This Week in July

I don't know what was up with this week, but it was tough. Really tough. But, let's talk and stay mainly positive, shall we?

Charlie

Charlie just keeps on growing. He makes me so proud and so happy. I really need to focus more on him, but he has so much more energy than I have. Next week we shall go to the park and the splash pad and play in the pool. He's much too cute to ignore all summer long.
There's been a step made in potty training, even if it was small it was a step. I got a call at Hale Monday night from a very excited little boy telling me all about going poo in the potty and now Grandma is going to take me to get a truck. :) It was cute. He hasn't gone since, but he has tried quite a few times. Like I said, it was a step.
Charlie and cousin Jayde seem to be constantly fighting, lately. I'm hoping it'll calm down after cousin Jayde gets settled into her own routine, because that's one of the things that's been adding to the stress of the week. Though, I really can't say much because I remember teasing a Jayde just as much as she teases Charlie.

School

I've had some fun lately planning out my AP Bio curriculum. I have a lot of work ahead, but it feels good to actually be doing something. This is one of the things that's been taking my mind away from Charlie, so I put a limit on myself today and will probably have to continue to do so until the end of the summer.

Apricots

Today I hate apricots. All week I have hated apricots. I've spent way too much of my time picking rotten apricots off of the ground. No, I do not feel like eating any apricots, either. Picking apricots off of the ground every day makes me very tired most of the time. Well, it probably adds to the trouble, anyway.

Stress Management

Yeah, I've been pretty stressed out this week. Things I'm working on:

Focus more on playing with Charlie.

Find a regular old book to read.

Work on the puzzle.

Take walks in the evening with my hubby instead of just laying on the couch all night. I may be tired, but I'm 95% sure that if it's not mostly in my head that walking would probably help anyway.

Well, I'm tired (yeah, probably in my head) and don't feel like typing too much more. So, I'm off.

Good and Bad

Hey all, I am kind of tired, so this post will probably be very brief. Also, I don't feel like talking about  the negative of this week, because whenever I think about it, it makes me unhappy and I don't feel like being unhappy right now.

Heber Workshop

Granger had a workshop for teachers they asked to be PLC leaders this week. It was two days long and it was up in Heber. It was pretty fun because they got us rooms in a hotel for Monday night. It was a pretty place and it was kind of nice to be on my own. True, I got a little lonely and down, but to be fair to myself, that had a lot to do with the negative part of the week that I'm not going to talk about.

I got lonely enough that I decided to take a drive to the gas station to get a coke and that really helped perk me up. Then I pretty much put the the TV on for some noise and I worked on a curriculum map for AP bio. It made me happy.

I haven't spent a lot of nights without Jay since we were married and that was kind of strange, but the pillows were really comfortable and I'm contemplating making Jay buy me about 8 such pillows that I can just pile up around my body at night.

Oh, the workshop was good, too. I'm pretty excited to start working in PLC at Granger this year. I'm a little nervous about my department buying into the whole idea, but I think they'll come around in time. I'm mostly worried that the veteran teachers won't appreciate a 3-year teacher being in charge, but I'm pretty sure they all think I'm up to the job. We'll just see how it goes come August, eh?

Charlie

Charlie is still growing too fast for me. There's not much else to report, though. We went to a splash pad yesterday and that was fun for him. He was kind of scared of getting water in his face at first. He got a little bit better, but then he got really cold. So, we went and played at the park nearby. Watching him climb up the ladders to slides is so scary. I just want to rush up help him up there, but then he doesn't learn how to navigate them himself. But, I watched him fall from the ladder and grab back on mid-fall twice yesterday (stupid girl who was sitting at the top of the ladder and wouldn't move) and each time my heart about leaped out of my chest to catch him itself. He'd have gotten mad at me if I would have helped  though, Mr. Independent.

Baby

The kid inside of me wiggles around more and more every day. I can't wait until the 31st and I get another ultrasound to see him. Though, that appointment also has some rather uncomfortable aspects to it. (Yucky yucky sugar drink thing).

Like I said, I don't have much more to report. I am rather tired, so I think I'll stop there.

Here are some iPhone pics of the splash-pad, though.

Mid July

Well, I kinda remembered, once again. Not a whole lot to add at the moment, but that's okay. I'll talk about the 3 things that have occupied my week. Before the week started, I was calling it the week from Hell, but I take that back. It really wasn't too bad. Not too bad at all.

Ap conference

Monday morning I woke up not feeling like myself at all. I was really tired and just depressed. Maybe not depressed, maybe just down because of my anxiety over the week and the load of stuff coming my way. Either way, I wasn't very happy or energetic all day. It was okay, though. I only had a curriculum meeting and 2 shows at Hale. You may sense some sarcasm there, but it really was for the best that I felt this way Monday and not the rest of the week.
Tuesday I woke up refreshed and ready to go. I was anxious, but feeling much more like happy Brooke-0. What was I anxious for? The AP conference that had been looming over my summer like a storm cloud that not only promises rain, but an end to the fun that summer brings.
I was worried that this conference would stress me out about the coming year. I was worried that I would find out that what I had been thinking  was totally the wrong idea and that my anxiety would force me to start planning out my whole year with a fervor that no 6.5 month pregnant woman would have the energy to endure.
Well, actually, I had a lot of fun. First, one of my good friends from Weber was there and I got to spend a whole week with her. I made a lot of good friends up at Weber, but I am rarely able to connect with them because most of them are working up in and around Ogden.
The conference was great, too. Not only did I learn that my content knowledge is still strong enough that I won't have to spend a whole lot of time studying about what I'm teaching the day before (don't get me wrong, there are going to be a few days, especially where the data analysis is concerned, but I know my stuff pretty well) but I also found that my ides should work okay and I found a good curriculum map that I can base most of my year off of. I do need to start planning, but I am not feeling stressed about it, like I thought I would feel after the conference.
The biggest thing I got out of that conference was a huge boost in confidence concerning the labs. Before, I was planning on doing labs, but they looked terrifying and some of them seemed out of my reach. Well, we set up the labs and actually did them during the conference and talked about ways to save money if we don't have the budget or equipment required. It was great, now I feel so much more confident about setting up these labs that really were daunting before. I also have ideas about where I can save some money. I do plan on making a pretty big shopping list for my administration, but it won't be the end of the world if I get told no at this point.
I still do have my worries. I'm worried about planning with a new baby and I'm worried about grading. I think I'd worry about the sun coming up every morning if I had nothing else to worry about. But, this conference really did do more good than harm and I'm actually wishing I could go back next year. Too bad it cost my district $650 to send me... I doubt they'd think I need to go two years in a row.

Preggy pains

I'm going to whine for a little bit right now. If you don't want to read whining please feel free to skip to Charlie. I totally understand, I hate listening to people whine, but I need to do it for a little bit.

This week has sucked as far as my body being something that I can actually stand to live inside. Every little task is utterly exhausting. Walking up the stairs to my bedroom is utterly exhausting. The worst thing about this is not being tired, but actually having to slow down and admit to myself (and others, and it's the others that hurts the most) that I'm not up to certain tasks or up to doing very much at all, really. I went and picked apricots for 15 minutes today, in the shade, and I came in feeling dizzy. And that was it, I was done in for the rest of the day. :( I hate feeling weaker than those around me. And I hate not being able to do all of the millions of things I stress out about needing to do. I want to clean my house because I'm know of those freaks who needs a house that isn't messy in order to relax. How can I relax of I know that there are dishes in the sink. But, instead of helping my husband clean a disaster of a ferret cage, I sat and did a puzzle. Gah! Not that I had any desire to play with the ferret poop, but I hate sitting while others around me are working.

The heartburn is back. I was up all night long Thursday night. Only past experience with it held me back from running to the ER. It's scary when you wake up and you can't breathe because your entire chest area is tense and every time you swallow your own spit it feels as if you opened the gates of hell and magma is rushing throughout your throat, heart, and lungs. Think I'm exaggerating? I'm sure those of you who've had heartburn with a canteloupe sized ball squishing your abdomen know that I have described the feeling aptly.

Then there's the complete inability to get comfortable and the constant backache. Oh, and don't forget needing to pee every few minutes because you are trying to avoid waking up screaming in the middle of the night because a Charlie Horse is wringing your leg muscles like a wet dish towel. Yeah, that happened this week, too.

Charlie 

This little boy is just incredible. He's so worried about me, with all of my pains. He keeps talking about getting me some medicine so I can be all better. He cuddles me. He asks if the baby is feeling okay. And, he is perfectly willing to be my little slave.

That said, he's almost three and has discovered an attitude... Oy. But I love him! 

He has also started an interior decorating service that is the bane of all mothers. We lost some paint on our walls today and we couldn't even yell at him, we were too busy sleeping.

He has become good friends with his cousin Jayde, who moved in with us last week. He follows her around like a puppy dog, even of she tortures him almost every second they are together. Seriously, he ran into my room screaming and crying because she left the house. Silly child.

Well, not much else to talk about at the moment. Unless you like apricots.

Free apricots!!!!

 

Summer some more:

I did it! I'm writing in this blog and it's only been a day more than a week. It's kind of nice because it's only been a week and I really don't have too much I have to write about. So, it shouldn't take hours! 

Summer is going fast, I can't believe it's already July. I'm happy to be spending some time with my little guy. I haven't had the whole week with him this week, due to some meetings at school and some associated work, but we have had some time to just chill on the couch. I've been rather lazy because I've been tired, so it's pretty much been a tv week, but it's been a good week. Next week I have work nearly the whole week, but I'm planning on making up for it the days I don't work the week after. I'm thinking we'll even have to skip nap time one day and hit a swimming pool.

School

I guess I could explain about school taking over my summer. My department is getting paid for collaborating on common assessments this summer and we started those meeting this week. It's been rather scary because I somehow was made the PLC leader of my department. So I've been leading these meetings and trying to convince my department that the change to a PLC scheme is for the best. I don't know if I've done the best job at it, but I have a pretty good quote from the book that I'm being paid to read to share with them. 

Why is it so scary to lead, you ask? Well, I'm only in my 2nd year of teaching and I have been put in charge of  teachers who have been teaching for 15-25 years. Luckily, everyone likes me and we have the same viewpoint on a lot of things, but still. I have already had the seniority and played on me. I'm relieved that it was the wife of a teacher and not the teacher himself, but still... 

Why aren't these senior teachers in charge? I really have no idea because they are really really good teachers, somehow they just got on the bad side of the administration, so here I am. The reason the administration gave me was that I was the only teacher who has some kind of data analysis going on concerning my assessments. But, I've been keeping such simplistic data... I dunno, I'm just worried about feelings getting hurt. Another worry is that I guess I get to do the number crunching for the whole department once we start taking these assessments. They're paying me for an extra period do it, but with all of my other obligations it seems daunting.

Oh, and in 2 weeks I get to go to some special training to be a PLC leader. They're putting us up in a hotel and everything, so I'm excited. I like hotels.

Next week, though, is what I've been worried about for the last few months. It's a four day training in Woods Cross (no hotel) on teaching AP Biology. Here's the thing about AP. I'm excited to teach it, and even a little excited to grade papers for it, but I'm not excited to plan the curriculum for it. With a baby on the way, it's a scary big task. I'm hoping this conference will give a lot of resources and not stress me out too much. I know I need to go in with the idea that there's no way that I can do everything they teach me, at least not in my first year teaching AP. I just have to do the best I can do.

Charlie

Mostly more of the same stuff for Charlie. He's super cute and has the personality of a hundred two year olds. 

New cutest Charlie saying ever: "Nice _____ you have." So cute. 

Nice house you have. 

Nice shoes you have.

Nice dog you have. ;)

I love this kid.

Being pregnant

I've definitely felt pregnant this week. I get tired so easily. I've decided on Hale days in going to have to take it easy as much as I can so that I can actually make it through Hale. This really worried me when I think about school starting. But, I'll figure it out and just try and enjoy it as much as possible.

I swear this kid like to play jump rope with his umbilical cord. He's kicking my butt. Hard.

Carrie

Well, it's happening. We're about to get some new tenants. We're in Colorado as I write getting them packed up to move into our home! One day more and we'll all be there, together. I'm sure there will be challenges, but t should be fun!

Let's see if I rember to write, or even have one to, next week.