Monday update

246.6  Which is  plus 2 pounds.   Is anyone else getting sick of my lack of progress?  I thought so.  Me too.  I have a plan.



Here's a clue.

Here's a cuter clue.

Details to follow.

Eight months? Holy smokes!

This is going too fast.  Seriously.  Slow down.

Carolyn is eight months old today. (notice the name change?  I'm trying to drop the 'baby'*.  I have a great aunt who is still called 'Baby Sister'.  Ridiculous.)

This month has been busy.  She's pulling up now and starting to cruise.

 She also dances (okay, 'bobs her head' is more accurate) every time she hears music, or anything with any rhythm (like her Daddy sawing wood or me cutting onions).  Her favorite hobby is chicken-watching.

I usually reveal a parenting gaffe every time another month rolls around.  I won't disappoint this time.  Baby C Carolyn sleeps with me.  In bed with me.  Right up next to me.  And will not sleep in a crib.  Never has.  Only naps in the swing or in the car.  And I lie to the pediatrician about it, over and over and over.  Ahhhh.  Glad to have that off my chest.

*No baby was dropped in the making of this post.  One baby, who shall remain nameless, did fall off the changing table.  But that was an accident.

Monday update

244.6 this week, which is minus 2.8.  So I didn't quite undo the damage from last week, but still made progress in the right direction.  I'll take it!

Take your blog readers to work day

7:30 Picked students up from holding tank gym. 

7:32 Student pukes on her desk.  A little.  And then in the hall.  A lot.  I was happy to see that at least one student ate a healthy breaksfast (oatmeal with raisins).

7:35 Math.  (Place value to the thousands place, centers.)

9:00 Talk to a disgruntled mom on the phone while giving my class the stank eye DEAR time. 
9:01 Mid-conversation, a student interrupts me and says something about going to the nurse.  I assume she needs her inhaler.  I give her a nurse pass.
9:04  Receive a sassy precisely-worded note from above mentioned nurse.  Apparently the student told her the reason for her visit was that she was cold.

9:05 Adjusted thermostat, counted days left on school calendar.
9:06  ESL.  Read a story about a pet, modeled writing about my favorite pet.  Had students write about their favorite pet.  Here's an excerpt:

(Did you know that my God-given special talent is reading broken English?  Well it is.  I can read IH-NEE-THANG.  This example isn't too tough.  But I'll crack the code for my non-teacher peeps in the comment section.)

10:30 Kids go to PE.  I pump 6 ounces of milk and write a 500 word essay to prove I am fluent in English.  (This is part of the putrid remains of W's administration.  I'd like to see his essay.)

11:15  Kids return from PE.  I read a story about a dude named Uncle Nacho to kill the 16 minutes remaining before lunch.

11:31  Lunch.  I had peanut butter and honey.  The rest of the day is a blur.  But it must have been good.  Because I confiscated some pretty awesome stuff.  You can't tell from the pic, but those cards are 3-D.  Which doesn't make up for the low salary, but it helps.

Stop looking at me...

Public service announcement, lake weekend

Attention:  You must watch your kids, people.  Supervise them!  I know pictures are important, but not as important as safety.  Let's say, hypothetically, that someone is watching their baby, neice, and nephew (okay, that one can watch himself).  She recognizes a cute photo op.  She gets out her camera.  She tries to get everyone in the shot (and get a clear view of some precious pig tails).   She just might lose herself in the possibility of a priceless photo and not notice that the two year old is falling out of the swing.

Don't worry.  She's okay. 

But consider yourself warned.

Other than one act of careless childcare, C and I had a wonderful weekend at the lake.  Mike was working, so he couldn't make it.  Boo!  But still, we had lots of fun.  It really made me excited for summer. 

Eleven student contact days to go. 

Monday update

247.4.  Which means PLUS 4.4.  I think that's some kind of record.  Off the wagon, blah blah blah.  In other news, I had a very fun weekend.

Baby retaliates against paparazzo

Monday update

243 today.  Minus .4 from last week, 21.4 in all.  I've kind of been slacking off with the idea that once school is out I can focus more on diet and exercise.  But now I'm getting discouraged by such little progress.  I think I'll try to step it up this week.

Another goat joke

Mike tried to make me fall for another goat joke today.

When I got up this morning, he was on the computer.

He said:

"Hey, my sister emailed me a picture from when I was a kid."

I didn't fall for it this time.

He did tend goats as a kid, though.

But he wore clothes.

And there aren't any pictures.

FYI, this kid is carrying his lunch wrapped in a cloth.  The stick is for protecting the goats.

*picture from New Vision Ugandan online newspaper

Monday update

243.4 today.  Minus .6 from last week, 21 in all.  This is going slow!  But slow works if you keep going long enough...

Chicken visitor

We've been having fun watching the chicks get big.  By 'we' I mean C and me.  Mike does all the work.  So it's more of a hands-on project for him.  But he's enjoying it too.  C likes to hang out in her 'office' and scream and make the chickens flap around.  I invented a chicken toy pictured below.  It's a spinach kabob suspended above them.  You can make one of your own for your chickens, and you don't even owe me anything.  You're welcome.

Miley came to visit the chickens today.  She is an expert amateur chicken wrangler.

This girl has no fear.

The chickens do, though.

They are chickens, after all.