You can call me Mr. Crocker - the slightly less well known brother of Betty.
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After watching this you may want to join me in my amazement that Americans are the ones being blamed for having crap on TV...
I'm talking, of course, about those good moments, the ones you wish were happening while someone under the age of nine is screaming or crying or pouting or lying to you. In the past two days, I've had a good dose of the good and the bad, and I'm writing them here to remember them either when things get really good and I need to be taken down a few pegs, or when things turn really bad and I need to remember that yes, I still do love these children.
Start with yesterday. How amazing is it that moods and attitudes can shift in the space of 90 minutes. As I walked in the door yesterday, JAM was upstairs playing by himself (he likes to get a head start on being a reclusive teenager I guess) but Pudge and Red were both in the living room playing. As soon as I walked into the hallway, Red and Pudge both ran (literally ran) over to me and gave me the biggest and most happy hugs I've gotten in a long time. I thought it was my birthday. I felt so welcomed it was fantastic. What a welcome change from the typical situation where someone is crying/screaming about something when I walk in.
But with the good goes the bad right? Call it karma I guess
(thank you Jason Lee), things can't ever seem to stay happy around here for long. From my fantastic welcome home greeting, we'll fast forward 90 minutes to after dinner and the end of play time and transition upstairs to bath and bed. The last few nights (weeks) have been a bit chaotic around here, and it was all our fault. As we're desperately trying to get some final things done to the house before Red's party this weekend we've been a bit preoccupied, using all available minutes to get stuff done. For instance, last night after dinner while Wifey was cleaning up the kitchen, I was caulking the new molding in the hallway and the kids were having a blast playing in the living room. Things got a bit out of control, as they are likely to do when no one is really keeping a lid on the excitement, so little miss Red was not in the frame of mind to stop playing when it was finally time to go upstairs. Fast forward again and Red is in bed without bath or book, screaming like a banshee for a solid 30 minutes. Add on top of that poor Pudge not wanting to go to sleep and us having to listen to him cry on and off for about another 90 minutes. Oh yes, good times.
As bad as last night was, tonight was absolutely a different world. Wifey's friend L joined us for dinner and then they stole off to do some shopping for home accessories. I had thought a lot about the issues of last night and figured that the chaotic post-dinner playtime had a lot to do with the difficult transitions we've suffered through these last few nights. So instead of ignoring them in order to get other things done, I kept a close lid on the kid's activities, keeping them to low-key stuff like Legos and books, and what do you know? Red was perfect for the end of play into bath transition. We had an absolutely amazing tub, smooth book time, and while I put Pudge to sleep and JAM took his shower, Red read in her bed. (that was a funny sentence to say out loud. :) ) Pudge actually went down without much of a fuss, I snuggled with Red for a bit then said good night and she went right off to sleep. JAM and I hung out downstairs for a while and the final following thing happened that really capped off quite a nice evening...
Jam and I were talking, and although I honestly can't remember exactly what the subject was it was something where I had to explain something to him. The end result was that after I told him whatever it was he asked how I knew. My standard response to that kind of question? Same as every quality father would say... "because Daddy knows everything." You know, that used to work too. What did I get for my trouble this time? A world-class teenager eye roll and an exasperated "whatever!"
So in true teacher fashion, I turn it into a teachable moment to work on making sure he never develops that absolute blind trust that got me into so much trouble. Seriously, I would believe everyone and everything growing up. Not sure why, I just never questioned much of anything, I just trusted people not to lie or take advantage of me. Yeah, not the greatest idea in retrospect. But to test his thinking, I asked him if there really were people who knew everything in the world. I was glad to hear him say no. There is a long way to go to make sure he knows when to call someone out if they're laying a line of BS at his feet, but it was a start. But, as I continued -
"There are some things that Daddy knows..."Without skipping a beat, you know what he says in the same tone and inflection I had used?
"There are some things that Mommy knows..."
"There are some things that JAM knows..."
"There are some things that Mommy makes up..."I promise, I didn't coach him at all. And after I stopped laughing, I told him he was a funny, funny kid. What made it so funny was the truth behind it. Yeah, I'm going to get kicked for this one, but I'll still share. :)
Even though I made the move from education to a slightly more corporate culture, I still like to keep in touch with what is going on in both education and ed-tech circles. In addition to the normal news reporting and the Washington Post articles I read, there are a few blogs I keep up on in order to do that. One of them is David Warlick's blog, 2¢ worth. As I was reading his post from yesterday I got to thinking about my start at UMCP, my years teaching, my years working with and training both preservice and in service teachers, my masters work in instructional technology, and how much I really do miss using those skills.
I commented to his post that I was still so sad that UMCP had not made the jump into the 1990's and still only offered a single technology course for their undergrads. How sad. But, as I was thinking more and more about the topic, instructional technology, it brought back all those feelings like I had jumped ship. I still hope to go back one day, to find a new leadership position in a district somewhere (most likely not PGCPS where I was - I still hear more and more horror stories out of there). Although I am so happy where I am I still can't help but feel a little pang every now and then that I'm forsaking my calling a little bit.
Every once in a while, not too often, I go and check the StatCounter user stats for my little space here. It's really funny to see the strange ways people find their way here. I know there are a few folks out there that harbor strange masochistic tendencies and read my posts on purpose, and some of you even comment once in a while - not that I'm a comment whore mind you. I like hearing what ya'll have to say and all, but I've tried to maintain that this space is for me and my goal to record life as it happens so one day I'll have something to look back on and chuckle.
Today I took a look at my StatCounter account and two things jumped out at me that I thought I'd spend a second recording what I found. First, it's important to note that I don't get a whole lot of traffic. Now, for those of you who might not understand the mentality of some of the more hardcore bloggers, the amount of traffic a blog gets is almost as important as the number of comments left. For me, I'm surprised that even Wifey cares what I have to say so if I ever get more than one hit a day I'm feeling way ahead of the game. Typically, I'll get 10 to 20 unique looks a day, and I'm sure some of those are search engine bots or mistakes or wrong turns. [See the second piece of this post for a very funny example of that.] So, when I checked today, and saw the following, I was... shocked is too lame a word. But, I'm no linguist so I'll just leave it at that. Check this out...
...to build this -
I can't believe we had enough that went on this weekend to make enough for three posts. And to be honest, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, what with so much left to do on the house and Red's third birthday coming up in two weeks with a bunch of people coming over for a shindig. Last post, I promise. But, as always, this space is for me right? So I'll just post what ever the heck I please thank you very much! :) Not like the three of you who bother to read this have lasted this long anyway.
For the past two years, things have been a bit hectic around here during the spring. In the spring of 2007 and 2008 I was going through a job search, the second time without a job to fall back on, so the flower planting usually got bumped in favor of something else. Like I said though, I made it a point to get the flowers in the ground before June this year and I'm glad I did.
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- Wifey and Red did a great job getting the baskets and pots looking fantastic while I was busy cutting the molding.
- The clematis I planted last year are coming back with a vengeance!
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- Nice clean flower beds.
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- I put the impatiens in and among the spent crocus and daffodils so they would grow while letting the old bulbs recharge for next year. I snipped the leaves of the tulips last year and they were a huge disappointment this year. The leaves came up but no flowers! I learned my lesson, let the leaves stay and plant other things in between.
If you're from around these parts hopefully you were able to enjoy the weather as much as we did. I was so sad a week ago, as it was cold and pouring outside, when I was looking through pictures from a year ago and saw JAM and his friends outside on a day so warm that they were playing in the sprinkler. The weather definitely took a turn for the better as once again JAM was able to hook up the hose and run around with his friend from next door.
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