Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Traveling with kids can bite...

Julia at Here Be Hippogriffs has an absolutely awful, yet enthralling account of how traveling with kids can turn into hell when you're at the mercy of the airline industry. I couldn't resist and posted a comment under 'kmr' in the comments section. It's like I say about being a teacher-- I'm not clever enough to make this sh*t up.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Turkey, then sadness

We went back to Minnesota for a week. It was nice to see family, and I really can't complain about the visit. Mark was happy to get a great deal of attention but was less than happy to sleep in a strange house. Overall, it was a good, uneventful trip.

Then we came home.

First, I found out that the mother of my friend, the P.E. teacher had passed away.

When I called my person on the school telephone tree, I found out that the mother of our Media specialist is not doing well.

Then we found out that the good friend of my brother- and sister-in-law, with whom we had just celebrated Thanksgiving, had a heart attack. (Beware, women: pain radiating up the arm into the jaw can mean BAD things.)

Tonight as I was reading my hometown newspaper on the web, I saw that a good family friend had passed away.

Telling my dad that his friend passed away was awful.

Not the way I envisioned kicking off the holidays.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

The 3 R's must die

I am a teacher. I teach third grade, and I'm certified as a general classroom teacher in addition to having reading specialist certification.

I am not, however, a fan of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. I truly think that the sense of developmental appropriateness and creativity has been beaten out of the curriculum. In addition, I believe that teachers are so overwhelmed and harried that they are set up to not do a very good job.

Therefore, I read with great delight this article on cnn.com.

I believe that Americans are innovators. I also think that we need to embrace creativity and foster a culture of lifelong learning. Let's step out of the standardized testing box and really teach-- not to score well on the yearly test, but to help kids discover the world around them.

Monday, November 13, 2006

The relaxing effects of vacation, gone in mere hours

We had a lovely weekend in Maine. We woke up in New Hampshire (crisp morning! fallen leaves! steaming coffee! doesn't get any better!) and made our way up to Maine-- straight to Freeport. For those of you not in the know, it is the home of outlets done right. As in outlets, sans mall. There are just quaint little converted hometown America downtown businesses and homes and three ginormous L.L. Bean stores. It was fun-- we even had lunch at a hometown-y pizza joint.

We then had a great time the next day-- lunch at Big G's (I highly recommend the Avacado Monteban and the peanut butter whoopie pie) and an afternoon at the day spa. Once beautiful and relaxed, it was back for a delicious homemade dinner and the Wizard of Oz on tbs.

Then it was time to go. Off we went, wishing we could stay longer.

What awaited us? The TSA gauntlet from Dante's Inferno, waiting for a late plane with a hyper infant, and being so tired that I forgot to pick up our older car from my school last night. Only to get a call from the sheriff's office this morning that the back window had been smashed out and that we needed to come inspect it to see if anything had been stolen.

We need another vacation. Thank goodness I only have to wait until Saturday.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

He's got timing

At the end of September, we took a weekend trip on which Mark got sick. This past weekend was take two.

We went down to Williamsburg to do some outlet shopping and to meet with our financial advisor-- and Mark got sick on the way down. Traffic was bad in West Point, VA (been to West Point? It seems like it's population 200-- but they are constructing a new bridge that stopped traffic for what had to be two miles. The two vehicles in front of us actually got in an accident-- sorry to the Saturn that hit the Beemer...) and Mark started screaming mid-traffic jam.

When we got to the outlet mall, Phil saw a spot open up and zipped in. Unfortunately, there had been two ladies in two different vehicles waiting for the same spot-- who we honestly didn't see. They proceeded to stop and berate us for our rudeness.

Then we started shopping and Mark was not happy with his stroller. The whining in LL Bean turned to crying in Gap (and everything echoes in a Gap outlet) which turned to full screaming and body flailing in Ralph Lauren.

We made our hasty exit to get down to our hotel room-- where Mark power-napped for two hours, screamed for two, restlessly napped for two, screamed for two, and so on. What we needed was Baby Vicks (had it but in the frustration didn't remember it) and a humidifier (I don't believe that humidifiers are amenities offered by the front desk).

We came home yesterday. Since he was at home, the night went better, right? Ha, ha. We actually called our health care's 24 hour nurse hotline at 3:15 A.M.

Thank goodness Mark has an appointment today with the pediatrician. I'm not sure I can take another night tonight.