Happy 6th birthday Colby!

Today is my beautiful boy's 6th birthday. Six years ago I got up in the middle of the night to drive to the hospital with his dad to be induced at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Being a mom was the only accomplishment I knew I had to do as an adult. Colby was stubborn. He was a week late. I labored (without an epidural) from 5:30 am until 1:00 pm until I had had enough. I was tired. I gave into the epidural.

My youngest brother, Nick, skipped his college class to be with me at the hospital. Nick and I have always been close, but that really meant something to me. My friend, Tammy was also there. She helped through all the hard contractions. Nick kept Robbie entertained while Tammy helped me.

After the epidural, I went from a 2 to fully dilated in 2 and a half hours. The epidural worked too well - I was completely numb even up into my cheeks and ear.

It took 2 big pushes to get Colby into this world. I cried with joy. He was beautiful. I know it is hard to say a newborn is beautiful, but he was. He had a set of lungs on him as well. In fact, when I sent him to the nursery so that I could get some sleep, the nurses brought him back because they said he was crying so loud he was waking all the other babies.

Colby was such a happy baby. He would gives smiles to everyone and let just about anyone hold him. I see a lot of myself in Colby ~ not just in looks either. His demeanor and disposition are very similar to mine. He is much more outgoing than I was, however, and I love that about him. He has a heart of gold, which is what I love the most about him.

It doesn't seem like 6 years have passed since that wonderful day...and I am trying to keep them from flying by.

No Bones About It

Tonight while Colby was in the bath, he called me into the bathroom. He had been playing with himself (which is normal for little boys to do). He looks up at me and says, "Mom, look! I have a big bone in my penis."

I had to turn away and hold in my guffaw.

I turn back and answer him, "Why do you say that son?"
"Cause my penis is hard and bones are what makes things hard in your body."

true dat.

A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one

It's funny what connects us... a common bond...a common interest.

I started reading a blog about a year ago. It was written by a stay-at-home dad. He had funny little anecdotes. He viewed the world in a humorous light - one that made me think, "I wonder what Mike and Maddie (his daughter) are up to today...I need a good laugh."

Then a few months back, his wife got laid off and so Mike went back to work. I was disappointed as I missed my daily laugh and update of this little family I didn't know personally. But, lucky for me, he linked to his wife's (Heather) blog. She is equally as funny/quirky.

Through Heather's blog, I learned of the struggle they went through to get Maddie into this world. She was born prematurely and had many surgeries. Many nights Mike and Heather thought they were going to lose their little girl ~ but she was a fighter...she held on. Maddie celebrated her first birthday in November.

I'm sure you are all wondering where I am going with all this...Well...Mike, Heather, and Maddie...they were my pick-me-up. When I was having a bad day, I would drop in on their blog and giggle and laugh at the crazy things their little fam was doing.
I needed a pick-me-up today so I headed to their blog. I hadn't been there in over a week...I needed to catch up.

I was blown away! The last time I had read Heather posted that Maddie had to go to the hospital again. (Maddie had been many times.) I was not prepared for emotionally that this happy little family would lose their beautiful daughter. I bawled my eyes out. It made me want to run and kiss and hold my own and thank God they are safe and healthy.

Please visit Heather's site and if possible donate to the March of Dimes.
The purple is in honor of Maddie...a little girl I never knew, but felt like I did.

Spring is in the Air

Spring always makes my students do strange things...

Today I got to experience 2 of my students (who are my fit throwers - i.e. tantrums) get bitten by the love bug. I normally deter my students from this. I tell them third graders do not go out because "going out" means you are going out on a date and third graders are not old enough to go on dates. (...stepping down from my soap box...) But today I couldn't step up onto that normal soap box of mine....because this odd couple of mine made me smirk/giggle/laugh out loud.

It started out with my girls in my class teaching J. to dance yesterday - to prepare him for the dance that we had at school today.

Now J. is a petite quiet boy. Someone who is much too hard on himself and gets overwhelmed very easily. When he gets too overwhelmed, he bangs hims head and growls. (Proud to say, it has been a while since has done either one in my classroom.)

K. is the girl who decided to practice dance moves with J. (with the help of all my other girls)

K. is a stout girl. She is a very smart girl and uses that intelligence to get her way...normally by throwing tantrums. If you don't give into her tantrums, she increases the volume and the commotion until you (as the adult) break and she "wins". She has learned, I don't break easily and she doesn't normally "win".

So here we are today...at the school dance. This dance was in celebration that the MAP test was over... and we had all survived.

K. and J. enter onto the dance floor. They get into position and he spins her out. Her arms go out like she is in a performance...like she is competing on Dancing with the Stars. Then he spins her back in. He even goes as far as to dip her. He gets down on one knee and bows to her. She curtsies to him. They never separate. They spend the whole hour together.

Later, one of the other third grade teachers commented to J. about how lovely he danced. Then she asked him, "J., are you and K. friends? I've never seen you hang out before."

J.- "Well... apparently, she is my girlfriend."
Mrs. W. - "Apparently? Why do you say that?"
J. - "...Cause she informed me of it when we were sitting up in the bleachers."
Mrs. W. - "Oh!...and are you okay with that?"
J. - "yeah...I guess so..."

When Mrs. W. told me this, I again had to giggle.
I said, "You know, they are both my fit throwers."
in response she said, "Well, maybe they will have normal children."


Yes... we, as teachers, sometimes have a sick sense of humor...it's how we make it through our day.

Gross profit or gain???

When I think my students couldn't possibly do anything else to amaze me or gross me out...they never let me down.

Today I had a little boy come out of the bathroom and say, "Will you please take that pencil away from S.? He kept messing with it in the bathroom."

So when S. rounded the corner, I said, "Pencil. Now!"
S. dropped it into my hand.

I looked to the boy who had came to tattle and said, "What exactly was he doing with the pencil in the bathroom?" (Thinking there my be some graffiti that needed to be erased.)

"Oh...he was rubbing it on his balls."


Oh...my...gosh! I couldn't scrub my hands enough!!!!! I don't think I have ever gained something so gross before.

I will NEVER take a pencil from a boy after he has been in the bathroom EVER again!

Bumpity, bump, bumps

We took Sam back to the dermatologist on Thursday. I'm SOOOO glad I went this time! I was able to ask questions and get info, I just didn't feel comfortable getting second-hand.

I got the actual name of his condition, which is Molluscum Contagiosum, and after much research feel sooooo much better about my little boy's condition. I know know that it is not uncommon at all. In fact, I guess, most of us have been exposed to it somewhere in our childhoods, which is why Colby, my other son, is susceptible to catching it and I am not.
It is passed on through skin-to-skin contact. So the boys can not take baths together any more, or wrestle around with shirts off ~you know things that brothers do.

The dermatologist also explained that you could think of each bump like a pimple or chicken pox~ it has a head to it and once that head is removed then the sore can heal. The problem is getting the head removed before it spreads to make a new head.

Sam's bumps have started to spread up under his armpit and onto his back.

Now that I have a better understanding of this virus, I don't feel so bad about treating it. I realize that we have to be proactive and aggressive to get rid of it. We are applying the medicine only to the bump heads themselves and this is keeping the area of soreness down to a minimum. The Dermatologist also said it would be okay to limit Sam's dosage to every other day, which made me very happy.

Thanks to all the thoughts and prayers everyone has been sending...just want my son well!

Discouraged

My school has purchased this fancy-dancy high tech scale... and because I am the building tech person my principal thought I would be the perfect person to take it home and figure it out.

well...I figured it out alright. I figured out that I really don't like a scale to tell me how much I weigh, much less tell me what my body fat %, my water %, my visceral fat #, bone mass %, what body type I am, how many calories I should be intaking, AND what my caloric age is.

Don't get me wrong...I really didn't score poorly. I fell in the average range on everything, but it made me feel weak/fat/discouraged...it turned my "I'm not doing too bad on this exercise thing" to "Gosh...I'll never make it, why even try?"

I realize it's just a scale, but I take these things to heart.

Like when I tried to go running with Spencer and my allergies were acting up and I couldn't breathe and even though I had been running almost 2 full miles the week before, I couldn't even run a quarter of mile with him. And when he got back his friends asked how the run went and how far I had made it and he didn't comment, so they were like, "2 miles?" no. "1 mile?" no. "Oh, you two are definitely NOT going to make it if she can't even run a mile."

(In Spencer's defense he told me that he loved me for me and it didn't matter whether I could run or not...but I still took it to heart.)

You'd think those comments would make me want to go out and try even harder to prove those friends wrong, but it doesn't...it makes me want to quit.

I didn't though...I didn't quit. I didn't go running again until I felt back up to par, but I didn't quit.

I digress back to the scale. After the first ten readings I took, I decided that I could become a little obsessed with it. So this morning I returned it to my principal, showed her how to use it, and told her I was done with it. She asked me why? This scale is a "good" thing. This scale makes me want to quit. I know I shouldn't quit...I know I am keeping myself healthy, but I want to be healthy and not have to be obsessive about it.

So...I am typing up instructions as to how to operate the scale (because I had to go to my principals office 5 times today to show others how to work it - NOT helping with my obsession! or my discouragement) I mean we had one teacher's metabolic age rate at 12 years old...really? I can't compete with that!

cooties

When I was young, all my girlfriends would say that "Boys had cooties" I secretly didn't care. I had brothers. I knew (or thought I knew) about boys. It, however, didn't prevent me from being shy (extremely shy) around boys I liked. I kinda went into a freeze mode. I wish now that someone had pulled me aside and told me it was okay...okay that I "liked" boys and didn't think they had cooties.

My (soon-to-be 6 year old) son came to me the other morning and said, "Mom, I had a dream." (We talk about our dreams a lot, so this was not a strange conversation. )
Me: -"Tell me what it was about."
Colb: "I kissed a girl. "

(I could see his eyes watching me intently to see how I would respond. I could tell by the way he said it, he was a little shy and embarrassed by it. I'm sure he was wondering - is this bad??)

Me: (smiling so he would know it was okay) "Really? Who was she?"
Colb: (shrugging) "I don't know, a girl."
Me:"Someone you know?"
Colb: "nope...just a girl."
Me: "Oh... well, that's nice. Kissing is nice."
Colb: (smiling big) "Yep."

Not that I am advocating my 6 year old to go out and swap his cooties with a girl anytime soon, but I want him to know that the feelings are nothing to be ashamed of.