I've never been much for rocking Adrian to sleep. Sure there were probably times during his first 4 or 5 months of life that I might have, but truthfully I was so sleep deprived I don't really remember much from that time in our lives. My mom was always the one the liked rocking him to sleep, especially for naps. I'm just a big believer that they should learn how to put themselves to sleep so they don't rely on help from anyone or anything. That's a reason he's never had a pacifier or gone to bed with a bottle either.
Anyway, our bedtime routine consists of a bath, a few(or 20) books, hugs and kisses, and then I just lay him down in his crib and leave the room. There are a few times when he isn't quite so tired that he cries a little bit for me to go back in there, but that's really rare. Usually he just sits and talks to himself for a few minutes and then goes right to sleep. He stays there for 11-12 hours unless I have to wake him up when I have to take him to my parents' house when I go to work. I just love that he's such a good sleeper. Plus, he's been taking 3 hour naps lately.
Tonight was different though. He had his bath, we read books, and then came time for hugs and kisses before I laid him down. For some reason he was very huggy tonight. He just laid his head on my shoulder and held on tight. Every time I would try to put him down he would cling on to me really tightly. He was snuggling his face into my neck. It was very cute. Finally I asked him if he wanted to lay on me and I would rock in the chair. He couldn't have been happier. It was as if we did this all the time.
Rocking a 35 lb. 20 month old isn't the same as rocking a newborn baby. His legs were draped down around mine. His whole torso covered my whole torso. It only took about 5 minutes before his arms went limp and his grip loosened from around my neck. I just sat there rocking back and forth with tears streaming down my face.
I can't believe he's growing up so fast. It won't be long before rocking him isn't even going to be possible. Then I think about adding to our family and that one day he won't be my "baby" anymore. Nights like these make everything that has been bothering me about work lately pale in comparison to my wonderful life.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Mom is no pro
This statement goes both for my mom and for me. On Monday after work I was hanging out at my parent's house because Jon-Paul had to work late. Adrian's hair had been getting noticeably long and thick. He's had one "real" haircut from Jenni a little over 6 months ago. Other than that his haircuts are usually just me trimming a little here and there while he's sitting in the bathtub.
On this day my mom decided to ask Adrian if he wanted Nana to give him a haircut. Surprisingly he agreed. When he agrees to anything nowadays you take advantage right away. His new favorite thing to say is NO!
She took him into her bathroom and sat him up on the sink and began cutting away with some scissors. Cutting a 20 month old's hair is no easy task even for someone who does it all the time, never mind someone who never does it. He kept turning his head and pushing her hands away. I was trying to keep him occupied with some cheese quesadilla I was eating. This was working for a little while. She still managed to cut her fingers and hands a couple times. After a while I got tired of standing there and I wasn't helping much so I left them alone. She kept cutting and cutting trying to even things out. Yeah, that wasn't happening. After about 20 minutes she conceded that her work was the best that it was going to get.
I took him home knowing that Jon-Paul keeps a pair of trimmers in our closet. At this point Adrian was still excited and willing to let me cut his hair with the trimmers. I warned him that it was going to make a kind of scary noise and surprisingly he wasn't too bothered by it. I looked for the longest number we had which was a 7.
I began to cut the top of his head and it was a lot shorter than I expected. Oh well, it's hair and it will grow back. He was so good and sat still the whole time as long as I was feeding him animal cookies. I did a 7 on his whole head and then shortened the back with a 3 and blended it with a 5. It didn't turn out too bad. Now he just looks like such a big boy!
On this day my mom decided to ask Adrian if he wanted Nana to give him a haircut. Surprisingly he agreed. When he agrees to anything nowadays you take advantage right away. His new favorite thing to say is NO!
She took him into her bathroom and sat him up on the sink and began cutting away with some scissors. Cutting a 20 month old's hair is no easy task even for someone who does it all the time, never mind someone who never does it. He kept turning his head and pushing her hands away. I was trying to keep him occupied with some cheese quesadilla I was eating. This was working for a little while. She still managed to cut her fingers and hands a couple times. After a while I got tired of standing there and I wasn't helping much so I left them alone. She kept cutting and cutting trying to even things out. Yeah, that wasn't happening. After about 20 minutes she conceded that her work was the best that it was going to get.
I took him home knowing that Jon-Paul keeps a pair of trimmers in our closet. At this point Adrian was still excited and willing to let me cut his hair with the trimmers. I warned him that it was going to make a kind of scary noise and surprisingly he wasn't too bothered by it. I looked for the longest number we had which was a 7.
I began to cut the top of his head and it was a lot shorter than I expected. Oh well, it's hair and it will grow back. He was so good and sat still the whole time as long as I was feeding him animal cookies. I did a 7 on his whole head and then shortened the back with a 3 and blended it with a 5. It didn't turn out too bad. Now he just looks like such a big boy!
I'm Happy with my new haircut!!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Working woes
Ugh. That's all I can say about my second week back at work. This was the first week that the kids had to be back. Stress was the word of the week in my world.
This year there are a lot of new things that have to be implemented in our school. The whole school has chosen a new reading program for all of the regular kids. By regular I mean not special education or those not proficient in English. The second big change this year, that actually should be affecting every school in the state because there are some new law imposed by the state, is that those kids who are mainly Spanish speakers should be receiving 4 hours of English instruction.
I start the day with one class that is all Spanish speakers but they scored at the Intermediate level of the English proficiency test that I gave them last year. They are all 7th graders and I only have about 10 of them. They can all speak English pretty well and should be able to pass the test by the end of the year and no longer need the 4 hours. They only stay with me for one hour and then they go to other teachers for reading and writing. I'm pretty comfortable with what I'm doing with them. We'll be doing a lot of practice speaking in English and maybe some writing.
Now comes the stress...
Next I have a class of students that score Pre-emergent and Emergent on the test. These are the kids that speak little to no English. I knew I was going to have this class I just didn't know that there would be so few of them. I had 4 kids on my roster. I have those kids for 4 hours straight. You might think oh how easy to only have that many, but that's a lot of time to fill when they can't talk back. Only 2 showed up on Monday and the rest of the week there were 3. It turns out that one of the girls is too high for that class so she will be moved out.
Another reason it was so difficult with them all week was that I was also supposed to be receiving new materials to teach them with. Well piece by piece it has been coming in, but I haven't had the time to go through it and make plans with it and I still don't have all of it yet. Luckily the kids were very understanding, bored, but understanding. We spent a lot of time playing with puzzles and word board games I got from another teacher last week. I also have a smart board in my room and they like playing with that. It's amazing how long 4 hours can seem when you have nothing to do and 3 kids wanting you to tell them what to do.
Then in 6th grade they are dealing with an overcrowding problem. There are some classes that have 37-40 kids!!! So a meeting was called on Thursday after school to discuss possible solutions to this problem. I think we've decided that I can take some of the Basic level ELL kids in my 4 hour block. I would really like this for a couple reasons. One, I would be getting about 10-14 more kids. Two, I would get to take them to their elective classes during that time so I wouldn't have them all 4 hours every day. The only big change is that my prep would move to 2nd period instead of 6th. I really like having that last hour of the day as my prep right now.
Ok, so the solution was given but now we have to wait another week before any of these changes are made because we have a 10 day drop rule for any of the kids that are on the rosters but they have never actually come to school. We want to have accurate numbers before the big change so that's why we're waiting. Now I have 5 more days with 2 or 3 kids for 4 hours. I'm going to try to find some big project or something that will take a lot of time that we can do next week. I feel so bad for them and it's torture for me.
This year there are a lot of new things that have to be implemented in our school. The whole school has chosen a new reading program for all of the regular kids. By regular I mean not special education or those not proficient in English. The second big change this year, that actually should be affecting every school in the state because there are some new law imposed by the state, is that those kids who are mainly Spanish speakers should be receiving 4 hours of English instruction.
I start the day with one class that is all Spanish speakers but they scored at the Intermediate level of the English proficiency test that I gave them last year. They are all 7th graders and I only have about 10 of them. They can all speak English pretty well and should be able to pass the test by the end of the year and no longer need the 4 hours. They only stay with me for one hour and then they go to other teachers for reading and writing. I'm pretty comfortable with what I'm doing with them. We'll be doing a lot of practice speaking in English and maybe some writing.
Now comes the stress...
Next I have a class of students that score Pre-emergent and Emergent on the test. These are the kids that speak little to no English. I knew I was going to have this class I just didn't know that there would be so few of them. I had 4 kids on my roster. I have those kids for 4 hours straight. You might think oh how easy to only have that many, but that's a lot of time to fill when they can't talk back. Only 2 showed up on Monday and the rest of the week there were 3. It turns out that one of the girls is too high for that class so she will be moved out.
Another reason it was so difficult with them all week was that I was also supposed to be receiving new materials to teach them with. Well piece by piece it has been coming in, but I haven't had the time to go through it and make plans with it and I still don't have all of it yet. Luckily the kids were very understanding, bored, but understanding. We spent a lot of time playing with puzzles and word board games I got from another teacher last week. I also have a smart board in my room and they like playing with that. It's amazing how long 4 hours can seem when you have nothing to do and 3 kids wanting you to tell them what to do.
Then in 6th grade they are dealing with an overcrowding problem. There are some classes that have 37-40 kids!!! So a meeting was called on Thursday after school to discuss possible solutions to this problem. I think we've decided that I can take some of the Basic level ELL kids in my 4 hour block. I would really like this for a couple reasons. One, I would be getting about 10-14 more kids. Two, I would get to take them to their elective classes during that time so I wouldn't have them all 4 hours every day. The only big change is that my prep would move to 2nd period instead of 6th. I really like having that last hour of the day as my prep right now.
Ok, so the solution was given but now we have to wait another week before any of these changes are made because we have a 10 day drop rule for any of the kids that are on the rosters but they have never actually come to school. We want to have accurate numbers before the big change so that's why we're waiting. Now I have 5 more days with 2 or 3 kids for 4 hours. I'm going to try to find some big project or something that will take a lot of time that we can do next week. I feel so bad for them and it's torture for me.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Back to school....
Well, work really. On Monday I had to report back to work after having 9 wonderful weeks off. For some reason us teachers have to come back an entire week before the students do. Monday was basically spent sitting in boring meetings all day in the cafeteria. We didn't even get to move around and do any of the usual get-to-know-you teacher activities. I would have given anything to have been able to get up once in a while and do one of those stupid things.
After an early meeting on Tuesday morning about the sports I will be coaching this year, girls soccer and boys volleyball, I went to my very bare room and procrastinated about going through all of the piles of books left behind by the previous teacher that occupied the room. By afternoon I was motivated a little bit and began making a few piles more organized.
Today was another day spent all day in meetings. My first one was from 8-11 at the library where we had a speaker about working in teams at the middle school level. This is really funny because our principal is known to oppose the idea of teams, but we had to be there and got professional development hours for it. After lunch I really didn't have a set place to go, but it was suggested I go to a meeting on the training for the new reading materials our district adopted. This went from 12:30-3:30 and was completely pointless for me. Once again I got professional development hours for it though, so I guess it wasn't a total loss.
All of the time could have been spent today working in my room. Technically I'm not a first year teacher and I feel really confident dealing with the kids, but I feel like I'm not prepared materials wise. My room is so bare. I have to go out and buy stuff to put up on my walls. Tomorrow night is already open house for the parents to come meet me and they are going to walk into an ugly room. That's my main concern at the moment. That, and what I'm actually going to be teaching on Monday morning ;)
After an early meeting on Tuesday morning about the sports I will be coaching this year, girls soccer and boys volleyball, I went to my very bare room and procrastinated about going through all of the piles of books left behind by the previous teacher that occupied the room. By afternoon I was motivated a little bit and began making a few piles more organized.
Today was another day spent all day in meetings. My first one was from 8-11 at the library where we had a speaker about working in teams at the middle school level. This is really funny because our principal is known to oppose the idea of teams, but we had to be there and got professional development hours for it. After lunch I really didn't have a set place to go, but it was suggested I go to a meeting on the training for the new reading materials our district adopted. This went from 12:30-3:30 and was completely pointless for me. Once again I got professional development hours for it though, so I guess it wasn't a total loss.
All of the time could have been spent today working in my room. Technically I'm not a first year teacher and I feel really confident dealing with the kids, but I feel like I'm not prepared materials wise. My room is so bare. I have to go out and buy stuff to put up on my walls. Tomorrow night is already open house for the parents to come meet me and they are going to walk into an ugly room. That's my main concern at the moment. That, and what I'm actually going to be teaching on Monday morning ;)
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