The blog police

The blog police have, once again, decided that I'm failing on my blogging duties. I can't argue, but in my own defense, I have been keeping a notepad, filled with things I need to blog about, so I don't forget. Am I smart, or what? (Don't answer that!)

First of all, we had snow in Virginia! We usually get snow once or twice a year. Last year, we barely got any, although one day it did snow enough for the kids to sled a little. Well, we got a good amount this time and school was canceled for two days. Of course, it only takes a flake or two to cancel school here, seeing as they don't have rock salt for the roads and our whole county probably only has one or two plows.

The kids were beyond thrilled with the snow and had a wonderful time playing in it. Hannah about drove me crazy the first day because her friends, Bitch One and Bitch Two, were being bitchy and wouldn't play with her. Her other friend, Larkinya (not a bitch), wasn't allowed to play outside because her dad didn't want them to track snow into the house. Ugh! So, that meant that Hannah had to take her frustration out on me all day! Woo-hoo! It wasn't as bad as it could have been, though, she was annoying as heck, reminding me of Claudia's Dominyk, but at least she wasn't violent this time. She had settled down quite a bit by day two, so that went a lot more smoothly.

I try to do something special on snow days, so I made a batch (well that would be 3 batches for our family) of Chocolate Krinkles. I made the kids call them Snowflake cookies or they weren't allowed to eat them! Luke tried to get away with taking one and calling it a Krinkle, but when he got it smacked out of his hand, he learned his lesson! Well, I'm not sure if that did it or if it was Alex and I blocking the tray so he couldn't get anymore. Either way, it was fun!

I got a new cell phone! I am so happy because I had let Hannah take mine one day and she fell with it and the screen broke. It still worked just fine, but I couldn't get to my contact list or change my alarms or see who was calling me, which I hated. I really need to see who is calling so I can avoid the people I want to avoid and believe me, there are several of those in my contact list! Our provider lowered their rates and by combining our plans, we were able to get more features (like the text messaging), plus add additional lines for the little kids and still pay about what we have been paying, so that was awesome.

I have always been really against cell phones for anyone who isn't driving age, but was forced to rethink my ideas about that. None of the older kids were really involved in activities where I or Mike wasn't there with them. Not so much for the younger kids. Alex is always gone to some drama class or play practice and they always finish at different times, so he really needs to have a phone just so we can figure out when to pick him up.

Then of course, there is always Hannah. She has been obsessed with getting a cell phone for at least 5 years now. She even stole one when she was younger (about 8 or 9). That was fun. She had no idea she was stealing it (FAS at work). I was hysterical and humiliated because my child had stolen something and her psychologist talked to her and then calmly explained to me that it wasn't "really" stealing because she couldn't understand it was wrong. He called it "shiny object syndrome" and said it was common for both FAS and bipolar kids. Well, that didn't help when I had to explain to the mom of the girl she had stolen it from. She didn't believe a word I said! Thank God she seems to have outgrown that. Well, I guess she didn't really outgrow it, I just explained it over a million times and some little fragment of that actually stuck in her brain!

Anyway, we got a cell phone for Hannah and Shauna to share. Shauna doesn't really need one, but we didn't want her to feel left out. We actually had a funny conversation about it. I told her she really only needed one for emergencies and she never leaves the couch. CUP piped in, "Yeah, but if she had one, she could call you from the couch if the cable goes out because that would be an emergency!"

So far, the cell phone thing has been going relatively smoothly. Hannah has made a few mistakes, one that I will blog about later, (let's just say that there is a guy named Mike in Massachusetts that is none too happy with her!) but she has done better with it than I thought she would. So far, none of her friend's parents have blocked her cell number, but she has only had the phone for 3 days! Hannah has no concept of time, so if she calls someone and they don't answer, she just keeps calling every minute or even twice a minute because she can't figure out why they aren't answering.