7 months later, it appears this blog has once again risen from the dead…

BRAAAAIIIINNNSSSSS!!!!

There have been a couple times these last few months when I thought about writing a post; Kyle’s 15th birthday, Easter (for the whole ”it has risen” thing and pics of Kyle being taken down by a 3yo with a squirt gun!), Erin’s 5th birthday, but today is the day! So, let’s catch up.

That new drug? After playing around with the dosage, I’ve found a balance that makes my migraines much more manageable and the side-effects minimal. So that is huge and has improved all our lives – cause it was getting bad people. Let’s file that in the “good news” column.

There were some holidays. Fun and merriment had by all.

In January we went to Florida to visit my parent and freeze our butts off at Disney World!

There were a bunch of birthdays. (Not mine. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss it!) Too much cake had by all.

It has just about been a whole school year since my last post. I have 2 semesters under my belt. Lots of good stuff there. Kyle has 3 weeks left of his first year of high school. And then 4 weeks of summer school. I don’t want to talk about it. ::glares at the “bad news” column::

Oh and I finished this today!

Well, I think that’s enough for today. Baby steps…

(and 2 of the fingers on my left hand are too tender to type anymore! #multiplestabwounds)

I thought today was the day I had my follow-up appointment with the neurologist. I was wrong. That appt is next Tuesday. Today was the pumpkin patch field-trip with Erin’s preschool. oh boy. If anything is going to put this new medication to the test, it is a day in the sun surrounded by a bunch of hopped up 4 year olds.

Now I don’t want to jinx myself, but so far this stuff seems to be working. Although this will be the week to watch, I have not had a migraine since I started taking it. And I must say it is strange. There have been days where I know that without the medicine I would have had a headache. It kinda feels like cheating death or something. I have not noticed any negative side effects either. So. I’m hopeful.

To celebrate surviving the day with my head intact, I published a bunch of pictures on flickr for your viewing enjoyment. That little girl was wiped out by the time I literally dragged her out of there. I think she had fun.

And she wants a goat.

And if I hit publish and wake up with a headache, I am going to be mightily pissed off.

Just sayin’.

Hey look! I have a blog! Who knew? Maybe I should just dedicate this space as a place to write about my migraines. You know, like 500 words on trying to figure out the combination to the gun safe, or my waxing all lyrical about the ebony handled ice pick I found online. Maybe detailed descriptions of what it feels like to have an elephant step on your head. People would like that right? The rantings of a mad woman?! If reality TV has taught us anything it’s that crazy sells! My blog would become extremely popular, allowing me to use ads that would then generate enough income for me to finally purchase that guillotine I found on Ebay!

::sigh::

Maybe I need to write a little program that locks my computer down for 48 hours after I type any combination of the words: migraines suck, day #4, hey I have an idea.

Anyways, I went to see a neurologist this morning. He basically said that I am a walking 24/7/365 migraine waiting to happen. great. And guess what? I get to try another drug! Fun fun fun. And then I go back in a month.

Today was Kyle’s first day of high school.

High school.

But first there was texting to be done.

Then a god-mom-take-your-silly-picture smile and he was off.

He said he did not need me to walk him to school. Bummer.
I was even wearing my fancy pajamas.

Paparazzi mom ACTIVATE!

“I am contemplating…”

“…how to kill you in your sleep!!”

Of course. I finally make it home from the 4-day volleyball-fest, get caught up on my sleep, and the welcome-home-allergies I thought I was experiencing turns out to be a cold. It’s 93 degrees outside and I have a cold. This sucks.

So Kyle had his first club volleyball tournament last weekend. He is on the NCVC 14-1 team (got bumped up from the 14-2 team after his 2nd practice) and he did great!

And I could tell you about how absolutely exhausting those 4 days were, or how I should have stayed in Malibu on Monday night but decided to drive home instead and then the I-5 tried to kill me and I had a near-psychotic episode and was delirious by the time I got home, but you don’t want to hear about that. How about some pictures instead?

And before I start hitting the NyQuil, let me show you something I put together between last week’s evil blog migration woes and this week’s PTI-5S* recovery – my new website www.dawnblanchfield.com!

I would like to thank Schmutzie for encouraging me to check out Squarespace and I can not say enough good things about my hosting company Tiger Technologies for the awesome support and getting my domain name issues taken care of.

Hey did you hear the good news? We won our appeal with the County Board of Education last Thursday night! It was beyond nerve-wracking and a close vote: 4-3. yikes. It took Chris and I over a day to finally come to grips with the reality that the whole interdistrict transfer process was finally over and that Kyle was actually going to be allowed to attend Whitney HS. damn that was stressful. But today I got Kyle enrolled at Whitney and he is all set to start in the fall. So relieved. And probably 3 inches taller without all that stress weighing on me.

And Kyle isn’t the only kid around here with school news. Erin had her “Moving Up” party last Friday at preschool. She’s no longer in the Busy Bee class, but in the Open Court class. Weird name for a classroom isn’t it? Turns out Open Court is the name of the reading program that class uses. Erin was placed in the “advanced” Pre-K class. And today was her first day in her new class with a new teacher. Seems to have gone okay. The big difference for us is that in the new class there is no nap time. No. Nap. Time.
NO.
NAP.

I’ve obviously some serious misgiving about this. Check back at the end of the week and see if any of us survived.

Another good news item is that the blog redesign/migration I have been struggling with for the past week is finally nearing completion! In fact, the new site went live today. And that my friends feels like a miracle after the problems I had migrating the blog content from the original Blogger site to the new WordPress site I set up. Migrations are a bit of a crapshoot. Most of the time they go relatively smoothly. But every now and then, woo boy, things just do not go well. And for no good reason. You do everything right, but nothing works as it should. And this one really had me worried for a couple days. But I got it done and now just have some tweaks to finish up. Check it out – Mom 101. The design was done by the amazing Schmutzie of Ninjamatics. I am so happy to be working with her again.

So, feeling much better about things now. Well, except for maybe that no nap thing. Next up to stress about – Kyle’s 4 day volleyball tournament in Anaheim that starts this Friday. Road tripping in 2 days baby! oh boy.

Our battle with the school board.

When Chris bought this house in one of Lincoln’s new planned neighborhood, they had just finished the new elementary school, construction was starting on the middle school directly behind the house, and there was to be a new high school completed in a few years next to the library that is within walking distance of our house. Well, the city is stupid and mismanaged their finances so the high school got shelved.

The other thing you need to know is that our house is just a couple blocks from the city border with Rocklin.  And Rocklin built a new school on their side of the border – Whitney High School. Exactly 1/2 a mile from our door.  A very nice high school that we can see from Kyle’s window.

We want Kyle to attend Whitney High School. The obvious reason is location. Lincoln’s only high school is 5 miles away on the opposite side of town. A part of town we never even go to. Another and ultimately more important reason is that the Rocklin high school is a better school: college-prep vs vocational.

So we have known for some time that we wanted Kyle to attend Whitney. And last fall – last FALL! – I started the process to get him transferred. I went to Whitney HS to find out what I needed to do and was directed to the Western Placer Unified School District (which covers Lincoln’s schools) to get the proper forms etc. Off I merrily go to the WPUSD office to get my interdistrict transfer request form. And I’m told I can’t turn it in until after the first of the year. Okay. This past January I show up at the WPUSD with completed form in hand and am informed that I can’t turn it in until after Feb 1st. Okay.  Feb 1st I show up at the WPUSD office and turn in my form. I am then informed that I must take a tour of the Lincoln High School and get another form signed by a school official that I had taken the tour. sigh. Okay. I took the tour 2 days later and then turned in that form too. I was told the superintendent then had 30 days to respond to our request.

SIX weeks later I receive a letter from WPUSD stating that the original form used for Interdistrict transfers had been amended and we would need to resubmit the new form which they so kindly enclosed a copy of.

::sigh::

Turned in the new form. And the superintendent denied our request. So we sent a letter and requested an appeal before the WPUSD School Board. We were put on the docket for the next school board meeting. And we showed up and in closed session explained our reasoning behind our request. Then in open session the board voted and unanimously denied us without explanation or a chance to reply or ask any questions. Our next step – appeal to the County Board of Education.

oh boy.

In the meantime, Chris starts making some phone calls. He talks the the WPUSD superintendent and the contact at the county.  What he finds out is that basically the board doesn’t give a crap about location. It is not one of their criteria for transfer approval. What else have we got? Well, it turns out that volleyball is Kyle’s sport. While he enjoys basketball, he has a natural talent for volleyball and you can see a different degree of confidence in him when he’s playing volleyball. He is so good at it that his coach recommended he try out for the local club team. Which he did and next week we are off to his 4 day tournament in Anaheim. But that’s another story for another day. Back to our appeal and what does volleyball have to do with anything. Well, Lincoln High School does not have a volleyball team. I don’t know why when there are 2 junior highs with volleyball team feeding into the school. But there it is. Of course Whitney has volleyball. And a damn pool in case Kyle needs a fall sport and wants to try his flipper-feet at water polo!

So, before we go before the county and have them rescind us back to WPUSD with new reasons for request, we re-apply to WPUSD with the new request and get denied. Again. Since Chris is now calling the superintendent almost daily, we get put on the docket for the next school board meeting which is 2 days before the county appeal meeting. That was yesterday. And we did our dog and pony show before the board again. And got denied. By the board. Again. Surprise surprise.

And tonight is the big night. Our appeal before the county. A full and proper hearing in which a WPUSD board member must attend and state their reason’s for denial. And at this meeting there will actually be some back and forth and debate that we will be privy to. How refreshing. I am trying oh so very hard to remain positive about tonight’s outcome, but I’m tired. Tired from all the stress and hoop jumping and living in this limbo about our future. Tired of Lincoln.

My phone rang last night after I was in bed. Not quite asleep, but on my way. I hate that. It scares me. It was my nephew Brady in Michigan calling to tell me he had talked to my brother David.

(David is also in Michigan. My family is in Michigan. I’m in California. I don’t want to live in Michigan, but I hate the 2300 mile distance between us!)

So, Brady talked to David; not your typical reason for a late night call. Or a blog post for that matter, but this was big. No one had seen or heard from my brother in over 6 years! He had just fallen off the face of the earth. One of those things where you would ask “hey, have you heard from David recently? No? Weird.” Until it became “hey, will you drive out to the west side and see if you can find David?”. And then “hey did you know that P.I.s don’t ‘find’ people any more? wth?”

Before he went MIA, my brother worked with my nephew for many years. Was always hanging out at his house. And he would show up at the folk’s house periodically. Always manged to stop by around his birthday. So Brady was the go-to for David info. I didn’t talk with David that often, but I always knew what he was up to and that he was okay via Brady. Then he just wasn’t anywhere. Even missed stopping by my parents for his birthday. And my dad started asking me if I had heard from him. No, I hadn’t. And neither had Brady. So we wondered, and then we worried. And years passed. And every time I talked to my dad, he asked about David. And it was heart breaking and I was over 2000 miles away and could do nothing except call Brady again and ask him to go look for David.

In the meantime, I got remarried. Had another kid who is now 4. Kyle is six feet tall and no longer plays with the matchbox cars his uncle gave him so many years ago. And then yesterday David calls Brady. Just like that! He’s living in our home town with his friend Terry. Just like we thought/hoped/couldn’t confirm. So they talked for a couple hours and then Brady called me. And I called David this morning.

I didn’t yell at him. I did let him know that we had been worried sick and he needs to go see dad. And I told him that I loved him. And, if he ever disappears on us again I will buy another pair of pointy cowboy boots and  kick. his. ass!

damn. Today is Kyle’s last day of 8th grade. His last day of middle school. He is now in high school. I have a son who is 6 ft tall and in high school. Let’s not think too long about that. In fact, I’m trying really hard not to think about any of this school business because honestly it is making me sick to my stomach.

I just got home from dropping Erin off at preschool. Our street is filling up with cars and I suddenly realize all these cars are full of parents heading to his middle school behind our house, and they are going there to watch their 8th graders walk in their promotion ceremony. Or something like that. I don’t know any details about today because Kyle was not able to participate in any of the promotion activities because of his bad grades. Who doesn’t like a nice in. your. face. reminder of all the troubles they’re having parked in front of their house?!

So, while I should be across the street with the other parents being all proud and celebrating this milestone with my son, Kyle is spending the day in PE and I’m sitting here stressed out about the whole high school interdistrict transfer process we are going through for a kid who couldn’t bother applying himself enough to get passing grades. Add to that the attitude he as been giving me the last couple days and I am not a happy camper.

Add to all of that a blog migration that I can not get to import correctly and I really picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.