I'm Gonna Get In Trouble Over This One!

Lily is not going to like what I did this morning one little bit but I say she will have to get over it.

This morning at 8.45 we were due at Lily's school for an award ceremony. Lily was being honoured with the Student Of The Month award and the character value was, Pursuit Of Excellence. This is something that I can clearly see that Lily earned. She strives for perfection in all that she does and her report card always reads that she is a leader in the class and helps in all areas and if others need her she is there for them. That's just who she is. Sometimes it drives me batty cos nothing is ever halfway done with Lily it is all or nothing. Sometimes when time is short this is not a good thing says the mother with the same exact personality trait.

I rescheduled my 8.00 am client and knew that I had plenty of time to see Lily get her award before needing to be at a clients house by 9.50. I dropped her at school, came home, got Rosie and Daddy ready and we were outside the school by 8.40 and were still waiting at 9.00am. I was a little anxious as things were now 15 minutes behind schedule. Seconds later we were ushered inside where yet again we hurried up and waited some more. If by chance you have never figured this out, I am not a patient person. I have the patience of a Saint with children but not with adults and I cannot stand tardiness it truly sends me over the edge. Oddly enough if the children of this school are even one minute late they will be marked tardy and this will remain on their school record for the year. Tardiness is unacceptable at WP K8 Centre. Lily has never been marked tardy, not once in 3 years and it won't happen as long as I am in charge.

At 9.15am I looked at Jacob and told him I would have to leave. I kissed him and Rosie goodbye marched and not quietly, to the front of the hall. traipsed over all the kids until I got to my daughter, hugged her and kissed, told her I was so very, very proud of her but that I had to go. She knew the deal, she knows my schedule and all about Mr. C and his surgery today. Any other client on any other day I would have stepped outside used my phone and said I would be late. But today my 80+ yr old client is having surgery. He has no family, lots of friends but I am the one who is there for him today. I promised to be there 10 minutes early to get him mentally ready. He will be fine it is not a biggy but he just needed a push. Had the ceremony had started on time it all would have worked out fine.

I then about faced and climbed back over the kids, I have no shame, walked up to the principal and said, I have to leave, I won't be able to see my daughter receive her award because you are running 30 minutes behind schedule. If any one of these students were one minute late today they would have been marked tardy and you are running 30 minutes late. And with that I turned on my heels and walked out.

When I was finished with work I called my husband and he said she received her award about 5 minutes after I left. I was so cross because this didn't need to happen. I know she will receive more and I will be there. Her old principal was always on time but this guy...sheesh, maybe we need to buy the dude a watch. He is a fabulous administrator but a lousy timekeeper.

And this is why I know Lily will be pissed! I complained to her principal. Oh the humiliation of it all.

And The Winner Is.....

Lily!

A couple of weeks ago one of Lily's homework assignments was an essay. It was a full sheet of paper and was all about watermelons. I found it a very odd assignment as she has never had to do anything like it ever before. Usually if she writes something it is just a few lines and never close to a full sheet. She had started it in school and needed to finish it. She was really serious about it and told me I could help her. That was all the information she gave me. I do not believe in doing her homework for her nor do I believe in doing her projects for her. I read what she had written and then asked her a few questions about watermelons in hopes of giving her some ideas and then I guided her to the computer to view some images of them to prompt her brain some more. Before I knew it she was asking me to read one full sheet of paper in what must have been the neatest handwriting I had ever seen.

It was really good. She is only 7 and I so badly wanted to group her thoughts together and put them in the same paragraph for her but I left it the way it was. Her spelling was correct as was her punctuation. She explained that she just had to do the sloppy copy at home and they were going to write the proper one in school. I asked the next day if she finished her essay and she said not yet. I never heard another thing about it until yesterday when she came out of school beaming. Mrs G approached me and very proudly announced that Lily's essay had been chosen, out of the whole 2nd grade, to be entered into the Fairchild Writing Competition for our school district. Yay, Lily. I am waiting for the teacher to give me a copy of her essay and have no idea at this time when the judging will take place for the final competition.

We are really proud of her but more importantly she is proud of herself. She couldn't believe it.

Great Job Schnoog, Daddy Rosie and I are so very, very proud of you.
And we love you all the way to China and back again.

She's On A Roll.

Actually it should read she is Honor Roll.....again. Our little Lily is one smart cookie and since starting school has made either Honor Roll or Principals Honor Roll every grading period. This year marked the start of her being in the gifted program so I honestly didn't expect her to make it because I thought the whole idea of this was that she was going to find it more of a challenge. As usual Lily proved me wrong and I couldn't be more proud of her. She loves school and loves her homework and the more she has to study the happier she is.

This morning we were invited to the award ceremony and Rosie thought this was a wonderful thing as it isn't often that she gets to accompany her sister in to school.

Miss Lil' looking proud of herself.









When we were leaving the house this afternoon to pick up Lily, Rosie asked me if we were going back to the school to clap again. I told her that we weren't going to clap this time just pick up her sister and she told me she wanted to clap for lily because it was fun.

Lily,

Daddy and I are so very proud of you. All we ever ask is that you try your very best and you always do.

Great Job Schnoogie.

Our Little Money Maker.

A few months ago Lily participated in a Math-a-thon to raise money for St Jude's Children's Research H0spital. Her school sent home a letter explaining what she would need to do and all about St Jude's. As soon as Lily found out that she could help children in a hospital she wanted to do it because "Mummy, Rosie was in a hospital because of her heart so I know it is important."

So I signed her up and a few weeks later her math book arrived along with her sponsor sheet. Since we have absolutely no family around it was tough asking people to sponsor her as I detest asking friends to do this kind of stuff. Anyway she got a few sponsors and we stretched it out to look like more by adding my father and Jeanne individually and throwing in Uncle Mike for good measure even though he had no clue and each night she would sit down and work on her math book. She finished the whole book and got all the answers correct so we gathered up her money and returned it to school. I don't remember exactly what she made but it was in the region of $150

I forgot all about it as it was eons ago but when I picked her up today she was carrying a large bag and wearing an enormous smile. Once she was dismissed she ran to me and could barely contain her excitement or her pride. She had received a certificate of participation from St Jude, a backpack, a t-shirt, a free pass to 6 flags and a radio. All the kids got a certificate and a t-shirt but she got the extra stuff cos she raised more money. She is very proud of herself and we are very proud of her too.


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Lily, all proud.

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Since Rose saw the camera appear she insisted that we take her photo too.

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Honouring Lily

When Lily teachers need to tell us something they place the letters in her homework folder and she brings them home. Sometimes she knows the notes are there and other times she is clueless. On Monday I opened her folder and there were 2 notes. The first one was an invitation to a ceremony honouring her for having perfect attendance and the second one was an invitation to a ceremony honouring her for her GPA. The award ceremony was this morning.

She looks a little bit proud don't ya think?

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I love the way she is peeking around the side of her certificate to make sure we can see here.

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Lost in thought

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Here is her certificate.

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Schnoogie, we are very proud of you. What you don't realise yet because you are too little is that you have set the standard very high for yourself by achieving these grades so young! I hope that you continue to love school and learning, I am sure you will as it is who you are.

We bought her a new set of the American Girl book series as a reward. Talking of the American girl series, she loves them. She cannot wait to have her bath so that she can settle down and read about their latest adventure. Tonight we read about Molly and the blitz in London in 1944. When I walked her up to bed she wanted to turn the lights off so that she could pretend it was a blackout. Once we found the bed she climbed in and I followed, under her strict instructions. She pulled the covers over our heads and then suddenly announced, "bombs away!" and made an explosion sound. She was even talking with a British accent. She made me laugh so much that I was crying. By the time I kissed her goodnight we were both out of breathe from all the giggling.

Rosie didn't get to take her nap this morning because she went to Lily's school and then she had to accompany me to the doctors office. Literally seconds before we needed to pick up Lily from school exhaustion prevailed and this is what I found, on the floor no less:


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I love this photo

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Why did we go to the doctors office? Because my eye is screwed up again. I got 2 whole weeks without any steroids at all but that is not the case now. As much as I like my Dr. I have decided it is time to seek a second opinion. This has been going on since June and I am over it, so over it. Next week I meet with a Dr. that my Dr. bought in on my case a few years back. He is a corneal expert and I had forgotten all about him. Keep everything crossed please. I am tired of looking freaky. Forget about the possible vision loss it is all about the vanity as far as I am concerned. Ok that isn't all true but look for yourself.

This is a hideous photo that was taken yesterday and I was talking as Jenny took it but it shows my eyes. Now my eyelid is starting to droop....eeewwwww!

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My second blog book arrived and it is even more wonderful than the first one. More about that tomorrow.

Waiting, Awards and More Love

Today the UPS guy delivered the BIG envelope from our agency. This is the one that requires your final payment and the one that contains every single last form under the sun. We spent an hour signing, dating and initialling papers before I shot out to the notary to get everything made official. This is it for us, the paperwork on this side of the Atlantic is done now we get the next heap handed to us once we are in China.. This must mean we are close. And if we are so close, where, oh where, is our TA???? I rang our agency cos I had a few (read loads and loads) of questions and I asked if they had any idea when we would get it and she said, "I am not sure but I have a really good feeling about it". What does that mean? I suddenly remembered that RQ posts about expected deliveries so I clicked on her site and nothing, zilch, butkus! If anyone hears any rumours about expected arrival of SN, TA's PLEASE let me know. I am going a little nutty here. We are ready to go. Everything is done. The baby's clothes are already in baggies and ready to hit the suitcase. Lily has a new carry on and it is partially packed. I am ready to go. I have even made out the shopping list for our friend who is going to be staying here while we are gone so that she can get some necessary grocery items for us before we return. Yes, I am type-A, I am a list maker and I am ready....I think I might have said that already.

Onward we must trek. We received more love in the mail yesterday from these two. Before I could get a photo of Lily and her loot she had dismantled the box and was playing with gusto with her new Asian Doll complete with hair accessories. She loves it and loves playing with the dolls hair. I was able to snap this shot of the cute little onesie for Rosie. On the front it says: I love my Daddy and on the bum is a little heart that says: and he loves me too. These little burp cloths rock....I have never seen them before. Thank you Dannye, Ray and Freckles you are so kind and we love them. Dannye, Chynna better like shopping! We also received a gift from Nannis but I didn't take pictures of those either. Thank you Nannis, only you could find a ladybird sippee cup.


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This should have been a bullet post cos it is jumping all over the place like a cat on a hot tin roof.
Lily's school offers lots of various awards that the kids can earn. The most prestigious of these being the Student Of The Month award. Lily has never earned it, she has earned others but not this much coveted one. She is a good student and does very, very well but I think she can do alot more than she does and consequently she never receives the award. We never put any pressure on her to get it and tell her that if she wants it she must work really hard for it. Enough said. Today when I picked her up she flew out of the school gate like a rat from and aqua duct and showed me a ring she had received from the treasure box. I looked at the gaudy, offensive thing and gushed about how gorgeous it was and asked her why she got to go to the treasure box. Well, those were the words she was waiting for. Her reply was, "I am student of the Month". She nearly burst with pride as she told me and I nearly burst with pride too. My eyes started to "sweat" and I hugged her so tight. She is so proud of herself and we are really proud to. She wanted it, she worked for it and she got it. We had to ring every relative that we have and then we went out for ice cream to celebrate. Jacob's eyes got a bit sweaty too when she told him. Tonight she said "this is nearly the best day of my life but Rosie is my best day but this nearly is". How sweet she is.

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As for the burnt chin. She is fine it wasn't serious so no need to ring the social workers! We put ice on it and then some medicine and she barely had a mark.....I promise. But now she seems to have made it worse.

I took this photo tonight when we were sitting together on the couch. She wasn't expecting it hence the very startled expression. I love it.

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What Me? Why, Thank You.

Dannye, A.K.A. LayDFrog nominated me, or rather my blog, for this award. I am truly flattered. Thank you Dannye. I understand why you got this one but not me. I feel very special, not in the special shoes and thick glasses kind of way but in the warm and fuzzy way and here is why:
"This award is for bloggers who are nice people, good blog friends, and those who inspire good feelings and inspiration. Also, for those who are a positive influence on our blogging world"
See, not so sure I fit that bill.
Anyhoo, I am now supposed to pass it along to 7 people. I am probably going to nominate bloggers that already received it but quite frankly, I don't give a damn cos I havent given it to them and in my eyes they are incredible people. (See it is my crappy sarcastic mouth that makes me thinks this is not the right award LOL)
So, I pass this along to:

http://2kayaks.blogspot.com/
http://3dsadoptionjourney.blogspot.com/
http://awaitingava.blogspot.com/
http://jadynjourney.blogspot.com/
http://seventhdiamond.blogspot.com/
http://www.ptopig.blogspot.com/
http:///lifewithlilylin.blogspot.com/
If you are linked through my blog then I obviously think you deserve it but the makers of the rules says only 7....cheap bast@rd.