Stars and Smiley Faces

When John and I attended Back-To-School-Night a few weeks ago, I signed up to be one of the teacher’s helpers. This meant I would volunteer to prep projects for 20 kindergarten students by cutting things up/out, gathering some craft supplies, ‘grading’ some papers, etc. I hadn’t heard anything from Jack’s teacher about helping out until a few days ago when Mrs. G. sent a fat black bag home with Jack. The bag was full of papers with a note explaining how to grade them. I was to check that capital letters were capital letters, make sure children matched upper and lower case letters correctly and that they had glued pictures in the proper places. I was to put a smiley face or a star on EVERY paper, even if the child missed everything on the page. No problem and kinda fun - except when someone missed a lot and I had to cheerfully write "Keep trying!" at the top of their paper. Anyway, in the middle of ‘grading’ these papers Jess came in and asked me what I was doing.

"Grading papers." I said.
"For who?" She aksed.
"Mrs. G." I replied.
"Um, is that LEGAL?" She asked indignantly.
"Yes." I said.
"Is she going to get fired for having you do that?" She asked.
"It's not like I'm grading graduate essays on quantitative easing, Jess. I'm correcting capital letters."
She looked at me blankly. (I threw her with that bit about quantitative easing!!!)

My ethical dilema occured when I had to grade Jack's papers. Fortunatley I am an honest person and even more fortunate for me, Jack did all his assignments correctly. I gave him big purple smiley faces!

Ant Melanie

We were driving home the other night when John said something to the boys about their "Aunt Melanie". Very indignant, Wy piped up from the back seat "She is NOT A BWACK ANT! And she is not a bwue ant! Or a brown ant or a orange ant or a green ant or a red ant. SHE IS NOT A ANT, DADDY!"

I texted Mel to let her know Wy was sticking up for her rights. She told me to tell him thanks, which I did. He replied by insisting I hand over my cell phone. He leaned very close to the screen and yelled "You are welcome, Mewanie."

The pole

This is the pole. This is the pole my children run into at school. Connie has run into it three times since she came to JP2. The last time she ran into the pole, she ran into so hard that mom took her to the Urgent Clinic to make sure she didn't have a concussion.

Jack ran into this pole last week. He had such an egg on his head that the nurse called me to warn me about it. She must have thought I was getting upset as she kept telling me he was ok. I finally had to tell her I was fine and was desperately trying not to laugh. She then told me Jack was quite put out with her. He kept telling her "You are going to make me miss my recess!" She insisted on his staying with her though to make sure he was fine.

Later that same evening mom and I attended a school auction meeting. The principal was there and I asked her if other children ran into this pole or was it just our kids? I told her I wasn't gunning to have a pole removed from school grounds, I was just trying to determine if mine were the only kids who kept running into a pole in the middle of NOWHERE. I'm not sure she believed me about wanting the pole removed.

Go, dog! Go!

Jack is slowly learning how to read. His class has words they work on every day. At home we have Jack read Dr. Suess' Go, dog! Go! to Wyatt each night. He is doing a great job and Wy likes for his "bruhver Jackie" to read to him.

Devlyn's 5th Birthday!

Devlyn turned 5 last week. We tried to get everyone around the table at once, but it just didn't shake down. First we were waiting for John to get home from work, then Devon had to take Abby to Girl Scouts, then Mom & I had a meeting for the upcoming school auction... Devlyn wasn't too bothered by it. She was excited because she had asked for Dogs in a Sweater for dinner (you put a hot dog on a popcicle stick and wrap a breadstick around it, then bake them up) and she had a beautiful cake. Happy Birthday, Devlyn!


For a few more pictures from Devlyn's birthday, go to http://owenlandparkproductions.shutterfly.com/

Love and blessings,
Amy & the gang

Sketchers

I had the boys with me at the grocery last night. I always put Wy in a cart and push him. I usually let Jack push a cart behind me. He sometimes lags behind. When I tell him to catch up with me he likes to run full tilt boogie down the aisle. This generally results in the cart crashing into my body and inflicting injuries upon my ankles, knees or hips. Last night I told him to catch up and I said "DON'T YOU DARE CRASH INTO ME THIS TIME." He came barreling down the aisle and skidded to a stop about a foot away from me. Cool as a cucumber he says "Well...I guess vat means I have my license to drive a cart, Mommy."

Wy is learning to "frow" a football. He says you put your fingers on the white line and you has to wear Sketchers shoes to "frow" the ball far.

I'm still having a lot of trouble getting Wy to care about/be interested in using the toilet instead of his pants. He loves to get chocolates if he uses the bathroom, but it isn't such a big reward that he will stop what he is doing to GO to the bathroom. We have recently started throwing cheeri-os into the toilet for target practice. He really likes this but I'm not sure it's beg enough fun to cinch the deal.

The boys like to grab their noses and sayd "one-my-mormis, two-my-mormis....ten-my-mormis" all the while giggling hysterically. I have no idea what this means or where it comes from. They do sound funny though.

Homecoming

Jess went to her first two dates over the weekend (same fella). I don't know anything about date number 1 on Friday, but Saturday was Homecoming. This young man (I am horrible and can't remember his name...)and his mama made a beautiful wrist corsage for Jess. And, when the evening was over, he showed her how she could snip off the flowers and continue to wear the bracelet. I was pretty disappointed that I didn't get to see them. They headed out about 15 minutes before I got home from my matinee.