Monday Monday

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Last night, about 45 minutes after MIL left the phone rang.  It was MIL’s brother looking for her.  I told him she left and probably stopped at the store on her way home.  When I hung up my mom called.  MIL’s mother (age 98) had called my parents’ house looking for MIL, because she has the wrong phone number written down for us.  She was also looking for MIL.  When  followed was a series of phone calls from me to MIL, my mom, Gramma, and then to my mom again.  Finally I heard back from MIL.  Her sister is in the hospital.  She started getting blurry vision in her left eye and when they went to the hospital (where both her husband and son are on staff) they found she had bleeding on the brain.

MIL came over this evening for more scrapbooking and with more news.  They had her in a full body MRI looking for possible tumors.  After she had been here a while the daughter-in-law of MIL’s sister called.  The preliminary scan by a technician revealed nothing.  MIL is still going to have to break much of this news to Gramma.  Thanksgiving this year, which is usually a 25+ person affair will be 7.

Random fact:  Since I don’t have much biological family around most of my early Thanksgivings were spent with friends.

Sunday Night Blues

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Blue #1: The boxes of macaroni and cheese we bought for the Drop In Center.

Blue #2: My husband’s eyes.

Blue #3: The walls in my nearly finished upstairs bathroom.

Sunday school, church, harvest luncheon, scrapbooking with my MIL. It has been a long day.

Random fact:  The first week we owned our house (in 2002) my father and my husband removed the ceiling from the small bedroom that we were turning into a bathroom.  5 years and 2 months later I finally got to use the bathroom.

Yute Groop

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I hung out with the youth from my church this afternoon. We were supposed to help at the food pantry, but they didn’t need us.

They have 25% more need this year, in 10 months, than in all 12 months of 2006. Tomorrow our church is collecting food for “harvest Sunday”, so I am bringing some things we bought today. I have 9 new toothbrushes, from dentist appointment, and 9 tubes of toothpaste, as well as some boxes and cans of food.

So we went bowling. Me, J*, Hill the Pill and 3 other teens. We had a great time. Sometimes we go bowling during a 9-midnight (appeals to teens) fun time where they have games. Since it was just us we played our own games. We asked for bumpers, which helped a lot. We also bowled with our non-dominant hand, turned around 5 times before throwing the ball, and “granny” bowling (crouch down and roll the ball from between your knees). We laughed through every frame. After the game the kids wanted to play video games. J* and Hill the Pill played DDR and some of the boys played a shooting game.

–Sunday morning…I fell asleep while bloggging last night.–

After bowling, we went back to J*’s and the kids played cards. We played BS and it got very silly and crazy with everyone calling BS on everyone else. We ate dinner and watched the first two episodes of Joan of Arcadia. It is such a great show. I can’t figure out why they canceled it.

Random fact: I was 25 when my first friend died.

Friday night fun

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I am so glad it is finally Friday. This was a very long week. My class has been kind of off the wall. We’ve had fluctuating attendance and disruptions. We are working our way slowly through the book, focusing on the story, retelling, spelling, and grammar. I am skipping several skills about comprehension, certain organizational skills, and a few other skills. It still takes us foooreeever to get through certain things. I do like this group a great deal, but it is very trying.

Tonight we went to dinner with my parents, my sister, and her “little guy”. –Several years ago she was let go from her nursery school and then brought back as a one-on-one. When he moved on to kindergarten this year, in a special needs class, she was let go again. She does spend a lot of time with him to give his parents respite.– Little guy was very good while we sat at the restaurant. T talked with my parents while I talked to Mooch and Little guy. He is very sweet and did a good job answering my questions. I pulled out some yarn scraps and she used the to spell words. She is very good with him.

It angers me that to be a “highly qualified” para-educator you have to have a certain level of education. I understand that teachers should have the training and education, but for someone to be a para-educator, teacher’s aide, or one-on-one, shouldn’t experience and ability count for something? So my sister didn’t finish 60 hours of college, she is amazing with kids, takes direction well, and works well with other adults. Hang in there Mooch, someone will hire you.

Random fact: When I was in third grade (my favorite school year, ever) there were only 3 kids in my reading group. We learned to sign Sam’s Cookie. It was one of the funnest projects I ever did. I still love that book.

Thoughts on Thursday (Friday morning)

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Every year my school has a Thanksgiving dinner for the parents.  The kitchen staff and a lot of parent volunteers work really hard to make it great.  There are two seatings and since I had a class during the second seating I ate with the big kids.

Thursday nights I have pottery.   I am not that great, but it is a wonderful break in my week.  This session there are only 2 of us in the class.  Last night we use colored porcelain.  I am working on a website for my pottery studio.  Nothing much, but enough to share her class times, information about her, and events her studio will be showing at.

I got home late, so I didn’t get to watch Grey’s Anatomy.   That doesn’t mean I went to bed early though.  I am reading the His Dark Materials series.  I am a good way through The Subtle Knife, the second book, and loving everything about it.  We bought the omnibus edition and are trying to share it, but I am really selfish and grab it while he was in the shower.  Last night I did give it up to him though.

Random fact: I have been going to the same pottery studio since I was 7.  My dad did ceramics from the time he was 5 until he was in college.  He majored in ceramic engineering, since, as he says “There is in money in art.”  Of all the things he pushed me to do as a kid, this is the one that stuck.

Scrapbooking

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My mother-in-law and I are making a scrapbook for her mom. Gramma P will be 99 on Christmas Eve, so for the first day of her 100th year we will give her a book for her life on Christmas.

MIL and I aren’t much alike and I am uncomfortable around her. This project has really given us something to do together. It’s kind of cool, because I know about scrapbooking and she doesn’t. She is really impressed with my tools and what I know how to do. We are having a good time.

I came up with an idea for the family tree and she has run with it and made it amazing. The roots are Gramma’s grandparents and great-grandparents. Then at the bottom of the trunk are her parents and coming off the low part are her sisters. At the center is a heart with Gramma’s initials + Grandpa’s. Coming off the top part are thick branches of MIL and her siblings. Each sibling has smaller branches with their kids (T’s generation) and then the next generation is little apples. 3 special people are on the tree in a different form. Gramma’s life long friend is a robin on one sister’s branch and their long time neighbor is a butterfly on another sister’s branch. MIL’s best friend is a female cardinal (with a shock of red hair) in a nest near her branch. It is so beautiful. It is truly a family tree.

Random fact: My father’s parents would be (about) 110 and 115 this year (he’s 66) and my mother’s parents would both be in their 80s (she’s 61).  My mother’s mother’s mother was born after my father’s mother.

Back to Tuesday

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Had a meeting first thing this morning. I can’t go into, because I fear confidentiality issues, but lets just say, you can be organized, you can be working hard to get what you think your child needs, but you are still delusional.

What dad says, “So when in the process will he be normal?”

Honestly!

And that was how I started my day.

Random fact: While I am not a hypochondriac,  I do often think I have whatever syndrome or illness fits my “symptoms” at the moment.  So today, I had ADHD.

Parent conferences

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I had 3 parent conferences today, thus rounding out my 5. Of my 5 kids (the sixth one is too new to have a conference) I got 3 moms and 2 sets of parents. I realized that all 5 of them live with both of their biological parents, although I am not sure if one set is married or not. It makes me sad that we are surprised when kids’ parents are still married to each other.

I had one father ask me what I meant by “alphabetizing” when I told him his son is very good it.

One mother mentioned to the classroom teacher that her son would like to be moved to Ms. Otherteacher’s class because he knows it is the “high” Literacy block. I tried to spend the conference letting her know, gently, that he was not even on grade level, and therefore not a candidate for being moved up (I teach the “middle” group). Of course, this was the same mother who asked if her son should be reading at home. When I told T this he said, “No, no, why would you want to do that? We’ve found that it actually fosters improvement.”

Then there is the mom who not only reads with her child each night, but follows along and keeps track of how she is doing. I gently (again) suggested that her daughter might enjoy reading more if it was less like school.

I won’t even get started on the couple who think their child is stupid.

Teacher funnies:
18. Meeting a child’s parents instantly answers the question, “Why is this kid like that?”

Random fact: I’ve known I wanted to be a teacher since I was a very little kid.

Sunday Night Blues

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Blue #1 I forgot to blog yesterday.

Blue #2 I nearly forgot today, so I ran downstairs in the nude to get my laptop.

Blue #3 We forgot to buy a nose hair trimmer for my husband.

Only 2 girls showed up for Sunday school today, so after we did our lesson we did lots of crafts.  First we colored with chalk on black paper to imitate “Out of the Dark” a picture we looked at in association with our lesson.  Then we made book mark ribbons for the bibles and hymnals in the sanctuary.  I think I have found a new way to make them stay in church (Sunday school is before church).

Random fact:  I have pictures of my high school classmates at different spots in my bible depending on how I felt about them.  A boy I was friends with, and then lost all respect for, is between the pages about the plagues.