Why I'm a PackRat

Hey, Kristin...remember that ginormous bag of seashells I was like, when would I EVER use this?  So I gave it to another teacher...

Now I'm home and I've finished taking down the Easter decorations that were still up.  And I was wondering yesterday, hmm...what to put in my little decorative things for May...and I thought, I know, I'll do sand and seashells since we're going to the beach Memorial Day and we've been looking forward to it all year long.

But I don't have sand or seashells.

And that is why I hoard things.  What if I NEED it someday??

More than a Label

These past few days, I've had lots of time to visit with Dad's hospice nurses.  They are wonderful, wonderful people (I think I blogged about this yesterday--I'm just in awe of the gift these people have, to be here for families during the last moments...sigh.  I caould go on and on.).  Anyway, there's been lots of time for reflection.  I see a lot of similarities between nursing and working in special ed., probably for obvious reasons.  

This morning when I was in the shower, I was thinking about what's to come and remembering when my Grandma died.  It broke my heart for a long time, I won't lie.  I almost got off track there, but I remember why I started...the point was, I knew I was healing when I started to think of Grandma the way she was before she got so sick, before our time with her was defined by her health issues and needs.  And then I thought of Dad.  It's so hard to let go, but in a lot of ways (and I think Ronny would agree, that's my closest brother), we've been letting go of Dad a bit at a time for years.  He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease 9 years ago this spring, and then after his open heart surgery 2 years later he retired.  After he recovered from surgery, he took over the cooking and has been feeding us ever since.  He's had good days and not so good days, and some straight up bad days.  In the back of my mind, though, he was always "sick."  Honestly, I think we all kind of thought of him in that way...not that he was less of a person, but that he was capable of less, maybe...it's hard to explain.  But you probably understand anyway, don't you?  Anyway, after he was diagnosed with cancer in July, I hate to say that cancer has defined his life, and ours.  

But anyway, last week I was blessed by a conversation with my friend Sherri, who recently lost her sister to cancer.  We talked about how Julie was more than the cancer that took her down in the end, but that she was/is 30 some odd years of living and loving, and being human.  Who we are defines us--not the "thing" that tries to take over.  

So here's the point, and why I'm blogging about this here...let's remember that kids are more than the label that comes on their paperwork.  Above all, and we've been hearing this for years:  they're PEOPLE.  No matter how able a person is, he or she still has likes and dislikes and strengths and weaknesses...and let's not forget that.  In working with kids, let's look at the label and take that into consideration, but let's come at teaching from a standpoint of reaching the kid behind that label.  

Let's think on that one a while, and come back to it another day.  

Protecting our Kids

Let me just say, I'm a huge fan of hospice nurses after the past couple of days--they're wonderful people.  Just as we have a heart for working with our special little friends, the ladies that we've met have a heart for families and caring for them through the final transition.  But that's not the point of this blog entry...

Nurse Lori just told me that Adam's Law expires (not sure if that's the right word) in July.  We need this in place to protect our children from registered offenders...I don't have the time or energy right now to see if Texas is in compliance or if we need to contact our legislators, so do me a favor and check it out and let me know.

Thanks!

http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090220-tows-adam-walsh-act

Rainbowlicious...

Tomorrow's the big Para (Paraprofessionals, you know, aides...) Appreciation Celebration.  After all of the rainbow brainstorming I've been doing, and the rainbow logo we're using, it just seemed natural to keep with the rainbow theme.  So today I did something a little crazy--I made rainbow cupcakes.  I won't post any pics because my phone was in my car and I was too lazy to use a real camera, and I won't post a link because...well, you can google it.  I did.  Point of the story:  they ROCK.  I was worried that all of the food coloring would make them bitter, but nope.  Yum.  :)  One word of caution, though, if you decide to try them out:  if you do all 6 colors, put SMALL teaspoons of batter in.  I made enough mix for 72...and got 48.  Whoopsie.   But man, they're gorgeous!  :)  

Easter Happy

I love giving gifts, probably even more than I love getting them.  Unfortunately...one of the things I've had to come to grips with this year is that I have financed my gifting habit with the Discover card way, way too much.  So, when I broke up with Discover I had to find alternative ways of getting my gift on.  The main thing I've done is started shopping ahead--after Christmas, I hit the sales--hard--and bought as many birthday gifts as I could for the coming year.  That's been a big help, and the ones I don't have already (wrapped, of course) in the closet we just budget for each month.  

Some of my favorite people to shop for, and buy happys for, are my teachers.  :)  I will say that I haven't bought nearly as much for them at the Dollar Spot since I don't fall back on my Discover card, and sometime's that's tough.  But I still do pick up little happys for them, and I've got Teacher Appreciation (first week in May) pretty well together, minus the notes.  That's all I'm gonna say about that, girls...you'll smile.  

The picture above is what happens when I need (okay, want!) to give a gift that I didn't plan for ahead of time and we're at the end of our budget.  I buy Kayci's teacher gifts as I find them (she's fun to shop for!) and for Easter, we gave her a cute set of notecards and pens that I put together more cheaply than I'd like to admit here.   But...when I did that, Noble wasn't in school, yet.  So, the day before his Easter egg hunt, I realized that I didn't have anything but I really WANTED to do something for his 3 wonderful teachers and the EEC administrators, since they've been so amazing to him.  At Wal-Mart they had these cute little tins for $1, so I got those and a BIG bag of LifeSavers.  For $10, I made 6 gifts (had to do one for Paula, too!)!  How gratifying is that?  I wanted to jazz it up a bit, so I cut cardstock paper grass and put that in the tin buckets, then filled them with LifeSavers.  For each person, I decorated a plastic Easter egg with her name then filled that with an Easter egg shaped note of thanks (of course, since I'm puntastic they all had variations of "You've been a LifeSaver!").  

Why blog about this?  Because I think happys are important, and can make people feel very happy and loved.  :)  I know GIVING them makes me happy, anyway!

Easter Egg Sidewalk Chalk

For years, I've wanted to do this project, but the whole idea of plaster sidewalk chalk kind of gave me the heebie jeebies.  Plaster, I thought, would make for the nasty HARD chalk that scrapes on the sidewalk and doesn't make that satisfying soft dust that kids like so much.  But I digress...Easter time rolled around and I wanted to do something special for Kayci and her friends, so I arranged a time to go into her classroom to do a craft.  And I picked, of course, the chalk eggs.  

I've been here before, where I pick a craft from cyberspace and just can't quite get it to work out, so I thought I'd be smart.  2 days before, I started working with the recipe to figure out how to go from making a bajillion at once to just one egg-size amount that each child could mix up individually.  Sadly, not one of my test eggs came out.  You'd think I'd just pick another craft, but no...I'd told Bitty so she was married to the egg.  And so I soldiered on...and by the 6th or so test egg, I'd gotten the mix down and perfected everything but the bubble--the plaster had an annoying tendency to create an air bubble at one end, which meant that it comes out more like 3/4 egg than a whole, beautiful chalk egg like Crayola makes.  I figured I could live with that, so I took my toys and headed off to Kayci's school.  

The kids enjoyed the process of stirring and adding color...we did the scooping and pouring because of the plaster dust.  I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out, but today at the Easter egg hunt we got the chalk out and all of my fears were laid to rest...

I have to say, I was disappointed with the project until I saw how much the kids loved it, today, and how well the chalk worked! Not dry and icky at all, but kind of creamy and just right...

EVERYONE loved the sidewalk chalk...

...and yes, maybe there was just a little monkeyin' around.