Not that I pay attention to such things ---- but although 4 people subbed to me this week, I have 10 fewer subscribers than I had a week ago.  Was it something I said?  o_0

Friends

I'm feeling better today.  You know I have fantastic friends.  I mean really, I do.  I had another friend call me yesterday, one I haven't spoken to in six months.  But she had me on her mind, so she decided to call and we wound up talking, laughing, crying - for over two hours.  Martha is 21 years older than I am but she has always seemed more like my peer than my elder.  When I lived near her (in Minnesota) she and I used to take my kids to the park, we went to arts festivals, worked together on church projects, and we sometimes sang duets.  Martha is over six feet tall and I'm barely five feet, so we were quite the mis-matched pair.  But we called each other Girlfriend and had a blast together. 

Martha's husband is a retired airline pilot and they have flying privileges for life that are to die for.  I swear, she can fly to Paris for less than I pay to take my kids to McDonalds.  So she reminded me, again, that if ever I need her or just feel lonely for an old friend, she can be here in a few hours, no questions asked. 

I've written about my friends many times.  I look around and I know that I have been unusually blessed.  I've mentioned (at least I think I've mentioned, if I forgot I hope it's not a shock ...) anyway, I've mentioned that I've been seeing a therapist.  Working on some life issues.  My therapist made a statement that I thought was shocking at the time.  She told me that it was her belief that my friends have saved my life.  Think about that for a second and see if it doesn't sound even more drastic than on first hearing. 

None of my friends live nearby.  I think that one of my newest friends, Faith, is closer in miles than anyone else and she lives about 5 1/2 hours away.  So I don't get to pick up the phone and say, "hey, you wanna get together for lunch?"  Since I moved to Indiana, I've felt very much removed from people.  I live out in the middle of nowhere and although I've participated with various different organizations, clubs, and groups I haven't connected with anyone in the area.  I'm not having a pity party here, I'm not asking you to feel sorry for me, I'm just explaining why it was that the therapist came to make the statement she did.  I have as strong a need for human connection as anyone, and maybe even stronger than some people.  One of the things that brought me to Xanga and then kept me writing here is the way the blogging community gives me a connection to the world of adult conversation and ideas. 

I miss my friends.  If I'd been making a prediction about what would happen when we moved away from Minnesota, I would have expected that I'd hear from them occassionally, Christmas and Birthday cards.  But that our lives would become gradually separate and I'd become the rare thought or mention in conversation, "remember when Terri was here and we ..."  It hasn't worked out that way at all. 

Maureen and her daughter Kate were able to join us for vacation in Florida this summer.  Martha calls me.  Sandy has visited me twice.  In the past 2 1/2 years, my friend Mary and I have gotten together four times.  I've seen Faith and Natasha three times.  And all this in spite of the fact that I've literally spent months away from home helping my mother in Arkansas.  Which reminds me that at one point, Martha and Bill visited me there as they were traveling to Texas.  I have been held tight in the grasp of a group of incredible people who love and support me.

In a discussion of the possibility of grace, I responded to the statement that even friendship is earned.  One of the ways that I have come to understand grace is through my friends.  I'm aware that every one of them choose to extend me friendship far beyond anything that I could ever have earned, they don't owe me friendship or love.  They choose to give it.  Isn't that amazing? 

To my real life friends, my Xanga friends, and even my friends who'd just as soon not believe in grace ... thank you.  Whether or not it's true as my therapist believes, that you have saved my life, you have certainly enriched my life.  I would not be the person I am without you. 

DeCluttering

My affirmation for today:  I let go of things that are no longer useful.  The card says, "Use this affirmation when you are resisting letting go of outmoded ways of thinking and acting, and people who are taking advantage of your time, energy, and other resources.  If you want new people places, things, situations, and ideas to come to you, you must make room for them in your life.  Then enjoy your new freedom and know that exciting things await you.

I've been decluttering aroudn my house.  I wish I'd taken before and after photos of all the rooms I've been working on - but I didn't.  I do have a couple I can show you ...

This is my new "office" arrangement where I write my Xanga blogs.    Note the cool bookshelf that I got from Staples.  (And Dan - if you see this, the books on that shelf are the Great Books that we talked about.) 

This is the before picture of the corner of my reading nook ...

And this is what it looks like after I cleaned out about half the stuff ...

I'm not suicidal - don't call my MOM

Okay - I'm not feeling so well today.  I have a sinus infection, and cold feet.  My cat and my dog BOTH want to sleep on me and I'm reduced to feeling guilty if I move and disturb THEM.  o_0  And I've been listening to Sting.  I love Sting, but have you ever noticed that after four or five hours of non-stop Sting music, you're pretty much just ready to die?  Or is that me?

I'm not planning to die.  (I still have at least another hour to go with the Sting thing ... ) But I've been thinking about dying.  No, not thinking about killing myself!  Don't even go there.  I had an experience last night that I've been thinking about today. 

Last night I was driving along a winding country highway, about 10:00, in the rain.  There is a curve on this road that I know to slow down for.  It's steep and sharp, carved from the side of a hill so that just beyond the outside edge is a steep embankment leading down to a ravine.  The sign that recommends you take this curve at 20 mph, may be a little optimistic.  Just in case I might forget there are a half dozen crosses nailed to various trees in this curve marking the places where multiple other people didn't slow down enough.  A couple of these crosses are adorned with reflectors to warn those of us who still drive this road.  I slowed down.  Really, I slowed WAY down, because I know this curve.  But still, my brakes locked (I didn't think that ABS were supposed to do that so I may need to have my van examined ...).  In incredible slow motion I slid off the road.

Because I did slow down the whole thing was a surreal movement toward one tree, then another as I turned the wheel and controlled the slide.  Yes, you CAN control a slide under some circumstances as anyone who's ever driven in Minnesota can testify.  Otherwise, for 8 months of their year, no one could drive anywhere.  But back to the experience on the dark wet road, with the thick damp carpet of leaves, beneath the bare waiting trees that have claimed so many lives.   Have you ever been on one of those amusement park rides that trick you into flinching because you are certain you are going to crash only to be turned aside at the last moment?

That was a lot like what happened.  And I had time to think.  Time to think about the people who would miss me.  Time to hope that if my family put up a cross they chose something small and tasteful (okay, I hate these things so I don't really believe that there IS anything small and tasteful enough to satisfiy my requirements.)  I had time to wonder whether or not I was afraid.  I wasn't.  I'm not ready to die in the sense that I'm planning for it to happen any time soon.  But I'm not afraid either.  As it turned out, I didn't die.  I didn't even crash the van.  I came to a complete stop in an impossible place where I hadn't hit anything, had managed to turn so I didn't go over the ravine, and was able to get back onto the road.  So I'm here to type this blog instead of you reading words -  typed by my sister who usually knows my Xanga password whether I intend her to or not ...

Isn't it odd?  All the ifs that had to combine for me to have that exact experience.  A little slower, or drier, or brakes that worked differently, and it would have been just another trip home.  A little faster, wetter, different tires, and it could have ended much more dramatically. 

But instead, I'm here today, with a heavy gray day dripping outside my window.  I'm curled in my chair with my wonderful blanket - and my dog - and my cat - and my sinus infection.  And Sting.  Sting who is making me think that death isn't such a bad option because really, what else is there to say? 

Whenever I say your name
    Whenever I call to mind your face
         Whatever breath's in my mouth
               Whatever the sweetest wine that I taste

Whenever your memory feeds my soul,
     Whatever got broken becomes whole,
          Whenever I'm filled with doubts that we will be together

Whenever I kneel to pray,
     Whenever I need to find a way
          Whenever I say your name

                             I'm already praying.*

(Partial lyric - Whenever I Say your Name from Sting's album - "Sacred Love".)

 The Divine Mind of a Child

My kids are just so cool.  I met with the teachers and counselor, and various other personel yesterday to discuss the transition my kids are making into school.  The reports were great.  They are ahead of grade level in math and general knowledge, science, social studies, and art.  Michael is at grade level with reading and behind in spelling (he takes after his Mom I'm afraid,  but he doesn't even have a spell checker to help him out.)  Tucker is behind in reading.  I knew this about them. 

I also heard how very polite they are, especially Michael. And how observant and creative they are.  Then they got to the specifics on Tucker.  Ay yi yi!  It seems that he's been a busy little guy.  Yesterday morning when the teacher told him it was time for reading, he said, "No, thank you, I'd rather not ..."  During his achievement test, he noticed that the moderator had more words on her page than appeared on his own, so after he completed each exercise, he walked around to her side of the table and asked her to explain the difference.  As he's leaving the school - and keep in mind that today was his seventh day in an elementary school of 1,000 kids - every adult we saw (and that would be close to two dozen) said, "Bye Tucker, have a good evening ..."  o_0

He's just one little six year old - right?

I figure this kid is going to change the world some day, because he sure won't be changing himself to suit anyone else. 

So Do You Believe in God?

I cringe inside when I hear the question.  There is no answer I can give that will correctly convey what I believe, and really most people don't want my answer anyway.  They want to know whether or not I believe in the God they either believe in or reject.  Often, I smile, say, "Yes" and let it go at that.  I'm happy to talk about various aspects of belief or non-belief, and my spiritual practices.  But more and more as I get older, I prefer not to talk about it unless I'm directly asked. 

I've been asked. 

You're not going to get a straight answer. 

First, I'll tell you that I come from a fairly religious background.  I grew up in a Southern Baptist family in a small, deeply religious community.  That fundamental protestant outlook distrusts the theology of mainline churches, and even questions whether Catholics can be "saved".  I didn't question what I was taught until I reached college. 

I had a philosophy class with a professor who tried to demonstrate to us that Christianity was foolish, but he was so far away from my frame of reference with everything he said, that I could never connect with him enough for him to move me away from my beliefs.  It was meeting people of other faiths and wisdom traditions who were happy, moral people with a deep spiritual life that caused me to start questioning. 

I explored New Age thought, I visited with Buddhist friends, and I studied Judaism with some of kids from that background.  I cut my ties with fundamentalist Christianity.  For a long time, I was content to drift, reading, thinking, and talking about energy and light with various people I met from a variety of faith traditions.  It's hard to say how I came back to God, and I'm not really sure I did.  At least, I've never returned to God as I understood Him when I was growing up. 

Richard Bach, Jonathon Livingston Seagull, Illusions etc, wrote that "The original sin is to limit the IS."  I'll admit, I'm a lot more in sympathy with his definition than St. Augustine's idea that the original sin was sex.  The theologian, Paul Tillich held that we should not say God exists, since this would be a limiting statement. To quote him directly, "The question of the existence of God can neither be asked nor answered.  If asked, it is a question about that which by its very nature is above existence, and therefore the answer - whether negative or affirmative - implicitly denies the nature of God.  It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it.  God is being-itself, not a 'being'."  Tillich isn't saying that the term "God" doesn't refer to any reality, but that the reality to which is refers is not merely one among others, not even the first or highest, but rather the very source and ground of all being.  He was emphasizing that the creator and the created cannot be said to exist in precisely the same sense. 

I didn't know about Tillich when I reached a similar conclusion.  In all my searching, and let me be clear, I never stopped searching, the only thing that I came to be convinced of beyond any doubt is that I could never define God, never describe God adequately to someone else, never communicate even to myself most of the time what it was that God meant to me.  I like the word "transcendence."  But God as I have experienced God is not some vague "force" out there somewhere. 

I'm getting a little ahead. 

I've heard it said that "Man was created in the image of God and we've returned the favor."  That was what I most struggled with.  Letting go of every preconception of who God must be in order to be open to the God that IS.  That's hard.  A lot harder than it's going to sound to you from reading this blog, and many of you may question whether I've been successful.  That's okay.  I don't claim to be perfect in any aspect and I'm pretty sure I haven't perfectly succeeded in this endeavor. 

My understanding of God begins with my ability to sense and to comprehend wonder.  Power tempts me to exploit it for gain.  Beauty I tend to take for granted.  But when I encounter something beyond power, beyond beauty which inspires in my soul awe, reverence, and wonder ... I begin to open to God.  God as I experience God terrifies me.  There is no fuzzy warm sense that God is just an extension of the idea of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.  Nor is there the notion that God is some angry person waiting to smash me for my sin.  God in my experience is so far beyond that the words don't apply.  Another word comes to mind now, infinite.  How do I explain that I have touched something infinite when every word at my disposal refers to something finite, contained, measurable, and understood?  God is simply - unspeakable. 

I have met God.  I have met God in ways that don't make a bit of sense to me.  I've met God in so many different ways that it's tempting to think that God just likes to mess with my head.  Or that God is trying to make me laugh.  Certainly, I laugh sometimes, sometimes I cry, sometimes I am brought to my knees or utterly flattened.  How can I describe that so that you would not assume that I'm a mad person?  Especially, how could I hope that you would credit me with sanity, when frequently I can't credit it to myself! 

I'm not sure where to even start except to describe what the touch of God has done to me.  It hasn't made me perfect, or religious, or especially enlightened.  The touch of God makes me more aware of being my self and of the need for compassion, mercy, and grace.  The touch of God doesn't make me feel evil or bring any particular awareness of what are no doubt a multitude of sins.  You know, I've met a lot of people who seem gifted at finding sin in me and everyone else, but I've never had an encounter with God in which it didn't seem that all those things were burned to insignificant ash.  The touch of God makes me alive. 

In the end, the answer to the question is that I don't know whether I can honestly say I believe in God, because I don't know how to distill God into a yes or no propostion.  All I can say, is that God believes in me. 

The Level of Sound

The boys are gone to school, Tim is gone to work.  It's very  very quiet in my house.  I've learned over the past week what my dishwasher and laundry machines sound like.  Oh, I've been running them almost non-stop for years, but I never before heard that high musical hum when the washer goes into the final spin cycle.  I've heard the sound of my fingers typing on the keyboard, and the sound of the cat sleeping. 

A little while ago we (that would be the dog and I) heard a low rumble.  In curiosity we went outside and watched attack helicopters from Fort Knox fly over our hill.  They do that periodically, but I don't usually hear their approach far enough in advance to walk outside before they are gone. My day has become sharply divided into two zones - the quiet and the supersonic boom.  When the kids come home from school, sounds bounce and echo and build and grow as they play and squabble and tell me about their day. 

This weekend there will be a different level of sound in my home.  Peals of feminine laughter, the music of distinct regioanal accents, and the rhythm of writerly talk served around my table.  Yum!  It's my turn.  Last April, Faith hosted a gathering at her home.  In May, Natasha showed us around Atlanta, and this weekend, we are gathering on my little hilltop in Indiana.  From teh time we began meeting and talking and writing together, we have all three undergone tremndous changes and growth as writers, friends and people.  This book may take on an entirely different shape after we have come together this weekend.  Certainly, the shape of sound in my house will be transformed. 

In school news, my boys are adjusting but its still very difficult for them.  Tucker had his worst day yesterday.  He woke up at 5 crying and begging me not to send him to that place.  He offered that if I would just let him stay home with me, he would do TWO lessons of everything, even the hated reading.  My heart was bruised, but I held him and hugged him and talked to him about how he could do this thing, and I took him to school.  He clung to the armrest of the seat in the van and I had to pry him out the door.  When he came home last night, he was laden with notes from his teachers about his behavior.  He lost his recess yesterday, and he learned that if he failed to bring those signed notes back with him this morning, he would lose his recess again.  Ay yi yi.  And this is only the first week . . .

I spoke with the school counselor yesterday.  They've completed the achievement testing on the boys and so I'm to go in Monday and meet with school personnel about the results.  We talked about some of the patterns that they found which are the same things that I've already known.  Both boys are very good in math.  Both have specific (although different) language issues. 

Michael met with the counselor and she asked him if he had any questions.  "I have three."  He says.  He asked the first question which was easily answered.  Then she asked him what was his second question, "I think I'll save number 2 for last."  I think he did eventually ask and receive answers to all three questions. 

SIMulated Karma

Tim has being playing the Sims to relax.  He's had a little Tim and Terri that he's been trying to guide through life, but they haven't been doing so well.  The other night, he allowed them to make all their own choices, so they stood on the front lawn and had a fight ... all night long.  And then little Sim Tim hit little Sim Terri.  He fell to negative numbers in the relationship quotient. 

Well, last night their problems ended.  Little Sim Tim removed the ladder from the swimming pool where little Sim Terri was exercising - and she drowned.  (You know there really should be a PENALTY for murder in this game.)  But anyway.  Little Sim Tim then went on a shopping spree.  He bought a pool table, new furniture ... oh, he was a happy little boy.  He even bought a Genie lamp.  When he rubbed the lamp, the Genie offered him a magical influence on his fun.  So Sim Tim took him up on it.  And the Genie set fire to the pool table. 

Several of you have asked how my foot is doing.  So I'm going to indulge myself whining here a bit.  It is better.  The sweeling has gone down and the bruise is fading.  But it still HURTS!!!!!!!!  LOL.  I didn't realize that if you break your toe, it hurts all the way back to the arch of our foot.  At least MY broken toe hurts that far back.  I wore shoes yesterday and I paid for it last night when I had to lie in exactly the right position for nothing to be touching my foot.  I propped it on a pillow.

In other mundane news, my NaNo novel wasn't going well.  Last night I deleted everything I had written and started over.  It's the same basic outline, but I'm writing it with more honesty and passion.  It's going better.  Now I'm behind the curve and playing catch-up.  So I can add the NaNo project to the list of all the other stuff that I procrastinate and then have to catch-up in a mad frenzy of last minute brilliance. 

My affirmation for the day ...  I am attractive because I feel good about myself and others.  Everyone needs to use this affirmation several times a day.  Even classically beautiful people obsess over what they see as their physical short-comings.  A thoughtful, kind person who is genuinely interested in others is truly attractive. 

Now this attractive person is going to prop up her toe - and write another 2,000 words ... (yeah right!  )

Rocking Along

Things are rocking along nicely today.  The kids are in school, the principal hasn't called.  LOL.  That's beginning to be my baromater for whether or not the day is good.  Yesterday, when I dropped the kids off the woman who was standing there to greet them - someone we didn't even speak to on Friday, said, "Hi, Tucker!"  Gotta wonder what it is about that kid...  The way that it works when I pick the kids up, I'm able to speak briefly with each of their teachers.  I had thought that after this first week, I'd start letting them ride the bus, but I'm thinking now that I'd like to keep picking them up myself for a while anyway just so I can have that daily base-touching. 

Tucker's teacher told me that he had a rough moment during math class.  He lost the eraser from his pencil which had him in tears.  But in mid cry, he heard the boy sitting behind him talking throughtheir assignment and getting the answers wrong.  So Tucker stopped, turned around and said, "No, that's not the way you do that, let me show you ..." 

So his teacher is delighted because she's figured out that math is his thing.  He's happy because he got positive reinforcement in an area of strength.  I'm glad that I heard something good.

Michael had a better day than he was expecting as well.  We talked over the weekend about the importance of rules and what "being quiet" means.  He thought that as long as he was keeping his voice down he was being quiet.  But, as he reported it to me - "I didn't have to go to recess because I was talking during class.  Then I was supposed to be quiet in the hallway but I was talking to this kid next to me in line.  And apparently the teacher heard me from quite some distance away and so I don't have to go to recess on Monday either."  Well, his teacher was absent yesterday, so he actually got to HAVE a recess.    And he told me last night that he tried really hard to follow the rules and he thinks he did better on this second day than he did on the first. 

Oh, my.  I love my babies.  I'm still convinced that this is a good thing for them right now.  But, on my, this adjustment is hard for me. 

Necessary Madness

Okay - here's my tip for the day, if you want a totally psychodelic mind-altering experience, there's no need to reach for chemicals.  Just start digging down through your psyche and confronting the places that you've been avoiding for a good long while.  I wrote yesterday about the experience of feeling disoriented after a session with a counselor.  I went to her with some specific ideas of areas in my life that I thought I needed to work on in order to be a happier and healthier person. 

What I was confronted with was the possibility that these things were the symptoms, not the cause of my discomfort.  Oh, my.  There's a mind-blower.  I've long been fascinated with perception.  What's your perception of me?  How does your perception match or where does it depart from my perception of me?  In communication, I'm a big proponent of deliberate perception checking - "when you said ... I think that means ... is that what you meant to say?"  I've thought that I was pretty much aware of myself and that other people saw about the same things I did.  I've thought I was transparent. Well, I'm apparently about as transparent as mud to me, although I've gotten some really good insight from people around me lately.   

There is a predictable curve for someone going through the kind of self-examination I've been doing.  The first part of it feels like insanity.  Because I have to question whether the things I've been thinking are rooted in what IS as opposed to what I wanted them to be, I have to question almost everything.  It's odd, my feelings are in some respects closer to the surface - but they are not the feelings I've thought I knew.  Things that are most familiar, that I would expect to feel the most comfortable, are tight, scratchy, and uncomfortable.  I'm sensing a separation between me and my life as I've known it. 

On the one hand this separation is frightening and dark with the shadows of the unknown.  But on the other, it's exciting.  I'm alive, I'm energetic, and I'm accomplishing things that seemed so far beyond my grasp that I never considered them before.  (Okay, I vacuumed BEHIND the sofa today instead of just AROUND it like I usually do.  But admit it, that's shedding light onto a dark place ... ) 

I talk to my siblings fairly regularly.  Not daily, and sometimes not even weekly but often enough that I feel like we are in touch.  In the past 24 hours, I've talked with all three of them for hours.  I don't often stop to think about my family and our closeness, but I am unusually blessed to have two incredible sisters and a brother who is - well, he's a nut.  My sisters called to see how I'm doing and to give those sisterly phone hugs that are really appreciated whenever I'm "going through a phase."  My brother called to see if I'd care to debate with him about a book he's just read.  That's his way of saying, "I love you." 

I haven't heard from the school today.  Lets hope that's a good thing. 

Did you ever?

Did you ever have a moment when your world just seemed to shift slightly off its axis?  You're walking along, thinking that you have a pretty good grasp on how things are and what your life is all about and then something happens.  Someone makes a chance remark, or you catch a sidewise glance in your mirror and you realize that things are not nearly so clear as they seemed a moment ago.  Decisions that you haven't questioned in years demand to be reconsidered.  Habits that you've long since extablished are revealed as less optimal than you had thought them to be.

I've had several world-rocking moments like that over the past several months.  Some of them have been wonderful.  I've come to see myself as stronger, more creative, more alive and more beautiful than I've ever seen myself before.  Some of them have been troublesome and have caused me to rethink, to doubt and to question myself.  It's not a bad thing to stop and evaluate whether I'm doing what I have to do in order to get to where I want to go.  Its disorienting to realize that I may have taken a wrong turn.  I have a strong desire to be right.  And I have a fairly well developed ability to convince myself that things ARE right, even when I'm getting feedback from multiple sources that changes need to be made. 

My friend, Mary, (she is SO cool) sent me a deck of cards.  Each card has an affirmation on it and the idea is to take a different one every morning.  As I'm going through the fun of reading these and absorbing them, I'm realizing how drastically my thinking has to change if I'm going to affirm myself.  I've had a whole garbage bag full of negative tapes that rewind themselves and play over and over in my head.  Getting rid of those negative thoughts that make me fearful, make me depressed, make me feel weak and doubtful is a challenging task.  But I am worth the effort its taking to learn that those negative messages, just aren't true. 

Today's affirmation is "I take my time and rest, relax, and rejuvenate."  No matter what your situation, you will handle any challenge better if you are well rested, fit, healthy, and take time to do the job correctly.  Do not let exhaustion and self-reliance turn into an accident, injury, or sickness.  Enjoy life more. 

You know what, I'm up for that. 

Can I make another confession here?  I decided last week that I could use another perspective to help me be a happier, healthier person.  I want to enjoy my life more.  So I made an appointment and met with a therapist.  I haven't been in therapy for a long time.  Before when I went, I was in a state of obvious crisis.  I went just after I was raped.  And I went again during a period of time 13 years ago when Tim and I were separated.  Both those previous experiences with therapy were positive.  Yes, there were a lot of tears involved, but also tremendous growth.  I kind of thought going in this time that it would be more like "therapy lite" - I mean, I'm not in a crisis, right? 

Since my session on Thursday, I've felt confused and disoriented.  Things that I thought were no big deal, the therapist reflected back to me in a way that made me realize that I've gone overboard in my desire to keep everything on an even keel when maybe rocking the boat would have gotten me off the sandbar.  (Had to throw in a nautical metaphor for my friend DreadPirate.  Who, BTW, has a great new book available through ebookmall.  It's the story of a vampire slayer who has NO issue with rocking the boat.  )  But enough about him (you can buy his book AFTER you read my blog, thank you.)

Although, now that I think of it, I'm at the end of this blog.  Things are changing in my life in a surprising way, and I often don't know what I think until I write it down.  So you might want to buckle up.  I have a feeling that Q-Momi may need to peel back a few more masks.

Usually, if I tell a story on this site, it's about my son Tucker.  He's just such a fun hyper little guy that he's ALWAYS getting into something fascinating.  My son Michael is quieter, and more cautious.  But he made a fantastic elf. 

The kids did well for their first day.  They will have some adjustment issues as they transition to public school, but I'm hopeful that this is going to be a good thing for them.  The school principal called me yesterday just to let me know that she had checked on the boys and observed them in class for a while and they seemed to be doing well.  I can't tell you how relieved that made me.  I know that they are in a good place academically.  But, they've never been in a classroom before and well, they have issues, you know?  That ADD thing, it's hard on kids and teachers and parents.  But we'll get through this.

Michael lost his recess for talking out of turn.    But he'll learn - I hope.