Tammy's Visit to Westside Academy

Way back in the middle of October, in my last week at Westside Academy, Tammy and her photographer Mark came to talk to the AVID class about their jobs. A part of the AVID curriculum is college and career prep, so this is something they like to do. Tammy was happy to come. Boy, I threatened the heck out of those kids to behave. It mostly worked :) Tammy had the students who wanted to role play photographer, anchor and reporter. Andrew wanted to be the camera man! Tammy looks like a serious reporter here with Kaltuma and Nastasia (she was one of my favorites). They told me that Tammy "talked and dressed like me". Thought it was pretty funny! Raysan wanted to pose special for me :) This is the kid whose house burnt down last year I mentioned before. Natiqua and Destiny. They both really liked me and Natiqua may have been my favorite. Destiny was amazing because one minute she was normal and the next, her temper got her dragged out of a couple of classrooms...! (Not mine :) Tyler and Raysan with Mark. Tyler is one of those white kids that speaks PERFECT ghetto ;0) Made my teacher pose. Tammy's talked to my college kids and been a counselor at Camp Good Days. She always is happy to get involved with whatever kids I happen to be working with. The students LOVED her! Thanks Tammy!

35th Birthday

Last Friday, November 18, I turned 35. This is a number that strikes me as old in a way 30 did not. I mean, I can remember when my MOM was that age.
I started off the day right...I got into my classroom and Devin surprised with me with a hand delivered box of chocolates from his mom. Bethany knew how to start a girls' birthday off right! It was a nice surprise. Then, my sisters had flowers delivered to me in the classroom. Another VERY nice and thoughtful surprise. It was great that my birthday landed on a half day at school, so I was able to meet Tammy for lunch at Azteca. We try our bests to meet for a mutual birthday meal each year and it was nice it landed right on my day. She got me a hands-free blue tooth speaker for my car, something I can definitely use.
When I got home, I opened my gift from my Mom Bobby had delivered. She had made a journal on snapfish with my wedding picture and a picture of each kid on the front. And on the back, a very small shot from Dad's memorial, something if you had asked me I would have said I didn't want, but was glad to see it. It was very thoughtful for my mom, whose gifts, while heartfelt, often don't seem to take me into account lol.
The time while the kids were sleeping was also a gift, a chance to get some homework done! I knew it was going to be a tough day for Todd and I texted to let him know I'd be OK if we didn't go out to dinner. Taking the kids out to dinner on a Friday night can be a challenge, I was tired and I knew Todd's been crazy busy. He came home apologetic and I told him it was fine...I thought it was sweet that he cared that much about it. He smiled with the Todd twinkle and said...wait until you see one of your gifts.
He got me tickets to take me to "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe", a musical, at Syracuse Stage for this Wednesday (November 30). I had sent him the link when it came to me because I love plays, of course, and that is one of my all-time favorite books.
9When we were little, Bobby and I would act out the story in our backyard on Calkins Rd. (OK, I wasn't that little, but he was and I was forced to entertain him). The back area of that yard even got the nickname Narnia, which was one of the things I mourned when my parents sold that house.)
Anyhow, Todd, whose last visit to the theatre was a high school trip for Shakespeare, had gotten me tickets without even realizing how much the story meant to me. He wanted to do something nice for me and it is one of the nicest things he has done, since this is NOT his thing. I am very excited. By the way, he also brought me home some cupcakes from Price Chopper which Adam and Abbey could not wait to try...here they are freshly bathed, ready for bed and DIGGING IN: These pictures of Abbey is pretty priceless. Adam checking out his sister...because he had already eaten the top off of two...preferring the frosting to the cake :) I usually can't stand blurry pictures, but love Adam smiling for me. Todd also brought me home a cake, surprising me that he had remembered my favorite was marble with the butter cream frosting. Since them, my friend Sarah stopped by with a Vera Bradley coffee cup and I had dinner last night with Pam. Part of her gift was a six-pack of an awful brew we drank our long-ago summer of fun in New Hampshire called "Woodchuck". She handed it over to me at Bridie Manor last night and I laughed right away. We "forced" every new employees to drink one; it was our induction. Silly stuff at a silly age: 19. A great reminder of a great time. I couldn't believe they still made the vile stuff...apparently they were bought out by another company, which led us to wonder: why? Who could LIKE it?
I cannot WAIT for Wednesday! I have my outfit picked out already :)

Sunday

I started Sunday utterly and completley exhausted. I slept in for mel 7:45am. I jumped out of bed knowing Adam would be playing and/or complaining. He was. I jumped in the shower anyhow and then got him out. He was like Mommy! which always warms my heart.

The kids were bouncing off the walls so we knew we had to get them out of the house, but nether one of us were interested in heading to Syracuse. We ended up going to Walmart, something Todd really hates so I know it was out of love for the kids :) And it was something I had to get done anyhow.... The kids did well and we ended getting new shades for our living room lamps FINALLY and a kit to fix the broken lamp. This may not sound like a big deal, but I hemmed and hawed about shades for 2 years because I couldn't find ones I thought I'd like and meanwhile they are hanging off the sides of the lamp.

Terry's son Jake had to stop by. He ended up coming around 2:30pm with his wife and son Ethan, who is 4 months younger than Adam. They stayed until dinner time (and Adam never did fall asleep). Adam came out and played with Ethan well. They were sticking every one of the animal toys Adam is so in love with in the packers of the toy garbage trucks. Cute.

We all went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner and the kids did well, even Adam who had no nap. Todd and Jake, who a couple of years younger than me, talked a lot. He does a lot of things, like simple mannerisms, like his Dad. It was also the first time Theresa talked a lot. She is hard of hearing, so I think keeping in conversations can be challenging, but I felt like I got to know her a bit more.

Todd has known Jake (whose real name is Jason) since he was a kid. We've always said we'd like the kids and Ethan to grow up knowing each other...and I know Grandpa Terry would approve.

Happy Birthday Tammy!

Tammy turns 35 today. A day before me. (35 sounds OLD)

We've been celebrating our birthdays for years, deciding in college that they should be a 2 day holiday of course. Now, I'm not as into my birthday as I once was, but I love the chance to celebrate other people's big day!

Tammy is smart, clever, trustworthy and loyal. She has a great wardrobe and a lot of really neat stuff, always decorating in Victorian and the 50's. :) She hates her hair, but I like it.

Good to my kids and considerate of all my idiosyncrasies. She gets me. Always has.

Hope you have a GREAT BIRTHDAY.

xxoo

Cleveland 2/A Christmas Story

So two days before we were going to go to Ohio, I googled Cleveland to find out the house from "The Christmas Story" is in Cleveland AND had been redone to look like the set. I was seriously excited. I watch that movie every Christmas Eve while I wrapping gifts and I just love the story. I honestly can't ell you why I wanted to go so bad...I'm not usually the star struck or set struck type. But I did.

This is not Todd's thing. And I knew the kids were too young, but had I thought it through I may have realized it wouldn't go so well. Especially since it was in the middle.of.a.heat.wave. But more about that later.

So my husband takes me because he knows for some reason I'm obsessed with it. We park down the street, in a neghborhood not too different than one might find in the poorer section of Rochester with many um low income homes but some normal (we looked it up later...the houses are like only thirty or forty grand there) and a few that have embraced their new fan base. Yep, this was down the street from the museum, NOT the museum! There was a museum in a house across the street from the house...with a model of car similar to that in the movie. Sign on the museum. Standing in line to go into the house. It was hot and HUMID and Adam was hard to keep behaved...he even ran up onto the porch before we were supposed to go in. Soo... ..Here it is! Complete with leg lamp in the window!! I was ridiculous in my interest in it. The guy who turned it into a "museum" bought off of ebay and it looked nothing like in the movie and he's been redoing it. So we walk into the living room to hear the talk and Abbey FLIPS OUT. Todd takes her out and ends up going to the car. And Adam is at his worst. I can't get him to listen or focus at all. It was not like him. In retrospect, I know he was HOT and tired from going to bed at midnight the night before. However, once the talk was over, Adam was all about running around and looking at things. First, the kitchen, where Adam posed without realizing it for a re-enactment of the younger brother hiding under the sink. I did no coaching...Adam was just having a blast! Upstairs is a re-creation of Ralphie's bedroom..Adam made himself at home. Adam typing :) A re-creation of a guest room I guess we never really saw but was referred to in the film. OK, one of my favorite photos of the day...the soap Ralphie's mom stuck in his mouth after he said "FUDGE". So maybe, just maybe, my mom put soap in my mouth a few times. The bathroom. Out back is the shed in the movie that is seen when Ralphie shoots his eye out. Apparently, this was the only thing that looked like it did in the movie when it was sold on ebay. Adam happy to check it out. This guy was one of the boys that Ralphie hung out with and spent part of his summer doing photo ops to make some cash. I snuck a photo from across the room because I wasn't in the mood or position to talk to him. Adam was getting very difficult to control. I felt bad because Todd was missing this whole thing, although I knew that he was only there for me, it still sucks he had to sit in the car with Abbey. As it turns out, she was fine when they went outside and they were hanging out in front, but Abbey couldn't stop touching the pebbles that cats were peeing on. I told Todd I was sorry but he said he was genuinely OK with it. We got in the car and headed to downtown Cleveland. I cannot believe to this day how much I wanted to see that house and how cool I though it was! However, I realize now that my kids are too little for those kinds of things. Traveling with toddlers means putting these things on hold for a few years and I'm more than fine with that. I'm happy to go to amusement parks and beaches until they are older and can appreciate cultural events like THE CHRISTMAS STORY HOUSE!!

Tom Sawyer

I started teaching The Adventures of Tom Sawyer yesterday. At the same time, my host teacher had to go to a meeting in which all the 7th grade teachers reviewed statistics of the students' data from the first marking period. The result was that she came back and said we had to include a bunch of things while teaching it.

Good old Oswego State did not teach enough about good old fashioned school work. The fact of the matter is, the education system is coming full circle. Reading and writing workshops, as it turns out, are not working. And the whole getting students to think through reflection and creative writing? Not helping them master the basic skills of reading and writing. So we are using a textbook based curriculum as I mentioned. And while teaching Tom Sawyer, it's back to the old ways of theme and character development, not joirnaling and creative writing exercises. (The funny thing, I was totally a creative writing journaling teacher until now. I can see first hand these kids need the basics and I love the challenge of getting them through it.)

This is the first time I've gotten to teach a classic novel and as an ELA geek, I love that I have this opportunity. But this is much harder than anything I've done because there is so much out there and I have to include all the common core standards and the district's expectations. Looks like I'll be revising each lesson! I really don't mind, but it's a lot of work and it does stress me out that I'm getting it right.

After all, I did do about 50 one on ones last week throughout the day trying to teach students how to write an argument essay, something my supervisor wondered was too hard for the grade. Well, it's the districts selected curriculum and it's in the new state core standards that everyone must adopt next year and Hannibal has begun this year.

"Shouldn't your professors at Oswego know the core standards?" Mrs. Peters asked me.

Mr. Nyman hadn't even heard of them.

I am getting onserved today and trying not to care.

A Work of Heart

I haven't written about it yet, and now it's becoming a part of the "past" really haha. But I will write about my sister Sarah's wedding soon. And here's kind of a start. I flew there on Monday, August 22 for the wedding that evening and flew back the next day. The journey home seemed to take forever with delays (a mid-atlantic earthquake in one case!) and exhaustion. I was so glad to go, but I missed my family. Todd could not take time from work and I was not going to travel with a 1 and 2 year old.

Todd sent me photos throughout the trip when I missed the kids, but kept telling me to just enjoy myself. And I did. My only really weak moment was when they played the song from RIO in which my kids love to dance to. I got back to the Syracuse airport and getting there was better than any place I've ever flown to. It sounds sappy, but there's no destination like home when you have a lot you want to go back to. I had parked in the airport garage and drove home. I pulled into the driveway and saw this. This was one of the best sights I have ever seen. I couldn't wait to see my kids, having never left them overnight before. This was a masterpiece....a real work of heart. Todd knew how I couldn't wait to see the A-team and this was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.
*****
Since then, of course, I leave them all day while I student teach. I miss them a lot. Monday mornings are the worst. I have enjoyed my experience, but am looking forward to more time with my kids again. They are growing up fast and too soon they will be off to school. Maybe I will substitute or go back to the business magazine, but I am ready to not be gone from 7am to 4pm each and every day with the added work and stress of all the planning and grad work on top of it. So glad I did this, but I'm ready for the next four weeks to be over.

Terry Potter

I'd like to write a long tribute to Terry. I've had a lot of thoughts fly in and out of my head about Terry Potter the last couple of days as we paid deserving tribute with his calling hours last night and the funeral service today (we brought the kids to the funeral, serving as a distraction). He was a wonderful friend to my husband, serving as a business cohort and a buddy, too. A true bromance...I called Terry (often teasingly called Harry Potter) Todd's work wife.

He relapsed almost a year ago. But he rarely acted sick, even making phone calls about parts from his hospital bed as he recovered from his transplant. He was determined to try everything to beat his lymphoma and I believed he would at least fend it off longer. I was caught off guard when he took a sudden turn for the worse.

Father's Day...he had his daughter make this cake. He talked us into the fair...which the kids loved...with his grandson Ethan, the light of his life. We went twice...Adam got his Uncle Terry to buy him dinosaurs. Dinosaurs that Adam insisted on sleeping with for the first time tonight...makes me wonder how much kids realize. He made me feel at home from the minute I met him. I was once in a truck with him for 5 or so hours following Todd driving a garbage truck back from New Jersey. I came back from that trip knowing more about Terry's family than Todd :) Like my father, he was a talker.

One of my favorite memories of him is five minutes after his son Jake said "I do" he was back in his overalls. He always wore them. Also, him swimming with us in the pool this past summer. And he loved Canale's clam sauce. Last January for his birthday I offered to make him some. And I did. We had the whole family over.

The last time I was at his house, we took a ride in the rhino (the golf cart), something he loved to do with Ethan and Adam and finally Abbey, too. She was so tired from having fun she was actually being lulled to sleep by the motion. He told me that spending time with those you care about was what it was all about. That Todd worked so hard for his family but knew he'd be there when it counted. That he had missed some stuff with his kids when he was working, but he wanted to give them the best.

And talking to his three kids these last two days, it's obvious he did. They love and miss him, mourning their father, gone too soon at 55.

I guess I did find a few words after all. I am having a hard time finding sleep tonight.

Cleveland Part 1

Way back on July 22, we went to Ohio. Todd had told me he'd take me somewhere and we had talked about it in the past...I wanted to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Cleveland has an awesome zoo. We decided to stop at a hotel along the way. Except the one Todd had in mind didn't exist anymore and naturally, everything was full. And like ever married couple in that situation, we got into an arguement when our children started to cry. We finally found a place in Cleveland at midnight that had one room available. Ah, but what a place. The Cleveland Marriot, while overprices, was very nice. This was what I saw first thing when I walked in. I thought it was the most beautiful hotel I'd ever been in. The kids were exhausted and Todd and I were drained. Adam started saying he wanted to go "home". Great. But they ended up settling in well and our bed was so comfortable. As you can see, Miss Abbey LOVED playing on it the next morning while Daddy was in the shower. And, as always, she had to get into whatever she could. They slept surprisingly well in their pack n plays. The room was really big and I used the furniture as barricades. Here's Adam making "calls" :) We went to their breakfast buffet in the morning and the food was really good. This is what I saw when I was in the lobby. Tell me this isn't a great picture. The room cost more than we planned, but the whole place was so nice and even had a pool, we've though about "vacationing" at a Marriot for a night in the future. We left and headed for the city of Cleveland.....

Good-Bye Terry

Yesterday, Todd's best friend Terry Potter, teasingly referred to as Harry Potter for years, died. He had undergone a transplant in September that ultimately failed and led to complications. The cure killed him though the cancer would have eventually. He was a wonderful man and an amazing friend to my husband. He was also very kind to my kids. This makes me sad for sure. It makes me angry, too. Tired of losing those we love. Doesn't matter, guess none of us has a say.

Observed in Hannibal

I guess I shouldn't have been nervous.

Once Mr. Nyman showed up, I realized it was kind of silly that I had found him intimidating and I was reading his emails a bit wrong. He's very scattered, which is the reputation I thought I remembered him having as a junior high school English teacher, though I never had him. I taught the lesson three times before he got there for 6th bell, so I knew what I was doing. I was a little on edge first and could hear it my voice. I forget to review the day's agenda but went back to it. Teaching the kids to write an essay, an argument essay, is no easy task. But I think I'm off to a good start. These kids have little interest in learning just to learn. It's hard to put it into words. Their skills are a bit below average, but if they applied the ones the had, they could pass. I can't tell if they don't apply themselves because they give up when they don't understand or if they are just lazy. A little of each. I tend to go over instructions many times and explain things in more than one way, hoping to get as many kids as interested as possible. For the 9th bell grade wide study hall, I had told any student to come back and I'd help them step by step. I had 4 kids. But they were really excited about trying to understand. That was a moment that reminded my why I wanted to teach ELA. It was very rewarding to see them get it and more importantly get excited about "getting it".

Anyhow, when I sat down to get reviewed after my observation, he told me that I have an excellent presence. He had one useful suggestion and also, corrected my grammar. When I gave an example, I said "me and Tammy" instead of "Tammy and I". Yeah, an English teacher should get that right.

I have built some good connections, the letter I had them write me about themself that I wrote back to went a long way.

My cooperating teacher told me I was good; ready for my own classroom. It felt good. Five weeks left.

First Observation in Hannibal

Today in 6th bell I am getting observed for the first time by my supervisor, Mr. Nyman, a retired English teacher from the Fulton Junior High School by the way. He's half flaky, half a pain in my butt so far. Which is how I think my junior high best friend Carol described him over 20 years ago when she had him! He doesn't believe in the "teacher voice" as discipline, the opposite of my last supervisor. Well, it's been working. We'll see how it goes. I'm getting some knots in my stomach right now.

I really like my cooperating teacher and it turns out we do have quite a bit in common. Wish me luck.