Medical shenanigans, staring at screens, school events, and holiday kickoff
Will met with his hernia surgeon today to ensure All Systems Are Go and to find out when his surgery will be on Tues. Unfortunately, the only information he got for the latter was "morning"; he won't find out what TIME he's scheduled for until the surgical center calls on Monday. It's like having the repairman over: "We'll be there sometime between 6am and noon." :P This meant that I had to start making alternative plans for getting the girls to school, in the event that his surgery is any time before, say, 10am. Thankfully, I have nice neighbors who, a couple of emails later, willingly agreed to each take in a kid and get them to school/on the bus in my stead.
I was on the phone a lot today , reordering prescriptions for both me and the dog, making follow-up calls to the orthodontist to see why they hadn't called to schedule Two's braces-removal appointment (they were booked solid when we were there last week, but promised to open up some new slots, perhaps via time-turner) - turns out they won't be using the time-turner opening up their schedule until the end of this week. Then came the call to the pediatric neurologist (MY THIRD) to make an appointment; they FINALLY called back in the afternoon, two weeks after my first attempt to get ahold of them. Two's appointment is Oct. 1st, down in Philly. This was followed up by phone calls to the pediatrician to get the referral for the neurologist, and to the sleep disorder center so they would fax their report to the neurologist. I love bureaucracy. :P
Next up: significant time spent on the computer uploading pictures from the weekend in DC, reviewing and formatting 400 pictures from our June trip to Disney so I could upload them to Snapfish, started assembling a photo book via Snapfish (going to try and see if this works better for me than a traditional photo album), and did my planning for the first week of PREP, which starts a week from today. Yikes!
So - a productive but blissfully quiet day. Didn't get to everything, of course, but at least I did get to a lot.
Tomorrow is the meeting at school where we find out the results of Two's learning-disability testing. Meeting is at 8:20am, so everyone needs to be essentially ready to go out the door at the same time. I'll take MiniPlu to school and then head straight for Two's school; no point in going home for 8 minutes. Will can bring Two with him, and will go to work from there. I'll stay and work the library once the meeting is over.
Tomorrow night is Back to School Night Meet the Teachers Night at MiniPlu's new school. Apparently "Back to School" is only used for the K-4 event (on another night), whereas the middle-school parents get to "meet the teachers". No, I don't get it, either. But I guess we get to walk their schedule and get a better sense of how they spend their day? Also hoping to find out if MiniPlu might be allowed to bring her Spanish materials home so I can help her practice; normally, no one is allowed to do this if homework is not assigned. The only Spanish I know is what I've picked up from living in the United States and from Sesame Street (and by that, I mean from when I was a kid) but I'm good with languages and MiniPlu is totally lost.
MiniPlu may be going to her first dance; there's apparently going to be one for the 5th-6th graders, but that all the girls were talking about what boys they want to go with, and MiniPlu knows she's not allowed to date yet (AS IF) so doesn't think we'll let her go. I'd be happy to let her go if she went with just-friends people (don't care if they're boys or girls) but she didn't seem to think it was a gen sort of dance. I imagine this is just her inexperience talking, because I hardly think a Catholic school is going to put on a specifically boy-girl dance for 10- and 11-year-olds. :P Anyway, this is all hearsay through her, but perhaps I can find out more tomorrow.
Meanwhile, there was also an introductory instrumental music meeting at the parochial school tonight. At the last minute I thought to bring MiniPlu's music books along, which turned out to be GREAT because it helped the teacher see exactly what she's capable of doing. It got MiniPlu excused out of the beginner group (and she was dreading being saddled with that for a second round) and plopped immediately into the (relatively) more advanced group of older kids. That's the good news; also, they start band right away, whereas the beginners don't do band until November. (The weekly group lessons start a week sooner than the beginner's group lessons as well.) The bad news: band, which meets once a week for 30 mins, is BEFORE school for the advanced kids, but AFTER school for the beginners. "Before school" means 7:30am. MiniPlu already hates prying herself out of bed an hour earlier than last year - she was NOT happy to hear that she'd have to be at school even EARLIER once a week. Poor kid.
Not only that, but her private lessons are on Tuesdays, as well, which means MiniPlu will now be playing her clarinet THREE times in one day: band, group lesson, private lesson. Erk.
(Also, I had another "Toto, I don't think we're in public school anymore" jolt at the music meeting: there's a monthly fee for the lessons, as the certified teachers are provided by a private organization, not by the diocese or school itself. The price is about 2/3 of what I pay our private teacher, but it also includes band, which appears to be thrown in for free. I do feel sorry for the teacher, though - she works FIVE different schools, one per day, in a pretty wide radius. That means five holiday concerts, to boot.)
A final parting comment: apparently the Christmas shopping season has already officially begun. I received SIX catalogs in the mail today, only one of which is a catalog I receive on a regular basis. One catalog didn't even try to pretend it was hawking fall merchandise - it said straight out "Christmas 2012" on the cover. OMG, seriously?? We only just passed Labor Day! *bangs head*
I was on the phone a lot today , reordering prescriptions for both me and the dog, making follow-up calls to the orthodontist to see why they hadn't called to schedule Two's braces-removal appointment (they were booked solid when we were there last week, but promised to open up some new slots, perhaps via time-turner) - turns out they won't be using the time-turner opening up their schedule until the end of this week. Then came the call to the pediatric neurologist (MY THIRD) to make an appointment; they FINALLY called back in the afternoon, two weeks after my first attempt to get ahold of them. Two's appointment is Oct. 1st, down in Philly. This was followed up by phone calls to the pediatrician to get the referral for the neurologist, and to the sleep disorder center so they would fax their report to the neurologist. I love bureaucracy. :P
Next up: significant time spent on the computer uploading pictures from the weekend in DC, reviewing and formatting 400 pictures from our June trip to Disney so I could upload them to Snapfish, started assembling a photo book via Snapfish (going to try and see if this works better for me than a traditional photo album), and did my planning for the first week of PREP, which starts a week from today. Yikes!
So - a productive but blissfully quiet day. Didn't get to everything, of course, but at least I did get to a lot.
Tomorrow is the meeting at school where we find out the results of Two's learning-disability testing. Meeting is at 8:20am, so everyone needs to be essentially ready to go out the door at the same time. I'll take MiniPlu to school and then head straight for Two's school; no point in going home for 8 minutes. Will can bring Two with him, and will go to work from there. I'll stay and work the library once the meeting is over.
Tomorrow night is Back to School Night Meet the Teachers Night at MiniPlu's new school. Apparently "Back to School" is only used for the K-4 event (on another night), whereas the middle-school parents get to "meet the teachers". No, I don't get it, either. But I guess we get to walk their schedule and get a better sense of how they spend their day? Also hoping to find out if MiniPlu might be allowed to bring her Spanish materials home so I can help her practice; normally, no one is allowed to do this if homework is not assigned. The only Spanish I know is what I've picked up from living in the United States and from Sesame Street (and by that, I mean from when I was a kid) but I'm good with languages and MiniPlu is totally lost.
MiniPlu may be going to her first dance; there's apparently going to be one for the 5th-6th graders, but that all the girls were talking about what boys they want to go with, and MiniPlu knows she's not allowed to date yet (AS IF) so doesn't think we'll let her go. I'd be happy to let her go if she went with just-friends people (don't care if they're boys or girls) but she didn't seem to think it was a gen sort of dance. I imagine this is just her inexperience talking, because I hardly think a Catholic school is going to put on a specifically boy-girl dance for 10- and 11-year-olds. :P Anyway, this is all hearsay through her, but perhaps I can find out more tomorrow.
Meanwhile, there was also an introductory instrumental music meeting at the parochial school tonight. At the last minute I thought to bring MiniPlu's music books along, which turned out to be GREAT because it helped the teacher see exactly what she's capable of doing. It got MiniPlu excused out of the beginner group (and she was dreading being saddled with that for a second round) and plopped immediately into the (relatively) more advanced group of older kids. That's the good news; also, they start band right away, whereas the beginners don't do band until November. (The weekly group lessons start a week sooner than the beginner's group lessons as well.) The bad news: band, which meets once a week for 30 mins, is BEFORE school for the advanced kids, but AFTER school for the beginners. "Before school" means 7:30am. MiniPlu already hates prying herself out of bed an hour earlier than last year - she was NOT happy to hear that she'd have to be at school even EARLIER once a week. Poor kid.
Not only that, but her private lessons are on Tuesdays, as well, which means MiniPlu will now be playing her clarinet THREE times in one day: band, group lesson, private lesson. Erk.
(Also, I had another "Toto, I don't think we're in public school anymore" jolt at the music meeting: there's a monthly fee for the lessons, as the certified teachers are provided by a private organization, not by the diocese or school itself. The price is about 2/3 of what I pay our private teacher, but it also includes band, which appears to be thrown in for free. I do feel sorry for the teacher, though - she works FIVE different schools, one per day, in a pretty wide radius. That means five holiday concerts, to boot.)
A final parting comment: apparently the Christmas shopping season has already officially begun. I received SIX catalogs in the mail today, only one of which is a catalog I receive on a regular basis. One catalog didn't even try to pretend it was hawking fall merchandise - it said straight out "Christmas 2012" on the cover. OMG, seriously?? We only just passed Labor Day! *bangs head*