Cheating

So we had to go to a wake yesterday. Which meant that I was picking Caitlyn up from school so that we could hurry home, start homework, and then head to the wake. I get there a few minutes early and hang out waiting with a few other parents. I see Caitlyn's class come out, but I don't see Caitlyn. My eyes start searching all over for her, and then I see her standing by the doors of the building. So I think, "Maybe she didn't see me standing here?" So I give her a little wave, then another, and then a third when there is no response. Then I see the look on her face and realize that she is standing with the teacher. So I start to head over to the doors to see what the problem is. I figured maybe she hurt herself or was upset about something. Either way, it was evident that the teacher needed to talk to me.

It would appear that Caitlyn thought it was a good idea to attempt to cheat on her math test. Not a huge test, like on a unit of skills, but on the multiplication test that they take a few days a week. The students have 45 seconds to answer 24 multiplication problems. All of the problems are in the same number family. So each kid could be on a different number depending on what their individual skill level is. Caitlyn is currently on 4's. She has created so much anxiety within herself over this silly little quiz. See, for every family they complete, they get to add a piece to their ice cream sundae on the bulletin board. Caitlyn has a dish, a spoon, and a banana (she has completely 1's, 2's, and 3's). When she completes her 4's, she gets her first of 3 scoops of ice cream.

Needless to say, she is dying to get that scoop and will apparently do ANYTHING it takes to get that scoop. Which includes taking out one of the quizzes from last week and turning it in as yesterday's quiz (she is one of those kids that completes it even when the 45 seconds is up to practice, so she has many completed ones). When the teacher called "time" on the test, she decided to pull out an old one and turn that one in as opposed to the one that she didn't finish.

And she wasn't even slick about it. Got caught immediately after.

And she prompted the student across from her to do the same. And get caught as well.

The teacher immediately pulled them out of the room and made them wait in the hall....ON THE BENCH!!! (There is a bench in the hall for students who are waiting to get a firm talking to.) It was there that Caitlyn began to cry uncontrollably.

So, the punishment from school is that an incident letter is written up and sent to the assistant principal, who acts as the dean and deals with most of the discipline. There is a possibility that she will have to talk to him. And this, I can honestly say, scares the ever living shit out of her! She is terrified of this man, and I have no idea why. I think she is just terrified of what he represents, she just can separate the two yet.

As for the punishment that is to come at home, well we haven't decided on one just yet. She decided that she needed to write a letter of apology to the teacher, which I thought was a good idea. Matt and I are trying to determine what to take away from her for a couple of days. More than likely it will be the TV. Which will torture her I'm sure. Or the Wii. There was also a loooooong discussion about why this isn't the way to go about getting something that you want in school. And I threw the honor roll and good citizenship awards that she has gotten at her. Made sure that she understands these things may not be possible to get if she continues to cheat.

As of this morning, the child was still upset over what she had done and what was going to happen because of it. Hopefully, she will be able to move past this very quickly....and just memorize her damn multiplication facts!!!

Christmas and New Year's in Review

Again, I am terrible at this now. I used to be so good about it, but lately, just don't have it in me to update as frequently as I used to. Anywho....

Christmas was wonderful this year! I will confess that I went absolutely ape shit crazy buying stuff for Caitlyn. She got darn near everything on her list that she wanted. Spoiled? Yes. However, she is an appreciative kid and would love gifts that she hadn't asked for. Not to mention the fact that we only have one kid. So what else are we going to spend our money on right? The most popular gift under the tree in Caitlyn's eyes this year was her iPod. I ordered it for her at least a month before Christmas and had it engraved. My plan was to load all of her music on it (from my iTunes) so that it was ready to go on Christmas. Do we think that really happened? You would be wise to say no, if you know me at all. But I had good intentions, really I did. We also got her the dock with the speakers so that she could use it in her room and use it without having to have ear buds in.

Next exciting gift under the tree was the plethora of America Girl Doll goodies. Thank goodness for cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) otherwise there would have been far fewer AG items under that tree. But they just happened to have most of the stuff that she had circled in the catalog on sale that day. So she was fortunate.

Of course there were tons of pj pants, not sets, pants. Cause she is all about wearing fleecy pj bottoms and oversized t shirts now. Must be an age thing. She got a bunch of clothes from Justice/Limited Too. (The entire store happened to be having a 40% off sale the day I went.) That is the only place that I have been able to find pants and jeans that fit her nicely. They make a super skinny slim that is fantastic! And Caitlyn loves all of the "funky" looks that they have. Personally, the store has far too many 80's fashions floating around for my liking. But the girl likes all of that.

Dad got the Black Hawks jersey that he wanted. We got the Wii Fit Plus for the "family gift" and I got the INstyler. I was so very excited to receive that. That is, until I went to use it for the third time and it refused to turn on. Seems it's not a very sturdy item. And of course, you can't take it back to the store that you purchased it from. You have to contact the company. Needless to say, I haven't done that yet. And I have no desire to do so, but the thought of losing $100 is looking over me. So I will get on that.

New Year's in the land of the Walshes was very low key this year. We didn't feel like getting all gussied up and heading out to some bar. Instead, we stayed home and lounged around with Caitlyn. She was soooooo excited to count down at midnight. Then once it was over, she was sort of confused. I explained to her that as she gets older, ringing in the New Year at midnight only becomes more anti-climactic. No, I didn't really tell her that, although I thought it and believe it to be true.

We are getting dumped on with lots of snow today. Which I love. And I am crossing my fingers, toes, legs, and eyes and anything else that I can get to cross in hopes of a snow day tomorrow. I would love for this to be a 4 day work week. Not that I have anything exciting going on this weekend, but it's the first week back in school after break. And that is always a tough week. So say a prayer, do a snow dance, whatever you have to do to get me a ton of snow here in Chicago folks!

My classes start up again next week. BUT....it is the last two!!! So I am eager to get them started in an effort to get them over. Once those two classes end in March, I have my collaborative project that runs through June. I can't student teach again because I am already certified, so this collaborative project is in place of student teaching. Hopefully that won't be too painful. But I am nearing the end and couldn't be happier!!

next update.....coming soon ;)

Hmmmm

3 1/2 months huh? That might be a record for me. Want to know why I haven't? It's simple really. Facebook. It is much easier to update one or two lines of a status that to write a narrative. Naturally, the downside to this is that you can't be as descriptive as you would like to be. Take Monday night's status for example. It read something to the effect of "taking Tutti out for her first legal drink because she was turning 21 at midnight." What it left out was how bad of an idea this probably was. There are several reasons that this was such a bad idea. The first obviously being that it's a Monday night and I had to work the next day. Additionally, I had to be at a training that was 40 miles away. The status also failed to mention that apparently I planned on getting shit faced! Which led to my not coming home until almost 4 in the morning. Not really good planning on my part, considering I had to leave the house at 7 in the morning.

OK, all that aside, here is an update on the girl. She is amazing! She is growing so stinking fast and getting more mature by the minute. She is now wanting to shop at specific stores and buy specific types of clothes and shoes. By the way, my kid is a boot whore. She wants any and every cute boot known to man! We just had report card pick up and Caitlyn has finally achieved her goal of getting straight A's. she tried so hard for them last year and missed by just a hair. So this year, she was gung ho on getting them. And she did. For her achievements, we went out for dinner and then to the bookstore so she could pick out a few books that she wanted. It may sound like an odd reward to most. However, the kid is a reading machine. I can not keep up with her. At this point she is in fact able to read faster than me. She typically reads about 2 books a week, never less than one. And she is reading books that range between 200-300 pages. It's insanity really. But I won't complain. I have seen her vocabulary explode when she is having conversations with people. I often ask her if she knows what the word she just said even means. And lo and behold she is able to give me a very functional definition. for example, we were talking about something, I can't remember what. And it involved 2 people disagreeing, I think it had something to do with a news story. And she said "That's a schism mom." Now, I am not ashamed to say that I had to just agree with her because I was not 100% sure that the analogy was correct. However, I promptly googled to make sure that it was. When I asked her how she knew that word, she began this long diatribe about how one of the characters in one of the books she read used it to describe something that was going on. It literally took her 5 minutes to tell me how she knew the word because she loves to talk about the characters in the books.

So, she has managed to make it through the Lemony Snicket books, A Series of Unfortunate Events, all 13 of them. And she has read a few random ones in between there as well. While reading them, she tries to tell me all about them and sadly I can't participate in the conversation because I have never read them. What I have decided to do now that she has finished all of them, is that she is going to read Harry Potter. That should slow her down a bit ;) And I can talk to her about them cause I have read them all! So it's a win win situation really.

I am 2 classes and a collaborative project away from being done with my master's program. And the end can't come soon enough. I am so sick of doing homework! While I love being in school and the atmosphere of it, the homework really sucks. Luckily, I was able to register for an online class for next term. Which means that I will only be out of the house one night a week. Works for me.

will try to be more diligent about updating....but I am not making any promises!

You know you haven't blogged in a long time when....

You have completely forgotten your password. And no matter what you try, you can not get into the stupid thing. Obviously, I eventually got the correct one. Only to remember that I changed it at some point for some ridiculous reason. Needless to say, it has now been changed back to one that I know I can remember. That is, provided I log on more frequently than ever 4 months.

So I will make this recap pretty short and sweet.

Caitlyn made her communion, and looked absolutely stunning in her dress. Of course I cried, which means by the time her wedding rolls around and she wears a white dress just as gorgeous I should be a blubbering idiot that they have to physically remove from the church because I am frightening small children.

Dance recital was in May, and the girl was fantastic. She is looking forward to signing up again this year. We're just not sure what she is going to be taking yet though. She is thinking ballet, but that may fall on the same night as girl scouts. And she doesn't want to give that up. So she may end up in Hip Hop again for the first semester and ballet second semester. We'll see.

Once school was over (for both of us) we were in full swing with the birthday parties. She had her friends party at the glow in the dark mini golf place by our house. Everyone had a ton of fun, but I don't think we will be having another party there. I wasn't too impressed with the staff. Then the family party rolled around at our house. There were gifts a plenty.

Once the birthday festivities were over, we moved into vacation at the lake mode. It seemed we were gone for most of July. And when we were at home, my time was spent unpacking, doing laundry, and repacking for the next trip. While on vacation, Cate tubed by herself on her stomach for the first time and absolutely loved it. I am thinking that next summer we are going to have a hard time keeping her off of that thing!

By the time August rolled around, we were trying to spend some time at home chilling out and doing some things locally. Caitlyn also decided to take another trip with my mom to Wisconsin Dells at some point in there. By the time she came back home, it was just about time for me to return to school and for football practice to start up again for Matt.

Which pretty much brings us up to date. I am back in school and football is in full swing, with the season opener today (which we won!!!). In more exciting news, Caitlyn has finally conquered riding a 2 wheeler. Yes, she was late in acquiring this skill. You see, if there is one thing that I have learned about my kid, it is that she will do things when she is damn good and ready to do them and not a moment sooner. I have tried and tried and tried for the last 3 years to get this child to ride a bike without training wheels. Every attempt by me was thwarted by Cate saying "Nope. It's easier with the training wheels on." Yes, I know she is correct, but come on already, just ride the damn bike without the training wheels!! Well, apparently, she was ready to do so this past Monday. She got on the bike, Kelly gave her a push from behind, and off she went. Without any issues. So just like she did 8 years ago when she was born, she will do things at her own pace and there is nothing I can do to make it happen otherwise.

This evening while at my mother's, she was riding her bike and fell. She decided to break her fall with her face, as opposed to her hands and managed to give herself a fat lip and a chipped tooth. Of course it is one of the front teeth, and a permanent one. We should be at the dentist within the next few days. Fun. I suppose I shouldn't complain. She could have broken a bone or something right?

Communion Gear

The girl's big day is this Saturday. And believe it or not, we are actually ready and just waiting for the day to get here. I can't believe it to be true myself as I am never usually this organized. Though it seems that with how busy things are in our lives right now, I have no other choice but to be organized. Funny how that works out. The only thing I have left to do is pick up the dress and veil from the cleaners on Friday where it is being steamed to get all of the wrinkles out.

We found out on Saturday that Caitlyn will also be doing a reading during mass. She is a bit nervous about it, but I know she will do just fine. And I know that once she does it, she will be as proud of herself as Matt and I are of her.

We had our season opener of the fire pit on Friday and the weather could not have been nicer. Though it was a bit windy which made the smoke pretty bad at times. And on occasion would blow some cinders around. But no one burst into flames, so I consider that a success.

We are almost to less than 30 days of school remaining. I can't wait to begin my countdown here in my office. Every year, I find funny pictures on google to represent the number remaining for the day. For example, when there are 12 days left, I can put up a picture of a dozen eggs. So while it sometimes is just a picture of the number that has been made in a creative way, sometimes it is just a representation of the number. It really is fun and people are amazed at the pictures that I can find. So if you have any good ideas for numbers, pass them along to me.

That's about all I've got right now.

I Have Returned

And I am going to try and stay returned. That is, unless life happens to get in the way....again!

Lots going on around our house these days. So I won't go into all of the gory details, rather I will just do a small recap.

1. There was a few weeks in March where we ended up with loads of rain. Lots of that rain somehow ended up in my basement. This has never happened to us before so we just assumed it was the catch basin in the back that needed to be cleaned. That turned out to be fine. However, the pipes under our lawn were not so fine and needed to be replaced. To the tune of $6700. And of course, they don't replace the lawn they damage in the process. Feels like the front porch drama all over again.




2. Caitlyn had her spring concert. It was very cute. They sang a song called Take me Out of the Bathtub to the tune of Take Me Out to the Ballgame. I am going to attempt to put a video up here. So please be patient with me while I demonstrate my lack of technology skills.


3. Matt and I flew to Oregon for Carla's wedding. We had a great time. I forget just how green everything is out there. Just so pretty.

4. I am currently in 2 classes again this term. One of which is Assistive Technology. This is the class that I tried my damnedest to get an exempt from. All to no avail. I could probably teach the class, so I think it's so silly that I have to take it. I don't mind being in the class. But I do mind paying the close to $2000 that it costs to do so. I am also in a research class. This is an online class (which I am not a fan of to begin with) and the research paper is to be completed as a group (another thing which I am not so big on). I am convinced this class is going to completely wipe me out this term. I am am just thanking God that I am taking it now right before summer break. So I will have some good down time after it's over.

5. Work is absolutely insane. I constantly feel like I am behind on everything and can't seem to catch up. No matter how hard I try. I am convinced it is because of the person that I am working with. No matter though. She will be gone at the end of this year. So I just try to keep telling myself that I am almost through it.

6. I managed to pass the Learning Behavior Specialist I test. My paper work is now sitting at ISBE waiting for them to approve everything and include that endorsement on my certificate. Hopefully it will happen soon as I have once again been riffed. Same situation as last year. Only this time, there is light at the end of the tunnel and this process is almost over. At least I hope. If not, I will in fact be a greeter at a Wal**Mart near you. So keep your eyes open for me.

7. Caitlyn is making her communion in 2 weeks on May 2nd! The dress and shoes and tights have been purchased. We are going for the veil/headpiece this weekend, and hopefully the banner will be made by Friday night. We have not yet started the banner, because I am a bad mom. But it will be made by it's due date of Friday.

8. Report cards came out and Caitlyn went from A's to B's in a few subjects. So she is beside herself about this. She can't even tolerate that she got a B. No matter how I try to explain to her that it still means she did incredibly well, this child is bound and determined to get straight A's!

9. Hip Hop is finishing up and we have the recital coming up at the end of May. So we are gearing up and practicing like crazy in the living room.

I think that's about all. I can't even believe how busy we feel these days. There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done that needs to be accomplished. Hopefully once I am done with school, things will settle down some and we can all relax for a bit.

Hmmmmm

I suck. No discussion about it. I just haven't had time to post regardless of all the really cool things that Caitlyn has been doing in the last few weeks. A new post will come soon. I promise.

And PS....Happy Birthday to me :)