Show and Tell Friday

Hello again! I want to thank all of you who stopped by and wrote a comment on my first "S & T" post last week. I tried to comment on all of your posts as well, but I may have missed a few.

Here is my second installment for "Show and Tell Friday". Thank you Kelli! Kelli's House
When I was a young girl, I practically lived at the public and school libraries. I LOVED to read anything about animals, especially Dogs and Horses. I always loved reading Marguerite Henry's stories and recently started collecting them. Here is my collection so far...




I love them all and can't wait to read them to Michael, but this one holds a special place in my heart.



They made a movie about this book in the mid 60's and I remember going to the Carmen Theatre to see it and the real Brighty was there in person! I was so excited and got to pet him a lot and talk to his handler. It was cool.

Tuesdays...Er, Thursday With Michael

I had to switch days with Hubby because we had a large meeting at work on Tuesday for all of the VP's of my company. So, here's my "Tuesday's With Michael" Post.

We stayed around home most of the day except to get our hair cut and colored (just me). We wanted to get it done before our vacation so it doesn't look like we "just got our haircut, haircut"...you know what I mean. Michael did really great and he wanted some "color" in his hair too - he was shy and didn't want me to take his picture, but I finally got a good one!










Here's my handsome guy -






Then, my doughboy wanted to bake a cake, well, I baked it and he put the frosting on it.

My Little Cubs Fan

This was made 2 years ago when Michael was just 3, pretty good at remembering the words, don't you think?




Did you notice the GIANT Charlie Brown Pez? He's wearing a Cubs Hat! I can't wait to show you my Pez collection!

I feel the earth move...

well, actually I didn't but my husband did this morning! Around 4:37 a.m. while I was in dreamland, there was a whole lotta shakin' goin' on...a 5.4 earthquake! Ron thought the roof was going to come off the house. I can't imagine what the quakes in California are like and since we're off to California in a few weeks, I sure hope we don't find out!

TGIF!

Show and Tell Friday

Welcome to my blog! I ran across Kelli's
Kelli's House and thought that this sounded like fun! For my first Show & Tell Friday, I'd like to show you some of my most prized possessions, ones that I inherited from the ladies on my Mom's side of my family.

My Aunt Catherine married an Army man, Uncle Ken, and they were stationed in Germany after WWII. Aunt Catherine sent home the following Dresden Figurines. First, my Mom got this cute set of ballerina's, sorry for the reflection, I am too tired to get them out of my China Cabinet.


These lovely ladies were my Aunt Jeanne's.





And finally, this gorgeous figurine was my Gramma's. When Gramma and Aunt Jeanne moved to Florida, they left these with my Mom. When Mom died in 1981, I kept them and have tried to take good care of them. I just love looking at them and remember dusting them every week to keep the lace clean...

Tuesdays With Michael...Preface

This is my first "Tuesdays with Michael" post and I hope to keep this up each week as kind of a diary of my "special" day with our wonderful, yet challenging, young son. I want to take this first "Tuesday" post to explain how it came to be...

We pulled him out of a five-day per week, more "institutional" type of daycare/preschool as we felt that he wasn't getting enough one/one attention and therefore, he started misbehaving and was put on a behavior plan - can you imagine a 4-year old on a behavior plan?.

We were both so upset about the whole situation and were trying to figure out what we could do to help him. Our school district had a Learning Behaviorist observe him back in the fall who recommended a smaller class environment, consistancy between us and the pre-school, etc. We met several times with his teacher and the director at the pre-school but it just wasn't getting any better. I spent hours on the phone talking with the Special Education District in our county but he would have had to have another "Class Action" observation done and that has to be dictated by the Principal of the school he would be attending in the fall for Kindergarten. I emailed the Principal (who we have also met) about the situation at pre-school...do you think he has emailed or called me back? NO! I'm so disappointed with the whole public school system and my son hasn't even started there for Kindergarten!

Being a parent is by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life! We were both so upset over how unhappy Michael was, I wasn't concentrating at work, making silly mistakes, getting frustrated with work and homelife. As I was driving home from work one evening, I passed by this lovely old farmhouse on a hill with massive Oak Trees in the yard and a sign popped out at me...it is a small Homeschool Prep. I called the number and spoke with Bea, the owner/teacher, she was so comforting to talk to, she had been a teacher in public and catholic schools for over 30 years and has been home-schooling for 8 years or so. We all went one morning to meet her, hear about her program and have a look around. After about an hour, she asked if we'd like to leave Michael there to see how it goes. We were a little anxious, but Ron was working at home that day and this prep is only 3 minutes away. So we tried it, and Michael cried for about 3 minutes and that was it. He cried again that Friday for 2 minutes and that has been the end of it.

School is only on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays so I have asked my manager to test me staying at home on Tuesday and Ron will stay home on Thursdays. Michael has been there for about 3 weeks now and so far so good! We feel so blessed that we found Bea. We have also been going to a child therapist to learn how to deal with Michael's challenging behavior and slowly but surely that seems to be helping us all.

So there you have it, now on to the fun stuff. Last week I took Michael to the Kohl's Children Museum in Glenview - what an awesome place! We had so much fun, I am looking forward to taking him back when the weather gets better. There was a special guest-appearance by a certain BIG RED DOG...can you guess who it was?