Today's top 4 amusements

1. "The Pink Eye"

Lately, we've had the eye goop going around the classroom. It was so bad that we opened late one day to disinfect the room, and so that staff members could all get eye drops. So the five year olds were very concerned about this--"what is the pink eye?" "do the eye drops hurt?" "can we watch you put your eye drops in?" "if you don't spray this table, will we get the pink eye?" And so on and so forth. They all called it "the pink eye", kind of like "the gout" or "the clap", but different.

2. The new pencil sharpener

Our electric one bit the dust, so we went old school industrial--one of the mounted on the wall monsters that would sharpen steel into a finely chiseled point. Now, picture 10 children lined up, quietly and patiently, waiting to sharpen any pencil they could find. Now, picture this line never getting any shorter--they stood in line ALL DAY to do this. Oh to get such pleasure from such a mundane task.

3. The new faucet

The old one leaked, so a new one was installed. Imagine a line (like the pencil sharpener line, but without the pencils) to a child sized sink, with children holding whatever work would need water. And the pouring, and the refilling, and the pouring, and the refilling....it goes on and on....

4. Reading "Little House on the Prairie" aloud

Love that series, and read this one and "The Little House in the Big Woods" every year. I love how involved they get in the story, and how much they like the characters. Friday I got to read the chapters where Jack (the brindled bulldog) gets swept down the river,and is thought to have drowned. And then, I read the next chapter when he was found. Love their excitement when they figured out that it wasn't a wolf approaching camp, but Jack! Seriously wide eyes, like Christmas morning wide eyes of surprise.

Spontaneous generation

We've decided to sell our townhouse this week--thinking that eventually, when the stork arrives, we'll need more room than our 2 BR townhouse has to offer. So we've started Operation Clear-the- Crap. What we discovered in our garage alone has been astounding. The concept of spontaneous generation fascinated me as a kid in science class--how could anyone think that matter could just "appear"?!??! After spending yesterday in the garage, I'm convinced either that was happening all winter long or our neighbors have been stashing their stuff into our space--how else could things have gotten sooo bad?

1. Can't ever remember buying a pack of pens since moving into this house 3 years ago. Yet, yesterday we collected oh, about 50 of them, in the garage alone!

2. Don't ever remember buying any screwdrivers except for the two that came in the tool case...and yesterday we found about 10 of them in the garage.

3. We've collected enough National Geographics to open an archive altar.

4.Windshield wiper fluid--who knew we have 5 half-used bottles scattered around. Not I, or I wouldn't have bought another one last week. 1/2 used bottles of Windex and 1/2 used rolls of paper towels also abound.

5. Cell phones. Sure, before L landed his job with Orange, we switched a few times. But 5 discarded cell phones and accessories??

So, once again, we demonstrate our how our land of opportunity has turned into a breeding ground for excess.

Did I mentione that the garage is just a one-car? And that until we started this project, I was parking in it every night??

Why My Parents Rock

Ok, so I'm old enough to appreciate the 'rents, probably because I'm a prospective parent myself. My youngest brother, however, is not in the same place. To put it exactly, he's still at home, in his childhood room, thinking that it's say, 1998. No need to delve into too many details, let's just say my parents are thrilled that he's holding down a part-time job and, uh..well,I guess they are happy with the job thing.

Anyway, this weekend they planned on going out of town. Like a month ago, and made reservations and everything. Part of their little road trip was to pay me and L a visit for lunch on their way home. Now they've left their quasi-adult son home before, and while the house has always been standing, it creeps them out. So this time they pulled a fast one. They told us about it as they treated us to a very yummy lunch.

They told him they were going out for a picnic on Friday to celebrate Dad's b-day and they wouldn't be back till after he left for his gig (of course, he's in a band). At about 9pm that evening, they call and leave a message, saying that they are having such a good time that they decided to spend the night and that they'd see him Saturday afternoon!!! In their follow-up phone call Saturday morning, Bro admits that he didn't realize they weren't home until that morning anyway.

Saturday night, they call again, once he's left for that night's gig, and again, leave a message saying that they'd see him sometime on Sunday.....

After laguhing hysterically, I ask the question, " So he was playing all weekend-did he work at all?" Ah, yes, that brings up a good point--Bro requested off all weekend because of said gigs and was scheduled to work a 4 hours shift on Tuesday. Hmmm....hate to point it out, but I don't think he's leaving the nest anytime soon!!!

Disfunction junction, anyone???

ADD or just early childhood?

Today I was rented by two short friends to take them to the zoo. It was truely big fun--really well behaved, non-whiny kids are quite enjoyable!!! Here's the conversation we had on our way to the zoo:

friend one: "Oh look! It's a truck with a wadder on it!"
friend two: " I wish we had a ladder on our car"
friend one: "Yes! Den we could cwimb on it! What's dose boxes--da red one, da green one, da black one, da odder green one?"
me: "Those are newspaper boxes"
friend two: "How do the newspapers get there?"
friend one: " I like reindeer statues"
me: "The newspapers start at the newspaper building and then people put them in trucks"
friend one: "Could we take a bus to the zoo?"
me: " and they drive the trucks around bringing the newspapers to boxes and people's houses very early in the morning"
friend two: "while we are still sleeping and it's dark?"
me: "Yes"
friend two: "My grandma gets up when it's still dark and we are sleeping. That's crazy"
friend one: "Grammy took us to see the dinosaurs. I slweep when it's dark out"
friend two: " That's crazy to get up when it's night time"
friend one: "I like the dinosaurs. Are there brown bears at the zoo?"

We did have soooo much fun today!! They had their first push ups (friend two: "why is there a straw at the bottom of the ice cream??"), wanted to know where the zebras went when it rained, and tried their darnedest to get the lion to roar by roaring at it. They wanted to know what the polar bear would look like without fur and what would the walrus say to us if it could talk.

Oh to be 5 again!!

For the Love of Cell Phones

I will be the first to admit it--I love my cell phone. LOVE it. Like can't leave the house without, check it religiously for TM's from L or VM's from the rest of the world who may have called. Love taking pics with it, love getting frequent updates from L (also addicted in a serious way, to the point of a TextAmerica photoblog), love having accessories and love having assorted ringtones. LOVE it. But I am, however, aware that it is not a Dr.'s pager, a Policeperson's dispatch radio, nor is it the Fire Chef's main lifeline. I.E, there are times and places for appropriate usage. Apparently, this ettiquitte is lost on most of the modern world. Let me be more blunt: A preschool classroom and parent teacher conferences are not places for usage.

How would this even come up? You ask...

Three scenarios that came up just last week, indicating that

a) we live a tactless society

b) it was really time for Spring Break

Scenario one:

An aunt of a student comes at the wrong time to pick up said student at a completely bad time, i.e. the child is in the middle of lunch. Come before lunch starts, come once he's done eating, don't come while he's eating yogurt. Can't really pack it up to go, can't encourage him to just throw it away and move on, so we invite said aunt to come in and join us (28 goslings, me, and an assistant) in lunch time fun. She comes in, wearing a lovely black t-shirt which reads "STATE PRISON" on the front, which would be OK except that many of my goslings can read. And then I notice, growing out of her ear, is a very conspicuos headpiece for her cellphone. Now she's not talking to anyone, apparently she's just wearing it "just in case". Maybe OK in your car, maybe OK if you're out and about, not really in once place or operating heavy equipment, but hanging out with your nephew? Thankfully, the State Prison didn't call looking for her while she was in the classroom. Although tacky, non-disruptive. Which leads me to:

Scenario two:

Parent teacher conferences. About 1 in 4 conferences (there are 4 per hour, for well, a total of seven hours) had a miscellenous electronic device sound off in the middle of me telling them how great little Johnny is doing. Most were extremely apologetic and immediately hit whatever button it took to silence the damn thing, and moved on to continuing our discussion. A few glanced to see who was calling. ONE PERSON ACTUALLY TOOK THE FREAKING PHONE CALL. Yes, in the middle of a discussion with me, the revered teacher that I am, she stopped listening and had a conversation for several minutes.

And they blame me for lack of parent/teacher communication.

Scenario three:

In my little schoolhouse, parents and esteemed guests are welcome to observe the goslings in the classroom. The general deal is that they are welcome to sit quietly and watch the worker bees go to it. They aren't supposed to interact w/ the kiddos too much or draw attention to themselves, but they are welcome to move to wherever their student is working and check out what's going on. People are generally pretty good about this. Haven't had anyone be too disruptive. Til last week. All 28 kids are actually productively working on assorted things, there's a buzz of activity, but no actual crying, yelling, honking off (as goslings are learning to do this) or carousing. Then our observer's (a grandparent) cell phone, set on loud, starts off in a stunning rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". And of course, it takes a few seconds for the music to stop. To their credit, the kiddos were unphased. I was annoyed, but thinking, eh, it happens. Then Grandpa starts talking--loudly. In the middle of the classroom. On the phone. And I think, "hmm, this is a new one. Surely it will be a short conversation. I'll have to motion to him to leave if it goes on too long." Thankfully, it was a short conversation and I was glad that confrontation was avoided. Then he starts dialing and talking loudly again!! So I then motion him, ever so politely as to not interrupt his conversation, to get the hell out of my classroom.

When did this become acceptable behavior?!?!? When did the person calling you become more important than the person you're actually speaking to in person or the activity you are participating in?? Makes me crazy, abosultely crazy.

It's only been 4 months or so...

Ok, I'll admit it--when I discovered the wonderous world of blogging, I was smitten. And I was astounded at how many dead blogs there were--how could someone start such a great thing and then just let it go!?!?!

Then, suddenly, my winter break was over, I went back to my 2 jobs, decided to join a friend in a business venture, recommitted myself to a work out regimen, and well, here it is four months later. But a good dose of insomnia and Spring Break is apparently all I need to log on. And boy was I glad that I was able to remember my bleeping user name and password!!

So here it is, 3am, and while I'm not lonely, I have a 1000 thoughts running through my head and need to get it out somewhere. And let's face it--at this point, typing is SO much faster than writing.

Here it goes.......