Besides having a visit from Josh's parents and brother this weekend, my mother also was here Friday night and into Saturday for a project weekend! We painted Jesse's room and built him new bunk beds from a kit.
The room has one blue wall (which I was smart enough to do last weekend since I knew it had to be dry before we did the next color) and 3 tan walls. I got home early on Friday and we replaced the light over the kitchen table and got 2 coats on all 3 walls before enjoying shabbos dinner with the Rosenbaum clan.
The bunk beds were quite a project! I was up earlier than my mom (surprising!) and had Timothy help me drag 4 of the 5 boxes it came in in from the garage. I say drag because we couldn't really carry them so just lifted them into the house and onto a blanket and then dragged them across the floor into the game room. There I found that each box contained... a box. The 2nd box contained all the pieces and hardware. It took me over an hour to get everything unpacked, and by the end I was a tired sweaty mess! It didn't help that we've had quite a humid weekend.
The last box was so heavy that I couldn't actually lift it at all, so once my mom was up we unpacked it in the garage and carried everything in in pieces.
Once I had all the hardware laid out and labeled on a big piece of cardboard, it was almost 8:30am and we were ready to start! Four and a half short hours later, we were ready for the unveiling.
You can find pictures of the room here:
gallery.me.com/lessardr#100374
Jesse LOVES it and has thanked me a billion times, including first thing this morning when his head was less than an inch from mine as I opened my eyes. He and Jocelyn had a sleepover in there last night, but of course Jesse got the top bunk.
Mom went home after a nice shabbos lunch with the Rosenbaums and then I had to take a bath for about 90 minutes because once I was in, I couldn't get out - I'm so sore! It didn't help that Friday afternoon was our Department outing and we bowled and then did laser tag and bumper cars. I have to believe that unloading the boxes was the hardest part, because the alternative is to admit that my 61-year-old mother is in much better shape than I am, and I really don't want to cop to that.
Today Josh and his parents and his brothers are at an event at the University of Hartford, which means this morning Josh and I went to Men's Warehouse to buy him a suit. When we got there, it was "buy one get one for $100" so I got one for Timothy just based on his pants size. I told the guy that he's a 33x32 so he gave me a 34x32 just in case (both suits were hemmed before we were even done checking out!) and thank goodness because they are none too big. Luckily the jacket is and the jacket and pants were separates so we can a) let these pants out up to 3 more inches at the waist and 6 at the hem, and b) then buy the next size pants in the same color assuming the jacket still fits. Not bad! Of course, Josh's suit was somewhat more expensive, and once we had rather overpriced shirts, ties, belts, and shoes, well, we pretty much needed another mortgage. But I got to say ta-ta to 2 very nice looking fellas this afternoon! And Timothy says maybe he'll wear it for his 8th grade dance in the spring. There's a picture of him in the suit in the link above.
Starting tomorrow Jesse will get to stay at school for an extra hour each day to have lunch with a smaller group of friends. He is VERY excited.
Jocelyn informed me that she got sent to the "thinking chair" twice this week for forgetting the rules about no talking to your friends. I asked how long she had to stay, and she told me that you have to take ten deep breaths and then think about your community and what it means to be part of a community. Well isn't that just something that I'm not sure how I feel about. I suppose it's better than hitting her with a ruler. Josh has some choice words for the entire process, but I don't think I need to share those :).
Morgan is loving school. He especially likes the fitness room still and so he's been getting to go there twice a day as the reward for doing his work. That's way better than the "one M&M per minute for not hitting anyone" approach we had to take a few years back!
Well I have to go get these kids some leftovers for dinner. Hope everyone had a good weekend!
Rhonda
WE ARE SPECIAL, WE ARE WEIRD, BUT WE ARE NOT ALONE
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
September 10, 2011
I attended my 3rd Leadership Forum this week and found it inspiring and informative as usual. This one was different in that it was held at the Cleveland Clinic instead of Hartford.
Now, I'm not exactly a "yay I get to travel somewhere new" kind of person, especially when it involves an airport. It's not that I don't like flying, the actual flying part of flying is actually still fun for me and I was able to get window seats for each leg, which I enjoyed. It's the rest of the stuff that goes with flying that I don't care for.
The cheapest flight option I had was to leave Hartford at 10:10am on Wednesday, spend 2.5 hours in Baltimore, then on to Cleveland. A direct flight was 3 times the cost, so long layover it was. (See Terrie F? See how I think about expenses?). I was not the only cost-conscientious leader and so 10 of us were together in Baltimore awaiting our next flight.
And then it started to rain.
A LOT.
And so around 1:20pm, about 10 min before our flight was to board, it was canceled, and 10 of us watched the rest of our plane-mates rush in an every-person-for-themselves manner to the Southwest counter to get on a later flight.
I called Sheila instead. Between Sheila and 2 other EAs, 2 travel agents were on the case for all 10 of us. We headed to the Southwest counter, together, to stand in the long long line. Before we made it to the front of the line, travel had confirmed they couldn't get us on another Southwest flight, which was unlikely to take off anyway. They got us on Continental instead (which was a very far walk!). So we all headed over to Continental, which had a surprisingly shorter line, and got our boarding passes. Then back through security, where I totally forgot that I had purchased a water in between Southwest and Continental and so that $1.99 was not money well spent.
By now it was around 2:30pm and the flight, which was originally scheduled to depart at 3:30pm, was delayed until 4pm. Ok, not too bad. We all parked ourselves in a bar and got comfortable.
Then it was delayed until 4:30pm.
Then it was delayed until 5pm.
Then it was delayed until 5:30pm.
Then it was delayed until 6pm. By now we would have been better off having driven from Hartford! But it wasn't canceled yet, and we were comfortable at the bar, so life wasn't so bad.
We did finally get to board a bit past 6 and we did make it to Cleveland, even though we missed the welcome reception. All's well that ends well.
The Cleveland Clinic is a massive place, and we had so many great speakers at the forum. I'm anxious to tell you about everything I learned, but if I type it out now, I'll be here all day! I think that I'll pick one topic each Friday for the next few Fridays so I can do each one justice. For now I'll just mention that I was a bit ashamed to not know that there's an Aetna iPhone app, which I downloaded onto my iPad while there during a group scavenger hunt where we had to locate different types of providers in different zip codes. So we all logged into Aetna Navigator on our various mobile devices and off we went to scavenge!
By Friday I was definitely nervous about making it home. I had a 3:25pm flight from Cleveland to Baltimore connecting to a 5:45pm flight to Hartford. Before we left Cleveland, we knew the connecting flight was delayed. That couldn't be a good sign! Somehow we had picked up more friends heading home and now there were 20 of us hanging out at gate B6 in Baltimore waiting for news that we'd be able to actually get home. We managed to entertain ourselves and each other and the delay ended up being less than an hour, so by about 6:30pm we were headed home! Yay!
The descent into Hartford was as the sun was setting and the view was so pretty. I was glad to be home, and I was glad to have gone to the forum, even if it wasn't exactly a smooth trip.
Josh picked me up at the airport and the kids cheered my homecoming and chattered away about their week, each getting progressively louder so as to be heard over the other. Such a comforting noise!
As I reflect on the trip out, I realize that I was really happy not to be alone. I am not often categorized as a "people-person", yet being in a group of people with which I was only mildly acquainted made the whole situation tolerable. Had I been alone, I'm quite sure the stress level would have been exponentially larger. And had I not had Sheila on the other end of the phone saying don't worry, I'll find someone to take care of you, well that I can't even imagine.
Don't worry, I'll find someone to take care of you.
That's a powerful sentence, and it's something that Aetna does every day. Nurses reach out to patients that may be scared or not knowing what to do or alone or all three of these things and more, and they say "Don't worry, I'll find someone to take care of you."
At the Cleveland Clinic, on every employee's badge, it says "Caregiver". Every employee, from the janitors to the surgeons to the CEO. Every employee is a caregiver.
Before this week, I thought of providers as very different from payers, perhaps even enemies of each other.
I don't think that any more.
I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!
Rhonda
Now, I'm not exactly a "yay I get to travel somewhere new" kind of person, especially when it involves an airport. It's not that I don't like flying, the actual flying part of flying is actually still fun for me and I was able to get window seats for each leg, which I enjoyed. It's the rest of the stuff that goes with flying that I don't care for.
The cheapest flight option I had was to leave Hartford at 10:10am on Wednesday, spend 2.5 hours in Baltimore, then on to Cleveland. A direct flight was 3 times the cost, so long layover it was. (See Terrie F? See how I think about expenses?). I was not the only cost-conscientious leader and so 10 of us were together in Baltimore awaiting our next flight.
And then it started to rain.
A LOT.
And so around 1:20pm, about 10 min before our flight was to board, it was canceled, and 10 of us watched the rest of our plane-mates rush in an every-person-for-themselves manner to the Southwest counter to get on a later flight.
I called Sheila instead. Between Sheila and 2 other EAs, 2 travel agents were on the case for all 10 of us. We headed to the Southwest counter, together, to stand in the long long line. Before we made it to the front of the line, travel had confirmed they couldn't get us on another Southwest flight, which was unlikely to take off anyway. They got us on Continental instead (which was a very far walk!). So we all headed over to Continental, which had a surprisingly shorter line, and got our boarding passes. Then back through security, where I totally forgot that I had purchased a water in between Southwest and Continental and so that $1.99 was not money well spent.
By now it was around 2:30pm and the flight, which was originally scheduled to depart at 3:30pm, was delayed until 4pm. Ok, not too bad. We all parked ourselves in a bar and got comfortable.
Then it was delayed until 4:30pm.
Then it was delayed until 5pm.
Then it was delayed until 5:30pm.
Then it was delayed until 6pm. By now we would have been better off having driven from Hartford! But it wasn't canceled yet, and we were comfortable at the bar, so life wasn't so bad.
We did finally get to board a bit past 6 and we did make it to Cleveland, even though we missed the welcome reception. All's well that ends well.
The Cleveland Clinic is a massive place, and we had so many great speakers at the forum. I'm anxious to tell you about everything I learned, but if I type it out now, I'll be here all day! I think that I'll pick one topic each Friday for the next few Fridays so I can do each one justice. For now I'll just mention that I was a bit ashamed to not know that there's an Aetna iPhone app, which I downloaded onto my iPad while there during a group scavenger hunt where we had to locate different types of providers in different zip codes. So we all logged into Aetna Navigator on our various mobile devices and off we went to scavenge!
By Friday I was definitely nervous about making it home. I had a 3:25pm flight from Cleveland to Baltimore connecting to a 5:45pm flight to Hartford. Before we left Cleveland, we knew the connecting flight was delayed. That couldn't be a good sign! Somehow we had picked up more friends heading home and now there were 20 of us hanging out at gate B6 in Baltimore waiting for news that we'd be able to actually get home. We managed to entertain ourselves and each other and the delay ended up being less than an hour, so by about 6:30pm we were headed home! Yay!
The descent into Hartford was as the sun was setting and the view was so pretty. I was glad to be home, and I was glad to have gone to the forum, even if it wasn't exactly a smooth trip.
Josh picked me up at the airport and the kids cheered my homecoming and chattered away about their week, each getting progressively louder so as to be heard over the other. Such a comforting noise!
As I reflect on the trip out, I realize that I was really happy not to be alone. I am not often categorized as a "people-person", yet being in a group of people with which I was only mildly acquainted made the whole situation tolerable. Had I been alone, I'm quite sure the stress level would have been exponentially larger. And had I not had Sheila on the other end of the phone saying don't worry, I'll find someone to take care of you, well that I can't even imagine.
Don't worry, I'll find someone to take care of you.
That's a powerful sentence, and it's something that Aetna does every day. Nurses reach out to patients that may be scared or not knowing what to do or alone or all three of these things and more, and they say "Don't worry, I'll find someone to take care of you."
At the Cleveland Clinic, on every employee's badge, it says "Caregiver". Every employee, from the janitors to the surgeons to the CEO. Every employee is a caregiver.
Before this week, I thought of providers as very different from payers, perhaps even enemies of each other.
I don't think that any more.
I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!
Rhonda
Friday, September 2, 2011
September 2, 2011
I get so stressed out by the start of school!
My first step in being completely overwhelmed by the start of school is the ridiculously long list of school supplies that comes home with each child. Well, ok, the littler kids aren't much of an issue - scissors, glue sticks, colored pencils. But the older 2 are in middle school so the list is quite extensive, including graphing calculators and memory sticks! So $400 at Staples later I end up with a big piles of items in my home, and now have to figure out what goes with what kid and assemble it and get it into backpacks. To maximize the stress involved, I leave this to almost the last minute.
While going through the lists, I notice that Jocelyn's note says they will spend the first day of school discussing the All About Me posters they have been working on all summer. ACK! What All About Me posters?!?! I search the house for the stack of end-of-the-year letters that we got in June, only to find that either my husband threw them away or my house ate them (impossible to tell which). So we take a break from organizing back packs to make a poster.
Then Timothy learns the hard way that opening his 3 ring binder is not done via brute force but rather by pushing a button. Ack! I didn't get a back-up! What to do what to do what to do what to do ok here's the plan - give Morgan's to Timothy so he has one that's not broken, give broken one to Morgan who probably won't use a binder anyway since it's annoying, email Morgan's special ed teacher than it's broken and if he needs another I'll get one this weekend, put extra notebooks in Morgan's backpack. Ok, that's a plan. Take deep breaths.
Jesse needs an extra set of clothes in a freezer bag with his name on it and a stuffed animal for the first day and a picture for the second day. Jocelyn needs two snacks and a water bottle. Morgan needs extra clothes and a snack and a water bottle. Morgan has chewed the tops on most of the water bottles. I can't send Jocelyn to school with a chewed water bottle top! The one without the chewed top says "Eli Terry Elementary". Jocelyn goes to Philip R Smith. Well that's just a faux pas. I think my mother gave me a bag of water bottles from her day care and I threw them in a closet somewhere. Which closet was it? Why do we have to have so many closets in this house? No wait, without them would be much worse. Just breathe.
Jocelyn will be buying lunch in the cafeteria for the first time. They don't exchange cash any more, they have a PIN that they have to remember and it draws down an account that I can make deposits to. Jocelyn is not good at remembering things. I make her repeat the number back to me 50 times in a 24 hour period.
Jocelyn's name tag that came in the mail has the wrong bus stop on it and we have to call the bus company and change it and then fix the name tag.
Morgan will be picked up at 7:16 at the house and Timothy at 7:30 down the street and I leave the house each morning at 7 and all of us have to shower. Well, maybe I won't need to shower here if I have to be committed before the first day of school!
And so it's 10pm on Tuesday, the eve of the first day of school and only Morgan is actually asleep. Timothy is a nervous wreck, which I completely understand because you simply could not pay me enough to be in the 8th grade again. His clothes are laid out on the floor in the shape of a person. I happily note that he included clean underwear in the ensemble. Jocelyn and Jesse are too excited to sleep. Wait - clothes! We forgot to pick out clothes for them! How can we possibly decide on the fly in the morning?!
Wednesday morning ends up going fairly smoothly. I worked from home so I could braid Jocelyn's hair and take pictures at the bus stop and then meet her bus in the afternoon. She stepped off the bus and yelled - "first grade is AWESOME!" On the walk home I heard about the most important part of the day - lunch. The cafeteria is awesome, the food is awesome, and chocolate milk is awesome. Her teacher is awesome, her friends are awesome, and recess is awesome. I asked about the poster and she said, "Oh, I just gave that to my teacher, only me and Jamie did them."
Timothy's bus was late to drop him off but he got home just the same. The "popular kids" already don't like him but he found friends to sit with at lunch, including a new kid from Virginia Beach.
Morgan's note says he did fine and went to all his classes and also to the gym.
Jesse goes only in the mornings and it's the same school and teacher as last year, so his transition was easiest. He reported that only 2 kids cried - one loudly and one softly - and 1 kid tried to run away but the teacher caught him. Also he had crackers and juice for snack and didn't fall in any puddles. (He had asked why he needed extra clothes for school and I couldn't really think of any good reason to tell him because if I said it was in case he had an accident, he would argue that he hasn't had an accident ever that he can remember, so I told him it was in case he fell in a puddle, at which point he suggested that he bring 2 sets of extra clothes in case he fell in 2 puddles).
Then it was time for my homework - take the 8 thousand forms out of each backpack, being careful to not forget which form goes with which kid, fill out my name and phone numbers over and over, tell what each teacher should know about my child, decline the additional insurance, agree they will follow the bus rules, agree they can use the internet at school and have pictures published on the school web site, etc etc etc. It took me an hour! And even after all that I was missing a form where I would agree to review Morgan's planner each night, which is fairly silly since I don't really think I will, but still, one must complete all the forms! So I had to write a note back to the teacher to please send another.
So we made it through. Josh ended up with his first 2 hours of kid-free time in 13 years, but he hasn't quite figured out what to do with that yet. Though yesterday he went to Target and bought a carpet shampooer and came home and washed the living room carpet, so that was nice.
Oh, and yesterday, we got the first fund raiser. Anyone want to order cookies??
My first step in being completely overwhelmed by the start of school is the ridiculously long list of school supplies that comes home with each child. Well, ok, the littler kids aren't much of an issue - scissors, glue sticks, colored pencils. But the older 2 are in middle school so the list is quite extensive, including graphing calculators and memory sticks! So $400 at Staples later I end up with a big piles of items in my home, and now have to figure out what goes with what kid and assemble it and get it into backpacks. To maximize the stress involved, I leave this to almost the last minute.
While going through the lists, I notice that Jocelyn's note says they will spend the first day of school discussing the All About Me posters they have been working on all summer. ACK! What All About Me posters?!?! I search the house for the stack of end-of-the-year letters that we got in June, only to find that either my husband threw them away or my house ate them (impossible to tell which). So we take a break from organizing back packs to make a poster.
Then Timothy learns the hard way that opening his 3 ring binder is not done via brute force but rather by pushing a button. Ack! I didn't get a back-up! What to do what to do what to do what to do ok here's the plan - give Morgan's to Timothy so he has one that's not broken, give broken one to Morgan who probably won't use a binder anyway since it's annoying, email Morgan's special ed teacher than it's broken and if he needs another I'll get one this weekend, put extra notebooks in Morgan's backpack. Ok, that's a plan. Take deep breaths.
Jesse needs an extra set of clothes in a freezer bag with his name on it and a stuffed animal for the first day and a picture for the second day. Jocelyn needs two snacks and a water bottle. Morgan needs extra clothes and a snack and a water bottle. Morgan has chewed the tops on most of the water bottles. I can't send Jocelyn to school with a chewed water bottle top! The one without the chewed top says "Eli Terry Elementary". Jocelyn goes to Philip R Smith. Well that's just a faux pas. I think my mother gave me a bag of water bottles from her day care and I threw them in a closet somewhere. Which closet was it? Why do we have to have so many closets in this house? No wait, without them would be much worse. Just breathe.
Jocelyn will be buying lunch in the cafeteria for the first time. They don't exchange cash any more, they have a PIN that they have to remember and it draws down an account that I can make deposits to. Jocelyn is not good at remembering things. I make her repeat the number back to me 50 times in a 24 hour period.
Jocelyn's name tag that came in the mail has the wrong bus stop on it and we have to call the bus company and change it and then fix the name tag.
Morgan will be picked up at 7:16 at the house and Timothy at 7:30 down the street and I leave the house each morning at 7 and all of us have to shower. Well, maybe I won't need to shower here if I have to be committed before the first day of school!
And so it's 10pm on Tuesday, the eve of the first day of school and only Morgan is actually asleep. Timothy is a nervous wreck, which I completely understand because you simply could not pay me enough to be in the 8th grade again. His clothes are laid out on the floor in the shape of a person. I happily note that he included clean underwear in the ensemble. Jocelyn and Jesse are too excited to sleep. Wait - clothes! We forgot to pick out clothes for them! How can we possibly decide on the fly in the morning?!
Wednesday morning ends up going fairly smoothly. I worked from home so I could braid Jocelyn's hair and take pictures at the bus stop and then meet her bus in the afternoon. She stepped off the bus and yelled - "first grade is AWESOME!" On the walk home I heard about the most important part of the day - lunch. The cafeteria is awesome, the food is awesome, and chocolate milk is awesome. Her teacher is awesome, her friends are awesome, and recess is awesome. I asked about the poster and she said, "Oh, I just gave that to my teacher, only me and Jamie did them."
Timothy's bus was late to drop him off but he got home just the same. The "popular kids" already don't like him but he found friends to sit with at lunch, including a new kid from Virginia Beach.
Morgan's note says he did fine and went to all his classes and also to the gym.
Jesse goes only in the mornings and it's the same school and teacher as last year, so his transition was easiest. He reported that only 2 kids cried - one loudly and one softly - and 1 kid tried to run away but the teacher caught him. Also he had crackers and juice for snack and didn't fall in any puddles. (He had asked why he needed extra clothes for school and I couldn't really think of any good reason to tell him because if I said it was in case he had an accident, he would argue that he hasn't had an accident ever that he can remember, so I told him it was in case he fell in a puddle, at which point he suggested that he bring 2 sets of extra clothes in case he fell in 2 puddles).
Then it was time for my homework - take the 8 thousand forms out of each backpack, being careful to not forget which form goes with which kid, fill out my name and phone numbers over and over, tell what each teacher should know about my child, decline the additional insurance, agree they will follow the bus rules, agree they can use the internet at school and have pictures published on the school web site, etc etc etc. It took me an hour! And even after all that I was missing a form where I would agree to review Morgan's planner each night, which is fairly silly since I don't really think I will, but still, one must complete all the forms! So I had to write a note back to the teacher to please send another.
So we made it through. Josh ended up with his first 2 hours of kid-free time in 13 years, but he hasn't quite figured out what to do with that yet. Though yesterday he went to Target and bought a carpet shampooer and came home and washed the living room carpet, so that was nice.
Oh, and yesterday, we got the first fund raiser. Anyone want to order cookies??
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