Albert Einstein was a Dummy?

No, obviously, he wasn't, but there was some doubt about his intelligence when he was a child.

By now, many of you are aware of our search for a new school for Pumpkin. He has been attending Ricks School for Gifted Children, but I'm extremely undecided about whether he ought to continue there or enroll elsewhere. For starters, Pumpkin does not want to return to Ricks. He's told me so on at least two separate occasions. Also, well, there's the tuition, which seems outrageously expensive to me for a preschool. I mean, it's more like tuition for a year of college...community college anyway...or possibly even a year of grad school...part-time...at in-state residence rates.

Whatever. My point is that I've been looking around at other schools trying to find one that's a good fit for Pumpkin, but so far, I haven't had much luck. The thing is that I'm not altogether certain that Pumpkin NEEDS to be in a special school, but I'm also not altogether certain that he doesn't. If I knew with absolute certainty that he did, then I would find a way to come up with the tuition no matter what. But I just really don't know.

Today, I was reading up on a school called Community School for the Gifted. It's slightly more affordable than Ricks, plus I have the option of only sending him for 3 days instead of 5 (which I'm totally against, btw, but which is what Ricks has him in for next year). One of the items I was reading was an article about the special needs of gifted children, etc. Apparently, gifted children have a different way of learning, and they often do poorly in regular classrooms because of it. This, in turn, leads them to drop out of high school at the same rates as the lowest 2% of the general population (the other side of the special needs spectrum), which is something I mentioned in a previous post (I just hadn't heard yet about the different ways of learning).

Among the characteristics of giftedness are: an obsessive need to understand, perfectionism, and a need for logical analysis...among others. And although I can see the entire list of characteristics in Pumpkin, I still have trouble believing that he may truly be *gifted.* When he pesters me with questions about why, where, when, etc, I literally yell at him to please stop. (Hey, at least I say please.) All of this pondering only brings me back to square one. I have an appointment to tour a Catholic school this afternoon. I'll keep y'all posted.

Books Books and More Books

I just noticed how behind I was on my reading list. Well, it's updated now. I'm currently reading the Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean. It's an interesting depiction of dementia and also of the siege of Leningrad of which I admit I know next to nothing. As I read these books about life during war, I just can't quite picture it. I mean, I can imagine it, but I somehow can't conceive of living that way. Air raids, sirens, packed in with hundreds of other families. I can barely conceive what it would've been like for us had we still been living in Seabrook when Hurricane Ike hit. No power or clean water for weeks with a baby and a small child at home...but in our own home at least. So picture me...boiling water to prepare formula for Giggles. Personally, I'm drawing a blank.

I actually had to put the book aside last night to finish reading the book for my mom's book club. We met tonight on what just happened to be the coldest night we've had all week. Per my weather bug, it's 5-degrees outside. Yikes!

Well, the kids are asleep, and I already forgot what I was going to say so I'll just say goodnight. Now, I'm off to continue reading Madonnas of Leningrad.

Pumpkin's Birthday Bash

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We originally meant to hold Pumpkin's birthday party on his birthday, but preparing for Giggles' baptism took more time than I'd figured on so we had to postpone the party. Even so, we rushed around madly to pull it off in time.

I found a very good price on a bounce castle for Pumpkin's party but completely forgot to order a cake so my dad had to run to the bakery bright & early on the day of the party to place the order for me. Whoops! The night before the party, we left QT playing with his cousins, dropped Giggles off with Grandma Toni for some one-on-one Grandma time, and we took a much needed break by going out to...you guessed it, Salsa's. Oh well.

On party day, with cake crisis averted, the Mans headed to Sam's to pick up food & drinks for the party, I ran to Target and the party store for the last few items I still needed, and QT & his mom stayed home with Giggles. Meanwhile, next door, the *girls* and Pumpkin got started with the decorations...in between playing on the bounce house of course.

The party was a blast! Our theme was Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones. Our pinata was a huge, multicolored dinosaur straight out of the book, and for dinner, we enjoyed dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets! We had various activities for the kids including a fossil dig in my mom's backyard. Mom wasn't too happy about that, haha.

We kinda forgot that time moves differently back home. We started the party at 3:30, but we had guests arriving up until 6 or so. It's just the way things are done back home. No biggie. The party was still fun. We just didn't get to take many pictures of the late arrivals. Also, for you Coloradoans reading this blog, this should really help explain a lot about me (us). :)

Giggles Baptism

Here's the picture of Giggles from the invitations to her baptism. It was taken about a week before we left for home right after she turned 3 months old.



Here we are with her Godparents, the Mans, at the baptism.

Co-Captain's Log: Day 14

Stardate 04012009
 
By the 2nd to last day of a roughly 2200-mile road trip with your spouse, 2 small kids, a dog, and a truckload of Christmas, birthday, and baptism supplies/gifts, you start to feel a little on edge perhaps even, dare I say, desperate. Desperate along the lines of...."gee, this small windblown nowhere town sure seems friendly. Maybe we should just settle down here. Oh, and look, there's a Dairy Queen!"

Anyway, after spending Christmas Eve with my family, we spent the next two days visiting QT's parents. We even found time to attend a friend's 40th bday party...a party which my parents crashed after midnight just as QT & I were preparing to leave. My mom joined the birthday *boy* in downing a few shots of the finest te-kill-ya before they finally agreed to go home with us. We attempted to take my dad's keys away from him, but in the end, we were too tired to argue so we just let them go (and yes, they made it safely).

The next couple of days were spent getting ready for one party or another. First up was Giggles' baptism, which went well enough. She was gifted with a bunch of cute clothes, which I totally wasn't expecting (the gifts, I mean). Then came Pumpkin's birthday, which we essentially celebrated twice. Once on his actual bday then again the day after with a birthday bash.

On Pumpkin's birthday, we took him and *the girls* (his cousins) to the mall where we rode the bi-level carousel, ate some chocolate from the Rocky Mountain Choc Factory, ate McD's (ugh), ending at the mall's indoor playground.

I'll post about his birthday party separately. The day after the party was New Year's Eve. On a whim, my sisters and I decided to keep the bounce castle for another day and organized a small family shindig to ring in the new year together replete with SingStar Abba version!

We were supposed to begin our return journey the next day, but we hadn't even started packing so QT & I decided, what the heck, let's hang out for one more day. We finally left on Day 12 of our trip. We didn't finish packing until late morning, and coupled with my *vow* to end each day's driving at a more decent hour, we only made it to San Angelo, where we once again enjoyed our Texas-shaped waffles for breakfast. The next day, we headed out as bright and early as possible...given that QT & Pumpkin took us on a short detour through the San Angelo Rail Museum. We drove for about 6 hours and bunked in Amarillo before heading out again the next day. By this time, we were definitely feeling the cold.

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I've been working on this post on/off for most of the day in between feeding Giggles, changing diapers, listening to Pumpkin chatter, and staring blankly out the window. I'm tired and starting to feel a bit sick from the motion of the truck and reading the laptop screen so I believe that it's a good time to log off. G'nite!

Lots o' Pics

This is what Pumpkin loved most about the hotel where we stayed on the way home.















2nd block: Christmas with our family













3rd block: Celebrating Pumpkin's special day with his cousins