Matthew's View of the Election

On the way back from the Mall of Georgia tonight (where we went trick or treating, yes, pictures are coming soon), Matthew and Nathan started talking about the election. This last week, each grade level has been going to the library to vote for the President. So, Matthew announces to Nathan (and me) that he voted for Barack Obama. He then proceeds to tell us that he voted for Barack Obama because he likes all kinds of people, and the other guy doesn't. I asked him how he knew so much about the election, and he told me that his teacher has been teaching them about the election. (I think she's been a little more non-partisan than that. I think he's picking up the rest of his info on the playground.) So, he made sure to tell both Nathan and I that we have to vote for Barack Obama so that he can become the next president.

My dad will be so proud! :-)

There's a Reason They're Called Bird Brains

As a working mom, I can do it all! After making dinner this evening, cleaning it up, cleaning the kitchen, and bathing two boys, I also had the energy to chase a bird out of my house. Yes, that's right, my adventures with nature continues with a bird. I opened the back door to close the garage door, and in flew a bird. Of course, I had the typical calm reaction of shrieking. Matthew yelled, "There's a bird in the house!" and since Nathan was in the tub, he immediately began freaking out. The only one who was excited by the event was the cat. This was the most perky I'd seen her in ages. I tried to leave the back door open, thinking that the bird would smell the fresh air of nature, and fly out, but no luck. After chasing it around the house for a while, I decided to get a broom. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with it, but I figured having something was going to help.

Matthew and I proceeded to chase this crazy bird around the house for at least 20 minutes. I got a couple of good swats to the bird. I wasn't trying to kill it, but I figured if I could stun it a little bit, I'd be able to push it along the floor back out into the garage. All I suceeded in doing was knocking a few feathers off of it. Of course, poor Andrew's trying to drink his bottle through all this, and I think all of our running around and yelling was beginning to freak him out, so he started crying. Since he was done with his bottle, the poor child just got dumped unceremoniously in his bed. Unfortunately, by the time I got back into the living room, the bird had vanished. Now, I can't find this bird, and Nathan's still flipping out in the bathroom. I quickly got Nathan out of the tub, and went back to look for God's beautiful creature. I finally found it underneath our hutch. Once again, the chase ensued. My goal was to get a bucket over it, then I planned to get it out the door. But the bird didn't exactly follow the directions. Now, Nathan's in the family room and shrieking every time the bird flies by him, I'm getting hot and sweaty chasing after this darn thing, and I think Matthew's beginning to think we have a new pet. And the cat? Well, she knew she was too old and slow to catch it, so she decided that spectating was her best bet. Unbelievably, the bird got behind the back door, and scooted between the door and the wall to go back out into the garage. I don't think Nathan truly believed me that the bird was finally gone, but thankfully it was. All that was left for me was to clean up the feathers it left behind. At least Matthew and Nathan have something to write about during Writer's Workshop tomorrow.

So far, I've faced a frog, a giant roach, and a bird as well as all of the various insects and spiders I've killed since we've moved. I love nature.

I Have a Great Church

It's 11:30, and I am watching our church service live over the internet. How awesome is that?

By the way, the website is http://www.gracefellowshipchurch.com/GraceVideo_live.aspx .

Staying Home with a Sick Baby

It's a Sunday morning, and for the first time in about six months I'm staying home. Andrew has caught the cold that I've been fighting the whole week, and now he has green goop coming out of his nose. Plus, he's very fussy. I put him down for a nap about a half hour ago, and he has fussed off and on the whole time. It looks like he's starting to quiet down, so I hope he can get a good nap in. I hate that there's nothing I can give him to help his stuffy nose. I've never been one who gave my kids a lot of medicine, but when they did have colds, I would give them some cold medicine before bed to help them sleep. Unfortunately, since there are people in the world who don't know how to read dosage instructions, there is no more cold medicine for babies. Isn't that lovely?

Don't you like that I made the text color the same color as what's coming out of Andrew's nose? Hey, if I have to suffer, everyone else in cyberspace does too! :-)

Six Months Ago

I was watching Andrew drink his bottle today, and I realized that it's been six months since his surgery. It's hard to believe that six months ago, we were here:

And now we are here:

It's truly amazing. Looking at him now, you would not even know that he had major surgery on his skull.

Here are some other pictures of my crazy, wonderful children. Enjoy!

Can You Believe It?

Driving home from school today, I saw gas for sale for $2.99 a gallon. I thought I'd never live to see the day. Two weeks ago, I paid $4.29 a gallon when we were still in the middle of our "gas shortage". I've heard it could be below $2.00 by Thanksgiving, but I'll believe that when I see it.

Amazing.

(BTW, I did not actually stop and take a picture, though I might if it gets below $2! This is from photobucket.)

There are Days. . .

when I'm so glad that my friend, Shelley, introduced me to Babywise seven years ago. For those of you who don't know, Babywise was written by Gary Ezzo, who, I've discovered, is one of the most hated men on the internet. Whatever. All I know is that it has made our lives with babies wonderful. While none of my kids have ever acted exactly the way it was written in the book, it always gave me a plan and a goal that I wanted to get to. Both Matthew and Andrew struggled with naps, and Nathan fought falling asleep at night, but by the time each of them were four months old, we were cruising along pretty good with all of them sleeping through the night and napping well.

Which brings me to this week. Andrew was up last Saturday night for about an hour and a half in the middle of the night. I still don't have any idea what his problem was. All I know was that he was wailing. So, guess who got to stay up with him? That's right, yours truly. Needless to say, I was exhausted last week at church. After we got home and ate lunch, it was wonderful to be able to put him down and have him fall asleep quickly. (Then I could take a nap too!) Then, yesterday, I was working on cleaning some stuff up in our bedroom when I discovered that he had crawled away and was sitting in his room playing with his toys. (And pulling stuff blankets out of the bottom of his changing table too, but oh well.) I just love that while he loves to cuddle and be held, he also is able to entertain himself for a period of time. I don't worry when I leave him with a babysitter or at the nursery at church, because, while he may fuss when I leave him off, he is able to separate himself from me, and then when we reunite, he knows I'm always coming back. Plus, I get compliments every week on what a happy baby I have. (And that makes me feel good. Yes, I am a shallow person. :-) )

Frustration

There are days when I truly wonder if I'm getting through to my kids at school. This week was a collection of those days. This group has been a challenge from the first day, but this week showed me just how far I have to go. Gwinnett County has instituted an instructional calendar that we all have to follow. While it's been a pain to stick to the calendar, especially in math where we have to move on sometimes even when I don't want to, it helps me stay focused on my instruction. In addition, we are giving Benchmark tests this year. We gave a pretest at the beginning of the year, and this week, we gave a test that covered the skills that I taught the first nine weeks in Language Arts and Math. While I would love to say that all of my kids did wonderfully, I can't. Actually, many of them scored very poorly, some even below 50%. It was extremely frustrating to see that. I feel like everyday is a fight with these kids. I have so many who struggle with school, plus I have ones who don't struggle, but also don't care, so their only goal is to fool around. So I'm spending most of my time with behavior correction and not very much of my time teaching. Plus, I get the feeling that no one has ever asked these kids to think beyond the obvious. Whenever I ask them a question where the answer is not so obvious, they struggle. They also have a very bad habit of raising their hands to answer without even thinking. I've even had kids raise their hands to answer a question that I haven't even asked! They also have a hard time retaining knowledge. We spent one day in math this past week working on rounding numbers. We used number lines, we talked about the tens that "sandwich" a number, we did numerous examples together and independently. So, the next day, I gave them 5 numbers and asked them to round them. There were only about 5 kids out of 20 who even had the smallest idea of how to get started. Most of them just sat there and waited for someone to give them the answer. They've had so much given to them, they just expect it. If they need to work to get something, there's just no reason for them to try. I've also had times where we will do a worksheet together, and I will give them the answers as we are working through the sheet. Unfortunately, when it comes time to grade it, I'll have kids getting 60 or 70 percent because they weren't even paying attention. I've tried really hard to plan lessons that get them engaged and interested, and they struggle with that as well. I've just got to keep plugging away. Hopefully, for the ones that are behind, their parents will see that it can't all be done at school, and they need to work at home as well. I sent home the Benchmark scores today, and I'm expecting alot of notes when we get back to school on Tuesday. (Monday is a work day to get report cards done.)

On a happier note, Matthew took the Benchmark tests this week in first grade, and I got his scores today. While I may not have succeeded as a teacher this grading period, I did as a parent. He got 100% on both the Language Arts and the Math. My kid rocks!