Little Sister

This girl! Thirteen years ago last month, I stood by watching her birth. Maybe the turning point in my life that would pave the way for my obsession on the topic now. But man! I can't believe she's 13 now!

This girl amazes me constantly. She's got bigger feet than me. She's almost taller than me. (Just wait till next summer!) She's a talented twiler and a budding tuba player.

In 4 days time, we'll bring her back home to Florida to get ready for her last year in middle school. Then the next time we pick her up to stay the summer in Georgia, she'll be gearing up to enter high school. I was only out of high school about 7 months when I found out she was coming and just over a year when she actually arrived.

But it's going so fast! And she's growing into an amazing young woman.

Not slacking for the sake of slacking!

This poor blog has gotten lost in what has been a furor of studying!

At the end of last school year, I was asked to come back into the classroom full time. This wasn't the first time I was asked, but it WAS the first time I didn't say "no" right away. I said, "I won't say 'no' until I've prayed about it." (Why did this never occur to me before?!) And then that day, Jeff came home with news of a 4% salary cut in his department. (We've made less and less from them every year since Jude was born due to different cuts.) Right then, I figured that God was providing an immediate response to those prayers.

As I was leaving the classroom, a new intervention process was rolling out for kids who struggle academically. I never had to bother learning about it since I was leaving. So now I am working on consuming as much information on the topic of the RTI (Response to Intervention) process.

Exactly one month from today, my first class in three years will walk in the door for the first day of school. I am going back into almost the same position I left. The only exception is, in addition to gifted and high regular classes, I will have one class that has RTI and special ed. inclusion students. This is sort of uncharted territory for me. (Thus all the studying!) I've had kids who needed remediation, and I spent the last year working half time providing targeted interventions for children like this one on one and in small groups.

I'm a little anxious about the idea of a whole classroom full of them, though. Because let's face it. My county doesn't get it that when you try to do these things, even with co-inclusion teachers in the same classroom together, you can't fill those classes to maximum legal capacity. I am confident I can make this successful with a class that is appropriately sized. Maybe 18 - 20 kids max. But all the RTI/inclusion classes I worked with last year had 24+

So we'll see how it goes. In the mean time, I have GOT to stop neglecting my blog!

It stuck with him

Wednesday night, Jude's second night in a big boy bed, he showed up in my room at 3am. I was like, "ok, here we go." and I brought him back to his room to nurse him and try to get him back to sleep. The room really stunk and all I could think was that he had a dirty diaper and since he could now get up and tell me, that's what was going on. But when I took his diaper off, it was just wet.

After he nursed, he begged to go in his crib. Shoot! We were failing at the big boy bed. I put him in there and grabbed the pillow off the toddler bed. It was soaking wet. At this point I turned the light on and saw where the smell was coming from. He had thrown up. But since the one and only other time he threw up he was only one, maybe one and a half, he didn't have a word for it and probably had no idea what was going on when it was happening.

When I got everything cleaned up with new sheets and a new pillow, he willingly went back to his "bo-boy bed" as he calls it. Well, maybe because in the mean time, he also threw up in the crib, so he made the connection that the bed had nothing to do with it?

Last night, Friday, we were reading Curious George books at bed time when he looked at me and said, "Judah cry." Of course I asked him, "Why did Judah cry?"

His response puzzled me: "Judah make mess." Well, we had just cleaned up, so I had no idea what he was talking about. "Where did Judah make a mess?" I asked.

"Judah spill. Judah spill mouth." (Well, actually he said "Judah pill mouff." but we'll not get into pronunciation now!)

Spill mouth? Ooooooooh! He was telling me about the night he threw up. Poor baby! If he was still talking about it three nights later, it really must have made an impression on him. He's destined to be like his mother, I'm afraid. I have a mortal fear of throwing up. And all the puking I did during pregnancy did nothing to "cure" that fear!

I am officially a blog slacker

Working half time has definitely eaten into my motivation to blog when I can just zing something up on Facebook in a second or two that I usually don't have to proof read! But this calls for a blog post:-)

I lost my camera for about a month (really, I didn't lose it. It was in my doula bag, but I just forgot it was there!) And for about the month before that, I didn't know where my USB cable was. So I hadn't posted photos of Jude in some time. When I finally got my act together, some of my Facebook friends mentioned how they couldn't believe the change Jude had made from baby to little boy in such a short period of time. And to be honest, neither can I!

There are just so many things. We had planned not to try potty training until after he turned three because I've heard so many parents of boys harping on how boys are ready later, no sense trying until three, yada yada. But he started showing interest on his own when he was less than two and a half two years, three months, and seven days to be precise). These days, at two years 7 months, and three weeks, he is completely day trained. He still wears a diaper to nap and to bed, and he always waits until he has that thing on to poop. Can't wait until he gets that down!

He sat for a hair cut last week without completely freaking out. I know the hair dresser being completely entertaining and also letting him wear these didn't hurt either:

Last night he slept the night through in a toddler bed without begging to go back into his crib.

But today was the real kicker. We went to the fountain to play in the water and another little boy came along about Jude's size, but obviously an older three year old. (My kid is the same size or taller than a lot of three year olds we know.) And instead of shying away from the other kid, Jude engaged in play with him. They splashed each other, sat by each other in the jets, and played more games of chase than I can count. I wish that I had gotten a photo of them together, but I didn't even think of it until the other boy had left. So this is all I got:
What can I say? My boy is growing up faster than I'm ready for, but on the other hand, this will make it easier as I contemplate going back into the classroom full time next year.

My child. What can I say? He loves to laugh. He loves to make people laugh. He loves to make himself laugh. So when I was trying to get him to sing his ABC (which to him apparently means A-B-C-H-Thomas. . .) why would this be any different.

If you watch the video, you'll notice the exact moment where he figures out where the little camera is built in to the computer and the effect that it has on the screen when he moves closer to it. Personally, I think he just likes looking at himself;-)