I think I can, I think I can.

So our mornings usually go like this. The alarm goes off at at 6:45 am, by which point there will be no trace of Sidney in the house, other than finding every light still on and 8-15 text messages from her on my phone(Good morning!, I am on the bus, it smells like b.o. on the bus, in english, fight in hall!, some kid just farted on another kids head, our science subs boobs r so big they look like 18 boobs stacked on top of each other). I getup, head to Jordans room and turn off his box fan (rainman can't sleep without his box fan). I then pick out his clothes for him, make him some breakfast and do my best impression of a reminder alarm while Jordan does his best impression of a snail.

It happens like that, every single day, like clock work. It happens like that whether he is with me or his dad. The kid is pokey and likes his sleep. Today, Jordans dad calls me and tells me a surprising story about their morning together. He said his alarm went off and, as usual, he gets up and heads straight down the hall to Jordan's room. Today, however, Jordan's fan was not on and Jordan was not in his bed. Jon said his first inclination was that Jordan had been kidnapped. After a brief search of Jordan's room, Sidney's room and the bathroom, Jon found Jordan in the kitchen, fully dressed, making himself breakfast. He says he felt faint at the sight. When he relayed the story to me, I asked him if I had somehow been transported to another dimension or an episode of the twilight zone. This is the same child who is constantly whining,"I don't know how", or, "I need help". I can't even get the words,"get started on your homework" out of my mouth before he has countered with, "I need help". It can be somewhat infuriating for all of us. He will insist that he needs help on a task that has been fully explained to him three times. If someone refuses to help him with a project that we know he is fully capable of doing himself he has designed a routine to try to weasel in Sidney. He will sneak into Sidney's room, generally with a peace offering of some kind (letting her use or have some toy of his that she likes), and will then go into a sob story to get her to comiserate about how mean (insert non compliant adults name here) is. Then he will follow that with flattery, "I just wish I was as good as you at (insert whatever assignment he has to do here)". He can be pretty crafty when he wants to get out of doing something. Luckily, so can I, and have generally employed every method he attempts at sometime in my day.
For example, the other day I informed the kids that we were going to clean the house. I realized after a while, that while Jordan LOOKED busy, he wasn't actually doing anything. He would be gone for an extended period of time when he returned something to the room where it belonged and at one point he was walking briskly from one place to another with a dustrag in one hand and a trash bag in another, but not actually dusting anything or picking up any trash. Once I stopped what I was doing and took a minute to watch what he was doing, I was a able to spot these anti-cleaning techniques that I myself used as a youth. Me an my sister used to employ the old "pick up things and move them from one counter to another so that we look busy but aren't really doing anything to help" ploy many a time when forced to clean. Then of course I remember being really fond of, "I really have to pee, I'll be right back" whenever my mom made me help her with dishes.
Anyway, I am really proud of him for showing a little independence this morning, even if it was just so that he could buy himself some cartoon time before school. Hopefully this new behavior will stick around.

I want to be the shoe! Wait..wrong game.

I wish real life was more like the game Life. You know, with little cards that told you what to do. Get married, congratulations its a girl, go to cosmetology school instead of nursing school. Little magical game cards with all the answers, that's what I need.

I need a padded room.

Sidney- "I am building a concentration camp" (legos spread out on floor before her)

Jordan- "You better watch it Sid, dad will put you in there"

Me- "I am pretty sure that Jordan just called his dad Hitler."

Meme- "Yeah, me too. They really find nothing offensive do they? Just sitting around joking about concentration camps where millions of innocent people died."

Me- "Blah, blah blah blah blabbety blah" (giving history lesson to kids)

Kids- (completely ignoring me)

Sid- "Nevermind, its an insane asylum, mom you can come live here."

I probably need to.

A blog is born

So, here I goes, making a blog. Why? I have no idea, boredom I suppose. I'm hoping that eventually it will be a fun use of my spare time where I can post my musings and what not. So where shall I start? Hmmmm....how about I just start with what I did yesterday because I haven't really done anything today. Sounds good to me! Well, yesterday, I went to class...late as usual. In fact, I missed my first class (math, blah)...but boy did my hair look good!! I had it up in the forties style "rolls" i have become so fond of with a big red flower in it. I wore a black dress with little white polkda dots, skinny jeans and leopard print flats. I looked pretty darn cute if I don't say so myelf. Oh! I also wore my new owl earrings from Forever 21, they are swell.



So, anyhoo, I went to the remainder of my classes, child psychology (unpleasant), speech, student success strategies (also unpleasant) and personal health and wellness. I think the unpleasantness of the above mentioned unpleasant classes has more to do with the prof's than with the subject matter. My child psych teacher looks like this:

She likes to ask the kind of question where she leaves of the last word or two off the end of her sentence. I hate that. They are usually not the kind of questions that anyone is really going to know the exact answer to. Not the kind of question where you can just look down and scan a paragraph in your book looking for the bold face word that will complete the sentence and make her stop. No one wants to answer and so she always ends up answering it herself. Example:

So, when a child is ignored by their mother, okay, when she is too busy to give them her attention, that child might feel?....what.....what might that child feel? (looks expectantly around the class while pacing back and forth with her arms held out as if she is about to catch a ball) that child might feel?.....might feel?......(silence).....that child might feel like they have a boo boo on their heart. Right? Okay, lets move on.

It is completely asinine. A student might mumble a weak and unconfident "sad?" but whatever answer is offered is never the right one. It is very annoying.

If i could find a picture of a preying mantis in a pantsuit wearing glasses and lipstick, you would have a pretty good idea of what my other unpleasant professor looks like. She has a similar "ask stupid questions and make students feel uncomfortable" teaching style. She asks questions that really don't have an answer, then she stares at us until someone answers. Once she recieves the answer, she picks their answer apart like a pack of ravenous dogs on a dead deer. Then she asks a follow up question, that like the original question, does not really have a direct answer. I am sure that this is probably supposed to foster "critical thinking skills", or some such nonsense. But, I am pretty sure that she just likes to watch people squirm. You can just tell by the way she looks out over her glasses, trying to select the dumbest person in the room to devour. She also employs a technique that I haven't seen since 6th grade. When people are talking in class, after she has begun her lesson, she just stops talking and stares at them until they notice that she is hating them with her eyes and then she continues as if nothing happened. I really don't like it when people talk while the teacher is talking, I have A.D.D. and it is very distracting. Plus, it is very f-ing rude. That being said, I just don't like anyone being singled out and embarrassed in front of the whole class. Especially in college, where we are paying to be there. I like the way my speech teacher usually deals with talkers, she just stops and looks over at them and says, sweet as pie, "did you have a question?". It usualy catches the talkers off guard, because they weren't paying attention, and then they realize they weren't paying attention and simpy say, "no ma'am", she says, "oh, okay", and continues with her lecture. It takes care of the problem without making anyone look like an a-hole, which is a good thing. :)

Okay, well, I kind of went off on a blabber fest there didn't I? The rest of my day went pretty good, but now I have to focus on making today a good one and get off my keester and do something productive. Later!