Homeward Bound

Well, after being away from my house for one whole week, I have decided that even though we still have no power as of yet, I am still heading home. More and more people are getting power around our house, so I am hopeful that it means that we will have power sometime soon. Maybe not this weekend, but sometime at the beginning of the week we will have power and I will be able to sleep in my own bed. The plan right now is to go back to Nac and stay at Melinda's while she's away at an interview in Houston.
And wonder of all wonders, my husband will be off work Sunday, Monday, and hopefully Tuesday! The only way that could be better was if we had power at the house and could all stay together.
I also got a call from my babysitter that she has power now, so I won't have to drive from here to kingdom come to get Micheal to an air conditioned house while I go to work. Wahoo!
God is reminding me of many things this week, and I am thankful for the house that I have been allowed to stay at, the food that they have provided us, and the love they have shown to me and my child.
Keep praying for the powerless!

Spring Break... A little early

Well, I thought I was going home today, but the phone call today from my in-town messenger was that school has been cancelled until Monday, at least. So, there is no point to me going home today, because there is no school, and my house is still without power. I was going to have to try to sleep on my sister's couch if I did go back and have school. What to do about a babysitter is even more of a question. Our babysitter has no power right now, either, so she is out at her aunt's house in Garrison, the complete opposite direction from my school. I would have had to leave my sister's house at about 6:15am just to get him over to Garrison so that I could drive back to school in order to be there by 7:40am. So, God knows the situation that everyone else is in, and has granted us a little bit of an early Spring Break. At least, that's what I'm trying to call it, because that's probably what's going to happen. We're probably not going to be able to waive all these missed days and we're going to have to skip one of our breaks. I'm trying not to be depressed about it, but it will really be a depressing thing for my kids... especially my seniors that have already planned group trips together for both our winter and spring break.

So, here we go again... waiting to hear some news... hoping that the next time my husband goes to our house that we have power! I'm just not getting my hopes up too high. It could be worse. I could be stuck in a house with a mother-in-law that I can't stand. Thankfully, we get along, and I can beat her at my favorite game of Phase 10.
Maybe now that I know I'm not going home for a while, my friend and I can get together for dinner! :) This is me... trying to find a good side to all this crap.

No Plan, Stan

There is still no power at my house, that I know of. I'm still hanging out in Mesquite, doing my in-law's laundry and other things that need doing around the house since I have nothing else to do, and I can't sit on the Internet all day long. I'm avoiding balancing the checkbook, because I don't want to see how much money I don't have. I was going to try to have dinner with my friend here, and get away from the house for a little bit, but timing isn't good right now, so instead I am thawing out some steaks for dinner tonight.
The work day that they scheduled for school today was cancelled because of no power at school. Today the phone call was that there was power in one of the buildings, but not mine, and that we were going to shoot for school on Thursday. So, that means I'm going to go home tomorrow afternoon. This should be interesting. I'm hoping that my house will have power by that time, and then I won't have to try to find someone that will let me borrow their couch to sleep on and a place for my child to sleep that would be air conditioned.
I haven't seen my husband since Thursday evening, and it has been almost a week. I know that he misses me, but I know that he REALLY misses little Micheal. He calls as often as he can, working daily 12 hour shifts, and I know he is dead-dog tired from all that stress. I just want all this to be fixed already and life to go back to normal. I like schedules and I like plans. I don't like this taking it one day at a time type of living. I wouldn't do good in the wilderness.

Keep praying for all those people that still don't have water or power.

Give me a Marga-Rita

As my sister already informed most of my friends and adoring public, Micheal, Melinda and I rode out Hurricane Rita with the In-Laws in Mesquite. That wouldn't have been as upsetting if it had been my decision, or had only been the five of us. But, my father-in-law also wanted his parents away from home, and since they couldn't fit in my car, he came down and got them.

Seeing as how there is still no power at my house, and my husband is having to work 12 hour shifts every day, instead of 3 or 4 days a week, and how my school still has no power, I was told that there was no reason to come home. ( No electricity at home = no blog updates or Internet games when bored.) I keep getting daily updates from school saying no school tomorrow, as they are looking at it on a day by day basis, which is bad planning and not very helpful for those of us that are not at home right now. The phone call today was that our superintendent (who before this I thought was an intelligent man) wanted the teachers to come to school tomorrow, electricity, water, nor gas or not, and we could call it a work day. I told my go-between that there was no way I was driving all the way home just so that I could sit in an un-powered, no AC house for however long it takes just to go up to school for "at least an hour" when they don't even have electricity there. This is bad planning. It's interesting how many flaws in an emergency plan come out when there is a real emergency.
So, when I do get a phone call that there is school tomorrow, I guess I have to quickly pack up my car and my child and pray that there will be electricity (and water) at my house when I get there, so that I can go back to work. And if not, I guess we'll be bathing with the two cases of water that I bought before I left the house, and cooking whatever food I can find on the grill outside.

Bad weather sucks.

Drive Thru Window Now Closed

Tonight was Open House at our school. I don't mind Open House, not at all. I do, however, mind the mindset that some parents come to Open House with. They don't come thinking that Open House is really just a high school version of Meet the Teacher, like they should. Instead, they come thinking that Open House is more of a Parent-Teacher Conference, in five minutes or less.

I don't like this because I have three or more sets of parents and students in my room at one time, and I have to do group "individual" conversations with each child and their parent(s), in front of the other parents and their student. How nice is that? If you were worried about your child's grades, just wait in Mrs. A's room and you'll hear how bad other kids are doing, and you won't feel so bad about your kid anymore!

I got smart about it this year. I didn't talk about specific grades, instead, I pawned it off on the kid. When Mom asked how little Johnny's grades are, I asked little Johnny why Mom hasn't seen his assignment sheet that should have all of his grades written in order?!? That way, it was off my shoulders and onto L.J.'s! :) Can you say grounded?

The majority of my parent contact this evening was with parents of my Geometry students, who on Friday while I was in school working on my Master's, were in class cheating on a test with a sub that just let them. There are so many things wrong with this situation that it's a whole 'nuther post all in itself. And, seeing as the drive-thru window has now closed, I am going to save that one for a rainy day and go to bed now. Long story short is that a few kids didn't even tell Mom and Dad that they had a test, let alone that they all failed it after they all cheated. Can you say even more grounded?

I'm exhausted. I wonder if this is how speed-dating would feel at the end of the night?

Anything to help a friend!

I'm not a very superstitous person, but I will try anything, especially if it's to help a friend in need.

My wonderful friend Amanda Sue is 41 weeks pregnant, and waiting to see what her little angel's face looks like. I told her all the remedies that people told me when I was pregnant and wanting to be able to see my toes again, and so far, none of them have worked. So, yesterday, I went home and got to work.

I cooked three pans of enchiladas, one for my family, one for the other Amanda that has her one month old, and one for my friend Amanda Sue and her family. I know that the way to Daniel's heart is through meat and lots of cheese. I figured that if I started preparing for Dillon's arrival, then I might be interrupted during my well-intentioned cooking, and get to be there instead. Well, that didn't work.

So, I tried Option #2. When my other Amanda was pregnant with her first child, her water broke in her kitchen, and then we got to see Reid. Then, when I was visiting their new baby, Layne, four days before my due date, my water broke in her kitchen, and then we had Micheal. So, I figured that there had to be something lucky about that kitchen, so I went to deliver her pan of enchiladas, hoping that my presence in my friend's kitchen would cause Amanda Sue's water to break. Again, no such luck. Maybe it's because they moved and it's not the same kitchen. Maybe I should take Amanda Sue to the old kitchen and see if it's powers will work on her as well! :)

Like I said, I'm not really superstitous, it's just anything to help a friend out! :)

I've Learned...

I've learned that...

- I can run as fast as an Olympian when I hear a scream coming from my child, no matter where he is in the house.

- A gagging child is not the same as a choking child, and that crying is a good sign of choking, because it means his airway is clear.

- Happiness is always intensified when near a child that is laughing.

- When I hear bad news, I immediately think about how it would affect my child/family.

- I can't remember what I did in my spare time before I had a child.

- No matter how much my child wants to be a "big boy," sometimes he just needs to still be a baby, where Mommy fixes all wrongs and heals all ills.
And the funny part is, I need him to be a little baby again, too. I like to be able to hold him like I did when he was born and wanted to be held.

I've learned that I define myself by my child and his personality, whether I'm supposed to or not, and am striving to be a good mom to a great child.

Looks of disgust

Saturday, Micheal and I met in Tyler with one of my best friends from Dallas. She used to live here, and then graduated and high-tailed it to a bigger city and a better job. So, we found some time we were both not too busy, and we met up together half-way between our cities. :)

My poor little child, rode all the way up there, about an hour and a half in the car, and then went straight into his stroller, because I wasn't about to let him walk around Foley's by himself. Little Micheal is usually okay with going shopping, as long as it doesn't involve too many location changes and not too much non-movement time. As long as he is continuously moving, he doesn't care. So, we got there a little before she did, so we decided to look around a little bit while waiting for her to get there. Plus, I was hoping his newfound dislike of strangers would wear off a little bit by the time she got there, since he hadn't seen her in a while.

The initial meeting between the two went decently well, but then Micheal decided that he was done sitting in his stoller. So, I let him out to walk, since I knew we were almost done.

This was my stupid mistake, but everyone has to learn something new everyday, and this was my learning moment of the day. It probably didn't help that he was probably hungry, as it was 12:30 in the afternoon, and he had had breakfast four hours before. So, the tantrum began. And, oh Lord, did it begin. My wonderful angel has never had a tantrum such as this in public before. If we were at home and he had thrown a fit like this, I would have put him down and let him scream it out in the middle of the floor in his room. And then when he was done, he could come out. Or, let him scream while walking all over the whole house, because then I'll just keep walking into a different room. This is how we handle 15-month old baby boy tantrums. He's not old enough to really understand time-outs or spankings, but we make our own adjustments in his discipline. Oh well.

So, back at Foley's... He started throwing his fit, first lying down on the floor and kicking his feet and then when I picked him, he pulled the ever popular go-limp-and-she-can't-hold-me. So, my remedy to that was to just drape him over my shoulder. Then, the little smartie-pants arched his back to try to jump backwards out of my arms. So, my friend, being the smart person that she is, offered to stay in out place in line to pay for the items I wanted, so I gave her the card I wanted to use, and showed her where my license was, and the screaming child and I could make our way to the door.

This was where the fun began for me. I knew where our car was parked, but I swear that Foley's made it so that there was no quick and easy way to get there without making many, many turns through people that didn't know how not to look at me.

It was soooo embarassing! I know that when I am out somewhere, and some poor mother is having trouble with their little one, that I am usually sympathetic and try to be aware that the face I may have on is not one of disgust or loathing, but one of sympathy and compassion for the mother. But, not one person that I passed on our way out the door had that same thought for me. Instead, every single woman that I passed by looked at me as though I should be beaten for the way I was treating my child, because I must have been beating him for him to be screaming that way. I was almost in tears by the time we got to the front doors, and the minute we got to those doors, he stopped screaming. Little terd. Once he had stopped his screaming, the only thing I could do was to sit him down in the car and tell him how unacceptable his behavior was, and how we don't hit Mommy, and how we don't scream in a store. This went over just like I was trying to tell him how to find the derivative of a quadratic function or something. It was horrible. So, he screamed all the way to lunch, and then he was fine during lunch, because he was getting to eat food.

Again, it just goes to show that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, whether he is fifty, fifteen years, or fifteen months.

Anniversary Gift - A little early

My husband is not a creative gift- giver. In fact, I usually write down a very short list of very specific things that I would enjoy about a week before my birthday, because then it starts our gift-giving season. My birthday is in October, his is in November, Christmas in December, and our anniversary in early January.

Thus, I was very pleasantly and emotionally affected this week when I came home from school to find out that my husband had been listening FIVE YEARS AGO when I told him of a secret dream of mine.

Monday afternoon, I came home from school, dead dog tired after a Monday dealing with high schoolers, and was trying to clean up my kitchen before I started scrounging around the kitchen for some dinner plans. I found a blank, empty envelope and asked my husband what he had forgotten to mail. He told me that he had bought me a card and forgot to put it in there. I quickly racked my brain, wondering whether (God forbid) I had forgotten any kind of important date. I quickly assured myself that I know dates WAY better than my husband does and maybe he was just mistaken, or even more correctly assumed, just messing with me.
I asked him to forgive me while I giggled, and he said that he really had bought me a card and that it was in the dining room. So, I walked by the room, and my first thought was, "Why is that table pushed up so close to the windows?" And then I saw it...

MY OWN PIANO! With a card on top of it.

My secret dream ever since I was a kid taking piano lessons was to grow up and get a house big enough that I could dedicate one whole room as a music room. I'd get a black baby grand piano, and have my viola in one corner, and my piano in the middle of the room, and it would be just for me to go when I wanted to relax and play some music.

And he remembered this.

Our fifth anniversary is in January, and he thought ahead and decided he wanted to do something REALLY GOOD, and so he looked around and bought me a piano. It's not brand-new, but it's new to me, and I am so excited to get it tuned and fill my house with missed notes and joyous noise that my child can remember and then learn as he gets older.

I am so blessed to have the family that God has given me, and I can't believe that we will have been married five whole years in a few short months. I know that there are many other people out there that have been married much longer and think that five years is nothing, but I think that these five years are way more than many other families in my husband's profession will ever see, and I am thankful for that, and look forward to many more years with my little family.