Green Lights

A is doing extremely well in school! The first couple of days he kind of wandered around and observed, but he's been doing very well all week this week. They use a "stoplight" system at school as an easy visual behavior tracking system. If you have a green light at the end of the day, you were very good indeed. Yellow means a warning for something was issued. And a red light means trouble. A sheet of paper is sent home every day, which has the date and whichever color a child earned that day; the parent must sign it and send it back. Every day. Which is a hassle, but it does ensure the parent actually sees the paper.

A has gotten a green light every day so far! Even with his initial awkwardness.

I am searching for some phonics software for A...this afternoon, he went up to the refrigerator letters and spelled "BOOK", and said the word. I looked at him for a second, and replaced the "K" with an "M", and he read that too. Then I took the "M" off and added a "T", and he said "BOOT". And then he was bored with it and opened the fridge for something. Go, A, go!

Potty training still not happening easily. Or, at all, really. It's still a work in progress, for BOTH of them. K sees A still wearing pull-ups, so she doesn't get why she doesn't need to wear them too. Very frustrating.

K gets the honor of being unintentionally hilarious. My husband bought her one of those (freaky, in my opinion) cats that have motion sensors in them, so they turn their heads, blink, and "meow!" at you whereever you move to ~ and purr when you pet them. This thing was purchased as a kind of preparation for when we bring the real cat home in a few weeks, to teach her not to poke it in the eyes, and how to hold it, etc. (We had a delay picking the real cat up, because he got ringworm from one of the breeder's cats who was at a catshow, and apparently brought it back to the breeder's home. She was duly horrified, of course, but at least it's treatable and not uncommon for kittens to develop).

So anyway, K picks up this stuffed cat by the tail and is waltzing around the house with it -- still by its' tail (we're still in training mode on how to pick up kitties) -- and then she stops, sniffs the cat's nether regions, and declares in her little chipmunk-style voice, "PU, stinky! Cat's butt stinks! He needs a diaper!". Z and I about fell out we were laughing so hard. It's a stuffed cat, there's nothing to stink; but she understands that butts tend to have an odor, I guess.

I also got a green light this week: I had my consultation with the surgeon yesterday, and he poked, prodded, listened and told me I was having surgery next week. On Wednesday. So, less than a week to get all the requisite duckies in a row. It is laproscopic, same day in and out apparently, and he said if I had an office job I could return to work in 4 days. A day out for each hole, I suppose. I don't have an office job, I have two small whirling dervishes -- ah, children, that is -- and a large hairy dog that seems to lose brain cells as he sheds, so this ought to be interesting.

At least Z has a few days off during the initial "julienne" period; technically it's a week, but it won't work out that way in reality. He will be switching back to his lovely mids schedule a couple of days before he starts working all night, just to be safe and awake on that schedule. Falling asleep at work or in the car during the commute just won't do, you know? Through the end of this month, he needs to sleep all day and is awake all night, so I need to keep the kiddies happy and quiet. But if I could be able to go to an office job after 4 days, then I can park in the recliner armed with the TV and DVD player remotes and make the TV be the babysitter for a couple of days...