Tuesday

Today gave us a rough start- Chris didn't want to get out of bed. I got him "up", and came down stairs. From there, I hollered up every few minutes to have him get dressed, and hurry down for breakfast. Typically, we get up at 7:30, and I try to have the kids dressed and finished with breakfast by 8:15, so they can get their bags, lunches, and we can get out the door by 8:30.

This morning, he came down at 8:05, after hollering at me that he WAS getting dressed, and to leave him alone. -sigh- I am not a morning person, and I'll be the first to admit I get easily aggravated and upset in the mornings, so that wasn't making me a happy mommy.

But, he finally comes down, slightly later than I wanted him down, but down none the less. I sent him to the kitchen. He dinked around with the fridge door open. Just poking through, looking at things. I told him to start eating- then noticed that his getting dressed meant wearing the same clothing he wore yesterday.

-sigh-

I sent him back up, told him to get changed and to hurry, because we'd be late otherwise. He said he didn't have a chance to get dressed, because I was yelling at him to get down stairs. He then said he'd started putting a different shirt on, but since I was yelling, he took it off and put his shirt from yesterday on.

-sigh-

We got out the door, though. They made it just in time.

Moving on.

Giaa has been driving me NUTS. Last night through out the night, she and Rajik were being loud. He was responding to her being in heat with growls (non-violent), and she was mewling and chirping loudly. They just happened to decide our bedroom was the place to make their noise.

We kicked them out several times, before blocking the door with a box so they couldn't get back in. It was a long night of being woken up several times.

Moving on.

I had gotten home from dropping the kids off, when I realized that in the rush of getting them to school on time, I had forgotten to give Chris his medications. -sigh- I called the school, had them call Chris back down to the office, so he would be there when I got there.

I gave him his pills, and went to the store, since he needed a refill. While I was there, I wound up grabbing some groceries, and a new book for Raegan & I to read. I can't recall the name, but it's about a girl who gets into a car accident. Her whole family is killed in the accident, and when she wakes up, she can start seeing people's aura's, hear their thoughts, and if she touches them, she learns their entire life story.

I thought it sounded interesting.

I didn't do much at home today. Before I knew it, it was time to take Chris his meds at lunch. That was at 12:30. I had to be back to the school at 1:30, so I opted to do some running around instead of going home again.

I stopped at the children's consignment shop for the first time since last October. I had dropped some clothing off, and had gotten a check for just shy of $20 at the end of October. But, that was only for a few of the items I took in. Right after that, I was sent a newsletter that said payments would be made once you reach $50 now, to cut back on the small checks.

Not a problem, but I just never thought to go back in and drop more stuff off, or check my balance there. While I was in, I found a rack of winter clothing for $.99 each on clearance, so I grabbed 2 sweaters for Raegan. The rest was all infants, or stuff Rae wouldn't wear.

While I was getting ready to pay, I asked for my balance, and found I had about $18 there. I used that to buy the two sweaters, and this week, I'll go through the stock piles of Goodwill clothing to find more items to take in. Because we have a nice cheap Goodwill, I'm regularly able to find brand name items for less than $.50 each for kids.

If I find something really good, I'll buy it and save it to take into the shop, or re-sell on Craigslist. I think in total, I spent less than $10 on the items I had taken in last time. I made about $36, so a $26 profit for shopping!

After I left the consignment shop, I was eager to check out the Goodwill center, so I went in there, and found some cute summer and spring clothing for me & Rae, a dress for my niece, and some other random pieces for the consignment shop, including a brand new pair of silver sparkle infant girls shoes.

By the time I left there, it was time to go to the school, so that's where I went. There were 13 assorted papers that needed to be stapled into packets for each of 22 kids, plus a second packet of papers already stapled, which gave the kids a thick folder for the week.

Today, they each made cute rainbows with cotton ball clouds on one end, and black pots with gold glitter on the other end, so I tacked those up in the hall. After getting that done, the teacher had several chapters of math work he wanted sorted, stapled, and set aside for future classroom use. I got through about half before it was time to leave. 2 of the chapters I need to do next week will take most of the time, though, as they are still in the books.

I was working from the stock piles of papers left from the teacher last year. There were a few chapters either missing all together, or missing a chapter or two. I can't complain much, how many people wanted to tear the pages out of their math books growing up? I know I did.

After school, I got the kids home, but then had to go to CVS to grab some cough medicine for Gillian. I found some hair dye on clearance for under $2 a box, and it was nice $13-15 packs that I only buy when I can get them on sale with a coupon.

Raegan watched Gillian later when I took Chris in for his spring conference. Surprise, Surprise, he's still doing fine. He has an A- in math, and A's in the rest of his classes. His afternoon teacher was gone- her mother in law has been very sick, and this afternoon, she got a call that her MIL was having difficulty breathing, so she was at the hospital.

She did have everything for us to see, though, and we can call that teacher with questions, but I don't have any. The morning teacher told us that there has been a remarkable difference in how Chris behaves in class now with the new medications and vitamins.

She showed me a math test he did before the med swap- it was 100 questions, and he got 30 finished, so 30%. About a week after he'd started the new medications, she had him retake the same test. He jumped to having finished 84 of the 100 in the time limit.

She showed me through out the test that he'd been skipping most of the 7's and 8's (it was single digit multiplication), so she said we should work on them at home some, so he can memorize them.

I let him spend $10 at the book fair, where he found a $7 book and a $3 book, but not without a lot of agonizing thought, of course. I actually found one I bought for myself, because I think at least Rae & Chris will like it. It's called Encyclopedia Horrifica. It's kind of like Ripley's Believe it or not. It talks about myths and truths, hoaxes, and more. It's just kind of neat.

When we got home, it was 7:30, so I had Chris and Gilly sit down to read for a while for school, then Gilly went to bed, and Nick finally got home.

Oh, did I mention he put in 12 hour days both yesterday and today? His department is tech support. The call center is open 8a-8p. Most the calls and emails come in during the day. The department has 8 employees, plus a manager.

Each day, 2 people are scheduled from 11a-8p, 1 person works 9a-6p, and the other 5 work 8a-5p. The schedule remains the same for 3 months at a time, each day being the same. Typically, each employee puts in 1 night shift, with 1 or 2 doing 2 night shifts.

Well, one of Nick's co-workers came in at 8 due to a misunderstanding, and didn't want to work the night shift last night (a whole different post would be required to explain him, but in short terms- he requested ALL nights, so for the past 6 months, he's worked JUST night shifts, but he hates them). Because they are salary, there's no overtime. However, general practice in the office is that the person picking up the shift gets 3 hours PTO IF they were in at 8 the same day.

Because there are only 2 people on nights, it's required that you find a replacement worker if you can not make your night shift. So, co-worker whines that he can't handle a 12 hour, so Nick took it for the free PTO it would afford him.

Today, one of his co-workers on the day shift called in. It's rumored that he's dating one of the other co-workers. She was supposed to do the night shift, but opted to come in at 11 still, but leave at 5. Nick wound up taking her night shift for the 3 hours PTO, so he's earned 6 extra hours of PTO this week (so far).

Blah. I hate these long days without him to help, but I can handle them once in a while.

Nick's going to take Monday off next week, and only use 2 hours of his actual PTO. We're going to try and see a movie, and go out to lunch, if we have time. Having to get Chris his pills at lunch really makes it hard, though. The theater in town is only open on the evenings during the school year on week nights. Going to Lansing cuts into how long we can be gone.

Raegan takes Tae Kwan Do on Monday afternoons at school, as soon as school lets out, so she won't even be able to pick the other two up at school, and watch them for  a bit, either.

It'll still be a decent day, though.

And, I'm getting tired. I think I started typing this almost 30 minutes ago. I don't blame anyone who stopped reading 3 pages ago. ;)