I'm BACK!!!!

Well, I do apoligize to all who enjoy keeping up on our lives, for being absent for so long. I was crazy with packing and cleaning, moving, unpacking (still in progress lol!) and then we had no internet or phone from the 31st of Aug until today!!!

Well, the new house rocks! I'm soooooo happy with it! The space, the light, the neighborhood all of it! I have a dishwasher which I love love love!
So it's a three bedroom house with both front and back yards, the back is fenced with a deck and a small storage shed. It's in a quiet neighborhood on the far east side of the city. The girls love the yard and the space and the ease with which they can go outside to play or ride bikes or roller blade.
Much to Jaala's delight, half of the yard is landscaped in large rocks and the other half is grass. I swear if I threw out all her toys except her horses and let her loose in the back yard with the rocks, she'd be just as happy! Rocks are apparently useful for everything, building corrals, building feed boxes, making fences, dividing flagstone space with her sister, making soup, throwing into buckets of water, washing, painting, scraping, collecting and the list is Bubba long!!!

The girls started school on the 30th of Aug. Then had a break for the long weekend. I had asked Kyle to return the girls early from his weekend, making it a regular weekend, instead of a long weekend, because they got a total of 45 mins in the new house before his hussy picked them up,(**Leisha was very upset that it wasn't her dad and pitched a huge fit about going. She cried and clung to me, I slowly worked her toward the car and she stiffened and screamed when I tried to put her in. It was awful. Jan was no help, she said "your mother has to follow the rules" when Jaala said "just keep her mom" then Jaala got all teary. She had asked Jan to take her to Mcdonalds because she was hungry. Jan replied "do you have money? Well then you'll just have to eat what I brought you." What a BITCH!!! Normal people would have said "actually, we're not going to spend money on Mcdonalds, I packed a nice snack for you to munch on.")** and I felt it was in their best interest to give them a day to settle in, instead of expecting them to settle in, go to sleep and be up in good form for school the next day. Hmmmm Kyle refused. Not only did he refuse, he kept the girls an hour past drop off time. I was in absolute panic, I tried the cell phone number I have, no one answered, and when he drove up I said "do you realize you are an HOUR late Kyle?" He just stared at me. His skanky bitch piped up with "you watch how you talk in front of these girls!" to which I replied. "Oh I am so not talking to YOU lady."

Kyle never did explain what the hell, because he is a confirmed Jack ass. The girls were exhausted, they hadn't even spent the day with their father, he dropped them at some sort of play program in the park and worked on his deck instead. Lovely.

So at my lawyers advice, given that Kyle refused to be reasonable with the girls wellbeing in mind (as usual), I kept the girls home from school on tuesday to allow them to settle in, find their things and get adjusted to the new house.
The rest of the week went really well. I'm slowly scaffolding Leishabeth to being able to say good bye to me at the door of her classroom. She tries very hard to be brave all day, but if I'm not outside the door of her class when she walks out after school, she really falls apart. Her teacher is amazing, HUGE shout out to Mrs. Burnett, she is such the perfect teacher for my wee Lei. She is soft spoken but firm, she is an EXCELLENT communicator and really knows kids well, she is kind and watchful and I so appreciate her talent! Leisha is very ready to read. She recived her first sight word list this past monday, and last night, she recognized 4/5 words instantly. Jaala had her first spelling test on friday and got 100%! It's such a posative booster for her to acheive early. She is working so hard teaching herself little tricks to remember the hard things. For example, she writes "bed" on the top of her spelling test page, so that she reminds herself which direction the b and d face. She has mild dysfluency which seems to translate to her visual cues as well, but these tricks work well to remind her and she's getting more profiecient as time goes on. She has two teachers, job sharing her grade two class, and she seems to really respond well to both of them. Don't ask me to spell either of their names, or say them either, because I haven't got a clue. Very different names for sure, Miss D. and Mrs. P. respectively teach social, language arts and math, in the morning and science, pe, music and art in the afternoon.

I am taking a class with an indepth look at behavior, developmental and learning disabilities in children, as well as learning value based teaching techniques and best practices teaching. It seems to be a fun and exciting class!
Man, when I was registering for classes this term, I realized I could just stay in college and study indefinately. If I had the money, I would! There are so many options I would continue to take for the special education information is wide and varied and I want it all!

In other news, not only is my former landlord NOT planning to return my damage deposit to me, he is expecting me to pay $450 dollars EXTRA for what he claims is deliberate damage to the carpets which must be replaced.
We'll see him in small claims court.

AND Jaala and Leishabeth had a trip to the dentist, both of them got their pictures on the No Cavity Wall of Fame! Leisha has two loose teeth, finally, she was so upset when her sixth birthday came and went with no signs of loose teeth, because her sister lost two teeth when she was only 5. OY!!!

So, you're dying for pictures of the house, and I am dying to SHOW you pictures of the house!!!!!