Wait, where have I heard this before?

You might remember this day, when I had to go to a conference downtown. Well, last Friday, I found out that I had to go to Part 2 yesterday. It was HORRIBLE!!!! It was the same man speaking, and he said EXACTLY the same thing as last time - VERBATIM!!! Oh my hell, it was the worst!!! (A couple of the teachers there said they had to attend this conference at the end of last school year, and it was the SAME speech then, too! They've now had to listen to it THREE times!!) It almost wasn't enough to just be away from the Hell-Hole. Well, ok, yeah, that WAS pretty great, but still.

Traffic was so bad in the morning, it took me well over an hour to get there. Thank goodness THIS was my view as I was crawling along I55. By the time I got there, the yummy breakfast spread was condensed to a mere basket of bagels and a few smears of cream cheese. It was really hard to sit there, let me tell ya.

After the last awful conference, I thought I would bring my laptop and get some work done, but sadly, I couldn't get a wifi signal in the conference center. At least this time I sat with my girlfriend for the whole morning, but it was hard to sit and chat because the speaker was all over the talkers, keeping us in check. For some reason, we were split between two rooms this time, which made it harder to hide in the back of the room and have our own conversation. (Yeah, we're rude like that.)

I did, however, take a few more pictures of the gorgeous view. I wanted to be able to compare the two sets of pictures, especially since now we have snow (YAY!)

The boats, and the leaves, are gone.

Thanks to the very clear, sunny day, you can get a much better view of Lake Michigan, just past the Sheraton Hotel.
Again, the leaves are gone. But look at the beautiful lake!



I planned to share a whole bunch of other stuff tonight, but Blogger makes it so difficult to post multiple photos, that I'm now far too exhausted (and annoyed!) to share any more. I'm going to hit the sack. Oh, and hey, only TWO days til Christmas break! Woo hoo!!!!

Huh?

I was working with one of my small groups today, using some of the same books I used yesterday. AM was doing well with her sounds, and once again, we found ourselves on the "nap" page with the picture of the cute baby. This is what I heard today: "nnnn...aaaa...p....SLEEP!"

As we were walking out of our staff meeting this morning (10 minutes AFTER the kids were supposed to be picked up!!) New Principal drops this little bombshell on us - we are expected to put on a Christmas Assembly next Friday. She claims she told us, but everyone jumped up to say, "No, you didn't!" WTF?! As I was walking out last night, I was told that I have to attend a professional development meeting Thursday, which means I'm now down to 6 days with the babies. What the hell am I going to teach them for this show?! AND, preparing for the show can't take away from any of our instructional time. Yeah, ok, how 'bout I take all 28 of them (yeah, I got a new kid this morning!!) home with me for the next two weeks, and we can work on it every night from now til the show? Ugh!

We're having a walk-through tomorrow by the state, so everyone has been scrambling to get ready for that. Then, literally 20 minutes before dismissal, she sends a notice around to the teachers telling us what we're missing in our rooms for tomorrow, with a note saying we needed to fix it by the end of the day. Is she out of her fucking mind??! I'm not going to stress about it, it is what it is. My room is not changing one bit before tomorrow morning, sorry. One of the things that she had listed for my room was that I didn't have enough words on my word wall. Well, I have 15 words up there, and there have only been 9 words introduced so far in our reading series. The words on the word wall are supposed to be words that the kids know, not just random words. The last time the word wall issue was addressed, I was told I had TOO MANY words up. WTF? Make up my mind, will ya?

As much as it pisses me off that I have to go to this PD Thursday, I'm just glad to not have to be at school. Unfortunately, there are a couple of staff members who are going who I think are going to make it almost impossible to ditch this thing. Mrs. J., my neighbor/friend, and Mrs. M., my friend in the room across the hall, will both be there, and we were trying to figure out how to ditch and go see Mrs. F. and the baby. Mrs. M. hasn't met The Princess yet. But, like I said, the other two people attending aren't staff members we're very familiar with, and I think they would rat us out if we left. Damn... Well, at least when we come back on Friday, there won't be any kids since it's a staff development day. Then, we only have the 5 days next week, and we're ON BREAK! Woo hoo!

I need to get out of this grumpy mood, now that I've been venting, so I think I'll go put up some Christmas lights or something. Or, maybe I'll just go curl up with a magazine. Ah, who am I kidding? I have about 10 loads of laundry calling my name. Poop....

8 days to go...

...with the babies before our Christmas break. Actually, I only have 7 days, because as I was walking out today, I found out that I have to go to a professional development meeting on Thursday. As much as I enjoy not having to be at school, it's such a pain in the ass to put together materials for a sub, it's almost not worth it. The worst part is that 95% of the time, the sub doesn't even look at or use the stuff I leave. It's really irritating. I seriously think I'm going to bring a bunch of my Christmas movies (I have about 40 of them!!) and just let them watch movies all day. Like I said, whatever work I leave won't get done anyway.

While we were doing our guided reading today, I had one of my "low" groups with me, and we were working on a leveled reading book. It was VERY basic, with only one word on each page, along with a picture. The book we were working on was all -ap and -at words. The last page had a picture of the most beautiful little baby, who was sleeping, and the word under it said 'nap.' One of my boys, after saying, "What a cute baby!" attempted to sound out the word. We already read 4 -ap words, so I reminded him that it would be a rhyming word for the last one we read (I think it was cap) and to look at the first letter for a clue. He proceeds to say, "N-n-n...baby!" It was so cute, I couldn't help but laugh!

I finally received word today that there will be a memorial for my friend BJ on Saturday. Mrs. J. and I were starting to worry that we missed it because we never heard anything about it, until today. The message made it clear that the memorial service is to be a celebration of her life, and I'm really looking forward to being a part of it. There was also a beautiful picture of my friend attached to the message, and I would love to share it with you. BJ was one of the most beautiful people I knew, both inside and out. Rest in peace, Bobbie June.

Potpourri

Here are a few pictures from my uncle's surprise party this past Sunday. This was the moment he walked in.
Here he is enjoying an after dinner drink with one of my cousins.

This isn't the greatest picture, but I wanted to get the four siblings all together. They're actually arranged oldest to youngest. My Aunt Marylou, my Aunt Lucy, my mom and Uncle Ed.

Yesterday was Report Card Pick-Up Day, which is Chicago's version of parent/teacher conferences. In a nutshell, it was fine. I actually had the highest number of parents show up in all the years I've been at the Hell-Hole. 23 out of 27 report cards were picked up. I'm actually shocked because it was rainy and miserable here all day yesterday, which usually keeps the parents away. AND, I had 18 parents show up before our dinner break, which is unheard of! Normally, I only have 3 or 4 parents before the dinner break, then I get about 10-15 during the last 15 minutes of the night. It was completely the opposite yesterday. I had promised the babies that if every single report card was picked up, we would have a pizza party. Man, they must have worked on their parents because it was pretty damn close.

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Today, I enjoyed a day away from the Hell-Hole. New Principal let 7 of us go to a conference today. SEVEN! I still can't believe it. That's a hell of a lot of subs. The conference was only from 9-1, which made for a nice short work day, huh? Unfortunately, the conference was really a waste of time. Yeah, that's right, I actually STAYED!! Pick your jaws up off the floor, people! There were too many other teachers there for me to ditch. Actually, all but 1 of them would have ditched with me had I asked, but that one probably would have ratted us all out. Anyway, the conference, it turned out, was just a 4 hour sales pitch for software! Ugh! But, on the bright side, we were finished before 1, so we all were able to chat for about 20 minutes before I had to leave to pick up Stud. I actually picked him up a little early from school because he had an orthodontist appointment. Even after all was said and done, I was still home before 2:30. Not bad, right?
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There are only 13 school days left with the babies before our glorious Christmas break. Woo hoo! The countdown above is the number of actual days, but the number of days that include the babies is so much more important! ;-) The only downside to this is that I only have a handful of days to do any kind of Christmas activities. I only have 9 days between Thanksgiving and the break to do what I usually do in a month's time. We'll just have to make the best of it. I'm willing to step up and take on for the team on this one. tee hee!

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Last week we had a bit of a heat wave here in ChiTown, and it hit nearly 70 for a few days. All of my planter boxes in front of my house sprouted new growth, and there are tons of new blooms. I was awestruck yesterday when I went out to get my mail. (I really should go out and takes pictures for you, because the flowers truly are beautiful.) Anyway, this week, the temperatures have been dropping rapidly, and there has been talk of some snow in the next few days. WTF? God, I LOVE Chicago!!!!

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I almost forgot! Here are a couple of pictures of Princess Sylvia! She is so damn cute! We had such a fun visit before going to work yesterday. I kept telling Mrs. F. that I was going to put her in my purse and take her with me to school!

The happy family!

OK, the honeymoon's over...

Today, it was back to business as usual. All but 2 of the babies came to school today, so it was a crowded house. The babies were ok for most of the morning, but apparently lunch was a disaster. When I met Ms. H. in the hall after lunch, she was quite frazzled, and told me how awful they were during lunch. As a matter of fact, later in the day, I realized I didn't have my snacks for snack time. I thought maybe Ms. H. had forgotten them in the lunch room, or set them down somewhere and forgot them. Well, I came to find out that she purposely left them in the lunchroom because they were so bad, she didn't feel they deserved the treats. Good for you, Ms. H. (Unfortunately, our snack every day since school started has been cookies. Not very nutritious, huh? I think we're going to have to start saving their fruit instead, so I can at least feel they're getting a healthy snack in the afternoon. The cookies can go home with them.) I hope now the babies will realize that Ms. H. is to be respected in the same way that I, and every other adult, should be.

I'm a bit confused about what will be happening tomorrow. You may remember that I was recently out for two days for some professional development for our new reading series. Well, there is a third day of PD, which is to be conducted at our school. The day that was scheduled for that is tomorrow. I had forgotten all about it until the clerk asked me this morning if I needed a sub for tomorrow. Now, our reading coach never mentioned anything to me about this PD happening tomorrow, so I don't know if it's going to happen. As far as I know, there will be two subs coming tomorrow, but I don't know if we'll actually need them. Plus, on top of that, I didn't prepare anything for the sub, if I do have one. Normally, I'd be able to get things ready in the morning, but Wednesday is our staff meeting morning, so I won't even be able to do that. I think I may go in early tomorrow, since I don't have to drive Stud to school, and get things ready. Even if I don't need it for tomorrow, I'll have a sub folder ready for an emergency.

One more little tidbit about the new schedule, which is still a work in progress. Today, Ms. H. was asked by New Principal to take a sheet around to certain teachers (they were marked on the sheet) to have them sign up for a slot in the computer lab. Up until the new schedule came out yesterday, computer lab was one of our preps. We didn't technically have a teacher in there, but there was an assistant who "ran" the lab. Now, that assistant has been pulled to work with SpEd students, so computers in no longer a prep. If we choose to take our class to the lab, we will need to stay with them.

Ms. H. and I gave a lot of thought to which slot we were going to take, and we decided we would take the last period on Friday. We will be going straight to computers from gym class. That's the perfect way to end the week. From 1:20-2:40, I will essentially be doing nothing with the babies. Hopefully that means I will be able to work on lesson plans, thus freeing up my weekend (you know, to work at the bar!!). Actually, we probably will go back to our room at 2:30 so we can get ready to go home, but still, it'll be nice. Last year's babies used to love going on PBS Kids and another awesome website called Starfall. So, that's what we'll be doing on Fridays!

Guess who...

...didn't spend her day saying, "It's my turn to talk!!"?
...didn't spend her day 'waiting for quiet'?
...didn't spend her day saying, "Please stay on your own square."?
...didn't spend her day saying, "Are you listening?"?
...didn't spend her day unbuttoning, unbuckling and unzipping, just to rezip, rebuckle and rebutton?
...didn't spend her day tying shoes?
...didn't spend her day saying, "Please stop digging in your nose and get a tissue."?
...didn't spend her day trying to simultaniously help 25 babies write their names?
...didn't spend her day saying, "Stay behind the person in front of you."?
...didn't spend her day getting her arm banged on for attention?
...didn't spend her day saying, "Keep your hands/feet to yourself, please!"?
...didn't spend the day with rivers of sweat running between her breasts? (I know, eewww!)
...didn't spend the day having any fun?

Yeah, yeah, ok, I missed some of the babies a little bit. So sue me!! Believe me, I wasn't at all wishing I was at school. I'm not that crazy! But, the PD was just so completely boring and worthless, that my mind wandered a couple times to my babies, and I was trying to think of something positive about each of them. How great is it that I get to do that again tomorrow? I think 4 days away from them will help me find some patience and help me regroup. I really want to like this group, I swear. I'm just so frustrated right now with the outrageous number of babies squeezed into my tiny room, that it's hard to find that soft spot in my heart. I know it'll happen, though. Let's just hope it's sooner rather than later.