Language expansion

Paul learned his first knock knock joke, and I have been trying to upload it to the blog with no success. So my faithful readers will simply have to imagine it in their heads until I win the battle against technology (translation: upload it on my dad's computer and post it from there; he has FIOS).
In the meantime, I will share a bit of Paul's ever increasing vocabulary and the widening realm of his creative thought. When passing the new construction site between home and daycare where there will inevitably be yet ANOTHER strip mall (recession? what recession?), Paul was very concerned about the construction vehicles. After they carried away all the trees and flattened the land (pardon my social commentary, but heaven forbid we have any woods around here), the diggers were gone. Paul postulated that perhaps they were all "sleeping in their garage" or "taking care of the baby diggers."
Speaking of construction equipment, we are approaching the big THREE, and Paul has taken it upon himself to request very specific construction related gifts. When we tell him no or my favorite, "We'll see" he tries a new tactic. The gifts are not for him see, they are really for blue blanket. Example: "Mommy, blue blanket wants a bulldozer for his birthday." I was unaware that we were celebrating such an event. Blue blanket has become Paul's alter ego, something to handle the more unpleasant emotions like greed and fear. I am told this is a normal process for preschoolers. Still, it's a bit weird.
Other than that, I am constantly reminded to watch what I say because it often gets thrown back in my face. Example: "Mommy, you're a pain in the butt." At the dinner table: "I need to stop screwing around." Was I this sassy at his age? I mean, I know I was sassy as a teenager, but that is a long way off for us. Sigh.

That's Mrs. Teach to you

I survived my first week of per diem subbing. Woo-hoo! It really isn't all that bad so far and I have actually been able to do a pretty significant amount of reading. My first day was for a 6th grade reading teacher and I wanted to be as helpful as possible to the students, so I polished off The Whipping Boy and half of Hoot during lunch and free period. The students were impressed with this fact and took me seriously (for the most part anyway - one girl tried to convince me that she was allowed to rifle through the teacher's drawers and eat her snacks, while another suggested we spend the entire period playing a game). Wednesday was ELA scoring day and I enjoyed the time off with Paul. It was the first time in four years I didn't have to be cooped up in a hotel conference room grading tests for eight hours. (Giant sigh of relief and kudos to all of my teacher friends who had to suffer through it.) Thursday I had a half day teaching kindergarten, and Friday I was back in the high school teaching freshman. The worst part of this experience is waiting for the phone call the night before. The sub system is automated and if you don't get to the phone on time, it automatically jumps to the next person. When you do answer, you have to decide quickly whether or not to take the job, and there is always risk involved. If it is a crappy sounding job, do you reject it in hopes of something better? Or take it for fear of having nothing? I cringe at such rapid fire decision making, and the idea of not knowing whether or not I will work each day is quite stressful. The students haven't been too bad as long as I appear to know what I am doing and refuse to be played the fool. They get a kick out of my last name and only once have I been called "Teach". My immediate thought was: Am I in one of those movies where the idealistic young teacher ends up in the ghetto classroom and manages to turn a classroom full of delinquents into bright shining students? No? Then, "It's Mrs. van, thank you."

Paul's view of the world

Paul got a digital camera for Christmas and has been happily taking pictures of just about everything in the house. I finally downloaded them tonight & thought I would share some of his best shots.

Proof that Daddy actually smiles.

The Last Day

My long term substitute position has come to an end. Monday is the "crossover day" where I will pass the torch back to the permanent teacher and then throw myself into the pool of per diem substitutes. Sigh. I have spent most of January dreading this moment. The anxiety of not knowing whether or not I will have a job each day, of going into different buildings, different classrooms, never knowing what breed of student torture awaits me has been turning my hair gray and tying my stomach in knots. I have been offered another LTS position, but it does not start until late April. In the meantime, I have taken on a second job tutoring inner city kids two nights a week. The program is paid for by a NCLB (No Child Left Behind or as I like to refer to it: The worst act to ever enter the world of education) grant and helps kids who are falling behind on their state tests. Mostly I work with K-3 kids on basic reading skills. It's been quite the change after working with 11th and 12th graders. Honestly, I miss my 7th graders. Such a nice, happy, hormone-driven medium.
But I digress. From what, I don't really know. From rambling on in my self-pitying state. I am hoping that the daily exposure to students who may or may not shoot spit-wads at me will make me a stronger person in the end. That coupled with the debilitating winter we are experiencing, with record lows and snow like I haven't seen in years, makes me think of a Princess Bride quote. Will I survive until April? "That would take a miracle."

Can I get a vowel?

Paul is able to identify all of the letters in the alphabet (capital ones at least, we are working on lowercase) and has taken to spelling everything he sees. For a while everything spelled "Paul", but he is slowly starting to figure out that different groups of letters have different meanings. He has learned that a red octagon with the letters S-T-O-P spells "stop", and knows now that only the letters P-A-U-L spell "Paul". For everything else, he uses his own little version of context clues to figure it out. He will say all of the letters and then announce what they spell. It can be pretty darn funny. Some of my favorites:

• At Paul's favorite hangout: "J-C-P-E-N-N-E-Y. Mall"
• While drinking from an old glass mug at my folk's house: "A-S-U. Hot cocoa. A-S-U. Cup. Mommy, what A-S-U spell?" ??? Upon inspection of the cup right side up I replied, "USA honey. From back when we actually made things here." (Besides plates and tires of course.)
• While driving his giant digger all over the kitchen: "T-O-N-K-A. Really big digger." That's for sure.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009. I am contemplating writing a nice little piece about resolutions - all of the things I promise to do better this year, ways I will improve myself, blah blah blah. But we all know that people make lofty resolutions every year and most of us have broken them by the second week of January. If we even get that far! Last year I actually drew up this whole chart and analyzed each section of my life (work, family, health, etc.) and plotted out how I would make small changes that would make me a better person. HA. I am still engaging in the same bad behaviors.
This year, however, I did have a bit of a scare that may trigger the end of an awful habit (one can only hope). I have been a nail biter for as long as I can remember, and about two weeks ago I developed a nasty infection in my finger that is just now clearing up. I was in excruciating pain, had to take a round of antibiotics and down some heavy pain killers just to get through the day, and ended up having my cousin's fiance (she's an EMT) drain the puss out during our Christmas party. My dad was convinced that I was going to lose my finger and possibly even die. Nice, eh? The infection was most likely due to a hangnail that I had created when - you guessed it - I bit my nail. Gross. One night when I was up at two AM, doubled over in pain, tears streaming down my face, I promised to NEVER EVER EVER bite my nails again. Hopefully after making a similar resolution pretty much every year since middle school I will actually STOP biting my nails. FOREVER. Perhaps if I just stick to that one resolution instead of trying to fool myself with an entire chart, I can actually accomplish it.
As for the rest of the family, Paul has resolved to sleep in his bed with no railing (ok, so we decided that one for him), and CJ is working on not reacting to everything with negativity. I will keep everyone posted on where we are come mid-month.

Be careful what you wish for

Okay, so I know in my previous post I was beyond thrilled at the idea of snow... but that was before we got completely buried under it. I spent a good two hours shoveling on Friday (luckily now the dh is home to pick up the slack) and can barely see the street over the mountain of snow in our yard. Seriously. It was a bit too cold & windy on Friday for the boy to have much fun - he insisted on shoveling with his gloves off & kept falling into the deep snow pits that were already up to his waist (I am thinking at this point he could get completely buried). I had to banish him to the house while I finished shoveling & he kept staring at me through the front window with a flashlight up to his face (he uses the flashlight to detect and scare away monsters). I grunted away, hefting the heavy snow from the bottom of the driveway while my neighbors made easy work with their snow blowers. Apparently I was not quite damsel-in-distress enough to require assistance.
We had a break in the snow Saturday & headed out for some sledding. Paul braved the hill several times alone & only face-planted once. Now we are back to blizzard-like conditions. Sigh. & are due to appear at a family party once Paul wakes up. Can't disappoint the boy (Santa will be there) or Grandma. Sigh. Hopefully we will make it there & back in one piece.