And the craziness continues

This substituting thing is going to really make me more thankful for my delightful children. I am appalled at some of the kids in our schools. What are these parents doing to create such monsters????

Take this little boy from this week, we'll call him Bob (because, if you think about it, no one names their little kid Bob anymore--there are a hundred Cadens and Haydens and Jaydens and Bradens but no Bobs). So, "Bob" just about sent me over the edge more than once in the four days I spent with him. He disregards all instruction, thinks nothing of arguing with any and all adults and is a pathological liar. All by the ripe old age of 8. Nice. If I said for the kids to read quietly when they were done with their assignment, Bob would draw a picture. If I said to stay in your seat, Bob was up and across the room. If I said no one can go to the library, Bob would ask to go to the library. This disregard for instruction was revealed in Bob's assignments as well since you have to listen to the instructions to do many of the assignments correctly. And when I dared to point out that Bob had done a particular worksheet incorrectly he said, "No I didn't!" Oh, my bad, they must have written the instructions incorrectly when they printed the worksheet.

Several times today alone, Bob did something that the entire class was a witness to and he vehemently denied any involvement whatsoever. Bob is a senator in the making. He told me this morning that his parents had not signed his daily planner (like they are supposed to each night) and then a few minutes later he said, "Mine's signed." Of course, I, along with the rest of the class had seen him, pencil in hand, forging his mom's name. And very poorly at that. When the class accused him of having just signed it, he declared, "I don't even know how to write cursive! I didn't do it!"

Then this afternoon he was making an obnoxious noise that I asked him to stop. He said, "I didn't do it!! I don't even know how to make that noise!!" Indignation rose in the rest of the class who had been watching him and listening to him make the noise. When I told him that he was lying and that he needed to move his name tag to orange (red is the worst level) he stomped over and said "She's a stupid idiot!" Now, I didn't hear what he said, but three kids did and promptly reported it to me. Now, after all you know about Bob you can guess what his next words were. That's right: "I didn't do it!" He can even cry on command to make his pleas more dramatic. In his mind he is completely a victim. What kind of parenting creates this??? And who buys this baloney?? He got moved to red and got no recess. :-) And the teacher gets to read my note on the Exploits of Bob for some interesting reading on Monday morning.

The good news for me is that I don't have to spend the day with Bob on Monday! His poor teacher however, cannot escape him until the end of May. And then he moves on to third grade to torture some unsuspecting teacher for another year.

I also had two recess biting incidents while I was in this 2nd grade class. Two! They are second graders for heaven's sake!! (Thankfully I was not on duty when they happened!) One, I am sure you will be surprised to hear, involved my friend Bob. He was the bitee though. Apparently he had a boy in a headlock and the kid bit him. Can't say I blame him. Bob brings out the animal in all of us apparently. The other was a relatively good kid who bit a girl because she had his arm behind his back or something. I'm sorry, but if a girl is whuppin' on you, biting her does not help you save face. He got busted big time. His dad will be really excited to hear that his son bit a girl in the 2nd grade.

So, with just the small portion of the insanity of the class that I had for a long 4 days you can see why I have dubbed this class the 2nd grade version of America's Future Most Wanted.

The really good news is that for my reward, Monday I am subbing in an ALP class. It's the advanced learner class. You know, all of the really smart kids who do their homework without being asked. Bob will be far, far away from me on the other side of the school. I'll be praying for Bob. And especially for Bob's teacher.

Back by popular demand...

Let's just try to remember that I said in the very beginning that I would be inconsistent with this whole blogging thing. I have been true to my word!

So, let's cover the last few weeks...

My parents were in town for about a month. They just left last week. They were able to catch a few of the kids' events while they were here: Em cheering at a basketball game, Em's choir concert and Tommy's 1st grade cowboy program (he had a speaking part--a girl asked him "what's a horse's favorite color? He had to say "neigh-vy blue." He got nervous and said a very fast "navy blue" into the mike and bolted back to his spot. Considering his constant desire for the spotlight, we were surprised at his nervousness!).

Emily's cheerleading gig has consumed much of my time lately. I am either picking her up from practice or going to one of her games most days. The upside is that their girls' basketball team is really good so it is enjoyable to watch the games (in between watching the cheerleaders that is). They have won quite a few of their games by a spread of 40 points. Ouch. Some of those girls got serious game.

I have substituted at the kids' school 1-2 times a week and I am having a lot of fun with it. It has been very helpful in keeping me moving and off of the couch. Case in point, Thursday and Friday, I woke up and knew it was going to be a serious Gleevec day. Luckily I had been scheduled to work and so laying around on the couch was not an option. When I am up and moving and dealing with an entire class of 3rd graders, I feel much better. It helps to keep your mind off of your own problems when you are counseling a 9 year old who is freaking out and crying about a writing assignment. Actually it was two 9 year olds freaking out and crying about a writing assignment at alternating points. Teachers do not get paid enough in my opinion. I was in a class before spring break that was beyond interesting. One boy was so incredibly stressed out and freaked out about anything. He kept coming up with his worksheets and asking me if he had finished all of the problems. Not did he do them right, but had he done them all--which he obviously could have figured out on his own but needed constant assurance. He wasn't sure if he deserved to go to recess because at one point he might have been talking when he wasn't supposed to. And later I found out that one of the girls in that class had a tendency to whinny frequently. She did not do that for me thankfully.

We went to Disneyland and San Diego over spring break. It was the kids' first time ever to Disneyland and they were incredibly excited and loved every minute of it. We went on all of the major rides multiple times and they were exhausted at the end of each day. We rented one of those electric carts for me so that I could actually enjoy our time there. Very smart move. It was like my own personal thrill ride as I worked hard to avoid running into people. I almost ran over each of my own kids quite a few times throughout our three days. For some reason they (along with everyone else in the park) thought that they were able to bolt across in front of me or stop right in front of me without repurcussions. The kids also learned that standing right next to the cart with their feet under it is a bad idea when I pushed the accelerate button. Instant speed bumps. The other obviously great part of renting that cart (besides being able to run my children over) was that we got to bypass many of the lines and go through the handicapped entrance. Only two of the rides at Disneyland required me to go through the regular line. California Adventure, on the other hand, having been built more recently had all of the lines designed for accessibility. The kids were shocked at how long the lines were at Ca. Adv. They were aghast that we had to wait 30-45 minutes to go on a ride. Heck, they even complained if there was one other family in front of us in the handicapped line. We kept trying to explain to them that Disneyland for the rest of the world includes incredibly long lines that go on forever and not everyone is lucky enough to have a mom with leukemia. Most of those poor children at Disneyland have 2 healthy parents and no means of bypassing the lines.

We actually saw quite a few Gilbertonians at Disneyland. Emily saw the most people that she knew and/or recognized from school. I think her final count was 12 or something like that. We were in line for California Screamin' with a boy from Noah's class and we saw one of the 3rd grade teachers from school. And we saw some of our neighbors that we had just met recently. It's a small world after all...Oh, and I did make my children go on that ride. They loved it! Well, except for Noah--I kept threatening him that we were going to go back on it and he would scream "Noooooooooo! Anything but that!"

So, things are getting back to our normal levels of barely contained chaos after our trip. Only two more months of school before summer. Time does fly.

My medical update is that my blood counts were a bit low this week which is the first time in a long time. I have to have them checked again this week to see if they go back up. My neutrophil count was pretty low. The neutrophils are the part of the white blood cells that fight infection. So, if you have the plague steer clear of me thankyouverymuch.

Other than needing some new neutrophils I'm doing well and keeping myself too busy to blog.

Here's the kids at Disneyland. (Two of the days we had them in the same or similar shirts. It made it sooo much easier to keep track of certain children that had a tendency to be distracted and not notice that the rest of the family moved on. )

New York, New York

Sam and I went to New York City for our anniversary last weekend. It was VERY cold, but we had a fun time. Now, when I say VERY cold, I mean VERY. We were bundled in just about as many layers as we could comfortably wear and still walk around and still found ourselves taking refuge inside of buildings to thaw out frequently. A nice reminder of why we live in Phoenix.

We stayed with some incredibly gracious and hospitable friends who live in Connecticut and then took the train in to the City. We went ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza and we went to the Top of the Rock (the observation deck at the top of Rockefeller Center). We hung out a little on Times Square people watching (from inside a store of course) and being amazed at the fact that there is a 3 floor M&M's store with a Hershey store across the street. I don't care what colors they came in, $10/pound is WAY too much to pay for m&m's!!! We also went and saw a Broadway show (The Producers starring Tony Danza) and had a nice Italian dinner at a place my dad recommended. A family with very good vocal projection was sitting next to us during dinner and we got to hear all about the mom's family's medical history past and present. It was incredibly distracting to say the least! But we were thrilled to hear that if her sister does end up having the gene for breast cancer then the folks at Yale will test her for free. Bonus.

On Sunday we went and visited one of my college roommates who now lives outside of Hartford, Connecticut. I haven't seen her in 6 years so it was great to catch up with her and meet her kids. Debra was actually kind of the reason that Sam and I met. You see, Feb. 24 is Debra's birthday and that year it was her 21st. A group of us decided that at midnight when it was officially her birthday, we would take her out. So we did, and a few people bought her a few too many drinks and she was, well, let's just say she was feeling under the weather on her actual birthday and never actually got out of bed. Yikes. So, that night our plans for celebrating her birthday were obviously cancelled. A group of girls was going to a party at Sig Eps fraternity house and my friend Colleen invited me to go along. I went and ended up meeting Sam there. He called the next day to ask me out and one year later (exactly) we got married. So, it was only right that we hung out with Debra on our anniversary weekend since we met and got married on her birthday.

We also managed to find the house that Sam's family lived in when he was 9 and 10. It's in a small town in Conn. called Southbury. His dad got transferred to the area and they built a house only to get transferred back to Chicago a year later. We stopped and took pictures of the house and Sam met one of the neighbors (the owners were in Florida). I had heard so much about this house that at this point I was thinking it was palatial and maybe had a plaque dedicating it to the Macrane family or something. Nope, just a regular house with brown siding in a wooded subdivision. Talk about disappointing.

We woke up to snow on Monday morning and were luckily able to still fly home because it was just a pretty snow and not a nasty close all the airports kind of snow. It was 77 when we landed at Sky Harbor. I need to remember that in August when I am cursing the desert heat with every breath.

My parents were here watching the kids for us--which was a huge blessing. Not too long after we got home they shot out the door saying they would call us in a few days. I'm assuming they needed time to recover from the whirlwind of conversation and activity that is known as my children.

I discovered something over the weekend too. The people we stayed with have only two kids--a boy and a girl. My friend Debra has only two kids--a boy and a girl. Their houses are very quiet and relatively orderly. Which, as I pondered that, is easy to do with only 2 kids. The girl stuff goes in the girl's room and the boy stuff goes in the boy's room. And if they get in a fight you can send them to their rooms. At our house if they are all bickering it goes something like, "Ok, everyone needs to go to their rooms for some quiet alone time, well, wait, go to your beds for alone time,...and wait, nobody should be talking to each other from their beds, well, wait, you go to your room, but you go to the living room..." Not as neat and pretty. And the stuff. If you have one daughter with 10 stuffed animals, you can arrange them neatly somewhere in her room. 2 daughters with 10 stuffed animals each=20 stuffed animals that end up in a variety of places. I have to say I, at times, was coveting the peace and quiet of only 2 kids. Not that I know exactly who I would opt to get rid of--that list is different depending on the day. But, in the end, God has blessed us with 5 kids and a life that is most certainly never dull. So, all of you two kid families can have your peace and quiet while we enjoy the constant noise and chaos over here. I'll just have to go out of town more often to get my peace and quiet!