The NEW Kindergarten

This week has been the start of second trimester kinder assessments. So while complaining about what a pain in the ASS these assessments are to others I heard a lot of..."when I was in kindergarten I..." or "when I taught kindergarten I...". SO I decided that I would like to complain to the whole cyber universe about what it is like to teach kindergarten today. Before I begin I have to preface this with...I love teaching. I would NEVER EVER want to do anything else. I love kindergarten. It is by far the most rewarding grade to teach. Now after saying that here comes what I have to go through.

First of all when I started teaching about 8 years ago I started in 1st grade. I taught them how to write and read and how to sit in a chair. I was in 1st grade for 3 years. Then I was asked to teach kindergarten. A grade that most of the other teachers from the advice they were giving me HATED. I thought how bad could it be? Oh HELL!! I had no idea. On the first day of school there are runners, screamers, pukers, cries, and the one that pee's. Every year this is what I get to look forward to at the beginning.

Now I have to take this motley crew and get them to read, write a paragraph, add, subtract, create a graph, and of course sit still. Now if you were paying attention and I have not completely bored you that is just like what I did when I was teaching 1st grade. Within the last 4 years we have made kindergarten standards so high at times I think how am I going to do this? How am I going to get this child to that standard? But as frustrated as I get by the end of the year even if they are all not at grade level they have all made huge amounts of progress. I have heard all of the... why should a 5 year old have to write? Well because we live in an advanced society. Everything has to change eventually. We are not using and abacus to add and subtract anymore we use a calculator. Technology is our way of life. Playing with blocks is now a preschool activity. Playing with the pretend kitchen and eating play doh are all preschool activities. If your child does not know their alphabet by the time they start kindergarten they are already behind. This is not to say that they won't make progress but, they are already behind those that went to preschool or had parents that talked to them.

At the beginning of the year there are 2 weeks for previewing the ABC's. That's it 2 weeks! We then move on to blending letter sounds to read words and segmenting letter sounds. It all goes at an extremely fast pace. By November we are starting to write sentences and to graph. By February we are writing 4 sentence narrative and expository paragraphs. They are writing these on their own. Some are wonderful and beautiful. Some I look at and go OOOOOKKKKK. As with, I guess everything in life you have the "YEAH" and then you have the "UMMM ok". But even the "Umm Ok's" are done with a lot of hard work and are something that just 4 years ago a 1st grader would have written and now a kinder is doing it.

Even though things in kinderland are not as they used to be. I do still sneak in art because even geniuses need an outlet for creativity that does not include something written by Chaucer. Just thought I would ramble a little bit about kinderland. The ever changing land of 5 year olds.

My Laziness

I have been home for 10 days now. I go back to work tomorrow and I am sorta looking forward to it. I have nothing but praise and admiration for stay at home moms and housewives. I am HORRIBLE at it. I love that with my job I do get to have little doses of being a stay at home mom. That is all I can handle little doses. Let me explain what happens. Take this week as an example. I started out really excited and I have 900 things to do going through my head. I have stuff that I want to do at home, places I want to go, things I NEED to get done for work before I go back. Needless to say I have gotten absolutely nothing accomplished. I am not a self motivator. If you are.. rock on with your bad self. I some how missed that gene. This week went like this...

The weekend was busy with birthday parties and getting together with friends. We played we socialized it was great as always.

Then came the week...
Isaac went to work at night and basically had to work all week as normal. The kids and I stayed up late watching movies and coloring (my favorite activity). Then we slept in, had BIG breakfasts watched cartoons and played and played and played. I took a break and made snacks and dinner. This went on ALL week. I barely cleaned my house. It is still pretty much filthy. I got nothing on my TO DO list accomplished. And I will be going to work early to start on the things I was supposed to do while I was off. Because as you can see I am now off on another distraction this BLOG...YEAH ME!

So this is my question...How do housewives stay motivated and leave the bubble of their house or even clean their house, especially when kids are involved? In all honesty I know I am the LAZIEST person ever created. But, it's hard to do crappy things when it's so much more fun to play. I don't want to clean the messes I want to create them. Maybe I just need a maid. Even when Isaac was off over the weekend he played at home with the kids and I did stupid adult distractions like facebook and reading gossip magazines instead of clean or actually do one of the things I told myself at the beginning of the week I would do. Then when we did ventured out we were gone all day. So then again I have an excuse for not getting my grown up things done. UGH... I need a group or a pill that would motivate me. Then again I would need the motivation to go to the group or to take the pill. I'll get the hang of it one day...maybe :)

My Love/Hate relationship with HORROR movies

Ever since I was little I have always had a fear of scary movies. Yet I always wanted to watch them. When I was 8 I was at a slumber party and of course the thing to do there is to watch scary movies. The pick of this party was "The Exorcist". They didn't go on the weak side they went to the EXTREME. I sat there mesmerized and in awe of the whole thing. Needless to say I then went home and slept in my parents room for a week. I loved the fact that it scared me so much. I still have nightmares about that movie. From then on my parents decided I was not allowed to watch scary movies. SO they would watch them and I would sit in the hallway listening to it and asking them what was going on. I got in trouble every time I asked. I should have just sat and listened...live and learn.

Fast forward to my 20's. I would go on dates and of course watch scary movies. Just for the thrill and to grab the guys arm. :) With a similar result. I would come home and have to sleep with the TV on in my room. Then the incident happened. Isaac and I were living in an apartment that was cute and small and in the GHETTO. Isaac still worked nights and I didn't mind being home alone. I was still in school and ridiculously busy. One night that Isaac had off and we actually had 20 extra dollars we splurged and got fast food and a movie. The movie was "The Ring". Oh this movie! I have never been so freaked out by a movie. That little girl scared the crap out of me. I had seen "The Exorcist" and was not as freaked as I was about this evil little girl. As the movie ended I told Isaac we need to watch a funny movie to get those thoughts out of my head. He laughed at me for weeks. In fact he still laughs at me for being so frightened by that movie. Anyways as we were about to watch the funny movie we hear noise outside. A crazy man was jumping on his girlfriends car screaming about how much of a whore she was. It was 2 in the morning! That guy was pissed. And he added to my scaredness (is that a word?) .

The next night I tried my hardest to go to sleep. Isaac was at work and I was home ALONE. My imagination was torturing me. I did what I had to do. I did not go to my parents. I called my friend and she came to my rescue. At 10 at night she packed up and came to stay with me. I have truly the best friends EVER. I don't have a lot but the ones I have are AMAZING. She came and stayed and was the best protector ever. You would think that I would have learned my lesson. NOPE... I learned how to adjust to watching/hearing horror movies. I don't watch them because it is the images that I can't get out of my head. So I make Isaac watch them and give me a play by play. I have done this with all of the scary movies that have come out since "The Ring". All of the "Saws", "Paranormal Activity", and countless others. I still get that little scare but no images so no freaky thoughts.

This explains my Love/Hate for Horror movies. Love the scary story / Hate the visuals. :)

My new career path

After the last few weeks of work I have decided that maybe I should start looking at new careers. Between all of the hoops I have to jump through to get my class to a level that really 5 year old should not have to be at. And all of the ridiculous politics that go on in public education. I need a more exciting career path. Now after saying that here is what I have decided on...ROLLER DERBY GIRL!! I would be awesome! I have pretty much all of the requirements. They are not that pretty...check...they are better when they are thick...check...they have some serious angry management issues...check...a good amount of ADHD...check...tattoos...check. I can totally do this. The actual skating part might be a problem but, there is a bar to hold onto. So really how bad could it be? They deal with fighting off a bunch of whiners. UHH hello I teach kindergarten the land of whiners. I would be able to have pink hair! I always wanted pink hair. Another bonus is I think that Isaac would support this idea. Me in fishnets fighting other girls hubby's dream...sorry to gross you out.

A few cons would be things like I bruise very easily. This is due to the fact that I'm basically translucent. Completely beyond just pale. I've never broken a bone and I'm pretty sure it hurts when you do. I tend to laugh in tense situations so the whole mad dog serious stare down thing wouldn't work for me. Another thing is I am a mom and have that crazy momma bear instinct when I see people get hurt I tend to want to comfort them. And the nail in the coffin for me to not become a roller derby girl is that I have absolutely no competitiveness. So I will stick to teaching and see where that takes me. :)

My Jacob is 5!!

Here is my proud mommy moment. My awesome son is 5 years old today. He makes me so proud and happy. If you ever meet him you will love him. He is very social and smart. He surpasses Isaac and I and he's only 5. He is interested in planets. When asked what he would like for his birthday he said,...He's 5!!

He had a rough arrival into our little world. He was so big (and I was very FAT) he could not fit. I pushed and pushed for two flipping hours and got nothing. So they hacked him out. Not only did they hack him out...the epidural they gave me failed and Jacob went into distress. I was put under and they sliced me open. I hate that memory. I want to see him take his first breath more then anything. I woke up in the recovery area in excruciating pain. I wasn't able to see him until the next day. I hate that memory too. He was in the NICU for 4 days. They told me at one point that I would probably leave without him. I flipped out yelled and had a complete meltdown. They could not have been surprised by that reaction. I was NOT going to leave without him. And I didn't.

Now 5 years later I have the smartest little man. He is just the best son. He is loving and funny. Oh he has his moments of "JACOB WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!!!" But for 95% of the time he is wonderful.

Happy 5th Birthday Jacob!!