I'm still here!!!

Hi everyone,

Wow, it has been two weeks since my last post! To say that life has been crazy would be such a big understatement that it would almost be funny...almost.

Kevin and I have literally been running in two separate directions for almost a month now. When he's home early, I have to work late. When I'm home at a decent hour, he's got meetings late into the night. And to make matters worse, even when we ARE home at the same time, he's holed up in his (new) office STILL working. His new boss is wearing him out. We have hours and hours of unwatched TV on our DVR - it's getting too full! We don't have much of an idea what's even going on with each other because we only talk briefly during dinner and sometimes in the morning. The other night while I was cooking dinner he came and gave me a hug and I started crying! Why? Because I miss him! Isn't that crazy? We live together, yet we still have to miss each other. In fact, he left this morning (Saturday) before 7am and is still not home now, at 8pm. I hope it gets better soon.

And why am I so busy? Two words: Grad school. Two more words: third grade. Here's my problem with the whole third grade thing: I've never really been good at the whole cross-that-bridge-when-I-get-to-it thing. I like to be prepared. So I have been spending entirely too much time finding and making third grade centers, worrying about and shopping for my new classroom library (full of chapter...not picture...books), learning the curriculum, trying to figure out how to teach Reading in small groups like I do in First grade...you get the picture. And then there's the whole pack-up-your-classroom-and-move-across-the-school thing. Yup. I've already been sorting through what belongs to me and what belongs to first grade, organizing my stuff, planning out where it will go next year in my new room...I'm sick.

And about grad school. My new course started last week - Research in Education. And it's every bit as hellish as it sounds. EACH WEEK we have 6 readings, 4 assignments, 2 discussion questions, and a 25-26 question multiple-response exam. And these exams are not jokes. Trust me, I learned that after I tried to wing it on the first one. The best part is you need a B in every class to successfully complete the program and earn your principal certification. Nice. The good news is today I found a Facebook group about the Lamar Academic Partnership, and it's all people who are right in track with me taking the same course at the same time. Reading the discussion board not only answered some of my questions, but it also made me feel like less of a dummy. This class has made me feel completely inadequate, but it turns out it's doing it to everyone. Somehow, that makes it better...a little.

Enough belly-aching. Let's move on to the fun stuff!

Yesterday I rewarded myself with a fun, relaxing day off with NO grad school and no household chores. Kevin, of course, was working, so I headed to Dallas to spend some time with my girls from work. We had Pei Wei for lunch, then I Heart Yogurt for dessert (and let me tell you - I DO heart yogurt). Then we laid out by Alexis's pool for 3 hours and got some great sun. Let's not discuss when my chair almost dumped me out into the freezing cold pool, or when her bulldog Steve made out with my ear. It was a wonderful, fun, well deserved day off!

On Tuesday, Kevin and I had the opportunity to go eat at Reunion Tower at Five-Sixty, the new Wolfgang Puck restaurant. It was Eric's birthday, so we went with him and Debbie, Kevin's mom. It was awesome! The ball rotates one full rotation each hour, so we got to see the entire city of Dallas twice while up there. And the food was amazing, pricey, but amazing. I wouldn't recommend making a habit of eating there (unless your pocketbook is much fatter than ours) but it is definitely something you should try out once! I didn't really realize what a big deal it was, but now I do and I'm so glad we went.

And now for a funny (but gross) story!

'Jake' asks me every day shortly after lunch if he can "go to the bathroom for twenty minutes." This is obviously his (very regular) BM time. Sure enough, on Tuesday he asked me. I looked at the clock. Yup, 12:30. "Sure Jake, you can go."

He was gone for about 10 minutes and then came back and sat down at his desk just in time for math. A few minutes later I was helping his table with the lesson and I bent over near him. immediately I smelled something bad. I watched him for a while and noticed that he kept pulling on his pants and was noticeable uncomfortable. Oh man.

I called him out into the hall.
Me: "Jake, are you having a little problem in your pants?"
Jake: "NO! I can't say it because it's a BABY thing!"
Me: "Jake, everyone has accidents. Not just babies. You need to tell me what happened so that I can help you."
Jake: "(hesitates) Ok. But you can't look at me while I say this. (takes my head and turns it away from him, toward the lockers).
Me: "Ok, I'm ready."
Jake: "Also, I'm going to say a lot of words. But don't listen to ALL of the words. Only listen to the IMPORTANT words, okay?"
Me: "Okay...."
Jake: "So I was on the way to the bathroom and I stopped to get a drink of water and then I made a little mistake and now there's pooh in my pants!"

So I took him to the nurse and she got him all cleaned up and changed. In the meantime, I took the rest of the class to recess (they had no idea that any of this had happened). All of the sudden, Jake busted out of the door onto the playground and yelled "HEY GUYS! SORRY I WASN'T IN CLASS FOR A WHILE. IT'S BECAUSE I HAD POOH IN MY PANTS!"

As you can imagine, all of first grade began relentlessly teasing him. And really, can you blame them? I tried my best to stop it, as did the other teachers, but to no avail. When we went inside Jake sat down on the rug and began pouting. I asked him what was wrong and his answer was...

Wait for it....

"EVERYONE IN THIS CLASS THINKS THAT THEY CAN SMELL MY HORRIBLE STENCH!!!"

And that, my friends, is a day in the life of a first grade teacher.