Well, the first week of school has come and gone with only minimal drama. Although, at the time, it seemed like major drama. The twins’ bus was an hour late the first day! An hour late! And no parent got a phone call (this is what really upset me). I had to call them to find out what was going on. It didn’t get any better the second day, either. It was 45 min late. Friday was it’s earliest day (to my knowledge) and it was still 30 minutes late. This is causing a problem for us. Not so much because no one is home, because Brian is home to get them. But the problem it poses is that, by the time they get off the bus, do their homework and eat dinner, it’s bed time for them. On the days I have to work or have class (currently M-T-Th), they have to go to bed when Brian does around 6:30 or 7. So those three days, they get virtually no play time, and certainly no outside play time. And since the twins just learned how to ride their bikes without training wheels, that is the more coveted thing to do during any spare moment of daylight they can squeeze out of the day.

I’m also seeing just how hard the school/work thing is. Not physically, although I am always tired. I can deal with being tired. I did it the first time around, I can do it again. But what really gets to me is Zach crying in the morning, not wanting to go to school because he wants to stay home with me. I am home with them in the mornings and Wed, Fri, Sat (afternoons and evenings) and Sundays, but I guess that’s not enough for him. I really killed me today to wave goodbye and see him waving at me from the buss, tears streaming down his face. I had warned them all, as best I could, that it was going to be tough this year and that they weren’t going to see a lot of me. But I guess they were not prepared for just how much time I’d be away from them. I think I’ll need to spend some one-on-one time with him, and the other 2 as well.

Please pray that we all get through this school year sane! It looks to be a very long one. I know it will all pay off in the end, when I graduate in may and the boys, Brian and I all see the fruits of our labors. But it’s getting to the finish line that’s the battle right now.

It’s back to school day for us, and since I haven’t updated my blog in…um…FOREVER…I thought today would be the perfect day to jump back in. I started back to classes last week. The boys have been both excited and apprehensive about going back. Alex was up a bit before I got up at 6 this morning. He was snuggled up on Brian’s side of the bed and as soon as my alarm went off and I discovered he was there, he excitedly whispered “I can’t believe it’s my first day of first grade! I’m so excited!” His brothers, on the other hand, were not so enthusiastic. Ryan was a bit more cheerful when he discovered one of the boys in our complex, who was in his class last year, has the same teacher this year. Actually, they both (Ryan and his friend) seemed a bit relieved. Zach wasn’t able to find anyone at the bus stop in his class, but he’s guaranteed to have 3 from his class last year, so I know he’ll be ok. Alex has Ryan’s teacher from last year, so he had absolutely no apprehension about going to school today!

As for me, well, I’m still falling into a routine. Today is my late day on campus; I have a class from 6-9 pm. Other than that, I’m faring well. I’m staying ahead of the readings, which is good. I hope I can maintain that for the entire semester. I need to do well this semester and next to solidify my grad school entry. Speaking of readings…I must go do some of that now, before my next class. Since I left my dinner at home today (the coffee pot being dead this morning should have been a sign…I also forgot to brush my teeth!), I must figure out what to do for dinner during my 3 hour break this evening. It will probably consist of eating in the Union, even though it’s super expensive. But at least it leaves me plenty of study time!

The boys are all due for their yearly physicals, so I scheduled the twins for theirs today. Might as well get them done and out of the way early, no? I was amazed to see just how much they’d grown in a year! Zach has gained 8.5 pounds and grown 2.25 inches. Not super growth in terms of height, but I was shocked at how much weight he’d gained. He still looks lean and lanky and he’s still bony (lol), but the doc said he’d progressed fine in terms of height vs weight. He’s still on the short side for his age, only between the 25th and 50th percentile (closer to the 25 end, though). He’s 55 pounds and exactly 4 feet tall

Ryan, on the other hand, has gained a whopping 11.5 pounds and grown 3.25 inches in the last year. I was much more impressed with his gains. I knew he had grown quite a bit taller, but I had no idea he had gained so much weight! He’s much better than Zach in percentile ranges, being in the 65th for weight and in the 48th for height. He’s 61.5 pounds and 4 feet 2 inches tall. If he keeps growing at this rate, he’ll be as tall as me at age 11 (I’m only 5 feet 1/2 inch tall)!

I’m glad they seems to be *finally* catching up with their same aged peers. Admittedly, I think it’s taken longer than most preemies. Maybe it’s because they were micro-preemies? I dunno. At any rate, seeing them against their classmates, they seem to be right in the middle.

They also appear to be starting to get sweat glands under their arms. We were worried about this, but the doctor said it can start around age 7. It’s intermittent, as it’s supposed to be. She said as long as they weren’t showing signs of early puberty, they’d be ok. So far, they are still prepubescent. That put our minds at ease. They were also due for a chicken pox booster. Zach didn’t even flinch! Ryan yelled “OUCH!” and then looked at me and said “Wait, that’s it? It didn’t even hurt!” I think the ouch was a bit premature, lol, and much more for show than actual feeling!

Now they are officially ready for third grade. 2 down, one to go. And he’ll be taken care of in 2 weeks

I belong to an online twins site. One of our forums is entitled :Here in Holland.” It’s a forum for those of us who have children with special needs of any sort. I always perused the forum to see what was going on with my TCO friends who frequent the forum.

As of Tuesday, I am officially a part of that forum. We had Ryan’s official IEP meeting on Tuesday. He’s been getting both speech and what they call special services. The special services he has been receiving is simply a special education teacher coming in 3-4 times a week to help teach him strategies to cope with certain situations that may arise. She also tries to help him stay organized. They have been pulling back the services from the special ed teacher in an effort to see if he can function without her in the classroom. The goal is to arm him with the tools he needs (things like check lists, which he does great with!) and see how he does implementing them on his own. So far so good. If he can function with these tools and no support, he won’t need that support over at the elementary school next year. If we find, in the next couple of months that he needs the services again, they will be put into his IEP in May. Right now, though, he’s been classified as a student with a speech and language impairment. There were several times during the meeting that I wanted to break into tears. Not because anything bad was said, but because they had such praise for Ryan and the progress he’s made since they did his intake eval last Jan. It was so heartwarming to hear all the wonderful things they had to say about him (Zach, too!) and about us. I honestly can not thank any of those people enough for what they have done for him. It has been a difference we’ve seen here at home, too, not just in school.

Our next meeting will be in May, over at the elementary school. That way, his teacher, speech therapist, etc can meet with the incoming people who will take over. I think, at that point, I’m going to ask for those special service to help him in his transition. He is very apprehensive about leaving his teacher and his classmates, all of whom he’s been with since we moved here last January. I’ve been trying to hype up how great 3rd grade will be: they get their own lockers, he’ll make new friends (he’s good at making friends), etc. He’s just such a creature of habit, and thrives on routine, and doesn’t like change that I can see how he’d be a bit scared.

I wanted to share a poem with you all.

Welcome To Holland
By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability-
to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience,
to understand it,
to imagine how it would feel.
It’s like this….

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip-
to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans..
The Coliseum.
The Michelangelo David.
The gondolas in Venice.
You may learn some handy phrases in Italian.
It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off
you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says,
“Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease.
It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around… and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills…and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy…and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was suppose to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things …
about Holland.

I am a pack rat. There, I said it. I have things saved that I’ve never used, but refuse to throw out because I’m afraid that as soon as I do, I’ll have a need for it and then won’t have it. I have a huge Rubbermaid bin full of boxes that I have saved from presents over the years (the kind of boxes you wrap clothes in, mostly). I have another slightly smaller one with gift bags. I have yet another smaller one full of tissue paper, ribbons, bows, tags, etc. I save them all. I haven’t had to buy a gift bag or box in years! DH rolls his eyes when I start folding up the tissue paper to save, but I haven’t had to buy any of that in years, either!

Alex brought home an art project to do with the family. It was a heart that needed to be decorated. One of my favorite things to do in elementary school was to do tissue paper art. I instantly thought of that when he handed it to me and knew that’s what we’d have to do. What’s more, I knew I had the exact colors of tissue paper needed for the project! See, sometimes it pays to be a pack rat! Here’s the project, in steps:

My second day on campus and I was barely out of my van when I was approached to help find a couple of buildings by two separate people. One was easy to help. She was carrying a map (but was having a hard time deciphering it, I guess) and I pointed her across the street to the building she was looking for. The other had an address for the road we were on. That, I could not help with. Give me a building number (or it’s name, for that matter) and a map and I can point you in the right direction. Addresses, not so much. I hope she finds her building, though.

Now I sit here and wait…my first class of the day starts in 30 minutes. Until then, I guess I’ll surf. It should be a fun class though. It’s Campaigns and Elections, which should rock this semester. I guess I picked a pretty good semester to take this course, huh? I’ll update y’all about it when I get home tonight. It’s my late day today. This class is a power hour (an hour and a half) and then I head to International Relations (blech!). Catch ya on the flip side.

I’ve only had 2 of my 4 classes so far (the other 2 come tomorrow) but I can tell it’s going to be an interesting year. . My first class today could be interesting if the prof is able to entertain us, lol. It’s European Integration…basically it’s all about the E.U. He admitted the book is technical and dry, but promises to make the class fun. Although, he did tell us that he has a cure for our insomnia, should we develop it…his dissertation. I found that extremely funny. It’s a small class, so that should help.

My second class was Political Parties and Interest Groups. This will be a fun class, I think. There is a good mix of political views in the class which I think will help. It doesn’t seem to be one-sided at all. But the fun thing is that, in lieu of a term paper, we have to keep a blog. Well, that’s pretty easy for me since I already have one. So, expect to see more political entries for the duration of the year. The first half of the semester we’ll be talking about political parties in general. The second half we’ll be talking about interest groups and how they work with/against political parties. I really am looking forward to this class. It’s also a smaller class, only about 20 or so students, which I think will make it nice for discussions. My prof is very nice and also happens to be my advisor!

Hopefully tomorrow’s classes will be just as good. I have a “power hour” as my first class tomorrow, from 1:15 to 2:45. Yuck. I have a feeling it will be a huge lecture class. Not my favorite kind of class, but whaddaya gonna do?

And now it’s time to get the boys dinner. I’ll be back tomorrow to let y’all know how those classes go.

The first day of my re-entry to college is upon me and I have to admit that I’m scared to death! Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m uber excited. But being out-of-the-loop for 7 years and jumping back in is scary…at least for me. Maybe I won’t feel as out of place once I get on campus and in class. After all, there are 800 transfer students this year. 800! And, from the looks of the small group that gathered Friday afternoon for the “mandatory” transfer student meeting (that, in retrospect, probably wasn’t mandatory after all), I’m not the only non-traditional student. Lots of them are transfers from community colleges, but lots are like me, with families and jobs, etc.

While I had fun the first time around, I anticipate this time around to be a bit better for me. At least grade wise. I didn’t have a horrible GPA last time around, but it wasn’t stellar. I’m confident it’ll be better this time around. Even with taking on a part-time job. I have a better appreciation for it this time. It helps that I’m paying for it all this time around rather than splitting it three ways with my parents.

Anyway, wish me luck! I’ll probably need it

I have had a busy 2 weeks and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. A week and a half ago, my grandmother passed away and I had to make my second trip to Indiana in a month for her viewing and funeral. It was a tough time for the family, especially my dad, uncle and aunt. Thankfully, she left this world peacefully and is now blissfully roaming around the gardens of heaven with my grandfather. I returned home on Tuesday and have been trying to recoup ever since.

School starts (for me) in a week and I have mandatory transfer student activities to take part in next weekend on campus. We have finally received the boys’ school supply lists and bought Alex’s new backpack. He is so excited about that backpack. He picked out an Optimus Prime bag that he proudly wore through WalMart and then out to the van. He’s so excited to go to school. I, on the other hand, cried upon reading all about his kindy placement, etc (which we also got in the mail yesterday along with supply lists). I am going to be a basket case on his first day of school! I will be trying hard not to let him see me cry that day, though. I don’t want him to think that going to school is a bad thing. It’s not, of course. It’s just hard for me to let go of my baby, that’s all.

Needless to say, I have a lot going on this next week with preparing for my classes in a week and preparing for the boys to start school in 2 weeks. Part of me is glad to be starting back to school but part of me is sad that the summer is practically gone. It really seems as though we had very little summer at all this year, with the boys getting out at the end of June. It seems it’s been run, run, run ever since.

I know some others are getting ready to start school this week. Have you finished your school shopping? Are you ready for school to start? If you’re sending your child of to school for the first time, how are you feeling about that?

Ms. K told me two cute stories today when I dropped the twins off at school. Yesterday, on their way back from lunch, Mayor Sinnot passed them in the hall. She stopped the class and asked them if they knew who that was. None of them did. She then gave them a hint and said it’s someone famous and importnat to Erie. Still no takers. SO she told them it was the Mayor of Erie. Then she asked if anyone knew his name. None of them said anything, and then one little boy raised his hand and said “I know! I know! It’s Tom Divecchio!” (For those not from here, Tom Divecchio is our morning meteorologist at dh’s station)

Then she told me that there are 2 little boys in their class that just love them. They say Ryan & Zach are their best friends. Ryan and Zach talk about these 2 little boys all the time. So, the mother of one of these little boys told Ms. K that she has such a hard time getting him dressed for school in the morning because he just HAS to watch the weather to see “Ryan and Zach’s daddy” before he goes to school (He’s in luck, this week, since Brian is filling in for Tom D). I thought that was so sweet! You’ve gotta love the innocence of a 5 year old!