The Wildlife

We had a fantastic visit with Janet and Alice. But we miss them now. Wah, come back and play barbies with me, ALICE!!!
FYI, to J and A and my plethora of alittleleeway readers, I think I've identified the duck we saw at Saltwater Marsh as a Northern Shoveler. This morning, Husbandman and I saw a bunch of buffleheads at Lake Griffey. This is shaping up to be a fine spring break.

The Saint

When the peeps came back from library, they stopped dead in their tracks when they saw Good Pal Menosky and a table full of St. Pat's gear awaiting them. "Is this a surprise party?" asked D. Before we could get the party started, each table team had to offer a fact about St. Pat. They were ready, as we had read the saint's story just that morning. Did you know he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and was enslaved on the Emerald Isle? Then some other things happened to him. But ultimately he died on March 17, 461. That's why we celebrate on that day. One peep blurted out, "What? He died on his birthday???" I often feel that the peeps aren't really listening to me. And this was one more piece of evidence to support that premise. Still, the facts were given freely and the partying began, with treats and shamrocks and hats and The Rovers on the CD player. Thanks, GPM!

The Crime

Outraged peep ran up to me yesterday and indignantly reported, "When A is passing out papers... (huff puff)... at each person's spot... (more huffing and puffing)... she puts the paper down, and she sings... 'Doobileedoo!'"

I looked up and sure enough, A was plopping down yellow papers in front of each classmate while jauntily chirping, "Doobileedoo."

I looked at outraged peep and said, "You know Bud, I don't think that's really that big a deal. His mouth dropped open in astonishment and he returned to his spot, shaking his head. I felt like I let him down, but in truth I felt a lot of admiration for A's paper passing style and may imitate it in future.

The Game

Lacrosse is a mix of weird games. Football, hockey, jai alai, soccer, and cream the guy with the ball. When a player is running with the ball, players can run behind him and whack him with their sticks. I think they're trying to get the kid to drop the ball, but I'm not sure. The whacking from behind would get really annoying if I were playing. I'm surprised the players don't turn around and start wailing away on their perps. That's what would happen at my school, without a doubt. But they just zip along, cradling that ball like it's a little child.

We lost 7 - 6, but it was exciting to watch. #1 is just a freshman, so he didn't get much playing time, but that's okay with me. No rush. No worries.

The Blood

We took part of the ISTEP test this week. The first day we took the math. The open-ended problems were crazily hard and I went home totally demoralized. I couldn't sleep worrying about where I went wrong this year and why I hadn't done a better job helping the peeps get ready. Around 2 in the morning, I realized that something had to be very wrong with the test. The thing was just crazy hard, as I've already told you, and I knew there was no way that 3rd graders could be expected to complete it. Come to find out, the news stories started trickling in the next day. Complaints from teachers all over the state about ISTEP meltdowns. It's been on tv news, the Indy Star, the Chicago Trib. I thought they might throw the test out, since it was clear that mistakes have been made, but no, the dept. of ED just says not to worry, they'll make the cut scores lower. Arbitrary nonsense.
During the final test, one of the peeps stabbed another peep with her pencil, causing the lead to break off in his arm. When we pulled the lead out, there was a gaping hole, with blood gurgling up. Pencil wielding peep said the kid was bothering her by humming the song from some movie about a chihuahua. I blame ISTEP for this incident, and for the resulting suspension.

The

On Friday we read an article about 17,000 troops going to Afghanistan, joining the 34,000 already there. We've read some books about Afghanistan and Pakistan. The peeps know about the resurgence of the Taliban. They are collecting pennies for this place in order to help build schools. They were disheartened to learn that some of the schools have been attacked and destroyed. "All that work for nothing!" one peep exclaimed. And another said, "I thought they fought out in a field somewhere." The good news is, Mitz, shared with the kids, that the Afghan people do want their sons and daughters to go to school, so school enrollment has increased every year since 2,000. Brave people.

The Day

When a family member asked how my day was, I lifted up the Chardonnay bottle I had just pulled out of the fridge and said, "Like this. See." Then I gestured wildly toward the Chardonnay bottle while at the same time, searching for the corkscrew.
The peeps were so feisty today that I asked them if they had taken brat pills this morning? That's not a very nice thing to say, but it could have been much worse. The thing I said.

The Hearts

Many peeps were having a ton of trouble cutting a paper into a heart shape. I tried to teach one peep, Devante, but he kept cutting his paper into a symmetrical skinny leaf shape. I really do attempt to teach the peeps things, so I courageously kept insisting that Devante watch me again, as I explained how to start, how to move the scissor, etc. After the 5th heart cutting demo, Devante yelled out in amazement, "How do you DO that?" He seemed genuinely impressed. Even though I didn't succeed in teaching him how to cut hearts, I did get his admiration, so I left the situation feeling pretty A.O.K. about the whole thing.

Good pal Menosky brought in the party this week and we were all jazzed about our snakes and notebooks and pens and treats and all the FUN we had together celebrating and feeling the love.

GPM almost didn't bring the snakes in this year because of all the wild snake swinging that went on last year, but she brought them in anyway, because they are very cool toys. There was snake swinging yet again, but no injuries (okay, one sore eye) but other than that, no real problems. Thanks, D.

The Mo

I'm super low mo today (low motivation). I'm home from work and there's plenty I could do, but the upcoming (1pm) mouth surgery is distracting me big time. The good news is, I was told some blogworthy stories quite recently which I will now recount.
Last night I was at school until 7 getting sub plans ready. As I was xeroxing, I got to talking with friendly big man custodian about my tooth situation. I'm going to have an "apo" which involves cutting through my gum and then cutting the tip of a root off." Big Man topped my tale by telling me the story of how he lost 3 teeth playing a game called "Keep the Whiskey In Your Mouth." The game goes like this. You take a swig of whiskey and then someone punches you in the mouth as hard as he or she can. You have to keep the whiskey in during and after the punching episode. Big Man punched his friend and knocked out his front tooth, but the friend did keep the whiskey in his mouth. Then friend got to punch Big Man and he loosened 3 of Big Man's teeth, but Big Man did keep the whiskey in his mouth. He has implants now.

But wait, there's more. Later when I came back to xerox yet again, Big Man told me the story of how he bought a taser for his wife and he wanted to make sure it worked so he told his wife to tase him and just in a short few seconds, the tasing blasted him to the ground, made his eyes rattle inside his head and left burn marks on his abdomen.

I didn't have much to offer Big Man in the story department after that. So I just wrapped up the copying, and he wished me well with the mouth surgery. Then we parted company.

The 5

I've seen 4/5 of the movies nominated for the Oscars. Still have to see The Reader.

The Problems

Friday started out really well. Kids were ready for their lit. circle discussions. Everyone loved commenting on the podcast at computer lab. And the entire class is flipping over Selznick's book, Invention of Hugo Cabret. But at the end of the day with just minutes til leaving time, 2 peeps just flipped out and got on my very last nerve. This is what I don't get. Why is it that I can have a quite good day, but 5 minutes of wildery can wreck the rest of my afternoon, my evening, and even part of my next day?
The other problem that's happening right now is the ugliness of the melting dirty snow. Plus, I'm in school, and water's leaking in to our hallway. Our poor custodian's been mopping, bailing and bucketing, while I sit in my classroom looking for a file I seem to have lost while eating girl scout cookies (trefoils).
And the other problem I'm having is that I can't think of anything to blog about, and yet every day I want to blog so badly.