Boo-boos & other random stuff...

It would seem that it has been the week for boo-boo's when it comes to my Lily-Belle. After a long weekend of wrestling with her brother and his friends, she had her share of bruises and skinned knees. She fell into the hearth at Grandmomma's pretending to be a ghost (with her coat over her head) and she got a BIG bloody knot on one side of her head. It was too tender to even wash her hair for a couple of days and she couldn't even stand to sleep on that side. Thankfully, that boo-boo is all better and she's back to her normal rough and tumble self.

Sam has been a handful with his finger sucking. We bought the finger guard and it worked for maybe one night. Then he figured out how to slip his fingers underneath the guard and suck them. I should've listened to you, Kendra!!! I then returned to the medical tape, but I tried the kind that would not stick to his fingers only to itself. Well, the little turd figured out how to slide the tape off the end of his fingers and then slide it back on in the morning. The only reason I noticed is because one night I went upstairs to check on them after they had gone to sleep and he was just as happy as a bug in a rug, sucking away on his fingers and the next morning the tape was right back in place over the top of his wrinkly wet fingers. So, now we have gone back to the ultra sticky tape that has to be cut off in the morning. I don't know how he could get it off without cutting it, because I can't get it off any other way myself.

Brad and I have been seriously talking about getting another dog. I will admit that it is terribly lonely around the house with the dogs gone. We want to get a big dog that could protect itself against our "unknown (probably a coyote) predator". Brad went to the animal shelter and they didn't have anything for adoption, then he tried the humane society without finding anything that really grabbed him. We looked online and just haven't found anything that we are crazy about. We have seriously considered a Great Pyrenees. They are huge dogs that are especially good at protecting livestock and they are said to have a very good, loyal relationship with their humans. The downside is that they also have fluffy white coats that require a lot of grooming. They drool a lot, eat a lot, and they love to be in the house with their families. We've also read that they roam and need to be inside a fenced yard. They are also really expensive. So, we really don't know but are open to suggestions from anyone who has them. We have heard that a lot of people are losing their adult pets because of the economy (being unable to feed them, having to move, etc.) and would love to help in that way, but then part of us wants to get a puppy and be able to train it from the beginning. Just don't know.

My student teacher at school has started teaching for two out of three of my classses so I am hopeful that my stress level will decrease for a couple of weeks and I can get some time and energy to get my house clean. It is filthy... and I mean, FILTHY!! I was afraid to sit down on the toilet in the mine and Brad's bathroom last night. Who has time? When I get time, I am so tired I just don't care that my children are sleeping on the same sheets from three weeks ago. Does that make me a bad mom and a lazy person?

I really do worry sometimes that I am just lazy and that most people have the energy to do all these things I find so difficult to get done. This includes exercise! I did go walking one afternoon this week and I had plans to walk another afternoon with my friend Kathy and it rained us out. She and I have been dieting together and trying to get ourselves started exercising. It is a slow process but we are gung-ho right now. She wants to go on Biggest Loser but I told her I refuse to go on national television and expose my fat rolls to America. I just refuse. My clothes are my friend. And anyway, I really think I could lose some weight if I didn't have BRAD! (I hope he's reading this!) Last night he came home from the grocery store where he bought supplies for their scouting trip this weekend and he brought a box of chocolate covered doughnuts home. I could kill him!!!! He knows I have a weakness for chocolate. I would just like a little support, you know!

Dover School, Yeah!!...

On a lighter note than my last post, I have to say that I am so excited that someone on Facebook started a group for Dover Elementary School alumni! For those of you not familiar with the GREATEST SCHOOL ON EARTH... Dover School was a very small elementary school that was located right by the Dover Mill, just off of Highway 226. I think the building is now being used as a church. Anyway, Carole McDaniel was our principal and everyone just had the most fabulous experience there. If I ever come across other Dover alums, we always talk about how special our little school was. In the late 1980's, the push to consolidate the small area elementary schools into bigger ones brought an end to Dover School and began what is now Union School. I have so many fond memories of that place and I am not the only one. It would seem that everyone who attended believes with their whole heart that we were very fortunate to experience a little slice of Camelot. It is THE reason I wanted to become a teacher. Unfortunately, schools today are nothing like Dover and I really think that is why I feel such frustration with my job sometimes. School should be fun. School should not be a place where you do nothing except reading and writing and math. Social skills and life experiences should be part of the curriculum and it just isn't in today's school - at least not the way it used to be.

I remember being taught to put my napkin in my lap when I ate my lunch. We learned manners. Chew with your mouth closed. Hold the door for people behind you. Say please and thank you. We had parties and watched movies. We sang songs. We danced. And never was this viewed as a waste of "teaching time". We were encouraged to be creative. We actually wore our costumes to school on Halloween and celebrated each other's birthdays. We were taught to love learning. We were exposed to art and music. We went on awesome field trips. We saw things that a lot of kids would never have been able to see otherwise. We learned cursive writing (did you know they don't learn that now in most schools?) and we practiced it until we mastered it. We had recess EVERY day, and PE too. And guess what? We weren't fat! It was great! And it just looked the way you would expect a great school to look... cool kid friendly paintings on the walls and sidewalks, a big tire playground out back, etc. Everything about it was perfect.

I hope that my kids have a great experience in their elementary schools but I am worried by some of the things I see. I loved going to school and I hope that my kids will too. I worry sometimes that there's just too much emphasis on academics. I mean, I know they're important but I think I learned a lot more just by living and being a kid in the environment that I had at Dover. It wasn't shoved down my throat. I had the chance to learn to love learning and see the importance in it BEFORE I HAD to. I think it made all the difference in the world. So to all those who had anything at all to do with the experience I had at Dover School, I would like to say THANK YOU! It was truly an awesome place. Go Wolfpack! :)

Octuplets, really?...

I hope I don't piss too many people off by writing this but I have been thinking a lot since hearing about the woman in California who just gave birth to octuplets. Does anybody else think that maybe we are getting just a little tiny bit carried away here? I am all about science and research and I am completely thankful for the medical breakthroughs that have happened in modern times. However, let us stop for just a second and think about the repercussions of the decision this one woman has made. She now has 14 children, all age 7 or under. She is a single mother. I read a couple of AP articles about her and apparently she is working on her Master's degree in counseling and she has a Bachelor's degree in something like child development, can't remember exactly. My point is, she is not wealthy. She lives with her parents. The career that will likely follow with her degrese is not likely to make her wealthy any time soon. How is she going to afford 14 children? Well, my guess is that most likely she will come to rely on public assistance. They were saying on the news that the medical bills alone would likely reach into the millions. Somebody has to pay for that, right? And all of this was a choice made by this woman and her doctor. She chose this. She. Chose. This. Yet, she cannot support this decision alone, financially or otherwise. So where does the line get drawn between this woman's apparent obsession with becoming a mother and her right to make choices about her own body, and her responsibility to society? Don't get me wrong. I am pro-choice and I am in no way saying that this was not this woman's right to make this decision, I am just asking why this woman didn't make a choice that was a more responsible one. And would it have been considered inappropriate for her doctor to advise her against this, or to even refuse to implant her embryos because of a sense of responsibility to society? I know that this skirts around the abortion issue a little bit but that is not at all what I am trying to discuss here. I just think this woman had a moral obligation to make a choice that was different from the choice she made. And now society and it's already crumbling financial system will have to bear the burden for her poor choices. Am I just being a cold-hearted bitch or does anyone else share my frustration over this?