mindless woman, mindless ramblings

~My student teacher and her husband are having a baby girl! They’re naming her Addyson, but have yet to determine a middle name. The u/s pics were absolutely precious!

 ~Sam/Tony was kicking so hard last night that I could easily see it. My tummy has stretched so far up that by evening, my ribs hurt. I think he’s going to be a pretty big boy.

~Happy birthday, Ella-girl! I’m sorry that you have the cooties today on your first birthday, but don’t go getting any worse. The last thing we need is a replay of the end of you first month of life when you spent two weeks in the NICU with RSV. Get better, girlie! Be Ellzilla not because you’re sick, but because you’re just being Ella!

~Today was a waste of a perfectly good school day. This year we’ve had to contend with nutcase students writing bomb threats on the bathroom walls – BOMB TODAY AT 2:30 – which has made us teachers feel less like educators and more like security guards beacuse someone has to be stationed at each bathroom every minute of everyday. The poor shmuck on “potty patrol” has to have the students who enter sign in in a notebook, then the teacher has to check the entire bathroom, stalls and all, for messages written after the students leave. When a bomb threat is found, first the school goes on total lockdown. Once all students are out of the halls, we have to evacute into our “evacuation area” which is about 300 yards from the school. These evacuations take at least an hour, but usually 1.5 hrs because the bomb squad has to come out and throroughly check the school. Today, some kid beat the system by writing BOMB TODAY on a sticky note and throwing it in a bathroom on his way down the hall. We went outside around 10:30 and did not make it back inside until shortly before 2:00. We had just enough time to eat lunch and leave. Good fun, man, good fun. At least we teachers earned a jeans day out of it.

~My butt hurts.

~Long-time friend, godmother to the twins, and fellow teacher Leticia was lucky and missed out on today’s festivities because she took the day off to go to a doctor’s appointment with her husband, Terry. I left my cell phone in the van to charge today, and as I was leaving work I noticed that she had left a message for me. She called me just to tell me that finally after three days of constipation, she was able to take a much-wanted poop. Friends don’t hesitate to tell you stuff like that because they know you’ll appreciate it and rejoice with them. So cheers to Leticia! Happy dumping, girl!

~Frank and I are in the process of redecorating the girls’ room. For the past year and a half, Jordan has slept alone in Kyra’s room and the twins have slept in the boys’ room. It’s just been more convenient this way with the different sleeping needs of the twins and Jordan at different ages. Kaelyn has been in the room with us since birth. All of our kids started off in the crib in our room; we just felt more secure watching over them that way.

Well lately, little Miss Kaelyn has been playing us. For a while she was sleeping through the night, but following a really bad flu that kept her (and us) up all night about 6 weeks ago, she learned that if she screamed, chances were good that we’d get up and put her in our bed. Nice try, little girl. Can you say EVICTION NOTICE??? Frank and I moved Jordan into the other room with the twins and repainted the girls’ room. We moved in Kaelyn’s crib, and she got the boot Monday night.  

For us, cold turkey cry it out (CIO) got the three older kids used to sleeping on their own within 3 days. Monday, Frank held Kaelyn until she fell asleep, then put her in the crib. He did it again Tuesday night, but she woke up before we made our exit. We went ahead and left, and she screamed for a good 20 minutes before settling down and falling asleep. Last night, I put her in her crib sleepy, but still awake. She screamed and tried to get up. I stood there and tried to soothe her for a few minutes, but after I saw that she went into “I’m playing Mommy” mode, I laid her down again, covered her up, then took off like a bat out of hell out of the room. I kid you not – by the time I got the light off and the door closed behind me, she was instantly quiet.

I think it’s safe to say that she’s fairly accustomed to being on her own at night now. However, it’s now come to our attention that she’s going to have to go through yet another change this weekend – she gets to graduate to a toddler bed. Her crib mattress is already at its lowest setting and Kaelyn is quite the midget to be 14 months old, so how she managed to climb out of her crib today is beyond me. Frank put her down for her nap around noon. Around 15 minutes later, he heard her SCREAMING with a panicked tone. He rushed in to see what was wrong, and she gripping the rails with all her might and her toes precariously perched on the edge of the mattress OUTSIDE the crib. I’m simply amazed because she seems too small even to be walking (she’s barely 18 lbs), much less climbing out of her crib! I think she has part goat genes.

~And just because I think this is hella funny: