Friday, October 2, 2009

everything's gonna be alright

Today when I was feeling lonely, I looked through a few hundred facebook pictures of my old friends. And suddenly I understood why I don't need to be so sad. They're still there, working with kids, being themselves, whether I'm there or not. Maybe if I realize how important I am NOT, then I'll be more willing to realize how important God IS and being away will be easier. Hopefully. So here's how I like to remember my old friends.


Thursday, October 1, 2009

Yesterday

5:05 turn off phone alarm
5:15 get out of bed to turn off alarm across the room
6:00 get up and shower, don’t wash hair, put on mascara
6:15 convince Daisy to wear the 2nd outfit I bring her
Load waffles, yogurts, milks, backpacks, sweaters, and shoes into the car, along with a bagel for me
6:42 leave late, again
6:55 walk Ella and Daisy into daycare
sit Ella down to eat
walk Daisy to her room, but she won’t go in because she wants to eat with Ella
sit Daisy down in Ella’s room after getting approval from teachers
7:05 finally leave daycare to drive to my school
7:07 get my bagel, keys, and phone and walk into school
7:09 sign in in front office
7:10 get stopped by a junior who’s in my sophomore lit class. She wants to know if she has to take the GHSWT today. Idk! We see the principal and I leave her asking him.
7:13 open my room and stand in hallway to monitor kids
7:15 the principal and I discuss how that girl should have known she was taking the test today because she’s in an 11th grade homeroom. He’s worried she won’t do well without 11th grade preparation, but I tell him I’ve taught all my 10th graders those writing skills. He’s pleased.
7:20 not ready for school to start, but it does anyway. I was out yesterday, so I find out what they did (which wasn’t exactly what I’d asked them to do). And I tell them about my sick kids and that I’m not feeling well either. Then I tell them what to do as I call kids up to my desk for writing conferences. Over and over again, I say, you have three totally different ideas in your paper- find a common thread and make that your thesis statement.
7:30 turn a/c on 68 degrees. Kids are freezing and I’m sweating.
8:12 class is over and I go stand in the hallway. Administrator stops and asks if I'm okay because I look pretty pale.
8:17 today I have 2nd period planning because of the testing schedule, so I go get some coffee from the teacher’s lounge.
Sit at desk and delete emails while eating apple muffins the kids and I made for daycare yesterday
Try to look at my kids on the cameras and realize the cameras aren’t installed on the laptop they switched mine out for yesterday. Email tech lady to get her to install it. She says she’ll come by 3rd period.
Front office secretary comes by to get me to sign my leave form from yesterday. She asks about my kids and then makes a big deal about Ella’s foot & mouth virus. That comes from farms and animals! she says.
8:47 email my mom a pic of Daisy from last night, asleep in her bed with 4 stuffed animals on her chest.
8:55 think I need more advil to dull the achy muscles and the headache, but can’t have it til noon
9:00 decide to get to my testing room before the end of 2nd period so the lady in there can have a few minutes off before her 3rd period class.
walk to my car to get essays to grade during testing 3rd period
it’s a old, sunny, beautiful day
try to walk back into school through the door near the counseling office because I have to sign a confidentiality form before I test. But all exterior doors are locked except one by the front office. This is not Northview.
9:10 counselor finally found the form, I’ve signed it and gotten another cup of coffee
9:14 run into another locked door, but the counselor lets me in through this one just as the bell to end 2nd period rings
9:16 hush a kid who greets me as I walk into the silent testing room, sit down to grade my essays, get up to collect tests as kids finish
9:24 all my essays are organized into paper clipped stacks. None are graded.
9:30 tell boys they can’t whisper, touch each other, or make each other laugh during the test. They decide to nap. Good.
10:11 bell rings to end 3rd period. I return organized tests to counselor.
10:16 4th period starts. A kid asks me if I'm okay because I look terrible. Go through the what did you do yesterday questions. Tell about my sick kids again. Conference with students.
11:00 call up the kid who has turned in nothing for my class. Assure her she can still pass. Try to get her to give me some information so we can create an outline for her paper. I find out she has 4 brothers. She likes the youngest one best because he’s like her – her mom says they’re immature and too loud. She doesn’t want to be like her mom. Her mom doesn’t really have a job. She doesn’t want to be like her dad. But she doesn’t tell me why. We don’t get very far with outlining. I don’t know how to help her.
11:08 bell rings, I go stand in hall
11:13 5th period starts. This is the class I team teach with Rebecca. She asks if I'm okay. Same spiel with kids. Same conferencing with kids.
11:41 head to lunch, shivering. Wonder if everyone is this cold, or if it’s just me. I should have worn more clothes today. Purchase grilled cheese and brocolli cheese casserole for lunch.
11:50 remember the Advil Brian gave me when he helped me set up my room. Go open the brand-new bottle and take 3. Thank goodness.
11:52 sit down to eat lunch. Department chair notices I’m shivering and asks if I’m ok.
12:05 bell rings to end lunch. Am so pleased when I walk into my classroom and it feels warm.
Conference, conference, conference.
12:33 class ends. I do not go stand in the hall. I’m tired.
12:38 the first class of juniors I’ve seen today. They tell me the test was easy. One girl tells me they will definitely stop doing it if they read her paper. Huh? She means carrying out the program that she slammed in her paper. Another kid says she didn’t finish her conclusion, and do I think she’ll pass anyway? I tell her I think so, but if she doesn’t she can just try again without penalty.
12:42 Tell kids to take the period to read silently. They sorta do. I sorta try to work.
12:42 one kid brings me the binder her aunt made of blog posts about the kid’s mom’s aneurism. The kid was driving when her mom started seizing in the car. She pulled off the interstate, called 911. Turns out the mom had 3-4 aneurisms in her brain. Was in the hospital for months. I remember meeting the mom at an IEP meeting this year. She kept saying she felt guilty because her kids’ grades went down last year when she was sick. That’s what she was talking about. Got it.
12:50 talk to one of my new students about independent reading. She has a 1-year-old daughter. I give her The Secret Life of Bees off my bookshelf to read. She likes it, I think.
12:55 start making 10th grade midterm for next week
1:14 notice my plants aren’t dying. Am surprised since they get no sunlight at all.
1:21 watch my team teacher draw next week’s schedule on the board. She does a great job, and I’m glad I don’t have to do it.
1:30 bell rings. Stand in hall.
1:35 7th period. Mostly boys. All 10th grade. Lots of energy. And I’m achy and tired. Talk about what they did yesterday and how my kids are sick. Try to get them to work on their graphic organizers for their essays. They’re rambunctious, which can be funny when I’m not sick. Have to keep asking kids to sit down and work as I’m conferencing.
2:25 a girl and a guy start arguing. Apparently she stuck a pen in his mouth. She’s looked very upset all period. They won’t stop arguing. I tell them they’re going to the front office if they speak to each other again. The boy flops across the room to his seat. Just before the bell rings, I tell him to come talk to me. The bell rings and he starts to walk out the door. I tell him to come here. He says the bell rang so schools over. I tell him he has to do what I say no matter what time of day it is. He comes and sits by my desk so I can lecture him. I get nowhere.
2:38 walk down the hall to meet with other junior teachers to discuss planning and midterm. On the way there an administrator tells me I really need to take care of myself so I can get well.
3:10 go back to my room and manually shut down my frozen laptop
3:30 administrator walks in and tells me to wake up Mrs. Curtright! because I’m staring at my computer with my head resting on my hand. I decide to leave.
3:42 take a few minutes in the daycare parking lot to be warm and listen to “turning me on” and then “hungry eyes.” Walk inside to get kids and find out they’ve both been crying this afternoon. No one knows why though.
4:20 sit in garage and listen to the Abraham De lacy Giusepe Casey Thomas O’Malley song that I love. Ella keeps saying, no wanna watch that part! We watch it anyway.
4:22 mom calls and I talk to her while the kids continue to watch the movie in the car. Ella says, you stop talking! Mom’s sick too.
5:00 Doug gets home and takes the kids to the carwash, the park, and McDonald’s. I put on my sweatpants, two shirts, and a hoodie and go to bed, shivering.
5:25 can’t stand the shivering any more, so I go downstairs to get medicine. My temp is 101.
7:25 I go downstairs to eat cereal.
7:30 Doug and the kids get home. They want to eat my cereal, but are okay when I explain they can’t eat my cereal because they might get my germs. They sit and eat their own bowls of cereal while we watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
8:25 kids are in bed. I make my lesson plans for tomorrow and call in sick to work.
9:20 in bed

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Mid-April update

We went to Destin for Spring Break. It was awesome! Daisy LOVED the sand and water. We "swam" with Daisy a lot (which really means we held hands and jumped in the waves up to our knees.) Ella, in a surprising twist, was TERRIFIED of the water! She barely tolerated the sand, actually. As soon as we started to walk toward the water, she started screaming (every time!). But when we let her sit in the sand (far from the water) and play, she was happy. It was a great 1st family trip to the beach.
 

 

 

 


 

Spring Break ended with our Easter celebration. We had a great time with family at our house. The girls were so happy to hang out with family and dye Easter eggs and hunt for Easter eggs. They're still finding eggs unhunted eggs around the backyard and lost ones around the house.
 

 

 

I don't have much to say lately. The end of the school year is approaching rapidly. Too rapidly.
The girls are growing and learning tremendously. Daisy tells me about what she'll do when she's a grown-up frequently. She will drive, paint toenails, get married, and lots of other stuff. She likes to teach Ella stuff now; recently she tried to teach Ella that tee-tee is yellow! "Can you say le-llow, Ella?" Ella can say "yellow" perfectly, so this was a funny lesson. And kinda gross. Ella is absolutely a toddler now. She tells us when she poops and lays down for a diaper change. She says multiple words together. She wants to wear dresses all the time. She takes off her clothes a lot.
It's a busy life.

Monday, March 2, 2009

A few calm moments

Here's my sweet Ella sleeping in the car. Doesn't she look so warm and comfortable, even with her head falling forward like that?
  





















Daisy wasn't ready to sleep just yet. She's watching "Jungle Book" and holding her name-tag sticker from church that morning.













I think this is the night of the jelly incident. We were finished with dinner at like 6:15 and I had to bathe them immediately. I didn't want to go back downstairs and get them all excited just before bedtime. So instead, they laid on my bed and watched "Caillou." I love these calm moments at our house.  
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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Jelly! Jelly! Everywhere!

Ella suffered through an ear infection that didn't respond to the first round of antibiotics this week. I got her to the pediatrician Monday afternoon and she started her Z-pack that day. Then, Tuesday, she woke up with a fever that didn't go away all week! The pediatrician's office said it was normal, but she just got worse and worse until I finally took her in Friday afternoon with a 102.3 temp. Poor Ella. So she'll be getting tubes as soon as we can make that happen.

Anyway, she still isn't feeling very well. She wouldn't nap this afternoon, and she was incredibly tired and grumpy at dinnertime. My mom came over for a while this afternoon and got to experience the... fun?... late afternoon hours with a sick, tired toddler and a regular toddler. We were REALLY glad to have her!

Here's dinner. Ella wouldn't eat anything, but she kept begging for the spoon and the jelly. We thought she'd put it on her biscuit (and then eat the biscuit), but of course not. Here's what happened instead!
 
 
 
 
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Monday, February 16, 2009

Dance the Night Away

I had to take Ella back to the pediatrician this afternoon. She's been fussy and coughing for a few days, and it was time to get her ears rechecked. Her left ear is infected again. The pediatrician said she would refer us to the ENT so we can get tubes in Ella's ears. I'm sure that'll be a good thing: it helped Daisy so much. But I just don't want to deal with another baby going under anesthesia. I guess we'll be back at the ENT in a month or so though.

When we got home, I made french toast, eggs, & bacon for dinner. Yum!

After that we needed something fun to do, so I pulled out the high heels. :-)
 
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They can move pretty quickly in heels!
 
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Just running around in high heels got old pretty quickly, although they did laugh a lot for a while! Soon the girls pulled out the strollers and drove Elmo & baby around the house.
 

A little sisterly love. This doesn't happen very often. Typically, one kid screams if the other touches her. It was a rare moment of bonding in high heels.
 

After that the musical portion of the evening began.
 

For a few songs, Daisy danced while Ella played the piano.
 

 
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She's got moves!
 

And Ella does too!
 

 
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And finally, here's me. Ella wanted to sit in the stroller, so I obliged.
 

She sat still for a moment, but sitting in the stroller really wasn't enough.
 

Luckily, her older sister was more than happy to drive her around for a while. In case you were wondering, no matter how fast Daisy drives the stroller, Ella still likes it. And no matter how hard Daisy rams the stroller into the walls and door, Ella still likes it!
 
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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day!

This week Daisy and I got to address valentines together. She insisted on Ballet Kitty valentines, but luckily she doesn't know that Hello Kitty is another entity because they only had Hello Kitty valentines at Kroger the night before her class's party. So she happily brought home Hello Kitty valentines that came with cars, envelopes, pink gummy candy hearts, and heart sticker seals. We addressed a card for each of the ten kids in her class, plus her two favorite teachers at school. She was so patient as she let me hold her hand on the pen to write a kid's name and her own name a dozen times! After we wrote on each card, she folded it, tried to put it in the envelope sideways (and a dozen times I reminded her to turn it so it would fit), picked one candy out of the bag, put it in the envelope, chose a sticker, and sealed the envelope with a sticker (or three, in some cases). It was quite the process, but she was so pleased with the stack of valentines we made. Oh, and we made one for her (from her!). While Daisy and I addressed valentines, Ella colored and ate crayons (they're nontoxic!).



I think one of my favorite times at our house is when the girls decide it's time to ride around. Ella rides the Tigger airplane, pushing with her feet and picking them up as she glides and screames, "Weeeeee!!!!!" Daisy rides her tricycle around and around and around. She can pedal so fast! They think it's fun that they're doing it together. Usually, if one girl starts to ride, the other makes a beeline for her wheels. If it's Daisy who decides to ride around first, and Ella doesn't follow suit quickly enough, Daisy calls for Ella to ride her plane. We're constantly amazed by how the girls are growing and learning to love playing together.