KATHRYN R. BIEL: AUTHOR

The weeks have just gotten away from me and I realized that I owe all 4 of my loyal readers an update.  Since the holidays, things have settled in somewhat around here.  De-Christmasizing the house is always not fun.  I had annual reviews start at work, which is always a boat load of fun.  For those of you not in the special ed field, annual reviews are that magic and joy filled time of year where each child is assessed (either a quick overview, or every third year, a formal and extensive evaluation), their program is reviewed and re-written for the next year.  A meeting is held on each child and all of this is discussed.  It's a lot of extra work, in addition to the normal workload.  Because I am spread all over the whole district, I am responsible for about 50 of these, beginning now and ending some time in May.  Sometimes, we're fortunate and the parents even come in.  Not as often as you'd expect, considering the kids receive special ed s...

This past weekend, I, like most moms that I know, had the unenviable task of de-Christmasizing the house.  It's an atrocious task for the following reasons: It means putting all the new stuff away. In order to put all the new stuff away, it means cleaning out all the old stuff to create a place for the new stuff. In order to clean out the old stuff, it means convincing your children (and a little bit yourself) that you don't need all of that old stuff and can part with it.  This year, I bribed  motivated my children by telling them that whatever toys we sold, they would receive (and split) the profits. While everyone is gung-ho to set up the Christmas tree, it was a ghost town around here when it came time for assistance with de-mantling the tree.  Somehow, even the smallest children realize that unwrapping and hanging ornaments is about one billion times more fun than taking them down and wrapping them back up. Putting the delicate decorations back in their o...