Random things I’ve been up to….

….Milo learned to walk. He went from tottering between furniture to chasing Lexi and the dogs around the house in about 5 days. We now have a human tornado living in our house. He also likes to spin himself in circles until he’s too dizzy to stand.

….I got called for Jury Duty. It’s not a bad deal. I call in at night and they tell me if I need to show up or call in. I’ve lucked out and have only had to call in at nine and/or noon the next day, only to be told I’m not needed and to call in again tomorrow. Only downside is the two weeks worth of lesson plans I’ve had to write. But, really, not complaining about it. It’s been fun to do stuff like take the kids to the zoo.

….went to the Minnesota Zoo with Lexi and Milo. Milo learned a new phrase “See it!” or “See it?” depending on whether or not he spotted the animals. Both kids love the dolphins. We watched a short training session and then spent another 20 minutes just sitting in the bleachers watching the dolphins swim and splash around. Incidentally, the MN Zoo is a great winter activity. Discovery Bay, the Tropics Trail and the Minnesota Trail are all connected and it takes about 30 minutes to get through each one. And you never have to go outside.

….I taught myself how to crochet over Christmas break. And I really like it. It’s super fast and looks really cute when finished. So far I’ve made about 6 hats, a sweater, a blanket, a poncho, and about 30 headbands.. Only downside is it takes much more yarn than knitting so depending on the project, it can be a little pricey. I’ll try and get a few pictures up in the next couple days.

….I’ve made a few sales from my etsy shop. Oh, and I started making jewelry as well. I needed a lanyard for work and decided to make one and I had left over supplies so I made a few other things. Then when I raided all my craft stuff I realized I had a pretty big pile of beads and other jewelry making supplies so I gave it a shot. It’s not my favorite thing to do but it’s different than sewing or knitting or crochet, so I like it. Oh, and my etsy shop is also supporting charity:water.

When you see them walking in a line, across two parking lots and you hear the teacher repremand the class for stopping to throw snowballs, it is not, I repeat NOT, a good idea to lob a snowball at the line of students and then laugh. And don’t acted so shocked when you get reamed out by the teacher for being a bad example.

When the entire class is sitting quietly outside the bathroom, do not come out of the teacher’s lounge and tell the girls they are so cute and beautiful and tell the boys they are handsome and strong. It’s not helpful. You leave in your wake 18 kids who are a) so giggly they can’t calm down b) so embarrased they can’t calm down c) so pissed off because you said she was beautiful but the boy in the class said “no she isn’t” so she hit him and then he pushed her and now they are both in trouble.

When they are walking in the stairs, don’t stop and chat with them right after you hear me say “no talking in the stairs.” They are 5 and remembering not to talk to you. You are, what? 45?, how come you can’t just walk by quietly.

And for the love of all things holy, DO NOT start saying “HIGH 5!” as you walk past my students. If you do, I will walk away and you are now in charge of all of them and good luck because everytime you’ve done this, 5 minutes later is supposed to be rest time. Have fun.

Today, as we came in from recess, there was a Marine also waiting to get into the building (our school is on the third floor of a huge office building). He was dressed in his dress uniform and as he waited for us to pass he looked like he was standing at attention. My students were in absolute awe. Once we were all inside and starting up the stairs and he was out of sight, the questions started: “What’s his job?” “Is he a community helper?” “Can I be that when I grow up?” “Is he real?” “He’s so cool!”

We had to stop on the stairs (because kindergarteners can ‘t walk and talk at the same time) and I tried to quickly answer their questions. While we were there, the Marine passed us going back down the stairs with whoever he was picking up. As he passed my class decided to speak up. A couple kids called out as he passed, “You’re a Community Helper! Thank you! You’re doing a really good job!”

Hope it made him feel good to know that a bunch of kids think he’s a pretty cool guy.

Oh, and the questions, didn’t stop for the rest. of. the. day. I’m thinking I need to find a Marine to come to my class and talk to the kids about their job….

Alexis was 14th in 2006 and Lexi was 345th.

In 2008, they were 271st, 15th, and 299th respectively.

Change the spelling and Madeline was number 71 in 2006 and 56 in 2008.

In 2008 Milo was 449th.

Just in case you were wondering.

The parts in his hair are not pretty, but braiding hair on a 15 month old is like trying to wrestle a mad octopus, so I took what I could get.

I want the braids to hang a little straighter without so much curl near his scalp and I think a few more beads will help with that but I didn’t want to try and put 5 or 6 beads on each braid only to find out none of them stayed in his hair overnight. The two beads will be our test run.

Okay, what you want…pictures. Remember it’s a work in progress.

Update: When he woke up this morning he had 14 out of the 24 beads still in his hair. I managed to find 8 of the 10 missing beads. Not sure if he ate the last 2 or if they are just in the blankets somewhere. Also, I think I had two problems keeping the beads in. 1) I didn’t use any product so his hair was super soft, making it easy for the beads to slip and 2) I think I was using really crappy elastics that I couldn’t get tight enough.

I spent a few weeks one summer in El Salvador and I spent a month in London, doing part of my student teaching.

I seriously considered joining the Peace Corps. I called them, requested the information, even sort of settled on going to Papua New Guinea or El Salvador (I really enjoyed my time in El Salvador and at the time I knew enough spanish to survive.)

I would go to Perkins and sit for hours with a friend who would listen to me talk about wanting to travel, to see the world, to join the Peace Corps, to just do something with my life. And he would tell me to make sure I sent him a postcard from wherever I was. At the time, I was 99% sure it was what I wanted to do when I graduated. I wasn’t in a relationship, I had no desire to go to grad school and I knew that come graduation day, all my friends would be scattering all over the  country so, why not?

But plans changed in an unexpectedly good way. That same friend is now my husband. We’ve got 2 kids, a house, a couple dogs. I’m a teacher and I love my job.

And 11 years later I still  can’t shake that need to travel, to experience living somewhere that is nothing like here. So I’ve come up with a plan. An exciting plan with a very real possibility of working out.

A couple weeks ago I noticed that AHOPE, an organization in Ethiopia that cares for children with HIV, is always looking for voluteers. They specifically request people who are social workers, nurses, doctors, occupational therapists, and teachers. A volutneer needs to there for a minimum of 6 weeks but can stay longer if they wish.

Guess which teacher wants to move her family to Ethiopia for a summer?

I don’t want to go this summer or even next summer. I want to wait until Milo and Lexi are older. If we are going to move them half way around the world for a summer, I want them to experience it, to remember it, to fully participate in the experience.

I’ve already contacted AHOPE to see if this is even a possibility and got a resounding “yes” so now, we just need to make things happen on our end. It will be a lot of work to make this happen, another reason why I’m not trying to plan the trip for anytime soon, but I really think this will happen.

I’ve also got a second plan that involves staying in Ethiopia for a year but we’ll just stick to the plan of going for a summer to see how that works out for us. Then I’ll start plotting a longer stay.

It’s exciting to think about. It’s scary to think about. It makes me happy that we will be able to take Milo back his birth country and Lexi will see probably the most important piece of her brother’s life. I want this to happen.

1. I have discovered that making jewelry is more fun than I first thought.

2. Copper Boom is now supporting charity:water. I will be paying myself what it cost to buy the supplies for the product. The rest of the money will go to charity:water. And, just so everyone knows, many, many, many of the items I make are from supplies I’ve gotten for free which means 100% of the sales from over half the items will go to charity:water.

Happy shopping.

1. Don’t hit
2. Don’t push
3. Don’t kick
4. Don’t punch
5. Don’t run
6. Don’t yell
7. Don’t slap
8. Don’t bite
9. Don’t throw things
10. Don’t be mean
11. Don’t talk
12. No running
13. No spitting
14. No fighting
15. No being mean
16. No yelling
17. No shouting
18. No being loud
19. No wrestling
20. No stealing

And that’s the shortened version. When I let them start suggesting rules I usually get close to 50 or 60 “don’t’s” and “no’s”. That’s a whole lot of things we aren’t allowed to do. And an insane list to remember.

So, I have to start tweaking the list to a more positive wording and narrowing it down. There is a long conversation which is mostly me saying things like “Hitting and kicking and punching and slapping and hurting other people is something we godn’t want to do. So can we make the rule be “Keep your hands and feet to yourself?” And I’ll be honest, in the end, the rules end up being the 5 rules that I use every year in kindergarten. (1. Keep your hands and feet to yourself. 2. Share. 3. Listen when someone else is speaking. 4. Walking feet. 5. Be respectful)

And every year in January we re-evaluate and re-write our class rules. Since we have to spend the first week in January re-learnign the whole routine anyway, might as well start fresh with new rules.

So today we sat and made the long list of ideas for rules. However, I told them none of the rules could start with the word “don’t” or “no”. I wanted all positive language. I wanted the rules to state what we could (and should) do, not what we couldn’t do.

I was seriously impressed with their list. If they suggested a “don’t” rule, the rest of the class immediately corrected them – YOU CAN’T SAY DON’T! – but after the shouting, they gave the student a chance to rephrase their idea.

The list included:

1. Be best friends
2. Be good
3. Listen when people talk
4. Be nice
5. Be kind
6. Be helpful
7. Be respectful
8. Tell the truth
9. Walk
10. Take care of the toys and books
11. Only dig and build with sand or snow
12. Share
13. Have fun
14. Learn
15. Say please
16. Watch where you are walking in line
17. Cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough (this one made me laugh out loud. Earlier this year, I had over half my class hit with H1N1. I had them hand-santizing and going through tissues like good little germ0phobes. At least they were paying attention.)

We then talked about how some rules were pretty similar and they decided to have 6 rules total. The final list (with barely any influence from me):

1. Be safe

2. Be good

3. Be kind

4. Be respectful

5. Tell the truth

6. Have fun

Now, we’ll see if they stick to the new rules.

Land of indoor recess.

I know what some of you are thinking. “Indoor recess? Sweet. No need to get on coats, boots, hats, gloves. No kids whinning because they are too cold. No need to stand on the playground and freeze while listening to the whinning about being too cold.” Well, all of that is great compared to 3 days in a row of indoor recess. The scientific term for indoor recess is “Cabin Fever”.

I, however, have found the cure. Disney and Pixar Movies. I know, shocking, isn’t it? But here’s the thing, my students were all born after movies like Lilo and Stitch, Monsters, Inc; Toy Story (1 & 2), Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King came out.

A month ago I brought in Lilo and Stitch and they had never heard of it. They were fascinated. This week, we watched Monsters, Inc. And they loved it. They sat perfectly still. They jumped when a monster acted scary. They covered their eyes when the monsters were on the “scare floor”. They laughed at the jokes. And they practically held their breath during the big chase scene at the end. When it was over, several kids asked if we could watch it again tomorrow because it was the “best movie ever.”

I think I’m going to introduce them to Fraggle Rock next. Or maybe The Sound of Music. Although, there’s a lot of kissing in the Sound of Music and in kindergarten we really don’t like the kissing parts. Hmmm….is the Princess Bride appropriate to show? They would LOVE that movie.