Graceful Single Mom Moment

A cute, funny guy started chatting with me at the Costco cafe. He was friendly.  SO of course I assumed he must be a psycho. It occurred to me that he could just be chatting with me because he is a maniac that hangs out in public places pretending to buy ice cream for his kids that don't exist because he is really looking to kidnap my adorable, blue eyed baby girl. So I casually reached over to pick up Isabella so she wouldn't be standing so close to him. She didn't want to be picked up so she arched her back and then let her body weight go completely limp. And then...I dropped her.
So that pretty much cleared up any confusion of who the nut is.
End of conversation.

Frog Lady

My students and I have decided to raise frogs as part of our life cycle unit. Instead of doing the easy thing and buying 2 dwarf frogs that stay little and you feed once a week. NO. I thought it would be more fun to order an entire Life Cycle kit from a company called Grow-A-Frog. After a ton of research I realized you cannot just go into a pond and pick out some tadpoles and watch them morph and then throw them back into nature. Apparently that can cause a whole lot of chaos in the frog ecosystem.  So instead Grow-A-Frogs are completely aquatic frogs and never have to be released in nature. You raise them in an aquarium much like fish.

While all that is fine and dandy, I have never been much of a nature girl. In fact, I purposely stay out of lake water because snakes might be there. I avoid nature and amphibians at all costs.  So the thought of raising frogs was actually quite scary to me.  But, I knew my students would love to see the tadpoles morph into froglets.

The Life Cycle kit includes each stage of the metamorphosis. So we received 4 tadpoles (they are clear so you can see their hearts beating, very cool!), 2 tadpoles with hind legs, 2 tadpoles with 4 legs and 2 baby frogs or "froglets."

They happened to arrive on a day that our entire school was on a field trip. Luckily someone in the office signed for them and brought them safely to my classroom. But, when I got back to school I was a little underprepared for what to do with all of these living things.

They came with very specific instructions and the kit included everything we would need to raise them form habitats to food.  But, they can only live in spring water, not tap. Fortunately I had read about that and had 2 gallons of spring water on hand to set up their new homes. Isabella "helped" me get them all set up after school. It took us over an hour! I only made one mistake. I accidentally put a tadpole with only hind legs in with a tadpole with four limbs. This is apparently a no-no. So I recruited a teacher that was still in the building to help me transfer them to the right tanks. I was too nervous to try on my own, fearing it would leap out and die!

Once everyone was set up, I fed them and left.

The next morning there was a buzz of excitement in the room when my students arrived!
They couldn't wait to see the frogs and names them and feed them.  We did a lot of observation. We read books about frogs, we wore about frogs. It is turning out to be a wonderful Unit of study! and so much fun!

It has been over a week now and we are becoming quite attached to the little ones.
They arrived in our classroom 3 days before Memorial Day weekend. I felt concerned to leave them unattended for a long weekend so I packed all 10 up and took them home.
By the end of the weekend, my living room smelled a bit "swampy."  But, my children and I had grown to really care for these frogs.  And 2 tapeless had completed their morph into froglets! So I returned to school with 4 baby frogs instead of 2!

Junie is the one in front, Francesca is the smaller one.

They really are so very cute! My students, my own kids and even ex-Hubby have had a turn naming our little ones.  Our original froglets are Francesca and Junie. They are my favorite. Junie is turning out to be quite a chubby one, love her! She is super active and keeps us entertained with her swimming and jumping. And she loves her food!
The newly morphed ones are Robin and Kermit.  The ones with only hind legs are Cutie Face and Prickles.  Our tadpoles are George and Sweetie.

It is really hard not to love them. The tadpoles are little boring, but the froglets are very entertaining. Although my co-teacher may disagree! She thinks this project is a bit nutty. And she really does not love the fact that you should recycle the dirty frog poop water, so I water  our classroom plants with it! Poor Ms. E, she did not sign up for tending to swamp creatures. Thankfully she is  a very good natured person and she is trying really hard to appreciate this endeavor!

I really can't believe how much I am enjoying this. I thought I would be prettified to touch them. Especially since I am afraid of the 2 fish we have at home and almost never change their water.  But, the frog habitats come with covers so to clean their water is very simple. I just pour it out the holes on top and do not have to lift the frog into separate containers. So simple and alleviates the fear of the frogs jumping out at me.

They require a bit of upkeep.  The tadpoles eat only once per day. But, the froglets need to eat twice a day. And all the tanks need a 1/4  water change every few days. And they get very stinky!
A weekend feels like a long time to leave them alone, especially when it is so hot out. So I brought them home again this weekend. And I spent part of yesterday afternoon at the pet store chatting with a staff member that raises frogs. He started off with a Grow-A-Frog and still has it 5 years later. He said they are fairly easy to raise, but do get pretty big. Apparently very soon, they will need a 10 gallon tank to live in.

I found a video on you tube of a guy feeding his frog and it is huge! It freaked out my kids, now they don't want to me keep the frogs at our house.

 I have read that Grow-A-Frogs, which are actually African Clawed Frogs, can live anywhere from 5-25 years! So you see the dilemma of raising 10 tadpoles, that means eventually we will have 10 frogs.

Well...I had to enlist the help of other teachers in my building.

My daughter's Pre-K class took 2 of the tadpoles, our 2nd Grade took 2 with hind legs and our 3rd Grade will eventually receive 2 froglets.  Fortunately, we have awesome teachers at our school!
They are excited about this project and willing to adopt baby frogs.

Raising anything that lives truly takes a village.
 

Daddy in the Attic

Vincenzo surprised us all when he announced his latest scheme. He plans to sell his "creations" to finance an addition on the house to build a room for his Daddy.

While he was painting his wooden model train, he pointed out that he is creative and likes to make things. He told us he wants to start peddling his crafts to have extra money.

He has it all figured out.

He said, "Then we can make a room here for Daddy. He can go in your closet to get to his room in the attic."

FYI- our "attic" is actually a teeny, tiny crawl space.

I'm not sure what is more disturbing, the fact that he obviously misses his father and wants him to move back in... or that he thinks it's ok for me to keep my ex-husband in my closet like a pet.

It's moments like this when you have to laugh or you'll cry.

The End. The Beginning...

When we announced our divorce, family and friends were surprised.  Shocked even. One friend said, "But, you two have fucking endless love!" Ummm, apparently not.  On Independence Day 2012, when the realization hit that forever was never, the Earth shook a bit and threw me off balance. But, it quickly realigned and I landed on my feet and found myself in a whole new life.  Thanks to Divine intervention that new life included a job! So I traded in my mishmash of Stay-At-Home Mom clothes that were stained, baggy and had at some point over the years been used by various children as something to wipe their noses on.  I invested in a wardrobe that was appropriate to wear in public and I headed off to my new career as a First Grade Teacher.

Thankfully, I was embraced by my new community and able to take all of my kids with me to the daycare at work for the remainder of the summer.  Once school officially started and the boys went to kindergarten, my Princess was able to remain at school with me in the Pre-K class.   Of all the adjustments that came with the divorce, dropping my baby off at Pre-K for the first time was the most jarring. She was 3 months away from her 3rd birthday and I had yet to leave her for more than a few hours with anyone. The boys stayed overnight at my parents' house or with a sitter when needed. But, my baby girl was the third child and no one takes 3.   I felt physically ill the first time I dropped her off, but her teachers are fantastic and reassured me that she was ok.  And I was only going to be upstairs if she needed me.  I looked out of my classroom window and saw her on the playground with her classmates.  I instantly burst into tears when I saw her just standing there watching the other kids play. She looked so tiny, so fragile and so alone.

But, she wasn't as fragile as I thought. And neither was I.

For the past year I had been watching my Dad battle brain cancer. And he won.  I knew with that kind of strength in my DNA, divorce was not going to break me.

So I embraced my new life.  I started to figure out how to be on my own with a TON of support from my friends and family (and my Ex-Hubby - Oz - who still helps me take out the trash and brings me coffee from D&D.)

 I am so grateful for Bethel and Ms. Meeghan, if they were charging by the hour for therapy I would be broke!  I also have a faithful crew of LOSERS that take me out for wings at the nearest dive bar to get through the rough days! And thanks to my Gurus Tammy and Brian, I am learning how to be a Divorcée.

With the guidance of an amazing mentor at work and the help of a creative assistant teacher, I am turning out to be a pretty good teacher.  Luckily, I have a classroom full of the world's best students.

It has taken me almost 10 months to stop and breathe long enough to process it all. In that time I have realized that maybe forever IS never; the only endless loves are the Divine love of God and the love that a parent has for their child. Everything else is conditional.

But, in the end Oz and I  have some great memories, 3 beautiful babies and a friendship that outlasted our marriage. We are freaking awesome co-parents. So Life is Good!

And as the saying goes, as that chapter of my life closed, another opened...it will be interesting to see what comes next...to be continued...

*Read and approved (sort of)  by Oz*

Darth Dollhouse

Isabella was (reluctantly) sharing her dollhouse with her brothers. Cenzo and Isabella were very involved in having the dolls bake in the kitchen.  But, Darth Luccio thought it would be more fun if the dolls jumped off the roof and screamed really loud.  He was immediately reprimanded by his sister to "HUSH!" and not scare her babies. They were sleeping!  He also thought it would be great if the dolls attached a zipline from the couch and landed in the tiny kitchen, knocking over all the tiny dishes.  He was given a very stern look and a few huffs and puffs as his sister restocked the shelves.  But, the final straw came when he borrowed the nursery room's cradle and turned it into Santa's sleigh and flew it around the living room dropping out babies and the tiny presents he stole from under the dollhouse tree.  Even Cenzo could not stand for that!  Darth was asked to PLEASE go find his Bat Cave and play with that instead.

Super Hero Life

There are some days that change everything. Some for the better, some not so much. A true Super Hero like my Dad can take a day like July 31, 2011 and not only survive it, but overcome it and live to tell the tale.  In the moment I didn't know it would be significant, but I can remember that morning very clearly.  My boys were playing in their playroom and Isabella was taking a nap.  It was a quiet morning, so I sat down with a cup of coffee and turned on the tv to catch up on my week of General Hospital.  I took my first sip of coffee and thought, "life doesn't get better than this."  And then the phone rang...

It was my mother. Her voice sounded a bit frantic.  She said my Dad didn't feel good so she was calling an ambulance.

I knew something was wrong. Very wrong.  This is my Dad we were talking about.  The guy that refuses to go to a doctor unless something is extremely impeding his life, like his blood sugar is over 400 and he is nearly in a diabetic coma. The guy that drove himself to the hospital while having a heart attack. The guy that had his facial hair start on fire while working on a car and ran out to the yard and buried his face in the snow to cool it down. And then KEPT on going with car repair, singed face and all.

A trip to the ER?  No way.  An ambulance ride? Unheard of!   Oh my... what was going on?

Well, it took 2 weeks of CT scans, MRIs, bloodwork and a transfer to a larger hospital for a biopsy to finally get a diagnosis.  But, eventually it was confirmed that my Dad had Lymphoma in the Brain and Spine.  It is a central nervous system lymphoma, which we would learn later is pretty darn bad. And aggressive.  Immediately there was a decline in his hearing, vision, speech and balance.  These tumors were not messing around.

But, Lymphoma had yet to meet my Dad a.k.a Papa to his grandkids.  Papa had his 4 grandchildren Nikko, Vincenzo, Luccio and Isabella to live for.  And nothing was going to stop him from having more time to enjoy his life with them.

And so began the battle.

Papa spent most of the Fall in the hospital undergoing different chemotherapy treatments.  They would work. Then stop working.  Each time taking it's toll. He lost 70 pounds, his muscle mass diminished significantly, he lost his hair.  He was isolated in the hospital unable to have many visitors for fear of germs killing him.

All the while my Mother was by his side.  If ever there is a woman you want to care for you while sick or hospitalized it's Stregga.  She is loving, compassionate, intuitive, and fierce.  You want Stregga on your side.  She can coordinate medical treatment schedules and appointments like nobody's business and she is relentless in her effort to get the best care possible provided to those she loves.  Papa could not have found a better advocate!

By November, Papa had been in the hospital for a long time. Weeks at a time, then home, then back.  It blurs a little.  The kids and I had to stay away for almost 4 weeks because we went through a bought of bronchitis and colds.   So to stay in touch we used Skype! Love that invention.  The kids made gifts to send to Papa and we chatted via Skype daily.  We all looked forward to it and it helped Papa keep fighting to see his motivation!

During Thanksgiving week Papa took a turn for the worse.  His chemo has stopped working and had caused some major complications health wise.  There was a night that Mom and I got called to the hospital and things looked grim.  It was the first time I thought, Oh my God, he could actually die.  I guess somewhere in my mind that thought had floated around, but never seemed tangible because I refused to believe this disease would take him from us.  But, that night reality hit me. Lymphoma is Cancer. And Cancer can be deadly.

But, like he does...Papa took in the crappy situation and he regrouped.  And 3 days later he sat up and had breakfast. And then lunch. And then asked to be taken out of the ICU and back to a regular floor.  The doctors made him wait a couple of days.  But, he got out of there. He went back to a room.  He continue to come back to life. And within a week he was ready to go home.  So we went to the hospital and took home a guy that vaguely resembled my Dad.  He was thinner, whiter, had no hair, and could barely walk a short distance.  But, I knew it was my Dad because he still had his smile.  That man can smile even in the worst of times.  He always finds something to be grateful for.  He said, "Hey, cancer sucks! But, I have a good life."  He just wanted to go home to see those grandbabies.  That is all he cared about.

So we brought him home, propped him up on some pillows and celebrated Christmas early just in case he wasn't able to celebrate in a couple weeks.

Our family and friends were our rocks to cling to through this time.  People showed up with meals, cards, presents, flowers, helped take care of my parents' dogs, babysat my kids, wrote beautiful and loving letters that gave Papa hope and encouragement.  So many people visited and called and sent emails.  And most helpful of all, people prayed.  Papa was put on prayer lists across the country.  One friend even brought his picture with her on a trip to Medjigorie.

And in time...Papa started eating a little more (with LOTS of encouragement from Stregga)  and the horrid chemo effects started wearing off.  And over the winter he gained weight and got stronger.

By January, he was walking around, he had eyebrows again.  His speech was improving.  He was even  dressing up for doctor appointments and out of his pajamas. His doctors were shocked! One doctor could not hide is disbelief when he saw him.  He was truly amazed at the progress Papa had made.

Throughout the rest of the winter the docs gave him a new chemo to take at home. He improved. Things looked good. He went to a healing Mass.

He started building himself back up layer by layer.
The at home chemo treatment seemed to help. It even broke up one of the aggressive tumors!!

But, then in the Spring it stopped working.
The tumors grew and spread through the brain.  And everything looked bad, real bad.

So with grace and dignity Papa returned home from a hospital stay and dealt with that latest setback.  He declared his life good and spent his days with the people he loves.

And somehow he found the strength to try one more treatment. Radiation.
It sounded terrifying to me. Having the brain radiated. Oh my God!

Papa didn't hesitate.  He went into radiation like he faces everything else - no nonsense.
He accepted that this may not work.  He was told in very no nonsense terms that his condition was bad.
But, his faith and his inner strength did not fail him.

I don't know how he can be so brave and so at peace and so freaking strong.  But, he is.
And it payed off.  His last MRI showed the Lymphoma to be in remission!!!! Thank You God!!

His sight came back, his balance is better, his speech is better.  He does physical therapy and speech therapy to help him continue to recover.  And as long as he CAN move, he WILL.  He exercises, tries to eat healthy, continues to take care of his family and friends and be there for us just like he always has.  He is still one of the first people I call in a crisis!

I am so thankful that he continued to seek the best treatments available and was able to find strength and perseverance to get through it all.  I am thankful that he is celebrating today that he made it through this year.  I cannot imagine my life without him.  He is an amazing role model for me and for my brother and for my children.  He truly understands what is most important in life and to him that is Faith and Love.  He lives simple and dreams big! He is truly my Super Hero!! He will be blogging about his Battle on his own website: http://livingthesuperherolife.blogspot.com/

Summer Camp

 To make summer break extra special my mother came up with the idea of "Stregga Camp" and the kids are taking turns getting their days at her house to do activities and go on field trips with her and Papa.  And for the Campers waiting their turn at home we have devised Camp Scalzy-Walz.  We don't have as many "counselors" as Camp Stregga (or cute orange uniforms or name badges) but we have a lot of fun with arts & crafts and science projects. The idea of Camp Scalzy-Walz is to tire out the Campers as much as possible while trying to teach them something that will prepare them for kindergarten and enjoying summer as much as possible. We stay busy playing in the backyard or playroom and sometimes venture out on trips to a local amusement park or the beach. And we always try to include time for an afternoon nap.  Some Campers protest and think they don't they need naps, but those are the first ones to fall asleep!


One of our favorite activities is the Sensory Tub.  A plastic bin that we fill with all sorts of things to play with.  Their favorite so far is water with bubbles. Can't go wrong with water and bubbles!

Another activity that everyone is really into is Growing Geodes.  We used eggshells and filled them with water and Kosher salt and let them sit. Checking on them daily to see small crystals form is surprisingly very exciting!

I love summer break! It is the best time of the year for our family.  

More time together, more time to relax, more TIME. 

Backbreakers

Tonight Isabella was carrying around her two babies.  She tries to call them her twins, but it sounds like "twits."  She was hefting them around and very dramatically told us, "My babies are so heavy.  They are killing my back."

Paper Trail

Princess Bean is very into her Arts & Crafts.  Lately, she loves using her scissors to cut up paper.  Her scissoring skills are impressive, but she leaves quite a mess in her wake!  Since she loves her crafts so much, I try to provide as much paper as we can,without completely destroying the planet. She is able to use scissors at a much younger age than her brothers were.  So we try to encourage her to continue developing her fine motors skills. But, I try to give her paper that can be recycled for other purposes.  Currently she is shredding up old fax paper rolls from her Aunt.  I have her collect her shreddings into a bag and we are using them for sensory tub activities.  The goal is at the end of the month to try using these scraps to make recycled paper.  Should be interesting...and messy.