Repent - Subbing - Tuna

This is a little embarassing to admit but the first step to change is admitting it, right. Although I am a reduse, reuse, recycle advocate I fell prey to the fast-paced, instant gratification, rut, blatently disregarding the evils of styrofoam to quelch my own thirstastic needs. I've been picking the boys up from school pretty much every day because Fox has practice and every day I stop by our local Sunrise gas station/convienience store for a cherry coke fountain drink on the way. The cups are starting to add up and this picture is only the ones that made it home. Many I've thrown out at different places to hide the shame of having them accumulate at my house.

So I hinted and cajolled the boys that a perfect birthday gift would be a reusable mug from Sunrise so I could avoid using all this stryrofoam. I even told them exactly where to find it in the store and how much! Benny my boy was the one who made sure it happened. You rock!

Yesterday I was in a First Grade classroom, Ben's former teacher. I really enjoyed her as a parent, she does a great job. Her class and I'm sure others are very diverse in abilities. The more I see it the more I am against mainstreaming developmentally-delayed and behavioral issued students. It seems to me they'd benefit more working at their own comfortable pace regularly. They get pulled out to work with other teachers and then can't finish the work the class was doing originally. It is a very disjointed day. Two children were on medication. It threw me a little when in the morning the teacher next door explained that if the one didn't get his morning dose he may need to be sent to the office. I asked if there was anything Deb did to help deal with the episodes, she said there's nothing really to do, the behavior is just not conducive to being in school. Yikes. She said I'd know right when they walked in if they were on track. Thankfully both boys were fine and we remembered to get the one down for his second dose at 1pm. These pictures were taken during a moment of free play time after they finished their stations. This was a difficult time for the 2 dose boy, he just couldn't focus on one thing to do. I noticed him wandering and directed him to a task, he opted for playdough but didn't stay with it long. He wandered into a few other play groups but didn't get to disruptive. The worst thing is he decided to wash the mirror with the sponge. It wasn't too wet. A couple kids tattled about it. I said, that mirror could always use some cleaning, but now I need you to wipe the water off with a paper towel. He did. Nice job. Next we went out for recess. Talk about crazy time! I'll spare you all the gory details, they were a good bunch over all but it is a high energy day. I'm rather liking the middle school level the best, truth be told. But I'll hang with any age really, keeps it different.


Lastly, something from the kitchen.....
Sorry about the typo on 'until' - I didn't notice it until after I flattened and saved and I didn't feel like setting it all up again.