wow. tired.

nine days down. one hundred seventy-one to go. i think.

i am pooped. for the first time, EVER, i don't wanna teach. at all. i wanna stay home with my little boy. (the big one is testing our patience and his boundaries quite a bit right now... he's for sale... cheap. any takers? :) j/k).

it's not like Owen is keeping me up at night. it's the type of students we have this year. they are sweet... but they demand so much of our attention and time. i am worn out at the end of the day.

and yet... at the end of the day, i am still needed at home for playing with heroes and bad guys and teaching during those MANY teachable moments to mr. blondie; snuggling and nursing and giggling and cooing at mr. blue eyes; coming up with, making, cleaning, and serving dinner; thinking about needing to be intimate with my mate (sorry if tmi - don't wanna do that, either... who has the time/energy?!); AND, being the lving ear/shoulder for my seester and dad since they are both lonely. (jeff officially jumped the pond to go to iraq, yesterday. four or more months alone for seester, in lost wages - i mean las vegas.)

also, i hate being on the bottom of the blog-roll. so, if i have time - when not sleeping or loving on my boys - i WILL keep it better updated. i have pictures. i plan to share them with you this weekend. but, for now. it's time for bed. two small foster boys must be tucked in.

so... this tired-old-sock feeling... is it going to go away soon? will i be able to WANT to teach again? will i ever use capital letters appropriately in this blog? i suppose only time will tell. g'night.

Monumental Moments

This weekend of rest was much needed and greatly appreciated. While I didn't get ANY thing done, I had a great time with our boys.

So, what was so monumental this weekend?

1. I made (for the first time ever) eggs over medium for Caleb. Who, we recently discovered, LOVES eggs made that way.
2. Caleb had a record number of, shall we say, three-year-old moments. These were each followed by discussions and timeouts, and an occasional spanking, followed again by more discussions. Fun. NOT.
3. Caleb has been asking to wear underwear to sleep in, at night. After a week of dry pull ups, I agreed... but ONLY if he slept IN his bed. He's been sleeping on his floor on a quilt for ... a while (his choice). He finally agreed, and slept through the night. In his bed. In his underwear. DRY! YEAH!!! side note: this was, unfortunately, followed by a very wet nap on Saturday and Sunday. He has since chosen to go back to the floor and pull ups. Oh well... no pressure. He'll do it when he's good and ready. RIGHT?!
4. Owen has slept through the night for over a week! I nurse him between 9 and 10:30 and out he goes. On Saturday this sleeping through the night lasted until 8 o'clock! OMG! YESSS!
5. Owen was having a cow a bit earlier this evening. He finally calmed down and kicked and cooed on my bed... "talking" to the ceiling fan and light fixture. I just checked on him... he's out. YESSS!
6. Owen actually laughed. A real, I think this is a funny thing, laugh on Friday night. He has repeated this performance for various people and for a myriad of reasons. Needless to say, I cried. He's growing up too fast.
7. Owen now weighs in at 12 pounds, 11 ounces. What a porker!
8. Owen rolled over several times from tummy to back this weekend. It's awesome. Too bad he has to get mad at tummy time to do it. Hee-hee.

That about wraps up this episode of Monumental Moments. We now take you back to your regularly scheduled program. (That would be called sleep.) Have a great four day work-week!

$25,000

One day down...too many more to count, to go.

I had a pretty good day that ended with a horrible headache at 4:30... it's still lingering.

I had 136 sixth graders grace my classroom. Let me just say that the first class of the day was big... gigantic, even. 32 desks + 31 chairs +34 kids = some peoples gotta sit on the floor. Oh well.

This is my 10th year of "experience." I've never before had a kid like ... um, I'll call him A. A is autistic. The really, really, noise-cancelling-headphone-wearing autistic kind. I don't know how to act or react to him. My co-teacher was out today, cooling fires (read: first day of school and a student who belongs in a behavior unit decided to run away... from school). So, here I am trying to figure out what to do with A. He says things like, "A has a rumbling in his tumbling." or, "A is never getting to go home." Then, "You've just won twenty-five THOUSAND dollars!" This is followed by his rendition of canned laughter, plus the circular "Round-of-applause." All this is going on, and I don't know if I should tell him to stop, or ignore the behavior. I was so mumfumbled that I have no idea what I said to the other 20 kids in the class. I lost what I needed to do, or had already done, and was left with 20 minutes or so to just look at the kids and say, "I am sorry. I know I've forgotten something, but I just can't remember what that might be."

To say I experienced frustration is a bit of an understatement. I felt like a first year teacher, all over again. So, I guess I am asking for a bit of prayer. I want to treat this child with the respect he deserves while adding value to his life. Plus, I don't want to abandon the other students that are expecting great things out of this "experienced" teacher. I desire success for them, too. Hmmmmm... more experiences from the game-show student will follow... I'm sure of it.

By the way... I REALLY did have a good day. I was just lost for an hour.

Just basically a gripe-fest

School starts on Monday. Yuck. Yuck. Double YUCK.

Leaving my three and a half year-old is one thing, but my almost 3 month old...

I'm having a much harder time leaving Owen than I did Caleb. It's the same lady/friend... but Caleb was 6 months old; Owen, as I said, just not quite 3 months. I feel like I am abandoning him, and like I will miss EVERYTHING.

Plus, I don't feel "into" it this year... yet. I pray that "IT" comes to me, soon. I don't think that it helped much that I could NOT get to work in my room until pretty much TODAY. Yes, today... mark it: Saturday. I was there at 8:50, both boys in tow. Stayed until 5:15-ish. Dad picked up Caleb at 1; Brant picked up Owen at 4. But, now my room is ready, cute, and colorful. I was dumping a box (that just had to be organized) all over my desk, when the principal called over the intercom saying that it was time to leave. So I had to leave the mess, unorganized, all over my desk. I may go back tomorrow to fix that mess... I don't think I want that hanging over my head, first thing on Monday morning.

So, why did I wait until Saturday to do my room? you may ask. Well... it's this crazy thing called being a teacher technologist. Everyone expects you to fix their technology, train them on technology, set up new technology, show them how to use new technology or the NEW copiers (which I have NOT been trained on... I just push buttons until I figure it out), and do it all RIGHT NOW. Between that and my social self, I could not get to my room until late yesterday afternoon... then I had to stop at 2:45 to get my hair done. It's cute, by the way. I'll try to take a picture tomorrow and post it.

Anywho. I must go feed and snuggle with my little man... and sing a song to Caleb, who is STILL awake, playing with his "guys."

**** edited to say that Caleb playing with his "guys" is not a nasty thing, as I just re-read it to read. It's his action figures. He just calls them all his guys. oops. ****

G'night... and sorry about the complain-fest.

Sweet and Not-So-Sweet

A sweet moment I want to remember from this morning is nursing Owen while laying in bed on my side. He looks directly at me and gives me a tiny half-smile while "going to town" as he's prone to do. He eats like a champ gives small sounds of pleasure that tell me, "this is good, Momma. Thank you!" I love to nurse him in this position.

And not-so-sweet is directly AFTER nursing him. I am still in my night-nursing bra (think: the most comfortable sports bra with nursing slits, ever! No sarcasm needed...it's truly comfy.). I turn Owen over, onto my chest to burp him. He smiles (I think at his Daddy, who is getting ready for work), and then.... UUUUUUUUUURP! He, Owen - not Daddy, lets out a gigantic burp, quickly followed by what I think is at least half of what he consumed. It runs down my night bra, across my chest, down the cleavage, and begins pooling in the pit below my neck before I can move to grab ANYTHING to clean up the mess. NICE. Um, shower, anyone?

At least I wasn't fully dressed for school... this time. :)

As promised

I guess this is better late than never. Here is Owen's two month picture.

Our adventure in the park yesterday was a wet one. See?

And here is one of Owen in the cute outfit that my BF's mom got him. She said she thought of him when she saw this onezie after she heard about his "sprinkler system" being in full function at the hospital nursery.

And some from today. I don't know if you can see it in the mirror, but Caleb got Owen to laughing so hard. It was awesome! My boys are such beautiful gifts! Enjoy!

Awesome

In my blog reading this morning, I came across this. It was exactly what I needed this morning. Enjoy.

Park Playdate

Today, Saturday the 16th.
10:30 am.
Unidad Park
It's beautiful this morning with a chance of rain this afternoon...maybe we'll see you there.

..................

Edited... Um, we got to the park for our quick, impromptu play time... only to make one lap around the sidewalk, followed by torrential downpour. So, alas... my last minute thing turned out to be a total (wait for it)... wash.

Thanks, anywho.

Caught Him!

So... I was in the computer room, checking blogs. Owen was passed out in my arms. I finish catching up...trying desperately to think of something blog-worthy, to no avail. I decided to go check on Caleb. It was far too quiet in our house. I rounded the corner, camera in hand... (okay, so it was a re-staging, but, the humor is still there in the redo) ... and caught this.

When asked, Caleb said he was pumping. Duh!

Maybe I shouldn't be so open, with my big baby?! Oh well...could use this as blackmail later. The future girlfriends will Love it.

My eyes

The computer is making my eyes want to fall out. And my shoulders want to knot all up. I worked on the school's website for MANY hours