Happy New Year!

2015 was quite the year- part of me is sad to see it go and part of me is happy to watch it leave.

Eila and I did some painting and then turned her artwork into a new year's crown! We said "Happy new year!" at 6:00 pm, right before she went to sleep, watched Jurassic World, and went to bed. I somehow stayed up until midnight while texting my friends and eating snacks in bed - it was actually kind of nice!

Dan and I talked about whether or not we have resolutions for 2016. I'm not totally set on it, but I think I want to focus on letting go of things I am not in control of. I tend to get stressed when things that other people are in control of don't go the way I have imagined. For example, when I'm at school, I want people to care for Eila exactly the way I would. Realistically, I know this is impossible because they are not me. I get stressed when I get updates on her day and who ever is caring for her does something differently than I would. I know she's safe, loved, and generally happy, but it's still not the way I want things to go. I feel like I have a lot on my plate right now and I think I'm trying to cope by trying to plan everything everyone does. It's not really helping my stress level go down, so I think I just need to let it go.

Aside from that resolution, I think I want to do more things for me and my mental health. Maybe I'll get more massages. Maybe I'll try to go more kickboxing classes. Maybe I'll try to paint or read or write (or all of those!) more.

I hope I'm ready for whatever 2016 has in store!

(Slow Drive) Back to School

"But when I get stressed, I tend to default to worry mode: if you give a mouse a cookie style. I'm going to work on not falling into that mode and continuing to find the kind and happy things in life, even in stressful situations."

Famous last words.


Yesterday was my first day back to school after winter break. I had big plans of going to school early, getting a bunch of stuff ready, and starting back on a productive note.

The universe had other plans.

I had a really hard time falling asleep the night before. Not too big of deal- I figured it would happen since I've been staying up later. I woke up early, got ready quickly, and left for school about a half hour  before I usual. Most days I get to school a half hour before I'm supposed to be there- I was going to have so much time to get things done! Dan called me about 5 minutes into my drive and said, "If you haven't left yet, you should. Traffic is down to one lane." He leaves for work around 5 am and said there was an accident. There were a bunch of police cars at the scene still. I thought maybe it would be cleaned up/cleared out by the time I hit the area. It turned out that it was a really bad accident :( and traffic was even more backed up for my drive. It took me an hour and 45 minutes to get to school! Not only did I not get to school early, I was a half hour late! This definitely qualifies as a stressful situation for me.

I really did my best to not burst into if you give a mouse a cookie worry mode. I was going to either be on time (which is late for me) or late (which is super stressful for me). There was nothing I could do about it. I texted my assistant- don't worry, traffic was at a standstill- and let her know I probably wouldn't get to school on time. And then I reminded myself that I was lucky to have an assistant, there was nothing I could do about being late, school would not fall apart without me, and most importantly I was not the person in the accident. I also did my best to not watch the clock. It kind of helped.

I got to school, rushed up to my room, and found everyone quietly coloring while they waited for me.


It was a stressful start but the rest of the day turned out just fine. Everyone was happy to be back at school and I didn't let rough start totally throw off my day- it was a good start to keeping/continuing my resolution!

Weekend Goodness- Pat and Emily Edition

This was from Tuesday, but it goes with the wedding theme so here it is :)
The finished bottom layer of the cake! 

Rehearsal dinner!
Delicious food, lots of family, and a bundle of excited for the upcoming day.

I was on baby duty during the ceremony while these two little ones' parents were in the wedding.
They are probably the cutest babies yet.
And will be such good cousins for my little one :) 

Me and the handsome best man (who's speech was wonderful, by the way). 

The cake that my sister-in-law, Elizabeth, made.
It turned out beautifully! 

The tables looked lovely!

I always forget to take as many pictures as I want to. . . this is one of the few I got of the bride and groom. 

I got a shout-out on the menu :) 

And my mom is awesome.
I called her earlier in the day in a stressed-out panic.
She picked up dog food for Maggie and Nella, let them out for us, cleaned our kitchen, put our fish in a new bowl, and got me a couple of treats. 

It was such a busy week! Between cake frosting, last minute dress shopping (which was way more stressful than it should have been), and general life things, I didn't have time for blog updates.  But the cake turned out great- and got lots of compliments! My bump is just a little too big for most regular clothes and a little too small for most maternity clothes. . . After going to target, kohls, old navy, tj max, a bunch of stores at two different malls, I finally found a dress at H&M!  The wedding was beautiful, the food at the reception was tasty, the cake was delicious :) , and I got to talk with a bunch of people I don't get to see often enough. Now onto a couple days of school and then a short (but much needed) break for Thanksgiving!

Send Good Thoughts Her Way

A random number called me a few times on Wednesday day night. I was already sleeping and don't usually answer when I don't know who is calling me, so I let it ring. The person (who turned out to be my coworker) left me a message saying to call her back right away. Weird.

When I called her back, she told me that one of my kids was shot.


Woah.
One of my kids? Who was just in my class earlier that day? Shot? What?


Then I got a call from another coworker. She told me that my student was shot in the head while she was sitting in a car and now she's at children's hospital.



I saw on the news that a four-year-old had been shot, but kids getting shot happens way too much in the Milwaukee area. Other than thinking how terrible that was, I didn't think too much about it.


Now all I could think about was how terrible it really was. I felt so sad for my little 4ker. I didn't really sleep that night and my eyes were puffy the next day from so much crying. No child should ever have to go through something like this. All it took was the couple seconds of someone pulling a trigger a few times and this kid's life is drastically changed forever. She was happy, confident, strong-willed, and sweet. Now she has a brain injury and is laying in a hospital bed.

I visited her on Thursday after school. Even though she was very swollen, her head covered in holes and sutures, and tubes and monitors connected all over her, her mom sad she already looked better than the night before. Although her brain was swelling, her first surgery went well and she was doing well for her circumstances.

Today, she was taken off her ventilator and is breathing in her own. This little one has such a feisty, strong-willed personality, and it's showing even in her critical condition. With so many prayers coming her way, she has to be feeling everyone's love. Send good thoughts her way, please.

Things Kids Said on a Wednesday

The kids were wild today. Just crazy. And it wasn't just in my room either. I don't know if there's a full moon, the pressure is changing, or if Memorial Day weekend is catching up with them, but they were nuts. Today was the type of day were I drove home with the radio so quiet I could barely hear it.

I probably should have recorded the entire day, because they were goofy all day long. Here are some snippets into my crazy day:


- "I'm Green Lantern! I can do this if I want!" (super wiggly little guy trying to convince me it was okay to lay on friends lap during calendar time) "You're Green Lantern? Woah! Did you know Green Lantern always listens to his teacher? You need to sit up." It worked :)


- One of my calm, easy going kids was super crabby today. She tried to take over the 'light helper' job and when I told her it was another kid's turn she said (in her sassiest voice) "I. Don't. Care."


- "I'm gonna chop your fingers off!" -I have no context for this, the kid she was talking to laughed, and there were no tears.


- One of my kids brought in a book for me to read- they do this often- but this book had a bunch of Spanish in it. I don't speak Spanish and I definitely don't read Spanish. Two of my kids who speak Spanish were correcting me and giggling the whole time. It was awesome.


- One of my girls was singing "Teach me how to dougie" and I joined in with "teach, me teach me how to dougie" She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Ms. McElwee, really? How do you know that song?"


-One kid asked to go to the bathroom but instead went to go visit the dean. She told him that she had bacon for lunch and didn't bring him any.


- One kid spent our entire choice time (30 min) following me around telling me about minecraft. I now know more about the part where you can go into a tornado to get to Oz than I ever thought I would :)


-I brought a bag filled with ingredients for smores- we're learning about camping. I had them guess what snack was in the bag. Best guesses: Beef! Takis! A campfire!



Guess what- I'm Irish dancing in my school's talent show on Friday. I should probably figure out exactly what I'm going to do :)

Observation #3

As I mentioned yesterday, I had my final observation today. I'm feeling pretty confident about it for two reasons.

1. It went well! Except for one little guy who always responds negatively when someone out of the ordinary is in the room, the kids were engaged! I told them a story about how a bunch of dinosaur eggs got mixed up and they had to help the mama dinosaurs get their babies back. The only way they could make sure the eggs were in the right nest was to count the number of dots on each egg and match them to the corresponding nest. They were so into it. They were super talkative and excited when we talked as a whole group and they were quiet, hard workers in small groups.

2. I got an email from an administrator showing how the rubric used to critique me isn't appropriate based on the age group I teach. No wonder I've gotten lower 'scores' than I expected. Even if the current rubric is used to critique me this time, and even if I don't get the 'grade' I think I deserve based on the current rubric's criteria, feeling like someone understand my position makes it okay.

I'll meet with my supervisor once she's done evaluating me so we can talk about how it went. On one hand, I'm happy because I know the lesson went well. On the other hand, I still want to get a good 'grade' and I'm nervous that she won't see the good things that happened. I guess I will just have to wait and see!


And if she doesn't think I did well, I might just have to start leaving her copies of my favorite drawing all around her office!

There's a Lamb in School. . Oh No! What are we Going to Do?

The sunrises have been BEAUTIFUL this week. Just gorgeous. They make the long drive to school a thousand times more enjoyable.

I think Thursday was the busiest day we've had all school year.

At the start of each class, we had a presenter from Stop Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) come to talk about being safe and not letting anyone take pictures of or touch your private areas. She also talked about how no one should hurt you. They learned that if any of that happens, they need to stop and go tell a different grown up.

After the SCAN presentation, we went to visit a lamb. Yes, a real live lamb. One of the the second grade teachers fosters sheep that are neglected/rejected by their moms. This little lamb was three weeks old and adorable. She was so soft and snuggly! The kids loved her. And I was singing the song from the handwriting without tears CD "There's a dog in school" (but replaced dog with sheep) all day!

Then we made hand print valentine's cards before snack time.

We had a little free choice time before another presenter came to our classroom. The school nurse organized dental presentations for all of the classrooms (if they wanted) and I had the "dentists" (I'm not sure if that's what they really were, but that's what my kids called them, and I went with it) present for both my classes. I started the day feeling bummed about my terrible observation and was glad to have something out of the ordinary happening. After the morning presentation, the "dentists" told me how great my class was. The dentists said they were the most polite, best listeners out of all of the classes that morning. They wondered how I did it :) They told the school nurse over and over how awesome the 4Kers were. When they came back for the afternoon class, they again were amazed at how well behaved the kids were. They said the 4K classes were the best classes they presented to all day long :) They were in the classroom for about 10 minutes before each presentation, so they got to see me and the kids in action. Two strangers got to see how my classroom really runs. I was so proud of those kids :)

The morning class got ready to go home after the dental presentation. We had a surprise fire drill after the afternoon class's presentation- what a busy day!

The drive home was golden and lovely. I think Dan is making a tasty dinner for Valentine's day before he leaves to go fishing for the weekend- Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Post-Observation Meeting Blues

You know that observation I had yesterday? The one where the kids were not their usual calm selves and instead were bouncing off the walls? Well I had my post observation meeting today and it did not go well.

So how this works is three times a year, my supervisor comes into my classroom during a planned time to watch me teach. We meet before the observation and talk about what I want her to focus on while observing. During the observation, she takes notes on what is happening and then we talk about how it went afterwards. My last observation went pretty well, but because I chose a time during AM 4K, it was stressful. The morning class is a tough one. This time, I thought I would take some pressure off of myself and schedule the observation in the afternoon. The afternoon 4K-ers are talkative and silly, but they are easily redirected and except for a couple kids, are pretty mellow. Yesterday, they were everything but mellow. I mean there were kids rolling around on the floor, getting up, laying in random parts of the classroom, blurting out unrelated comments with absolutely no connection, and one girl who has always been kind was hitting a boy in the head repeatedly. It was a weird day.

At the start of the observation meeting, my supervisor asked how I think things went and I was kind of giggling about how crazy the kids were being. She agreed that they were a little nuts and then we moved on to talking about specifics. One of the sections I wanted her to focus on while observing me was classroom management- specifically transitions. I've always been good at transitions and chose this because the other area I wanted her to focus on was making sure I state what the students will learn. I forget to explicitly state what the goal of the lesson is and have been working on it. During this conversation, I needed to rate myself on how did. The ratings are: Unsatisfactory (which to me is like an F), Basic (this is a C in my mind), Satisfactory (a B), and Proficient (an A). Based on what happened during the lesson and what the rubric said, I had to give myself a C in the transition category.

I'm not a C person. Through out elementary, middle, high school, and college, I got some B's with an A average. There were a few C's and D's on small assignments that I didn't put enough effort into, but overall, I was an A and B kind of student. My supervisor talked about how I  could have tried different things to get them engaged. We sang, we danced, we sat criss-cross, we lay on our bellies, we played simon says, we moved around the classroom, I gave compliments, I moved names from the green road to the yellow road, we jumped, we made predictions (they love to make predictions), I waited, we whispered, we talked in silly voices. Some of these things we do a lot and they love, and the novelty of the other things we don't do often is almost always guaranteed to grab their attention. What other things did she want me to do? Oh. A scavenger hunt. (That actually is a fun idea that I will probably try, but it wasn't in the cards that day. I really don't think it would have worked even if I had thought of it.) So now I have a C.

I feel really bummed about it. The only time I get C's is when I don't try my best and that was not the case here. I tried really hard. I want to be awesome at what I do. I know I won't be to the level of awesome that I want to be at for a while- I have lots of learning to do. But a C? Getting a C makes me feel like I'm ruining the start of 32 kids' educations. It makes me feel like I'm not good at what I do. I don't do C work. It's frustrating.

After the meeting, my afternoon class (the one that was observed) came in. They were back to their usual selves today. I wanted to yell "SEE?! Observe me now! My transitions are GREAT!" Good thing I have one more observation to go- everyone better be on their best behavior when ever that happens.

WPR was on my radio on the way home from school. One of the segments was about playing games. I was lost in my thoughts and wasn't really paying attention until I heard the guy on the radio talking about learning from frustration. He said something like, "you can't grow until you have felt very frustrated." It was something good for me to hear. Frustration was a strong feeling today but I'm still growing.

One of my 4Kers handed me this tiny folded up piece of paper and said, " I made this for you. Open it after school."
Even if I get a C in transitions (this time), I know I'm doing some things right :) 

"If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" Moments

Tomorrow we have a cold day. I got a call from my school, I've watched the name scroll by on the bottom of a few news channels, and I looked it up online just to be sure we are really closed.  Even though the temperature is supposed to be -18 (with the windchill it will feel like -47) and it makes sense that school is closed, I'm feeling a little anxious about it.

I'm going through this cycle of feelings that starts with feeling like I'll get a call from an angry principal/secretary/curriculum director at 8:00 tomorrow morning wondering why I'm not at school. Thinking about how I would feel if that happened is making me anxious right now, so moving on. . .  Then I feel kind of excited. I have a whole extra day added to the end of my winter break! I've had a great two full weeks off and now I'll have a four day week to get back into the swing of things. Plus, I can do anything I want for one more day!  Which leads me to feel like I should probably use the day to get a lot of work done. Why relax when I should really be at school doing work? I can get work done at home too. From there I move on to feeling like it would be most beneficial for me to relax for the day. My class is really challenging and I've been pretty busy this break so I could use a day of absolutely nothing- I won't have a day like this for a while. I end up deciding that is the best route to go until I start feeling a little guilty. Most other people have to go to work tomorrow. If they have to be productive, so should I. Then I think about how goofy all of that is and move on to something else for a little while. . . until I think about how I might get an angry wake up call at 8:00. It's like a negative version of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"**.

Usually when I'm feeling a little overly anxious, like I am about school being closed, I make check lists. It helps me feel more grounded to see a nice looking list of things I can accomplish.

I have two requirements for my lists:

 1. I have to be able to accomplish the things on the list. Anything with question marks don't necessarily need to be accomplished right away- it's okay if I just think about them. 

2. The list needs to look nice. If I mess anything up on it (I did on the first one), then I start over. It helps me feel less anxious/more organized when my list looks reflects how I want to feel. 

Tomorrow I'll check off "dust fan" (I accidentally bumped the ceiling fan today- we haven't used it since summer and I didn't realize until the bump how dusty it got- yuck!), check school email (I haven't done that yet this break- I needed to be a little "unplugged"), maybe pilates (my body will feel happier- it always does), and maybe undecorate (we still have Christmas decorations up- as you can see in the pic below). The other items I'm not too worried about- it makes me feel better just having them written down. 

Other than feeling a little anxious about the upcoming cold day, today was a pretty good day. I spent most of the day snuggled on the couch, narrowing down which wedding photos are my favorites while Dan worked on a cool wedding gift for one of his best friends. I think the dogs knew it was too cold to be outside, so they spent most of the day lounging around. 

Maggie likes to claim this chair- it's old, ugly, and super comfortable. 

Nella knows that she isn't allowed on the couch and almost never fully jumps up on it. For some reason she thought that not only could she come on the couch, but she could immediately get extremely comfortable. She made me laugh and then I reminded her of where her dog bed is so she could continue to lay comfortably. 

Just another view of Nella trying to claim a spot on the couch. Good try Nella :)
(And good try Packers! Next year will be better :) )

Our warm, fuzzy blanket we got as a wedding gift from my godmother. I have basically been living in it since winter started and don't plan on coming out of my cozy cocoon until it thaws out around here. 

** I have a lot of "If you give a mouse a cookie" moments. Years ago, in the middle of our dating years, I was snuggled on the couch and wanted a snack but didn't want to get up because I was so cozy- you know how that goes. So Dan, being the loving guy he is, got up and got me something to munch. Well once he got me the snack, I needed something to drink. It was probably something like chocolate milk and I probably wanted a straw to go with it. If you've ever read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" you know how the mouse is reminded of something by whatever just happened to him and then reminded of something else. It's a domino effect of food, friends, and other events. I'm kind of the same way. Once one thing happens, I'll think of something that could be added to the situation to make it even better. In fact, that's how I ended up with this delish lunch today.

 I wanted beans and rice, so I made it. Then I remembered we have cilantro and though about how it would make my beans and rice even better. Part way through eating, I remembered that I had recently made some taco seasoning and thought about how good it we be to have some taco meat with my beans and rice. So I made a little taco meat. As the meat was cooking, I went to fridge for some milk and saw some sour cream. Beans, rice with cilantro, taco meat, and sour cream it was! Until Dan and I were talking about guacamole. I remembered I bought some avocados to make guac with. Well part of an avocado ended up in my bowl. It was a great "if you give a mouse a cookie" moment- my lunch was so tasty!