Almost October already!

I can not believe it has been almost a month already since I have updated my blog.  Time goes by too fast.

9/1: Nathan announced that he likes every color except blue.  He likes light blue, though.  His favorite color is red.  He wants a red mustang.

9/2: Critter Talk shared  a picture I took of an elephant at Reid Park Zoo on their Facebook page.  Nathan also went to work with daddy.  Nothing like putting him to work on Labor Day!

9/3: Reid Park Zoo chose my lemur picture as their fan of the week photo.

9/4: Nathan says he wants a mustang, a corvette, a beetle and a trans am when he gets older.  Unfortunately, he got a red card at school today, too.

9/5: Nathan and I went to Walmart.  The checkout lady called me ma'am and then said it must be strange to have someone twice my age call me ma'am.  I asked her how old she thought I was.  She said in my twenties.  She was surprised when I told her I was 38.

9/6: Nathan got a green card!

9/7:  We went to Patagonia Lake.  Nathan had fun playing in the sand and the water.  I was hoping to see the blue footed booby that has been spotted there, but no such luck.

9/9: Nathan has been thanking me a lot lately, even for things like buying paper towels.  He is also telling me that I am a good girl.  Unfortunately, he was a bad boy at school and got a red card.

9/11: I went to Reid Park Zoo.  When I picked Nathan up from school he got another red card.  He was so bad that she said she did not even write up a sheet for him today.  I decided to talk to the office about it.  I did not expect the conversation to go the way it did.  They contradicted everything I said.  They praised the teacher and made it seem like Nathan was to blame for everything....that we need to work on his attention span.  I got no sympathy whatsoever and they did not seem appreciative of the fact that I was approaching them first about his behavior before they had to talk to me.  I talked about the red card/green card system and they defended it.  I said that there may be too many kids in the class (maxed out at 13 most days...the ratio in IL is 10:1, but in AZ it is 13:1) and they disagreed saying the teacher keeps the class very organized and makes sure all kids get attention.  I talked about how most of the class is girls.  I talked about how he is one of the oldest kids in the class and he already knows things like his shapes and colors so maybe he is getting bored.  I left there that day not feeling very good about the school.

9/12:  I took Nathan to the Childrens Museum.  He was so well behaved.  He was great with the other kids and shared toys nicely, even with younger kids who were not very good at sharing.  It was hard to believe that this is the same kid who has trouble getting along with his classmates and keeps getting trouble at school.

9/13: Nathan got a green card!

9/14: I saw a hot air balloon behind our house so I took a picture of it and shared it on KVOA channel 4's Facebook page.  They aired it on the news that night!  That day Paul took Nathan to Sabino Canyon and to a U of A football game while I stayed home and cleaned.

9/15: We went up to Mt Lemmon.  We were surprised at how crowded it was up there.  There was also some kind of porsche club up there because there were porsches everywhere.  We wanted to eat at the Cookie Cabin, but there were too many people so we ate at Sawmill Run.

9/17:  I took Nathan to the Desert Museum.  We got to see the new young fox and we saw some late torch cacti blooms.  The best part was seeing a coati right up against the viewing window.

9/18: Nathan got another red card at school.  He was making pretend guns and shooting them.  He scared the other kids.  I think he knows about guns because he has seen military planes with guns and things like that.  All boys pretend to play with guns at some point.  We told him not to do it at school, though.

9/19:  Nathan and I went to Breakfast with the Bears to meet the new grizzly bears at Reid Park Zoo.  They are two sibling cubs, a girl and a boy.  Ronan, the boy, really liked Nathan.  He kept giving Nathan high fives at the glass.  One of the news channels was there reporting on the bears and took some film footage of it. They posted a news link on Facebook.  We were also lucky to get a good picture of Nathan with the female lion who was up by the window.  She was already there when we walked by so I had Nathan go up to the glass to get a picture of them.  I posted the picture on the zoo's Facebook page.  The zoo then shared it on their Facebook page and I got a lot of comments and likes.

9/20:  Paul's birthday.  He turned 43 today!  I ended up talking to Nathan's teacher after I dropped Nathan off.  We talked for about 45 minutes.  I felt much better after talking to her.  I brought up my concerns.  She listened and we said that we would work together to improve Nathan's behavior at school.  All of the kids were playing nicely while I was there, including Nathan.  Still, he ended the day with a red card.

9/21:  Paul took Nathan back to Patagonia Lake.  I stayed home because I just was not feeling up to it.

9/22:  Nathan started writing his letters and numbers all on his own!  The week prior I had bought a couple of dry erase books and he and I worked on our letters and numbers.  He was not doing well at writing them.  He did a little better with me holding his hand and helping him.  I quickly decided to just go over the letters and numbers and not worry about writing them just yet.  Then he surprised me today and started writing them all on his own.  They give examples of each letter and number so he was looking at the examples and copying them.

9/23:  Nathan got a green card!  In fact, he got no red cards at all that day!

9/25:  After being so good on Monday, he ended with a red card today.  One of the women in the office told him that if he was good on Friday she would give him a toy car.  

9/24-9/25:  Paul had to go to Downers Grove, IL for work.  I was not too happy about him traveling for work again.  That means I am left here to take care of Nathan all by myself, without the help of family.

9/26:  I took Nathan back to the Desert Museum.  Nathan got to see Cruz, the young mountain lion.  He is usually hiding whenever I visit, but today we got to see him.  He was hiding in the morning, but we decided to go see him one more time before we left for the day.  I am glad we did because he was out!  He was not walking around, but he was at least laying down without anything blocking our view.

9/27: I went to the zoo to try to get pictures of the new bears.  I was surprised to see so many people at the zoo and I still had trouble getting decent pictures.  My day got better, though, because Nathan got a green card!  She said he was so good!  He ran to the office to get his new car!

9/28:  We got a call early in the morning that Donnie was taking Pat to the hospital.  She was having trouble with her bowels.  That night Paul and I had a date night at Olive Garden while Bob and Ann Alvir watched Nathan.  He was good, but I think he exhausted Ann!  She took him for a ride in their golf cart, made dinner for him and they went for a walk.  He also loves their cat, Hobster, and she seems to like him, too.

9/29:  Pat is still in the hospital.  She listed her first contact as someone outside the family.  She also has not been honest with the family about her health and she is not mentally with it.  She will probably be at the hospital for at least a couple of more days while they do more tests, including a colonoscopy and testing for diabetes (when the doctor asked there if there was a history of diabetes in the family she said no, but Lisa had to correct her and tell the doctor that Paul has diabetes).  She is also having major back problems and they were considering back surgery for her, but now we are not even sure if she can go through it.  She may not be able to handle the surgery and the surgery could potentially leave her immobilized.  It is probably time for her to move in with a family member.  She has not wanted to burden anyone, but maybe now she will realize that she needs help.