Posts Tagged ‘education’

Madison’s Crazy Week

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

I’m so proud of her.  She’s has a crazy week since I last blogged.  As many of you know, she goes to a Catholic school.  Well, she got picked to read a petition (if you’re not Catholic, it’s the part of mass where we pray for others).  She’s got hard words to read like classmates and principal, so we’ve been practicing every night.  She’ll be doing it next Tuesday at 8:30 mass, so if your interested, let me know!  Bill is going to go to work late that morning to see it!  I’m super excited (and a little nervous) for her.

She’s also full of crazy questions like:  Why did God create sharks — they hurt people?, Why do trains ride on train tracks and not the road?, and you know stuff that MOM just doesn’t know the answer too and cant Google the answer.

The last cool news is that she has a new tooth coming in.  Unfortunately, the tooth in front of it isn’t loose yet.  I called the dentist, and we are suppose to get her to wiggle it.  If it’s still not loose in a week, we have to bring her in.  I love our dentist, and they straight out said that they prefer the tooth to fall out on it’s own and pulling would be a last resort.

We are taking the kids tonight to a preview of How To Train A Dragon.  It’ll be Will’s first movie at a movie theater so wish us luck!

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Please Help Our Soldiers

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

My son’s teacher heads up this great cause and I wanted to make you all aware of it. This is the letter she sends home at the beginning of her classes:

My name is Jacky and I am an early education instructor with the Oak Lawn Park District.  I started mailing boxes when one of my student’s only parent was sent to Iraq.  Now, boxes go out weekly to each soldier on my list who shares the boxes with their units.  I know first hand from the soldiers who return stateside that these boxes mean so much more than their contents;  they mean people care.  The families back home also appreciate the moral booster their loved ons are receiving each time a box arrives.  These boxes may be small, but they are mighty with support and positive thinking to bring our soldiers safely home.  All my soldiers have relatives, friends who live in Oak Lawn, or are residents of Oak Lawn.  It is a local support of our community.  Below are item lists of some of the things that have been sent out since March 2003:

Shampoo

Baby Wipes

Soap

Toothpaste

Hard Candy

Juice boxes

Snack food

Lip Balm

Combs

Sunscreen

Gum

Tylenol

Food Bars

Toilet Paper

Foot Powder

Small botthle of hand “no water” soap sanitizier

Band Aides

Canisters of presweetened Kool-Aid, Tea, and Lemonade

Mouthwash

User Paperback books

Toothpaste samples or floss

Sunday Comics

Extra condiment packets (sugar, ketchup)

Toothbrushes

Children’s drawings

Extra item in a pack (example:  6th gum free in a 5 pack)

Encouraging letters

Hotel shoe shine kits

Hotel small shampoo

Hotel small soap

Hotel small lotion

Hotel sewing kits

Hotel small conditioner

Hotel small mouth wash

As you can see, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to help the soldiers out.  We donate things every week and it doesn’t cost me a cent extra from what we already do.  Also, she will take ANY leftover Halloween candy you have!!!

They will also take any donated stamps or funds for stamps.  Items and postage can be dropped off at (or mailed to) Oak View Center, 4625 West 110th St., Oak Lawn IL 60453.  I’d just put a little note on there that it’s for the soldiers.

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Banana Shpeel

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

For me, any show that is called Banana Shpeel is something I’d love to win tickets to go and see.  I love the fact that this show looks extremely fun and extremely playful and super funny.  Check out this video for a little background information on this show:

I love how the clowns look. They aren’t your normal run of the mill clowns which draws me in.  This whole show reminds me of an event that took place at Izeafest last year –

2852489316_284baaedf8_tThis is how we spent most of Izeafest. Except, I kept getting stuck driving. If you know me, that is not a good thing. It’s not that I am a bad driver, I just have no sense of direction. At all.  Heather and Christine will remember a fun trip home after one of the events.  Since I didn’t drink that night, I was the sober driver for the evening.  Now, the event was held in downtown Orlando.  Our hotel wasn’t there (it was cheaper at this other place).  This should be pretty easy because it was a straight shot there, right?

Well, if you have never been in downtown Orlando, everything is seriously one way.  If you have no sense of direction, you are screwed.  We kept using this Marriott hotel as our point of reference, and all we could figure out to do was drive around the stupid thing.  We could never even figure out how to get close to it.  The worst was when we ended up what looked like it could have been a pretty bad neighborhood.  We ended up stopping at mall and asking the security for directions.  So picture this, three lost women at 1 am in the morning in completely the wrong city and two of them had been drinking all evening.  Needless to say, it was not a pretty picture.  :)   We did get back in once piece.  Sort of.  Since this was a rental car, I had no idea how to use it.  We thought we locked it and turned the lights off.  Well, we didn’t.  If Heather’s daughter wouldn’t have noticed when she returned to the hotel after us, we would have had a dead battery or an ax murderer in the backseat!

Now, the Banana Shpeel show should be way better than my crazy driving experience in Orlando.  (This year we stayed nice and close and cabbed it everywhere).  It’s a comedy show with tap, hip hop, eccentric dance and slapstick, all linked by a hilarious narrative that ignites a succession of wacky adventures.  With the economy in dump, this is just the show most of need to forget our problems and enjoy ourselves (even if its only for a couple of hours).  I’m super excited that it’s coming here to Chicago!  Tell me you don’t want to see this show after seeing this:

It just looks like a super fun time, and I hope I’ll get a chance to see it while they are here in Chicago!

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The Right Decision

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

I often second guess my decisions (really, who doesn’t?).  I usually hem and haw, and don’t ever want to decide in case I guess wrong.  You can ask my husband — it drives him bananas.  However, that being said, I know we made the right decision in sending Madison to private school.

As many of you may remember, this is a decision we really did struggle with.  It sucks paying high property taxes and then have to pay tuition too.  That being said, I am not happy with our local school district.  I’ve been trying to find out how many kids are in a class since last August.  They refuse to tell me.  The school tells me to the call the district, and the district refuses to tell me.  According to the referedum paperwork (said referendum has failed 4 times now), there is up to 34 kids in a class.  Oh yeah, and no teacher’s aides either.  The public school also has no music or art classes.  Kindergarten is also only 2.5 hrs a day.  Would you send your child there?

We opted to pay the tuition and send Madison to private school.  There she has gym, computer, art, and music once a week.  It is also full day.  We knew that going in and were happy with it.  What we didn’t count on was how much she was going to love it.  We also didn’t count on in the first 5 weeks of school, she would be learning to read already.  She has 20 sight words she can do!  She also learned the sign of the cross, the glory be prayer (I don’t know what the name of the prayer), and the our father!  She is terrified to get a yellow or red light (which is how the teacher keeps them in line).  She loves her teacher, and she loves being in school.

We recently went to her open house Tuesday night.  We learned that her teacher had been married in the church there and had sent her own children to this school.  That makes me feel good.  It means she also is invested in the school and the church.

Since the first week of school, I have been a peace with my decision.  I knew it was the right one after seeing how happy she was and how much she has been learning.

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Day 2

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

It was Day 2 for both kids today. Madison’s second day of school was today. She only went for three and half hours today. She still loves it and getting her to tell us about her day is still like pulling teeth. Pretty much, all she remembers is that she prayed (she goes to Catholic school) and had a potty break. Exciting morning, huh? Tomorrow, she goes all day. Will had his second day of speech therapy. He wanted nothing to do with it today. Getting him to respond was like pulling teeth. I am hoping he’ll warm up to the speech therapist more each week. Right now, we lose half the session, because he is being shy.

I’ll be honest — I can’t believe Madison is in school. We got a letter sent home today that she’ll start having homework shortly. I still remember the day I brought her home from the hospital. I just hope she continues liking school.

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