I asked E how many dance classes she wants to take next year and she said three, no five, no ten, no all of them! OK, so obviously the girl likes to dance.

I asked two questions. 1. How much of a time commitment is this from *me* and 2. Is she really ready for it.

I was told it isn’t a commitment for me any more than any other class. I don’t see how, as I am the taxi. *shrugs* I’m the taxi anyway. I was told that in class she is focused, pays attention and does what she is told. Yay! See, I don’t watch the class because when I do peek through the window she sees me and pays attention to me. So I don’t watch any more. Next year I can drop her off and go. I wasn’t ready to do it this year, although I bet I could have if I wanted to.

There is one other 5 (almost 6) year old who is also going into kindergarten next year who was recruited or company. I like the mom and I could hang out with her during dance and Eshiva likes the little girl. They would be the youngest kids in company. I feel like four days of dance a week is a lot of commitment for a five year old. OTOH, is it work if she loves it? I mean, I am loving my garden right now and weeding it is a pleasure, not a task.

So, long freaking post short, what do you think? I know you all think my dance classes cost a fortune (we went over this last time I posted about dance). I’m more asking, what is your experience with kids this age and so much dance? Eshiva looks forward to Wednesday all week long. She gets excited in the morning when she realizes it’s Wed and again in the afternoon when I tell her to put her dance clothes on (I get to dance today? Yay!)

I guess I’ve answered my own question. I feel like I am being selfish for wanting to say no because it eats into my life. I was prepared for two classes. I wasn’t mentally prepared for four. Plus travel.

Maybe I just need to chat with Kelly next week and go from there? Obviously I don’t have to pick today or else. If she does want to try out it’s on May 22 and she has to make up a 2 minute dance and sing two lines from a song.

I’ve returned my phone before. We signed up for the Geek Squad Black Tie Protection plan when we got our phones. Hey, I know us, and it’s been well worth the money. Last August I had to take my phone back because the entire screen popped out. The phone more or less worked, but I didn’t want to risk popping it back in and breaking it. So off we go, it takes an hour or so, but I walked out, as promised, with a new phone that day.

Not so much today. No, today it took about an hour and I walked out with a used, gabbed from a Rubbermaid bin from under the counter used loaner phone.

Back up a minute. Let’s address this. I don’t share hairbrushes, headphones, bluetooth head sets or hats. With anyone. Not even my kids, who came out of my body. What on god’s green earth makes you think I am going to share a phone that cannot be cleaned with who know how many people I don’t even know? Yah, exactly.

OK. So the service plan has suddenly changed, corporate has said from on high that phones must be sent out and loaner phones must be given out. My loaner phone, which I won’t even touch, has my SIM card, but none of my contacts. So my loaner phone has no information on it except my phone number which happens to be the only thing on my SIM card. OK. Moving on. My iPhone with either be repaired or replaced sometime in the next 2 – 4 weeks. OK. I am paying AT&T 30-some dollars for an internet service I am not using. I am paying AT&T 20-some dollars for unlimited texting I am not using. I am paying AT&T 80-some dollars for a phone line *gasp!* I am not using!* All because Best Buy suddenly changed their policy to not give me a new phone like they promised when I agreed to pay them 16$ a month to do just that. Did I mention the 16$ I just paid them for this month? For a phone I now don’t have in my possession.

*I have four phones on my account – I pay a total large enough that it’s ridiculous every month, but it is for four phones. Divided evenly I pay roughly 70$ per phone per month.

Side note: We bought two DSi’s in February. We paid 50$ each (so 100$ total) for the same “Black Tie Protection.” We were told the same thing – if it breaks, bring it in, walk out with a new one. I brought that up today and was told no, you get a loaner and we send it off. Ah, no. You give me a new one. You said so.

Back to my phone. So the guy pulls my SIM card, puts it in the loaner phone, and we asked to speak to a manager. I explained that I get that it isn’t his problem, he didn’t make the rules. We go through this song and dance with the manager and again, I explain that I get that it isn’t her problem. She offers to give us the number to Best Buy Corporate. It’s an 888 number. I borrowed Michael’s phone in the car and start. That was at maybe 12:00PM. We’ve been on the phone for an hour now. We’ve been hung up on twice. We’ve gotten the runaround. Michael finally got someone (I handed him the phone after the voice recognition started arguing with me) and they phoned our Best Buy. Michael is going to get a call from the mobile manager tomorrow who will likely tell us the same thing. There is nothing they can do, the phone’s been sent out (it will go out today) and we just have to wait. With a dirty, nasty phone. Gee, thanks Best Buy!

Here is where I am. Best Buy lied to us and I don’t have a new phone, I have a nasty loaner phone I don’t want to touch. The Best Buy manager lied to use and gave us a generic 888 number that did not lead to corporate. I don’t think I’ll be shopping at Best Buy anytime soon and I will likely be canceling my service plan. What a joke.

ETA 5/1/10: I received a refurbished replacement iPhone yesterday. It took hours to restore my backup (obviously not Best Buy’s problem, but a known problem with Apple/iTunes/backups). The WiFi will not work, so I need to find out if it’s a setting issue (doubtful) or a refurbished iPhone issue (possibly). I did get on the network briefly, but it keeps reverting back to 3G even though it’s been told to use the WiFi when available (and it’s always available in my home, right next to my router). I can’t sync Things and a few other apps with their desktop counterparts without being on the WiFi network, so I have a small, hopefully fixable, problem there.

Even though this was taken care of somewhat quickly, I am still beyond disappointed and angry at Best Buy for lying to me, not notifying me of a program change, whatever you want to call it. The mobile manager never phoned us the following day as promised, and when we went in on Friday to pick up the phone the mobile manager wasn’t working that day. Amazing the mobile manager is never working when we are in there or phone to speak to him/her.

Best Buy has lost my big ticket item business, and their over priced small ticket items never had my business. Sadly I am tied into a contract with them over the insurance on the phones, but I suspect I will be dealing with Apple or AT&T directly when it comes time to upgrade next year. Not that it seems Best Buy cares about me or my business.

Michael mentioned yesterday that Malachai is finally developing a personality of his own. He brought up how it was sort of blunted before, you could interact with him, but there wasn’t anything about it that screamed, this is me, I am Malachai.

He loves Alice Cooper. He wants to dress up like him for Halloween. He loves scary movies and fast rides. I kind of attribute part of that to his sensory issues (if he needs BIG input physically it makes sense he’d love roller coasters and stuff, and if he needs it physically, why wouldn’t he need BIG input mentally too? So scary stuff = more input to his brain) but it’s giving him and Michael something way cool to bond over.

He said something yesterday and I can’t remember what it was (Michael told me I should have posted then and there lol Silly me for not doing it) but it was what brought on this conversation. He might be coming up on seven, but he is finally turning into… himself. It is giving me great joy to see it happen. Dorian had his own personality around 3 or 4, and Eshiva is loaded with personality, but Mal… he was just kind of rolling along. Now he pops up with little quips and stories and is fierce about what he likes and doesn’t like and what he does and doesn’t want to do and why (as opposed to being engrossed in one thing and woe be unto you if you tried to do something else).

It’s not all sunshine and roses, but this is just amazing to me.

Went to the EvilEmpire* this morning. Didn’t they realize their new logo looks like a golden asshole? Guess no one pointed it out. Spent way too much, but the boys got shorts and shirts and undies and socks. Eshiva got a dress. I need to do laundry and find the rest of their clothes. UnderBed tends to eat them, no matter how many hampers we have out to collect dirty clothes.

I also got sunblock (two kinds!), tiki plates for the kids party next month, a new shampoo to try (the first ingredient is aloe and it’s rosemary/mint – hoping it works well on my hair), and some misc. other stuff. They are a time and money suck.

Been chatting with an old friend of mine. Haven’t seen him since we were in our teens. Yah, old friend indeed. I wish he was closer than Arizona. Of course, the world would explode if we were in the same state and in touch, so maybe it’s for the best.

We put 800$ away towards Michael’s new car. At that rate, we can afford more car than I expected, as we’ll have a larger down payment. Here’s hoping it keeps up.

Went to school this morning for an awards ceremony. Dorian made honor roll again. Malachai did not get an award, but we took a photo of him and his best friend holding his award. I am going to print it so he can take a copy for the kid tomorrow. They were both soooo excited. I didn’t realize my boy was short – he is one of the shortest in the class. He might also be one of the youngest – he turned 6 right before school started this year – are kids turning 6 before or during first grade these days? I know Dorian is one of the oldest, because he just missed the cut off, so he’s sort of a year back. Mal just makes the cut off (my boys are 2 years apart in age, but one year in grade).

I’ve been wanting a freaking slurpee for a week now. A red one. (Red is it’s own flavour, didn’t you know that? lol)

I have no cash on me, so my sister says, if I was going to get one, what would I want?

I said a red one, the dollar size. You know, the tiny one.

My brother, who only recently started to get “cool” to me (we recently gave him a pair of Michael’s boots, and he wants a black trench coat and he’s into writing scripts and cinimatography and stuff – he’s starting to be cool, m hm) walks in with an X Men Wolverine cup with a nifty straw that has a Wolverine figure in it that sticks to both the straw and the stand it came with.

Bad. Ass.

It’s a reusable cup too – score.

Eshiva just came up to me with a picture of Erin that is in a red heart frame.

She told me “Mommy, this is my love”

I asked if she knew who that was (of course not) and I told her.

She said “I love her, can I put this on the piano?”

I said of course. She’s carrying it around telling everyone she loves her, this is part of my love too. She’s a part of my family.

Malachai is telling her that she (Erin) is dead, and two people in our family are dead.

Eshiva is telling him she isn’t dead, she is a part of our family. T

They are going back and forth. It’s cute.

<3

Eshiva is named for Erin (for those who don’t know). She died in 03, Shivie never knew her (obviously) – I don’t know that Malachai even remembers her.

She just came up to me to tell me Erin is dead, but we love her and she is still a part of our family and we have a picture of her when she was alive.

I am pretty excited about dipping my hair in the ocean though. I haven’t been spraying it down with saltwater, so it’ll be nice to have my dreads tighten up a bit more.

I think we’re heading berry picking tomorrow morning. I joined a new meetup group, mainly because Punky Moms has no local group. What’s funny is, meetup.com has Punkymoms as a freaking interest and nothing we have done has made them remove it. The name is a registered trademark. It’s irritating to say the least. Tangent aside, it looks like a cool group. I wish we didn’t live in suburbanite hell. No one lives around here. They’re all south of here. I’m not bitching. Much.

I think we might try and get into the shop tonight. But we’re going to a water park in a couple of weeks, so I’m undecided right now. Two weeks is long enough to scab over and peel…. tough choices.