I Ordered the Full Moon for My One-Year Blog Anniversary

I started this blog one year ago today. I picked my Middle Son’s birthday as motivation for me to put myself out there and talk about him. My blog and you have added a lot to my life. Every hour of my week day is jam-packed with my life (and sometimes I get mad at my life for not having more time to write or spruce up the place), but there was definitely room in my head and in my heart for this blog and for you. I am so thankful and happy for having “met” you. Commenters from day one are still around on day 366. It is all so special to me.

I chose a full moon theme because I have loved looking at the moon all these years. My first son was born during at night during a full moon in June. He loved to cry and fuss all night long for three months and I swear his first word was moon. For real. I also feel connected to the moon because of its female-ness and how my cycle’s claim to fame is a regular monthly cycle (always 27 or 28 days). OK, so that is changing a lot these days, throwing a kink in how I successfully “planned things” but it is all part of the craziness that is part of life. I named my blog “It must be a full moon” because many times when my Hubs and I talk about a crazy work day or a crazy kid, or crazy family member, we often say, “It must be a full moon because today this happened, and this happened, and then THIS happened”.

The full moon for January is tonight (the 29^th but some sites state it is the 30^th) and is known as the Wolf Moon (hungry wolves would howl at the full moon on a cold winter night) and is listed as either the 30^th or the 29^th. Tonight's full moon will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. The moon’s orbit around Earth is not shaped like a circle—more like an ellipse. In each orbit the moon reaches its closest point to us called a perigee. When the perigee coincides with a full moon, as it will tonight, the moon looks bigger and brighter than any other full moons during the year.

Unfortunately where I live it will be rainy so I will probably miss seeing the full moon at all even it its shining glory and I'll miss Mars (it’ll look like a star) just to the left of the moon.

So my Middle Son has had a birthday again and I still love all the same qualities of which I described last year. Don’t look for any posts about my other two sons’ birthdays—they only exist in my mind, but I hope to make that up this year. Just like I made sure I have the biggest baby book for Youngest so he won’t be left out, (and by biggest I mean I scrapbooked a bunch of things up till his 2nd birthday and then stopped), I try to give extra attention to my Middle son. He has to put up with the Oldest making sure he knows he may be the same size but he’ll always be 20 months younger. He's easy going and sensitive and doesn't have attention zoned his way due to the 13.5 yr old brother and the youngest.

And I really want to write about Middle School. People, I have so many stories. Oldest will be in high school next year. Before that happens I really need to write about some crazy things we have observed. Stories that are Crazy. Like this email from one of his teachers yesterday:

“I am concerned about Middle Son. His span of attention in class is almost non existent. I spoke with him a few days ago, and asked if there was anything else going on in school or at home that he was worried on. He said no.
Yet, he is many seconds behind all the other students when we change activities. He stares at the wall when I am at the front of the room.
He is confused by directions because he obviously didn't hear me explain them.
Could it be blood sugar? Need for a snack? Lack of sleep?
He is not problem or disruption. He is always polite. I am concerned for him, and thought you could add some insight.”

So here I am reading this as I am trying to get finished at work so I can stop at Target, get home and make a cake shaped like a skateboard with little doughnuts for the wheels, and then go out for his birthday dinner.

Readers, my son is in all "gifted" classes. This one is not his favorite. He has a B (a B people!). He has As and Bs in the others. He was voted "Mr. Citizenship" in elem school for the way he treats others. He is in freakin band class. He has longish hair. He wears skinny jeans. He has his own entrepreneurial business (see fingerboard in his hand below). If he feels like he's been singled out like this teacher does (i.e. tells him to read only accelerated reader books and not a non-AR book despite the fact that he reads lots of books) he'll be quiet and not "perform" in class for you. We know this teacher. My 8th grader had this teacher. My Hubs is a teacher in another school. They have been at a conference together out of state for a weekend. The teacher just can't figure Middle Son out.

So after wanting to tell her I think she has too much time on her hands, I instead just replied that today was his birthday, perhaps he had that on his mind and we'd talk about it later that night. We had a good time at dinner, laughing as the hibachi chef threw fake eggs around and flung shrimp into our mouths (only Youngest succeeded) and Hubs asked Middle Son if this teacher had asked him if everything was OK at home. He told us the teacher asked this with other kids around. He told our son maybe he should make up a story and then we made up stories of Crazy things he could say. We two parents work so hard as partners to provide for our 3 boys and make a good home for them; we talk to each other each and every day about our sons and our concern for their education, concerns for what schools are like now, have taken the time to have met with teachers. Yes, there are kids who have problems at home and it may not be too funny that I sang at dinner about mom going back to rehab but said no, no, no.....but I feel this was absolutely Middle School Teacher crazy. Maybe she should just email me again like she did 4 weeks ago asking me to do a favor and help her out and make sure Middle Son has a red pen and yellow highlighter because she has asked him to bring it in.

So yeah. It really Must Be a Full Moon.