other people's kids

 We were over at Sean and Lexi's a couple nights ago and by the end of the evening my face hurt from laughing.  Put a two-and-a-half year old and a 7 month old into the equation and laughter is bound to ensue.  Averi, the two-year-old, handed me a "baby", sat down next to me, and informed me that the baby she was holding was hungry.  She then proceeded to lift up her shirt and begin "breast feeding" her baby.  Apparently my baby needed to be burped, so she instructed me accordingly.  So, so, so cute. So cute.

Later in the evening Averi was making Tate, the 7 mo. old laugh by making a sound that could be likened to the Count on Sesame St..  Remember when he counts, "One...uah uah uah!" ? The uah uah uah was the sound she made that caused Tate to belly laugh over and over and over. Again, so cute.

For another really cute baby fix, read Melissa's latest post and then head over to Brooke's blog for some key-ute videos of her babes.  And then there's Molly, the gifted photographer with the three child-models.  All of these blogs will provide you with cute kid opportunities.  Amy, Jessica, and Cori have not started blogs yet, despite my efforts, but their little pies can be seen in some of my past posts.

So, until I have my own kid stories and pictures, I will continue to swap yours for you.  My friends have the cutest kids.  Ever.

...and...

I'm home for lunch and Daly is being all snuggly and it's kind of gloomy out and my belly is full and now I'm a little sleepy and I have a big pile of grading to do on my desk and I'm having trouble motivating myself to return to work.

most hilarious pacifiers i've ever seen:

collages and muffins

Well, I've been collaging for the last couple of days. 8th graders are currently working on a collage project, so I started doing some mini-collages myself in class. Yesterday was just a really rough day for some (hormonal) reason. I just felt really unhappy all day. Kids were fine, with about four exceptions, but I was just not myself.  At lunch Gabe had the car to take Calvin to the airport (he'll be in Nepal for 3 years and I'll link his blog to mine sometime soon), and my friend/co-worker Anne had kids in her room for lunch detention. So I walked a quarter mile, or so, to Starbucks.  It was beautiful out, and the walk was a good thing for me.  I was on the verge of tears as I walked out the door of the school.  I'm not sure why I felt SO overwhelmed and upset (well, I KNOW why, but the reasons wouldn't be enough to upset me on a normal day), but I was.  So I walked and prayed and fumed and eventually reached Starbucks.  I ate my $20 salad and drank my $12 juice and read the free newspaper.  

This combination of walking, sun, prayer and sitting in a coffee shop managed to calm me down.  By the time I got back to school, I felt slightly better.  But as soon as my 7th hour came in, I felt off again.  So while my last two classes of sixth graders learned how to draw cartoon animals from a video made in the early 1990's, I collaged. The lights were off, they were quiet and engaged, and happy to be drawing on 18" x 24" paper, so I felt less guilty for being that teacher who puts in a video to keep the kids busy on a Friday afternoon.  I really don't like doing that, but every once in awhile, it's best for all involved for me to detach from the class a little.  So while they drew horses and cats, I collaged. 

Melissa blogged yesterday about an experience she had at work.  It was a beautiful post that definitely brought tears to my eyes (especially considering they were teetering on the edge for most of the day).  Anyway,she 

wrote about comforting the mother of a 17 year old girl battling cancer.  She wrote about how precious it was to be given the opportunity to be that person for that woman on that day.  She wrote about how before every shift at the hospital she prays for God to use her to impact someone's life that day.  I used to pray for my students daily, but have done that less and less as the school year is winding down.  I've allowed myself to focus on getting this, and this, and that done (there is a LOT of "this, this, and that" everyday working in a public school) and focused less on loving my students.  The result is that I feel overwhelmed at work, resentful of students and life in general.  God gave me a sunny walk, a chance to cool down, and a reminder from an old friend that He has me where I am.  My contracted job is to teach, to grade, to attend meetings, to contribute to committees and the school, to keep records and write rubrics...but more importantly, my "job" is to love the people around me, to pour into the lives that cross 

mine, to remember how loved I am and share it. I think it's safe to say that when I am feeling overwhelmed, really I'm experiencing the consequence of jumbled priorities.  I mess this up a lot.

Thanks Melissa, for your perfectly-timed post.  It was a great reminder, and a great part of my not-so-great day.  God has given me a lot to be grateful for, especially those of you taking the time to read this.  Gabe is always so sweet when I get in these funks, and yesterday was no exception. Thank goodness I have a husband that doesn't just brush off my sadness/moodiness as PMS, but one who talks to me and hugs me and prays for me. Thank you G. Thank you everyone for your blogs, your comments on mine, phone calls, friendships, love and time. 

Since I wrote about breakfast last Saturday, here's a summary of breakfast today: I made muffins.  We don't have a muffin pan, but for some reason have multiple packs of muffin papers.  So our muffins were made in a square baking dish, hence the non-traditional shapes. Coincidentally, we just received in the mail, from my gifted chef of a mother, some of her invented recipes she's recently entered into contests.  She's that good. Enjoy the pic of my misshapen-from-a-box-muffins.  

**The recipes look great, Mom!  Can't wait to try some!

Happy week-ending all!

take your cat to environment link

Happy belated Earthday, everybody!  I had planned to do a special EArth-conscious post yesterday, but G and I ended up going to my school's musical.  If you recall, I mentioned having to stay after school quite a bit to paint sets--that's what that was for.  It was very cute.  Always funny to see 6th graders (esp. boys) next to 8th graders.  They are so much smaller, and yet, not that much younger.  HGH really kicks in somewhere between the end of 6th grade and the end of 8th.

Tomorrow is Take Your Kid to Work Day.  One of my 6th graders came into class today beaming over the fact that it was the last class of the day and that he won't be in school tomorrow because of T.Y.K.T.W.Day.  I asked him where he would be spending the day.  It seems that he will be skateboarding most of the day.  Because Mom or Dad repairs and sells skateboards, you ask?  No. Because Mom or Dad is extremely Earth-conscious and commutes to work on a skateboard?  No.  His mom works from home, so he'll be spending the day at home, "working" alongside her...on his skateboard...outside.  Somehow I think the point has been missed.

 

A couple of mornings ago Daly would not leave me alone.  He basically kept trying to eat my arm.  Had it been 7:00 at night, rather than 7am, this would have been totally in character.  But it was morning, so I could not figure out what his problem with me was, until I noticed both his food and water dishes were empty.  Not sure how long.  At most a full day.  So I cut him some slack and figured he had just reached what he thought to be the "worst-case scenario" that he'd turned over in his mind before.  You know the one where you try to decide which family member's arm you would gnaw off first in efforts to avoid starvation.  Apparently Gabe is too muscly (hi hub:), so Daly has chosen me.  

Lately we've been noticing that Daly is losing a lot of his winter coat.  It's on the stairs everyday, it's in our cereal, it's in my nose, it's in the air.  I keep saying, "I really need to brush him soon."  Yesterday I heard a strange noise from our beloved cat coming from the living room.  I found that he had thrown up hair.  Not a hairball, mind you, but hair.  Lots of it.  He left a trail 10 inches long with globs of hair strewn throughout.  I gagged a little.

So kids, the moral of these stories is, if you don't take care of your pets it'll come back to bitecha in the arm or vomit on your rug.**

 **please don't call animal control on us, Daly really is a happy healthy cat

Here's a helpful link for all of you hippies that want to help the environment.  Enjoy!

i rule

Check out the R word of Mrs.  That's right.

I made this up to clarify for my students the role I play in their lives.  Just kidding, a sweet 6th grader handed this to me in class today.  I'm glad she didn't reverse the order of the two p's.

Tomorrow is Earth Day.  Get your green tips ready!

pancakes, pollen and paws

You CAN make buckwheat pancakes with one egg.  Yesterday's pancake-making event was my most successful to date.  I have never before managed to not ruin at least one (normally the first) pancake...until yesterday, that is.  I mixed  fresh-cut strawberries into the batter, along with a little cinnamon.  And for the last two I also mixed in white chocolate chips. To top it off we poured the homemade maple syrup G's grandpa makes and bottles. It was scrumptious.

I forgot to post a picture of the lovely sunflowers Gabe brought home for me the other evening. Since I've spent a combined total of six years working as a florist, Gabe is always a little skittish about buying me flowers.  Apparently I've given the impression that I'm picky when it comes to flowers.  I always love getting flowers, no matter what...but there are certain flowers that I personally like more than others.  Sunflowers in spring are a great pick (so are ranunculus, in case any husbands are curious :).
Below is a picture of Daly doing one of his favorite things in life.  Clean-sheet Day ignites all sorts of excitement and energy in our lil' feline.  The game begins when we "ripple" out the sheet over the mattress in order to spread it out.  As the sheet is in the air, Daly jumps with all his might up into the center.  Then the sheet falls on top of him and he assumes army-crawl position.  We poke him once or twice and he swiftly flips over onto his back, creating a tent of sorts with his four paws.  This position enables him to swipe at our pokes with cobra-like speed.  This entertains all three of us for at least a dozen minutes every time.

honestly people, and another wonderfilled saturday

(what bugs in Memphis looked like)

Do I really seem like the kind of person to blog about the coolest bug I've ever found in my house, only to then kill it?  I hope not.  Rest assured, the bug was delivered safely to my front porch(ish area).  

I love today.  This past week I had my last observation (where my Assistant Principal observes a lesson I teach and then critiques me on it).  This involves a pre-observation meeting (Tuesday) where I give her 3 pages of answered questions regarding the lesson to be taught, the actual observation (Wednesday) where she watches me teach and then asks students questions, and a post-observation meeting (Friday) where we go over the lesson, critique and another page of questions I wrote about.  Also this past week we (drama crew kids and I) finished painting the sets for our school's spring musical.  This involved staying after school until 5:00 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and until 6:15 Friday.  But we're finally finished (after about a month of working)!!!  I also got the plaques for the eighth grade awards ordered.  I also finished designing and ordering the P(ositive)B(ehavior)S(upport) posters for our hallways.  Also picked up the art from the last art show from a gallery clear across town.  I didn't do any grading and my toe nails could definitely use a trim, but otherwise managed to keep up with life in general. 

Needless to say, it was one of the busier weeks I've had in awhile.  All week I just kept my focus on today, Saturday.  I slept in until 8:45 and honestly haven't done much other than convincing Gabe to bring me the computer (I'm still in bed.  It's 9:56), and I wouldn't have it any other way right now.  I think I'm going to go find out if pancakes can be made using only one egg, because that's all we have.

cool bug, good hair, & spittin' game

Here is a picture of one of the coolest bugs I've ever found traipsing across the floor of our house.  It was the size of ladybug.  What is it?  Has anyone seen this kind of bug before?  I don't know if he/she has a bum antennae or it's just being used to itch his/her heiney (a word I couldn't find in the spell checker).  Either way, still a cool bug.

...And a bit of my vanity for ya.  I took this picture the other day because I'm trying to grow my hair out (at which point I'll then decide to cut it short again) and very rarely have "good hair days" anymore because of it.  Well, the other day I felt like I was having a good hair day.  This fact (or opinion) is wasted on my students, and Gabe doesn't give two rips what my hair looks like (thank goodness), so I felt the need to photograph myself.  It feels incredibly vain, to me, to take a photograph of my hair while home alone for the purpose of putting on my blog at some later date, hence the cheesy face.  
I learned some slang today from a 7th grader.  He informed me that Rayjon was spittin' game at his ex.  The first three times I heard, "Rayjon is fit 'n sane at my X."  After three tries by the white girl from Iowa to understand what the cool 7th grader was saying, I very uncooly asked him to say it one more time slowly...spitting game, (gross)--and I still had no idea what was being communicated to me.  Similar expressions would be hitting on or flirting, I learned (as well as the enormous difference between the acceptable spittin' and the unacceptable spitting).  Rayjon took the well-deserved opportunity to laugh at me.  So I told on him.  Just kidding.

When I came home for lunch I was excited to share my new knowledge of cool with Gabe.  Gabe was already familiar with spittin' game.  It's times like this that I wonder if I really know Gabe as well as I think...

jewel of teaching advice

6th grade student: "'Zup, Miznip?" (in his typical semi-disrespectful-trying-to-get-a-reaction way)

me:  "Nothing much.  Just walking around, helping kids with their projects."

student: "You spozeda say it all gyangsta."

me:  "Sorry, I'm just a white girl from Iowa."

And thus concludes the first time I managed to connect with this particular student in the two and a half weeks I've had him in class.  He literally fell out of his chair onto the floor laughing (at which point I reminded him he was in the Art Room, and the floor is kind of gross).  I overheard him retell our exchange at least 3 times.  The rest of class period he was all smiles to me without a shred of attitude.  If I'd known it was that easy, I would have told him two weeks ago that I was a white girl from Iowa.