The Dangers of Christmas

After using a small crane to lower myself onto the floor this morning in order to wrap the only gifts I've managed to purchase so far this holiday season, I've come to the realization that Christmas is dangerous, ya'll.  And not for the reasons you might think.

Sure, we hear about the folks who slice their finger or hand open on a blister package that requires a nuclear reaction to open and heading to the emergency room for stitches.  There's the unfortunate Turkey Fryer accidents. There's the dissolution of marriages and disowning of children by parents who were up until 4am assembling the tiny plastic parts of a Barbie Malibu Dream Castle.  But for pregnant kindergarten teachers, there is even more peril.

First of all, there's the hormonal issue.  I cried the other night because the pork chops I had in the oven weren't browning the way I wanted them to because they were thicker than the ones I usually buy.  I collapsed into a bewildered heap of sobs over that disaster. That has nothing to do with Christmas, of course, but how can you expect someone who cries over pork chops to be able to drive while you're playing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" on the radio, Light 98?  Or "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch?"  I mean, these songs are FILLED with emotional triggers like "Your soul is an appalling dung heap overflowing with the most disgusting assortment of garbage imaginable."  Sobs, I tell you.  I carry mascara in my purse so that once I get to school I can somewhat reassemble myself.

  Of course, that doesn't last long.  And why?  Pants.  They keep caring if I'm wearing pants to school. Yes, I wear a dress as often as possible and recently made the foray into leggings and longer shirts, but I haven't found a way yet to wear my ACTUAL nightgown or a pair of sweatpants to school without escaping notice.  And with a baby belly roughly the size of the unexplained object orbiting Mercury:

They're COMING FOR US

Pants are seriously dangerous.  As a matter of fact, on Thursday I was a mere moments from taking my scissors into the stinky peed-on bathroom in my classroom and cutting the waistband on the maternity pants I was wearing so that I could stand to wear them for another moment.  I had a whole plan to extend them involving duct tape and my stapler, but luckily the Husband showed up with my sweatpants just in time for my pants to escape Mythbusters style rigging.

   THEN this morning I got the proofs of The Squirt's 2 year old photo shoot with a talented photographer friend.  The kid is spectacular, I must say.  Even the dogs look cute in the shots they invaded.  Me, not so much.  I look like a whale. An actual, verifiable, World Wildlife Association Profiling Endangered Species. There is only one of my kind: The Central Virginian Mommious Colossus.  I am SNL's Land Shark's Whale counterpart.  And this is particularly troubling because I've really not gained that much weight at all (nneighborhood of 10lbs, sometimes as much as 15 depending on when you weigh me).  So this served to completely destroy the picture of myself in my head that I have where I am a Whole Lot Thinner Than I Actually Am. Tears.  Oh yeah. Tears. 

   And now I'm trying to plan some merriment for my kindergarten friends for next week, and it's frustrating because I have a Jehovah's Witness in my class. They take the fun out of everything and replace it with Watchtower pamphlets.  This is the first year I haven't spent the whole month of December playing my collection of Robert Shaw carols and such on the CD player in my classroom instead of my usual "Piano's Most Relaxing Hits" albums. 

  On the slightest end of positive, this week I only had ONE unexplained pee puddle appear on my classroom floor, and only had to make one awkward phone call home to a parent because his son was masturbating on his rest mat during naptime.  Oh yeah, baby.

There's a Madonna Song in Here Somewhere

With The Squirt, I elected to have an induction and it failed.  I ended up having a c-section which was neither the most or least enjoyable experience of my life.

  What was the least enjoyable, you may ask?  Well, it just might be the phone calls I get from various personages taking me on a delightful passive aggressive guilt trip revolving around the birth of my children!

   When The Squirt was born, I was teaching the worst 5th grade class ever assembled by a soulless, neckless demon from the depths of Hell. I was compounding the problem, I'm sure, by being exhausted, uncomfortable and grouchy but truthfully passing the time with a pack of rabid babboons bent on giving me the Ebola virus would have been a more enjoyable way to spend my day.  Then the phone calls began.

One side of the family remained willfully ignorant about the details of pregnancy and childbirth and didn't seem to understand why neither me nor my beloved obstetrician could pinpoint with any accuracy when exactly she would be born and how much she would weigh.  I'm already getting the "have they told you how much she weighs?" questions again, and this time I'm answering with the information from my What Not to Expect app..... so today?  About 4lbs. "Why is she so small?!?  Is there something wrong?"  Um no.  Did you think that as soon as the sperm hit the egg a 7.5lb baby magically appears?  I am under the impression that she grows.  You know, gets larger every day.  And if someone has invented an intrauterine scale then I certainly haven't heard about it. Le sigh.  Last time someone expected to be able to videotape the birth and didn't really want to listen to my objections, so I got the nurses to tell people that nobody other that my husband was allowed in the room because of the Swine Flu outbreaks.  L&D nurses are GREAT liars.

   So one cold and rainy afternoon in November, I was forced to abandon the rabid babboon hoarde to field a series of passive aggressive phone calls from my own mother and grandmother.  It appears that my mother had decided that my unwillingness to consult the Dark Arts to divine when my child would be born so that she could be assured of being present, and my inability to secure travel plans for picking her up from the airport when there were no day or time parameters to consider was code for me saying I Don't Like You And Don't Want You To Ever See My Child.  Then to add insult to injury, I expressed interest in spending the last few days of the husband and my life as a couple as, you know, a COUPLE.  Without houseguests. I am mortifyingly selfish it seems.  Either that or my mother is secretly a 2 year old.

   In the last few weeks, I've been trying to make it clear to various family that I don't intend to schedule a C-Section for the birth of kidlet #2.  It does not appear to be sinking in for some, but others have decided that I am intentionally inconveniencing them so that I can be sure that they cannot be present when she is born.  Out of spite, you know.  I am spitefully choosing to give birth in the intended way if possible.  Egg on my face, right?

   My general feeling on the matter is this: I have a 2 year old.  I will have a newborn.  I would vastly prefer to avoid major abdominal surgery and the recovery involved.  After a C-Section, you're not allowed to pick up anything heavier than your baby for like 2 weeks.  Someone explain that to a 2 year old, please? All she would know is that Mama will hold the baby but not her, and I can't hurt her like that if I have the power to possibly avoid the issue at all.

   Since I AM the one who will be giving birth to this little Riverdancer, I can't say I particularly care about making it convenient for anyone else. And it really chaps my ass that I'm dealing with passive aggressive guilt trips because my decisions regarding my body, my baby, and my family are inconvenient for people's travel plans.  As far as I'm concerned there is exactly ONE other person on earth who has any actual right to be present for the birth of this little girl, and that would be her daddy.  If it works out that the more long distance family is able to be there, great.  If not, I'm not responsible for that.

    So my decision to VBAC if possible is NOT made out of spite to you, Mother.  Nor is it intended to relay some secret message of hatred towards you.  It is about ME prefering NOT to be cut open and sewn back together when I have this handy dandy doorway all biologically ready for my child to exit.  Why smash a hole in the wall if there's already a door to walk through?  Of course, if medically necessary I'm not opposed to having another c-section, but it's nobody's decision but mine and my doctor's. 

  Oh, January, you cannot come swiftly enough.

To Quote Her Madgesty Herself:  And I'm not sorry..... it's human nature.... and I'm not sorry, I'm not your b!tch, don't lay your $hit on me.......

'Twas the Week Before Thanksgiving Eve

So the World's Most Awesome Toddler turned 2 on Friday, and as punishment to her parents all of her Georgia grandparents came to visit.  No, actually, it was fine.... just exhausting.  Hadn't seen my parents get along that well in, well, my life.  And Her Majesty certainly enjoyed being the EXACT center of attention.  She is also a recent convert to the Birthday Cake Fan Club.

   So now it's Thanksgiving Eve, and my mother has been here since The Squirt's birthday on the 18th.  She has made it her mission to completely decorate The Squirt's new Big Girl Room which includes painting a lot of furniture because we're too cheap to buy anything new and happily took hand me down furniture.  She also decided to repair the damage to the guest bathroom that my grandmother caused a good year ago and that she exacerbated.  All fine and dandy.  I think she intends to paint my upstairs hallway, too, which again, is fine.  She's good at these sorts of things and while I could do it myself, I'd prefer not to.

   However, today we took a trip out to a couple of shopping establishments because I had to buy The Squirt's new Big Girl bedding set (CUPCAKES!) and my mother needed to go to Home Depot for some things that she assures me are essential to the wellbeing of my family and the Earth and my lack of which she finds troubling (spray acrylic.  Who just keeps spray acrylic in their house at all times?).  These 2 hours of my life proved sufficient to render me more or less a hypertensive manic-depressive maniac hellbent on killing all those in my way.  Why, you ask?

   On the way to Homegoods, she tells me I have to buy new bathroom rugs because she threw out my existing rugs yesterday (and trash has since been picked up) because they weren't the correct rugs.  Then I am informed that she intends to hang a towel bar about 2 feet up from the floor in the bathroom so that my daughter can wipe her mouth on it after brushing her teeth.  Yes, because that's necessary.  Then we arrive at Homegoods, and she immediately takes off at Warp 9.9 with my toddler in hand, ignoring the fact that I'm nearly 8 months pregnant and physically unable to move that fast.  If you've never chased my mother around a home accessories or grocery store, let me tell you now that it's both aerobic and frustrating.  The key is to NEVER let her have control of the cart.  Otherwise, you spend the grocery trip filling your arms with all the things you INTENDED to put in the cart and then circling the store looking for the buggy and trying in vain to catch her long enough to put this armload of groceries into the cart so you can start that process again. The comedic properties of chasing your own grocery cart around the store as it's being driven by a maniac in sweatpants is unfortunately lost on me. It's kind of like Whack-a-Mole, only you don't get to hit her on purpose. 

   So being careful to keep from circling the sun while traveling at maximum warp to avoid unintentional time travel and having to be part of some bad Star Trek plot involving humpback whales, I managed to acquire the things I intended to buy and subsequently answer all her continuously unanswerable questions about what exact shade of purple was in the quilt set that I did not own yet.  I was also required to purchase an over-the-door hanging organizer thing because she cannot abide my purse hanging on a doorknob or a Target bag being placed on the floor until the contents are unpacked.  Oh, and a scented candle for the bathroom, which I guarantee my husband will throw away next week because scented candles give him migraines.  My total cost: $140.  She bought the kid a pink poodle purse for $4.99.

  So then we head to Home Depot, where again, she grabs the toddler and accelerates towards the exit.  Approaching the exit, she hands me the child and then despite me saying "This is the exit, the entrance is there," she zooms in through the out door, leaving us to chase behind her unable to get a cart or buggy for my 32lb ham of a child to ride in. So, this means I spent the next 30 minutes chasing her AND a toddler wearing new and exciting twinkling sneakers through Home Depot trying in vain to prevent injury to myself and/or damage to the Home Depot inventory that would require me to pay the store for the destruction.  I vetoed a $30 towel bar that I don't need or want, much to her chagrin. Suck it, lady.  After she amassed all the things that Home Depot sells that my home was teetering on the edge of self-destructing without, I was allowed to pay for the purchases while MotorMother takes my child and runs for the car like a woman currently shoplifting a turkey out of the store in her underwear.

   Did I mention that in the course of this day I had to stop at no less than 3 different gas stations until she could find the appropriate brand of cigarettes?  And I am so desperately allergic to and loathing of all things related to smoking that my soul dies a little with each stop.  If only I'd known the incantation to make a horcrux, it would have been smart on this trip.

   Finally, after we leave Home Depot I decided to acquire some lunch for everyone, and swung into McDonalds.  The Squirt got excited about "Chicken anna FRIES anna SAUCE, Mama?!?" So taking a deep breath, I barely survived the sojurn through the highly inefficient newly redesigned 2 lane drive thru system with my mother on a continuous loop about how HORRIBLE the drive thru line is and trying repeatedly to get my child to repeat the things she wanted her to say.

   When I got home, I more or less only wanted to sit on my sofa and try not to die.  But no, I was sent to Target because you see, she'd decided my bathroom curtain situation was inappropriate, so she took down ONE curtain rod from the 2 windows in my daughter's room and moved it to the bathroom window which faces a windowless side of our neighbor's house.  Since nobody except the 2.5 foot tall kid is ever naked in that room, I'd not really worried about covering the window which was apparently a sad, sad travesty in my life.   Instead of just buying another rod next time we happened to be there, it became imperative to get one with some haste because now only one window of my daughter's room was covered.  Logic defies.

   And the kicker is that SHE has a prescription for Xanax, not me. 

Reasons Why My Dogs Will Never Rule the World

This week I had the highly enjoyable experience of attending a 4 movie marathon and midnight premiere of the new Twilight movie with a wonderful group of girlfriends.  Now, to be plainly honest, I did read the Twilight books but they have not become any sort of focus in my life.... I'm not a "twihard" or anything of the sort.  I find Robert Pattinson to be fairly unattractive.... and I think Kristin Stewart is a truly terrible actress.  I used to just think the first movie was badly directed, but no, it turned out that while that movie WAS badly directed, KStew was just as wooden and unemotional in the subsequent movies as in the first.  But I digress.....

   Anyway, for the uninitiated, the Twilight series involves a pack of shapeshifting Quileute indians who turn into giant wolves in order to hunt down their only natural enemy, the vampire.  Most Twihards will tell you that they fall firmly into the "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob" category.  Those on "Team Jacob" are essentially declaring their preference for men who become literal dogs, instead of just the figurative dog that most men become somewhere between birth and death.  I have thought about it, and I believe that this move is a bad one because dogs are not intended to have any sort of power in society.  I believe Gus and Pickle demonstrate this succinctly.

   First and foremost, my dogs don't have thumbs.  If they did, there would be a lot less cheese and raw meat in my refrigerator.  Do you really want to be ruled by someone who cannot open jars? 

Second, my dogs both lick their own butts.  Now, I am sure there is a large contingency of men who would just love being able to lick their own manly areas; however, I don't think that's a selling point for a world leader.  Because we all know, ladies, that such an activity renders the average man unable to speak coherently.  And they're obsessed enough with it as it is.

Third, my dogs seem to believe there is some point to chasing squirrels.  Neither of them will ever catch a squirrel, and honestly neither would have any idea what to do with a squirrel were he or she to catch one, but they insist that the 1lb furry tailed intruders in their yard merit mad barking dashes to rescue us all from their nefarious plots to take over the world one acorn at a time.

   Fourth, despite their knowledge that the Magical Box in the kitchen where mommy keeps The Fud is stocked with unimaginable amounts of dog-approved goodies, they are willing to happily injest practically dehydrated pebbles of meat-ish dog food.  Settling for dog food when you know mommy has a pork loin seems defeatist to me.

   Fifth, they are un-pottytrainable.

Sixth, particularly Gus can be frightened awfully easily.  I saw him jump in horror when a falling leaf from a tree landed on him. I think one needs to have a little gumption to be in charge of the world, don't you.

   Anyway, so that's what I'm thinking about today.  Wouldn't you like to spend a little time in my brain? Tee hee hee

SHAMEFUL!

Friends, I am disgusted and I am mobilizing.

   A very good friend of mine just had a terrible experience with the Junior Federated Women's Club of Chester, VA.  Her daughter was participating in their Cotillion program.  She made the grievous error of questioning their use of public humiliation and bullying while claiming to be teaching manners to preteens.  So the group disinvited her daugher, via cowardly letter left in their mailbox. 

    I think this is beyond the pale.  Please, I know I don't have MANY readers or followers, but let's spread the word that we find it reprehensible that a group claiming to teach deportment would believe that bullying is an appropriate way to interact with preteen children.

What I am Looking Forward To

A mere11 weeks from now I will be giving birth to another human being.  At that moment, my job as the host to a parasitic organism will cease and for that I am thankful because lawdy, lawdy I hate being pregnant.  So here's a list of things that I am already anticipating with glee:

1.  Ibuprofen
2.  Sleeping flat on my face on my stomach.
3.  Possibly the diminishing urge to kick people in the face
4.  The return of the ability to eat anything without crippling heartburn
5.  Going to the bathroom without throwing up simultaneously
6.  Ridiculous caffeine consumption
7.  The return of my hip bones into their assigned socket spaces
8.  Never being kicked in the bladder from the inside again
9.  The ability to regulate my body temperature to a reasonable degree
10.  The ability to swallow a pill with water without throwing it back up
11.  Having haircolor stick to my hair
12.  Patience and sympathy, as I have none right now
13.  Never having to answer the obvious question "Haven't you had that baby yet?!?" again.  Obviously, you moron, if I am still pregnant I have NOT had that baby yet.  You, however, owe me $10 for wasting the oxygen needed to speak those words of stupidity aloud.
14.  Being able to answer the question "So, when are you going to have another one?" with "Never. Asshole."
15.  Standing up without doing a remarkable impression of a drunken penguin
16.  Being physically able to stay awake past 8:30pm when necessary
17.  WINE.  and WINE.  Oh, and Wine.
18.  Red wine
19. White wine
20.  Margaritas and other delectable alcoholic goodies.

For the love of Pete.

I LOVE it when I get emails that make me want to karate chop people in the face.


Georgie wet his pants today. Again.  For the second time in 2 weeks.

And although I was 25 miles away at a meeting, somehow his mother still believes it's my fault.  I am going to just have him catheterized.  This is ridiculous.  I am a TEACHER, I am NOT a bathroom monitor.  If your kid doesn't bother to get in line to go until he's about to wet himself, what am I supposed to do about that?  Open the bathroom door and remove the other child who's using the toilet so he can go?

And I am Vindicated

Back in June/July I expressed quite a lot of frustration at my treatment at the hands of a certain endocrinologist.  He treated me as if diabetes and/or gestational diabetes was a foregone conclusion simply based on my weight.  Despite the fact that my blood sugar is in the clinically normal range and I didn't have gestational diabetes in my first pregnancy, he never seemed able to remember that and would open every appointment by saying "So when we treated your gestational diabetes before, I assume we......(fill in blank)," at which time I would say with dwindling patience "I didn't have gestational diabetes last time."   Then in June he decided I needed to start monitoring my blood sugar 4 times a day, and despite a normal (albeit on the edge of high) hb1ac test (3 month glucose average) was talking about putting me on an insulin pump. 

   I felt like he never listened to me or considered me as anything except a weight. And following my gut instinct and knowledge of my own health, I immediately sought out a new endocrinologist.  Based on my labwork and the indicators present in my current pregnancy, she recommended that I follow the low-carb diet prescribed for women diagnosed with gestational diabetes which was a very minimal impact on how I already ate (basically a change of breakfast, but no other big impact), but chose only to treat me for my obvious and rampant hypothyroidism.  Being a pregnant woman herself and understanding the energy sapping qualities of that parasitic infection, she said that she prefers to keep thyroid levels during pregnancy at the higher end of normal so she increased my dosage and I am positive that this has had a very positive impact on this pregnancy.

  So almost 29 weeks into this pregnancy, my weight gain is minimal.  I have no swelling in my hands or ankles at this point and other than heartburn and a gag reflex that turns me into Linda Blair, I feel good. I have more energy than I did before, I'm not as uncomfortable.  Niblet is swimming along quite happily and growing as she should.

  And what's more, I had my glucose screening test this week.  The way the diagnosis process for gestational diabetes works, you take a screening test first.  Most people pass it by having a 1 hour glucose reading <140 after 50mg of glucose and don't have gestational diabetes.  About 20% don't pass and have to return for a more complicated 3 hour test. About 3-7% of women will be diagnosed with GD. 

   With The Squirt, I passed the 1 hour. I found out today that with #2 I did, too. If I was diabetic or even had significantly impaired glucose tolerance, don't you think I'd have had to take the 3 hour test at least? I do.  And I think that I am vindicated in my choice to trust my gut instead of a doctor that was not treating me like a person, but like a number.


So to doctors making assumptions instead of practicing medicine, I say neener neener. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

How to Cripple a Child

So this week I've been the recipient of The Blame Game.  Perhaps earlier in my career I would have been willing to accept some of the blame that has been heaped upon me this week, but at this stage I know I'm right and that I've done nothing for which to be blamed.....Would you like to know what's my fault?

Well, it seems Georgie's mother has decided I'm a baaaaaaaaad teacher.  And here's the reasons:

1. Georgie made a puddle on the floor earlier this week.  And that was my fault because I wasn't tracking how often he was using the classroom bathroom and asking him if he needed to go pee pee in the potty at regular intervals.  Now, a few years ago I would have offered to create some sort of reward system or something to encourage him to "go" and would have shouldered that responsibility.  Now, no way.  I told her that since he was the youngest kindergartener in my class (didn't turn 5 until the middle of September) that developmentally he probably wasn't identifying the beginning of "the urge" and didn't realize he needed to go until it was a near emergency and that I couldn't make another student evacuate the bathroom to let him use it.  HE needs to be responsible for using his SIX (or more) bathroom breaks that I offer during our 6 hour school day.  Lordy, I'm 7 months pregnant and the idea of 6 breaks a day sounds heavenly to me.... I get one.  If I can make it on 1 a day, he can make it on 6.

2.  I refuse to search through Georgie's backpack to find things that she sends to school with him. This has been an ongoing issue for him.  For example, last week she sent treat bags to give the class on Monday for Halloween.  Well, when Georgie came in to class, he told me he had "toys in his backpack."  For those unaccustomed to elementary age kids, they OFTEN bring toys from home in their backpack, and are either naiive enough to tell their teacher that, or they think we're too stupid to notice that suddenly Justin Bieber has joined our class and is singing a tinny recorded song emanating from his abdomen. So when he announced he had toys, I said what I always say: "Toys stay in our backpack, and please don't bring them back to school."  So that was the first nasty note of the week. Fun!  I just flat out told Mom this time that he told me he had toys, and I told him toys weren't allowed.  He needs to learn to communicate what he really means.

3.  Then today, I'm in trouble with her because he hasn't brought a take-home reading book home all week.  Well, tough shit.  I spend the first MONTH of school chasing after the kids to make sure they are choosing a book and packing it away to take home.  I spend a second month chasing the third of them who still don't get it.  Now in the third month of school I do not chase, and will only remind.  If he still doesn't know what his job is, then it's HER problem, not mine.  SHE needs to help her child because MY job is to foist some independence on him.

    All of this took me back to a couple of years ago when I was miserably plodding through a year of 5th grade hell.... I had a mother tell me I couldn't hold her child responsible for a book report because I hadn't written it down for him in his assignment notebook and hadn't called her to tell her that it was assigned.  I told her that it was HIS assignment, not hers, and that I don't notify parents individually of assigned schoolwork. But come the hell on.  Really?

   These are the parents who are crippling our education system.  And lordy I wish they weren't mine to deal with.

The fairy was washed out

This is the face you get when your quest to get "CANNY INNA PUKKIN" is thwarted by weather.

Yeah, piss on it.

Yesterday I was all ooey-gooey lovey dovey doped up with hormones.  Today those same hormones have turned the tables and have made me into the most insufferably miserable person possible.

  Sunday October 30th, 2011, how do I hate thee?  Let me count the ways.....

1.  I hate that my humidifier ran out of water at 4 am, and my sinuses nearly immediately notified me that I needed to get up and refill it if I had any intention of not suffocating on my own snot.
2.  I hate that I have 2 available body temperatures: volcano on the sun or igloo on Pluto.  I cannot find a happy medium.
3. I hate that I actually BELIEVED the husband when he said that he'd clean up the kitchen last night, because I couldn't even SEE a countertop this morning in order to make my daughter breakfast.
4.  I hate that MY day to sleep in is almost always ruined by the worrying of a 35lb corgi who insists that the only reason I'd still be in bed at 7am is because I died, and she wants to be first in line to eat my face.
5.  I hate that I can only wear 3 pairs of pants right now because it means I have to wash them all the stupid time.
6.  I hate having a child with a cold while I also have a sinus infection.  Sick kid= no naps.  Sick Mommy= wants to nap more than she wants Cocoa Pebbles, which is a lot.
7.  I hate that I am such a crappy housekeeper.  Perhaps the laundry situation wouldn't bother me so much if I actually had the wherwithal to complete a laundry cycle once in a while.  I'm highly adept at filling and running the washing machine, and that's about it.  I tend to let things mildew and require rewashing at least twice before they make it into the dryer.
8. I hate the third trimester of pregnancy because it robs me of my will to do anything I enjoy.  I don't want to cook, I don't want to read, I would LOVE to sleep but can't.  Come on January 26th.
9.  I hate Sallie Mae.  I trust that needs no explainer.
10.  I hate that Words with Friends seems to have decided I'm some sort of master wordsmith who can play entire games getting only about 4 consonants total in an entire game.  At last check, I had THREE games going where every tile in my panel was a vowel.  One was particularly impressive: IIIIIUU.  Yes, you can spell ANYTHING with those 7 letters!

Maybe it's just the hormones

Maybe I'm just a gigantic wad of hormones, but I am completely in love with my little girl here lately.  Let me count the ways....

Now that she's a talker, the things that come out of her mouth could get her a gig at the Funnybone.  In addition to being precocious, she's also got an absurd vocabulary for a 2 year old (genetics, probably).  Listening to her make connections to things and talk about it just warms the cold cockles of my heart.  For example, at the doctor's office, there's a picture of a bunch of fairy tale critters in one of the room, and listening to her name them "Issa DRAGON!  Issa fairy!" is amazing.  Where does a 2 year old learn to identify a dragon?  And how freaking awesome is that?  She also commands your attention before she tells you something, much like someone doing a communication exercise for some sort of cult.  Before she tells anyone anything, she says their name, quite forcefully, and makes sure they're paying attention because what she's about to tell you is super important.  For example:

"MAMA!"
"Yes baby?"
"Dada gotta pee butt?"
"No, I don't think Dada has a pee butt.  Dada doesn't wear a diaper anymore."
"Mama gotta pee butt?"
"No, Mama goes pee pee in the potty.  Do you want to pee pee in the potty?"
"Nonononononononono."

  I take her to the sitter's house most mornings and it's our special time to talk about things.  Sometimes we talk, sometimes we sing, sometimes we both look morose because it's 7:30 and we've been awake too long with too many things to do already.  But the singing is usually my favorite, except for when we have to do the Oratorio of Old McDonald, where I have to sing it as she names the animal noise she'd like included in this verse.  "A cow?" "A horse?" "A giraffe?"

But my favorite is when she plays pretend.  She has several little plush toys of characters from Sesame Street and Yo Gabba Gabba that she loves, and if you watch her carefully, she will make them pattycake or do the Itsy Bitsy Spider.....She'll have Elmo's hands in hers, making him do the motions while she sings:

Thaaaa ippy 'pider climbin' dere,
Down a rain an WASH it out!
Out a sun an dry a rain,
Anna ippy 'pider climb again!



Yeah, I may miss sleeping.  I miss doing my laundry and letting the husband fend for himself.  I miss having time to spoil my dogs. I miss not having to consider "toddler friendly" options for eating out and planning meals....I miss only having to clean up after my slob of a husband.  But when I open a little girl's bedroom door in the morning and a tiny little thing in footed piggy jammies squeals and comes running to hug my legs and say "HI MAMA!  I gotta BOOK!" then the rest of it kind of goes away.

Things I love

1.  My baby girl and her silly daddy
2.  My ridiculous dogs
3.  Wine
4.  strawberries
5.  watermelon
6.  fur lined slippers
7. hot baths, especially in a jetted tub which I do not own.
8.  yoga pants and giant t-shirts
9.  DVR
10. Iced Oatmeal Raisin Luna Bars
11. Potato chips with mustard on them
12. someone else emptying/filling the dishwasher
13.  online shopping
14.  pedicures
15. my homemade beef stroganoff

Just feeling thankful.  What do you love?

Do I appear to have an abundance of time?

This week has already been an experiment in survival and it's only Wednesday.

  In addition to a very nice field trip which some aggravating parent decisions rendered stressful for me, my kid is sick.  She never gets sick.  In her nearly 2 years of life, she's had a round of antibiotics exactly once. Therefore it's hard to know what to do to make her feel better because we've had to do it so rarely.

  And did I mention I'm 27 weeks pregnant?  If you've never done that, it's not so fun.  This is the point where things start getting uncomfortable.  I can't move or bend like I would like to, I can't hold my kid in certain ways, I have ver little lap for her and Gus to share. And since it's the second go around things that weren't such a bother last time like round ligament pain and Braxton Hicks contractions really seriously hurt and suck schweddy monkey balls.


   And the husband has the creeping crud and is even less helpful around tha house than usual which means that instead of contributing in very minor ways to cleaning up his own messes, he's leaving them and making them bigger than ever.  Why does he need to keep 4 pairs of dirty socks on the couch?  Why?

   Then today my to-do list at work grew by leaps and bounds, mostly from being voluntold to do various things.  When people schedule things for me to attend or incorporate into my own overfull schedule, I get cranky.  I was stuck in a meeting having the same conversation about the same aspect of curriculum that I've now had at least 5 times.  I'm not sure if TPTB think that the learning curve on this particular math program is that steep or if they are just trying to find some way to fill our time other than letting us use it to accomplish some of the million things they want us to do during the day without actually allocating the time that accomplishing them requires.  Thanks for that.

  The Squirt has poison ivy.  I didn't even know what poison ivy looked like.  I've never gotten it and am pretty sure I'm immune to it.  I KNOW I've come into contact with it many times but never had a rash or anything.  The Husband is the same way.  So then last night we noticed a couple of little red bumps on The Squirt that we first dismissed as bug bites because she loves to play outside right now.  Then tonight when she requested bathtime and got nekkid, we noticed that her 3 or 4 spots had turned into 10-12.  So, knowing her Papa has some sort of rash situation going on that his regular doctor couldn't identify but was supposed to be seen by a dermatologist today, we called to find out what his diagnosis is, and bingo, poison ivy. So thank goodness for Uncle Mike in Georgia who is hyper allergic to it and was able to confirm for us that the poor kid is indeed itchy and miserable.... and despite not inheriting her Mommy and Daddy's resistance to poison ivy, she did inherit her daddy's odd reaction to benadryl, meaning the medicine that should make her comfortable, less itchy and sleepy renders her hyper as a loon.

   Mommy needs a break, people.  And a burrito.  And probably some cookie dough ice cream.

Why I am a Mutant

When I was a little girl, my parents appeared to take their parenting responsibility seriously.  I was fed three meals a day, usually containing some nutritional content. My clothes fit and were seasonally appropriate.  I never got lice. They signed forms and returned them to school, attended meetings when required, came to concerts, and gave me the choice of buying or bringing my lunch each day, even giving the choice of PBJ, bologna and cheese or salami sandwiches. My brother and I were not allowed to watch horror movies, anything rated R or anything that involved sex.  My mother still firmly believes that "fart" and "crap" are full on curse words, despite the fact that in the last year she's learned to drop the appropriate F bomb here and there.
    Husband and I attempt to do the same sort of parenting for our daughter, and I'm sure that will continue when her sister is born.  Something inside us just tells us that it's our job to provide food, shelter, clothing and guidance for our children.  Among my circle of friends who also have kids, this seems to be the going trend of parenting: actual childcare. Are we mutants?  It appears so.

    Why do I think so?  Well because in the last couple of weeks it has been made clear to me that I have been placing far too many expectations upon myself!  I need to take it easy!  How have I learned this lesson?  Why, I've been taught by the parents of public school students!

I  don't actually HAVE to feed my child 3 meals a day despite the fact that we can afford healthy, nutritious and often tasty fare.  And if I'd rather not be responsible for that, the school system will just do it for me.

   And returning permission slips?  Unnecessary.  That is, unless I decided at 8:45am the morning of a field trip that leaves at 9:30 that I'd rather not pack my child's lunch despite saying I would beforehand.  If I just give her a few dollars to take with her, SURELY the teacher can stop and pick up something for my child to eat, right?  If not, he can just eat her sandwich.  She has a job after all and gets 3 months off every summer, I'm sure she can afford another one.

    Maybe my daughter only speaks in monosyllabic whine and has a recurrent case of head lice?  Well, if I was a good parent apparently I'd just wait until the school wanted to take care of the communication problem with some free therapy, and as for the lice, can't the nurse just pick it out for me?

   And now that the weather's changing and it's in the mid 40's in the morning when my child heads off to school, I don't really need to worry about whether or not she has a jacket or coat.  If she shows up in 48 degree weather in shorts and a t-shirt shivering, they'll just give her a new outfit at school.

   And now that The Squirt is on the verge of turning 2, we have that whole potty training issue ahead of us.  I THOUGHT that was going to be something we'd need to figure out and get cracking on, but as it turns out, she doesn't actually have to be potty trained to go to school. At least apparently not, as we have a half dozen students in Kindergarten and first grade who regularly urinate and/or defecate in their pants.  And that's ok, because the school will just take care of it.  They'll clean my child up (but they BETTER NOT SEE HER NAKED OR I WILL SUE!!!), give her new clean clothes, evaluate her to see if she needs medical attention or special education theraputic services and just take care of that little problem for me.

  I dunno, mutant or not, I still feel somewhat compelled to, oh, I don't know, CARE FOR MY CHILD.  And I am increasingly disturbed at the dwindling pool of parents who seem to believe that this is what they're supposed to do as well. 

Failure due to Red Tape

As a kindergarten teacher of many students who come to school with little to no preschool background, I am often the first person to identify what often becomes a special education need for a child in my class.  Since I spend 6 hours a day with a child, I have a lot of insight into whether or not a child who came without any experience with the material in the curriculum (lettters and numbers) is progressing at a normal pace or not.  However, today I encountered my third experience in just two years with a child that every teacher can see has an issue that needs specialized instruction and support but whom the formal diagnostic process fails miserably.

   Last year I had a young man who was obviously suffering from some emotional developmental delays.  He was just vacant most of the time, and compared to his peers he made little if any progress towards mastering any concepts in the kindergarten curriculum.  He would sit on the carpet during story time and rock back and forth with a shoelace in his mouth.  Honestly, he seemed drugged.  After "showing my ass" so to speak in a meeting with the diagnostic team, they agreed to evaluate him for possible learning or emotional disabilites, but in the end despite the fact that this child was OBVIOUSLY in need of intervention in as many ways as possible, he was deemed "ineligible" because he hadn't been in school long enough for us to really KNOW that he wasn't learning.  He has since been to about 4 other schools, had a full psychotic sort of break, kicking, biting, basically gone off the deep end.... and I KNEW he had an issue, but what I know didn't matter- all that mattered was that he hadn't had "adequate exposure" to curriculum.

  Another guy who is a redshirted kindergartener was in a similar situation.  His teacher last year, a 20 year veteran of kindergarten, could tell in SEPTEMBER that he would need to be retained because not only did he come with no prior knowledge or developed skills needed for kindergarten, he was unable to develop and retain the knowledge and skills that he was being taught at a rate that was acceptable to the rigors of the kindergarten curriculum.  So, again, the diagnostic team failed this young man because despite the fact that he obviously needed specialized support and could have gotten it, they dismissed the veteran teacher's concerns with the "adequate exposure" clause all over again.  So now his parents have demanded an evaluation, and frankly I won't be terribly surprised with a pronouncement of ineligible because instead of comparing him with a student his own AGE, they insist on comparing him with a grade level peer, or a first month kindergartener.  So this child will likely not get served with intervention that I cannot do by myself for him until 3rd grade or later when the problems become so pronounced that he is several grade levels behind in reading and math.

  And now I have another one.  Every time I pick my class up from Art, Music, Library, Computers, or PE the teacher asks me what is wrong with her.  She doesn't seem to understand anything about what she's supposed to do.  She copies others, and when she can't do that she is completely lost and oblivious.  After 5 weeks of DAILY one-on-one interventions she still doesn't recognize her own name, nor can she name any individual letter in her name.  This despite the combination of the interventions she's already had PLUS the fact that the entire first hour of my school day revolves around letters and letter sounds.  One member of the team observed her for about 10 minutes today and pronounced her "without concern."   I wanted to scream!  This child is in desperate need of more help than I can give her.  I have 22 students in my class and she has already monopolized every resource I have available to help any child who struggles.  Her attention issues are so profound that she cannot work in a group with other children receiving help because she distracts them so badly.  She is usually unable to string more than 3 words together to form a sentence.  Like a toddler, her first instinct is to hit or spit at others when she feels threatened (including phantom threats like someone is sitting where she wants to sit on the carpet).

   This whole situation frustrates me to no end.  It's as if because I got a degree in Education rather than Psychology, my own knowledge, observation and plain gut instinct are immaterial in these cases.  You're telling me that 10 minutes of observation by someone with a psychology degree trumps 6 hours a day of agony in dealing with this child who I simply cannot help on my own. And so then I am stuck between a rock and a hard place: I am obligated to invest all the time and resources at my disposal to help her, but if I KNOW there is something wrong and that the time and energy expended will be wasted on her, then I'm denying another child who COULD made adequate progress with just a little intervention the chance to get that help.  Why should one child be able to monopolize everything I have to give when I KNOW that there's something wrong that falls outside the realm of what I'm able to handle on my own?

   It's a catch-22..... I'm supposed to be "highly qualified," highly educated, a professional educator, yet I'm not deemed qualified to identify when a child's needs are beyond my help.  Wouldn't I know better than anyone what's beyond my help?

  

Education! It's not just daycare anymore!

Yep, 2 in one day.... I'm all thinky-like.

Lest I be labeled as an ungrateful curmudgeon, I ought to share some things that make me come back to my classroom every day.....

Like one little chickie who showed up on Sept. 6 without knowing a single letter, a single color, how to spell or even recognize her name, or even how to hold scissors..... girlfriend actually WROTE a couple of words, kindergarten style, in her journal today.  That tells me I've accomplished something.

One other little guy taking a second stab at kindergarten successfully made a pattern today with his beans.  First time ever without one-on-one guidance through the process.

A group of happy little faces on my carpet who are excited about sharing what they wrote in their journals this morning about "What I like to Eat in the Fall," because they stretched out "corndog" and spelled it "kordok" or spelled "apple" as  "abl" and they know I will be over the moon excited about that.

I show up for that stuff.

When you Kick a Puppy

My enjoyable co-workers and I have been struggling for the last month to deal with no longer being in an abusive relationship. As I looked around a meeting this morning and listened to our new Fearless Leader say without directly saying that we didn't need to fear being treated and suspected of wrongdoing constantly as we had in previous regimes, it occured to me that the public school teacher is, on the whole, a kicked puppy.

  You've seen them on the ASPCA ads.  The big, sweet eyed puppy cowering in the corner, terrified of the kind hand of rescue being offered because some soulless monstrosity of a person had kicked him too many times and like anyone with motives as pure as a puppy's, he didn't understand why the person whose acceptance he craved was hurting him. Oh my, at 6 months pregnant, even visualizing that and typing it up made me tear up a bit.

Teachers are beat down.  We are now universally held accountable not only for teaching reading, writing and 'rithmatic, but for raising American children, teaching their parents to parent, providing meals to those whose parents can't or won't do it, urging parents/doctors/diagnosticians to identify disabilities, teaching morality and ethics and thinking and in too many cases lately, toilet training to 5 and 6 year olds.  And when our superhero powers fail us, the "system" cuts our pay, points fingers at us, kicks us and generally treats us with malice and suspicion that is unwarranted in most cases.

Of course there are bad eggs.  There are bad eggs in any profession.  But I'd wager that the vast, vast majority of teachers are not bad eggs.  They're sincerely trying to do the best they can to educate little friends and teach them how to function in a safe and healthy environment. Without this sincere desire to touch the life of a child with something other than a fist or a kick, there'd be no reason for a teacher to take the abuse that's heaped on us daily when we could trot our merry rear ends to the private sector for better pay, better benefits and more respect.

I posted something on Facebook the other day about wishing I subscribed to a religion that had more work holidays, and a high school friend asked if having three months a year off wasn't enough.... I think this illustrates perfectly that most Americans hold us accountable for a job they don't understand and could never do themselves, but believe they know more about than we, the ones doing the job, do. I don't have three months off.  Never have.  Probably never will. I could do like others and go through accounting for all the time and energy I expend in my job that others don't have- even trivial things like not purchasing wine or liquor in a store where a child that knows me from school might see me.  Think an engineer has to worry about whether or not his Friday night 6-pack purchase might offend a co-worker to the point that he's profiled and demonized on the evening news, written up for ethical issues and in fear of losing his job?  Likely not.  But teaching, like being a pastor, is a vocation.  It's a life.  It's all encompassing.  I don't turn it off when 4:00 comes around and I head home.

Teachers are beaten up.  But from what I see, we're not broken down.  We're working our collective heinies off to try to compensate for an educational system that doesn't see children as unique, expressive and fallible humans but as machines and for whom The Almighty Dollar runs the show. But that doesn't make us stop tying shoes and wiping noses.  We can't abandon the needs that we see.  We show up every day hoping that there's news saying that the pendulum is swinging back into the realm of sane expectations, parent responsibility and reasonable accoutability standards from the insanity of No Child Left Behind and its ramifications.  But even until it does, and hopefully it will, we still plan, prepare and teach.

It sure would be nice if more people like our new boss would make the choice to stop kicking us when we're down and instead choose to row the boat along with us as we continue gently down the stream, merrily waiting for when life will be a dream.

The Ways that I Ruin My Mother's Life

I am a terrible, horrible, inconsiderate and rude person.  Did you know that?  Well, if you're not sure, all you have to do is ask my mother!  Of all the people on Earth who hold a low or negative opinion of me, my mother takes the cake.  Surprising?  Let me ennumerate the ways in which I ruin my mother's life...

1.  I do not care if I have a rug in my laundry room and have no intention of running out to purchase one.
2.  I was not personally offended by the khaki colored paint job on the walls of our living room and hall.
3.  I do not have a piece of furniture designated for the top of the staircase.
4.  I am unable to provide her in April with firm dates for when I will visit Georgia in July.  This includes being unable to tell her which standby flight I will arrive on. Nor am I able to provide a firm date for when I will acquire a shed.
5.  I am unable to stop teaching/sleeping/living on a moment's notice to look up something online for her.
6.  I do not believe that listening to her say "HELLO LITTLE GIRL" in a monster voice for 30-45 minutes on speakerphone daily does me or my daughter any good.
7.  Despite my husband's intense dislike and objection to ceiling fans running in the bedroom at night, I still choose to sleep in the same bed as he does rather than in the guest room.
8.  I am unable to quit my job to be a stay at home mother.
9.  I don't actually CARE if my husband and I leave our dirty laundry in a pile on the floor of the bathroom.  It's all in one place when I want to wash it.
10.  I neglected to plant the preferred selection of bulbs and petunias in my yard this fall and spring.
11.  I dare to disagree with her stance that Harry Potter is teaching witchcraft to children.
12.  I don't believe I have any obligation to LIKE people in my family just because they're related to me.
13.  The presence of my dog's crate that he loves is more important to me than maintaining a "continuity of wood tone" in my bedroom.
14.  I am not offended by unpainted wood.  I accept stain and varnish as viable finish options.
15.  I do not believe that the color of blue I chose to paint my kitchen is "HORRIBLE."
16.  I do not iron my toddler's clothes.
17.  I will run the dishwasher when it isn't filled to overflowing, but I will not run the washing machine for 1 or 2 dishtowels.
18.  I believe one can make purchases from stores other than Tuesday Morning and TJ Maxx.
19.  I find it unnecessary to scream and clutch the door handle in the car upon making a left hand turn.
20.  I choose to put my child to bed right after her bath rather than letting her play in the evening in her pajamas.

You see what a hideous, horrible daughter I am?  I know, I'm a total disaster.  And based on the text messages I get with appalling regularity ennumerating my unholy sins, I'm pretty much going straight to hell after this week's episode of Project Runway.

Reasons Dr. House is TOTALLY Right

I am a little bit in love with Dr. House.  If you don't watch House, MD, you may not know about the scruffy curmudgeonly genius who, despite serious anti-social tendencies, has a wit and brilliance unsurpassed on television.  The only character on TV I appreciate more is Walter Bishop on Fringe.

House always refers to pregnancy as a parasitic infection.  And the reasons for that, while seemingly shocking for shock value, are disturbingly correct....

A parasite, by definition, is an organism that has a symbiotic relationship with a host that it benefits from at the cost of the host.

HOW, I ask you, then, is a baby NOT a parasite?

For example, I do not throw up.  I will lie immobile in my bed, moving only to chew a tums or sip a gingerale to avoid throwing up. I'd rather die.  Yet the moment the sperm hits the egg, the parasitic infection that results sends my head into the toilet daily, hourly, sometimes even several times in an hour for months on end.  Some "experts" will claim that after the hcg hormone peaks around week 14 that the symptoms of morning sickness should dissipate.... they are big fat lying liars who lie.  I tell you this with the confidence of someone who in her last pregnancy even continued throwing up AFTER childbirth.

Second example: heartburn.  Now, one might assume that since I am so distressingly fat according to the medical community that food and I would be best friends.  Plus, if you read my lasy blog entry, then you'd know I like to cook.  However, during pregnancy food and I are arch enemies.  I can get heartburn without even eating food.  I'm at the point now where I can actually GET heartburn from antacids.  Again, I have nobody to blame but the uterine parasite.

Third example: The parasite MOVES with a will of its own. She's big enough now that all the somersaults and judo moves she occupies herself with are able to even be felt by the outside world, should I like you enough to allow you to touch my belly.  How is this at my expense?  Well, for one thing, it's distracting.  And then when you consider that it's an ENTIRE LIVING BEING currently being housed WITHIN MY BODY, the fact that you can feel it move is entirely freaky while being admittedly cool.

Fourth, the removal of the parasite is the only known cure for two medical conditions: pregnancy and pre-exlampsia.  Until the parasite is removed, you're pregnant and you can't unpregnant without disconnecting the parasite from the host.  And on the unfortunate chance that you piss it off enough for it to to raise your blood pressure and cause irreversible circulatory system damage, the only cure for the condition is getting the parasite removed.

Fifth, the cellular replication of the parasite directly leads to uncomfortable changes in the body of the host organism.  As someone who generally sleeps like the dead, the arrival of a big belly that I can't sleep on, joints that hurt all the time and a small creature resident too close to my bladder to allow it any peace at all means that I am basically a slightly functional zombie. Slightly. I keep leaving my cellphone in the pantry and putting the same load of laundry to wash over and over because the parasite has robbed me of my ability to sleep like a corpse on ambien. 

The one thing the parasite has going for it is that it's pretty stinkin' cute upon removal.  And as it grows up, it does learn to sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider with a lisp.

I love Cooking Shows

I do not craft.  I don't have a glue gun, decorative paper, string, yarn, knitting needles, scrapbooking crap, etc..... As a matter of fact, simply facing the act of having to sew a button back onto an article of clothing is daunting.  It makes my hands sweat, so when I inevitably prick my finger with the needle, it is literally rubbing salt into a wound.  But I firmly believe everyone needs a hobby of some sort and since bank robbery is illegal and being intensely sarcastic really only benefits ME and nobody else, I cook.

Around the time that the Husband and I moved to VA, I really started to get into cooking.  I liked the feeling of conquering something that the average cook or even the slightly better than average cooks in my family found daunting.  Things like pastry, Julia Child's Boef Bourganion, things involving mascarpone cheese and wine. 

Then when I was pregnant with Lily, I developed a mild fixation with The Food Network.  Particularly Giada de Laurentiis' shows and The Barefoot Contessa.  However, I have come to the conclusion that I have surpassed them as a television chef, and in light of the fact that I will probably not get a reality show where I get to just make pithy comments about things, perhaps my road to fame lies in a television kitchen.

How have I surpassed them?  Well, let's see.... I embrace forms of lettuce other than arugula.  I believe you can flavor foods with things other than lemon zest, lemon juice and/or garlic.

And from what I can tell, many television cooks have decided that Lemon, Garlic and Arugula are some sort of Holy Trifecta of Cooking.   Personally, my Holy Trifecta would probably be more like WINE, WINE and WINE.  And that right there makes me win.

Accessories vs Me

Those of you who know me in real life may or may not have noticed that I am not the snazziest dresser.  I've blogged about maternity clothes and being generally the size of a smaller Canadian Province in the ass area but even in my non-knocked up state, I don't exactly push the envelope of fashion.  In the last couple of years having been inspired by a very stylish and adorable co-worker with whom I share a classroom I've attempted to up the ante a bit and have added some more respectable boots and other accessories to my normal wardrobe of black, grey or khaki pants and solid color v-neck shirts and sweaters or camisole/cardigan combinations. I'd like to be someone who wears the right jewelry and shoes with everything like my roommate at school or our impossibly perfect guidance counselor, but frankly I'd rather wear ugly shoes and have no blisters... and the only jewelry I haven't lost in a spectacularly short period of time is my wedding set.

   But then there are what I call "statement necklaces."

   Recently I was lunching with a couple of friends and we got onto the topic of a former co-worker who used to be a serious statement necklace enthusiast.  Now, I'm as pro-necklace as the next girl although I don't wear them often myself, but there are times when the statement necklace seems to be to be a bit of a fashion disaster.

  For example, if you are built like say, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum with no discernible neck, highlighting this genetic misfortune with a necklace that appears to be made of elephant kidney stones might not be the best choice for you.  Weeble Wobbles wobble but they don't fall down, true, but neither should they adorn their neck-less selves with all the acrylic and stone finery that Talbots and Coldwater Creek have to offer.  If the statement your necklace is making is "I'm going to eat your face," then perhaps you ought to rethink the statement?

  So I implore you- consider your neck before attempting the Statement Necklace.  If you don't HAVE a neck, investigate other jewelry options. I may not be the proper judge of what is or isn't cutting edge, but I promise that the discomfort you're causing me by forcing me to decide whether the hairy beads on the necklace that appears to be strangling you through the folds of your chunky turtleneck sweater are organically derived or artistically created isn't worth the $50 you spend on some plastic beads.

Accessories can be dangerous.  Practice safe adornment.

So much for a career in the ministry

I have one little friend who is very outgoing, friendly, etc.... so much so that we'd joked that he had a future as either a Baptist preacher or a politician.  Yesterday, however, I believe he disqualified himself from the ministry.....


You see, we were making our "Brown is a bear" page for our color book and everyone was decorating their bear.  I demonstrated, adding a face, a shirt, pants, shoes and an iPod to my own bear (I can't keep things simple, you know.....LOL).  So they start in on their bears, most of which look remarkably like my own because Kindergarteners have huge imaginations when it comes to making excuses for why they did something, but very little when it comes to art.  Then I get to this one friend and after doing a double take, I have to ask him to tell me about it.  Because to my eyes, the bear is wearing a crop top and a g-string.

His answer?  His bear was "trashy like that lady at the beach."

Rightly so, sir. 

Behavior Sheet Comments

Already this year I have had cause to write things on students' behavior sheets that I never thought I would write in my life...

* Please remind your daughter that bottoms go in chairs and faces go in the air, not faces on chairs and bottoms in the air.

* Your child seemed very tired and was confused by being at school today

* I was unsure of whether marshmallows and pretzels were your child's lunch or snack?

* Your child thought it was funny to spit her snack out on the table today.

* Your child changed their color after being caught dancing and singing Taio Cruz' "Dynomite" in the bathroom.

Yeah.  That's a pretty clear description of my daily life.

If I don't write something people will throw things

Let's talk about sinuses.

Sinuses are the bane of my existence, possibly moreso that mayonnaise.  And I seriously hate unnecessary mayonnaise on things like sandwiches and burgers.

And mayonnaise is actually the perfect segue here because at this moment I wouldn't be surprised if the substance being produced by my sinuses and trickling down my throat was some sort of jacked up variety of mayo.

And whose fault is this?  I can blame it on many different sources. First, my parents.  Not only are hypersensitive sinuses a genetic curse, but I imagine growing up in a house of chain smokers didn't help.  I haven't lived with either of my parents for nearly 15 years and I still can't breathe.  Second, I can blame it on Virginia.  Virginia's weather did this to me.  On Thursday it was 90 degrees. On Friday it was 65. 25 degrees makes a grouchy sinus.  Add rain the next day and we have achieved goop.

On the plus side since I'm now right on the edge of sick, Husband didn't argue with my impluse purchase of a vat of cheez balls at Sam's Club today and then willingly brought me chocolate cake and let me watch Project Runway. 

You don't hit thumbody elth.

Just quickly,  I am STILL Mrs. Teacher Person.  So I told him I'll just call him Mr. Student Boy.  Obviously he didn't get it.

Today we were discussing, for the 6th day in a row (this IS Kindergarten), the Rules.  I tell my kids that there's one rule: Be Kind.  Then we talk about the different things that you can do that are kind, along with things that you do that are not kind. Kind things would include the obvious ones like sharing, keeping hands to yourself, using nice words and manners.... but I also include things that are kind to grownups like not interrupting, doing what a grownup asks you to do right away, using your nose and bellybutton to listen (face and body facing me).  So today we were discussing things that are not kind after a few boys decided that they'd hit each other (and hit back, and hit someone because he hit your friend, etc.... it was very Three Stooges).  I have a little guy who has barely spoken a word since he came in.  When he needs to go to the bathroom, he points and raises his eyebrows questioningly (we're working on that).

So this tiny hand is in the air for the first time, and clearly I must acknowledge it. (again, name changed for privacy)

Me: So boys and girls, Big Kindergarteners never, never hit or kick on purpose, right?  Yes Antonio?

Antonio: You don't hit thumbody elth.

Me: (stifling a giggle) That's right, Antonio.  And why not?

Antonio: They might fart on you.



I just left that one alone.

On a far more serious note than usual

I'm attempting catharsis.

Having just finished an unpleasant conversation with someone, I find myself in quite a reflective and introspective mood.  If this post depresses you, feel free to wait until the next one that's entertaining.  While this one may turn out to be enlightening, I'm damn sure it won't entertain you.

A good friend of mine asked a question the other day- How many of you bullied or were bullied when you were in school but are trying to teach your children to behave differently now?  And I answered with a little snippet about my experiences in high school and how they have shaped my responses now to social interactions with others.  I sit here wondering if maybe this is the struggle that I've had as the result of being a "gifted" kid. (I know that by simply being willing to identify myself as one of "those" people, the average person and possibly even readers of this blog will dismiss anything I have to say about how I feel as self absorbed, having a high opinion of myself, etc.... whatever.  If you truly knew me you'd know that I don't actually have any self esteem at all. But am constantly accused of it.) Anyone who spends time with me picks up pretty immediately that I'm a reasonably intelligent person.  Some have a higher opinion, which is flattering, but mostly I've just always found academic stuff (language especially) to be second nature and enjoyed "knowing" and letting the things I've learned shape who I am and what I want in life.  But if you read academic research about gifted kids, you see that they often struggle with the social aspects of growing up, as their world view isn't quite focused on the same point as their peers.  They come across as "not quite like us," and end up ostracized by the average peer group, usually bunching up in groups of similar "friends" with whom they forge an unusual "friendship" that is not quite the same as what other people enjoy with their social groups.

In high school it was particularly painful.  Probably because that's the time in our lives when we truly begin to pick up on the subtle differences between this person and that person, and those chemical responses bond groups of people into friendships.  In high school, I had a group of friends.  Sort of.  It was more like a group of other people who weren't quite right for the established social groups who ended up together by default because we all thought that we deserved a social group.  In truth I think I had one, maybe two actual friends.  And in truth, my willingness and desire to be friends with one of them no matter what the opinion that others held of her closed so many doors in my face that I will never go to a reunion, and will only even stay in contact with a handful of people I knew at that time in my life.  But it was worth it.  She was a true friend, and even though we lost contact during college, getting married, having kids, etc... just the little bit of interaction we have now (mostly on FB) reminds me that even in that time when nobody else liked us, we really, truly had each other.  (Thanks MBK, I love you and will never tell anyone your middle name, promise).  It got so bad that the group of people I thought were my peer group intentionally kept a graduation party a secret from ME because they didn't want me there. Not because I personally was so "wrong," but because a) I dared to be friends with this person and b) I dared to have developed feelings for a guy in our group and attempted to act upon them.  So I spent my high school graduation night at home with my parents, watching TV in my room.  Thanks.  Yes, I hate most of them for that.

So where does this leave me?  Well, now that I'm an adult and married to one of my "kind," I experience the same sort of crap regularly, but I admit to being fairly hypersensitive to it.  Mostly because the sting of the way I was treated for refusing to ostracize someone, I think.  Even 12 years later that hurt is still appallingly fresh.

Everywhere I go, I try to make friends with people.  I try to show that I am willing to accept you, whoever you are and whatever you do, no matter how different it is from me.  I will do anything that anyone asks me to do, as long as it's even remotely feasible.  I spread myself pretty thin.  And every time I start to feel myself falling into a "place" that I so desperately crave, I realize that I am being held outside by the same invisible barriers that have always kept me from everyone except my husband and a very small group of people who are more soulmate than just friend. I don't hide who I am.  But it seems that others hide their opinions in a way that I don't truly understand.  I don't understand the impulse to encourage someone to do something that you will judge and disparage them for behind their back.  And I have never, never understood why MY actions have always been judged far more harshly by the mob than those of others.  Am I held to a higher standard because I have a larger vocabulary?  Am I intentionally not invited to things because I understand things faster than others?  I always feel like there is a contingency of people who are content to use my strengths without reciprocating by offering the thing I crave the most; acceptance and a "place" to belong within the group.

In a series of meetings a few years ago, a group of teachers were trying to help another deal with the emotional tendencies of a young man who is substantially gifted.  While the rest of the group was trying to offer suggestions for how to reshape the young man's reactions to things, all I could think about was how this child was going to suffer.  His entire life the rest of the people around him were not going to see him for who he is, but they were going to judge his actions in comparison to what they had established as "normal."  And maybe that's what I've always done that gets me into trouble? Refusing to let the opinion of many dictate my opinion of one. Refusing to de-friend someone that the general consensus had found wanting.

So here we are again.  Once again I have clued in to the fact that despite efforts, I am found to be made of the incorrect cut of cloth.  And therefore, the barriers that I so desperately want to come down are caulked up tight, and I will be used for what I can do instead of wanted for who I am.  And all because I dared to not hide myself, to try to let people see me truthfully as I actually am, thinking that maybe in a new environment that would be accepted.  But it's not. And I guess I give up on ever finding a place other than my marriage that it is.

"Georgie" Update

Today he came to me very concerned that I'd given him the wrong rest mat.  Seemed he knew that his first name started with a certain letter, and that letter wasn't on his mat..... and that would be because his mat has his last name on it.  Yep.

And I'm still Miss Teacher Person.

The One Where I Laughed A Lot

Today I had a cherubic little friend who kept calling me "Miss Teacher Person."  Well, I grew tired of it, and invited him to come talk to me during snack time.  I told him that if I could remember his name, that it would be very nice if he could remember mine, too.  Here's how that went....(changing first name for privacy purposes)

Me:  Georgie, if I can remember your name, don't you think you could remember mine?
Georgie: No, maybe not.

Ok.... well, then later on the guidance counselor was checking the bus roster on his bus to make sure everyone was where they should be.  When she got to Georgie, she asked him what his name was.

Georgie:  Georgie Davis.
Counselor: Georgie Davis?  I don't see anyone on the list named Georgie Davis?  Are you sure your last name is Davis?
Georgie: Yes, I'm Georgie Davis.
Counselor:  Do you mean you're in Mrs. Davis' class?
Georgie:  Yeah.

Well, so I think we've solved the problem of him forgetting MY name.  The question remains as to whether or not he knows who HE is.

Less Effective Management of Herds of 5 Year Olds: A Treatise

Each year, kindergarten teachers greet their newest crop of little ones and walk out the door on the first day with the same general consensus:

Kindergarten showcases the reasons why humans don't have litters.  Nobody sane can handle 21 five year olds in one room.

Today we were off to the races for the 2011-2012 school year, and what a send off it was!  Having had approximately 1/32 the needed amount of time to actually prepare physically and emotionally for the first day of K due to Virginia's rapidly deteriorating reputation with natural disasters, I entered my room with at least a vague notion of what I was doing (a nice side effect of staying in the same grade 2 years in a row for a change).  I had a to-do list for the day, I was ready to get the things that needed doing done.

Of course, by 9:15 I couldn't find the damn list so I resorted to just flying by the seat of my pants, only to find the list right there. In my pants.  Well, in the pocket.  Sort of like the lost-glasses-on-the-head trick.

So we alternated between reading stories and using the different items of interest around the room, letting the little ones explore and experience this new environment where they will spend so many hours until June.

No, wait.  That's not quite as picturesque as it sounds.

Picture, if you will, a carpet.  That carpet attempting to contain 20 totally spastic wildebeasts, and failing.  3 are sitting nicely, waiting for directions.  Five are untying their shoes because it will be fun to ask me to tie them again. Four are spinning hypnotically on their butts, oblivious to those around them.  One is attempting a headstand.  The other 7 have their hands in the air to "tell me" something that has no actual relevance to well, life on this planet.  And me.  Little old me, in my teachery chair, story in hand, interrupting every page to say "No, please stop, that's not how we sit, show me what big kindergarteners do, everybody freeze, show me criss-cross-applesauce-hands-in-your-lap, it's my turn to talk, it will be yours in a minute....." on a running loop.

But my "favorite" moments revolve around the bathroom.

Me: Ok, boys and girls, Mrs. Davis has one very important rule about the bathroom.  When we are all sitting on the carpet, you can't ask to go to the bathroom then.  So everyone look right now.  Where are you sitting?

Kids: On the carpet

Me: So can we go to the bathroom right now?

Kids: No

Me: Great!  You guys are super smart!

Kid 1: I need to go to the bathroom
Kid 2: Can I go to the bathroom, too?
Kid 3: I want some water.
Kid 4: I'm THIRSTY!!

Me: *headdesk*

And so begins another of Davis' Bathroom Training Sessions.......

Mean Old People

There's something I don't like that I feel we truly need less of on this planet.

Mean old people.

And I do actually mean senior citizens. The media paints a picture of old people as this kindly, snowy haired understanding and supportive demographic, when in reality a damn lot of them are just mean.

  And the thing is, it's the kind of mean that I totally am on the inside. The difference here is that time has not yet stolen my filter (though some people may argue that my filter is often defective).  So maybe I'm extra sensitive because it's a slippery slope?

  Take, for example, the husband's great great aunt.  She's well over 90 and just mean.  She's doted on the husband since he was a kid for his enviable intelligence and self-confidence (thanks genetics!), so when he brought me home as the girl he wanted to marry, I was immediately subjected to Cranky Old Person Critique and clearly was found to be lacking,  despite the fact that in addition to possessing intelligence, self-confidence and wit to rival or often exceed my husband, I also can find a trash can and operate a washing machine.  All my my ownself, ya'll.  And you wonder why I have designs on becoming Queen of the World.

  So my first experience of unpleasantness was the first time I met her. As time progressed, the encounters grew more and more ridiculous until shortly after The Squirt was born. Now, you ought to know that I spent the "floundering" time of my early to mid twenties nannying for a series of fantastic families in Atlanta and Richmond.  Through doing that as well as having babysat and camp counseled since I was 15, I am pretty comfortable with babies and kids.  They don't freak me out with their babyness.  When The Squirt came home, we were actually quite comfortable with how to take care of her. I'd done it with so many other babies that didn't come out of me that doing it with my own was pretty much second nature.  We were laid back.  And she was an easy baby (but now often a Toddler of Doom).  All in all, I've had a hand in raising 4 or 5 babies from very early babyhood on.

     So Madame Unpleasant comes over to see her Precious Great Nephew and the Chosen Child that he frivolously begat upon an Undesirable.  At the time, The Squirt was about a week and a half old, and settling nicely into a routine. When she arrived, Squirt was sound asleep in the cradle we'd set up in the living room so that she could be used to sleeping in a not-silent environment. She'd been asleep for about an hour, which is pretty good for a newborn.  Anyway, when she started making her "I'm awake and hungry now" noises, I got up to get her from the cradle.  Unpleasant says "You're going to have to take some parenting classes, aren't you, because you're already messing that child up." Thus continued a good half hour of praising everything my brand-new-to-this husband said or did with the baby, and disparaging me.  At this point I could have hauled off and punched the witch in the throat, however in the interest of familial peace I chose ice cream instead.

   So my question is this, why are old people so MEAN?  I mean, sure, they have the advantage of having lived a lot longer than the rest of us, but I don't think age gives one carte blanche to be rude.  I'm putting Old People in time out.

Puppy Love

All those who have ever had a conversation of more than 5 minutes with me will have discovered my near-unhealthy level of obsession with my dogs.  Here they are:

The one on the left is Roxy, who is never called Roxy.  She's The Pickle.  She's a Pembroke Welsh Corgi.  She's a midget.  No really, like in a full on Munchkinland kind of way.  Corgis have these short stumpy little legs that often look more like flippers than feet.  The Pickle is everyone's best friend, including yours.  Did you know?

The red and white dog on the right is Gus.  Also referred to as Gus-Gus, The Dude and the Retread.  I will explain how exactly he is retreaded later.  Gus is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel supposedly, but he doesn't act like one and although he has the correct bone structure, markings, DNA, etc... he sure doesn't even look much like my friends' cavvies.

   Pickle is our family supervisor.  We are not allowed to do anything without Pickle's help and supervision.  She's friendly, earnest, smart and absurdly patient with the kid.  Very good dog.  Her negative personality traits include being overly talkative for someone who refuses to learn English along with a deep desire to herd things which she is actually pretty terrible at, and results in her pretty much being underneath your feet no matter where you're trying to put them.

    Gus is a lemon.  There's no other way to put it.  Cavaliers are supposed to be intelligent, friendly little fearless bundles of social skills.  Gus is afraid of cellophane. The only two things on earth that are not threatening to Gus are me and the husband.  All the rest of the world is secretly a Dr. Evil plot to kill or maim him.  Seriously, it took him 3 months to learn to use the doggie door because TODAY might have been the day when we added the guillotine attachment to behead him if he dared to poke his little black nosey out of it.  He's simply not very smart.  In fact we joke that he's so very un-gifted that he's retreaded because he would fall below retarded on the spectrum and probably couldn't spell it anyway.   But on the plus side, he desperately loves his Mommy. In fact, I believe his life's dream is to wake up one moring having morphed into a parasite that could live inside of me, or perhaps to be surgically grafted to me somehow.  His most common emotion seems to be suspicion.

 However defective my dogs may be, I wouldn't trade them for much. Growing up my family had a little terrier named Muttley who didn't particularly like me.  She didn't dislike me, but I just wasn't particularly intresting to her.  So Gus is the first dog who has ever been unquestionably, unequivocally mine.  And being loved that much by a little doofy looking creature will inflate an ego faster than anything else I know. Pickle belongs to whoever is paying attention to her.  Including The Squirt, with whom Pickle has enviable patience.  The Squirt is occasionally stricken with Doggie Mania, wherin she MUST manhandle a dog.  Well, that would send Gus straight to the grisly jaws of death, so Pickle almost always takes one for the team.  Her ears are pulled, her eyes poked, her legs grabbed, even occasionally her nose is picked or her teeth examined and she just takes it as it comes, never growling or snapping and only rarely even running away.

   Now, my dogs aren't all sunshine and roses.  Both of them tend to forget that they're housebroken, especially in the event of a precipitation event.  They LOVE to bark at cats.  They believe that the fridge being opened means they're entitled to a Cheese Tithe. They surround me in bed at night, forcing me to sleep in some sort of pretzel contortionist position that makes my chiropractor a lot of money.  They REALLY like to roll on the dead things that Pepper the Ninja Cat of Death murders and brings home for us.  They like to eat only the chewy bits of artificiality in their dog food, but insist on being fed a fairly steady stream of french fries and pizza crust.  But they snuggle with me on the sofa in the winter and we make a big warm pile of person and dog fur.

   So if you don't have a dog you should get one.  But you can't have mine.

What to Expect when you're Expecting Kindergarten

Today we greeted a fresh new crop of 5 year olds to the public school system. Wide eyed and adorable, they timidly took their first steps towards being educated and productive members of society.

Wait, who am I kidding?  Kindergarten ain't nothing like that anymore! Kindergarteners are all about the sound bites.  Take these gems:

"My mommy said to let me use the potty because I just pee when I want."

"My mommy and daddy SLEEP IN THE SAME BED!" (said with great gravity)

Me: "Why did you throw that kangaroo?"
Kid: "I just felt it here, in my liver."

Kid: "You're really big.  Are you a ninja warrior?"
Me: "Why yes I am.  Now go sit down."

"I was in the bathroom a long time because I had to do a really big poop."

"I just CAN'T use crayons that don't have a pointy end."

"Can I have your snack?"

Me: "Tell me about what you drew."
Kid: "Well, that's my mommy and those are her boobies."


Me: "So if you had three balloons and I give you another one, how many would you have then?"
Kid: "Probably just two because I'm hard on balloons."

So if you're sending a kid to Kindergarten this year or sometime soon, take notes.  They're damn funny.

Can't do it

I'm trying to come up with something witty to say, but I'm too exhausted.

Today was pretty horrible and it didn't have to be, but that's what happens when nobody listens to reason.

No Peeing at Work

In light of the working environment changes foisted upon those of us who work at my school, I've come to the conclusion that we are essentially a Urine-Free Workplace.  While this sounds like something that would be great- I mean, who wants urine in the workplace?- let me stand up and say that it ain't all that and a bag of chips, ya'll.

What do I mean?  Well, most people don't realize that unlike almost every other job in the country, when a teacher needs to use the bathroom, he or she can't just go.  Nope.  Walking out of a classroom of 20-30 bright eyed youngsters to take care of such a minute personal issue is against the rules, more or less.  It was particularly enjoyable when I was 63 months pregnant and had traded my usual class for a pack of rabid baboon/howler monkey hybrid creatures.  

So what do we do?  Well, we have a planning period... sometimes.  But that can take place anywhere between 10am and 3pm, and I don't know about you but I just don't plan the urge with that much clockwork precision to know that "I shall pee at 2:15, but not before and not after."  We have a lunch break.....sort of.  4 days a week, we get our kids through the serving line, then rush back to the lounge to scarf whatever leftovers or Lean Cuisine we remembered to pack that morning (or we bum snack food off a certain follicularly challenged but very entertaining and lovable 3rd grade teacher). The other day, we're required to do lunch duty, to eat our own lunch standing up and walking around the cafeteria opening milk cartons and silverware and coaxing reticent 5 year olds to take "just two more bites." No bathroom break that day.

And now, in the wake of Hurricane Irene, with nearly a quarter of a million local residents still without power (including 12 schools, but apparently not the important ones), we're heading back to work tomorrow after losing essentially all of the time we had to prepare our rooms for orientation and "Meet the Teacher" on Thursday. I suppose we're drafting the local woodland creatures and elven folk to magically construct bulletin boards, label hundreds of nametags, bus tags, cubby tags, etc...., unpack and organize all our possessions and supplies and plan our teaching for the first week of school.  Because there ain't no way a single human being in a building with no electricity and therefore no air conditioning in the Virginia August heat can make those things happen before 10am on Thursday.  Ain't nobody, ain't nohow.


How does this relate to peeing, you may ask?  SIMPLE.  In our old, moldy, carcinogenic building, every staff bathroom is in an unventilated windowless room.  Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to be blind and have to pee?  Yeah, me neither.  But evidently our school district has decided that our staff needs that little lesson in tolerance, so in the event we have not fully trained our bladder to go a full 10 hours without needing to empty itself before exploding (and since some of the women I work with are really teeny tiny, I can't imagine they have elephant bladders or anything) I think we shall all Pee Blind tomorrow.

Of course, one way they've chosen to circumvent this pesky personal health and hygiene issue is by making us do the manual labor of setting up our rooms in this unairconditioned building.  Perhaps rather than peeing out our excess liquid, we shall excrete it through quarts and buckets of sweat.  Then we will both smell good AND have beautifully decorated, organized and stocked classrooms!  Yay!

 So, friends, I would like to petition the higher powers to Bring Back Urination in the Workplace.  We promise to put it in the appropriate receptacles.

The other option I see would be to discontinue our status as a Velociraptor-Free Workplace.  Being chased by giant lethal lizards would be exciting and take our minds off the need to, you know, go.

For M.T.

At the behest of a coworker that I like quite a lot, I have decided to write another post today, about self control.  And how much of it I am required to have.

See, she noticed that I'd commented on a Facebook post from our employer that we didn't have to work today because of massive power outages and tree damage from the hurricane.  There were some really smart people asking some really thoughtful, intelligent and useful questions.  And I felt those questions needed a rational response, right?

OK, I'm lying.  This was a prime example of what happens when stupid gets wi-fi.

School System Post: "All the schools are closed tomorrow because none of them have electricity and fallen trees are blocking their entrances. We don't know when power will be restored at this time"

Idiot 1: So what about football practice?

Idiot 2: What about Professional Development on Tuesday?  Do I have to go to that?

Idiot 3:  What about Marching Band Camp?

Me:  You f&cking retarded idiots, can you not read?  It says (imagine someone meanly imitating the speech of a deaf person without a cochlear implant while simultaneously mimicing sign language) THE SCHOOLS ARE CLOSED.  This means, for the uninitiated, that the schools are not open and YOU DON'T GO THERE. And furthermore, can YOU tell the future? You got a nice crystal ball at your house, with your WCW memorabilia and various taxidermied wildlife?  Because MY LITERATE ASS read that they don't KNOW if there will be school Tuesday so WHY do you expect them to have ANSWERS about Tuesday?  Did the hurricane knock over your remaining neural net?  Geez, if you can't say something intelligent, shut the f&ck up.

Ok, no, I didn't actually type that.  And I don't think that my ass is actually literate, although I've never given the question serious thought before.  I believe I answered something more like "I don't think those decisions have been made" and "The schools are closed, like a snow day.  You don't go there." But inside, my rage was totally writing the above response.

   So you see, I have a lot of self control.  Because like Herr Mozart, I had the perfect response composed in my noodle and yet I decided to abstain in the interest of continued employment and avoiding assault charges.  But know that when you say something truly stupid, I am judging you.  I judge your grammar. I judge your vocabulary. And in my head I have a fantastic obscene and offensive response to your idiocy that I choose to keep to myself.  Usually.