Sometimes being a Mom is very rewarding!

Yesterday (Tuesday), when I picked the girls up from school, they asked if they could stay for lunch on Wednesday. I have been wanting to go sit with Jack during his computer lab to get a better idea of why he's failing his Accelerated Reading tests so I thought that would work perfect. So, the plans were made! Abby was to be leader on Wednesday. I already had her Chuck E Cheese string cheese snack ready. I would send their lunches, then go eat lunch with Jack, go to his computer lab from 12-12:30 and then back to get the girls before nap. Right before bed, I felt Abby and she was very warm. Her temperature was right around 100. She was complaining about being cold...shivering...so I knew she wasn't feeling well. Jack just went through this over the weekend so I wasn't surprised. I gave her some meds and put the girls to bed knowing that she probably was going to miss her leader day and that all my plans were going to change. At 3:00am, I woke up from a dead sleep to her yelling "Mommy!!!". I went in and got her and she was on fire. She and I came downstairs and she said her throat was really hurting too. I gave her more medicine and told her that she probably wasn't going to be able to go to school and that we'd do her snack and let them stay for lunch another day. She got really upset. I put her in bed with us and even turned off my alarm. She was warm all night and didn't sleep too well. When Jeff was leaving, Abby woke up and said "Mommy, I'm better and can go to school." I felt her and she wasn't too warm. I asked about her throat and she swore it wasn't hurting. I took her temp and it was around 99...not too bad. As I was getting dressed, I kept asking her if she was ok. She kept saying "Yes, I want to go to school." She was bound and determined to feel better! So, everyone got up and going and my plans were back on (except in the back of my mind, I knew I'd get a call from Totten Hall at some point saying she wasn't doing well!). She looked bad but kept reassuring me that she was fine and wanted to go to school. :-) I took them in with their backpacks and lunchboxes and Abby's snack and show and tell. They were very excited about staying! After that, I went to NES to meet Jack for lunch and recess and then to go to the computer lab with him. He's always sooooo excited to see me at lunchtime. He invited a new friend, Nicholas, to sit with us. They were fun to watch. Nicholas was a very sweet little boy. We ate lunch and got popcorn for "popcorn day" and headed out to recess. I sat on the side while the boys ran around like mad men! But, every so often, Jack would come over and hug me and tell me he loves me. I LOVE moments like that! After recess, they went back into the classroom and had 5 min before computer lab. Jack went straight to his desk and put on his glasses and began tearing out his math sheets as instructed. He seemed so big. Mrs. Moore then announced all the kids that got A++ on their spelling tests and Jack was one of them AGAIN!!! He smiled from ear-to-ear. As they lined up for computer lab, Mrs. Moore handed out cards that had their student id's on them which was how they signed into the computer. Jack didn't need his. He knows it by heart and it's not an easy number...343306! We decided to have him take the AR test on his Book Club book just to see how he does. Mostly, I wanted to see the questions, see if he could read the questions and see how they compared to the book itself. Jack got into the computer and entered all his usernames and passwords for the computer and then for the AR quiz. He had to type in the name of the book and author. Once the quiz came up, the questions appeared one at a time with a possible 4 answers. I just sat there quietly and told him to read it to me out loud (all the kids had on headphones except Jack). He read each question and all the answer options and quickly picked the answer and went to the next page. At first, my gut feeling was that he wasn't doing too well because the answers he was picking weren't what I would've picked...but I forgot that he was going off of what was in the book. So, I started flipping through the book (Jeff reads it with him so I didn't know the answers) and he was getting them all right! He got to the end of the 5 questions and up popped the results...5 out of 5 correct! He was very excited. I didn't help him at all and it was probably a good thing I didn't know the book. How in the world can he get 5 out of 5 and have failed every other quiz?!?!?!? I talked to Mrs. Moore and showed her. The only thing we could come up with is that the 2 he's taken before have been done in the mornings when he's ready to get to class and when there's a different teacher in the room. So, I picked out 2 more AR books with a rating of 1.0 and are going to have him take the quizzes on those when he's ready during computer lab. Since Mrs. Moore is in there and he can't be anywhere else during that time, maybe it will work! As I was leaving, he was putting on his headphones and opening up a game. He waved at me, blew me a kiss and told me he loved me. My heart just melted. I wish I could bottle up those times. I knew that being there was EXACTLY where I needed to be. Once I left Jack, I went to pick up the girls. They were outside on the playground. Of course, Ally was mad that I was there! :-) We headed to the van and Abby said "Mommy, I'm all better now!". She still looks bad but she made it through and I was very proud of her. They chit-chatted on the way home about their day, their lunch and playing outside. I truly love my kids so much and love days like this where I'm an important part of their day. It doesn't get ANY better!!!