Ah, Teeny Manolo.

My first blog here at the Manolosphere, and the one dearest to my heart.  How could it not be, as I would gripe and grumble and brag about my children?  And how could it not be as I have bonded, commiserated, and laughed with all of you over all of our unique and wonderful kiddos.

But unfortunately, I must say goodbye to all of  you.

You have all been so kind, so understanding, so funny, and so full of sage and wonderful advice.

I shall miss you so.

I hope that at some point, I was able to brighten your day a bit.

I have enjoyed all of my time working for the ever-gracious Manolo, and I thank him for employing me, and giving me the opportunity to meet all of you.  I’ve been writing on teh internets since 2005, and this was by far the best place to be. And I thank you, dearest readers, for actually coming to read what this lowly mommyblogger had to say.

It was an honor.

If you ever feel like adding yet another blog to your reading list, I blog as my (real!) self over here.

…here at Casa Glinda.

Let me throw a pity party for myself for a second,  OK?

I promise there will be goody bags.

After months of speech therapy that did not alleviate the bulk of her behavioral/developmental delays, yesterday we took our daughter to undergo a three hour battery of tests given by a multidisciplinary team of experts.  This was done basically to determine if she needs further, intensive behavioral therapy and if she is going to be clinically diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum.

To say that I have been getting harassed by my immediate family for doing this is somewhat of an understatement. I have been accused of “wanting” something to be wrong with her to “having her labelled for life.”

Well Christ, I would say that when your three year old maxes out at three word sentences and still has a very limited vocabulary, as well as other behavioral issues, then it is high freaking time she get some intervention.    I resisted the testing battery for a few months because I wanted to see how much she would improve after six months of speech therapy, if her behaviors were the result of a bright mind frustrated by lack of communication skills.  And in some regards, they are, but my husband and I believe there are deeper issues that need to be addressed.

You know, because we are the ones living with her, not the people who see her for a maximum of a few hours a month.

Apparently that makes me a bad mother.

So now we wait a week to meet with the team and they will deliver their findings.

To say that I am stressed is also somewhat of an understatement.

Also, that whole remodeling thing and moving to another city?

Yeah well, that went kerplooie, and to be honest it was my decision to halt everything.  But that was because for 10 entire months, I was blockaded and stalled out and literally lied to.

So I took myself off the roller coaster.

In one sense it is a relief and I don’t regret the decision, but in another sense making that decision is taking me down a specific road that other people aren’t going to like.

Too bad.

I guess the moral of this post is that I have learned that life is too short to keep people around that are full of negativity and to keep on doing what you think is right.

Here is your goody bag, full of self-righteousness and resolve.  Trust me, it’s better than a Twix any day.

My  husband and I have been mulling over party ideas for our three year old daughter.  She was born after Halloween, but very soon after, so we thought about a Halloween-themed party.  Or we thought about just renting a bounce house, putting it in the front yard and being done.

Silly us, we should be doing this.

My daughter loves swimming.

Now if only we lived in Florida.

Because man, did he ever beg for one for his birthday.

And I get it, I really do.  He wants to be cool, video games that are not Wii-related are cool, and he loves video games in general.  I was in a similar situation back in the caveman days when the Atari first came out.

Except naively, my parents bought us one, not fully realizing the addictive powers of the video game.  How could they?  But my generation, we know better.

And really, I think my son can get addicted to playing his video games. The more time he spends with games, the shorter his attention span and the less willing he is to listen and do his schoolwork and chores.

Besides, his Kindle has no shortage of them, his most favorite being Minecraft. Now Minecraft is actually a game I don’t mind as much.  You have to use your brain and your imagination a bit, and even though there are apparently zombies out to kill you, you at least have to work and create things in order to stay alive.

Which is to say that it is absolutely nothing like a game such as the Halo series, which I believe is just people killing the crap out of other people just for the heck of it.

I could be wrong.

My husband and I were actually going to get my 10 year old an Xbox as an easy way out.  We had nothing else we could really think of getting for him, and we felt that the first double-digit birthday should be treated as a bit of an occasion.

But then we got to talking about the whole uncensored XBox Live thing, because apparently it isn’t worth playing unless you can be online,  how he doesn’t even have a television in his room, how many of the XBox games are fairly violence-prone, and some other stuff.

So about a week before his actual birthday, we called off the XBox purchase.  As I said before, he has plenty of mind-numbing things loaded onto his Kindle, and when he is truly bored, he can come and kick his parents’ butts at Mario Kart.

Instead we will take him on a trip somewhere.  Somewhere where he gets on a plane and experiences something unlike he’s ever experienced before.

I’m glad we changed our minds.

Which is right. up. my. alley.

In my current neighborhood, Halloween is a big deal, and over half of the nieghborhood really goes for broke at Halloween, maybe even moreso than at Christmas.  Across the street, my son’s friend sets up an elaborate walk-thru haunted house on their front lawn every year.

It’s not like I’m going to win any competitions or anything, but I love putting up lots of Halloween decorations.  However, I rarely seem to have the time or money to do as much as I’d like.

Ta-daaaaa!

The easiest freaking Halloween craft I think I have ever seen.

And those are going to be PERFECT lining my walkway.

God.

Why couldn’t I have thought of that myself?

A fever is sweeping the Glinda household.

No, really.

I don’t mean that as a euphemism. A fever really is sweeping through my household, cutting a swathe of whining, complaining, and tantrums.

And that’s just my husband.

Ba da BOOM.

Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all morning.

Last week’s poll regarding your favorite reading material came down heavily on the side of fiction, which 85% of you voted for.  I would have to say that I also love fiction, but if I really stop to think about it, between newspapers and various blogs, I probably actually read more non-fiction on a daily basis.

Here is my burning question of the day:

I attended my senior prom with my then-boyfriend, and let me tell you, it sucked.

At my small school, generally only seniors attended prom, and underclassmen were only able to go if they were asked by a senior at our brother school.  Why, I have no idea, but I sort of wish I had gone as a junior because then I might have thought twice about going as a senior.

I had a great dress, six couples shared the cost of a limo, we went to eat at an expensive restaurant before prom (even though we were technically being served a meal at the dance) and unbeknownst to me, my hair looked like hell.  I found this out later when we got our pictures back, and it probably would have ruined my night if I’d known.   Thank you, best friend, for not mentioning it because you knew I would obsess about it all night.

Anyhoo, I think I paid a total of $300 for everything, which included dress, shoes, boutonniere, fake nails, glitter hairspray, (hey, it was the 80’s) and my share of the limo. My parents paid for my dress, I paid for everything else.  My at-the-time boyfriend paid for the tickets, his tux, my corsage, and the dinner.  He probably paid close to $300 as well.

So, a total of around $600 bucks for a night we spent arguing and sitting miserably on a couch in the lobby of the hotel.

This is why it boggles my mind that anyone would pay upwards of a thousand dollars, or even close to two thousand, for one night in high school.

Trust me kids, in the long run, high school means nothing.

I don’t know if my son will still be homeschooled by the time he reaches prom age, but you can bet that I won’t be shelling out anywhere near that amount to send him there.