Rockin good time

So the caterpillars, in the minds of second graders, had a blast over the weekend as they explored our classroom without us knowing it...the following are tidbits of what the kids' imaginations drummed up:

kid's idea: The caterpillars elected a teacher and they learned all weekend

my thoughts: since there are only three caterpillars, this is a really good ratio for learning...also, this child must see things very black and white...if you are at school you are learning...end of story

kid's idea: The caterpillars each grabbed a tissue and hang glided off the desks

my thoughts: maybe the MIA caterpillar had a hang gliding accident?

kid's idea: The caterpillars each grabbed a pencil and wrote all over our notebooks, papers, and homework

my thoughts: how clever...now we can't do any work right?

kid's idea: The caterpillars played princess and sang and danced all weekend.

my thoughts: how exactly do you "play princess"? I should ask this child how that is done before Lila is old enough to do this...I have a strong need to be a hip mom

More to come tomorrow....

Jana's latest adventure in teaching

If you have read this blog since the beginning, you know about how I raised butterflies with my class last year. Well, being that the class I have this year is PERFECT, I have decided we should raise multiple living things to observe varying life cycles. So, we had a small tank of tadpoles (that I already almost killed) and a plant holding butterfly eggs day of one (maybe two) of school this year. One of the other second grade teachers actually supplied me with all of these goodies which is fantastic because I spent like $30 last year on the butterfly stuff. However, last year's "kit" came with instructions. These sets of creatures did not. I thought I just had to keep them all fed and we would be in business. Not true. So toward the middle of last week I notice that the tadpoles aren't frantically swimming around as they had been before. Luckily, a parent of one of my students takes care of the massive fish tanks in the front of the school and he revived my tank of polliwogs (another word for tadpoles...funny what you can learn in 2nd grade). Crisis averted. I mean seriously, if you think about it, I would have had some seriously distraught kids on my hands if I screwed this up.

SO, I walk into my classroom this morning to see that the fennel plant that our caterpillars were living on is MIA. It was in a cup filled with water and it looks like someone just came up and chopped it off at the top of the cup. I went straight to the teacher who gave them to me thinking maybe she was checking on them or borrowing them or something and she busts out laughing. She said that no one took it. The caterpillars ate it all. Being the teacher, I should have researched this more right? I should know what's going on. Well, I can tell you every stage of the life cycle but the care of them seems to be eluding me. She can now see the wheels turning in my brain right before her very eyes as I am trying to figure this out and she is laughing even harder at me..."so where are they?" is the predictable next phrase that comes out of my mouth. She (through her laughter) tells me that she spent quite some time looking for her five caterpillars and she only found three. Just to paint the picture, I am running late. I haven't done half the CRAP I need to do in the morning before picking up my class and now I have to spend every last precious moment scouring my learning cottage for creatures no longer than my pinky finger that blend in with the carpet.

I promptly high tail it back to my cottage and begin the search. I find one immediately crawling up the wall. After that, no luck. I go to get the kids and realize quickly that I am going to have to let them in the loop. As perfect as they are, I got many more reactions from this situation than expected. We found two more caterpillars, which left one on the loose. One girl freaked out and spent the entire day twitching because she thought it was crawling on her. Another girl almost started crying out of fear that someone would step on our missing friend. One of the boys began calling himself the caterpillar investigator and he would yell out frantically if he thought he saw a piece of caterpillar poop (which is the size of a piece of salt). Needless to say, the missing caterpillar never presented itself. We did write stories today titled "The story of the runaway caterpillars" about what the caterpillars did over the weekend as they roamed our classroom. I will share more on that later this week.

Overall, I'm glad the little buggers went on an adventure. It made for a very exciting day!

I take that back

I have to sort of recant my last post. I just took everything out of the bag that I bought to wash it and I got many more cute things than I guess I had realized. I think maybe taking Lila with me, her pooping up the car seat on the way home/sitting in traffic while she screamed because she was hungry tainted the whole experience I had with mega consignment sales. I really got A LOT for $68...it was totally worth it. Next time I will just make Seth go with me and I will go earlier in the sale....can you tell I regret dissing it? I will be going again when one comes along.

Other people's crap

I took the plunge and decided to brave what is considered to be one of the biggest consignment sales in Georgia today. My friend Holly swears by such sales and has basically told me I'm a moron if I buy clothes like the rest of the world at a store. I will say, there is something to be said for paying $2.50 for an outfit instead of $8-$15 due to the inevitable crapfest, barfing, and daily drooling that baby/toddler/little kid clothes endure. However, there is also something to be said for normal clothing racks that don't have duct tape on them and normal hangers that aren't intertwined with one another. I have never been a good rack shopper. This is no different. I did spend $65 for over 20 items which is a record in my book. I still have to wonder if it was worth it. I don't really love anything I bought. It looks like other people's crap to me. Sure it's cute in a faded and dilapidated sort of way. Yes it was way cheap. But the pickens were slim, the children were SCREAMING, and the mommies were borderline psycho. One even stood beside me just watching me until I moved down the rack. I mean if she was looking for a fight over the 6 month girls section of really worn out pajamas I made it clear I was not her girl. I was doing good to be awake, alert, and coherent. I'm not saying I won't hit up another sale if I can, but I was a bit disappointed.

Never enough

There's just never enough time. Never enough time to spend with my child/husband. Never enough time to be the teacher I want to be. Never enough time to play with the dogs who are currently SO love deprived. Never enough time to sleep.

I always believed when I had kids I would be a stay at home mom. I just figured it would work out no matter what. Obviously, that has not been the case. I have a seriously intense new found respect for working mothers. I am going to flat out admit that I have judged them in the past. Women who wanted to climb the corporate ladder while someone else raised their kids kind of unnerved me. That's how I felt until I worked for one of those women. Granted, she worked from home while I nannied for her, but she made me see that you can be the most amazing mom and work at the same time. HOWEVER, I still felt in my heart that staying at home is where I would end up. Now that I am a working mom I am constantly finding myself wishing there was A LOT more time. There's just not enough.

While I'm whining, I also feel like there's never enough money. I am convinced I should be a lottery winner. I would make the smartest, most creative, most intelligent decisions about how to spend 170 million dollars. Seriously, I have a plan just in case it ever happens. I mean, I get that the extremely rural people that usually win need it more than I do. But, don't you think just once the average joe like me should win every once in a blue moon? I do. I know I sound really shallow right now. It's late, I worked until 9 o'clock tonight, I saw Lila for a total of an hour today, and I'm super tired. Sue me if I like to nightdream about winning the lottery, quitting my job, and spending beautiful days at the park with my little one. Someday...

Drive by doggie

A lot of people have been asking how the dogs are doing with LJ. There is a video of Woody coming soon, but the time was right with Molly for this video. I didn't purposely leave him out :-) Watch to the end because that's the best part!

We have a giggle!

Lila and I and a bunch of other girls went to the lake a few weekends ago. It was SO much fun...and this may have been a fleeting moment because the giggles haven't happened since. BUT, I have lots of witnesses to vouch for me that she did in fact laugh. She actually laughed quite a lot. My friend Katie was sitting next to me talking to her and apparently whatever Katie had to say was very funny. The problem is she hasn't done it since. My friend Paige caught the tail end of the laughing on her camera so here is a short clip...you have to turn up your volume and pay very close attention!

I am thankful

I have said this before, but I haven't been convinced that teaching is the best path for me. However, I am now really interested to see how this year goes and what my opinion of myself is going to be at the end of it. I only have 14 students this year which is kind of unheard of in public education. Last year I had 20 and the year before I had 18. Being in a learning cottage doesn't afford a lot of space so even two less kids (or two more for that matter) makes a huge difference. So to have SIX less than last year is like a whole new world. Not to mention, this class seems to be incredibly "mild". I feel like God looked down on me and thought, "this one either needs a really good year to make sure she sticks around or she just needs a really good year so leaving her little one at home is bearable". Either way, I want it to be noted that I am thankful.

Seth has become the nasty kind of sick that gives me nightmares. Sore throat, major congestion, total CRAP feeling kind of sick. Seth never gets sick. It gives me nightmares because when I get that kind of sick it takes an insane amount of time to go away and debilitates me more than I like to admit. I may just not handle it well, but speaking from past experience I am not prepared as a new mommy or as a beginning of the year teacher to catch this nastiness. At any rate, there are two teachers at my school that are recently dealing with breast cancer. This adds to the ever growing list of people I know that live and deal with cancer every day. Aside from this funk Seth has, we are incredibly healthy and for that, I am thankful.

Going back to work has been heartbreaking and overwhelming. I feel like balancing my life now is a job in and of itself. I'm at work and thinking about LJ. I come home and try to spend every minute playing with her/looking at her/talking to her until she goes to bed and yet my mind is swimming with all of the work crap I need to be doing. I also have an amazing sister (and two equally amazing friends, Christine and Crystal, who filled in for Sara this week while she went to Cabo) who is able to make going back to work the absolute best case scenario for me that it could possibly be. For that I AM THANKFUL.

So now that you know how thankful I am I will be going to bed because I am tired :-)

I'm a survivor

Yes we are heading into day three. I have survived the return to the learning cottage. Did I cry? Yes. Did I constantly look at my phone with her picture on it? Yes. Do I feel like the absolute luckiest mother to ever return to work because of my sister? YES. I wish I could afford to pay her an astronomical amount of money for the priceless life she is giving me this year. She brings LJ up to my cottage twice a day for me to feed her and we are hoping that will continue to work when the kids actually show up. I'll keep you posted.

My new school year resolution is to focus on the things I enjoy about my job. If you know me you know that my leap into education has been rocky at best. You also know that making the decision to continue to work and leave mini-Seth at home was TORTUROUS at best. So now that its here I want to feel positive and hopeful about as much of it as possible. Here is my list:

1. I only have 15 students as of now as opposed to 20 last year. LOVE THAT.

2. I hate teaching math. I suck at it. However, I am taking a new direction with math in the hopes that I will learn to like it more. Wish me luck.

3. I feel like being in the learning cottage is isolating and lonely a lot of the time. This year there are two more teachers joining the trailer park. I probably won't work with them much, but it's nice to see more faces.

4. I have hopes and dreams about what I am teaching that I haven't felt strongly about until this year.

While I am embracing this new attitude I reserve the right to become a raving lunatic in the coming weeks.

By the way, if you read this blog please comment. Even if you have nothing to say about what I have been talking about I would love to hear from you!