…and now I really like him. His song “Daughters” is so eloquent in how it describes how fathers can affect the lives of their daughters.
If you’ve heard the song but not really paid attention to the lyrics, click here.
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Thirteen Things I Want to Remember
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http://missprofe.wordpress.com
http://shrewdnessofapes.blogspot.com
Last night I was holding my son Duncan. He’s coming up on 8 months and has been saying “ma ma ma ma ma” for quite a while. I was about to hand him to my wife when he kind of clung on and said “da da.”
My wife said that she had heard him say it a few times but that she didn’t tell me because she wanted me to hear it with my own ears.
It was exactly what I needed to hear after a long day!
She learned what a “uvula” is. One of her afternoon teachers is taking Anatomy & Physiology and taught it to her.
I don’t think I’m ready for her to know such adult words yet! Of course, considering all the other words she could be learning (and anyone who’s seen Kindergarten Cop knows exactly what I’m talking about!), I suppose I should take “uvula” and just be happy with it!
I got 3 1/2 hours of continuous sleep last night. I worked until about 11 p.m. at the church, came home, dropped into bed. At 2:30 a.m., my son woke up. I went in and rocked him and fell asleep in the chair. At 3:30 a.m., my daughter woke up and had to go to the bathroom. We had our dog in the bathroom because it was so cold outside and he promptly made an escape, came to me, and started shaking his collar. It woke my son up, which took him a while to go back to sleep, and then he woke up for good at 4:55 a.m.
I know why medications like Rozerem are so popular. I can’t imagine getting this little sleep all the time! It feels like I found a 5-gallon bucket on NyQuil and then drank as much of it as my stomach would hold.
It has been a relaxing fall break. The last four days were much needed and came at a good time. The weekend actually ’started’ on Thursday with the CHS Homecoming Parade. It is a small parade but nice for the kids. Somehow, a couple of months ago when someone asked me, I thought it would be a good idea for Key Club to take on the responsibility of coordinating the parade. Well, needless to say, I was whistling a different tune on Wednesday. It actually all came together well and went off without a major hitch. Thanks to Greg Lair, I got to drive my daughter in a “red race car” (her lingo for a hardtop convertible Pontiac GT–sweet!). Also, I never really noticed how many policemen it takes to keep a parade going smoothly. Pretty much one officer at every major intersection.
On Friday, I took my daughter Kathryn to the CHS Homecoming Game. We stayed until a little bit into the second quarter, at which point her batteries just gave out. (We had said hi to everyone and went down to the field to see the cheerleaders, so what else was there to do?) We went by WalMart and got a copy of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and added it to our DVD library. When we got home, we participated in our Friday night ritual, Flick on the Floor. We spread out our sleeping bags on the living room floor, make some popcorn (heavy on the salt!), and watch a movie. She has since picked up the line “Body Language!” (sung by Ursula the Sea Witch, complete with gyrating hips) from the movie. I’m so proud!
For those of you who care about such things, Canyon HS won its Homecoming game! Go Eagles!
Saturday continued Homecoming festivities, but this time, they were associated with West Texas A&M’s Homecoming. We went to the parade (which was quite a bit longer than the CHS parade…but also more crowded and with less candy per onlooker) and Fair on the Square. Kathryn was initiated into the wonderful world of Fair Food (foot long corndog). We listened to the WT football game on the radio and promptly fell asleep afterwards.
For those of you who care about such things, WTAMU won its Homecoming game (by two points!). Go Buffs!
Sunday was a nice day of church and fellowship with our Sunday school class. We are currently studying a series on parenting and the teacher is (get this…) me! I always feel like I such have some sort of legal disclaimer at the beginning of each class session to let people know that I was just the person who stumbled across the curriculum and that I in no way have any answers to the questions that all parents face!
Yesterday and today have been so nice. It’s been rainy and cloudy and all the kids and I have done is hang around the house, watch movies, take naps, and generally just relax. It has been pretty sweet. The funny thing is that a couple of days like this in the summer would drive me crazy. But the slower pace of a couple of days off has been very good for me. We haven’t gone anywhere (except to WalMart yesterday and the bank today) and I’ve been able to just enjoy the company of my kids.
If you had a fall break, I hope it was as good as mine!
I’ve spent most of the evening (post-kiddie-bedtime, anyway) getting ready to go on a road trip with my Key Club kids tomorrow. We are going to the K-Family (K=”Kiwanis”) Fall Rally at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. We are leaving from Randall HS after school, driving to Arlington, spending the day at Six Flags, and then coming back home at about 6 p.m., putting us back into Amarillo/Canyon at about 1 to 2 a.m. on Sunday morning.
I used to think that parents who didn’t like to occasionally leave their kids were overly emotional and just a little bit on the needy/whiny side. Well, whinyness, thy name is Lance. I have found myself really dreading being away from Kathryn, Duncan, and Heather. I think part of it is the events of the past week…Kane and Loryn’s tragic deaths, Sunny’s surgery, Mom’s surgery, Duncan and Kathryn coming down with the stomach bug, Kathryn injuring her shoulder on the playground (by the way, hearing a three-year-old say the words “muscle spasm” is oddly funny)…all of this just makes me want to have them close to me. I know they’ll be okay but my heart just isn’t into making weekend trips like it used to be. I must be getting old…
…in fact, I KNOW I’m getting older. One of my co-workers, Michelle, said to me yesterday, “You’re in your mid-30’s?!?” It’s continually a shock to me, too! Most of the time, I see myself as a 24 year old, as if I’m still a first year teacher. Having kids has changed that a little bit, but sometimes I just look at myself and have to ask, “When the h-e-double-hockey-sticks did I get old enough to have two children?!” But then I look at most of the other parents at daycare and preschool and realize that I’m actually a good five to ten years older than most of them. Heather and I are going to be the only parents at our kids high school graduations that have to have walkers! 
Well, it’s getting close to midnight so I’m going to wrap this up. Here’s hoping tomorrow’s a smooth day!
The past few days have been extremely hectic. For the most part, we’ve been dealing with the stomach bug (some things you don’t want to share!) and playground injuries. So tonight, to unwind, I thought I would share some pictures with you.
It’s really a shame that Duncan doesn’t have any toys to play with!
Duncan is getting to the point where people are saying “He is a little baby anymore!” And I have to agree. It seems like just a few days ago when he was born but he’s already starting to look like a little boy instead of a little baby.
Duncan is getting real good at holding his head up. Also some of his expressions are just pricelss.
Duncan also loves the bath (at least, most nights he does!). He is getting to where he can splash most of the water out of the little tub and onto the mirror and countertop.
The little guy (gal?) pictured above is our new houseguest. My brother Mark thinks it’s an orb spider. It is nocturnal with a nightly ritual of coming out after sundown, building a big web on our front porch, guarding it all night long, and then deconstructing it before sunrise. I’ve sent a picture of it to my college entomology professor with hopes of finding out the specific species and seeing if Mark is right in telling me that they make “neat pets.”
The last week or so has been eventful with the start of school. Kathryn is now in “big school” (translation: “big school” to her is the preschool on the second floor, as opposed to the daycare on the first floor) and Duncan has started daycare. Duncan had a lot more time at home. He started daycare at 4 months as opposed to Kathryn’s 6 weeks. Both are adjusting well to the change from the summer routine.
I’ve also started the new school year at Canyon HS. It is one of those years with a LOT of changes. New principal, new associate principal, about 20 new staff members. Combine this with the fact that we finished out last school year with approximately 850 students and will probably have right around 1,000 students when all is said and done this year. It seems like all of our teachers have HUGE classes, with some of the core teachers have sections with 35 students in them. One of my class periods is double-stacked, meaning I am teaching two subjects concurrently. Not the ideal teaching environment, but better than just getting rid of my dual credit programming class, which I understand was pretty much the only other option. I suppose the kids and I will just have to find a way to make it work. So right now I have about 115-120 BCIS I students, 25-30 BCIS II-DC students, and 7 BCP-DC (programming) students. Up quite a bit from last year, to say the least. I’m hoping having some BCIS I students in the same room with my programming students will make it easier to recruit students for programming next year. The word through the grapevine is that the magic number (i.e., the minimum number for a class to make) will be 12. The highest number of students I’ve had in dual credit programming is 8 so I will have to make an effort to make sure I have enough kids to sustain the program.
The biggest excitement in the world of work is that I have had 3 official days of a (gasp!) CLEAN DESK!! It is one of my New Year’s Resolutions (I make these in August, not January, since I’m a teacher) that I keep a clean desk. We’ll see how it goes. I found the “Basic Laws of Stuff” on a message board, reformatted it, printed it and hung it on the side of my bookcase in my classroom. They are:
1. Stuff Breeds- the more you have, the more you need.
2. Useless stuff crowds out the good stuff.
3. Dust, bugs, rodents and moisture love stuff.
4. Stuff love to stay where it lands.
5. Stuff expands to fill the space available.
6. Over time stuff becomes invisible.
7. Stuff costs you money more than once.
8. Stuff has a powerful effect on your state of mind.
9. Stuff takes on value only when it is used.
10. Stuff doesn’t make you happy; you do!
We’ll see how long my clean desk challenge lasts. Maybe it’ll be so successful that it’ll motivate me to tackle the garage!
I finally managed to mow our lawn today. It has only really needed it for about 2 1/2 weeks. After I finished the front yard, our elderly Italian neighbor lady told me it looked “so much better.” The past few weekends have been really busy and by the time we get Kathryn and Duncan down for the evening it is usually 9:30 or so. And I’m thinking the neighbors would probably frown on nocturnal mowing.
Duncan has been a little pincushion the past couple of weeks. He got a Hep-B immunization last week. Most kids receive it right after they’re born but our pediatrician thinks that Hep-B immunizations are unnecessary. However, our daycare doesn’t. We could have applied for an exemption from the State of Texas but that takes a little time and we didn’t realize that we would have to do that for daycare. Duncan also received 2 immunizations of Thursday afternoon. I think he did a lot better than Heather and I did!
Well, it is now almost 1 a.m. I am going to sign off and hope that I do better about blogging from time to time!