Tuesday, October 20, 2009

I'm Embarrassed Today

Yeah, I probably spelled the title wrong too.

This morning as I packed the girls' lunches for MDO, I realized they are probably as sick of PB&J as I am and probably won't eat it if I do pack it, so I packed the following in each of their lunch bags:

Caprisun
Yogurt & spoon
Nutri-Grain bar
Ritz peanut butter crackers sandwiches
Bag of goldfish(for snacktime)
I almost packed an applesauce but I only had two left and I knew I would need them for tonight at Brian's volleyball game.

Yes, I know these are all snack foods and not really "lunch" but I haven't had a chance to go the grocery store lately and I'm trying to clean out all the excess in the pantry. I had no idea anyone noticed what was packed in a 2 year olds' lunch, anyway.

So around 12:30, the director of the MDO called me on my cell phone while Laney & I were out running errands, and asked me if I knew that there was only a yogurt, granola bar and crackers in Tatum's lunch. I told her I knew that and I thought it would be plenty to fill Tatum up until I picked her up in two hours. She even offered to get Tatum a hot dog from the catered lunches (which I had declined to order for my kids today). I know Tatum and I know she loves yogurt and granola bars and I knew she would be perfectly happy with that lunch and like I said, I would be picking her up in TWO HOURS! Anyway, I assured the director that I thought she would be okay with that lunch and we hung up. I immediately felt the shame and redness creep up my neck into my face and i was so humiliated that they thought I was such a bad mom that I would pack such a lousy lunch for my child! Guess I need to throw a PB&J in there from now on just for show, so that I don't get any more phone calls.

It was in this frame of mind that I went to Target... has it ever bugged anyone else that there are like 30 handicapped parking spots in the front and the regular spots don't start until your nearly a mile away from the store? Seriously, I am all for accomodations, but I have never EVER seen more than 4 cars parked in any of those 30 spots at one time. There should be at least a few spots for "mothers of small children" in their place.

Academy made me happy. Tomorrow is breast cancer awareness day at school and since my good friend and co-worker Carol is battling breast cancer right now, I really wanted to partipate in the activities of the day, so I found a cute "Fight Like A Girl" shirt at Academy that I can wear tomorrow. I think Carol will love it!

I'm pretty glad this day is almost over. Thank you Lord that your mercies are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Double-Crowned

This is my view most of the day. The top of Laney's sweet head. I look at it all the time, but just this week I noticed something new about it...

She has a double crown! One of the crowns is slightly covered by hair in this picture, but it's there. I checked Brian's head and he only has one. I'm pretty sure I only have one too. I think it's so neat that she has this unique genetic trait. Poor thing, I guess it's a testament to her being the 3rd child that it's been staring in my face for the past 9 months, and i just now noticed it. Here's a few other things I like to look at:


This is her "I'm going to eat you" face.


A few things that made me laugh this week:
I love when Avery calls thunder "funder" and when she calls vegetables "begetables."
I love when Tatum says "I amn't going to do...." (Prounounced ament).
I love when Laney says "Dadadadada."
I also caught Avery singing "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart." Except when she got to the second verse, she sang "And if the pebble doesn't like it, he can sit on a tack. Ouch!..."
She's also memorized her first Pearl Jam song, "Just Breathe." I guess when Brian took her to soccer practice on Thursday, that song played and she loved it. She asked him to play it again about 5 more times, and now she can sing every word for you, and with feeling! Even though alot of Pearl Jam stuff is no bueno, they have a special place in our hearts b/c Brian took me to a Pearl Jam concert on our first trip to Houston together, when I met his family for the first time. Something about the sound of Eddie Vedder's voice just makes me feel like a 22-year old falling in love for the first time again. So Pearl Jam we love you, and we pray you will come to know Jesus who will fill all the emptiness in your lives and give you hope.
This was the first week I felt victorious with the laptops in the classroom. A few thoughts about the laptop project so far: My students do not fall asleep in class anymore. They are actively engaged in my class from bell to bell. Granted, they are probably IM-ing each other and rocking out to their i-tunes throughout my class, but they LIKE my class. And I think they have learned a little bit of history too. The only downside is that I do not have time to be lazy anymore. I don't have time to sit at my computer and check my email, I don't even have time to enter my grades or keep up with my lesson plans. I am busy from the minute I get to work until the minute I leave. I sometimes long for the "movie days" or "worksheet days" of previous years. This laptop project is sharpening me and it's a good thing.
I got to play basketball tonight for the first time in months, maybe even a year. It was game night for FCA in our gym. We played knockout about 17 times. I won once. In the finale, I knocked out the star of our varsity boys basketball team. Yep, it felt good. Dont' feel bad for him, he won almost every other game we played. His ego was not harmed. Then we played football and I caught a touchdown pass and a couple other passes. I did a little bit of trash-talking and I was thankful I could relate to the kids this way. And I got them all a bunch of pizza and coke at the end. Super fun day.