Things that are always in short supply at my house: scotch tape, markers, printer paper, glue sticks.

But hey - we are all decked out for Halloween!

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Because they won't be little forever...

A pile of found things can be a very exciting thing around here

Today I choose pure joy over the complete mess of toys in our basement. My kids are still young enough to spend the day pretending all sorts of wacky things and I am choosing contentment in this time rather than frustration.

Joy. Contentment. Fun. What a perfect Saturday.

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A Good Remider to OBEY THE LAW

I suffer horrible claustrophobia. I have always assumed it's because when I was three, I had a spinal tap under duress. My mom was made to wait outside of the room and I freaked. Or was I four? All I know is that my entire life, I've been afraid of small places, being restrained in any way, and locked doors.

Today, as a part of my new job, I delivered papers to our county's detention center. If a student receives special education services, they receive them anywhere...despite their current circumstances.

I was buzzed into a small space, a hallway really, and asked to wait. So I sat and waited. Calmly. I noticed all of the crickets, dead and alive, and thought about how lucky it was that I wasn't afraid of insects. A person would freak out in there if they were afraid of insects. I thought about how warm it was in that tiny hall, what with there being no ventilation. Then my eyes wandered to the door I'd come through. Locked. The door into the building? Also locked.

I rang that buzzer again. Hello? Is anyone coming? "Yes, ma'am. They're just clearing the lunch room."  This is when I remarked, as calmly as I could, to the nice voice in the buzzer that I am horribly claustrophobic, and could I please just go wait back outside??? I think I heard a slight chuckle in his voice when he told me yes. When I was buzzed back in, the female officer told me to wait while she checked with the sergeant, to make sure it was okay for her to accept the work I was dropping off. I asked her, as calmly as I could, could I please go wait outside while she finds out? She was not amused. She buzzed me out.

A few minutes later the nice voice behind the buzzer told me that we were all set and I could go.
Thank goodness.

I was shaken.

So...I must remember to NEVER find myself an inmate. I would surely lose my mind!

I'm not even sure yet how I'll handle it next time I have to go there as an educator. Maybe the nice voice behind the buzzer will let me wait the entire time outside? Maybe I could just mail the papers?

Sigh.

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A Fun Little Game

I realize that not everyone has this fun box of cubes, but you could use just about anything. Legos come to mind immediately.

First, Buddy would roll the dice. I had him tell me which two numbers came up, then he would count out that many cubes. Once he had the cubes, he found the corresponding card to put into the number sentence.

Then he would count up the total cubes and put the answer into the equation. At that point, he would read me the sentence. Six plus four equals ten. He touched it, he counted it, he saw it, he heard it.

His attention span was good for about five turns. We didn't play this game a lot over the summer, but I thought it was a fun idea!

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Wordless Wednesday: strange clouds over the neighborhood

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Time flies.

And now we are all in school. The kids will spend their days at our neighborhood elementary school, B is in 3rd grade and Buddy is a kindergartener. Wow.

J and I spend our days at local high schools. The Hubs is principal at our districts high school and I work for the public schools as a special education teacher in the resource room at a parochial high school. It's a strange position to be in, but so far I love it! I always say that the Hubs and I are such nerds about school that we decided to spend our whole lives going there.

This year is sure to be crazy busy, but so much fun. I can't wait to see what sort of brain expansion occurs. We have a new token economy for our screen time (it involve chips worth 30 minutes each and budgeting time for how to spend them). We started it this weekend and it worked great. I'm hoping that it helps reduce some of the fights for how to balance time. The kids will start fall activities in a couple of weeks and I'd like to get a solid school routine down before we get too far into the year.

The best part about this year? My hours. I work 12-4. Meaning that when I get home from dropping the kids off to school, I have a few hours to do chores/errands...and ahem, a little computer time.

It is balance that I seek, yet again. I think we are off to a great start for finding it this year.

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Here We Go Again

So summer's over. Everything has changed.

We took a trip to Kansas City over B's birthday and I came back to a job interview and a new job. I'm going to be working afternoons as a special education teacher at our local parochial school and started last Friday. My head is so heavy with new information, it makes for very little room for anything else.

My own kids start school on Monday. My little Buddy is going to kindergarten and B will start third grade. Two school age kids in the house and we are all so excited! I tell everyone that the Hubs and I both love school so much we decided never to leave (we both work in high schools) so the whole kindergarten thing is NOT sad, but a cause for celebration! That doesn't stop me from getting a little nostalgic and perhaps a wee bit melancholy about the speedy passage of time and the lack of babies in my home and the massive changes that these kids have undergone in such a short period of time.

That being said, we are all very excited for the year to begin. I can't believe that my year off is over and here we are again. Working part-time is going to be a really great fit for the family, I'm grateful that it all worked out that way. Now if my brain can just catch up and comprehend everything it's been learning over the past week. I'll be good to go.