As I mentioned the other day, we had a situation with reference to Allen's school. Last Thursday night, I was unwinding after meeting by checking Facebook. In my news feed was a link to this article. Talk about upsetting! Not only were the allegations disturbing, but the fact that the school had not informed the parents of the incident was alarming. I immediately email the school's director.

The next morning, a rather generic email was sent to all parents by the school's board. It basically said that the situation had been "appropriately addressed" with no further explanation. So I sent another email to the Director and President of the Board expressing my grave concerns about both the safety of Allen and the other students as well as concern for the boys involved. I was invited to a meeting with the Director.

She immediately assured me that Allen has no contact with these children. Since the incident, they have adjusted the playground schedules so that only one class is on the playground at a time; thus providing more supervision. They have fenced off the tree, as it was a blind spot (obviously) on the playground. And the teachers have spent their last two In Service days reviewing protocol and procedures for incidents like these. But most importantly, the Director immediately notified three different divisions of DSS (Department of Social Services). Child Protective Services made a notation of it, and OHAN (Out-of-Home Abuse and Neglect) is investigating it.

I feel very reassured after speaking with the Director, though I wish that they had just share the above information in the first place. Preferably before we'd read about it in the newspaper (they had no idea the article was going to be published).

Have any of you moms out there ever had to deal with a situation like this? What did you do? What did the school do? Sadly, while I never want to have to face this again, I have a bad feeling this is not the last incident like this that Allen will be exposed to during his school career ....

xoxo,
AHC

It's been awhile

The above picture has nothing to do with anything ... I just feel bad posting without a picture of the boy (but in case you're curious, he was showing me his Orange TicTacs).

We have been busy. I'm finally healthy again. Mom and I went to Atlanta to Market last week. It was the quickest we've ever done it. We were only gone two nights. But we got some cool stuff.

Allen totally rocks. He's taken to calling his great grandmothers the "old girls." They love it. They came for dinner tonight (along with Nana and Papa), and Allen was in heaven. He loves his Gramma and Gigi.

Allen's been listening to the Bible Stories in the car lately. I think he's really benefiting. He's calling them to mind very easily, and bringing them up in conversation. We're very proud. Now if only he would put into practice what he's learning (we're still having a hard time obeying Mom & Dad).

Mom and Dad (me and Brian) are a little stressed out lately. A situation at Allen's school has come to our attention, and we're not happy with the way it's been handled. I'm meeting with the Director of the school tomorrow. I'm nervous ... I hope I can firmly express our stand.

I guess that's all for now. I'll let you know how things go tomorrow. And I'll try to get some more pics and stories together this week.

xoxo,
AHC

At least my hair looked good

For those of you who don't know, I've had a heck of a time the past couple months, health-wise. I caught Allen's sinus infection. Went on an antibiotic. Didn't get rid of the sinus infection and added a cough. Went on more antibiotics, Prednisone, and cough medicine. Caught Allen's stomach bug (wanted to die ... 11 hours straight of vomiting).

Then I started to feel better. We went to Chicago, and I started to feel run down again. I also became increasingly disillusioned with my hair, and decided to try a whole new salon. Went a bit blonder, got my hair shaped a little better. Wanna see?

 Oh wait ... that's not me! C'mon, I can't put pictures of me without the gorgeous boy, can I?

Then I promptly got sick again. The sinus infection returned AGAIN, plus I was also privileged enough to get Strep Throat! More antibiotics and more Prednisone. But, at least my hair was cute ...

I'm happy to say that I'm finally on the mend, and am armed with all kinds of immune-boosting supplements so that, hopefully, I will be healthy for at least a little while.

xoxo,
AHC

Splashes of Color

So, I've been bored with my house lately. Especially after visiting Kristen and Josh and watching her and Mom reorganize/restyle her house. It seems to me that I don't have enough color downstairs (remember what color my office is?). I want to repaint downstairs, but I thought that -- at least to get started -- I could pick out a tablecloth for my dining room table, and some new pillows ... What do you think?

 This picture has nothing to do with our decor ... but shows what our house looks like when Allen's on Winter Break ... all his toys migrate from his room downstairs to the living room. Here we are with everything ready to go back upstairs ...

Chicago in December

Is beautiful, but FREEZING! Not sure whose brilliant idea it was for us to visit this time of year, but we did it. And we had a great time. Sadly, I don't have too many pictures, but I did take a few on our outing to two museums ...

 Notice what we call the "Craig Tongue of Concentration" in the above pics. Daddy still does that sometimes ...

 Gigi bought him a video camera, and he brought it with him to the Shedd Aquarium. Here he was filming the sharks ... I should really upload the video, huh?

 Here he is zooming around the "grocery store" at the Kohl Children's Musuem ...

 Watching something cool with Dad in the Water area ...

 And examining a nice fake potato.

Back at the Aquarium, he got to hang out with the Sea Lion for a few minutes ... and gave him a name ...

All in all, we had a great time visiting Kristen and Josh (and the rest of the Saxes). But I think next time we should visit in the Spring ...

xoxo,
AHC

PS. Kristen's got some shots of the adults enjoying themselves over on her blog.