Shhhh....

The only child left at the end of our time together today (please note: I’ve listened to children talk ALL day)…

"What color is your car? I can see your car out the door. Where do you live? Is it far? Do your kids go to school? Do you fly to school? I can walk with my mom. My mom told you she was pickin’ me up? I’m smart. A is for apple. What do frogs eat? Bugs? Where’s my art project? I can’t find it. Oh, there it is. I picked lotion when I got out of my mom’s car. What’s lotion? My mom will be here in a little while. Your baby’s sayin’ hurry up? Babies say hurry up? My sister can lock the door on my mom. My mom can’t open the door. Who drawed this picture here? Jazmine? She knows how to do that?" and on and on and on.... but she's dang cute.

Remember?

He was SO tiny. I look at my hand and back to his face. I can barely remember. He's over 9 months old now. Sweet boy.

Hola!

Our sweet girl started first grade this week. She's wishy washy about whether she likes it or not. That's ok. Time will tell. I think she will love it once she has more friends. They have art once a week and walk to the public library to check out books. You gotta love a small town school!

Erin started dance this month. She LOVES it. She does tap and ballet in an hour a week. She loves to tell everyone that she goes to dance now. I think she's proud to be like her big sister!



I also started school this week. My class is about half English Learners (EL), several have very little or no English. This is sort of new to me because we have always had two dedicated EL kindergarten classes at my school and the EL kids were always automatically placed in those classes, which I did not teach. So it is a learning experience for the kids and myself. I realized about midway through the first day that there is a file in my brain that contains more Spanish than I thought I had retained. I am loving it. I also have a student that speaks Urdu. Mostly though, the kids speak Spanish. I speak really well in one word phrases and hand gestures. Thank goodness for hand gestures. The kids are adorable, every one of them. I can't complain. EXCEPT that there are too many kids this year. I have 26. As we say - it's like herding cats.

Dear McDonald's...

Upon arriving at the drive thru speaker this evening, I waited approximately 3 minutes for someone to acknowledge I was there. In the meantime someone drove up to the adjacent speaker lane and their order was immediately taken. When I finally gave my order I was asked to repeat the ENTIRE thing. It was all very confusing. Then the cashier had on two nametags (Michelle and Dorothy), which I thought was odd and it kind of matched the dual personality she was showing at the window. She informed me that the store was out of chocolate milk, so I substituted for reg. milk. After receiving my food at the second window I drove away and proceeded to pass the food out to my children. One of the milk bottles was spoiled. Although it had the date "Use Through 8-6-09" it was thick and rancid. Thank goodness I always check the milk from ANY restaurant before serving it to my child. Being that we were on the road, and I have three children, I was unable to return to the store, unload everyone out of the car, stand in line, exchange the milk, and load everyone back into the car. My child did not get her drink and I was out $1.29. May not sound like a big deal to you but it is to a 6 year old. I felt I should raise the awareness of quality control in this product and that it greatly affected what was supposed to be a peaceful, enjoyable evening drive home from grandma's house.
Sincerely,
A Mother in Need of Some Quality Quiet Drive Time
(The code on the cap is #06-253 05:39 in case anyone there cares)