Last Weekend

Because I'm a slacker, I didn't mention that last weekend we drove back and forth to Denver for our first soccer tournament of the year. JADs team played for the first time together (it's a combination of two teams) and the coach used this pre-season opportunity to figure out which positions the boys should play and to see how they would gel as a team. The boys won the first game, but lost the next two. The third game was quite exciting to watch but, unfortunately, the calls were just not with us. At least it's pre-season!


A picture that embodies the absolute frustration JAD felt during the second game when his team just fell apart. Things can only get better from this point.

Fourteen

At 7:00 am fourteen years ago on this date, I gave birth to a baby boy. He is my first-born, my guinea pig, my always-was-easygoing baby. We thought with this child that parenting must be the easiest job in the world. JAD always had a smile for us, was the consummate flirt with ladies in the grocery line, waitresses in restaurants, and walked around with a level of comfort most people would be jealous of. We never dealt with the step-over-the-line-I'm-a-crazy-boy attitude that we've seen in, ahem, another boy child of ours. JAD was my tow-headed happy baby boy.

I've learned a lot watching him grow and it makes me sad to realize how truly fast 14 years have flown by. We've entered the teenage years with its moodiness and Ineedtobealoneness. But through it all, I'm watching that blonde-headed baby boy turn into a man who is learning how to process the world in all of it's infinite confusion. He still watches from afar and takes things one step at a time, thinking things through. He's become a person with very high morals who treats others well and thinks about the consequences of how he treats them. He's an extremely bright young man and very athletic - not a combination you see all the time. He is immensely passionate about his chosen sport (soccer, if you haven't guessed with the plethora of posts relating to said sport) and will regale you with statistics and stories about his favorite players/teams/teammates/practices/games/etc. He fights tooth and nail to not be known as the 'geeky-super smart' kid and has turned into one who can win a battle of the wits without batting an eye. He is compassionate through and through and will bend over backwards to help a friend and even a sibling when they are down.

I am extremely proud of my son. My first-born. My Ihavetofigurethingsoutonyousosorry kid. He takes everything in stride and uses these moments to grow. He amazes me each and every day. He makes me laugh. He makes me groan and yell in frustration. He makes me want to tear my hair out. He makes me beam with pride that I could give birth to such an amazing human being.

Happy Fourteenth Birthday, JAD. I hope you have an amazing, fun, rewarding year. I am so very proud to be able to call you my son and I love you more than you'll ever comprehend.

Thought Provoking

I started New Teacher Orientation last Friday. It's a mind-numbing process that anyone new to a district has to go through regardless of experience outside of the district (I've been teaching for 16 years, yet still had to go through this along with many, many other veteran teachers). Today we were shown a video from YouTube that really impacted me. Throughout the first half of the video, I just kept thinking 'Yep, yep, this sounds about right.' At the halfway point and through the end, I sat in awe of what was happening. In a room full of 150 teachers, you could've heard a pin drop as we watched this. I will let you see for yourself...

Reverse Thinking

It's Begun

Today was my first 'official' day in my new school district. I've worked in my classroom sporadically over the past week, getting things unpacked and put away, but it's all been on my own time and unpaid. I attended a math training (I know, riveting!) with eight other people from various location throughout the district. There were two trainings going on as the district has two different math programs in its thirty five elementary schools. No, that's not a typo. There are thirty-five elementary schools in this one district. It's by far the largest district I've ever worked in. Interestingly enough, of the nine people at this particular training, four of us had come from the same district previously and we felt we were embattled survivors. Others around us just sympathetically agreed with our conversations and deemed us brave and courageous for having been through such a difficult situation. It's funny how people just hear the name of this particular district and nod their heads, acknowledging the horror stories they have heard from others. It's really quite sad and I feel for my friends who are still working in that district.

Tomorrow I get to attend day one of 'Orientation'. Doesn't that just sound exciting??? We get to sit for eight hours each day (yes, there's more than one day of this) listening to various district higher-ups tell us about the philosophies of the district (which are important - don't get me wrong) and the different odds and ends of expectations, who to contact for various questions/problems/whatnots, and, I'm sure, the new state standards that we will be attacking this year. Don't misunderstand - I'm so very grateful to have a job and I'm very excited to be working in this district - but orientation days just drag on and on and on... On the bright side, orientation days are not part of our salary, so we get paid the hourly rate for these few days. That will be a nice little bonus on the first paycheck!

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On the soccer front, we have been going to practice four nights a week for JAD and CEDs practices. Fortunately, practices have been at the same place, so that makes life a little easier. JAD practices Monday, Wednesday, Thursday from 6 - 7:30 and CED practices on Tuesday and Thursday from 5 - 6:30. I found out this week that JED will also start practicing (thank goodness at the same aforementioned park)... on Tuesdays and Fridays. Really??? Five days a week??? Heaven help me... Now it really doesn't matter when the little girls start practicing because I'll ALREADY BE THERE. Silver lining, people.

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School registration has begun. On Tuesday, I had to register JAD for HIGH SCHOOL. Did you catch that? Ninth grade. I don't think I'm ready for this. How did I get old enough to have a child going into high school? Life goes by way too stinking fast. Before I know it, he'll be driving and never home. Yikes! I do like his schedule, however. He has to take Latin. And he got that class 1st hour. What can be better? I was happy to see that he was enrolled (thank you, Vanguard!) in honors history, English, and biology. JAD, on the other hand, was not so happy to see this. What you don't like can only make you stronger, right? It'll be interesting to see how he handles these classes plus high school soccer and club soccer. I think we're heading into our most challenging year yet!

School

I've really focused this year on how truly expensive it is to get ready for school. And I only have four going to school this year. Next year, it will be all five. Yikes! I have purchased the bulk of the school supplies (we still need all the kleenex and baggies and disinfecting wipes) and have spent over $200 on those things. As a teacher, I understand the need for parents to buy things like baggies, dry erase markers, and disinfecting wipes - we just don't have the budgets to purchase those things for our classrooms. As a parent, I groan every time I see a 4 pack of dry erase markers on the list - those add up quickly, especially when you're buying supplies times four! Add to that, CED needs uniforms for middle school, so we had to go out and purchase those items as well. Although, I didn't buy much simply because we have her on the waiting list for another school that requires uniforms as well. And, of course, the uniforms at this school are different colors than at her current school. Fabulous. So once she gets in there, we get to go shopping all over again. Today, JAD and I went to his school to register and had to pay a $30 fee for copies, paper, etc (charter school, so they can do that) plus an additional $90 for the camp he is required to attend next week. This doesn't include the $100 fee to play high school soccer, either. I'm being sucked dry and school hasn't even started yet! Next year I think I need to make sure I have at least $500 set aside for school shopping/fees/etc. And maybe some Valium as I go shopping for all those items...

Payback is a...

You can fill in the blank. I remember as a kid, my sister and I always knew we had our mom cornered as soon as the upstairs bathroom door shut and the water started running. Why my mom never locked the door is beyond me, but I think she knew we'd probably bang the door down so why bother. I remember those times - me sitting on the sink, my mom hiding behind the shower curtain - as times to pour out my heart or complain or whatever. I thought (or maybe was desperately hoping) that this would not happen to me. I was wrong. Lately, I think my children have a built in tuning device to anytime I go into my bathroom. I can be sitting on the couch or working in the kitchen for HOURS, it seems, and they have no reason to bug me for food, going outside, or tattling about another child. However, the minute I go into the bathroom, I have children lined up at the door for one reason or another. How do they do it? I have no idea, but just relish in the fact that they, too, will one day get their own payback. How delicious.

Painting

Yesterday, K and I decided to finally paint CEDs room. We moved into our house 2 years 8 months ago and have had the paint for her room for 2 years 7 months. Yep, we move quickly around here. Though, to our defense, CED has not cleaned her room to the point where we could get in and paint, so... Anyway, it is done now and I think she's happy. K started off by painting her ceiling, which makes me realize how desperately every ceiling in the house needs to be painted. Ugh! In the process of painting, K decided that painting his contacts was a good idea, too. (Not really - painting over your head can have bad effects, though! He did end up with white paint specks all over his contacts. Yuck.) K also installed a ceiling fan in lieu of the standard light fixture. CEDs room gets rather warm (non-air conditioned house) and the fan has already made a difference. We ended up working in her room from about 10:30 until 7:30 - which makes for a long day when it's hot and you're going up and down ladders constantly. But, I think CED is happy with the result (which is not finished quite yet, but more on that later).

Here is a picture of CEDs walls as I was patching the eight million holes she's put in them hanging up posters and such (yes - eight million. And I think I missed about a million more which I noticed as I was precariously perched on a ladder cutting in all the edges).

Why is the corner not painted? Really not sure. I guess that was too hard for the people who last lived here and painted the room these colors.

CED, working hard. Actually, she did do a lot to help - filling paint pans, getting brushes and rollers, loading such brushes and rollers, getting wet rags/paper towels for the unavoidable messes, etc. You can see the difference in colors with the first wall painted. Two walls were painted with this very light green (believe me, it is a very light green).

Here's a better look at the green color of the walls. These were the two hardest walls to paint in her room. One, just like the other rooms on our main level, her room has a 10 foot ceiling. That's a lot of wall to cover with two coats. And two, you can see she has a little alcove area above her closet in the upper left hand corner of the picture. K had a lot of fun painting that area.

The other two walls we painted pink. I would've taken pictures in process, but I just wanted to get done with the painting and I didn't feel like stopping to take pictures. I know. Crabby. But this is the final product of the pink walls. It looks a lot brighter in the pictures than it really is.

Here's the two colors next to each other. They look really good together and it definitely looks like a girl's room now. K thinks CED needs white shag carpeting to complete the look. I think she needs easy clean rubber mats because of all the stuff that gets spilled in there!

On the pink wall you can see in the above picture, we're going to paint white bubbles and write CEDs first name in a color like hot pink across those bubbles (a letter in each bubble). I can picture it, and I think it's going to be super-cute. Now I just have to go get the white and hot pink paint. Maybe in a day or two...

Now the girls want their bathroom painted and MAD and MED are clamoring for their room to be done as well. That just might take us another 2 years and 7 months...