Update Overload

Yikes! I have tried to blog several times lately and gotten distracted. Look!!! Something shiny!!! More likely I was distracted by piles of dishes and running to the bus stop. The kids are settled in to school and working out a new 'normal' for them. They usually do great in school and save their meltdowns for home. Tyler joins in just for kicks sometimes. 'You cut up my chicken!!! I didn't want my chicken cut up! Now its gross!!!' which from a preschool perspective means 'ITS THE END OF THE WORLD!!!' So to fill you in on the last few weeks, I present to you the trusty bullet point list:

• I got my CPAP machine last week. I've slept with it for about 7 nights and I think I am getting used to it. Katie says I look silly, James says I look like an elephant trying to pick up a box, and Jeff calls me 'Goose' from Top Gun. It has helped me to sleep more soundly and I think when I get used to it and don't wake up I will start to feel a lot more rested. Apparently these contraptions are pretty expensive and the insurance company won't pay for them unless they know you are going to use them. It has a memory card in there that records when I use it and I have to turn it in after a certain amount of time to verify I have used it consistently. At that point, the insurance company will cease to rent it and actually purchase it for me. Very interested, as Grandma Heppner would say.
• Katie LOVES school. She pretty much skips to school on a big puffy pink cloud she's so happy to go. The very first day, she had already made a friend to sit on the bus with. (More on that later) She loves music, art and library. And recess, and pretty much everything else. She usually comes home and goes into meltdown mode. Its a lot to adjust to for someone who has made a successful career out of having tea parties, climbing trees and making art projects out of everything imaginable. 
• So, the bus....putting the kids on the bus freaks me out a little. Isn't the bus where so much bullying happens, and you learn new words you know you're probably not supposed to say? Not to mention that a big bus makes even my swiftly growing 8 year old look tiny climbing up those stairs. So knowing that Katie would ride the bus home (we walk to school; there is no midday bus) was enough to freak me out. I told James he was to look for her on the bus and sit with her the first day. I also told them to sit toward the front of the bus. Well. Apparently I failed to recognize that Katie wouldn't need to have James with her, because dang it! She don't need no stinkin' brother to boss her around! She can do it herself! Not to mention she made a friend the first day whom she sat with on the bus. When they got off the bus the first day, they were fighting and crying and spitting mad. It took me a long time to figure out what happened. James was being protective and told her to sit right behind the bus driver. Katie was not going to listen to him, and sat 3 seats back. The bus number also changed since last year, causing James no small amount of anxiety. Once he got on the bus, he didn't see Katie and panicked. Once he found her, he was mad! She didn't listen to him! He actually pushed Katie's friend (or maybe Katie...this part was fuzzy) and sat down with them. Katie was mad, because hello! Bossy brother!!! Then, when the bus stopped at our stop, Katie was sitting there smiling like the prom queen while James yanked on her backpack for fear that she wouldn't get off the bus in time and it would be...drumroll please....THE END OF THE WORLD!!! We had to establish that they don't have to sit together if they don't want to, as long as James keeps an eye out for Katie. Sheesh! Such drama for the first day of school.
• Speaking of drama, the kids had their birthdays a week ago. They were both bestowed with some cold hard cash for their spending enjoyment. Notice I said 'their enjoyment' because it certainly isn't for mine. Let me explain. You give the kid a crisp shiny $10 bill, or in Katie's case, a $25 gift certificate to Target, for the purpose of acquiring the fake American Girl doll of her dreams. Somehow it is the parents' job to taxi the kid to the store, all the while praying that there are only 2 dolls to pick from so that we can get out of the store by closing time. (P.S. Its only 10am...ha!) Parent and child arrive in the doll aisle where mercifully there are only 3 doll styles to choose from. After several minutes of deliberation, a doll is chosen. Success!!! Parent breathes a sigh of relief and heads toward the art supply section to let her pick out a box of crayons to round out the gift certificate because there is no way I'm coming back again so she can spend $2.18. Epic fail! We pass through the home section where we see bean bag chairs, and low and behold if she doesn't declare that she's wanted one forever and she needs it now!!! In an instant the carefully chosen doll is cast aside in favor of an oversized pink corduroy bean bag chair that happens to cost $40. I carefully try to convince her to love the lesser priced (but not pink) beanbag chair next to it: look! Its lavender! Its everything you've ever dreamed of! And more!!!' At which point she looks at me and declares mournfully that she doesn't want the lavender one, she wants the PINK one! We discuss the logistics of paying for the thing, as in, $40 is more than $25 and if you pitch in the rest of your birthday money on this thing you will be broke as a joke with no income in sight. And you will be left with a beanbag that you will probably end up cutting a hole in with scissors when you are bored. None of this logic worked. It kind of had the opposite effect. I also tried to remind her how much she wanted the doll and how she could just walk away from the bean bag and into the plastic arms of the doll she loved. Yeah, that didn't work either. Finally, I hit on the idea that the college dorm stuff was on clearance and if there is anything that shouts 'college dorm' louder than a bean bag chair I don't know what it is. OK, maybe milk crates or lawn chairs. We struck out on the bean bag chair but found a big super-soft white pillow, the kind with arms on it, for $10. She decided it was worthy of her love and $$ and we threw it in the cart. Here's the problem: $25 minus $10 still leaves $15. So back to the toy aisle we went. At this point I begged the Lord for mercy and began to wonder if there really was such a place as purgatory. She pointed down a row that was dangerously full of $50 baby dolls (seriously, who buys these things? don't they know it will end up getting shorted out when the kid trys to give it a bath and it will never say 'mama' again?!) and what Katie refers to as 'Spinach Dolls'. Which really means Cabbage Patch dolls. I was bracing myself for the inevitable 'I really like that doll! It talks! It pees! It makes a sandwich!' that would have to end in another lecture in economics, also known as the 'Money doesn't grow on trees' speech. She miraculously spotted a baby stroller that cost exactly $15 and we put it in the cart. I was looking for the quickest escape route when she changed her mind. Ugh!! Fortunately she had spotted a doctor kit that was also $15 and I never left a store quicker. She spent her money and left a happy girl. Which is amusing, since all I left the store with was a nervous twitch. Also a greater appreciation of what my parents put up with when we were growing up. In the end, Katie had a great time deliberating how to spend the most money she's had in her life, and so far, no buyer's remorse.
• Remorse is probably what you're feeling after wasting your time reading this, so I'll stop for today. I really need to blog more often.