First Week of School

Wow! This week has flown by!  Tomorrow is Friday and rather than wait until the weekend when I will also have a birthday party to blog about, I figured I may as well get this post published. 

One of the best things about having this blog is that I get to write about all the exciting things that happen to the boys.  I hope that one day when they can read, they will be interested in how their childhood was, and also get a little of my perspective too.  I tend to write about all their antics on my other blog, Life’s Ups and Downs…and My Place in It All, so I hope they end up reading both at some point.  This place is used as our Family album so first days of Kindergarten should definitely go here.

Day 1:

Nicholas started school this past Monday on August 24.  He had met his teacher last week and also we knew he would have a neighbor friend there.  He was really timid about starting the first day of school.  Eddie was post call that day, so he was able to be there both for drop off and for pick up.  That was a real treat because Eddie is so often missing these moments.  You could tell he was really excited to see his little man go to school.

We parked on a side street to the school because we walk him to his door.  Both Nicholas and Christian had their backpacks (Christian was insistent and I didn’t want to fight…pick your battles, right?)  We crossed the street and said hi to the crossing guard and then we walked into the school.  Everything went fine.  We went inside and had Nicholas drop off his backpack.  He sat down and would not let me leave until A, his friend, showed up.  I squatted at his table, which was filled with 3 other boys.  No one was talking, so I figured I would introduce Nicholas to them.  We met B, L and W.  B is a big boy…he might be a little older than Nicholas, or maybe his parents are just tall.  He was very friendly.  L was also really nice.  He smiled and said hi.  W was really hard to understand because he was so nervous and quiet.  He has a slight accent as well.  I found out on Tuesday that he is most likely a Mennonite.  That is a culture I had never heard of until I came here to this area.  I believe they have a German background and many of them are bi-lingual or only speak their language.  Ed tells me from his experience at the hospital that their language is not German because other doctors are unable to communicate with them.  Anyway, their culture is radically different from ours, I suspect, and he seemed scared out of his mind.  I just wanted to scoop him up and make his nervousness go away, but then he probably would have really been freaked out.  Anyway, it was right about then when A got there and Nicholas was okay with me leaving.  He seemed to have calmed a bit as well since he knew his tablemates’ names.  In the meantime, while all of this was going on, Ed motioned to me that he and Christian were going into the hallway.  Apparently Christian wanted to sit and color and participate too!  He was getting mad because Ed had not let him do that (obviously).  Christian was crying as he left with Ed, and in a couple of minutes after I got Nicholas settled, I went out and joined them.  We left and Christian cried and whimpered the entire way back to the car.  He was so disappointed that he didn’t get to go to school.  Poor guy doesn’t understand it when I tell him he will start school in 2 weeks.  In the afternoon when we picked up Nicholas, he said he liked his teacher “alright” and really enjoyed playing outside and pizza (that apparently had no cheese or anything on it according to him—I think their cheese doesn’t look like ours) and he had to be quiet at rest time, but he didn’t have to sleep.

Day 2:

This day I woke up to a cranky (tired?) boy who fought me on going to school.  He wanted to be at home with Christian and I.  When we dropped him off, he didn’t want me to leave, but eased into coloring pretty easily.  I could not help but notice W and his mom come in.  W’s eyes were full of tears. Poor guy.   We got him to school only to pick him up and be told “Mommy, I had fun today.  I won’t  give you any more problems in the morning.  I like school!”  He also told me how they got to go to computers, but that they stood there and didn’t get to get on them yet.  Christian, on the other hand, was still upset when I made him leave in the morning, and still insisted on wearing his backpack, although this day I asked him to leave it in the car.  Poor guy asked me about “Bubba” several times throughout the day and got mad when he couldn’t stay and color again.  We colored after working out that morning.

Day 3:  As promised, Nicholas was up and running this morning.  He did everything I asked with no problems.  He went to school and reported to me after school that he had made 3 new friends.  They are J (a cute little blonde girl), L (the same L from his table the first day) and T (another little boy).  T apparently had told his Mom that Nicholas was his new best friend (too cute) but that he didn’t know Nicholas’s name—just that it started with an N.  His mother had T point Nicholas out and she introduced herself to me.  Nicholas also informed me he got to go to the computer lab, but that he had to just stand there again(I guess they are not putting them on computers yet), and he also went to music where he got to see his keyboard he will learn on (a new program this year—the kids all got keyboards to learn the scales and hopefully play some songs).  Unfortunately he did not get to play the keyboard that day either.

Day 4:  Another good day!  He says he saw one of his old classmates from pre-K, but that she is not in his class.  He was excited about that.  He has had Apple stamps everyday this week so far.  Tomorrow they get to celebrate July and August birthdays with cake and ice cream in the cafeteria at lunch.  He’s excited about eating in the cafeteria again.  I told him he could eat there twice a week.  $1.75 a day is a little expensive when we have our pantry stocked at home.  He seems happy with this. 

Nicholas is into his “cool dude” poses…he does this in front of the mirror and says, “I look good!”  LOL!!!  His first day Tee-Shirt is Super Mario Brothers.  He loved it and it goes with his Nintendo DS. 

Christian on his brother’s first day of school…he really thought it was his first day too.  It is not getting through that Nicholas’s first day of school and Nicholas’s birthday party are not also his.  He wants to share everything…poor guy.  He’s only doing what his mommy and daddy preach all the time, “Share, Share, Share!”

Brothers!  They love each other so much! 

Nicholas’s teacher, Mrs. W.  She is really nice and has been teaching this grade for a number of years.  Excuse the way I look…that is me, too early in the morning and ready to go workout.  No makeup.

Mr. Shyguy.

Birthday Wishes, Stomach Bugs, Fellowship News, Tutor Demo, Starting School, and Little Boys Who Want to Start School

These past few weeks have been erratic, heartbreaking, and a huge still undecided whirlwind.

First, on the 18th, we accepted a position at TTUHSC for Pain Fellowship!!! 

Second, Nicholas turned 5 on the 19th!!  We planned for him to have a birthday party at Legacy Play Village at 10am on Sat, Aug. 22.  Grandma and Grandpa Ozuna drove to visit, and we had all the food bought (thank goodness I chose to do sandwiches and not pizza) and everything was ready.  The morning of the party, Nicholas threw up twice!!!  He was so broken hearted.  Luckily, he had gotten a Nintendo DS for his birthday from Grandma Spencer and played it all day.  He took a nap around 9:30am that morning, and by 12:00pm, he was laughing, running and playing again.  Basically he was out for the count just long enough to miss his party.  I guess we can relish in the idea that someone got to spend the morning at the table we reserved on our $50.  Oh, well…stuff happens.

We have rescheduled his party.  He’s excited, but the poor boy has had to wait a whole week and a half past his birthday.  I think he thinks it will never get here.

In other news, I got my Infinity Online Math Tutoring demo up, finally.  WHEW!  I am learning all about working with Windows “Crazy” Maker…and how everything has to be in this nice and neat order or it doesn’t recognize it. 

I did 2 tries on my first podcast today.  I am going to offer free podcasts on areas of math where students have trouble.  My first one is on adding and subtracting integers.  So far, I am having to trouble shoot the fact that my talking is much faster than my video…I guess I’ll be at it again trying to make this work.  No converting problems this time…just recording problems.  Hopefully I will get this troubleshooted (troubleshot?) and know what settings work best for my delivery on camera.  Im really excited about doing this and hope that it will also help to bring people to my website and get the word out on my online tutoring.

Nicholas started school this week!  He likes it more and more everyday.  I plan on writing a post with pictures on this soon.  I just haven’t been bitten by the writing bug lately.

Christian was NOT happy about having to stay home while Bubba was at school.  Everyday he asks to go sit down and color when we go to drop Nicholas off at school.  Everyday he expects to wear his backpack on his back and go pick up Nicholas at school.  Everyday he tells me, “Mommy, I go to school!”  Poor guy doesn’t understand “You get to go in 2 weeks.”  He also doesn’t understand that his school will NOT be Bubba’s.  I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there.

Dreadful Stomach Bug

What’s worse than waking up and feeling that familiar queasy feeling?  What’s worse than throwing up your empty stomach from the night before?  What’s worse than throwing up the one tiny quarter piece of peanut butter toast and water you had?

Doing it on the morning of your birthday party when you are 5 years old.

Poor guy.  He was better by 12:00pm (the end of the scheduled party).

Guess we will be rescheduling. 

One tiny silver lining?  He played his new Nintendo DS Lite all Day long!!

Another Ozuna Family Week

We’ve had a great week!  Grandpa Mason came to visit and left today.  I’ve got some pictures I will load up later.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed having Grandpa Mason to play with this weekend since Ed was on nights.  Mommy loved that Grandpa Mason was here to play! 

Mason and I went and played Tennis on Saturday in the heat of the day.  I lasted for about 40 minutes before having to seek out shade.  I don’t know how he does it.  I’m a heat wuss. 

We also went out to eat with Mason at Furrs.  Christian ventured out and tried sweet potatoes.  He liked them, but still only ate a couple bites of dinner.  On Friday we had Edamame again (soy beans in pods for those of you who don’t know what that is).  Nicholas ate about 10 pods all by himself!  (Wahoo for a green veggie crossing his lips!)  That’s the second time in a week I have served that to him successfully. 

We saw Ed as much as possible.  He was able to go eat at Furrs with us, but he slept most of the day and then left to go to work shortly after waking up. 

Grandpa Mason got Nicholas and Christian some presents for birthdays.  He brought Talking Live Elmo.  Elmo tells jokes, stories, sings and dances…and Christian LOVES him!  He thinks it is funny when Elmo “bites” his finger (he puts his finger in as Elmo closes his mouth)  Nicholas received an Optimus Prime Transformer!  He is very excited about the gift and has been playing with it nonstop.  He can completely transform him both to a truck and into Optimus Prime all by himself!  He was so excited!

Exciting news this week:  Christian started pedaling his own bike petals!  We are planning on buying a new bike for Nicholas for his birthday, so Christian will soon has his big brother’s bike.  He rode Nicholas’s bike last night and was able to pedal it completely one time (even with the seat setup on the highest setting).  He’s getting to be such a big boy!  Also, he will now eat turkey lunchmeat and hotdogs!!!  That is a huge step forward.  On the funny side of that, he calls it all “Bake”= his name for bacon.  It is because I told him that it tastes like bacon or sausage that he tries it.  Funny kid!

This next week we have a doctor’s appointment for me and a dentist appointment for Nicholas.  Eddie will also possibly be going to Maryland next weekend.  We hope to hear something from Cleveland Clinic in Ohio tomorrow.  I’ll let you know what happens, although I don’t know when we will have a final decision on anything…too much is up in the air.

So long for now!

Busy, Busy Month

August is finally here! I’d say it is the month I have been waiting for, but I really didn’t know it was the month I would be waiting for. The thing about this fellowship application/interview business is that we didn’t know when we would know anything. Now it is all starting to clear up.

All I am allowed to say so far is, Ed got an offer from Texas Tech on Friday for a January 2011 spot. He interviewed at Cleveland a little over a week ago, and they finish their last day of interviews on Monday of this next week. They told him that they would notify people of offers in the next two weeks. Ed felt good about Cleveland. He is supposed to be going to Philly this month, but has decided to cancel that interview. I think he’d rather go to Tech than Philly, so he decided to save us some money. He is also scheduled to go to Maryland for 2 interviews this month. The thing is that he is supposed to give Tech and answer around the same time, so it is not likely he’ll be able to interview and get an offer before having to decide. We are still going to go to Maryland and interview, I think--and also enjoy a little vacation. I’m super excited. I have to make sure it is good with my boss with my Avon Admin, but I am sure it will be.

Grandpa Mason is coming to spend a few days with us this next week! The boys are excited about the visit, and so am I! I cannot wait to play tennis with Mason!

Grandma and Grandpa Ozuna are coming to spend a week (most likely) with us for Nicholas’s birthday and so that Ed and I can go out of town. We are excited to have them come. We haven’t yet told the boys because they will ask us everyday until they are here if we mention it now.

Nicholas is having his birthday party the weekend before school starts. He is super excited to have a Transformers party. We have invited a few close friends that he plays with often. We are going to have it at Legacy Play Village. ( I just remembered I was supposed to go pay for that---shoot! I’ll have to call them on Monday).

Schools starts for Nicholas on Monday, Aug. 24th. He’s excited. We went today and got his and Christian’s fall clothes. They are getting so big!! Nicholas is in size 5, and Christian is in 3T!!! Some of Nicholas’s 4T shirts fit Christian. He’s just a big boy.

I have continued working out this week, but I changed up my routine. My muscles are screaming at me (and have been for a week) because of the classes I have been taking. I have been playing tennis once a week (except for this week. I was supposed to go today, but got rained out).

I’m still marketing my online tutoring, but kind of at a standstill until school begins and first tests come back. My goal is to have my first client or two in September. Wish me luck, and refer anyone you come across to my website, http://infinityonlinemathtutoring.com

You all have a nice night! I’m going to bed.

My Little Photographer

“Mommy, Mommy!  Play with me!”  This is the statement that I hear so often.  I’m not that great of a player with my kids.  I like playing games, I like cooking, I like working in the garden together…in a sense, I like doing stuff with my kids that I know they will take something from it and learn something.  Last week the boys and I made up a dice game.  I got the poker chips out and when we rolled the 5 dice, if there were no 6’s rolled, we added up all the dice and got that many chips.  If we rolled 1 6, we did nothing, and if we rolled more than one 6, we gave 5 chips back.  This entertained Nicholas and Christian.  When it was Nicholas’s turn, he practiced counting and when he rolled more than one 6, he practiced subtraction.  Christian rolled the dice too, but he practiced counting just the 5 dice.  He also sorted them and the chips to his liking each turn.  They were happy, I was not bored to death, and they learned a little.  To me, that is having fun with my kids.

Today, when I heard the statement (usually after naptime), I said:  “Do you two want to take a nature walk?”  This was the same walk that we had to skip out on last week because of the temper tantrum we threw.  Nicholas got all excited because I had told him last time that we would take pictures.  This time though, I surprised him even more when I asked him if he wanted to take the pictures.  He perked up!  So, we left the house, and I showed him how to hold the camera with the strap around his hand.  I taught him how to hold the button half-way down to focus, and then press it all the way to take the picture.  Then, when I saw him getting too close to things, I showed him the zoom buttons.  He was so excited!!

Christian and I got to enjoy our walk and hold hands a bit.   They both had lots of fun.

Here are the results from our walk (these are in no particular order.  Assume Nicholas took it unless I write otherwise:

This is one of the first ones when I was teaching him about the focus and the zoom.

This was one of the very first ones he took completely on his own.

Learning to focus

He was on his own at this point

He has quite an imagination; I actually think he found some great subjects.

Well, maybe not from this angle; I guess we need to work on tilting the camera up.

A yard in our neighborhood.

I thought the half-license plate effect was actually pretty creative!

The wheel has a modern-artsy feel to it as well!

This one was funny because the people who own the yard were outside picking weeds (I think they are having a hard time keeping up with them).  Anyway, I had told Nicholas that he needed to ask before taking pictures in people’s yards if they were available.  I don’t want them wondering why he’s taking pictures of their stuff.  I was embarrassed when he starts shooting right in front of them.  I quickly explained the excitement of the new camera and they happily obliged.

This is kind of a neat picture…we are not centered, but that’s why I like it.

He was really fascinated with the construction vehicles in our neighborhood.  Building has started up again.  If only they would sell those lots right across from our house!

Another mommy shot.

This one would be great as a picture if it were in focus more.  I’d hang this one up!

My mailbox.

The before mentioned lots across the street.

I love these flowers in my front flower bed.  They are beautiful and have spread out so nicely.

The statue in my flowerbed.

My herb garden: rosemary

 

Guess who?

My basil!  It’s huge!  I have 2 plants.  Mom and Mason, remember my kalanchoe?  These basil plants have grown to Kalanchoe proportions! Oregano

Some type of purple sage plant that I bought this year.  It’s doing well now, but I thought I was going to lose it at first.

This is my lone rose bush.  I love my roses.

The outlet cover on our porch

  Hah!  Excellent view son!

I’m weeding my garden.

Smile for the camera!! 

And, that folks…is the world through the camera as manhandled by a 4 year old!

He had a blast!!