So I need to post a response to the blog that I recently posted about Emily being the victim of a bully already. And this response makes me so proud!!!
The little girl who had hurt her did end up showing up to school on the last day of the program last week. And Emily went up to this girl on her own and came right out and asked her, "Are you going to hurt me today?" And the little girl replied that no, she wasn't because her mommy told her that hitting is not nice. And that was the end of it.
It was such a proud moment for me to hear that because it let me know that Emily was not going to live in fear of this girl. And she was also able to let the incident go and not sit and dwell on it forever. It was as if all she needed to know was if this girl was going to continue to behave this way towards her. And if so, then she'd keep her distance.
So, high five Em for making your mommy & daddy proud!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
It's already started!
I can't even believe that I have this event to tell you. It's very sad.
Emily is going to be starting Kindergarten after Labor Day at Eastlawn Elementary School. For the first 3 weeks of August, Emily got to be a part of a "Jump into Kindergarten" program that is funded by local foundations. It's truly a great program for these kids because it helps transition them for school coming up so soon. And the things that they are learning are wonderful too! Coming from us, where my father-in-law is deaf, I couldn't be more pleased that they were teaching the children the alphabet in sign language. Insert tangent here: I think that kids should be learning sign language in school before they have to learn to speak Spanish. There are more deaf Americans in this country than you realize and they are constantly being left out and looked over because people are afraid or don't know how to communicate with them. Why do we need to make sure that our kids can speak Spanish when this is America? Speak ENGLISH! Ok, tangent done.
This program is hosted by Eastlawn so I was glad to enroll Emily into the program because I knew that it would enable her to become familiar with her school building. And lucky for us, they grouped the kids by school so she would also begin to develop friendships before the school year began. Then yesterday, something awful happened to her.
She was already having a bad morning of not wanting to leave Mommy so thanks to Mrs. Smartt, who oversees this program, she went with her and spent some time talking, calming down and making a picture to show me at the end of the day. I swear, the child must have known something bad was going to happen to her. When the children were in line to go to another room, there was a little girl behind her along with some other classmates. The end of the line was pushing to go forward so that caused a chain reaction of children getting bumped towards the front of the line. This little girl, pushed Emily from behind and it caught Emily off guard. Emily turned around and using her words, like we've taught her, asked this girl to please not push her. Apparently after that, this girl pushed Emily again and then kicked her 3 times in her leg! Thankfully one of the teacher's witnessed this event and went to this little girl and asked her to apologize to Emily. This little girl would not apologize and then became defiant. She wouldn't say that she was sorry and then got out of control with screaming and kicking to the point that the teacher had to hold her in her arms on the floor. The even escalated to the point that this child had to be removed from the group and sent home because of her horrible behavior.
So here Emily is, 6 years old and getting ready to start Kindergarten and already has become a victim to a bully. And a girl bully none the less! She told me all about what happened but if you know Emily, you can't dwell on an event too long because then it turns into a fishing story that gets blown out of proportion. And we usually take dramatic stories with a grain of salt because sometimes Emily perceives events to be much worse than they really are. Only to find out that her teacher confirmed EVERYTHING that she said to me when I spoke with her this morning.
Thanks be to God though that the staff witnessed this event and handled it to the best of their ability. They assured me that they would keep the girls apart should this other little girl show up for school today. And thankfully after checking with the school secretary, both girls will not be in the same classroom this year. We are very lucky that her Kindergarten staff is a great one. Her teacher is who I had when I was in 3rd grade at the same school, the paraprofessionals in both her core class and extended day class are ones that I also had when I was there. And her extended day teacher is the wife of someone I used to attend church with. So I know that I won't have to worry should I need to talk with them about this. But I still stand amazed that this is already beginning and she is just about to enter Kindergarten.
Yesterday's events were terribly traumatic for her. She ended the day in tears and frustrated beyond mention. Thankfully we were able to talk about it and pray about it together. And even at this age, we are teaching her to pray for her enemies because we don't know what their lives are like at home. From what I've heard, this child is from a broken home so I can only imagine how things are for her. It doesn't excuse her behavior but it at least gives us a glimpse to a reason. Lastly, it makes me so proud of Emily. She handled herself the best way that she knew how and she managed to work through it.
She went to school today, with it being her last day, excited. That's the way that it should be, a child going to school excited and not scared.
It leaves me to wonder.....what is this world coming to? And it also makes me wonder how any parent would allow or enable such awful behavior? I guess, ready or not, here we come to find out!
Emily is going to be starting Kindergarten after Labor Day at Eastlawn Elementary School. For the first 3 weeks of August, Emily got to be a part of a "Jump into Kindergarten" program that is funded by local foundations. It's truly a great program for these kids because it helps transition them for school coming up so soon. And the things that they are learning are wonderful too! Coming from us, where my father-in-law is deaf, I couldn't be more pleased that they were teaching the children the alphabet in sign language. Insert tangent here: I think that kids should be learning sign language in school before they have to learn to speak Spanish. There are more deaf Americans in this country than you realize and they are constantly being left out and looked over because people are afraid or don't know how to communicate with them. Why do we need to make sure that our kids can speak Spanish when this is America? Speak ENGLISH! Ok, tangent done.
This program is hosted by Eastlawn so I was glad to enroll Emily into the program because I knew that it would enable her to become familiar with her school building. And lucky for us, they grouped the kids by school so she would also begin to develop friendships before the school year began. Then yesterday, something awful happened to her.
She was already having a bad morning of not wanting to leave Mommy so thanks to Mrs. Smartt, who oversees this program, she went with her and spent some time talking, calming down and making a picture to show me at the end of the day. I swear, the child must have known something bad was going to happen to her. When the children were in line to go to another room, there was a little girl behind her along with some other classmates. The end of the line was pushing to go forward so that caused a chain reaction of children getting bumped towards the front of the line. This little girl, pushed Emily from behind and it caught Emily off guard. Emily turned around and using her words, like we've taught her, asked this girl to please not push her. Apparently after that, this girl pushed Emily again and then kicked her 3 times in her leg! Thankfully one of the teacher's witnessed this event and went to this little girl and asked her to apologize to Emily. This little girl would not apologize and then became defiant. She wouldn't say that she was sorry and then got out of control with screaming and kicking to the point that the teacher had to hold her in her arms on the floor. The even escalated to the point that this child had to be removed from the group and sent home because of her horrible behavior.
So here Emily is, 6 years old and getting ready to start Kindergarten and already has become a victim to a bully. And a girl bully none the less! She told me all about what happened but if you know Emily, you can't dwell on an event too long because then it turns into a fishing story that gets blown out of proportion. And we usually take dramatic stories with a grain of salt because sometimes Emily perceives events to be much worse than they really are. Only to find out that her teacher confirmed EVERYTHING that she said to me when I spoke with her this morning.
Thanks be to God though that the staff witnessed this event and handled it to the best of their ability. They assured me that they would keep the girls apart should this other little girl show up for school today. And thankfully after checking with the school secretary, both girls will not be in the same classroom this year. We are very lucky that her Kindergarten staff is a great one. Her teacher is who I had when I was in 3rd grade at the same school, the paraprofessionals in both her core class and extended day class are ones that I also had when I was there. And her extended day teacher is the wife of someone I used to attend church with. So I know that I won't have to worry should I need to talk with them about this. But I still stand amazed that this is already beginning and she is just about to enter Kindergarten.
Yesterday's events were terribly traumatic for her. She ended the day in tears and frustrated beyond mention. Thankfully we were able to talk about it and pray about it together. And even at this age, we are teaching her to pray for her enemies because we don't know what their lives are like at home. From what I've heard, this child is from a broken home so I can only imagine how things are for her. It doesn't excuse her behavior but it at least gives us a glimpse to a reason. Lastly, it makes me so proud of Emily. She handled herself the best way that she knew how and she managed to work through it.
She went to school today, with it being her last day, excited. That's the way that it should be, a child going to school excited and not scared.
It leaves me to wonder.....what is this world coming to? And it also makes me wonder how any parent would allow or enable such awful behavior? I guess, ready or not, here we come to find out!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
It's raining, it's pouring.....
So last night was the Garber Chevrolet Body Shop boat cruise on the Princess Wenona out of Bay City. This is a yearly event that is held where a certain number of invited people come to eat a wonderful dinner and enjoy music by a dj while cruising on the boat for 3 hours in the bay.
Last year we nearly cooked ourselves alive because of how hot and humid it was. This year was totally different. I, who was only thinking of what it was like last year, didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to the weather report and decided to wear a jean skirt and short sleeved t-shirt and dressy flip flops. Didn't bring a jacket or sweater with me even though anyone who knows me, knows that I am always cold. We got on the boat and had a very nice, filling dinner while sitting at the same table with some friends and then two CRAZY people. One was a lady who sat right next to Tony and at one point in the dinner asked if she could borrow his phone to call her friend to tell her that she was eating raw prime rib. Coookooo! She was sitting next to a guy that screamed molester to many of us as well. Those two had never met before but were obviously hitting on each other for most of the night. Very scary. After dinner, we proceeded to go upstairs where there is an open viewing area as well as a covered area. The covered area is where the dj was with an open space for a dance floor. We were having fun listening to the music and visiting when all of a sudden you could see the dark clouds rolling in and the lighting shooting out from them. Bill, who I might add is completely addicted to his BlackBerry, pulled up the radar a little earlier in the evening and showed us that there were two separate storm cells moving in our direction. We thought we'd be lucky and miss the first one and the possibly get hit with the second one on our way home. Let's just say that we were off target on that guess. Not 10 minutes after we started seeing the dark clouds and lightning, did it start raining. And it was a Forrest Gump kind of rain. It came in sideways to the point that even standing in the middle of the covered portion of the upper deck, we were getting pelted with rain. Bad news for us was that in order to get down to the main deck, you had to go down the stairs that are right near the edge of the boat. Just going down one flight of stairs was enough to soak all of us. We were waiting the storm out and then once things cleared, we went back upstairs and were completely entertained but one woman who clearly had too much to drink. She was dancing and singing her heart out on the dance floor at times, by herself, and didn't care at all. A few others joined her so we had plenty to be entertained by. Not to mention, Tony being in rare form and entertaining us as well. Just about the time that our three hour tour (quit singing the Gilligan's Island theme song now) was finished, in came that second cell that we saw on the radar. So just about the time we were beginning to dry out from the first downpour, in came this one when we'd have to get off the boat and head to our vehicles.
All in all, we truly did have a fabulous night and had a lot of fun. Full of inside jokes that will never be forgotten too. But take my advice, check the weather report ahead of time and prepare in advance so you don't turn into a drowned rat who is freezing cold too!
Last year we nearly cooked ourselves alive because of how hot and humid it was. This year was totally different. I, who was only thinking of what it was like last year, didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to the weather report and decided to wear a jean skirt and short sleeved t-shirt and dressy flip flops. Didn't bring a jacket or sweater with me even though anyone who knows me, knows that I am always cold. We got on the boat and had a very nice, filling dinner while sitting at the same table with some friends and then two CRAZY people. One was a lady who sat right next to Tony and at one point in the dinner asked if she could borrow his phone to call her friend to tell her that she was eating raw prime rib. Coookooo! She was sitting next to a guy that screamed molester to many of us as well. Those two had never met before but were obviously hitting on each other for most of the night. Very scary. After dinner, we proceeded to go upstairs where there is an open viewing area as well as a covered area. The covered area is where the dj was with an open space for a dance floor. We were having fun listening to the music and visiting when all of a sudden you could see the dark clouds rolling in and the lighting shooting out from them. Bill, who I might add is completely addicted to his BlackBerry, pulled up the radar a little earlier in the evening and showed us that there were two separate storm cells moving in our direction. We thought we'd be lucky and miss the first one and the possibly get hit with the second one on our way home. Let's just say that we were off target on that guess. Not 10 minutes after we started seeing the dark clouds and lightning, did it start raining. And it was a Forrest Gump kind of rain. It came in sideways to the point that even standing in the middle of the covered portion of the upper deck, we were getting pelted with rain. Bad news for us was that in order to get down to the main deck, you had to go down the stairs that are right near the edge of the boat. Just going down one flight of stairs was enough to soak all of us. We were waiting the storm out and then once things cleared, we went back upstairs and were completely entertained but one woman who clearly had too much to drink. She was dancing and singing her heart out on the dance floor at times, by herself, and didn't care at all. A few others joined her so we had plenty to be entertained by. Not to mention, Tony being in rare form and entertaining us as well. Just about the time that our three hour tour (quit singing the Gilligan's Island theme song now) was finished, in came that second cell that we saw on the radar. So just about the time we were beginning to dry out from the first downpour, in came this one when we'd have to get off the boat and head to our vehicles.
All in all, we truly did have a fabulous night and had a lot of fun. Full of inside jokes that will never be forgotten too. But take my advice, check the weather report ahead of time and prepare in advance so you don't turn into a drowned rat who is freezing cold too!
Monday, August 4, 2008
Whew!
It seems as though more and more people are blogging to keep people updated on the day to day happenings of their lives so I figured, "Why not join them?!" With so many people bogged down with their own responsibilities, commitments or whatever else there is that takes up our time, I figured this would be a neat way to keep people updated on our family. So thanks to Erin for sharing your blog with me and for creating an easy avenue for me to do the same thing.
As stated in the name of my blog, we are always busy, busy, busy. It's not intentional but just how life is for us. I'm sure that a lot of it has to do with my inability to remain still for long so I take some responsibility there.
Tony is working very hard at Garber Chevrolet, where he's been since he was in High School. He's moved through ranks and departments and for now has cemented himself in the Paint Shop as the Head Painter there. Through a lot of research and talking with the right people, he helped the Paint Shop "Go Green" recently with paint. Granted, I don't really know what I'm talking about but they've gone from solvent based color to water base now. I know it's better on the environment, better for Tony's health since he's dealing with chemicals all day long and produces a much better finish on the vehicles. Besides work, Tony has been working on restoring a 1938 Chevrolet. He doesn't get nearly as much time as he'd like to work on the car thanks to our busy schedules and two little girls at home, but he is inching closer and closer to completion. Hopefully by this time next year, we'll be driving the car to shows and around town instead of just talking about it.
Emily just recently celebrated her 6th birthday and the thought of that is still a shock to me. Where has the time gone?! She had in her mind that she wanted to have her party at our house and have it be a pool party. So that's what we did. We invited the family over and a few friends on a great Saturday afternoon and had a great time visiting, eating cake & playing. Emily also recently lost her 2nd tooth already! She also started a "Jump into Kindergarten" program today. This is an educational study done by a local agency that studies and prepares children who are registered for kindergarten in the fall. What's nice is that Eastlawn is the host school for this and Eastlawn is the elementary school that Emily will be attending in the fall. She had a terrific time today and has already begun to make friends. I can't wait to see what the new school year will be like. What's funny is that her teacher and the paraprofessionals who will help in her class are all wonderful women that I had when I went to Eastlawn back in the day. Hopefully her teachers will see her as a blessing and not a curse having already had her mommy in their class!
Maddie is just Maddie, our little Tigger. She is a bundle of non stop energy that just goes and goes and goes. She celebrated her 4th birthday back in May and has been a lot of fun to watch grow. She wants so badly to be just like Emily and do things just like her. She went to preschool last year in a 3 yr. old program and absolutely cannot wait for the 4 yr. old program to begin in September. She will be with the same teacher she had last year and will also get to be in the same class as my nephew, Nicholas as well as two boys from our surrogate family (the Bergs), Colin and Daniel. If I'm not mistaken, there might also be a York cousin in that class too! Watch out!
I'm staying busy with working for Rich Purvis at RE/MAX of Midland and enjoying that very much. I've said it from the very beginning that God has blessed me with this job and I don't deny that EVER. Rich is a wonderful person to work for because he understands how important my family is to me and he also supports my adventure going back to school at Delta to pursue a degree in Nursing. I've been blessed there as well to have the support of everyone in this adventure. I completed all of my basics when I went to school right after graduating High School, so now I'm taking the last of my required classes before heading into clinicals. It's quite a challenge balancing everything but thankfully I've got just about the best support system there is to make this is success. I'm looking forward to one day finishing this and being able to be proud of myself for the accomplishment as well as doing what I feel I'm called to do by helping others.
I think that's pretty much caught you up to date on our lives if you haven't been caught up already. This has been a packed summer for us with little weekend getaways to Silver Lake Sand Dunes and camping trips. We're gearing up for our last camping trip of the summer for this weekend. We're heading to Clear Lake State Park in Atlanta, MI which is in the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula. We'll be going with my mom and her husband, Rich as well as my sister, her husband and two boys. It should be a fun time!
If, for some reason, the day to day happenings of our lives interests you, stop back and stay caught up! And by all means, fill us in on your lives too! I always love to know how people are doing and staying in touch.
As stated in the name of my blog, we are always busy, busy, busy. It's not intentional but just how life is for us. I'm sure that a lot of it has to do with my inability to remain still for long so I take some responsibility there.
Tony is working very hard at Garber Chevrolet, where he's been since he was in High School. He's moved through ranks and departments and for now has cemented himself in the Paint Shop as the Head Painter there. Through a lot of research and talking with the right people, he helped the Paint Shop "Go Green" recently with paint. Granted, I don't really know what I'm talking about but they've gone from solvent based color to water base now. I know it's better on the environment, better for Tony's health since he's dealing with chemicals all day long and produces a much better finish on the vehicles. Besides work, Tony has been working on restoring a 1938 Chevrolet. He doesn't get nearly as much time as he'd like to work on the car thanks to our busy schedules and two little girls at home, but he is inching closer and closer to completion. Hopefully by this time next year, we'll be driving the car to shows and around town instead of just talking about it.
Emily just recently celebrated her 6th birthday and the thought of that is still a shock to me. Where has the time gone?! She had in her mind that she wanted to have her party at our house and have it be a pool party. So that's what we did. We invited the family over and a few friends on a great Saturday afternoon and had a great time visiting, eating cake & playing. Emily also recently lost her 2nd tooth already! She also started a "Jump into Kindergarten" program today. This is an educational study done by a local agency that studies and prepares children who are registered for kindergarten in the fall. What's nice is that Eastlawn is the host school for this and Eastlawn is the elementary school that Emily will be attending in the fall. She had a terrific time today and has already begun to make friends. I can't wait to see what the new school year will be like. What's funny is that her teacher and the paraprofessionals who will help in her class are all wonderful women that I had when I went to Eastlawn back in the day. Hopefully her teachers will see her as a blessing and not a curse having already had her mommy in their class!
Maddie is just Maddie, our little Tigger. She is a bundle of non stop energy that just goes and goes and goes. She celebrated her 4th birthday back in May and has been a lot of fun to watch grow. She wants so badly to be just like Emily and do things just like her. She went to preschool last year in a 3 yr. old program and absolutely cannot wait for the 4 yr. old program to begin in September. She will be with the same teacher she had last year and will also get to be in the same class as my nephew, Nicholas as well as two boys from our surrogate family (the Bergs), Colin and Daniel. If I'm not mistaken, there might also be a York cousin in that class too! Watch out!
I'm staying busy with working for Rich Purvis at RE/MAX of Midland and enjoying that very much. I've said it from the very beginning that God has blessed me with this job and I don't deny that EVER. Rich is a wonderful person to work for because he understands how important my family is to me and he also supports my adventure going back to school at Delta to pursue a degree in Nursing. I've been blessed there as well to have the support of everyone in this adventure. I completed all of my basics when I went to school right after graduating High School, so now I'm taking the last of my required classes before heading into clinicals. It's quite a challenge balancing everything but thankfully I've got just about the best support system there is to make this is success. I'm looking forward to one day finishing this and being able to be proud of myself for the accomplishment as well as doing what I feel I'm called to do by helping others.
I think that's pretty much caught you up to date on our lives if you haven't been caught up already. This has been a packed summer for us with little weekend getaways to Silver Lake Sand Dunes and camping trips. We're gearing up for our last camping trip of the summer for this weekend. We're heading to Clear Lake State Park in Atlanta, MI which is in the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula. We'll be going with my mom and her husband, Rich as well as my sister, her husband and two boys. It should be a fun time!
If, for some reason, the day to day happenings of our lives interests you, stop back and stay caught up! And by all means, fill us in on your lives too! I always love to know how people are doing and staying in touch.
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