Saturday, April 19, 2008

Earthquake

Did you hear that we had an earthquake? Kris and I were laying in bed after our alarm went off, not wanting to get out of bed so early and our bed/house started to shake. Kris jumped up b/c he thought that our dog was have a seizure and was laying against our bed making it shake. But he was across the room. We said what was that? When we got in the car the announcer said that it was a 5.4 earthquake at 5:39 that was in Illinois and was felt thru Indiana, Michigan, and up to Chicago. No damage reported. The last one we had was in 1987, which I remember. I was playing softball and didn't feel it but the parents on the bleachers felt it.

Children today....

Kris dropped Addy and I off at 6:20 yesterday at school b/c I had a parent teacher conference with parents who did not want to meet with us but we said we could not continue care if they did not meet with us about thier child and come up with an action plan, just this month he has had 25-30 incident reports where he has hurt teachers, students, or broken resources. Something has to give.
This year has been the toughest year ever for me teaching. I have 22 students, more boys than girls and very dominant, I want to be in charge, and not made to do anything personalities in my room. I have been bit, hit, kicked, spit on, head butted to where I saw black then stars, scratched till I bled, and had to hold them in bear hugs so they could not hurt others or me. Our school prides itself in working with children and not kicking anyone out, which I agree with. Have you seen the stats of children that are kicked out of preschool and how it spirals the rest of thier lives? It is shocking. We have to teach them self coping skills/anger management now instead of dealing with it later when they show up with guns. I have always had one maybe two strong personalities that I have had to work one on one with but not so many in a class that feed off of each other like this class. Only a month or so, then we are splitting them up for the summer when the offical school year is over. It will be less stress on them and us.

An injured Kris

So we were going to have an art auction/show at my school. I have been showing my students different art pieces and they have been really excited about painting and creating. Kris had an idea that we should make them framed art canvas for them to paint on, so we did. Well we had to make 22. I helped him with most of them but I had to give Addy a bath and put her to bed while he was finishing up the last of the frames. Well long story short, Kris shot a nail thru his thumb on the second to last frame with the air nailer. He pulled it out by himself and almost passed out from the pain. He didn't tell me until I came downstairs and saw blood on the kitchen floor so I cleaned it and wrapped it up for him. The next day he got a tetanus shot, which made him run a fever, feel horrible, and not able to lift his arm up, he even took a half day off of work. Then after all that the art fair was cancelled. He wasn't happy but we are going to paint them for the summer social so it was all not for nothing. We made some longer canvas pieces for Addy's class to paint on and they did theirs yesterday.

Our 100th post

Our neice Maddie is 11 months now and not crawled. She will scoot herself backwards but really has not shown an interest in tummy time until last week. She was in daycare for her first week and by the end of the week she started crawling. Isn't is amazing what children will do when they watch other children? On Friday Maddie couldn't go to school b/c she had a fever and pulling at her ears. Sue took her to the doctor and she is on her first antibiotics for her first ear infection. She has been really healthy but whenever children start daycare they get sick. But children that go to childcare in the early years have a healthier Kindergarten year.