tiffany's spot

Today's Ten Things! I apologize in advance for making that title so misleading, what with the exclamation point and all. I worked at Arthur Meighen today. In a class that has some fun little challenging kids. We had a great day.  One kid came up and said shyly, "can I hug you?" and I said, "sure!" He hugged me for a while, even after I made natural attempts to bring the hug to an end. He just made them tighter. It was sweet.  I stole some kids soccer ball and threw it over the crowd and gave it to the girls.  I got to play librarian for 20 minutes because the actual librarian was out. Only one kid cried in library. He was actually today's only crier.  I told Steven he should make supper today. I ended up with BBQ steak, asparagus and potatoes with all the fixin's. He's sealed his fate. It's Friday.  The kids have Soccer Jamboree tomorrow.  Jordan had her track meet the other day. She didn't place in any of her events. This is why ...

Yay Friday! Subbing today. It's currently 10am and I'm supervising kids in the computer lab. Nice group of kids. Some classes I find are more open to subs. These are the kids I can relate to, chat up, have a sense of humor with. Then there are the "ooh, a sub - let's get her!" classes. They are less fun. It's a challenge to get them to stop talking, to listen to instructions, to get work out of. Certain grades and ages fall more easily into one or the other category, but still, depends on the day and the kids. Friday afternoons can be an adventure too. Today I end the day with Home. Ec. They're sewing. Last time I was in, there was a kid who sewed a heart into the tip of her finger, with black thread. I have a picture here somewhere... I said to the kid, as I was taking the picture, "Keep in mind, me taking this picture in no way condones this behavior." They like when I say things like that. Today they've got me booked solid for th...

Like all the other good moms out there, I most certainly took pictures of my kids on the first day of school, and then raced home to blog about it. I'd never wait a full month to announce that my kids, like millions of other kids in Canada, were now back at school. Nope. Because I know that everyone is eager to see if they indeed did go back to school, and if I took a picture, and if I love them enough to post the pictures. Of course I wouldn't be so crazy as to take 46 pictures of my kids on the front steps. Or in between the two trees (Elliot's idea), or in front of the van, even though it's become something of a tradition.   I'd never take pictures in front of the school, making other parents and kids wait to go in the doors. I certainly wouldn't take ten of them, in the hopes that my kids would take the whole thing seriously, because this is semi-important, dammit!       It's not like the kids were getting embarrassed by the...

The list is long, let's see if I can remember any of it. 1. Mitchell had minor dental surgery. He now has silver caps on two of his six year molars. Watching him come out of the anesthetic was about the cutest, sweetest, most heartbreaking thing I've ever seen.   2. We spent a week at Rushing River. I may have to come back to this in the future. It was an awesome week, complete with an accidental 8km hike, an almost-bear sighting (be to fair, it was the neighbor's sighting, but still, we were neighbors), monstrous spiders in the outhouse, a complete lack of fish in Ontario's water system, and and and. Can't wait to go again.   3. Jordan and Tennyson were on a traveling soccer team. We had tournaments in Winnipeg in June and August.   4. First day of school. I didn't post the obligatory first-day-of-school pictures of my kids on facebook like all the good parents did, but they know I love them nonetheless. Elliot is in grade 1 this year! Wit...

Oh shit, I completely forgot that I was going to resolve to stop swearing in the new year. Too late now. I've got about 355 more days to get it out of my system. I've been thinking lately about why I don't blog as much as I used to. I've decided to blame my friends. Today I talked on the phone with two different people, texted at least that many, and had three different facebook chat windows open at the same time. Once upon a time I'd think of something interesting to say, or something notable would happen and I'd blog about it. Now I text someone or pick up the phone and once I've told someone my super-fun gossip/tidbit/life experience it's out of my system, never to be seen in the blogosphere. Basically, I have to dump all of you if I'm going to start blogging again. Goodbye cruel, super awesome friends. Aside from the phone, texts and facebook messaging, I actually did have a fairly productive day. This morning I took Jordan and Tennyson to ...

The parking at the kids’ school is atrocious. It’s a loop. The whole point of the loop is that parents can drive in, find a spot to park, pull over and let their kids out. Do they? No. Instead they just stop the car at the point in the loop closest to the school and park in the middle of the lane and let their kids out. Their kids then stand there and argue about with their parents about whether they need to zip up their coats, whether their agendas have been signed, how many hugs they need, etc. Either that or they need to finish listening to the song they started listening to when the car pulled over. (Side note: I’m now eating a bowl of cottage cheese, following two chocolate covered granola bars to make up for losing out on my salad. Thought you’d like to know. ) Right, parking lot. People just park in the middle of the driving lane and let their kids out. Sometimes they’ll park but only if they can park in the first half of the loop. The second half of the loop? Empty! There h...

I’m seriously irritated right now. It’s just been one of those days; this morning I had to yell at the kids six bazillion times to get dressed, and to stop wrestling and to get dressed, and to put their socks on and to make their beds and to eat their breakfast and to keep their hands to themselves at the breakfast table, and to keep their joy to themselves and be a little quieter at the breakfast table, and seriously, be quiet and for the love of all that is good - keep your bloody hands to yourself! Run on sentence. I know. Because today is one of those days that feels like one long run-on sentence of frustration. I finally get the heathens into the van and off to school, where Tennyson insists that Jordan can walk him to his class and he doesn’t want me to come. On one hand this should make me happy, because walking all four kids through the crowded school to the deepest, darkest corner of the school where the kindergarten class is isn’t that much fun. On the other hand - why do...

On Friday I picked Jordan up from school and she announced that she had an assembly that day. I asked her what the assembly was about. "School in a box," she replied. "What's a school in a box?" I asked. "We get money and stuff and put the school in a box." "What on earth are you talking about?" "For kids! And we send the school in a box to Australia." "Um, do you mean Operate Christmas Child, where we get a shoe box and fill it full of school supplies for a needy child somewhere?" "Nope. Mommy ," she said, a little exasperated because I wasn't catching on, being that this was all so obvious. "We get a school in a box and we send it to Australia ." "Do you have a paper for me to read about this?" I asked, hoping that this was going to become more obvious once I got home. "Yep." I thought about it for a minute - what else besides Operation Christmas Child would require kids to se...

But I won't. I have bought a few "teach your kids . . . " books lately. One is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons . The method seems different than what I'd expect, but once you get into it there's so much sense to it! I started with Jordan yesterday, and she went through the first three lessons before her attention was irretrievable. Then just for kicks I did the first little exercise or two in lesson one with Tennyson. Jordan will have absolutely no trouble with it, and I'm convinced that it's something Tennyson can do too, although a little slower. I expect that Jordan (since she knows the alphabet and sounds already) will fly through it. She can actually sound out easier words already with a bit of prompting, and is so close that I know she'll have no trouble. Tennyson actually knows his alphabet (writing, the names of letters, etc. - yay Brain Quest!) and I know he can do this too. I'd probably go slower with him so we don't get...

Jordan is in Grade 1 this year without any of her friends from last year. Privacy rules being what they are, we as parents get no class lists or last names of the kids or phone numbers of other parents. It's kind of annoying. Jordan has played with a couple of the kids from her class, but half the time she doesn't remember what the kids names are, never mind the last names or who their mothers are. A friend of mine suggested looking up mommy business cards online. I looked. They're cute. It's something you could give to a mom on a playground instead of looking for a pen and paper to exchange information, or tuck inside a birthday invitation or give to Jordan to send home with a new friend at school to give to the other parents. This is what I found. Not sure if I'm going to do it or not. What do you think, cute or cheesy?

On Jordan's first day of kindergarten I forgot to send her a snack. She didn't forget it all year that on the first day of school she was the one kid with no snack. Although her teacher assures me that there were lots of kids with no snack, that's not how Jordan remembers it. Tomorrow is the first day of Grade 1. I feel like such a newbie. I think I have more Grade 1 jitters than Jordan does. She's over the moon about starting grade 1 tomorrow. I worry. Will she be sad when she walks into the classroom only to remember that her closest friends aren't with her this year? Will she make new friends? Will the kids be nice to her? Will her teacher like her? Will she secretly hate school and not tell me? More importantly, right now, in this moment - how do I pack her lunch? I know it seems silly, but I'm not sure how much food to send. At home I just let them eat until they stop. So far, my plan for Jordan's lunch is this: a ham and cucumber sandwich (alas, out of...

I should probably not be blogging at all in the days leading up to Blogtober (how clever is that! not really? whatever), but the house is overwhelmingly full of toys, uncleaned bathrooms, unmopped floors, unwiped counters, and 87 bags of groceries to put away, and I'm feeling very unmotivated. Usually I feel somewhat unmotivated to blog daily, but it's the activity that takes the least energy today. Last night was a real bummer. The kids took until 4:30 to 7:00 to clean up the basement. It was supposed to be a way for me to get them to do it without being ogre mom (you know, yelling, stomping, smoking from the ears), but somehow it unravelled to that anyway. My intentions are always so good. I love the kids, I love their goofiness, I love that they're such a big part of my life. I wouldn't trade them. That being said, they drive me nuts sometimes. I wish that I could always be calm and levelheaded, but sometimes it's just so hard. I justify my big mean reactions ...

Which is good, because she'll be stuck there for at least 12 more years after this one. The first week she'd come home and find something to mope or pout about. She'd say she missed me and I wasn't there, she'd say she wanted to come home, and again, I wasn't there. She was unimpressed because she was trying to colour a dolphin and she had to stand at attention with her arms at her side after putting her crayon down. There was the boy in line who would hit her with her backpack. She didn't get to stand in line with her friend. She doesn't get to sit at her friend's table. Did I mention that I forgot to send her a snack on the first day of school? Apparently, Jordan does NOT forget, because she reminds me of that all the time. Did I mention that the first time I left her in the front lobby to maneuver her way to her classroom she got lost and cried? Any time I'd ask her about school, these are the kinds of things she'd tell me. Now she tells ...