Less Than One Month Left

Well, we have a date for Grandma to go home. Well, sort of. She wants to go home between March 1 & 8. We had decided on March 8, but then Michael mentioned that he might like to go, too. His days off are Tues & Wed, so we may look at those dates instead so that he can make the trip also.

This Saturday we're having Nikiya's birthday party. Then, she's having a few girls spend the night. Hopefully that will be fun for her. It's her first ever slumber party! She's excited & can't wait. Me? Not so much. I'm totally not ready for it. As in, the house is a mess, I haven't shopped for food, cake, ice cream, decorations, or party favors. Hmmm...should get started on that sometime today I suppose, right?

Next weekend we're going to Houston to take Grandma to visit the son of a family friend. She hasn't seen him much since he moved to Houston, but their family is close enough to ours that they really are family. Hopefully that will be fun. Hopefully Grandma, Logan, & I will get out some next week to do a few things. Maybe the Princess Kaylei too since I'm taking care of her while her mama works and looks for another job. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being Grammy.

Speaking of being Grammy...I hate that I go anywhere with the kids and everyone says something about being his Mommy, and he will tell them I'm Grammy. They inevitably say, you can't be a Grandma yet! (Insert self-righteous looks like we must have been parents at 14 and our children were parents at 13.) Anyway, how do you explain, they're my STEP-Grandchildren, and my husband is 9 years older than me, therefore his children are older than mine, and so on and so forth? And that it's none of their business. And that we never consider the STEP relationship, with our children or our grandchildren, neither do our extended families. We are a family, and happy that way. Please keep your self-righteous looks to yourself and let me enjoy my time being Grammy!

We got a letter from Cody's school the other day that his test scores were enough for him to take AP classes next year, so he's excited about that. Katie has already been in Pre-Ap classes, and told him it's nothing exciting, it's HARD! Katie, 12, is very smart, but truly only goes to school for the social environment. But Cody while he's always gotten good grades, has never been really serious about it. In the JROTC program, he's gotten really serious and now would like to be ready for college and the Marine Corp. Thank goodness for that.

Speaking of school, Nikiya is not looking forward to moving. When we were in the other school in NRH, the gifted and talented program was a couple of hours a week that the g&t teacher pulled her out of class to work with her. Yes, I say her because she was the only one in grade level in the program. When we moved to Mansfield, she's in a g&t CLASS, as in all the time. It's awesome! They do experiments all the time, they can bring bugs and birds and pets and plants or whatever to school and share it and study it. They have already had several independent studies, so that they can explore and study whatever they choose with no limits and then share it with the class. Her homework is the same as Mikey & Cody's. I'm not exaggerating. It's the SAME stuff, same requirements, same time to do it in, etc. The difference? They are sophomores in high school, and she's in 3rd grade. When we move back, she won't have the same freedom of discovery and the same exposure to so many things like she does now. Erica told me about some private schools around that take scholarships. I've been checking into those and see if anything pans out.

As for me, I've started a new medication that seems to be helping with the pain. This is the first time we've made progress in over a year. That for me is especially exciting. I'll start with the new pain management clinic in April and let me tell you, my hips can hardly wait! For now, I've spent the last two days actually getting things done and up and around. It's amazing!

Anywho, my to do list for today won't be getting done with me sitting here, so for now I'll say goodbye and *really* I'll get the new pics posted soon. The family pics are awesome, which is hard to say when you have 15 people in one shot!