Vincent qualifies for speech therapy through the county. Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues on the part of the therapist and coordinator, the review of his evaluation with me won't be for two weeks, and therapy can't start until then. He'll only get about 2 months from this before he turns three, but hopefully that will be enough. We don't know if we want to go through the school district once he's over three.

Abigail and Isabella are doing great with their swimming lessons. Isabella is still scared, but she's overcoming it and trying some new things. We went camping over the weekend, and the campground had a pool. I couldn't get over the change in their abilities in just on week of daily lessons.

It's summer solstice today, longest day of the year. We'll have a little family celebration tonight. The girls love this sabbat. We have them jump a candle instead of jumping a larger fire, and they think that is great fun. Some friends are having a celebration and bonfire on Thursday, so we'll be getting two celebrations this year.

We took out Vincent's stitches yesterday. The finger tip is healing up pretty well, but he is definately going to have a scare. I also think that he will end up losing his fingernail. It's getting really ugly looking.

I was browsing at my neighbor's garage sale yesterday and saw some size 8 shorts. I was feeling like my 10s were a bit big in the waist, and curious, I tried to pull on a pair of size 8s. They FIT, even wearing them over my khaki capris. 8 was my goal size, but since I still have another 12-13 lbs I'd like to lose, I could easily end up in a 6! I even bought a two piece swimming suit on Monday. Granted the bottom is a skirtini, but the top is a true bikini top, not the more modest tankini. My upper abs are looking good, if I do say so myself. Those darn lower abs, not so much. I think it's due to the c-section with Abigail, and I doubt they will ever really firm up.

This summer school and swimming lessons every day thing is kicking my butt. The transportation sucks, and while it's cool to see the girls progressing in their swimming already after just 3 days, 1-2 pm lessons are totally screwing up Vincent's sleeping. Abigail also wanted to take the bus home. The first day, I called after the bus was 25 minutes late demanding to know where she was. They found out the buses hadn't left the school yet, and it would be another 20-30 minutes. I had them pull her off and picked her up myself. The second day, I didn't even bother with the bus, but we decided to try it again yesterday. The buses left the school 20 minutes late, and then when she was dropped off, it was 2 blocks away from where the letter said her stop was. I was waiting at the prescribed stop, and Abigail walked herself home, crossing a moderately busy street to do so. Luckily I had my phone with me and a friend was at our house, calling me when Abigial showed up by herself. I was livid and called the school district in fury. Apparently the bus company changed the stop and was supposed to call everyone to let them know. We were never called, and I know that for sure because I check every single missed call via caller id for my business. I left a scathing message for the bus company yesterday too, and they had better call me back this morning. I haven't decided what we are doing about bussing today. Sigh. She really enjoyed the bus and is excited about it, but with only 50 minutes for lunch, changing and getting to the swimming lessons if her bus is on time, I don't know if I can keep on taking the chances of it being so late.

A speech therapist is coming to evalute Vincent today. He's been improving, but not as much as I'd hoped. We are going through our county's birth to 3 programs, so this would only a few months of therapy if it's warranted, and it's home-based, play-based so I can see what they are doing and continue myself. We can stop at any time if we we decided we didn't want to do the therapy afterall.

This one is a cyber-pbbbbtttt to everyone in my life who claims that eating a diet of whole food doesn't really matter, or that there is no harm in feeding the kids junk for a day or two. I'm seriously considering making copies of the article to give to some of these people.

From On Wisconsin, the UW-Madison Alumni magazine:

In 1998, Wisconsin's Appleton Central Alternative High School was dealing with worrisome discipline problems in the classroom. Students were caught with drugs and weapons. They were hostile to each other and to their teachers, and their behavior was out of control.

Did the school turn to a psychologist, a consultant, or an educational specialist? No - they contacted Paul Stitt MS '69, the owner of Natural Ovens Bakery.

"When the Appleton school system came to us and said could you help us, we said we'd love to," Stitt says. "And we said, 'Certainly, we know how to correct the situation. Throw out all the vending machines with all the high-sugar, high-fat foods; throw out the pop machines loaded with sugar; put in water coolers; and start educating the kids about what they need to do to be good to their bodies'."

Stit and his spouse, Barbara, underwrote a program that allowed the school to start serving a menu emphasizing fresh fruits and vegetables, whole-grain products, entrees free of chemicals and additives, and energy drinks.

The results were dramatic. Truancy rates took a nose dive. Grades shot up. Vandalism and littering went down. The alternative school went five years with no expulsions, no dropouts, no drugs on campus, no weapons and no suicides. It was the only school in Appleton with a perfect record during that period.

Although the food costs were higher, the school saved money because it no longer had to pay for a full-time police officer, and with better discipline, it was able to increase class size from eight to fifteen students.

And this:

The Appleton program was originally inspired by Barbara Stitt's work as a probation officer. She realized that a lot of her probationers were junk food junkies who lived on soda, caffeine, and sugar, and not much else. When she showed them how to follow a healthy diet, those who stayed on it were amazed at how different they felt, and their improved attitudes and behaviors helped them stay out of jail.

And this:

One technique that Stitt says was especially effective with the Appleton students was an agreement that if the kids would eat healthy for a month, then they would get a junk food day. But after one day of eating all the snacks, desserts and soda they wanted, he says "they were so shocked and dismayed at their awful behaviour and the terrible way they felt that some of the teenagers actually begged us never to require another junk food day. They couldn't believe that they could go from feeling so good to just becoming an animal. No one ever imagined that a simple thing like vitamins and minerals and so forth could make such a huge difference. They thought it was a lack of religion or training or home life or something else."

Mary Bruyette, and English teacher at the school, concurs. "Students told me how awful they felt after the junk food day, and they said they never wanted to feel that way again."

A year ago, my aunt's long time boyfriend died suddenly at the age of 55. It was a shock, to say the least. Today, there was a memorial golf outing and picnic fundraiser for the American Diabetes Association in his memory. We were gone all day, as Luis did the golf outing. It was a very nice day, except for our emergency. The picnic was at the AmericanLegion hall and park. Vincent and Luis were playing on the turret gun (as all American Legions and VFWs have in their parks) when Vincent's finger was smashed in a part that still opened. The pressure was so intense that it blew out the bottom of his finger. It was really deep and wide, and even Luis felt it would need stitches. (When it comes to illnesses and fevers, I'm the voice of reason and treatment; injuries are his specialty and he treats almost all of the kids injuries.) We rushed him to urgent care, and he ended up with 5 stitches in his finger tip, x-rays to make sure the tip of the bone wasn't crushed and a huge bandage. He was great during the waiting, screamed and cried during the injection and suturing, and then happy the rest of the evening. Luis feels just awful, but it was an accident.

Summer is here. Lazy, crazy days of summer. Daisy and Brownie Scouts, homeschool gym, homeschool art, science club and soccer are all over for now. Time to relax, except for the fact the softball starts next week along with summer school. Abigail asked to take some summer school classes this year. They are really cool little short courses. She is taking Spanish, Art Around the World and Fit Kids (gym games). Plus swimming lessons are offered too, so both girls are taking those. You can't beat the price. Abigail's taking 3 classes in one session and both girls have 2 sessions of swimming lesson; the total cost was $15. Unfortunately I was thinking the sessions were 2 weeks long. I was willing to work around 3 hours of classes every day for 2 weeks and swimming lessons every day for 4 weeks. Unfortunately, they are 3 weeks long, and I didn't realize it until too late. So they have swimming lessons every day for SIX weeks. Ugh. I don't do so well with long term commitments that happen every single day. I'm really not looking forward to this, but at least they will be a lot more comfortable in the water by the end of this. That will be very good for when we go to Mexico in the fall.

The garden is loving the hot weather we are having here lately. I've harvested a ton of spinach and salad greens already. Much of the broccoli (we have 40 plants so far) is getting ready for the first harvest, and I'll need to start the second group of seedlings very soon. My carrots had a really low germination rate so far this year, unfortunately, but the squash and pumpkin vines are growing nicely. I'm trying to grow two of the squash (one summer and a small winter one) vertically this year. It would save so much garden space if this is successful. I normally don't grow much squash because I don't want to give up that much garden for those long vines, but it's something we really like to eat. I'm also trying potatoes for the first time this year. They look beautiful. I need to hill them up some more this week. My pear trees are fully leafed out now, and the cherries that are on my little cherry tree are starting to get a little blush at the bottom.

Abigail has been asking to color her hair a wild color for months now, probably since last fall. We told her repeatedly that she could do it in summer. Today, we picked up a box of temporary plum hair coloring, and she and Isabella now have adorable pink-purple hair. It should wash out in 8-10 shampoos, but they are hoping that it lasts a long, long time.

Okay, the real reason we picked up the hair coloring is I have been wanting to put purple streaks in my hair for a year now, but kept putting off buying the box because it's so not how other people see me and I didn't want to freak out some of the people I know around town, plus I was having a hard time visualizing what it would look like. Since the girls wanted to do this too, it seemed like a perfect time to indulge my desire without looking too totally freaky. I absolutely love it, and definately will be doing this again. To heck with other people's opinions, this is fun.