The Four-Toed Teacher

It's been hot since school started, and I practically live in my sandals. At the beginning of the year it's always nice to be able to wear capris and sandals to work. I do lots of teaching from the rocking chair at the front of my room while the kids sit on the carpet. Yesterday, a couple of the kids must've been studying my feet. They wanted to know why I only had four toes. I said, "I have all five toes. You just can't see my little one. It's hiding. It's too short to see."
"No!" they said with a look of great concern on their faces. "Look! You only have four!" Nothing I could say would convince them otherwise. I guess I could've taken off my shoe and proven it to them, but why ruin the mystery?!

You Just Never Know

It's so good to be back in school. No, really! I do miss the kids when I'm not around them. First graders are just too funny. You never know what's going to come out of their mouths. I sometimes wish that I could just hang out with them all day and play and have obscure little conversations with them. You just can't make this stuff up!
While we were all gathered on the carpet this morning, a little girl was doing some odd things with her hands up in front of her eyes. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that she has a lot of PC's at her house. I asked what a PC was since I thought maybe it had something to do with the weird hand things she was doing. After all, that's why I asked in the first place. She said, "You know!" I said, "A PC, like a computer?"
"Yeah," she said. "We have lots of them at my house."
"How many?" I asked.
"600"
Then an argument broke out between a little boy and a little girl. He accused her of sticking her tongue out at him. She denied it, he kept pressing the issue that yes she did. Finally, she said, "I don't even know how to stick my tongue out!"
"Like THIS!" he said, and stuck his tongue out at her. She promptly raised her hand to tell on him for sticking his tongue out at her! :)

Teachers Can Be SOOO Frustrating!

The school where I work runs on the balanced calendar. This means that we start back to school earlier than most schools and go later in the year than most schools as well. The nice thing is that I am off for two weeks in October, March, and December. I have been back in school now for a little over a week, and the kids have been back since last Thursday. They are a sweet little bunch of first graders, and the year is off to a really nice start.

To try and maintain order in my room, I use a card system. The children each have a set of Green, Yellow, Blue and Red cards, and the goal is to remain on the Green card all day long. If some rules are broken, the cards need to be turned, and there are consequences associated with being on Blue and Red. For the first three days of school, all the children got to stay on their green cards while I let them know that "If it was Tuesday, you would have to move your card because...."

OK, lots of background to get to the cute story! I hope it's worth it! :) I have one little guy who is color blind. On the first day of school when it was time to color our "How Was My Day Today?" paper Green, he raised his hand and said, "I'm color blind, so I don't which one (crayon) is green." I got out his green crayon for him, he colored, all was well. The second day, when I passed out their papers and told them to color their day, he raised his hand again. Forgetting our conversation from the day before, I went to him again, wondering why he wasn't coloring yet. He said, again, "I'm color blind and I don't know which one is green."
"Oh, that's right!" I said, and again, handed him his green crayon. {Now keep in mind that the first three days of school were Thursday, Friday, Monday. I had to remember everything over a weekend :) }
On the third day of school, when it came time to color the paper green, you know who raised his hand, and again, I went over to his desk as clueless as ever. When I got there and asked what he needed, he replied, "I'm still color blind!"

P.S. We decided to take the paper off his green crayon so he doesn't have to ask me to help him find it anymore!! :)

God in the Midst of Tragedy

I am so thankful that my family was safe and not anywhere near the 35W bridge when it collapsed. My chiropractor has a brother and sister who live in the area and she told me a story that gave me goosebumps.
The night the bridge collapsed, she had not been watching television or listening to the radio, so she knew nothing about it until about 9 PM when a friend called to ask if her family was safe. She immediately began calling her sister and brother, but because of the large volume of calls, she was not able to get through until 10 PM. She found out that her sister was safe. Her brother was also safe, however, it was only by the grace of God. He travels over the 35W bridge to and from work everyday. On Wednesday night, he was delayed at work and left 10 minutes late. At 6:05 PM Wednesday night, the bridge collapsed, and at 6:15 PM that night, he reached the detour spot. Had he not been delayed at work for those 10 minutes, he would have been on the bridge at precisely 6:05 PM.
I'd be willing to bet that as we hear more stories from the survivors of this tragedy, the more we will see that this is not a unique story. How about the miracle of the bus full of children that was dangerously close to the edge of the broken part of the bridge?
It really makes me think about how God uses little things to protect us. He works in ways that we cannot understand. I drive an hour to and from work everyday. I have come across numerous accidents in the four years I have been making this trip. One accident in particular really shook me up. I was ready to leave my house one morning when I spotted some dog poo in the living room. I was SO upset! The dog had not had an accident in the house for quite a long time. I needed to leave; I certainly didn't have time to clean up the mess. Well, it's not like you can leave a mess like that to clean up later. So I cleaned it, grumbling and complaining the whole time, not to mention giving the dog a healthy dose of my wrath. I left 5-10 minutes late, and had a terrible attitude about it. Half-way through my drive to work I came upon a terrible accident involving a semi and a minivan. It was clear to see that the accident had happened only minutes before I got there. Something rose up inside of me that said, "See. If it weren't for the dog making a mess in the living room you would have been right there." I have to say, I repented right then and there for my horrible attitude. If the dog would have been able to answer the telephone I would have called her and apologized too! I know God used that to teach me a lesson. His timing is perfect. He works in ways that we cannot understand. It gave new insight into Philippians 2:14 Do everything without complaining or arguing. And Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who have been called according to His purpose.

A Boy, A Dog, and a Park

Last week, The Boy, our dog, Isabelle, and I went to check out the new dog park. Boy, did we have fun! It's really nice because the dog park is connected to a regular park. We went to the dog park first, and Isabelle had a BALL!! She couldn't get enough of the free space to run and new smells to smell. I think she made some new doggie friends as well. The Boy did a nice job taking pictures of Isabelle.

OOOHHH, What's That Smell?

Look over here, Mom!

After Isabelle's turn at the park was over, it was The Boy's turn to play at the park. He had lots of fun too. He spent a considerable amount of time on this huge climby thing. I'm not sure what you
call it, but it was really big. The Boy REALLY wanted to climb from one side to the other, but was just too intimidating. He started striking deals with me. He would say, "Will you give me a penny if I climb all the way to the other side?"

"Absolutely!" I was thinking, for that cheap, what the heck?? Well, The Boy tried again, but he would get one section from the top curve and down he would come again. He upped the anty a bit. He said, "How about if you give me a quarter if I climb all the way over to the other side?"I said, "Sure," but I was thinking, "What ever happened to the good old nickel, or even a dime?!" Now, mind you, I was not heckling The Boy to climb this thing. I told him that I thought he could do it & if he wanted to climb over the whole thing he should, but I was not insisting that it be done. Needless to say, a quarter was not quite the incentive he needed to make it over that thing either.

He tried one more time, "How about TWO quarters if I can do it?"

"If you climb all the way from one side of that thing, over the top, and down the other side, I will give you TWO quarters," I said. Well, The Boy got a better plan than the ones he had been trying. He went to the other side first, and tried climbing from the other side to this side. Unfortunately, this plan did not pan out quite as he had hoped, and he never did make it all the way from one side to the other. He decided to take a break and go down that twirly slide that you can see in the background of these pictures. Isabelle thought since The Boy got to run around and play with her in the dog park, it would only be fair for her to get to run around and play with him in the boy park. She was a little to short to climb with him on the "Half Sphere of Challenge" but she did join him in going down the slide. That dog LOVES slides!! The Girl taught her to go down them when she was just a puppy! She was all about it, too, until she reached the top and saw how twisty it was. Then she hesitated, and tried to get back down the stairs. I was right behind her and wouldn't let her go back down the stairs, and looked at me like, "Will you give me a treat if I do this?" I didn't have any treats on me, but she went down anyway. She must've decided it was pretty fun because she came around and went down again! Then we went across the park a little ways and checked out this really neat waterfall. It was a busy, fun day! We will definitely be going back!!

Updated Picture

As promised, here is an updated photo of Husband with the kids. As you can see, he's lost a considerable amount of weight! This was on the 4th of July as we were waiting for the fireworks to start. They were definitely worth the wait!! We thoroughly enjoyed them!

Never Too Old

Can We Slide NOW, Grandpa???

You'll notice in the previous post that Father-in-Law was in his swim trunks. Well, the very good reason for this was that The Boy was playing on his Slip-N-Slide while Grandpa was working on the clothesline. The Boy wanted to Grandpa to play on the Slip-N-Slide as well, and Grandpa was happy to oblige! Grandma and I felt much too old to join in the fun, but Grandpa?? "Never too old!" he said!

Dive and Slide!

Anything for The Boy!!