Chicken Nuggets!!!!!

Owen ate chicken nuggets at play group today! my friend katie brought them to go with lunch and i put a couple on owen's plate with some ketchup. he also had the pizza that was for lunch. i wonder if we're getting over the hump here with foods. he ate hot dogs on sunday and now chicken! i'm so excited!!!!!!!

dinner tonight was dillas. but there was a hitch. he wouldn't touch them until i brought out the salsa, and it's not even the mild salsa - it's medium!!!!! glad he has a taste for the spicier things. oh, did i mention the pretzels in salsa last week? glad that was his tummy and not mine.

be looking for a picture of owen with his cousins here in the next week or so.

peer pressure

we went to target today and there was a mom trying to get her two-year-old son into the cart. her son was protesting (as she put it, they were having a difference of opinion) and she was doing her best. oh, and she's also 6 months pregnant. i went over to hold the cart so she had a better chance of wrangling her son into the seat. we started talking and she told me that her son wanted to go to the grocery store and ride in the truck (on the back of the cart) there. she said i must have been quick to get owen in, i said he goes in very easily (which he does.) then, she used owen as an example and said to her son, "look at that big boy sitting in the cart. can you sit in the cart just like him?" her son said he could and flashed a big grin at us as he willingly went into the cart seat. peer pressure can be good (that was actually part of my motive for going over, to see if owen being in the cart could help get the other little boy in.) how nice to have my big boy be the good example! i hope he continues to do that in life!

It worked!!!

when we went to the pediatrician a couple of weeks ago, i asked her about owen's eating - namely how to get him to eat more variety. she suggested going on picnics and bringing new foods along. well, we did just that today. we had a picnic with most of jeffy's family and hot dogs were on the menu. guess what owen ate!? it wasn't pbj because i didn't even pack that. he ate nearly an entire hot dog. no bun. dipped in ketchup. yummy! he also had two kinds of fruit, some chips, and a little bit of cookie. good lunch, little one! the next test will be to see if he'll eat a hot dog at another time. hopefully, he will. maybe even corndogs...gotta get another box of the mini corn dogs next time we're at the store.

busy weekend

and it's just saturday night.

yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. we left mr. o with the mother of one of my students from school (the student is also one of my private violin students), who told us what a good little boy we have. what a huge compliment! she has her daughter (7th grade this fall) and a son who will be in kindergarten in the fall, so she knows about boys. jeffy and i went to dinner at a wonderful restaurant on the water front. we've had a bit of a history with the building - the restaurant it was prior to this one is where jeffy asked my parents for their blessing before proposing to me in april of '01. he and i had a plan (i'd excuse myself to the restroom after we ordered and he'd ask...funny thing is that my mom almost went with me.) they of course gave their blessing and the rest, as they say, is history. anyway, back to the restaurant. one day, the people came to work and it was closed. for good. just a sign on the door. the property was sold and duke's chowder house came in. we went there as a family shortly after it opened and had some minor service issues (mainly, we never got our food). i wrote a letter to the owner, told him what had happened, also mentioning that our server was doing everything he could to get us our food, as was the manager. in addition, i made mention that there were no changing tables in the women's room. nowhere we could change our little ones aside from the floor in the handicapped stall. i suggested that if they wanted to continue welcoming families (there were several children there, and they have a kid's menu), that it would be a very good thing to have. long story short, i received a very positive reply from the owner, along with a coupon for two free meals. he also thanked me for the recommendation on the changing table. we've been back twice since then. last year, there was no changing table. last night, there was. :-) letter writing works! i feel so cool!!!!!

after we had dinner, we went minigolfing. we haven't done that in about two years. i seem to remember having to bend over in a rather funny way just to pick up my golf ball the last time we went...i won the first round, jeffy won the second round. he also beat me by 6 strokes overall when both games were combined. it was a really fun night. we need to do that more often. :-)

so today, we went to the mariner's game and had a blast. they won 4-3 over the Oakland A's. i got a couple of shots of the first baseman from our seats for a friend of mine. i think she'll like them...possibly his best side.... ;-) we tood the train up and our seats were 15 rows up from the field, a section or two into the outfield from first base. killer seats. won them at a silent auction last november.

tomorrow is a family picnic up toward mt. rainier. should be fun. and loud. our family gatherings always are. heck, when there's 18 in the immediate family (three generations), it's bound to be both of those things!

anyone wanna call this? (I already have)

i took owen's temp just before dinner and it was a little high, but not too bad. 99.5. coupled with his general crankiness, nasal-drainage induced cough, waking up (and going pretty much right back to sleep) in the middle of the night, clinging to mama, and change of appetite, i think i pretty much know what is going on. any guesses from all you there in lookoutworldhereicome land?

oh, and we have a new skill. attempted last night, perfected today. at olive garden. owen can now successfully (and rather quickly, i might add) remove his shirt. he did it last night after eating dinner, it took him a while, though. today at lunch with grandma, aunt sheena, aunt samara, cousin isabella, aunt michelle, cousin mikey, aunt cissy, and cousins kaitlyn and austin he managed to remove his shirt again. he did it yet again after he had his snack, then nearly immediately not once but twice after i put it back on. he did, however, try to get it back on.

we had a very busy morning. before going to lunch, we went to the waterfront for a walk. we made it nearly a half-mile farther today than we did last time. today it was a two mile walk! yay! we went for a walk around the neighborhood last night (well, owen did some walking and was carried some as well). then we went ot aunt samara's and then to lunch with the girls. we'll go to the zoo on friday with aunt sheena before she goes back to NY on monday. i'm trying to be good about getting exercise several times a week.

bath time. my poor guy just doesn't feel so well right now. :-(

animal sounds

we were reading a favorite book today - "moo baa la la la" by sandra boynton - and something brand new happened. i read the first part, owen did the corresponding animal sound. he didn't do a pig's propper sound, nor did he do the rhinos (snort and snuff), but he got everything else. that includes saying "bow wow wow" in the clearest i've ever heard it. add that to his rapidly expanding list of vocabulary. along with "hello!" very cool indeed.

at playgroup we had spaghetti. once i told asked him if he wanted to try spaghetti, he did the motion from the wiggles song. it took me a minute to realize what he was doing, but as usual he was right on! (he didn't eat the spaghetti by the way...no surprise there...)

i think we have a sitter set up for friday night, which is our fifth wedding anniversary. our friends katie and rob might be sitting for us. maybe even overnight, if they decide they are up for that. katie will call after she talks with rob. keep your fingers crossed!

molars?

i wonder if owen is starting to work on his two-year-old molars. he's been pretty fussy and crabby the last few days, also not to keen on eating a whole bunch of food. pbj is still good and a favorite, though pizza is a close second, and dillas are third. today for lunch, he ate about five bites of dilla, then threw the whole thing on the floor. i gave him some grapes just to get something in his tummy. he's still trying new foods! doesn't like most of them, but he's trying them! yesterday, aunt sheena even got him to eat a carrot stick. the cutest thing yesterday was when he was trying to give baby isabella her bottle, after she had finished it! oh, and he was up for two hours on sunday night as well as friday (i think) crying. i sure hope it's molars and we get them done before school starts in a month. after this, we're done until he's about 6 and then we'll be able to reason with him and explain why it's hurting so much and have him understand. this toddler teething thing is rough.

this morning we got up, owen got breakfast (nana and o's) and we went to the mall so mommy could get a cinnabon and a starbucks. (i know, i was really bad this morning. but, i don't usually get either of them so i don't feel too guilty. ). owen was greeting all of the mall walkers, even extending his hand so they could shake it. a few did. one lady remarked at what a nice young man he is. basically, he charmed the pants off of everyone he greeted. this of course between bites of mommy's cinnabon. after i ate, we went to the play area. we weren't there two minutes when he made his first run for it. this happened four times, after which i posted myself at the opening and ran interference. he told me he was done by bringing me his shoes and then leading me back to the stroller. on our way out, he was using his new word, "bye-bye!", complete with waving. very cute!

i made another attempt at cutting owen's hair last night. the first try since the "uh-oh! that's way too short!" several months ago. this time i used a longer attachment and it looks nice. i like the look in the back, and for summertime, this attachment is good for the top too. i think i'll make it longer for when it gets a bit cooler but this works for right now. the lesson learned last night, though, was this: strap him down when giving a hair cut. he was all over the bathroom while i was trying to cut his hair. trial and error, right?

pictures from our trip are coming. just waiting for permission from a couple of people to post pictures with them.

Pictures from our trip

Owen and Benjamin, the son of some friends of mine from high school, playing behind the manual scoreboard at Coors Field in Denver.

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With Daddy and Benjamin behind the manual scoreboard at Coors Field in Denver.

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A new way to get down the slide... :-)

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Another new way to go down the slide.

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On the swing at Gramma's apartment. O loved this! He even started trying to pump!

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What a cheese-ball! We're with my mom's friend Rallie. She's 90 and absolutely amazing!

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At Casa Bonita. The lighting was really bad. Sorry about that!

We're standing in front of the waterfall.

bunny kisses

i wonder how many times i've said that owen cracks me up in this blog. well, he does. constantly. yesterday there were two things. one was while we were reading one of his current favorite bedtime stories and i asked him to give (me) bunny kisses - which are rubbing noses - he leaned down and gave the bunny in the picture a kiss. quite silly. he's big into kissing people and things right now. his teddy bear, his doggie backpack, the sesame street dvd, mommy, the kitty, etc. the other thing he did that made me laugh yesterday happened just before bedtime. he was making a bee-line for me (i was sitting in the chair in the living room) and saw his sippy cup on the coffee table. he stopped, looked at the cup, signed a quick "please" and then took a drink. i just had to laugh - hard.

new vocabulary:
blue-blue (blueberries)
there
right there
purple
singing ABCs (he tries, it's not even close to intelligible)
hissing like a snake when asked what a snake says

we're going to the zoo today with our friends katie and peter. we went to playgroup together on tuesday and while we were walking (it was in katie's neighborhood), the two boys were totally goofing with eachother. singing songs and just doing silly things. katie and i had loads of fun watching and listening to them. i'm glad the boys get along so well. today at the zoo should be a lot of fun as well. i'm really glad for the membership. so far, it's enabled us to go to the zoo twice in as many weeks.

oh, owen is getting better at trying new foods. now, this doesn't mean he eats the new food, but it at least makes it in his mouth. yesterday he finished up my scrambled eggs and last night i gave him a bite of the ravioli we were eating. he tried the ravioli but spit it right back out. that's just fine. at least he's willing to taste it!

busy boy

and not in the usual sense of the word. we had a very busy day yesterday. luckily, owen got a short nap in before all of the activity started. we went to see the pbr (pro bull riders) at the puyallup fairgrounds and took owen for the first time. he really liked it. he would applaud when a bull rider stayed on for the full 8 seconds. he got pretty disinterested during the breaks in the action, but once we pointed out that another bull was coming out, he sat fairly still and watched. i think only about five riders actually rode their bulls, which means they stayed on for the full 8 seconds.

after the bull riding, we went to jeffy's sister's house for the july birthday party. owen had a great time playing with all of the kids there, most of whom were years older. he was very sweet to isabella, as usual.

one very important change i've seen in owen this past week has been how gentle he's being with the kitty. he'll pat max with what is an acceptable amount of force as determined by the cat. owen has also discovered that of he goes for the tips of the ears with his pincer grasp, max's ears will go flat against his head. owen thinks that's pretty danged funny. occasionally, he'll actually manage to catch one of max's ears. that's even cooler in owen's mind.

we had a more-wet-than-usual bathroom last night following owen's bath. my precious little boy decided to take the rinsing cup, fill it with water, and dump the water over the side of the tub...while he was sitting in the tub. needless to say, he only did that once. ahh, the joys of toddlerhood.

new words:
Roar!!!!
dog
yogurt
he'll copy just about any color word, a favorite for mommy, and the clearest, is purple
he'll copy any of his cousin's names and is working on aunts and uncles also.

Walking with Dinosaurs

It was really cool. all of the dinosaurs were life-sized. a few surprized me as to how huge they really were, like ankylosaurus. the smaller dinosaurs were basically costumes worn by people. the larger ones had little cars underneath with drivers and the feet were on gliding platforms (or something like that). there were also lots of blow-up plants around the arena floor. owen did pretty well. wasn't scared in the least, though he did spend most of the 90 minutes playing on his own and chatting with the man sitting in front of us. the cool thing about tonight is that it was a rehearsal. we got to choose where we sat so we put ourselved in our own row. that was very nice since we were dealing with a toddler who frequently needs wrangling. we were the first american audience to see the presentation, which apparently is from australia.

go here to see what we saw tonight: http://www.dinosaurlive.com/

i'm tired and have a pretty busy day tomorrow. driving up to seattle and back in the morning. then lessons in the afternoon. hopefully owen will sleep through tonight. i'm not counting on it, though, since we were out late and he was up late. he's asleep now, i believe. at least he's quiet...we'll take that.

Losing Count

of how many words he has, and what words he has. for example, today there have been three new words, but for the live of me, i can only remember two of them...i think. he copied "apple" this morning and then said "yellow" while we were at the zoo with my sister in law and her 3-1/2 week old little girl. yesterday's word was "dilla" as in quesadilla. he's having apples right now for dinner and i showed him the sign. he signed it back to me.

we had our first day of being home on summer vacation today. it was nice. like i mentioned above, we went to the zoo. owen loved it, as usual. again, we went on the carousel and he had a blast. he also started a fit when it was time to get off. he didn't mind the carousel slowing down and stopping. he hated and fought me when i went in to get the strap undone.

not sure what lies in store tomorrow. that's kinda nice, actually. check that. we get to go watch a rehearsal for "walking with the dinosaurs" at the tacoma dome since jeffy works part time for ticketmaster and all employees of the dome or ticketmaster get to go for free! it's a rehearsal so they will likely stop several times during the program. haven't decided if it's going to be a family affair or if it will be a date for mommy and daddy. i guess it will be determined by whether or not grandma can babysit on short notice or not.

he just signed "apple" - well sorta signed it...finger in the ear rather than by his mouth - to ask for another piece of apple. boy, it didn't take long for that sign to get put into use! way too cool.

three (or is it four) new words!

Holy cow! What a vocabulary explosion we've had tonight.

1. hot potato (is that one or two since he was singing the song?)
2. bunny
3. moon

The last two were during story time tonight.

Casa Bonita was a hit! Too bad he didn't eat much for dinner. They don't have quesadillas, he tried a bite of cheese enchilada but didn't want any more after that. Once again, thought, it took putting it on a fork for him to eat it. He did like the sopapillas (so-pah-PEE-uhs) and had two of those. He also liked the divers and did really well going through Black Bart's cave (it's really dark and there are great places for kids to hide and try to scare unsuspecting people.)

Before dinner tonight, we stopped by a long-time family friend's house so they could meet Owen. We might be joining them for dinner on Thursday at the pool were we belonged when I was little. That would be a blast! I haven't been there in the longest time, since I was 18, I think. It will be fun to take Owen there to see him play.

I think we're going to see the Titanic exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science on Thursday. Apparently, you get a ticket of someone who was on the Titanic and go through the exhibit as that person. At the end, you get to find out if you lived or died. We've already determined that if we get a ticket from steerage, we're pretty much goners. I'll keep you posted.

Wow, I'm posting a bunch today. Is this the third one? Anyway, there is a lot going on in Owen's life and that's the purpose of this blog - keeping people updated on what he is doing.

mr. manners

owen has decided that food is great, as long as he can eat it with a fork. it worked at dinner last night (pizza...) and then at breakfast this morning (sausage). now that we know about this little vice, we can be prepared. i wonder what else he'll eat with the fork....? veggies maybe? (i'm not holding my breath on that one, though...)

we're going to dinner tonight at a place called casa bonita. google it. the food is not the best, but the atmosphere is awesome! it was even on south park. my godbrother and a buddy went during college and made a 'report' for some of their other friends who had seen it on south park and didn't believe that it actually existed. they made a point of photographing (or videoeing) each bit that they mentioned/showed in the episode. i would have loved to see that! i hope owen likes it. i'm not anticipating that jeffy will be terribly enthused about it, but it's more for the kids than for the adults.

Busy Day

We went to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha today. It was lots of fun. It's about the coolest zoo I've ever been to...and we only saw part of it! Owen loved it. He got to see loads of animals. He made noises for just about everything, though most of it was barking like a dog (sometimes a higher-pitched yip, other times a low growly bark). He is also extremely good at making monkey noises (we have the full package!) He also hissed like a snake when Aunt Michele or Mommy prompted him to. There weren't any high chairs were we ate for lunch so we just plopped Owen into a regular chair. He stayed there and ate like such a big boy! After that, we went to the Desert Dome, which was featured on either the Travel Channel or Animal Planet within the last couple of years. There's an area of the Desert Dome called "Kingdoms of the Night". We hit that right after lunch. As hoped, Owen fell asleep in the dark. Then Aunt Michele suggested, once we were in the monkey house, to move him from the backpack to the stroller. He woke up - and stayed awake. He's napping now, which is good. Actually, we all napped once we got home. It felt really good. We're going to the baseball game tonight. That will be fun, also.

So, as promised, here's a picture of Owen with Aunt Michele. They were reading bedtime stories a couple of nights ago. Both were having a great time. My sister is such a good aunt. I just wish we lived closer so that we could all spend more time together. As it is, she lives half a country away. I'm insanely proud of her, though. She just completed her third year of medical school and will begin her rotations for fourth year on Monday. As it stands right now, she is looking at going into neonatology. She'll be wonderful at whatever she goes into. Owen adores her. Heck, who can blame him!?

We are so lucky to have such an easy-going kiddo. Owen has slept so beautifully this entire trip, hasn't freaked out at all of the strange (as in new and unfamiliar) places he's slept. He doesn't take any longer than usual to quiet down at night or at nap time, which is so nice. He also adapts quite quickly to the new surroundings we're putting him in. He makes traveling with a little one so easy, relatively speaking. He will say "hi" to just about anyone. Yesterday when we were at the Strategic Air and Space Museum, which is between Omaha and Lincoln, he smiled at a man who came around the corner and it must have been just what the man needed because he told us that seeing Owen at that moment "made his day". There is something very special in store in life for this little boy. I'm excited to see what that might be.

Tomorrow we drive to Denver and will be there until Friday when we fly back home. I can't believe we've been gone over a week already!

Omaha

We made it with no issues larger than a soaked-though diaper and coughing up mucous onto his second pair of pants on the day. He made it to Omaha in a t-shirt and his diaper. It's really hot here. Muggy, too.

My sister called us en route yesterday to tell us she managed to break her toe while she was cleaning up for us. She did a great job, too! It's very colorful. She's loving playing with her nephew. She's even introduced him to M&M's. The first one was kinda forced into his mouth, but once he got that initial taste, he was all over the rest of the M's he was offered. We'll go to the Omaha zoo on Friday, and maybe to a baseball game that night before we drive back to Denver on Saturday. Other than that, it's basically make the decisions as we get to them.

I'll get pix and post them later.

Vacation - at last!

We're in Denver now. It's nice to be in a different place. The plane ride was rather uneventful, which is good. Owen did beautifully and was really excited to see Gramma when we finally got here.

The weather here is H-O-T. Mom, Owen, and I did pictures at a garden yesterday. Owen did pretty well, until he got hot and tired. We had lots of water for him, but he was done. Today we went to the house of a couple of people I went to high school with. They have a little boy about 5 weeks older than Owen. It was very interesting to observe the differences between the two boys. Owen is bigger (but since when is that news?), more aggressive (not a good thing - he pushed Benjamin down a couple of times because he wanted the ball Benjamin was playing with. He got removed from the play time each time he pushed), and is more outgoing. Benjamin, on the other hand, has many more words than Owen and is even starting to use sentences. These things are not really for comparison, more just observations.

We met with my godmother last night for dinner. It was the first time she's met Owen. We went out for pizza, and Owen didn't touch his. We brought it home for him and he had it for lunch today. At least it got eaten. :-P

Tomorrow will be a first for all three of us. It will be the first time any of us have been to Nebraska. This will mark Owen's 8th state, Mom's 32nd, and Dad's 20th. My sister is so excited to see Owen. We're very excited to see her as well. She's been in Omaha for three years now and we've never managed to get out there to see her. She keeps saying she's going to teach Owen how to play in the steet. Yeah, right!

School's Out for Summer!

And it's about danged time, too! Today was the final day teachers had to be there. My room is completely clean, shelves covered up with butcher paper to help minimize the amount of dust that will undoubtedly settle over the summer. Many of my colleagues asked me if my room was moving for next year. I told them, not to my knowledge. They couldn't believe how clean and orderly it was. Made me feel really good! I'm not the tidiest person around....

Today a group of us, the three specialists (music, library, PE), plus teachers from each age level at my school, got a good start on the master schedule for next year. It is looking like I'll have middle school kids twice a week from 8-8:45. I'm really excited about this! (Something I NEVER would have dreamed of five years ago.) I think I'm finally to the point in my career that I'll be more than just an effective middle school teacher. This year I've gotten to spend some time with the middle schoolers and get to know them, not only on a personal level, but I'm also getting to know the beast. I've learned that their senses of humor are pretty well formed, and they can be loads of fun. The other thing that will help is that I've basically raised these kids from babies. Next year's 6th graders were in 1st grade when I started at my current school. That means the 8th graders were in 3rd when I started there. I've known quite a few of them for the entire time I've been at my school. It's been fun to watch them grow and turn into young adults.

Since music will be an elective, the kids I get will want to be there and hopefully that will help stem some of the potential for behavior issues. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do next year, with major points I want to touch on. I think I should talk with the middle school teachers over the summer and see what the appropriate form and level for questions and assignments should be. I want to know that I'm not setting the bar too high for them.

I want to do a reverse music history/music appreciation class with the middlers. We will start in present day and talk about the music that is out there currently. Then we will go back and see what led into popular music being what it is. Eventually we'll get to the Beatles, then musical theater, vaudville, and jazz before heading into the classical music periods and study composers like Brahms, Wagner, Beethoven, Bach, and Vivaldi. We'll look at why their work was significant and also how their works are indicitive of the style of their time period. This year will definately be one with lots of tweaking and possibly changing canoes mid-stream if things aren't working

We leave for our vacation tomorrow. Two glorious weeks in Denver and Omaha. It will be Owen's first plane trip. Thank goodness for the tubes - they'll help with the pressurization of the cabin bit not affecting his ears and being painful. He and I are pretty well packed and ready to go. Jeff still needs to pack, but he's finishing up some stuff outside while there is still daylight. I put a small load in the washer tonight so everything will be ready to go for tomorrow. We head to Denver tomorrow, then to Omaha on Sunday to spend that week with my sister. We've never been to Omaha so it will be quite the adventure for all of us. We drive back to Denver on the 30th and then are back home on the 6th. We have plans to see friends of mine from high school, several teachers, some from h.s., some from m.s., plus other people in Denver. After the school year I've had, the break is definately needed. When we get back, Jeffy will start as a full-time real (instead of temp) employee at the job he's been at since July of last year.

now he's a parrot!

owen has started trying to copy things that we say. yesterday it was "isabella", who is his newest cousin - born on thursday night, weighing 7 lbs., 8 oz. she's beautiful! i got to hold her for a while yesterday - and even burp her!!!! owen says, "ee-ahh-lalalalala" close enough. his second new word in as many days is "ma-muh" (the 'a' here sounds as in 'apple'), it means "gramma". again, close enough!

when we were at the hospital yesterday, he got in eeahlala's face to say "hi", several times. he also got jealous of hte attention she was getting from me and tried to push his way in. sweet boy! he had more fun running around the room, though. isabella is the first girl in our family in seven years. think she's going to be spoiled?

we had a school night at the rainier's game last night for my school and we went. we left in the 8th inning - it went 12! yikes! owen had a great time playing with a few people around us. when we got home, the dog that was visiting next door was barking at us. owen started barking back. too funny!

oh, great news on the food front: owen ate school lunch every day this week! the lunch i took on monday sat in the fridge at school all week long! i'm not even taking his lunchbox next week. don't think i need to. :-) way to go, little man!

tricky parents!

twice this week we've given owen a quesadilla with meat of some sort in it. on sunday it was a chicken quesadilla at target, tonight, there was diced ham in his quesadilla. he ate it all down, no complaints. not even with the spices on sunday. very cool! he must be going through a growth spurt because he seems to be eating everything in sight. he's also eaten lunch at school three days this week (and his lunch that i brought on monday has been sitting there in the fridge since monday. too bad! NOT!!!!! maybe he's finally willing to start eating normal foods. he even had some of jeffy's chicken at dinner the other night while we were celebrating my getting the school district scholarship for doing my National Boards next year. (see my other blog, http://shemustbecrazy.blogspot.com for all of those juicy details.)

yesterday was my spring program. it was more stressful than most due to circumstances beyond my control, including the teachers whose kids were involved throwing in an extra thing that took nearly 20 minutes to do. add that to a 35 minute program with children who are 3-6 years old and it's not a good thing. what hacks me is that parents were complaining about the length of the afternoon program (close to an hour...) and some didn't bring their kids back at night because of it, not realizing that the evening program wasn't going to have the added part and was going to be significantly shorter. then, one of the teachers didn't show up and put a note on her door for her kids to go to my room before the concert. i was getting another group ready to sing at the same time and that change in what i was expecting to have to do sent me nearly into tears in front of close to 40 kids, that was in lieu of a panic attack, which did start, but i was able to keep things under control due to a couple of wonderful parents who stepped in and kept track of the little ones while i dealt with the bigger kids in my choir. the program itself was amazing. the kids did beautifully, as always. and also as always, there are a few parents who need to be normalized to appropriate school concert etiquette. these one or two parents kept calling out, sometimes in the middle of songs, "you go, ______!" i ignored it, even when they were doing it while their kids weren't even singing. sheesh! i understand being proud of your kid and all, but know the limits, people! these kids have worked hard for this program and calling out like that is disruptive to everyone there.

eight more sleeps until we head out of town to visit family and friends in denver and omaha. seven more sleeps until i'm done with school for the year. good news is that closing down my room is much easier this year than it has been in the past. i have a couple of areas i still need to tackle and go through stuff, but that should be done by tuesday of next week, easily. my goal is to have it done by the end of this week so i can go have lunch with the upper el kids (4th and 5th graders) at one of their teacher's houses on monday.

we may be welcoming a new family member to the extended family tomorrow. jeffy's sister is being induced tomorrow. i'll stop by after my meeting to see how she's progressing and maybe even hold that precious little one. everyone but the baby's dad knows what the baby is. i don't think he reads this blog, but just in case, i'm not going to give anything away.