Laughter Is Contagious

Just try and tell me that you didn't bust out laughing after seeing this cutie-pie giggle.

Forgotten

I took my students on a field trip this morning. The day started off great! All of my chaperones showed up...on time. The students boarded the buses in a civil manner. I only had to report 3 absent students to the office before leaving, and as I walked toward the buses, I realized that I didn't see them anymore...

Yea, they left without me.

Could I have felt any less important?

The story does end well...we called the drivers and they turned around to get me. When I was safely onboard, I was referred to as "the package" over the bus radio talk. What a way to start the day!

Ears

I thought that Joslynn was our "ear issue" child...I was wrong. Today I left work early to rush to daycare in order to pick up Jackson so that I could rush to the doctor to check out Jackson's ears and eyes. He has an eye infection which is causing him to ooze stuff from his eyes that just shouldn't be there. To top that off, he has an extremely severe double ear infection. In fact, his ears are so bad that I felt incredible 'mom guilt' for not bringing him in earlier after the doctor gave me a huge sigh with the comment, "They are REALLY bad." I didn't want to bring him in earlier for several reasons, 1) he had no fever 2)he is teething, so I thought he may be irritable due to those chompers coming in 3)he didn't seem that bad until today (of course) 4)the main one being the whole Swine Flu mania and all the extra people who will be at the doctor thus possibly exposing he or myself to sick people unnecessarily.

Next week Joslynn has her appointment with the Ear, Nose, Throat clinic to discuss tubes for her ears. Hopefully we don't have to go through the same issue with Jackson as we did with her and her recurrent ear infections. Who would have thought that those tiny little things on the sides of your head could cause so much trouble for 2 little munchins?

Dreary Weekend = Adorable Pictures

"Mommy, I'm so tired, can we just snuggle for a while?"

"Hey Daddy, you're missing the best part! Come and read the Mine-O-Saur book with us!"





"Gettin' lost in my big brown eyes?....Thought so..."



















"Gotcha!"

Lunch-time Napper

Yesterday we had a lunch-time napper at the table. She does this quite often.

Courage

Today, my team and I, along with our 150 students went to a Courage Retreat put on by Youth Frontiers. It started off with lots of games and icebreakers and stories and then evolved into small group talks and large group stories from the facilitators. It ended with a time for the students to write about an act of courage that they are going to commit to, then it was open to anyone who wanted to share....All I can say is: "Wow." I'm amazed at how open minded our kids were. I'm amazed at how many are brave enough to share their fears with everyone. I'm amazed at the courage that some of these young people have. It also astounds me at the "stuff" that these young people carry.

I read a book called, "The Things They Carried." It's a story about soldiers and their journeys through their tour of duty and it literally talks about the physical things they carried, but more so about what they carried emotionally. I read the book several times because it just touched my heart and hit home in so many ways. Today I thought of many of my students and thought about the things that THEY carry everyday; the things that I probably never had to worry about.

So, for my act of courage, I want to show more empathy toward others. I grew up in a family where we didn't show much emotion, we had the occasional hugs or "I love you's" but not like what I WANT to have and so I feel like I am a very 'tough-love' type of person (with both students and family). I want to show others the empathy that I feel. (Maybe I can beat the odds and change my empathy score...)

Safe Or Not?

How do you tell if a website is legit? Josh received an email from SCSU, (which I thought had a filter on the emails it sent out) about a website through which we found some info on doing typing work from home. Needing extra money, and the attraction of the flexibility of this type of job appeals to both of us, but it just makes us nervous with all of those people out there who may be running a scam...

Any suggestions?