A Year Ago

I have no idea what I was doing a year ago.  I completely skipped blogging for the month of April, too, so there’s no way for me to look and see.  April is a busy month for us, what with Spring Break, our anniversary, and LouLa’s birthday.  I don’t think anything exciting happened, just regular life.  Some things are different, that’s for sure.

We had Punk a year ago.  Now we have George.  LouLa said that one of her teachers is going to have a “kitten sale” in six weeks and wants to get a kitten.  I explained to her that our rule is that we can have the same number of animals as people.  We have three people, so we can only have three cats.  She said the Knock-Knock will be dead in six weeks.  The sad thing is, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s right.  He’s getting thinner and thinner, so I worry.

A year ago the economic downturn hadn’t affected us at all.  Josh had his hours cut in half a couple of weeks ago.  Now he’ll be working a 40 hour week, then not working, then working a 40 hour week, etc., and will need to be covered by my health insurance beginning in June.  It hasn’t come at a good time for us.  We have three weekends in a row that involve an overnight hotel stay.  We bought out tickets to Italy two days before the cut in hours.  Things could certainly be worse and I’m thankful he has a job.  We have a very healthy (to me) savings account that we can use if we need to.  I hope that we can squeak by with our paychecks and his unemployment checks.  LouLa is staying home on his off weeks, which is good for our bank account, but not great for her need to socialize.    She’ll live.

 

My hopes for a year from now:

-Knock-Knock is still alive. 

-Josh has his regular job back, or another job.

-Our basement is finished and lovely.

-LouLa is sleeping later on the weekends (7:00 would be nice).

-I’ve finalized my plans to attend Sock Summet II and am looking forward to it (that was one of the first things to go after the layoff).

 

All very do-able, I think.

(As usual, this post is brought to you by Kate’s Madhouse.)

Teacher’s Pet

There are some students that I like better than other students, I won’t lie.  There are some people that just rub me the wrong way, and children are people.  The great thing is that they are kids, and most of the time, they aren’t totally responsible for the way they act. 

Which leads me to the parents.  Dealing with parents is my least favorite part of the job.  There are lots and lots of great parents, but there are others…..

A parent will not be my pet if they:

-refuse to acknowledge their child has problems when I give concrete evidence to the contrary 

-don’t treat me as a professional

-make excuses for their child’s bad behavior, especially when they bring up the behavior of other children

-allow their child to be disrespectful

-don’t back me up

-lie to me or have their child lie to me

 

Fortunately, I spend the vast majority of my time with the kids.  People have asked me if I would ever become an administrator (because, you know, teaching just can’t be enough) and I always say that I would never, ever do it.  I can handle children who may not act appropriately or who don’t know how to do things.  Their age and lack of experience gives them a free pass for those kinds of things, at least some of the time.  My patience for adults who don’t do their jobs is pretty short.

 

*As an added note:  I have a great group of students this year.  I can honestly say that they are all my pets.  I am often annoyed by their parents, however.   

 

(Brought to you, once again, by Kate’s Carnival/Madhouse)

Done, Done, and Done

Done:

These are the socks that I promised a friend/coworker.  I enjoyed knitting them, and if I were the sort that knit patterns more than once, I would do these again.

Pattern:  Sandlewood Socks, IK Winter 2008

Yarn: Dream in Color Smooshy-Don’t be Blue (dyed especially for The Loopy Ewe)-the color in the picture isn’t totally true, but it’s close-I loves me the DIC Smooshy!

Needles: probably size 0

Mods: If any, very slight for better fit

 Done:

These are also going to be a gift. 

Pattern:  Girl’s Best Friend Socks, by Deb Kessler

Yarn:  Fearless Fiber Merino/Tencel Blend

Needle: Probably size 0

Mods:  None, except for fit

This was a great pattern and great yarn.  It was one of the shipments from the Fearless Fibers Sock Club. 

And Done:

A baby sweater for another one of LouLa’s teachers.  I have a picture, but Flickr is having problems.  It looks a LOT the Placket Sweater that I did awhile back.  I used KP Mainline that I had bought years ago when it went on sale, which means that it’s not machine washable.  But, hey, I’m on a budget.  I used the Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns as my guide.  However, the smallest size in there wasn’t small enough for a 12 month size, so I played with gauge and ended up using the numbers for the third largest size.  I did have to adjust the length of the body and sleeves, obviously and I kind of winged the collar.  I hope that it’ll fit over the kid’s head.  It should fit sometime in the fall/winter, since the baby is only a couple of weeks old.

My Baby

Where have the past five years gone?

I remember the night before you were born.  We were washing the walls in your room, getting them ready to paint the next day.  You weren’t supposed to come for another three weeks.  We had plenty of time.   That was the first of many times that you showed me that you had other plans. 

You have learned so much in the past year.  You can count to 100, identify most numbers up to 100, you know all the letters and can write them, and you know most of the sounds that the letters make.  You know that the letter c and the letter k can have the same sound.  You like to write, especially notes to your friends, or invitations, and you’re beginning to read.  You’re riding a bike with training wheels and I wouldn’t be surprised if the training wheels were off by the end of the summer.

You definitely love people and social situations and I can see that your friends will be, and are, important to you.  You can be shy, especially when you’re put on the spot, but you also can play the shy girl.  You aren’t one to initiate friendship, but rather you wait to be invited in. 

Have I talked about how dramatic you can be?  You love dramatic play and one of my favorite things to do is quietly watch you as you talk to your babies, or play with your Barbie princesses, or play with your animals.  That drama comes out in temper tantrums, too.  They have gotten much less over the past year and you’ve figured out more effective ways of making your point known and getting what you want.  You’re learning the fine art of negotiation, but you also know when negotiating isn’t an option.  You’ve gotten much better at saying, “Okay,” or “All right,” and moving on.  You’re not a pouter and you don’t hold a grudge.  You don’t like it when someone is angry with you and you care how other people feel. 

You enjoy jokes, and sometimes it seems like you even understand the punchline.  You can be very, very silly, and you love having your picture taken.  You love the idea of being a princess, but you are not prissy.  Most of the time, you don’t care what you wear, and you don’t care if you get dirty.  You hair is usually in your eyes, which drives me crazy, but doesn’t bother you a bit.

You are struggling with the idea of getting older.  You often ask to be carried to bed.  I’m not sure how much longer I can physically do that, but I’ll do it as long as I can.  After crying jags, you’ll ask to cuddle.  There was a time a few years ago when I would tell you that you needed to calm down and you would respond with, “I can’t calm down!! Help me calm down!” and I would cuddle you.  It’s hard for me, but now I require you to calm yourself to a manageable level before we cuddle.  I want you to learn that you can control yourself and I don’t want to reward out of control screaming.  

Speaking of cuddling, you’ve never been especially cuddly.  It’s odd, because I held you nonstop for the first few months of your life.  You like the idea of cuddling, but the reality is that you get bored with just sitting in one spot.  You’re almost always on the go.  You don’t walk, you skip and hop everywhere. 

I am so incredibly lucky to have you.

Get-Out-Of-Marriage-Free Card

I have a Get-Out-Of-Marriage-Free Card.  Do you?

Mine is Hugh Laurie.  Awww…yeah. 

The deal is that if when I meet him, I can leave my current marriage so that Hugh and I can live happily ever after.  No worries, no guilt, no fighting. 

Anderson Cooper used to be my Get-Out-Of-Marriage-Free card, but I’ve heard that he may appreciate the guys more than the girls.  Besides, Hugh has a sex-ahy accent. 

The thing that worries me is that LouLa has developed quite the affection for Hugh.  That could be a good thing, if when we find each other.  Her affections seem to be similar to mine, which could be a problem.  She loves House.  In fact, if she’s in her bedroom and hears the opening theme music come on, she’ll come out to the living room and ask, “Are you watching House?”  She’ll watch along with us.  She also recognized him on 101 Dalmations before I did.  That was kind of creepy.

This morning she called me into the kitchen to see something.  I went in (hell, I’m only running 15 minutes late already, what’s another 5 minutes?).  On the kitchen table was a newpaper insert magazine (American Pride, I think it’s called).  She showed me the cover and said, “That’s House!” 

That’s my girl.