mail

As I sorted through the mail, I saw an envelope addressed to me with the return address of the school I subbed at a few weeks ago. I had already received my paycheck for subbing so I was puzzled as to what it could be. Even more strange was that it seemed very heavy. Inside was a stack of notebook papers with a post-it note on top. The post-it said "Here are notes of apology from some of the eighth graders that you taught. I hope you will substitute for us again" and it was signed by the principal. (side note: the principal is one of the parents from my daughters' school who I know fairly well and is frankly someone I hope to convince to hire me at his school some time in the future when I am ready to go back to work full time). The notes expressed remorse from these students about their behavior and was signed by their parents. I felt bad for these poor kids and extremely pissed at this monstrous teacher from across the hall.

Here's how the day I subbed played out. From the moment I got to the school I was warned about class 8A. Everyone may as well have said "Dreaded 8A from Hell" from their ominous and disdainful tones. The secretary and every teacher on the floor "warned" me about them. Needless to say I was curious.

My classroom management style is laid back and respectful of my students. I don't yell (this was a very hard habit and inclination to break but over time I've gotten really good at it). I modeled my technique of "waiting" for my students' attention instead of yelling like a maniac at them and thereby losing a lot of credibility with them, after my psychology teacher in High School. I stand in the front of the room with a smile on my face and I wait. If students yell stuff out to me or ask me questions I put up my index finger in the international symbol for "hold on a minute" and continue to wait. Eventually they realize that I am waiting for them and little by little they get quiet and even tell each other to be quiet until I can begin to speak. It works really really well. I have had to even write on the board "I am waiting for you to be quiet before I begin speaking." It works way better than yelling and, like I said, the kids don't feel nagged at.

Well when "dreaded 8A" arrived in the classroom, they were loud and rambunctious, but it wasn't that bad. So I waited as they took their seats, a few of them were getting the drift and quieting down, when all of a sudden this giant woman with tight white curls wearing what can only be described as a muumuu came barreling in the room. She started screaming at them to be quiet and when they were, launched into this tirade about respecting their substitute and telling their regular teacher how they were behaving and just a whole bunch of nutso unwarranted threats and reprimands. She informed me that I should get her from across the hall if they "acted up again" and stormed back out. She seemed like a total bitter angry psycho. I don't think I hid rolling my eyes and being pissed at her very well. Because after an awkward moment of silence I think I sarcastically said something like "Yeeeah...okaaaaaay...anyway" and then introduced myself to them and explained what we were going to be doing. Class went fine, I found them to be an amusing group, funny ( yes rambunctious and a little loud) but not by any means the worst I've dealt with. Someone ratted on someone for not being in the right seat, and I was like okay whatever just move, I had to keep repeatedly asking a few kids to quiet down, but it was really no big deal. Typical day of a sub. In my note to the teacher I said that everything went fine.

Then I get these crazy notes in the mail. I was pissed. I know psycho muumuu teacher said who knows what to the principal. It made me so angry. Maybe in her own way she was trying to help but she completely undermined my authority by doing what she did. I didn't need saving. Maybe she thought I was some young newbie that needed her help. But I'm not. I'm a good teacher with time tested methods and eleven years of experience dealing with Jr. High kids. What must this principal think of me now? Maybe he knows she's a nut, but then I feel bad about those kids being given this unwarranted, in my opinion, punishment that needed to be signed by their parents.

I feel like calling him up and telling him what actually happened so I can set the record straight and I also feel like giving that lady a piece of my mind. Nutjob!

G! P! S!

My three favorite letters this Christmas.

When I was told I was getting the "best present ever" this year, I was skeptical. I was guaranteed that I would love it. I couldn't imagine what it could be.

But sure enough, I can't remember the last time I got giddy-like-a-kid excited when I unwrapped something on Christmas morning. It is truly truly truly exactly what I want/need. This cute little GPS system for my car pops right onto my windshield and displays a ground level 3Dish map of wherever I am. I just punch in my destination and a kind reassuring voice tells me exactly when I will need to be turning and how long it will take me to get there. If I happen to veer off of the predetermined route, a wonderful satellite reconfigures things and tells me where to go from wherever I am. I love love love love love it.

I don't know if anyone really understands how stressed I am behind the wheel. Especially if I am not going to one of the five places I feel comfortable driving. T has to draw me detailed maps to get to places I've been several times, and field frantic phone calls from me, hopelessly lost (drives him absolutely up the wall...hence the gift...it was partially to relieve him of my psychotic driving/directional disorder).

Some people have an internal compass; I am not one of those people. Unless I can see Chicago's skyline, I have no idea which direction anything is. I get hopelessly turned around so easily. I need two maps to help me navigate anywhere: One to get me there and one to get me home because I cannot read one working backwards. And forget it if I am traveling south on a map, I need to crane my neck almost upside down to assure I know my left from my right. I'm certain that directional intelligence comes from the same part of the brain that helps one to do math problems, play chess, and know where one's keys are. This is a portion of my brain that I am sure is completely grey matter full of white noise.

So hopefully the days of me hearing, "Mommy who's driveway is this? Oh, we're turning around because you're lost again aren't you?"are gone.

a laundry list of...laundry

Clothes. If I could find a way to effectively manage the ridiculous amount of clothing in my life, I would be a happier person.

The clothing ranges in size:
Boys-24 mo.- Dark colors garnished with various vehicles; excavators to trains, (some with cartoon faces, some without) sporting equipment, and woodland creatures; most featuring crotches with snaps...the outfits not the critters.

I need to add that having a baby means clothes are always in a state of flux. And I want to preface this with stating that I am eternally GRATEFUL to my three friends that have given me clothes for J to wear from their older boys. I am NOT complainig. However, this means that when he outgrows these outfits, I have to find a place for the small stuff and then sort them into the piles for the people who gave them to me so that I can return them. It's this confusing shuffle of Rubbermade totes, Hefty garbage bags, and Sharpie markers (used to label the tags for their rightful owners). Then I have to find a home for the totes for the stuff he hasn't grown into yet. Again...not ungrateful, just trying to capture the whole picture.

Girls-6-8- Mostly pastels and, thanks to K, a disproportionate amount of pink. The majority of the decals are now gone from these clothes, although we do still see the occasional Disney princess. Catholic school uniform- my only non-complaint about clothes is at least E wears a uniform. K makes up for that though because she changes clothes several times a day depending on her persona at any given moment. She probably has as many dress up outfits as regular clothes. This compounds my problem. She'll start off as a ballerina, and throughout the day she'll make her way through the attire of an acrobat, *cringe* pop star, figure skater, fairy, princess... fairyprincess etc. I have to admit that turning around and finding a different kid staring at me each hour adds variety to my life, but the clothes are EVERYWHERE!

Women's- size...not your concern- black or earthtones. Jeans, sweaters, sweats & tees. And I conserve. Since I never get to the gym anymore, I workout here in my pj's. See, I am trying to be part of the solution.

Men's- size L- Workout clothes, Work clothes, and sit around clothes. That's right, three outfit changes a day...and I wonder where K gets it.

"It's ... It's ... It's the STAY-PUFT-MARSHMELLOW MAN"

yes, virginia

Today is St. Nicholas Day. This is the first year I woke up and thought, ya know they might just bust me and say, "Mommy, you TOTALLY just bought all this stuff at the Disney store and put it on the kitchen table."

It brought back memories of grammar school when I would come to school and was like "St. Nick came and left me a Sean Cassidy album and some flavored chapstick!" (LOVED the Dr. Pepper one, by the way). And some of my friends would be like, "What are you talking about? I didn't get anything?" I tried to remember my exact "I don't believe anymore" moment but I can't. What I do remember is what might be someone else's. It was Fourth Grade. (oh no! that's just two years away from E so somewhere between where E is now and all to soon, I stopped believing) I had a friend Aimee, who was very sweet. At lunch she said something about Santa and I don't know who it was, but they laughed at her and told her he wasn't real. I remember that I no longer believed at that point but I felt awful for her. I vividly remember being at the end of the line to go up to our classroom with her and she was crying.

She said, "You believe, don't you?"
I said, with as much earnestness as I could muster, "Yes."

I remember feeling like I was a grown up and hoping she believed me. How do I save my kids from that?

When I wrote the title of this post, I just came up with an expression I've heard so many times. But I never knew its actual source; I thought it was a movie quote. So I looked it up and found that it is actually from this editorial written in the late 1800's. I think it is beautifully written, and I'm going to save it to read to E or K, whomever comes first, when the question arises.

Here it is if you are interested:
http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/

aw

K hugs J and says "J, this would be a different life without you."
I couldn't make up something that sweet if I tried. :)
Yet another example of how I am floored daily by the way their minds work.

lunch

I felt that I had to capture this moment. This is what happens when you say, "Sure, you can make your own lunches." PB & J, chocolate cup-cake, and barrel o monkeys. I just really like the image of the monkey stuck to the knife.

brains

One thing I've noticed about the girls growing up is that I am consistently surprised when they start thinking for themselves. Now I don't mean, like how J has decided that he was going to start walking, or how he usually chooses to walk to the spot that holds the most danger ie. stove, stairs, snake pit (if we had one) etc. No, I mean when their brains do some serious deep (in my opinion) higher order thinking skills. Here are my two examples from today alone:

T was running errands with the girls and called from the car. He asked if Dave Matthews wrote the song "Long Black Veil." I said no, it's a remake of what I believe is a Johnny Cash song. He said that after a little way into the song, E had asked who was singing, and Tom said Dave (ya know like we know 'im) and E expressed that that was interesting because it really wasn't his "usual style." Now I know I listen to a LOT of DMB, but she is so right on with that observation. But like the casual listener or (so I thought) the average 7 year-old wouldn't pick that up.

Later at lunch, K asked me, as she drew in the air with her index finger, "what's that letter with the line going down and the little hump? I replied that it's either an "h" or an "n" depending on how long the line was (she's a little iffy on the lower-casers). When I asked why, she indicated that she was reading the letters on the cup from which I was drinking. I said oh, those are the letters of my name (it was a "K" coffee mug, one of the many mugs in my collection thanks to eleven years of teaching...#1 most popular teacher gift). So she starts spelling it and talking about how my name is K and T name is T. (she finds it interesting that we have names other than Mommy and Daddy). T says, so K you're tossing around our first names a lot lately, that's not how you address us, you know.
K response, sarcasm oozing: "Okay.....MR. R" HYS-terical.

I wonder if I am going to be so fascinated and bemused ten years from now when my *cringe* teenagers are exerting all their "independent thinking."

ominous encounter

I saw myself at the gym today. I was ten years older and took pity on my present self...a frazzled mother of three who was trying to give her year old son a bottle while balancing uncomfortably on a locker room bench, while trying to assist her 7 yr old daughter whose shoelaces wouldn't come untied, at the same time her 4 yr old daughter was sliding up and down the other bench on her belly, screaching "I'm swimmin' I'm swimmin'" The me of ten years from now, kindly helped the 7 yr old with her shoes, while she told the current me how she had three girls the same age span who were now 18, 16 and 12. When I asked my future self how that worked out, the future me got teary-eyed and said, "As crazy as this seems now... enjoy them while you can."

Stick a needle in my...

It was recommended by the pediatrician to have the kids get flu shots.
I found it very interesting how differently they all handled it. I prepared the girls the night before and assured them that it would be very quick, the needle would go in and it would be over in a few seconds. Emma said that knowing it was going to happen was going to "ruin her WHOLE day at school, and Kailey just looked at me with an "okay if you say so" look in her eyes.

here's how it went down:
K (4 1/2) let out one very loud "OW!!!!!!!"
E (7) yelped a string of "owowowowowOW!'s"
and poor J (15 mo.) who had NO idea what was coming
screamed an ear peircing screeeeeeaaaam! then, I swear, looked at the nurse like
"What the HELL woman?"

Here's what I found the most interesting. Later K was looking worried and I asked her what was the matter.

She said, "Mommy you know how I had a flu shot?"

"mmm hmmm, " I replied.

"Does that mean I have a needle inside my arm?"

Oops, I guess I should have explained that after the needle goes IN, it also comes back OUT again. Is it weird that I think that was sweet?