A B C Easy as 1 2 3...

Sorry for the little hiatus, I'm back though. Was invited to be a part of a 2 week long online Mom Study. When I was told about it I didn't fully know the amount of time it would take me to do. It is a lot of work but as soon as I got rolling, I was able to knock out a bunch of stuff at a time. Anyway, it's good to be back at it.

So this week for us and next week for some is OAA Testing in the schools. Now...the schools have had standardized tests like this since I was in school. I am no way against it, I think it's fine and does serve a purpose but when I was in school I don't remember it being a huge deal, like to the point that I was stressed out about it. I would know the tests were coming up, I would take them, do as best as I could and move on to the next lesson. As a mom with kids in school, I am a little perplexed at the fear they put on the kids to do well. With a daughter who already deals with a little bit of anxiety, this isn't something I would consider worth stressing out the kids over. For at least two weeks before they were scheduled to take these tests, Anna would come home saying, "OAA's are in a couple weeks, I really have to study and go to bed early. I am so nervous, what if I don't do well, my teacher said I won't graduate to 5th grade or go to Swings-n-Things for our field trip?!" I assured her that it was nothing to stress over and to just do the best she can.

Now...don't get me wrong, I am all for studying hard to get good grades and going to bed early, that all is great advice but when they start throwing in that they won't graduate to the next grade level or won't be able to go on a field trip, that's where I draw the line. That is NOT okay in my book to tell the kids. They even went as far as to send home a letter that us parents had to sign about the importance of doing well on the test and NOT to finish early and if they do finish early to use that time check over their work a couple times. If they don't do that they will not be able to participate in the upcoming field trip. OH PULEASE!!!! That just makes me angry. First of all my child WILL NOT be held back because of a poor grade on a standardized test, that's for darn sure. Second, she will not be left out of a fun end of year field trip. I don't care how the school wants to spin it, that is not a productive way to ready the children for tests. That is just instilling unnecessary fear in them. What about the children who aren't good test takers? Do they get preferred treatment or do they just have to perform or else? Anna came home from school last Friday and said, "My teacher said that she will provide the mints but we are allowed to bring a water bottle to school to have during the test." Yeesh, while that all is very nice it's a bit overboard, don't ya think? Are a couple mints gonna help with test taking? I guess the whole way they go about it is a bit overboard. I have never heard of schools putting this much emphasis on these tests. Is it only me?

Let me put this into perspective, unless your child doesn't answer any questions, totally goofs off and doesn't care, nothing is going to happen!!! Nothing! So why am I so worked up over this, well because they work up my kids to the point that it's all I've been hearing about from my daughter about how nervous and worried she is for the past 2 weeks. Again, let me say that I am not against them, just against the way they stress out the children over them.

I also want to say that I love our school system and am super happy with most everything. I have really admired and have had nothing but good things to say about each of my kids teachers, they have been wonderful. But no school system is perfect and could always use some tweaking on the rules and policies. Another annoyance of mine is when they send home the paper for us parents to sign to have my child measured and weighed. I can say I do not want her measured and weighed or okay it. I "always" choose to not have this done to my children. I don't think it's any of the schools business to know my childs weight or height. What do they need that info for? Some say it's to determine the proper weight in children of today but that, to me, is not the schools job. I certainly don't need them telling me that she is within the perameters of a good weight or overweight or underweight. So I don't allow it, I and my childs doctors will be the judge of that. They can teach and promote good health and hygene and offer healthy school lunches but that is as far as I believe they need to go.

Even though it's our children who are attending school, it is our job to be fully invovled in what's going on at the school and with what our children are into. I am always questioning things and talking to my kids teachers and admin. I give praise when praise is due and provide feedback with suggestions for improvement or even tell them when something is right on. I am not the know-all of school policies or procedures but I sure as heck know what works and what isn't working for my children.

Light, or Dark - Black, White or Green, Which do you Prefer?

Are you a coffee or tea drinker?

For someone who have never been much of a coffee drinker other than on the weekends, at a restaurant or if someone else makes it, I sure do like it now! For awhile, every time I would drink it I would get this weird jittery feeling that would make me feel like I couldn't settle down so I stayed away from it. Just recently I started making it in the mornings for myself and adding a fun flavored creamer in it and I'm beginning to really enjoy it. It's not like I am addicted to it and "have" to have my morning coffee before I talk to anyone, nothing like that. I mean, I can stop anytime... lol. In all seriousness, I barely have one cup but I do like it and I guess it gives me that little caffeine jolt that I need in the morning. A little story... when I was little my grandma, we called Babchi, would usually stay at our house on Saturday nights to go to church with our family on Sunday mornings. Early Sunday morning she was up and would make me "special coffee." Really all it was, was lots of sugar and milk and a little coffee. I thought that I was so cool being able to drink coffee like the grown-ups and have kuchen. Anyway, one of those special memories I have.

I used to only drink tea in the mornings. I love hot tea and iced tea. Every morning you would hear the whistle of the tea kettle and I would brew some fancy gourmet tea, thanks to my mom, she only gets the best. My mom is what you call a "Tea Expert." She does Afternoon Teas to different various groups around the city. During the Afternoon Tea, while you are enjoying the meal, she talks all about the history of tea and the different types that there are and so forth. She has even done some Children's Tea Parties, that are so beautiful for the kids. I had Sophie's 5th birthday party as a Formal Tea Party. All the little ladies and gentleman wore there most fancy outfits, played fun games like Pass the Parcel and ate like royalty. It's funny how they have the best manners when you let them use your best china. It's wonderful really and some of my friends and family have had the privilege of attending some of her events. Well, if you've ever been to one of my sister or I's wedding or baby shower's, then you've tasted some of her many creations she whips up. She by far has the best scone recipe around, you would swear it came straight from England and her clotted cream is to die for, I am so not kidding. Then she makes assorted tea sandwiches and shortbread cookies that you can't get enough of. Anyway, being her daughter, I am one lucky gal, I get to help, which means I get to snitch, I mean taste test the food, you know, to make sure it's good to serve. It always is. If there is anything left, my sister and I fight for the leftovers. You never drink out of paper cups, she always brings her collection of china tea cups. So, If you have an event you need to plan and would like something different, I could hook you up with the best around.

Achoooooooooo!

Ever since I can pretty much remember, I have suffered with some form of allergies. It was around the time that my family moved to our house in Middleburg Hts., OH, I was 7 yrs. old, that I remember spending many summer afternoons knocked out on the couch from the allergy medicine I was given. If I wasn't on the medicine I was miserable. I sneezed a hundred times a day, had itchy watery eyes, runny nose and broke out in hives. It was awful!!! As I grew older, I adjusted to living with allergies, I had no other choice. Fast forward to today and I still have days that I'm knocked out on the couch  bacause of my allergies.

During the past 35-36 yrs I have been dealing with this, about every 7 years or so they say, my allergies would change. I would start to be allergic to something new and maybe stop being allergic to something I use to be and then some would stay the same. I had been to many doctors about it and tried numerous medicines to relieve them. I have gone into Anaphylactic shock a few times that landed me in the hospital on more than one occasion. It sucked really. When I was younger it was plain scary but after the first time it happened I knew when it was coming on and what to do and what to avoid if possible. For many years I carried an Epi Pen with me everywhere, just in case. Luckily or unluckily, whichever way you want to look at it, I never had to use it and the one time I did need it, it was expired and I had to rush to the hospital. Of course it always came on in the most inopportune times so it became more of a nuisance than anything. The trigger of those sever allergic reactions would be food. I was told I was allergic to mango's, Red dye #4, chicken skin, dairy (milk), store bought spaghetti sauce and the list goes on but those are the main ones. My parents made the changes to my diet and I of course thought it was a the worst thing ever to have to give up certain things I loved but I did it and it was fine. I knew what to stay away from and again, I knew how to handle it. Along with the food allergies I had, I was also allergic to cat dander, pollen, fresh cut grass, dust and random unknown things that they didn't find. I sneeze more times in a day than Neil does in a whole year. If you know me, you know that I almost always have a tissue or two with me at all times, along with my allergy medicine. I am always open to trying something new and natural to make them better and through a friend who recently said to try raw apple cidar vinegar everyday. I haven't yet looked into that option but believe you me, I will! It's just one of those on-going battles I deal with and my family just knows that's part of what makes me, me. I'm hopeful that when I grow up, they will just go away....a girl can hope, right?

Now having dealt with anaphylaxis and every other allergy, I think I can say that I don't know why all of a sudden schools have made peanut allergies such a huge deal. Whereas they have devoted entire classrooms and lunch tables to children with nut allergies. Everyone is so overprotective about what is brought into the classrooms if you are sharing with other kids. Believe me, if a child has a severe peanut allergy, then they know not to eat certain things or not to accept a treat that they don't know what's in it or if they are too young then the teacher should know but I do not think that entire classrooms should be devoted to nut allergy kids. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't care about those children who suffer with nut allergies, I do and I understand what could happen, I've been there. I mean I went into my child's school to have lunch with her and was not even eating anything, did not have any food with me, sat on the chair at the nut allergy lunch table and was immedietly shooed off saying I could harm the other kids at that table. Ok...here's the thing, you can't shelter those kids who go to a school that not everyone has a peanut allergy. They will come in contact with children who have eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or someone who has touched a peanut, whether it be on the playground, bus or walking in the halls. I just don't get it. It's too much. If your child has that severe of an allergy towards something, that you fear for his or her life, then sending your child to a school that most of the children there do not have allergies, then no amount of seperation, aside from seclusion, is going to matter.

Anyway, been dealing with pollen allergy attacks lately with crazy itchy eyes and chalk it up to the time of the year, Spring. I will continue my search for a snake oil remedy, as my husband likes to call it, in hopes that I'll find it sooner than later. If you suffer like I do, I feel for you. But know this, I don't let it ruin a single thing I want to do or eat anymore. I figure that is the only way I'll know if things have changed or not and I'm not missing out on anything! Maybe I've lost my marbles thinking that way but never been one let myself be sick without fighting every second of it.   

I've Been Duped!

I'd like to say I consider myself pretty smart when it comes to telling whether or not things on the internet are true or real but this time, I was duped. Anna needed to do a project for school that either has a chemical or physical change. She had to come up with 3 ideas, present them to her teacher and decide on one. The one she decided on was The Glowing Mountain Dew Bottle. Now, I'm no chemist so don't judge but it seemed to me that it was a good, simple experiment that she could do in a 4th grade science class. This is how it was "supposed" to work: You take 3/4 of the pop out of the bottle, add 1/8 tsp baking soda and 3 cap full's of peroxide to the remaining 1/4 of pop in the bottle, replace the lid, tighten, shake and bingo, it was supposed to glow. It didn't do anything of the sort. All it did was make the pop cloudy. I then looked at all the reviews of this experiment and ALL of them said it didn't work, duh, ya think I would have looked at them BEFORE she made it her project of choice. Neil also checked Snopes and it came up with a big fat FALSE. Oh well, happens to the best of us sometimes. Figured if I posted this, I could save a few of you some time and disappointment and go onto something else.

Neil to the rescue...instead we went with a Buoyancy and Density Experiment, that is tried and true. It's equally as simple. Here is how it works:  You take that same plastic bottle, fill it up completely with water, take a liquid fast food sauce packet such as soy sauce, add it to the water bottle. It will float. Seal the bottle. Squeeze the center of the bottle hard, you will see the packet sink to the bottom. Release pressure and the packet floats to the top. Simply put, by squeezing the bottle, it makes the bubble in the packet get smaller and the entire packet more dense, so it sinks.

I've since found some other good one's that I looked up and saw that they worked equally well. So, don't get duped like me, read the reviews.

Stress at it's Highest Level but Still Wouldn't Switch Places with Anyone!

Notice I haven't been posting in the last couple weeks? Well, we have had quite a couple weeks in Our House. Let me tell you about them...Spring break started 2:30pm Friday March 22nd. That day was also the first day that the Kelleys Island Ferry Boats started  running on a very limited schedule and the day Neil went up to the island to open up the cottages and start doing some work on the Our House cottage. Anyway, so I thought it would be fun to take the kids and a friend to Southpark Mall to window shop and have dinner. Sophie had been telling me that her tummy hurt but I hear that so much from one kid or another that I just said that maybe she was hungry. Well long story short, poor sweet Sophie threw up in the glass elevator at the mall. All fun ceased at that point and home we went. Some way to start off break. We then had plans to go to the Natural History Museum with my mother-in-law the very next morning on Saturday, that got cancelled. Instead we tried to cheer her up with some egg coloring and candy making but she was just to sick to enjoy any of it.

Sunday rolls around and we are anxiously waiting for the time when Neil would be arriving back home from KI. Sophie is still not feeling well and has a fever so pretty much our weekend consisted of hanging around the house taking care of Soph. About 3:30pm I get a call on my cell from a number I didn't recognize so I let it go, however, I immedietly get the same number call my home phone and I listen to the person leaving the message and realize it's Neil asking me to pick up, that it's an emergency. Uh oh, not what I wanted to hear so I pick up the phone and Neil, in a rush to make the 4:30pm ferry, locks his keys in his truck along with his phone and everything else. At first I was going to have to get someone to watch the kids while I drive out to Marble Head to the ferry dock and pick Neil up but our island neighbor, Chris who lives near the ferry dock, said he would drive him home. Thank goodness for good neighbors! Then the what-if's started running through my head...like what if chris wasn't at the cottage then? Neil would have had to walk from the cottage to the ferry dock and wait for me on the mainland until I got there. Not the end of the world but it was freezing and after a long weekend of working, not what he would have wanted to do. Neil and Chris tried without success, to open the lock and at that point, Neil was fit to be tied!!! He gets home and we figure that we would go first thing in the a.m. to head back up to the island and retrieve his truck. I had my mom lined up to come over at 6:25am to watch the kids while we go on this adventure.

The adventure begins...we wake up to about 5 inches of snow on the ground and it still snowing like crazy but see you can't just call the KI Ferry Dock to see if the boats are running because they don't open until a 1/2 hour before the first ferry is to depart. Well if we waited until then, we'd never make the 8 am ferry and be able to get to the island, retrieve the truck, turn around and get on the 9:30am ferry back to the mainland. Then the next ferry boat wasn't until 4pm. So we make our way out, we get to Sandusky in a snow storm, call the ferry dock and were told that they are not running the boats that day and weren't sure they would run them Tues. either. OMG, seriously?! Ok, families lived with one car, so we can too. I mean I grew up with our family only having 1 car for a lot of years and I never really noticed it being too much of a problem. I guess times have changed because it was a problem! Not only did Neil have to take my car but I had to give him my phone for work, so I was left with nothing or Anna's phone. Wednesday we would try the ferry boat again.

Tues comes around and Neil has to work late so we are stuck at home again, no car and no phone. Sophie gets what I suspect to be a UTI that needs attention and a prescription from a doctor. No problem right? Wrong! How would I get her to the doctor without a car? My mom to the rescue again! I take Sophie in my mom's car to Rocky River Urgent Care, wait 1 hr, go get her prescription and come home. My mom goes home because she will be back over the next morning at 6:25am so we can try the ferry boat again.

It is now Wednesday early morning, no snow on the ground so we think that this might be the day to finally get over to the island. We get to the ferry dock and get on the 8am ferry, hallelujah!!!! The sun was shining, the island looked so pretty. We get to Our House cottage and there in a beam of sunlight, was Neil's truck. All is well in the world at this point. We get back on the 9:30am ferry and home by noon.

NOW, let Spring Break Begin! Sophie is feeling better and all of us needed  to get out and have a little fun the rest of the week. We managed to go to the Cleveland Auquarium, The Childrens Museum, the Rainforest and the Zoo, went to Good Friday service with the family, out to Red Slopster for lunch, fun with friends at the Westlake Rec Center, grandparents sleepover, Easter Sunday with the family and wrapped up break with fun with cousins at the play yard McDonalds and Anna at the IX Indoor Amusement park. Nothing can bring down the Stenger Family, we can be slowed down but not stopped! Even with everything that went on I kept thinking to myself that things could always be worse and I wouldn't trade places with anyone, I was still happy being in that moment of chaos with my family. Builds character, patience and believe it or not, memories!