The Phone Call from School

There is nothing worse than getting a phone call from your child's school nurse in the middle of the day. Nothing. At all.

I was driving home around 3ish when my phone signaled that I had a voice mail. I figured I just didn't hear it ring because I listen to my music in the car quite loud. It's my downtime, my escape if you will. When I called for the message, the time stamp on it was from 10:08 this morning. I was quite confused.

It was the school nurse. She began the message with:

"Hi Mrs. Walsh, this is Mrs. XXX, the school nurse from Dever. I don't want to alarm you, and Caitlyn is ok."

Thank God she said that at the beginning of the message otherwise there might have been a car accident. She went on to say that Caitlyn had tripped on the stairs and her top tooth on the left side went through her bottom lip.

I'll wait for a second while you cringe.

Apparently, she fell, hit her mouth, her top tooth went through the top part of her bottom lip and caused quite a bit of blood. In the message she said they were "able to finally stop the bleeding" and Caitlyn was going back to class with an ice pack and that she was fine. She also said I could call if I wanted to check on her. Oh, and that she had a little bit of a fat lip.

Immediately (after knowing she was fine) I thought:

"These people are going to think that I don't even care enough to call back when they tell me that my child has had a pretty significant accident at school!"

So I called the school. Because damn it I will NOT be that mom. I explained that I was just now getting the message and apologized profusely about it. I was assured that Caitlyn was fine. However, I needed to have a form filled out by her doctor. I was a little confused, but agreed.

When I picked Caitlyn up from my mom's house I couldn't believe how swollen her lip was. And the hole people! There is a hole in her lip from where her tooth pierced it.

I can wait again if you need to cringe.

The form that needs to be filled out is basically a form that says she is not restricted from any physical activity at school. In a round about way, I think it is releasing them from any liability of anything that happens as a result of this.

I made an appointment for Saturday and now I am really glad that I did. She is complaining that her hand is hurting her and it is "weak" when she picks things up. Her knuckle is a little discolored and swollen so I want the doctor to look at it just to confirm that it is fine.

And the kicker of it all.....the tooth that managed to cause all of this is that damn extra tooth that she has in her mouth. Not sure if I ever mentioned it before, but for 4 years she had a gap in between her front tooth and the one next to it. The dentist has said that he believes it is probably because the vent sat on that spot on her gum causing a space, which in turn made room for a tooth. Something along those lines. He also told me that he has NEVER seen it take 4 years for a bay tooth to grow out. Well, he needs to understand that all the rules are broken when he is dealing with my kid. And now that tooth is loose.

Hopefully there is nothing wrong with her hand and she can get over the trauma of all the blood that was everywhere.

For your viewing pleasure:

100th Day of School

Tomorrow is Caitlyn's 100th day of school. I'm not exactly sure when this little tradition started in schools. I don't remember ever "celebrating" it when I was in school. I only heard about when I graduated and got my first job.

And let me tell you, it is crazy business!! And these kids are way serious about it. The schools that I am in had their 100th day last week, since we start before Chicago Public Schools. There are posters all over the walls in the hallways. That's all the kids can talk about.

One of the things that Caitlyn's room is doing is bringing in 100 of something for a snack. They are going to mix everything that they kids bring in a bowl and have a "silly snack" tomorrow. Now my kid, being who she is, wants to bring 100 grape tomatoes. Well, when you mix that with marshmallows and pretzels and cereal, I'm thinking it won't be very tasty. When she was told she couldn't bring those, she asked about bringing cherries. Again, nix that. How about frozen peas she wondered. Okay really kid, bring in some sugar and call it a day. Finally she decided on Golden Grahams cereal as they are just like mini graham crackers. Now, my kid is by no means a health food junkie, but she eats healthy. Sure she will kill anyone that steps near her Hershey's bar, but for the most part, the girl likes her veggies and fruits and just assumes that everyone else enjoys them as much as she does. So we settled on the cereal and it's all counted and ready to go.

The second dilemma we faced was what she was going to wear. It is also Spirit Day at her school. The theme is sports. She wanted to wear her Cubs jersey. For the life of me, I can not find that damned shirt anywear. God only knows what has happened to it. So we settled on the Bears jersey. Then she drops the bomb shell....she needs to WEAR 100 of something. I find this out the night before it has to happen. Not that I would have been able to construct or assemble anything really cool cause I am just not that crafty. I asked her if she wanted 100 braids in her hair and she looked at me like I was a lunatic!! So then we tried to glue 100 candy hearts on a ribbon (left overs from the valentine's day candy) and that failed miserably. I would have strung them, but have you ever tried to puncture a hole in those stupid candies? Futile. I had a very depressed child, but one who was putting on her game face and telling me it was fine and no big deal. Which in Caitlynese means "I can't believe my mom can't make me anything of 100 to wear and I am going to be the only kid without it tomorrow." So I was on the hunt and finally came across a string of beads that had.....are you ready.....103 beads on it(yes, I counted them, I was desperate damn it). I told her there were 100. She'll never know the difference.

So tomorrow I will have a really sugared up child and baggies of crap. Which will add up to thousands of piles of crap because each baggie will contain no less than 100 pieces of crap. Yay me :)

Jordan's Bath Gel

Scene: Caitlyn in the bathtub this afternoon. I was in the bedroom watching television while she played. (yes I am that bad mother that you heard about that leaves her kid in the tub alone)

C: Mom!!

N: Yes baby?

C: Can you call Auntie or Ashley? (my best friend or her daughter)

N: Sure. Why?

C: Cause Jo Jo left his shower gel in here and I don't like in it my tub. Call and see if one of them can pick it up today.

That gel has been in there since New Year's Eve when Ashley was watching the kids here and they took a bath. Separately of course. But nonetheless, it has been in there for close to 2 months. And now it is suddenly driving her bat shit crazy that it is in her bath tub.

Uka La Lacha

"Uka la lacha."

"Uka la lacha."

"La la la la la la la."

That's what I heard Caitlyn singing last night as she was playing. As she was singing it, she was shaking her bottom as fast and as hard as she possibly could. I asked her what she was singing and she told me it was a song she heard on TV. Thinking the tune was familiar to me I sang a song to her to ask her if that was in fact the song that she was singing. She said yes it was.

Know what the song was???

La Cucaracha.

And now, I will never sing the song the same. It will always be Uka La Lacha.

She wasn't very happy either when I told her that the song was actually about a cockroach!

The Report Card and DIBELS testing

Long time no post, and I have lots and lots to post, but I figured I would at least get the info about the girl's report card and the results of her DIBELS testing up here.

DIBELS
Phonemic Segmentation Fluency Goal: 35 phon/minute Score: 47 phon.min
Nonsense Word Fluency Goal: 50 sounds/minute Score: 44 sounds/minute
Oral Reading Fluency Goal: 20 words/min Score: 53 words/minute

So the oral reading fluency.....stunning!!!!! More than double what she should be reading right now. To say that I am proud is an understatement.

Her report card was just as brilliant too.
REading B
Listening B
Speaking A (yeah, we all know how well my kid talks)
Math B
Science B
Social Science B
Art A
Music A
PE A
Learning Technology A (basically a computer class)
Spelling A
Handwriting B
Conduct A

Overall, my kid kicks ass in school. And what's even more interesting to me is how is seems to come pretty easy to her. She picks concepts up so quickly and doesn't seem to struggle with a whole lot that's going on. For example, she missed 2 days of school last week because she was sick. So when she came home on MOnday, she had a load of homework to catch up on. There were a bunch of Math sheets in there with concepts that were started, of course, on Thursday. I explained it to her once, and she had it. Did the sheets completely on her own.

Tonight I think she is being treated to Pizza Hut for all of her hard work. (And it prevents me from having to cook a meal, win win situation really>)