A Week Off

Ham and I thoroughly enjoyed our week long holiday from school.

We went to the park, we threw a super early Mardi Gras Birthday party for Ham, and we took walks around the neighborhood.

I just relaxed which is not an easy thing for me to do.

Ham on the other hand engaged in his new toddler boy behaviors.

He wreaked havoc on the house putting his toys from one end of the house to the other.

He ripped the paint of our cabinets and he colored my sofa, computer and coffee table with a green crayon in a three minutes span.

He pee-peed on his new car potty twice and thankfully did not poop in the tub once this week. 

He poured his cereal on top of himself and he ripped apart one of his books.

He watched America's Funniest Videos and laughed hysterically whenever someone wiped out. 

It was relaxing for him too.

Here's some pictures from the week gone by.

Our Mardi Gras Crew

Maw-Maw and B hanging out on the porch

Hey Mister!

On one of our walks

Church around the corner

Running from Mom

Getting ready to say "Aw Hammy!"

Beaumont days

I find myself reminiscing about our time in Beaumont a lot lately.

Last year, Mr. Yardbird was living in Beaumont for work for 10 months. Almost an entire year.

Ham and I loaded the car up and spent 4 or five days at a time visiting him, in between going to school and taking care of Ham as a stay at home mom.

The trip was never easy and we started making it when Ham was just about 10 months old in January. We loaded the car up, which took forever, and I always managed to forget something important.

Pretty soon, we developed a system and Ham and I became traveling pros. We had a traveling routine that worked with regular stops on the way and variety of toys and snacks to pass the time on the drive there.

During this time, I spent hours catching up with old friends on my bluetooth as I drove. Time I wish I had more of now.

And of course I got to spend a few days with Mr. Yardbird, even if it was only lunch and dinner time.

Ham and I learned how to navigate Beaumont during the day while Mr. Y. worked, and spent most of the day at their mall which reminded me so much of my mall growing up that it felt like I went back in time whenever we went there.

And when Mr. Y could join us at the mall, we would walk over to the furniture store, pretend to be interested in furniture just to grab some of their never ending supply of keurig coffee.

It was good times.

But perhaps some of the best were the times we spent in the hotel, chasing Hammy down the halls. It was in this hotel that Hammy took those first unsteady steps toward his daddy.

It was in that hotel that he started saying his first words "light" and "hot".

It was there that we played hide and seek with Ham, chasing him around the room while he burst into laughter.

And it was there that he learned how to drink out of a straw and use a fork and spoon.

It might not have been an ideal place for firsts, or even an ideal place to be a family, but we made a home there.

And as time went on, we made family with all of the staff and people like us who also were in the business of extended hotel stays. So it wasn't so bad.

This Christmas, our "family" in Beaumont sent us a Christmas card. Every staff member signed it, which really made me smile.

And, it made me kind of miss those days.

Here's some of my favorite pictures from the Beaumont days......

January.....

 

 

Discussing new furniture

 

February....

March....

 

 

May....

 

 

June...

 

August....

 

 

September...

 

 



Aw Hammy

With Ham's 2 year birthday just aorund the corner, it makes sense that he would be experimenting with the "terrible twos". Most people don't believe me when I say this, because Ham is such a well-behaved reserved kid around everyone else.

However, at home, it's a different story.

Aside from the out of nowhere temper tantrums and fits when he doesn't get his way, he also finds time to make the biggest messes he can come up with.

In the past, I stuck to the five second rule. If I left Ham alone to load the dishwasher, unload the washing machine, etc, I would allow five seconds of silence  to determine whether Ham had gotten into something he should not have.

Now, I allow 1 second.

Just last week I walked into find my green sofa colored red with a crayon. Ham, of course, acted like he had never seen a red crayon and knew nothing about what might have happened to make the beautiful circular red crayola marks that stretched from one end of the sofa to the other.

And similiary, he couldn't explain how his cereal bowl and its milk landed on top of his head. And why his banana was smashed down on top of that.

Neither could he tell me why he thought it was a great idea to throw his goldfish snack all over the living room and smash them to bits with his feet.

Nor could he offer a possible motive for drawing all over the tests I just graded and then crumpling them up and well, taking them to the garbage to  throw them away.

And each time he showed me this sort of mess made by him someone else entirely, I said the same thing I always say, " Aw, Hammy!" in my same disapproving tone. Because I knew I would have to spend extra time cleaning it all up again.

Unfortunately, Ham misunderstood what I was saying each time he made mess after mess.

So this week, Ham took the apple slices I cut up for him, threw them on the floor and smashed them up with his shoes.

A few seconds later, I hear him trott into the kitchen. I already knew what he was going to say --- "Uh, Oh".

But, no this time he say "Aw, Hammy!" and he pointed to the mess he made in the living room.

And I couldn't help but laugh.

Since then, Ham refers to all accidents and things that are messes as "Aw Hammy!".

Like he did this morning when some of his breakfast was stuck to my shirt. He pointed down and said "Aw Hammy!" and I just smiled and brushed it off.

I sort of hope this doesn't stick, but I admit it's kind of funny.

It's not so bad.....

To give you the brief rundown since the last time I posted, things have been looking up for me in the 5th grade.

It took a few days after Christmas for the students to realize that I wasn't going anywhere. And to be honest, it took about the same amount of time for me to realize I wasn't going anywhere either. Even if I thought about it on a regular basis in those first few weeks.

Somehow after Christmas, everything came together. The students grew to genuinely  like me and vice versa. Now I don't get that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach when I go to school and no one stands on their desk and throws pencils at me when I turn my back.

Now, the kids bring me thin mint chocolates and one student wrote a letter actually telling me I was her favorite teacher that she had ever had. I thought about framing it. But instead, I tucked in a safe spot to take out and re-read on a rotten day.

They even rolled their eyes and huffed and puffed when I told them I had to have a subsitute come in for half a day so I could sign paperwork. Because, they told me, they would rather I was with them. I couldn't believe my ears.

Maybe time was all that was needed. At any rate, I'm glad I stuck with it.

The Forgotten Door

Today was a teacher's typical Tuesday.

Mondays are the gem of the week. The students are sleepy, they don't talk a lot. They are still in a fog. You teach, you think they are listening, and from the dazed look you sure hope they are. Mondays are easy.

It is a lot easier to tell a student to wake up then it is to tell them to stop talking, sit in their desk, and for the love of pete keep their hands, feet, and objects to themselves.

That's what Tuesdays are for. All the energy they stored up in hibernation mode on Monday, they save it for Tuesday.

So Tuesdays are my days for wine and this blog. Thank you, blog. Thank you, week-old wine.

In the midst of yelling today and explaining things over and over and over again, I had a spare minute and I thought I would check the cabinents for a microscope.

I figure you can't be a legitimate science teacher if you do not have a handy dandy microscope.

I couldn't find it, but I did find something a gazillion times better.

Every since I took over that classroom a few weeks ago, I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt.

I'm not sure of the organizational system that was in place by the previous teacher, but I feel like treasures are tucked in ever nook and cranny.

Today, instead of a microscope, which I'm sure is in there somewhere, I found this:

The Forgotten Door.

It is THE book that made me:

• want to be a teacher - because my fourth grade teacher read it to my class with such energy that I wanted to be her
• want to be a writer
• tell Mr. Yardbird for the past 7 years I have to locate it

After my teacher read this book to us, I went on to write "The Magic Necklace" that year and other half finished short stories. I still have many of them in my old room at home. I couldn't stop writing because of this book and I started reading just about every suspenseful book I could get my hands on.

Finding this book, made me realize that:

• Oh yeah, I want to be a teacher
• Maybe this all might work out after all

I'm kidding, it was nice to find it though.

So,with all of my excitement upon finding the book, I called my class to attention.

Two people looked my way and I said "I want to read ya'll this amazing book for ten minutes everyday." I went on to read the back of the book and a few kids looked up with interest.

"How's that sound?" I said, beaming with happiness.

No one said anything.

Then I asked them to raise their hands if they were interested in that.

Guess what?

One person did.

So, I shrugged my shoulders, stuck my treasure in my bag and decided I'll wait to Ham gets bigger and read it to him.

Life with 5th graders.

Choo-Choo.

Ralph, Eor, Jerry, Scout, Copper and Todd.

These were all of Ham's potential buddies.

Some kids have blankies or lovies. Some have that special stuffed animal they lug around everywhere.

But not Ham.

We tried and I'm not even sure why we tried so hard to make him that kind of friend.

I think we thought it would ease transitions.

A new start at daycare, we packed Jerry.

Long road trips, we brought Scout.

Bedtime pals that Ham could read to, well Copper and Todd were his right hand dog and fox.

There was even a point when an unnamed stuffed animal squirrel made such an impression on Ham he wouldn't eat his dinner without it tucked behind him.

But low and behold Ham finally figured out which bedtime friend he could not make it without. I thought for a moment it might be one of his cars, the small plastic cars he asks me to put in his bed every night.

No, apparently nothing compares to "Choo Choo", Ham's train.

For the past few nights, Ham's love for Choo Choo makes it nearly impossible to rock him to sleep, because the rocker barely has room for the two of us anymore. There's definitely not room for the three of us, Choo. And as much as I love our rocks together, my arms and face are not into being Choo's railroad tracks. I told Ham it's either me or Choo and I watched his knuckles turn white as he tightened his grip on it.

And last night, when he woke up screaming for who knows what reason and I rushed to his side. He didn't say "Mommy, hold me", he said "Where's Choo?". And I reluctantly put the same Choo back that I snuck out of his crib the moment his eyes shut. He lowered himself back down onto the mattress and wrapped his arm around Choo pulling him tightly to his side. I can't see how that's comfortable, but who am I to judge?

And Choo went with us as we left this morning. Here he is mid "Choo".

And Choo takes part in his "terrible two" activities such as climbing on the table.

Maybe it's just a phase or maybe Choo's his new sidekick.

Happy 2013!

I always say that you can tell how good of a time someone had by how few pictures they took. My reason being that when a good time is going on, no one wants to waste time taking pictures.

And so that being said, I only have one picture to show for our big family new years party at Aunt Christine and Uncle Frank's.

At one point in the beginning before droves of people arrived, I snapped this picture of Mr. Yardbird showing off his mad yo-yo skills to my cousins.

They seemed really impressed.

The next day, Ham and I went back over to Aunt Christine and Uncle Franks to catch our out-of-town family members one last time before they left.

The boys played football in the yard for a while, we ate and then set to work on cleaning up the toy room. Not only did the adults have a great time at the party, but the kids appeared to have a pretty awesome time too with my aunts never-ending supply of toys.

My Aunt has toys from the 1970's with all of their pieces. This blows my mind, because I can't keep up with the pieces to Ham's toys two seconds after he opens them. There are toys in my aunt's play room that I remember playing with when I was a kid and it was neat to see Ham excited over the same ones I loved as a kid.

While we were cleaning we came across a proton pack, a radar gun and something to catch the ghosts with.
 
So we loaded Ham up with all of the Ghostbuster gear and he got to work looking for Slimer.

Which made me smile and think of this guy.....

My brother Jason

 Man how time flies!