They'll Never Know

Greetings friends and family,

The count down is over. Go-Ma and Go-Pa are here!  We get a full week of uninterrupted personal time with our spiritual mentors.  We look forward to this week each year for the past several years.  Today we watched some videos of Easton and Layla as babies interacting with them.  Watching them make the connection that Go-ma and Go-pa played with them as babies was priceless.

The extreme cold snap is over and we're back to 72 degree highs and sun every day.  That means park time!    As each day goes by I get more and more relaxed on the play ground.  Watching them try to navigate the tunnel rings used to be fearful for me, but now I just run with them through the play ground or sit casually on the parent benches.  Easton is tall enough to hang on to the top as he strolls down through the tube.

Layla prefers to swing around like a gymnast. Her big accomplishment of the day was pulling herself up through the bars and onto the platform.  She's a strong one alright.

i spend most of my days at my desk with a headset on while talking in meetings.  About 5-6 hours per day are meetings.  That's what they pay me to do so I'm happy to do it!  My little corporate cube is not very well decorated, but I have a few works of art on my wall courtesy of Easton.

The past 24 hours was absolutely crazy.  We are in the midst of making the decision regarding Easton and Layla's schooling.  Private school is too expensive even with ACSTO to offset some of the costs.  Home schooling was an option until Obama's tax "cuts" kicked in.  My paycheck was a few hundred dollars less on January 15th thanks to the liar-in-chief.  And I quote "I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." and another quote “I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.”

for those who voted for Obama, I have to forgive you daily for believing his lies and forcing Kendra to go back to work.  so no, home schooling is no longer an option because Kendra has to work 15 hours per week just to offset the pay DECREASE our family is taking.  Thanks for nothing.

Anyway, so that leaves us with public school as our best option.  The schools by our house are fantastic according to state standards. We may go ahead and get them into the local school.  However, there is an outstanding traditional academy about 15 minutes away where we can get them into the school as kindergartners.  All I had to do was camp out overnight in the 34 degree weather for 10 hours and hope we are close enough to the front of the line to get one of the few open slots.

I've heard about those crazy parents who camp out to get their kids into a school.  Now I am one!  The line started at 3:15 PM after the bell rang.  I showed up around 11:00 PM and was 11th in line.

Even though I had on several layers of clothes it still wasn't enough to keep me from shivering and my toes from going numb.  I had no where to lay down either.

I called Kendra at about 3:00 AM.  She brought me more blankets, a sleeping bag, and some seat cushions from our patio furniture.  I caught an hour or so of sleep before the other people started lining up and talking.  I didn't eat or drink anything because I was too cold and didn't want to pee because I'd lose my spot in line. Anyway, daylight and warmth was such a relief.  The school administrator passed out the registration forms in order and I got one for each of the twins.

Then I worked through the day as efficiently as possible on such a small amount of sleep and numbed body parts.  Easton and Layla will probably never grasp the sacrifice of what I gave up so they can get into the best school possible.  That's OK though because I don't do what I do for their approval or thankful hearts.  That goes across the full spectrum of parenting.  I want to be as self-LESS as possible and get the twins on the highest ground possible to start their lives.  This school is going to be much more scholastically intense than normal public schools, but I believe in Easton and Layla's intelligence.  The list of what I would NOT do to give the twins a leg up on their generation is very small.  pretty much anything illegal is out of the question.  Other than that, I am willing to do almost anything.  Their education is critically important.  Not as a measure of success, but as a launchpad for them to get a good start in life.

I'm wiped out, but luckily I have a 5-day vacation starting right... now.

See you soon!