Sugar Snow and the Forgetful Tooth Fairy

I have been reading from the "My First Little House Books" for the last month to my children at bedtime. I wanted to introduce them to Little House on the Prairie and the main books were still too much for them. These books were full of brilliant illustrations and really engaged my children. I didn't know how much until I read the book titled "Sugar Snow". P focused right on that book and had me read it over an over again.

The book was about making maple syrup from sap. Immediately P wanted to tap the maple tree in our backyard and make our own syrup. To get him off that track I started looking for places near us to go and see how it was done. Serendipity was with me and one of the moms in my mommy group posted about the Maple Weekend at the end of the month. It took some time and help from friends but I managed to find a maple farm relatively close to us.

This weekend was the when we decided to go, the morning started out a bit rocky though. Worse it was my fault. P lost a tooth yesterday and was so excited about the imminent Tooth Fairy visit. He put his tooth under his pillow and went to sleep with dreams of money in his head. He woke up from a bad dream and came into my room, he brought the tooth with him and put it under my pillow. I went to sleep and so did he, I never, opps I mean the tooth fairy never came.

He woke up and eagerly reached under his pillow expecting a dollar, he found his tooth still in the box he put it in. He sadly woke me up and had such a sad face and voice. "Mommy, why didn't the Tooth Fairy take my tooth. He was in tears. I asked if he checked in his room, and he ran into his room to check. I quickly put the money under the pillow hoping that if I tucked it in the corner maybe I could fix it.

He came back in my room so sad. I felt like the worse mommy ever. How could I forget to make the switch? I had completely blown it, I forgot about the missing tooth and broke my son's heart. I asked him to show me how he looked under the pillow and he showed me, but he didn't see the now present money under the pillow. I had to direct him to it. Now I had to think of a reason to explain why he still had the tooth. That actually wasn't even a concern for him after he was the dollar I had just hidden there.

He came up with several theory's about why he still had the tooth. I loved hearing him tell us all about it. The one he has latched onto is she forgot it and will back tonight get it and will of course leave him some more money. I think that might just happen, An extra dollar from the Tooth Fairy seems like a fair price to pay for being such a forgetful mommy.

So the morning was not the best start. Then the day didn't get much better. I couldn't find our camera, so I had to borrow my mom's camera. The directions I wrote down to get to the maple farm were wrong and we drove around for such a long time. Worse we were heading the right way by accident and I said we should turn around because my directions said something different. Finally we sucked it up and called the farm for directions.


We managed to get there before they shut down for the day. We met a turkey, and the kids got to pet him. They were surprised at how soft the feathers were. His head was a wrinkly and we touched it expecting it to be rough and cold, instead his head was soft and warm. Funny how you expect one thing from visual cues and prior knowledge and then it is so different from what you expect. I touched that poor turkeys head several times because it was so very different from what I expected. P too was fascinated by the turkey, B however was afraid of it. I can understand that too. It was a big bird, and when he fluffed up his feather's he looked even bigger.

We took a tractor ride to see where they tapped the trees. I was expecting buckets and found out they use tubing conencted to many trees and the sap flows into large containers. This tubing can stay in place for ten years, they just hve to change where they tap the tree every year. We heard about how the weather has to be cold at night and not too warm during the day. This was also discussed in the book P kept having me read over and over again. He even told the tractor driver all about the book.



Now B loved the furry animals. She pet the bunnies, guinea pigs, llamas and of course the pony. She didn't want to ride the pony and we didn't make he, but she sure loved to pet that pony. She would have brought the pony home with us had we let her.

So even with a rocky start I think the day ended up pretty good. P went right to bed as soon as we came home. That never happens. Usually he is in my room at least ten times trying to stay up as long as he can.

The Three Little Pigs

Last week my son was in a school play. He had joined an after school theater program. He was so excited when he came home from the first meeting. My son proudly announced to me that he was going to be in a school play in front of the whole school. Practice was once a week and finally one day a script came home.  P was playing Little Pig 1 in the Three Little Pigs.

The play was a bit different than the Three Little Pig story most of us know. The Big Bad Wolf in this story was trying to bake his grandma a cake and ran out of eggs. He went to the Little Pig's houses to borrow eggs. So basically it was a big misunderstanding. P's character was a little on the lazy side, and just built his house out of sticks to save time. Hmmm.

P and I practiced his lines every night. He knew them with no problems. I could feed him a line from anywhere in the play and he could recite his line from memory. I couldn't wait to see the play. I knew he would perform wonderfully. The day was getting closer and sadly I had a conflict.

I was asked to start observing in a classroom on the same morning as the play. I knew it would be bad form to call off for the first morning, even if it was to see my son perform in a play. I had to miss it. Luckily all his grandparents, Daddy and B went to the first performance and P was wonderful I hear.

All the characters read from the scripts, I was a little disappointed when I saw that. Why had we practiced for so long if they were going to use their scripts. In my heart I knew P didn't need it, even if he used it. I heard from multiple sources that P was loud enough for the audience to hear him with no problems. This made his grandparents very proud.

After the play he had a chance to mingle with the audience and he was thrilled to have so many family members there. My father shook his hand and told him that he was a wonderful actor.


It broke my heart that I couldn't be there to watch my son on stage. I am so proud of him.

Farewell My Friend

Saturday, January 31, 2010, a man I worked with for ten years and have been a friend of his it feels like forever passed away. In 2009 he was diagnosed with brain cancer and I think we all knew this day was coming. He was the director of the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium at Buffalo State College and by far has been my favorite boss in all my jobs.

I sit down and think about all we have gone through. We went to Florida to view Halley's Comet, or as I called it Halley's Fuzzy Cotton Ball. I still remember his ray gun that he kept in his office desk drawer. I wonder how many times I was "shot" by that gun.

His favorite planetarium shows to do in my memory were the pre-school shows. He loved the children and had a great connection with them. He had a box of puppets that he used for this age group. If I recall there was a dog (for Canis Major) and a Bear (Big and Little Bear) but there was third one too. I can't remember what the third puppet was. I wonder if the puppets still are in that brown cardboard box tucked away behind the ring of seats that circled the room?

He and I worked on many special projects together. We were downtown one year for an Imagination Celebration. We had star-wheels that the children could assemble when they stopped at our table. It was a hot sunny day and we had so much fun working with the children and helping them build their own star-wheel so they could go home and identify the stars and constellations in the sky.

I truly believe it was through working with Art at the planetarium that I found my passion of working with children. He and I both loved to work one on one with the children who visited the planetarium and we would often volunteer to go out in the public to bring the love and joy of astronomy to them.

Art was there when I started my journey of teaching. I wish he could have seen me get my teaching degree. The last time I saw him he wrote me a wonderful letter of recommendation for my Masters of Elementary Education program. He was trilled that I had decided to go back to school and get my masters degree. He knew that working with children was my passion and he helped me get that acceptance letter last summer.

Farewell my friend. I thank you for all you have done for me over the past 25 years. I will think of you often as I teach and bring joy to faces of children in a planetarium. It is because of you that I am who I am today.

Its About Me

So what do you do when your worse suspicions come true? Those two to three hour mystery drives start to make sense. Mysterious out of the blue shaving before a trip to the grocery store is seen in a different light. The denials that anything happened still ring in my ear and the garbage that this is my fault is thrown back in the face of the man who uttered them.

This last year has been a whirlwind of destruction for me. I have worked to rebuild this crumbling marriage. I brushed the suspicions aside and accepted his differences and worked on my anger issues. I allowed him to be who he is and started reinventing myself. I am the only one who I can make change. It only took two years of courtship and twelve years of marriage to accept that.

All I ask for in return from him is a little romance. I want to be swept off my feet again. But then I see him falling asleep on the couch and eternally watching the hockey game, thanks to the NHL channel he can watch hockey 24/7 now. There is no summer free of hockey for me anymore.

He now is obsessed with curling. I know, curling!!! He had a countdown on facebook for weeks announcing when he was going to curl for the first time. The only time I am mentioned by him on facebook it is because I prompted him to do so. I see the passion in his eyes for curling, and am jealous.

I stood up to him after the spitting and hitting and let him come, granted not back into my bed. That was the only thing I could control. So I took it away, until I felt like a wife again. I am still waiting to feel like that.

I took months for me to start to trust him and love him again. Then just when I thinks things are going well he betrays me by reaching out to other. People he doesn't even know, that is the worse part. He said since I cut him off that he had to go to other people.

He swears he stopped and he even said he was sorry, which he never does. That is one of the things we argue about. He just never things he is wrong so he feels since he doesn't think he is wrong that he doesn't need to apologize. He said he was sorry.

I can't afford to leave him right now. So I decided to stay, finish my degree and when I get a job I can reevaluate how we are then. My gut says leave, take the kids and never turn back. My brain tells me I can't support myself, let alone two children on my own. What he makes barley covers our expenses now. How can it support two households?

So I stay. I spend most of my time in a different room than he is in. We watch two different televisions. We have no common interests anymore. Did we ever I find myself thinking?

I am selfish, I want to have what we had long ago. I want him to with no warning in the super market to hug me an announce he loves me for no reason. I want to get lost in his eyes again. I want to feel the flutter in my heart again. I want to feel loved. Yes this about me, it is about my feelings and its about who I am today.

Why is there play-dough on my kitchen ceiling?

My life may be in turmoil but my children always manage to ground me. I don't know when it happened? All I know is last night before I left for a much needed night out with friends there was no play-dough on my ceiling. I was out most of today too. Tonight after the kids went to bed I went into the kitchen to make a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and something made me look up. On my ceiling is a pancake flat disk of mostly red play-dough.

I am always telling them to make sure they keep the play-dough away from the carpets but I think this is a bit extreme. I have to admit it made me chuckle. Maybe it was a good thing both were sleeping soundly and looked so darling in their beds. Technically I never said no play-dough on the ceilings. With my luck P will mention this too me, and he would be right.

Now you may be wondering where the offending clump of play-dough is now? Well, it is still there on my ceiling. The evidence is waiting for the sleeping not so innocents to awaken and be confronted by a mommy who no doubt will be struggling to keep a straight face.

I love my children, I love my children I love my children...

Emotionally Numb

Its back to school time and of course that is a change in routine. One week off of school is all it takes I guess. Oh the tears my son shed today made me want to cry. Of course it doesn't help when you are dealing with marriage issues too. It was a rough day for me too. How do I handle all of this? I can't take time to deal with the betrayal when one of my babies is having such a bad day.

I admit that after my daughter went back to school today I went back to bed. I have had such a hard time sleeping the last few nights. No children were home so I had time to mope.

D has been very attentive to me the last few days. He even bought me a gift. It was just something from the dollar tree, but he never buys me gifts. Oh it is not making up for what he did. He will be on his best behavior for the next few weeks, but I know he will return back to super clod.

And so here I am, once again facing the end of my marriage and I am scared. Every time he is out of the house for a long time I wonder what is he really doing. And he goes out a lot. He also takes his time when he is out. Hours can go by. I was suspicious before because he would be gone for so long and have stupid reasons for being gone for so long.

I think the worse part of this is I am really not as upset as I feel I should be. Even when I confronted him I was not yelling at him. I feel strangely calm about what happened. I am so tired of being the one working to get our marriage back on track. I am tired giving suggestions to help our marriage only to be ignored. I am tired of getting into fights because we are having trouble just talking with each other. I am just plain tired.

And so here I am, once again facing the end of my marriage and I am scared. I was prepared to leave if I had to after I graduated. I never dreamed I would be facing this choice with a year left of school. I never dreamed I would be in this situation. I feel betrayed and am emotionally numb.

What Do I Do Now?

How many months have I been writing here? How many months have I been trying to fix this mess I call a marriage? We have been sleeping apart for months. The fighting has pretty much stopped. But he can't do the one thing I need. I want romance again. I want him to reach out to me so I don't feel so alone. Put me first once in a while.

His face lights up when he sees a hockey game on TV. I can't even get a hello when I come home. I was just starting to think we could fix us. We had a nice Christmas, though again no gift from him. I am used to that though. He will buy the kids the stupidest toys but never anything for me. Okay I guess that one still bothers me a lot. Anyway we have been getting better and We have had a few nice evenings on the couch together.

Then tonight I find out that he has been trying to get together with other women. Thanks to a good friend I now know the truth. She sent me an email that he wrote. I called him and read him the evidence. He couldn't deny it. He tried to pin it on me by saying we hadn't been together for so long that he couldn't wait any more.

Seriously. Instead of reaching out to another woman why couldn't you just do what I asked and reach out to me. It was all I asked. All I needed to connect with him again. Now I have to deal with this.

If I believe him he has not actually hooked up with any of his contacts. I told him I need to think and he was on a short leash now. There was no excuse for this. I don't trust him. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to me.

So what do I do now? It is so easy to say leave him. That is my first instinct. How do I do that with two kids while I am school? In one year when I have my degree maybe it will be easier to leave?

Needless to say he will still be on the couch and I will still be alone.

A Day of Aggrevation

What a day, my daughter turned five today. I have been looking so forward to this day. I had her gift picked out for weeks now. She has been so cute counting the days until her birthday. She knows it is after Christmas. She was exited about Christmas, but her birthday was really what she was looking forward to. As a friend has said, she is a whole hand old now.

I ran out of my depression meds the day before Christmas. I thought I had more but I was wrong. I called my doctor to get more but he never called me back. I am not happy about him letting me be off meds for any length of time. When I am off my meds everything can irritate me. I get dizzy and my temper flares. I hate myself when I am off my meds. I can't stop being a mom because I am moody. So I just keep going.

Today was the day I snapped being off my meds. The day started bad, De let me sleep in, but he went to the store to order B's cake. He left the kids home with me sleeping. I woke up to find the kids playing in the living room with no supervision. That really got me upset. When he got home he acted like it was no big deal, after all I was home. How do I get him to understand that if I am sleeping I cannot supervise the children? This has happened before and he still thinks it is no big deal.

We went out to lunch, B wanted chinese food. We got all the way to the buffet, and it was closed. So we went to the Original Pancake house. What a disaster that turned out to be. We are seated and given two menus, there are four of us. I see there is one kids item on the menu. So since we didn't have any other kids menu assumed that was the only selection. We order and the waitress finally takes my drink order. She took P's first. Came back and took B's. Then came back and took D's. Before I could tell her what I wanted she was gone again. How irritating.

So we finally order and the kids are getting restless. I recall they mentioned crayons wen we walked in and none were brought to us. I asked for them again hoping they would occupy the kids. Well, crayons, coloring pages and KIDS MENUES were brought to us. It turns out they had a pretty nice selection including chocolate chip pancakes. Now the kids want chocolate chip pancakes. I am ready to blow because we got the kids menus AFTER we ordered.

The waitress is nowhere to be seen, another waitress asks me if everything is okay, she obviously heard me complaining. She got the manager involved. Well, here is the best part. When our waitress finally reappears she tells me it was a miscommunication. How can it be a miscommunication? If you see kids at the table, bring kids menus. It seems pretty simple to me.

So, I am off my meds and irritated so I am doing all I can to not snap. If I do I know it will be bad. My hubby knows I off my meds. Does he try to make me feel better? Nope, he actually is irritated at me. I am over reacting and have no reason to be upset.

I need to calm down so I ask to stop at a store. No problem he says. On the highway I remind him I want to stop at the store. When we exit I remind him again. He still forgot to stop. In the store while I am checking out I ask hi to put the cart away for me. He was right next to where the carts are and he rolls his eyes and seriously asks me why can't I do it. More often then not if I ask him to do something for me that is the response I get. Then he walks out of the store with the kids while I am still in line.

Everything seems small and petty but everything is also magnified because I am off my meds (my fault I know). I am so mad, mad enough to walk home. I didn't because it was raining. So I go in another store alone just so I have a chance to calm down so I don't flip out in front of the kids. That helped.

We get home and I finally have my refill, now we find out that Dennis' medical insurance doesn't cover my meds unless I meet a $3000.00 deductible. I am freaking out now. I know the plan changes in January and I know the prescription coverage is much better next year. I have six days before that plans kicks in. How am I going to make it? I have reached my breaking point and I snap. He got mad at me. I was yelling for no reason and was being unreasonable he said. He should try being off these meds for two days and have the same symptoms I was having. He would snap too, earlier too I think.

Luckily my pharmacy let me buy a weeks worth of meds, it came to almost $35.00. Thankfully I was given a gift card for Walgreens yesterday. It paid for most of the meds.

It is B's birthday and I am acting horrible and now am snapping at everything. I feel like a horrible mommy and wife. What is worse is I know what is next? When I get this upset, when I snap like this it drains me to the point that I just crash. I get emotionally and physically exhausted and will end up falling asleep.

I tried to stay awake, but after I finally took my meds I did fall asleep and missed the birthday cake. I did get to give her the gift I picked out at least. D didn't know where it was. I ended up sleeping for almost four hours and when I woke up I was feeling better. B told me she had a nice birthday anyway and she loved the present I gave her the best.

Oh, where is D now? Well, a friend called and he went out. This happens every weekend. He works nights all week and when he finally is home on the weekend he goes out, leaving me home and lonely again. I keep trying to reconnect with me, but it is hard when he is never home when we have alone time.

The Case of the Missing Word Ring

One of the things my son's reading teacher does for him is to make a new word card ring. It is basically cards with a hole punched in them on a ring. Each card has a new word on it. He lost it about a month ago and the reading teacher just hadn't gotten around to making a new one. We had some new cards with a hole punched in them, just no ring to add them to. We go over these new words and no mention of the missing ring has taken place.

I don't know if the teacher mentioned something about it today or what made my son focus on the missing cards. All I know is one page into reading, maybe he saw a word that was on the cards, he focused on his ring being missing and was determined to find it. When I saw determined I mean so focused that any attempt to get him back on track was meant with so much resistance and was causing him to panic.

To make it even more chaotic Daddy called home to wish the kids good night. Of course my son was in tears explaining to daddy how he was missing the ring (remember it has been missing for at least a month) and he had to find it. Tears are rolling down my sons face and his voice is cracking from all the crying. He really was very upset about his ring being missing and no matter what we said or did nothing was making it better.

No, my son looks in one more spot, he finds the ring under my bed. This is a scary spot to look. I make no claims to being a neat and tidy mom. Under my bed is not a place I clean up often. I can't really recall when I did it last. Obviously it is due to be cleaned again. But somehow my son reached under the bed at the perfect spot. He found his precious ring and we all were happier than I ever thought we could be about finding a ring with about 10 words hooked onto it.

You would think this is the end of the story and everything was fine then, but unfortunately my tale does not end here. We opened up that ring to put the new cards on and the hole to put them on the ring was punched in the wrong corner. I may not be the best housekeeper but my son and I have to have things line up the same way.

We both were trying to figure out how to put these cards on so the words would all go in the same direction. Finally we had to but the new set of cards on backwards and I must admit that is bothering me more than it should right now. I want to get a hole punch and cards and redo the new cards so they will face the same direction as the other cards. He too was troubled by the cards facing different directions, though I have to say he is handling it much better than I am.

So the case of the missing word ring was solved today. I have no idea why it had to be found today, nor how exactly he did find it. We both are calm and he is supposed to be going to bed. He won't let go of the ring so I hope we don't have to search for it again in the morning. Sweet dreams my love, hold tight to that ring.

My Children Are Giving Back

Today I found out that the SPCA is always looking for donations of stuffed animals. Finally I can encourage the kids to part with some of their stuffed animals and they don't have to be tossed. I was thrilled. The kids stuffies are loved beyond the give away to another boy or girl. I just hated the idea of throwing away all those memories.

I still remember when they got many of these stuffies. I remember how they wouldn't let them go when they were new. The images of sleeping faces with a smile on them while they clung tightly onto their new friends. Oh how they love these stuffed animals.

Even now, sometimes years after they received these wonderful friends they still are overly attached. Many of them are battered and torn. Some are dirtier than I like, even after several washings. I have suggested we go through the piles of stuffies to make room for new fluffy friends and have always been shut down by sad faces and sometimes tears rolling down cheeks.

Each one had some stuffies that no matter how battered they were they just couldn't give away. P saved one from going into the bag because he had "baby memories" of it. B had many that went in the save pile. She is so attached to them that I thought she would never give any away.

So today I talked to them about the SPCA. We go there often to visit with the pets. In the summer we go to the petting farm and we learn about all the different animals they have there. We watch Animal Cops on TV and see all the important work that the SPCA does. It is a charity that my kids can understand and now they can help too.

Well, no sooner had I told them about how they need stuffed animals for the animals looking for a home. First P ran to the kitchen and pulled out a garbage bag from were we keep them. Then B started gathering stuffies. Together they picked almost two full garbage bags of their precious stuffies to give to the SPCA. They talked about how the dogs and cats will be so happy when they get the stuffies. They were having so much fun and I was so proud of them.

So, tomorrow when they get home from school we are taking the bags to the SPCA and hopefully I can encourage them to find some more to join them. It is how my kids are giving back.