothing but then later asked me for suggestions. I suggested she pull his desk back some so he can’t reach the empty desks in front of him and ‘force’ him to be organized and to maybe seat him alone but she didn’t like that idea stating that “those” children are always the ones to end up in the principal’s office later in life and “he’s not that kind of child.”

Bottom line: I don’t like her. She came at me all wrong. Austin is a GREAT kid. He’s the kind of child that I only receive compliments on – no one ever has anything bad to say about him. Last year he got all A's & B's (not one C all year) and he's kind, giving and polite. I just wish that she could’ve added some compliments to all of her negativity, hell, she is talking about my CHILD. Does she not expect me to proctective or defensive? I'm all about recognizing the problem and willing to help but when it seems as though she just doesn't like him (and he adores her) then how can I differeniate the problem through her frustration?