Life Lately

We've settled into our routine now, and routine is good.

A few weekends ago the four of us went to Como Zoo/Town for probably the last time this year. Colin had a blast going on the "big rides" with Kevin. My body just can't take those anymore. I went on the Tilt-a-Whirl earlier this summer with Colin and almost threw up. No bueno, because I love rides. Ben rode on the rides that go around in a circle, and I hopped on the train with him.

We also attended Josie's baptism. Benny loves baby "Doe-Dee," and he got his turn to hold her and give her a bottle.

I had a pretty stressful week last week. Kevin was working up north Tuesday through Friday. There was some work drama involving hiring a kindergarten teacher (like, now) and moving either me or a third grade teacher out of the hallway we're currently in. Long story short, I'm not moving--the other teacher is, but oy. There was stress involved there.

This past weekend, we met up with my family in Red Wing at a park to play and eat lunch. My grandma is visiting from Tucson so we had fun spending time with her. She gave Ben (and, as a result, Colin) a "Bug Vac" that sucks up bugs so they can study them. They've been having a blast with it, although bugs in general are pretty sparse this time of year.

Colin is loving school. Every day he comes home with a new song he learned. He illustrated (colored) a book called "Do You Know Clifford?" and he reads the book to us with pride. My teacher heart goes pitter-patter when I see his little finger out tracking the words and "reading" them.

Ben is still silly Ben. He's for sure going to be the comedian of the family. He knows a lot of single words, even uncommon ones like ladder and window. He's still not putting words together. Sometimes he'll say 2 or 3 words in a row that "go" together, but not very often. He'll get there.

My Explorer's battery and alternator died today. I got to daycare and left it running. When I got back, the battery light was on so I turned the engine off and couldn't get it started again. Neither I nor Sandy had jumper cables. I called Kevin who told me to turn off the remote start. I did, and I got my car to start, so I drove to work. When I got about halfway between Sandy's and school, my radio died, my airbag light turn on, and all of my dashboard gauges when to 0. I pretty much coasted to school, my car lurching up the hills. Kevin came to school this afternoon to fix it. When I left (early, just in case!), I was able to start my car, but again, halfway to Sandy's the same thing happened. I was able to coast juuuust past the train tracks (thank GOD because they're still in use multiple times a day), where I called Kevin and waited. He jumped my battery, and we went to Sandy's, but then the battery was dead, dead, dead. I got to drive Kevin's beast of a work van home to make it back in time for piano lessons, while Janelle drove to Sandy's to pick up Kevin and the boys. While I was teaching piano, Kevin and his dad were able to get an alternator and a battery and install it in Sandy's driveway and Kevin drove the Explorer back home. Such a fiasco. Murphy is totally at play here since the Explorer will be paid off in TWO DAYS! :)

Busy Busy Busy

These next 2 weeks can be over, like, now. Here's a rundown of the events to come:

Tuesday: A student observer from UWRF is coming to my classroom, and make up piano lessons in the evening.
Wednesday: standardized test for my 1st graders, meeting after school, Ben's 10 monthday
Thursday: Parent-Teacher conferences until 7:30 pm
Friday: Vault Denim Party at a co-workers house
Saturday: Cleaning marathon in preparation for an introductory session for some prospective piano students

Sunday: Playing piano in church. yikes! Especially considering look at how much time I have to practice!
Monday: Nothing!!
Tuesday: Student observer, make up piano lessons
Wednesday: make up piano lessons
Thursday: Parent-Teacher conferences until 7:30 (although my last conference is at 6:00 so I can just hang out for the last hour and get stuff done!)

In the past, we've had conferences on Tuesday and Thursday in one week. This time around it's two Thursdays, which is just not fun. By the time I get home it will be 7:45. Hopefully Ben will still be awake for me to put him to sleep. He's usually sleeping by then :(

Pass me the wine. Or ice cream. Or masseuse. Or esthetician who gives great facials.

I'm the only parent of a non-preschooler 3 year old.

My facebook newsfeed is littered with countless 3 year olds starting preschool this year, all standing in their crisp, clean, first day of school outfits holding up a sign or standing next to an easel announcing their big milestone.

Part of me feels like a slacker for not sending Colin to preschool this year.
(He's going to be so far behind his peers!)
*Huh. This is the only thing on my list.

Part of me doesn't feel like a slacker.
(He loves daycare and Sandy is doing some preschool things with the 3 older kids this year)
(He loves being with Ben)
(He's a kid and school will start soon enough. Let him be a kid for one more year without the pressure of school)
(He needs another year of familiarity before we start the half day preschool routine)
(He'll learn his letters and numbers when he's ready)

So for now I guess I can just sit back and enjoy not having to worry about school for another year.

Snow Day

It's inevitable. Every March, the snow starts melting and you think spring is right around the corner. Then BAM! Another snowstorm just to bamboozle you right out of your spring jacket. And so it was.

School was canceled today, so Colin and I stayed home. We didn't do much. We played inside and outside. Colin wanted to stalk the plow around the neighborhood in his car stroller thing, but I didn't allow it. I spent a few minutes here and there designing his birthday invitations. I will reveal them once they are distributed in the mail. All I can say is I love them and thank you to Leah for her expertise in deleting backgrounds from pictures and her general designing knowledge :)

After lunch and nap, we played some more. Then we went to Walmart to pick up the invitations, which got tossed at the store because the writing on the top got cut off at printing. Back to the drawing board on that one.

After Walmart, we went to the bank where I deposited a good amount of piano lesson money into our Explorer loan account. I hope on all my hopes that I can continue to use piano lesson money towards the Explorer for the next two months and squeak a few extra hundred dollars in before summer comes along and I don't have students anymore. Being that there's only two months left, it won't be much, but every little bit helps! I just wish I would have thought of doing this sooner. I guess I did, but just didn't commit to it.

Kevin was home when we got home from the bank, so I tweaked the invite and ordered it again. I haven't gotten them yet because Walmart's photo department is closed for the night, but I'm super anxious to see them!

Although it was uber productive, I hate snow days this time of year. I want warm and sunshiney days. Enough of winter.

Life's Little Updates

(poop free)
Debt:
Well, we're not getting back as much money from taxes as we hoped. Still, it's enough to reduce our car debt by 25% so who am I to complain? I've also decided that all piano money from now until forever will go directly to the car payment. I'm teaching 5 weeks of summer school this summer. We were hoping that money could go to Family Means, but it looks like at least the first check, if not also the second, will be going towards the car. After the car is paid off, all extra money will go to Family Means and we can get the ball REALLY rolling.

Piano lessons:
I'm kind of sick and tired of teaching them, to be quite honest. Right now I have 2.5 students! The .5 student takes lessons every other week. What's the point? I mean, IF everyone shows up, that's $125 a month, which isn't a lot, but it goes a long way. However, a lesson or two get canceled every now and then and it's less than that. I wanted to teach until our debt was paid off, but now I'm not sure if I'll be teaching at all next year.

Running:
What running? Good God, the Triathlon is 2 and a half months away! Why would I bother to train for it? Oh yeah...because I'm sick and tired of running on the treadmill. I was thisclose to gearing up to try running outside, but I'm currently sickish AGAIN! I'm beginning to think it's allergy related since it happened in the spring and the fall. I lose my voice and everything. Going to bed by 9:00 is my treatment, and it may be working, because today I had more voice. In all honesty, I can run 2 miles straight off the bat, so that's a big start. I just have to pump up the tires on my bike and hit the pavement. With upper 40s in the forecast, I may be able to try soon.

School:
My classroom is infested with ringworm and lice. YAY! The worst part? The girl, E, who has ringworm has had it for a LONG time and we just found out about today! Her brother has had it for a month. Yesterday, we had spring pictures at school and E said her head itched. With the lice outbreak I'm also dealing with, I decided to lift her hair where she said it itched and noticed a BALD SPOT! I had no idea what it was, but thought maybe it was psoriasis or something. I never thought to think of freakin' ringworm! And I touched it! That stuff is contagious, and she was in school today!

The lice. Oh the lice. R has had lice 4 or 5 times this school year. Her mom is pretty diligent about treating it, but it seems to come back every few months or so. I've completely limited the use of my listening center. Then, yesterday while the students were lined up to get their pictures taken, one of my aides said that C told her her head itched. So I went and looked at the top of her head and I could see the nits. I gave her a VIP pass to get her picture taken first and I scooted her to the office. She went home yesterday and came back today. I sent her straight back to the office to get checked and sure enough, they were still there, so she went home again.

::heebie jeebies::

Other than that, and the political uncomfortableness, school is fine. We got a "contract" to sign today, but it's more like a "you-have-a-job-until-we-decide-you-DON'T-have-a-job" type of deal. We'll find out by June 1st if any lay-offs have to be made.

I hear the kindergarten class coming up to 1st grade next year is a trainwreck. So that will be fun!

Spring break is next week!!! YES! I have no plans. My previous plan (potty training) got canceled :D So my schedule is open to fun times with the little dude. Hopefully the weather will cooperate for us to be outside.

Snow day #4

With all of the "thunder snow" we got yesterday, I had a feeling we'd have a snow day today. I hadn't gotten a call yet at 6:10 this morning, so I made my way to the computer. I moved the mouse, and with my eyes only open a small slit to hide my poor pupils from the light of the screen, I typed in my school district's website and saw the little announcement box confirming what I had expected. I crawled back into bed with my cell phone, and whispered to Kev, "no school." His reply? "You're kidding." No, no I am not. 5 minutes later, the calling tree made its way to me. This is always reassuring, because you just don't believe it until you hear or see it twice.

Sucky thing is, we're missing a field trip to the science museum today. We'll hopefully be able to find a day to reschedule it.

The last 3 "Snow days"--which were actually "cold" and "ice" days, I admittedly wasn't very productive. I mostly used those days to browse and buy diapers and covers on the internet. These were needed items, so I guess my whole day didn't go to waste. But today is different. Today I have 4 goals:

1. Fill out and send transcript requests to the 3 schools I've taken graduate classes from. My teaching license expires this summer, and I need the proof that I've taken 6 credits since graduation. I plan on spending a bit of time over spring break applying for my license renewal.

2. Clean out the closets in the baby's room. At least the stuff I have a place for. Even if that place is in a pile elsewhere in the room. For instance, the itty bitty baby clothes pile.

3. Order a cake (details in a future post)

4. Make my way to my midwife this afternoon for my 32 week appointment :)

Extra credit: Make some homemade cinnamon swirl bread

Happy Friday!