Wednesday, July 03, 2013

Starting with the happy stuff

I've been stuck.  I wanted to post about my mom's funeral and about the stress of this spring with Jess's cardiology appointment but I couldn't find the words so I didn't and since I couldn't blog about those, I didn't blog about anything else.  I decided that I'm going to blog tonight about Jason's birthday party.  Something happy, light, and nonstressful.  In 2 hours and 20 minutes, my baby boy will turn 15.  It's hard to believe!

July 3, 1998   1:47 AM    8 lbs 10 oz  20.5 inches

Now 

Since family lives at least an hour away, we had his birthday party last Saturday.  Due to Blizzard Nemo and Hurricane Sandy, the kids didn't get out of school until Wednesday.  My last day at work was Friday since we had to go in for an inservice.  That made getting ready for the party a little tougher.  We were really worried about the weather.  I wanted the party outside but the weather report said there was going to be thunderstorms so we figured we'd set up everything inside.  By the time our first guests came, it was warm and partly sunny so we set up chairs outside to enjoy the fresh air. I went with an ocean theme.  Jason would have been just as happy to go themeless but I saw a cookie cutter I wanted to use and so I planned the party around that.  Being a teenager, the best present comes in envelopes.  His big present from us and from his grandparents is two weeks at Camp Calumet; this is what he's asked for for the past few years.  He also got money and a gift certificate to a local scuba store.  He wants to buy a regulator for when he goes diving on our cruise.  Jason hung out with the adults as usual (we don't allow sitting in a corner playing electronics during family parties). Jess enjoyed playing with her cousins, Shannon and Alison.  The little girl who lives kitty corner behind us came through the fence to visit.  

The cookies that set the theme.
 Food - chicken pineapple bites, caprese salad on a stick, flip flop cake, and for my non cake eating birthday boy, a giant chocolate chip cookie
flip flop cake with chocolate shells
Jess

 The girls hanging out
 Who's taller?
 Miss Mary Mack (apparently Miss Mary Mack has experienced inflation.  When I was little it cost her 15 cents to jump the fence; now it costs 50 cents.

In other happy news, Jess got her report card.  All E's in reading (meeting grade level expectations at an exceptional level) and the rest was E's and M's (meeting grade level expectations).  She got a Citizenship Award for being kind and helpful; the para from the ASD program nominated her for the award.  She also got a Super Student Award for reading.  For doing so well, Jess got 2 new outfits from Justice, her new favorite store.  There was a huge sale on or she wouldn't have been able to score 2 outfits as the place comes with a bit of sticker shock when looking at the price tags.
Jess with her awards
One of her Justice outfits.  My little sports fan!
Her other Justice outfit
The school Jessica goes to houses our town's Autism Spectrum Disorders program.  Some of the children in the program are entirely mainstreamed and her class was the one the mainstreamed first graders went to.  Jess participated in a social skills group as a peer sometimes at lunch.  She asked me if she could go to their summer program as a peer role model.  The kids in the ASD program go to school for 5 hours, 3 days a week.  Jess will join them for 3 hours in the morning and then go home at lunch time.  They'll have cooking, do crafts, and play games.  She's excited.  She wanted to take the bus until we found out how long it would take.  There's 1 bus for the whole town during the summer.  Our town is 100 square miles.  The school the summer program is being held at is in the southern part of town.  Her bus ride would take one hour and 20 minutes.  If I drive her, it will take 20-30 minutes.  I'm driving her.  

We haven't gotten Jason's report card yet.  Finals went up until the last day and high school report cards are mailed out, not brought home in backpacks like elementary school.  Jason's schedule has him in honors classes though so I'm assuming he did well.  He'll be taking all honors courses - history, ELA, algebra 2, science, engineering 3 (for some reason, they're letting him skip engineering 2), and spanish 3.  Very proud of my smart and motivated boy.  Motivated because the history teacher wanted him to go on to 10th grade CP1 (college prep course, right under honors; he did 9th grade CP1 this year) but Jason apparently had me sign (I was sick and don't remember this at all) the form to override the teacher's recommendation and take honors level.  

Well, this is the happy stuff that's going on.  At some point I will find the words I want to blog about the funeral but I'm not sure when that will be.