Sickness and cleanliness...

First of all, thanks to everyone who made such lovely comments on my post yesterday. Your kind words definitely helped to cheer me up! I appreciate the support. 

Today I am in the process of completely scrubbing down the house. All three of my kids are sick with fevers, coughs, runny noses. They are all huddled together on the couch watching movies. One is finally starting to feel better (thanks, antibiotics!), one is feeling bad off and on, and the other, my youngest, is utterly miserable with a high fever. I am off to the store to pick up anything that he thinks he might like (apple juice and ice cream, although I'll probably go with popsicles). 

But the awesome thing is that while I'm at the store, I will still be vacuuming. How, you ask? Because my parents gave me a Roomba for my birthday! Is it so sad that it is one of my favorite presents ever?! While I have been cleaning out closets, doing laundry, giving snuggles to my sickies, the Roomba has been (happily?) motoring around all of the rooms upstairs. It is ridiculous how much I love it. I'm thinking of giving it a name! Now, if they'd only make one that could clean bathrooms, I would be in heaven!

Hopefully, all of the cleaning and the liquids and medicines will help everyone get on the mend. We are on spring break this week, and I definitely want us to be able to do some fun things! 

Off to wage more war against germs and then run out to the store. We are all thinking healthy thoughts here!

Get Chipper...

Get chipper...that's what my mom used to say to me whenever I was being a sullen and surly child...and teenager...and young adult. (What can I say? It took me a while to figure things out!). And that's what I'm telling myself today. I'm frustrated with my job, some of my colleagues, definitely my principal, feeling like I am being crushed by the demands of the varying levels in my classroom, pondering moving to a smaller place so we can try to save some money, depressed about the amazing job that we just found out we didn't get. Ugh. I can't imagine a more depressing entry to read (let alone write!). And I'm trying to figure out how to get chipper. So here are some things that I am going to try doing over the next few months:

1. Try a yoga class. I have been wanting to do this for a while, and I think I need to do a little something just for me.
2. Get back on my lose it app. Doing so well, but have been stress eating lately. Need some self-discipline.
3. Get outside more. Am taking the kids hiking this week during spring break on various trails around our area.
4. Ok, I think I better just stick with 3 right now. Then maybe I'll have a chance of actually doing some of these things!

Hopefully, these 3 things will help me start to get chipper, which will help me be a better wife and mother as well. And maybe a martini or two also...

A poem for my daughter...

Ok, so I don't know what's come over me since I started the slice of life challenge in March, but I've been doing things I never thought I would--like write poetry.  My daughter's birthday is in a few days and I tried out a poem I may give to her. I don't know--I find it hard to decide on my own writing sometimes...

Before you were born

Daddy and I tried out

so many

names.

Olivia

Hannah

Libby

But none were quite right.

Then we thought of

a new one, a

different one.

Jillian.

We tried it out,

we thought of

nicknames

(Jill, Jilly, Jillybean,

Bean, Beanie, The Bean).

We liked them all

(Daddy’s favorite

is Jillifer).

We couldn’t wait

to meet you.

And then it was time.

Even though there

was sadness

for Papa Frank,

there was also

joy.

And there still is.

There are many

ways you add

joy

to our lives.

When you make

the crazy face

that makes

Aunt Bethy laugh.

When you play

Pokemon battle

with Ben and Dan,

and then

go off

to shoot baskets.

The way you started

a new school

fearlessly, openly

making friends

everywhere.

But most of all,

the way

you ask me to

snuggle

and

give you

a guardian kiss,

guardian thought,

and guardian

kissy-kiss

at night.

Because you are

my one and only

nine-year old

girl.

The sun'll come out...

So, we went to see Annie, Jr. today as a second grade field trip. So much fun, and the production was terrific. But then we got back to school, and several of the parent chaperones unloaded on me about not being able to wait in the commons to leave in the morning (because it was state testing) and about having to watch 4 (!) kids for 10 minutes when we got back (because they had left early and we had to wait to make sure that everyone was accounted for in their cars). And then I just feel like I've been trying to work with my class all year to be kind and respectful to each other, and it just feels like we haven't gotten anywhere, and then seeing the parents this morning made me feel like I understand why, but the upshot is that I am very discouraged today.

I feel like we should be in that time of the year where we are able to enjoy each other and the things we're doing more but instead, I feel like I'm still in the first six weeks of school and have been all year.

I don't think it helped that we came back and had to eat lunch in our rooms because we'd missed lunch in the cafeteria and we had to eat almost silently because testing was almost finished but not quite and we'd missed all of our specials for the day so I had to grab a passing teacher just to run down and grab my lunch and take a quick bathroom break before having everyone for almost four more hours!

Oh, woe is me! Ok, I do really have some perspective on this, and know that things could be worse. So, I am going to try and take to heart the words from the inimitable Annie's theme song, "Tomorrow," have a martini, and call it a night.

After all, it is only a day away.

How do I feel stressed? Let me count the ways...

Yikes! I almost didn't post tonight. Ruth and Stacey, from Two Writing Teachers, are taking the week off, and so I almost forgot to write tonight. I was hoping that it wouldn't get so crazy that I put off the writing, because I'm already lamenting not being able to make myself write every night. So, even though I was about to go to bed, because I went in early this morning (6:15) and I need to go in early again tomorrow (my son needs help with something but forgot to bring it home (argh!), I decided to sit down and write. Instead of going upstairs, lying in bed...and then letting my mind race with all of the things I need to do in the next 6 weeks of school...fractions2PYPunitsofstudy(yes, we're behind)readingassessmentspoetryunitfieldtrips2ofmychildren's birthdaysmyoldest'sfirstfencingtournament (out of town)...ack! Ok, I need to take a deep breath already.

Anyway, I am rereading Georgia Heard's For the Good of the Earth and Sun on teaching poetry, and every time I read it, I feel this lovely sense of calm and serenity. I think I want to be her, or at least be near her--maybe her calmness could waft over me and bring my mind-racing, anxiety-fueled persona back down to a normal range. On the other hand, at this time of the year, I'm not sure anything can do that!

Hopefully, after having had my anxiety attack already over all the things that need to be done, I can just go upstairs, lie in bed...and fall asleep.

Beach house memories...

Some of my fondest memories are of my family's old beach house. My mom would get everything ready and the car packed, so that when my dad came home from work around 8:00, we could hop in the car and get going. There was a cot laid in the back seat with 2 legs folded down and 2 on the floor and this crazy patchwork pillow that we used just for car trips for my sister and me. We'd start driving in the twilight, listening to the murmur of my parents' conversation and the strains of "Me and My Bobby Magee" on the 8-track. At some point, several hours later, I would wake up because there was a new smell in the car--the windows would be open and the salty air would wind itself in and around the seats and just barely ruffle my hair.

We were usually the last to arrive on a Friday night, and my grandparents and my aunts and uncles would be sitting up on the screened in front porch, waiting for my parents to carry us up, half-asleep, to the dorm room with the other cousins.

My favorite part was at night, when all of us kids had gone to bed. We slept in the dorm room, with four beds and two trundles pulled out, under posters of surfer girls in Hawaii, and, inexplicably, a poster of a ship sinking with the exhortation "Loose lips sink ships." We would climb into bed, our sheets always slightly damp from the humidity, always a little sandy, no matter how often you would try to brush off your feet before getting in, and talk and joke and giggle in the darkness, until a parent would come in and say that NOW we really had to go to sleep.

Then I would turn my head to the window, looking for the red light at the top of the water tower, listening to the sound of the waves rolling in, and to the adults--having taken over the screened in porch with a glass of wine or a martini, the red glow of someone's cigar, and their quiet conversation punctuated with sharp bursts of laughter, quickly smothered.

We have a new beach house now, much bigger and prettier and comfortable than the old. But I'd go back to the old house in a second if it also meant being able to count on having the whole family together again.

Not your typical Tuesday...

Well, I wrote about my first tornado watch in Texas a few weeks ago, but since it is still so new to me, I'm writing about it again after today. During a meeting today, I asked my PYP coordinator if we had a new tornado plan (the school has grown, so apparently the old places to shelter during a possible tornado had to be moved around). She said she would check.

Well, wouldn't you know, we were under a tornado watch later in the afternoon. Then, around 2:15 or so, she came to me with the message, "Here is where your class goes if there is a tornado, and you should go there now."

What?! Right now? This instant, now?!

I know I felt a little wild inside, but I turned to the class and quietly told them to get in line and follow me. Then, I led my rowdy bunch of 20 second graders into...yes, the bathroom in the faculty lounge. We crowded into the space and then were joined by about 6 first graders.

At first, everyone was quiet as they worried a bit about whether we would actually get a tornado. Then, the silence was punctuated by some nervous giggles, a few tears (from the more drama-oriented girls in class), and some surprised yelps as the toilet flushed several times (it has an automatic sensor and flushed whenever someone moved). Of course, one student did scootch through everyone to tell me that she had to go to the bathroom--there's the power of suggestion!

As we waited, and waited for the all-clear, my little ones began to get restless. So we entertained ourselves with some math guessing games and a rousing rendition of "The Little Rooster and the Turkish Sultan."

Just as I was starting to feel lightheaded? dehydrated? from all of the hot air in the bathroom, the principal poked his head in and said everything was safe.

I'm glad everything turned out fine for us today. But I am thinking about others who lost their homes and businesses around our area. Tornadoes scare me because of their capriciousness--the destruction is so random.

Welcome to Texas, everyone is saying to me. Hmmm...I prefer my welcomes with a little more champagne and a little less worry about death and destruction.