Hats off to Elementary Teachers

Today I visited Maria's third grade classroom do some science demonstrations.  Maria's teacher asked me about a month ago, but with snow delays and cancellations the date changed a few times.  So we were finally able to pull it off this afternoon.  I had been worried because with no water source in the classroom I didn't feel safe doing my coolest demonstration - the chemicals are pretty powerful and I just didn't feel safe using them, especially around the younger kids.  

What I learned today is that these kids are much easier to entertain than my 9th grade students.  They loved it - and had all kinds of "Wow," "Cool," etc.  The other thing I learned - I could never teach in an elementary classroom.  The constant needs - and this is third grade - not kindergarten or first - just exhausted me even while I was there.  I really have to give those elementary teachers credit - they work very hard all day.  It was a Friday afternoon, and Wacky Hair Day, so it probably wasn't a good day to judge.  But the never ending energy and questions and comments would drive me crazy.  (Example, when I told the kids this "drink" was turning into Pepto-Bismol, one boy raised his hand and said "My Dad says Pepto-Bismol turns your poop black!"  What am I supposed to say to that?)

All in all, it was a good experience but I'm glad its over.  Maria has been so excited about me coming and I was afraid that the demonstrations I had wouldn't be cool enough for the kids.  But a little "Magic" with acid/base indicators, and some flame tests, and they were thrilled.  I wish we could keep that enthusiasm in high school, but without the neediness that seems to go along with it.  I guess that's just not the way adolescence works.

Tired of Snow Days!

yes, we're home again.  And I'm not really surprised - it was quite a winter wonderland when we left the piano recital last night. We were on a 2-hour delay last night, but didn't cancel until around 8:00 this morning.  Which means we play the game of getting up (I did get to sleep in for a half hour), get ready, and then sit around and watch the news to wait and see if we're actually going or not.  

And we just can't motivate to do anything except sit around.  The kids have played outside twice - its cold so they can only stay out for a little bit at a time.  But I'm sitting here watching bad TV or reading, and the house needs cleaned, laundry needs done, and I cannot force myself to do it.  The weekend is only a couple of days away - I can just do it then.  But I won't be any more motivated then either.  On Saturday I'm really going to wish I had done something today. Oh well, the days not over yet!

More Recital PIctures!

Maria's Recital

The good news is that Maria did a fantastic job on her recital piece. The recital lasted about an hour, and Maria was just about in the middle of the 26 performers. She was one of only two students who played her piece from memory and she seemed extremely proud of this fact and pleased with her performance. She's our little performer - it was obvious that she was much more accustomed to being on stage than many of the other kids. Sam helped pick out a bouquet of flowers before he and I came to the recital. Lisa went early with Maria for pictures and Sam and I did swim lessons first then headed to the event. Maria's friend Emma also did a great job and they sat next to each other during the whole concert and congratulated each other and dished out the hugs as well. Sam was an angel during the whole recital, doing some air drumming to the music at times, but spent most of the time drawing and coloring on a clipboard with Lisa. We're quite proud of him as well. One of his best performances as a spectator.

When we came out of the church, it was snowing like crazy! The wind is making quite a few drifts, so we're not sure what the status for school is yet for tomorrow. Honestly, we want to go at this point. We're out of snow days.

The bad news is that the camera wasn't quite started up when I pushed the "record" button, so I didn't get the actual recital on film. I do have a stunning rendition of the camera pointed at the floor immediately after her time on stage, though. Sorry about that. In lieu, we did an "encore presentation" after we got home so you all can enjoy the sounds of Antonin Dvorak.

Why?

Lately Sam has been asking a lot of questions.  At first, I was excited because it meant that he was trying to make sense of what the rest of us were talking about.  Where he used to be content to just listen or ignore us, now he asks questions about what we're talking about so that he knows what is going on.  Plus its just a cute growing up stage that I enjoy much more with the second child because I realize how fast he will grow up and not need to ask me everything anymore.

But often I feel inadequate when he starts asking me questions about what he's watching on TV.  Part of it is my fault - I tend to multitask when we're watching cartoons (I read my book while we watch the same episodes of Spongebob over and over - I like Spongebob but can only take so much), and then I don't know what he's asking because I didn't see the scene.  But the other problem is just that a lot of the scenes in cartoons just don't make sense, and he's not necessarily satisfied with that answer.  So instead of getting "Why?" over and over, I've decided to make up my own answers.  For example, "Why does Spongebob have salt shakers hanging over his table like lights?"  "So Patrick can reach them."  "Why does Gary the snail carry that bag with him when he runs away from home?"  "So he has extra clothes."  Then I get a "Mommy - snails don't wear clothes."  He's also starting to figure out that some scenes in Spongebob don't make sense in the underwater environment - like how can the roof collapse from a flood when they're already underwater.  So I'm resorting to "Its just pretend."  Which believe it or not, does actually work most of the time.

Another Day Off

Another snow day today - snowed a few inches last night, then freezing rain off and on all night. And now its snowing again - has been for the last few hours. Today was Day 5 - any other days will have to be made up. And looking at the forecast...we may have at least one more day next week.

After only working two days this week, we are tired of being stuck at home! (We did have conferences last night, so I guess that counts as 2 and a half days of work this week). We were able to get out to go out to dinner tonight - it was slow going but worth it to get out! Otherwise, we have been lazing around the house, playing video games, napping (Ben and I), and the kids did play outside earlier. But the snow was so icy and crunchy they came in pretty quick.

Tomorrow, hopefully we can make it into Dublin - Maria has a hair appointment and we need to get birthday gifts - we have four parties in the next two weeks. Tonight, popcorn, movie, and sleepover for the kids. Sunday we have Family Fun Day for the elementary school - Ben has to sell raffle tickets and I'll take the kids around. Last year I worked a booth and Ben took the kids around - not sure which job is worse!

Already Smarter Than Mom

Dinner Conversation:

Sam: Mommy, why are Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy under the sea?

Slight pause while I try to figure out exactly what he is asking and then come up with an answer. (Ben was at music boosters so I figured I was on my own.)

Maria: Because they have special super powers that allow them to breathe underwater.

Sam: Oh, OK.

Me: Wow, Maria - thanks for answering him. I didn't know that.

Maria: Just Google "Spongebob Characters."

Me: Is that what you did?

Maria: Yep - found it on Wikipedia.com.

At Least it Wasn't Wet

Sam's been carrying around a eraser that looks like a worm off and on all weekend. With the Valentine's party last week I just assumed it was some gift. Tonight I asked him exactly what it was. He's not sure, but he found it on the floor in the bathroom at school! So I said, "Really? You found that on the bathroom floor and decided to keep it?" And he said "Well it wasn't wet." So I don't know what I'm worried about - he does have standards.

Snow Day Again!

We're home again today...we got about an inch of snow last night but underneath is complete ice - as I discovered on my way home from Book Club last night. It doesn't look bad, but when you try to stop you can tell it's solid ice underneath. I just took my time and tried not to stop unless I absolutely had to. Anyway, this morning we were in the car (we already had a two-hour delay), just ready to pull put, and my cell phone dinged from a text message that we were closed. So we came back in, put our packed lunches in the fridge, and turned on cartoons. Then Ben said the magic words - "If there's any small projects around the house, I'm up for getting them done today." Of course, there's nothing I can think of that's actually do-able. A couple of kitchen cabinets need new hinges, but we'd have to go to the store to get new hinges. And starting to strip the wall paper in Maria's room is apparently too big of a project. So unless I come up with something good in the next hour, it looks like I will have wasted this opportunity. Why can't I think of anything?!

I posted some pictures of our weekend. Sam's perfect Guitar Hero score (missing no notes), which is shown by much bigger stars, and he's very proud. He's been saving up $10,000 all weekend for a new character. Finally got enough money last night, and then accidentally bought the WRONG GUY. So Ben played like crazy on Easy on his career to build up money and bought the one Sam actually wanted. This all took place while I was at Book Club, thank goodness!

We managed a short visit to the Air Force museum with Ben's parents on Sunday before we had to rush home for Maria's first 4-H meeting. It was fun, but crowded!

Bowling

Today was the first day of our four day weekend.  The one thing we knew we had to do was take the kids somewhere to spend their allowance on new Nintendo games - we had been promising them for almost two weeks and they knew exactly what games they were going to get.  Of course, Best Buy in Marysville had neither in stock, so we had to go to Tuttle, but they were very excited to get the games they wanted (Mario Party for Sam, Dogz for Maria).

Afterwards, we went bowling.  It was either bowling or ice skating, and ice skating only had one hour of open skating today, so bowling it was.  We all had fun, and everyone had at least a spare or a strike.  But the big news - I won!  I beat Ben!  Only by 3 points, and while I was ahead through the whole game, it looked like he might get me in the end.  By the time we left the bowling alley it was packed - no school for both us and Marysville today meant a lot of people had the same idea we did.

Later the kids played in the melting snow with Mason.  And we've had a pretty lazy rest of the day, except for Sam's half hour tantrum because he decided he wanted to play Maria's new Nintendo game more than his own, and she was still playing it.  He actually cried and said "Please Mommy" over and over again for 15 minutes straight while I tried to ignore him.  Then when he realized he wouldn't win, the tears dried up immediately and he wanted to play Guitar Hero.  Three minutes later Maria came in and said he could play her game now - but he was into Guitar Hero and didn't want to anymore.  This, on top of wearing my glasses all day (I have a Lasik appointment Monday morning and have to keep contacts out for three days prior), is giving me a headache.  Right now all is quiet again and we're enjoying it while it lasts.

Long Day

The day started with a staff meeting at 7:20 a.m. Never a good way to start the day. This morning we were told we will be changing from an 8 period day to a 7 period day next year. Periods will go from 42 to 51 minutes, I think. Not a huge deal, and driven by new state standards in Science, so me of all people should not complain. And 51 minutes would be better...if I hadn't spent the last three years perfecting teaching in a 42 minutes period. Really, is it too much to ask to keep things the same? So the educator in me is happy to have longer periods, but the Mom-who-likes-to-do-very-little-work-at-home is unhappy, but as always, will adjust.

Fast-forward to Maria's Valentine's party at school. I told her I would visit for the end of the party - I have 8th period plan and can get free for that time. So I went to the party, had a good time talking to her teacher, and then went to find Sam to take him home. He's with the Kinderpaws program which is mostly at the church down the road but ends up their day at the elementary. After touring the entire school I stopped in to see Dolly, a kindergarten teacher who might have an idea where they would be. She said they would be riding the bus over, even though last time I was at a party, they were at the elementary. I was assured that was because it was a Friday (today is Thursday) and the kids can't be at the church while the prisoners are cleaning on Fridays so they have to come to the school. Oh, of course. I still have no idea what this talk about prisoners is, but went out to the buses to find Sam. I found Carol, one of the best bus drivers we have, who said they weren't ready to get on the bus when she was there so they would be walking over, and should be in the cafeteria. Where I looked in the first place, but they still weren't there. So I went back up to Maria's room to pick her up, and we finally ran into Sam (and Ms. Janet) on the way out of the school. I can't wait until the new school is done, and they have enough room for everyone,and there won't be all this going back and forth. I know Sam is very well taken care of, but not knowing where exactly he is bothers me.

Ben had parent teacher conferences tonight, so Maria and I took Sam to swim lessons. He is doing just great. He has so much confidence and has so much fun too. But when I take him, we have to use a Family Locker room and I leave his clothes in a locker there. Today we had to wait 8 minutes while a 10 year old boy was in there with the door locked. Why wasn't he in the boys locker room? And what was he doing in there for 8 minutes while poor Sam froze in the hallway waiting to get in? A lifeguard took pity on us and tried to rush him along, but he still took forever. Its not just my impatience - when the kids finally came out the lifeguard said, "What were you doing, getting ready for prom?"

Then we brought our McDonald's home and had a "picnic" in front of the TV. Sam and I spilled an entire orange drink in the van, but luckily most went on the garage floor. So I just started eating my luke-warm McDonald's dinner (cold because of having to clean up some orange drink, although Ben took care of the worst of it when he got home), and our neighbor Abe stops over. To tell us that the whole drainage thing in the back of our houses will most likely cost around $1200 (our share), and work needs to start immediately so planting season in the field is not affected. This on top of everything else breaking around here and costing us money.

Then to Maria's Parent Participation gymnastics class. Only it actually was parent observation. I got off easy (Ben had to do ballet yesterday) except I wore sweat pants in public for no reason.

At home, after a minor "I'm so stressed about everything" breakdown, I had a glass of wine and felt much better. But the wine made Ben feel sick and now he's worried he's getting this flu that is going around...hopefully not. Thank goodness we have four day weekend coming up.

Snow Day!

We got a real snow day today - the kind when you get up and everything is covered in white. And for the first time this year, we canceled straight away, at 5:20, so there was no getting up and ready because the two hour delay may or may not turn into a cancellation. We still only ended up with 3-4 inches before it started turning into freezing rain, but the kids were able to play in it before it got too soggy. Check in later for a picture of "Frosty" the snow lump (the snow wouldn't pack well enough for a snow man).

We went ahead and gave the kids their Valentine's Day gifts today too. Ben has meetings the next two evenings, and since the gifts were Legos, its much better if he's here to put Sam's together. So it worked out perfect to do it this afternoon. Maria got Spongebob's Krusty Krab, and Sam has an Indiana Jones set that is almost finished.

Sam

Friday Sam wore his drawstring sports pants to school. He's worn them many times before and never had a problem. But on Friday he got bored and tied them in FIVE knots. Tight. I didn't know until he needed my help with his pajamas. I still couldn't get two of them undone and just pulled really hard to get the pants off. I'm not sure how he went to the bathroom all day.

This morning, playing his Nintendo DS in my classroom during the 2-hour delay, he changed his setting so that all of the writing is in Japanese. Or Chinese. It depends on which kid you ask as to which language it is. So we're going to have to figure out how to change it back. But not yet, because he likes it in Japanese for now.

Living with this child is very entertaining. Exhausting, but entertaining.

Nice Try

Sam received an invitation this week to a birthday party of a classmate, Lily, who is in his pre-school class. Lily is also the daughter Maria's third grade teacher, who Maria just loves. Apparently the thought of Sam going to this party (which is at the bowling alley) without her was too much to take. After school conversation the next day:

Maria: "Oh and Mommy...I asked Mrs. Pearson if I could go to Lily's party to help out and she said that would be fine."

Me: So you invited yourself to the party?"

Maria: "No, Mrs. Pearson said it would be alright."

So I explained to her that it is still a form of inviting herself. And how its not fair for Sam to go to a party with Big Sister looking over his shoulder. Then I e-mailed Mrs. Pearson and thanked her for allowing Maria to go, but that she would not be able to - that it wouldn't be fair for Sam. This whole thing just really surprised me - especially the fact that she asked her teacher before checking with us first - I think she knew we would say "No" and thought we would not be able to do anything about it once Mrs. Pearson said yes.

The other funny thing - we have Lindsey's birthday party that same day, so its not like Maria won't have anything to do while Sam is gone. I think maybe the bowling part of the whole thing is what really got to her - we went bowling for the first time last week and she loved it.

Tears on the Bus

I haven't blogged much this week - mostly because nothing that interesting has really happened. But here are a few events of the last few days:

Our exhaust fan in our bathroom finally quit for good. The good news - Ben was able to replace it himself for $25. Bad news - this fan is SO LOUD. Can't hear the radio over it without waking the entire house (I like to listen to radio while in shower - especially for weather and possible school delays). But to get anything better we would have to enlarge the hole in the ceiling - not worth it.

The Letter Bag still causes stress in my life. Today's letter: N. Last night Ben put a rolled up newspaper and put it in the bag (I'd like to see you come up with anything better!) Anyway, right before it was time to leave this morning, Sam wants to change it to "nickel." Fine with me. I was so afraid he was going to figure out Nintendo started with N and then who knows if that would make it home from school, or Sam would want to play it at school - it could be a real hassle. And I did not want a hassle this morning - Ben is in Cincinnati at the Music Educators Conference, there was an inch of snow on the ground and we had to drive through the country to get to Ms. Jenny's, where Sam doesn't really like to go anyway. I just wanted to get everyone where they needed to be on time and without tears. So he put a nickel in his Letter Bag and off we went.

The tears appeared when he got off the bus at the high school. Apparently he had been playing with the nickel on the bus, it fell and rolled away. I thought there was more to it - was he throwing it, did he get in trouble, etc. No, the nickel just rolled away and he couldn't get it and I guess he thought maybe it was the last nickel in the world. So I carried him to my classroom, found not one but TWO nickels in my desk drawer, and finally snapped him out of it. Only to look up and see Maria with tears in her eyes. I guess all this crying made her remember her traumatic day, involving some kind of trade with a friend with their treasure box goodies only to have the friend take back the trade after recess. So I suggested we go to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream to make everyone feel better (I know it would make me feel better!). Ice cream right after school when we usually go straight home? I thought this was a no-brainer. But they wanted to come right home. And after a snack and some Food Network (Maria) and Guitar Hero (Sam) all was well again.

Right now Maria is at a party - her first party boy/girl party, although it is completely innocent with the Mom organizing all the activities. Its a travel theme - the invitation was a passport that they had to take tonight and gets stamped at each "stop" they make. I'm curious to hear what she tells me about the party when she returns. I thought Sam would be upset that she's going to a party and he and I are stuck here on Friday night, but right now he's content playing Guitar hero.

Speaking of Guitar Hero, I am now the only person in this house who still gets booed off the stage on every Medium song I try. But in my defense, I don't play as much as everyone else. Maria has improved quite a bit, but Sam is amazing. His hand-eye coordination for 5 years old is remarkable. I'm not sure if this skill is valuable for anything but video games, but it is impressive to watch him play.

This weekend is fairly busy with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa K. tomorrow and Ben's LAST basketball game of the season. Yay!

Sam Swims

Sam has been taking swim lessons now for several weeks, twice a week. He's always enjoyed going, but all of a sudden started doing really well a couple of weeks ago. He's swimming several feet on his own with his head in the water and is doing the backstroke too. Sam also really likes his teacher, Ms Bethany, and she does a good job getting him to do things I don't think he would try with us. Ben took the camera today and took some video, then edited it tonight so you could see how he's improving.

And that little girl next to him is new for the February session. Apparently she can't keep her hands to herself. Don't know how long Sam is going to put up with that. It seems there's always one in every class! But then again, he is the only boy with 4 girls.

Computer is Fixed!

Sunday Ben took the computer into Apple - FINALLY - and was told that it was the hard drive.  The very nice repairman told him to go buy his own and replace it, and didn't charge him anything for this advice.  So after two trips to Microcenter, Ben was able to put in the new hard drive and start restoring all of our programs.  Total cost - $85, plus the gas to go back to Microcenter a second time since the salesman told him the wrong kind on the first trip.  So I thought things would be back to normal - that Ben would not obsess about the computer ALL the time anymore.

But as usual, I was wrong.  Apparently one of our wireless substations is not working (the one that allows the computer to play music through our stereo speakers).  And while this seems minor, Ben can't stand that there is still something that doesn't work and spent hours last night trying to figure that out.  I personally think that living without convenience may be fairly easy to live with.  Especially if fixing it is going to cost more money!  We'll see if I'm right.

Bowling and More

Yesterday was quite a day. Most weekends in January we did just about nothing - mostly hung around the house and played with Christmas toys. Then we started to get bored, so we decided to plan some activities. And the way everyone's schedules worked, we ended up doing everything on the same day.

In the morning, the kids and I went with Dolly and her two kids (Makenna and Gage) to Chuck E. Cheese. We got there early - around 10:00 - and let the kids play before lunch. It wasn't very crowded and we were able to sit and talk while the kids went off and played. It was so nice for the kids to be old enough to run off and play by themselves. And Dolly's system of giving the boys only 3 tokens at a time so they have to come and check in with us to get more is brilliant. I had a great time - it was so nice to talk to someone with kids the same age, and to hear that my daughter isn't the only one who wants to wear sweat pants 24/7 and other common problems.

Then later in the afternoon we went bowling with the Smith's - 3 of the 4 kids had never bowled before and most of the adults hadn't been in years. The kids had a great time and Ben and Maria even bowled two games. (The arcade games were more interesting to the boys than a second game and Lindsey was just tired.) Then they came over for dinner (Ben had made lasagna and crumb cake for dessert while we were at Chuck E. Cheese) and stayed for margaritas too.

Today Ben is taking the computer in - finally - even though he has no confidence that it will actually act up while he's there. Then our special "Snacks" dinner for the Super Bowl - appetizers like chicken wings, potato skins, and mozzarella sticks.

Snow Day!

Or "pathetic freezing rain that was melted by 10:00" day, but we'll take the day off. It does lack the excitement of waking up and everything is covered in several inches of white snow, but getting a surprise three-day weekend is always nice. The winter storm warning yesterday and last night had us believing this would be a sure thing, but it ended up not being nearly as bad a predicted, so we had to play the "2-hour delay, are we or are we not going to close" game. On top of that, the new Instant Alert system wasn't working correctly, and we got three phone calls to tell us about the 2 hour delay between 6 and 7 this morning. Not fun when we really wanted the kids to sleep as long as possible. Maria did get up at 6:30, but I told her it was too early and to go back to bed, and I was amazed when she actually went back to sleep until 8:00. They finally cancelled about 8:00, at least a half hour after the rest of the county, but at least I hadn't packed lunches yet.

So we had a pretty lazy day. Ben had a morning nap and I had an afternoon nap. We ran errands and had lunch at Bob Evans. And of course, played quite a bit of Guitar Hero. And I completed our taxes (or tax organizer) and sent it off to the people who really prepare the form.

Here's the update on our broken appliances:

-The garage door was repaired. The repairman told us now would be a great time to replace it, but as long as it goes up and down when we press the button, it's good enough for us.

-The fan in the bathroom is working fine now. I'm sure it'll go bad for real sometime soon. Guess we won't do anything until then.

-The computer is another story. Ben worked on it a lot Wednesday night, and we thought it was better. Until this morning, when it started acting up again. He's been messing with it most of the afternoon, and it looks like he's going to have to take it in tomorrow. He's tired of messing with it, and I'm so tired of his mood when he messes with it. We were able to back everything up before it started acting up again today, so at least we haven't lost anything.

Tomorrow is a big day - the kids and I are going to Chuck E Cheese with my friend Dolly and her kids in the morning and then having lunch there. Later in the afternoon all of us are going bowling with the Smiths. Neither Sam nor Maria have actually bowled before - only Wii - so it should be fun. Ben and I don't think we've been in 20 years. Then dinner with the Smith's after bowling. We went from doing almost nothing on weekends to a full day. Should be good since Maria is "bored" today.