Pet Peeves

A list of my Pet Peeves
1. People who don't smile. This was probably my biggest transition when living in East Germany last year, because hardly anyone smiles there.

2. I hate rude people.

3. I can't stand ignorant people.

4. I can't stand people who yell at kids.

5. I hate mosquitoes. The reason I am writing this blog is because we were swatting them today while we went and got ice cream on this beautiful spring day!

6. Negative people. I run run run from them. I surround myself only with positive people. ALL THE TIME.

7. When my husband drives and takes a sip from his coffee while taking a sharp turn. He scares the hell out of me. It looks like he's not paying attention, and why does he have to take a sip while going around the turns?

8. When my house is a mess. I can't stand clutter. It makes me go crazy.

9. People who lie. An old principal of mine once lied, and it hurt so bad. Yup, good ole tenure...

10. Christmas shopping parking lots. I hate them so much!!!!! I did most of my shopping on-line this year.

11. I can't stand bugs. Any type of bug. If I find a bug in my house, I really freak out. If we camp, and a spider or bug gets in our tent, I can't sleep. My husband HATES this about me. THIS may be his pet peeve about ME. Right honey? And the sad thing is our 9-year old son has inherited this trait from me. "If you weren't such a spaz, Riley wouldn't be! He's learning it from you!"

12. When people throw their cigarette butts out of their cars or on the ground. We saw this all the time in Europe last year. In the city we lived in, a crew of workers every morning was hired to pick them all up on the sidewalks!

Those pesty mosquitoes today got me thinking about my other pet peeves. I'll probably go to bed and think of more, but what are your pet peeves?

Proud of My Children

Yesterday, my 4th grade son and 2nd grade daughter came home with their report cards. They are both really smart kids. My son might be gifted, and my daughter is pretty smart too. I am humble when I say this, because when I was in school, I had challenges learning. Up to fourth grade, I was in special education classes. My third grade teacher told my mom that I would most likely never attend college. My mom was very vocal to my elementary classroom teachers, and I'm sure she had the reputation of being "That Mom," but to her credit, she had to be. My fourth grade teacher told my mom that I was borderline mentally retarded.

Thank God I had a good mom. My mom knew and believed in my potential. She took me out of the public schools, and enrolled me in a small Catholic school. I repeated 4th grade, and to everyone's surprise and maybe relief, I was an A and B+ student.

I am very sensitive to the fact when kids can't learn- because I can relate. That was me. I know that all kids can learn and that's why I am so passionate.

For the longest time, I kept my secret of "failing 4th grade" a secret. Years after being married to my husband, he called me stupid. I don't even remember what led to him calling me that, but I'm sure it was a joke. But I started crying. And I told him my secret of how I was once indeed stupid.

I have never been the kind of student where things come easily. But my two kids learn so easily, sometimes I am in awe. I can't even believe that these two kids came from me.

Our kids got to pick out a restaurant for dinner, and while we were eating out Moe's, we talked to them about the importance of having good grades and how proud we are of them. Just as important as their high grades were their high behavior and work habit grades.

I'm so proud and grateful for so many things in my life. My kids are right up there on the list. So proud tonight. But everyday, I'm proud of their everyday accomplishments. I am lucky and blessed to be the mother of these two children. They are my world.

Difficult Parent Conferences

Today our school district had a half-day, so we could meet with parents for parent-teacher conferences. We had three days in the Fall, in which we met with ALL the parents. Today's conferences were tough, since we met with only the parents whose kids we have concerns about.

I had five conferences today. One mom cried, two moms were frustrated, and a mom and dad were utterly confused.

I teach kindergarten. And in today's conferences, my concerns with these five students fall on the fact that they are not yet reading. Yes, not reading. They can not decode simple 3-letter words.

One of my students has made wonderful progress. He never went to preschool. During my conference with mom in the Fall, I was telling Mom how he wasn't able to write his name, how he was only able to identify one or two letters, and he was very distracted and couldn't sit at our meeting area. Today, I applauded Mom at his progress. He can now write his first and last name, knows all of his uppercase and 24 lowercase letters, and all of the sounds. He is able to follow routines, and is a diligent worker. But, he is not able to fluently decode 3-letter words, and scored in the red on our DIBELS test.

The other four students- the same kind of stories.

I think right now I am finding Kindergarten to be a different kind of place for our young learners. Is developmentally appropriate even a word anymore in education? What about play? What about social skills?

I feel like the 90 year old kindergarten teacher, who doesn't want to change with the times. I want kindergarten to be fun with art projects, units of inquiry, thematic units- all of that. Instead, our district has changed so much. We adapted a reading program... (I really miss Guided Reading) We have a math program (Go Math) which consists of lots of pencil and paper work (4 sheets a day to be precise), and I'm having a hard time changing with the times.

Today at my conferences, I had to tell my parents that their children need to be readers by the end of the year, and if they are not, then they do not meet end of the year benchmarks. I wanted to kick myself under the table for saying that, because that's not what my philosophy is...

I did tell each parent where each of their students started the year off at, and look at their progress (because each of these kids has made so much).

I'm just having a difficult night tonight. I'm not liking the direction education is going; not even in Kindergarten.

When Maggie Was Born

This morning when I was at work, I was talking to some teachers before our classes came whirling through our hallways. One of the teachers is very pregnant with her second child, and her due date is at the end of this month. As I was listening to her talk this morning, and how relaxed she seemed, I couldn't help remember the feelings I had when I was in labor with Maggie, my 2nd child.

Maggie was estimated to be a 12 pound baby, so I was scheduled to have a C-section with her. I went into labor 3 days before my scheduled C-section. We called the doctor, and she told us to come to the hospital to avoid the unneccesary labor- we were going to have this baby tonight, and still have the C-section. Instead of having the baby on Monday the 16th, our daughter Maggie would be born on Friday the 13th!

We made arrangments for our two-year old son to be picked up by my mom. I was, all of a sudden, stricken with a sense of loss, as I said goodbye to Riley. Would I ever love another child the same that I love Riley? How can you love two children the same? After Riley left with my mom, I found myself sitting on a chair and not wanting to go to the hospital. (My husband took a picture of this moment because he thought it was comical-which I'll post- because now I think it's funny)- I was afraid to have another baby. Afraid to love another baby. What if I couldn't love another baby? My husband, who is good at reasoning with me when I'm crazy, got me off that chair, lugged my suitcase into the car and drove us to the hospital.

Maggie was born at 11:45 PM on Friday the 13th, even after trying to convince the hospital staff to wait until after midnight.

My friend who is having her 2nd baby later this month laughed at my story. She is clearly more ready to have her 2nd than I was.

I have to say, that after the first second I met my daughter Maggie, I loved her as much as Riley! All that worrying for nothing.

Revising conferences in K

Today in my Kindergarten classroom, I had the kids get in pairs and they revised a piece of their writing. I'm taking my class through the writing process. Last week, my students picked their favorite book they have written (We have been writing books for the past 2 or 3 weeks-)After picking their favorite pieces, they spent a day or two revising their pieces on their own. Then, I took their writing and typed it, and today, they took their typed pieces, and revised with a partner.

Before the partners got together, I modeled what a typical revising conference would look like. I modeled questions. I modeled "I'm wondering...." type questions. When I thought I gave enough modeling and practice, I paired the kids off, and let them go. I walked around the room and I was honestly amazed at what I was hearing. I stopped at Ashley and Isabella. Ashley wrote about a birthday party she went to. Ashley was reading her writing piece to Isabella, and Isabella was asking Ashley lots of questions like "Were you playing with Barbies at the party?" What did the cake taste like?" "What was in your treat bag?" After Ashley's revision, Ashley included many more details about the birthday party. I loved that she even included eating the P of the birthday cake! Then Isabella read her story to Ashley- it was a story about a princess trapped in a tower. After her revision conference, Isabella included more details about why she was trapped in the tower, more details about the prince who saved her, and she even wrote that the horse the prince was riding on was a girl horse.

I walked around more, and I couldn't believe how the kids were suddenly all writing more. I never in my 17 years of teaching saw such a drastic improvement of writing in one Writer's Workshop lesson. It was simply amazing to listen to the dialogue, the excitement that was in the air, all the writing that was being added to their typed rough drafts, and again THE DIALOGUE! I absolutely loved the questions they asked one another. And the mutual respect they were giving one another.

Most of the kids later told me while we we sharing that they wanted to add even MORE details to their writing, and they wanted to revise more. So, I plan on handing out their rough drafts again tomorrow to see what happens. After we edit, I plan on publishing their stories into one big book and having an Author's Celebration. Each family will bring home a book of all the kids' stories.

I'm finding that this year's students love to write, and it's been a real fun year for me to do Writer's Workshop. Fun day for me today!

I'm Just too tired tonight to write

I am just too tired today to write. I've been battling a headache for 2 months, and after an ER visit yesterday and getting an IV pain killer, I had the highest of hopes that the headaches would be ending. But I woke up today with another one. And I went to the trenches of my kindergarten classroom ALL day. I seriously don't know how I did it. All I know is that I have a great teaching assistant, a wonderful parent helper who came in today, and an ESL teacher who was pushing in today for about an hour. Everyone told me I should go home. But my thinking is, I seriously could call in sick every single day, since these started in January.

Now, I'm going to bed. I just can't think of anything but headaches, and that's what I seem to be writing all month with my Slice of Life. It's all I think about. Will I have a headache tomorrow? Will I ever be better? Will the topomax kick in? Do I have Lyme Disease (test was taken yesterday)?

I hate this. This hopelessness that I feel.

The Worst of the Worst

My kindergarten students will always remember me as the teacher who taught in the dark and had headaches. My son and daughter will remember their mom as having to lay down a lot in a closed bedroom, complaining of headaches. But today was the worst of the worst.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a severe headache. It was so severe, I think the actual headache woke me up. I've been having ongoing headaches for almost 2 months, so I'm used to the pain, if you can actually be used to it. But this was a different pain, much more powerful.

I somehow went back to sleep. When I woke up at 6 to my alarm, my blanket was wrapped around my head, in a mid-slumber attempt to get rid of the pain. I got up and took my Excedrin Migraine pill, and yet I was still in pain. Usually, that pill works.

I was a mess for the rest of the morning. I called my husband at work, and cried like a baby. Maybe more like yelped. I felt I had to go to work, since I had to call in sick 3 days last week to take care of my sick kids. I had to go, right?

Once at school, I was a total train wreck. When my teaching assistant came to the classroom, I told her I wasn't feeling good (which she has heard quite often with this almost 2-month headache), and I felt myself crying. The reading teacher saw me cry. My friend Kelly did. My whole Kindergarten team did. I was so out of sorts. I am usually the bubbly, happy one, so my crying was so out of character for me, and others around me knew I was in a lot of pain.

I ended up leaving school at 10:15, drove myself to Urgent Care, and the doctor there gave me an IV of a pain medication. I also have a new medication for my migraine- Topiramate, which I don't know how I feel. I also have an appointment at a Migraine Clinic in April.

I have mixed feelings about taking this new medication for my migraines. It has a slue of side effects.

I have no idea what is triggering my headaches, since I wake up with them. I had a MRI done 2 weeks ago, and it came back normal. At first, the MRI results came back as "maybe allergies, so take Claridin." But after today's Urgent Care visit, allergies have been ruled out, and now migraines are the sole culprit of my head pain. But, all the bad stuff was ruled out; brain tumors. I'm at a complete loss, putting myself at the mercy of medicine to make me better.