Finally! Grandbaby!

Until my last post, Blogger would not allow me (for some mysterious reason!) to add photos! So I had to depend on  Designergal, thefooze and Facebook to share pictures of my first grandchild. But now that "insert image" is working, here we go!

Ashlyn, being a modest, private girl, didn't want a roomful of people when delivered so we waited for "the phone call". I had just ended my school day when Steve called and told us to get down to American Fork, "she's about to have the baby!" Baby Alexa was born right after that call.

As soon as we entered the heavy, security doors, I heard her angry scream from behind the door of the birthing room, where Ashlyn and Alexa struggled with the Lactation Expert. Steve walked out of  and toward us and at that moment, with baby Alexa angrily announcing herself to the world, I just wanted to burst into tears myself.
It seemed there was a great convergence of the future meeting the past. I thought of all my progenitors. I thought of her little body, already complete with everything that would "make her Lexie". I thought of myself as a grandma. Steve was suddenly a whole new "man" person to me. More so than ever, I felt his independence from me. I know it sounds crazy, but all these thoughts, and more, flashed in my mind, in the time it took Steve to walk across the waiting area and hug me. I didn't let myself cry.
When the lactation expert finally exited the room, we were allowed in.
We greeted Ashlyn's parents and began our grinning marathon. I just could not stop marveling at her!
She was so little and perfect and I thought to myself that, surely, my babies were never that small! Were they? Of course they were, within a couple of pounds! I had forgotten how tiny a newborn is!

 Later that night, when I got to hold her, with Steve making sure I "watched her head", I was in love!

                                            I don't think it ever stops! Right, Grandmas out there?

Fall is here!

 Golden leaves floating past the windows.
 
Plum mums blooming in the Aspens.

Windows open to mild temps.

Beautiful Fall!

A quiet night at home

Don's just in from being outta town for 3 days, so of course we are spending a quiet night at home together. Don has the remote and is flipping back and forth between these 4 choices:
College Football- West Virginia vs. Connecticut
HANNITY- with the accompanying rants, grumbles and exclamations emitting from Don.
(Is it just me or does Hannity look more like Jay Leno everyday?)
Red Dawn- I wish the Cubans would win this time, just for a change.
Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)- "It's in color!"

I'm going upstairs to watch The Education of Charlie Banks, starring the darling Jesse Eisenberg. If I close the door and turn up the volume real loud, I might drown out:
" off sides!"
"that's why I hate the damn Liberals!"
"Wolverines!"
"It's alive!"
 On a more entertaining note: Have you seen the freaky, old, Halloween pictures on the Washington Post ? Really fun! Most fun I've had all night.

Sitting 'round the kidney shaped table

Alondra- "Mrs. Cann, your hair looks different today."

Me- " Oh, that's because when I took a shower this morning, the steam made it curly and I didn't straighten it."

Isaac- "Do you get a shower every morning?"

Me- "Pretty much."

Isaac (nodding) - "yeah, 'cause old people have to take a bath a lot!"

ahh, those kids!

With the Fourth Graders

Time has been moving along at warp speed since school started. Here we are, already into October!

  Working with the 4th grade kids has been great. I love the kids I teach and get such a kick out of them!  Meeting in small groups, we sit around a kidney shaped table in close quarters. When kids sit that close to you, they get a close-up view as they, often unabashedly, study you. Last week one girl was looking at me closely and asked if I waxed my eyebrows. They often tell me I smell good. A couple of years ago, a student asked me what the bump on my lower eyelid was, prompting me to finally see an opthomologist, leading to its removal and a "not cancerous" verdict. I hadn't even considered cancer! Even from a distance, kids notice you. The other day, as I passed him in the lunch room, a Second grader told me he "liked my hair." On the other side of the spectrum, I was once told matter-of-factly that I had "a big tummy."
My job is intervention. The kids I teach are usually 2+ years behind their grade level in Reading. I see them for 30 minutes, working on mostly phonics and fluency, then I leave and go on to the next group.
 I have so much respect and appreciation for every minute their classroom teacher spends serving these kids. It is hard work, exhausting work, take home from school work.
You know how grandparents say, after spending a couple of days with the grandkids, "there's a reason you have your kids when you're young!", I think it's the same with teaching. My job is kind of like being a grandma. I don't have all 30 at a time. I'm not there, with them in the classroom, all day.I don't deal with the myriad of problems that come up in the school day. I hope that, by my small attempts to serve them, they know how much I admire and honor them. It really is, largely, a thankless profession.
The best thanks I get is when my students feel proud of themselves after presenting a Readers Theater to their class with all the giggly jitters of a broadway production, or recognize one of their vocabulary words in another book, or when one asks me why he can't come to be tutored in the morning, as well as the afternoon. After all, everyone likes to go to grandma's.
So if I complain, know that I love my job, that I'm ever grateful for it and that even with the frustrations, it is usually a great source of happiness, and purpose, for me.

Is my sandwich stale?

My good friend Red Shoes told me today, "your sandwich is stale."
"What?"
"Your sandwich is stale, you need a new post."
 Actually I'd been thinking about it on the way to school. I know getting new bras and a good samich will only carry an audience so far.
I know I need a new post but my thoughts are all over the place lately.
What I'd really like to talk about...are things I can't talk about. To let these thoughts out of their cage would open a window that I may never be able to fly back through, hurt the feelings of those written about, get me in trouble at work, show me for the judgemental, sarcastic person I am (deep inside). So, no deep revelations here, no snarky comments about other bloggers, no tell-alls about family or work.
I will say this:
I am too noisy. My husband complains that I'm "too loud" when I sleep. No, not "you snore." I BREATH too loud... Oh I'm sorry darling, I'll try not to breath. This, after all of the years I have put up with his horrendous snoring.
I am being asked to do more, for less, at work.
I am waking up with a start, around 4 in the morning, and feeling immediate anxiety for no reason. Well, we all know there's always a reason, but what is it?
I LOVE once again working with kids at school.
I am uneasy about my job and it's future, as in next year. Just a gut feeling, but still...
I need a haircut.
I have company coming from out of town and my stove is dirty, my new family room pillows are, as yet, pillow forms lined up over bolts of fabric on my family room floor. My sewing machine sits next to all of it, crying out for some action.
The desk chair is still not painted black and the shower curtain fabric is nestled amongst the "future pillows."
I have a crap load of things to do, but am not motivated. Carol, my visitor, won't care if I have a new shower curtain made.
I'm reading a terrific book, Half Broke Horses.
See? My thoughts are all over the place.

This one is for girls only.

After getting a couple of new bras, I had a craving for a Schlotzky's.
When I was pregnant with my caboose, I lived on these sandwiches and came out of the pregnancy 15 lbs lighter than when I went in! Sitting there eating my lunch took me back to those days, they were pretty darn good. All of my other kids were in school, I wasn't working then, (at least not for pay), I'd get up, pack lunches, cook pancakes (I was the uber homemaker), clean the house (I vacuumed every day!), put in some laundry, then go shopping, volunteer at school, work on projects, take a little nap just before the kids came home... yes, the good ol' days! Not that these days also aren't pretty darn good...
Speaking of bra shopping, there is not much I dislike more than getting half nekkid in a dressing room and trying on bras. You feel so vulnerable. So I don't. I bring a bunch home and return the ones I don't want. Ladies, is there anything that feels better than a new, well fitting bra! My poor girls were gettin' no support! They'd start off okay but after a little while they'd start the inevitable downward spiral, well not really a spiral, but definitely downward. You know the Cheryl Crow song "Are You Strong Enough to be My Man"?  My bra shopping anthem is "Are you Strong Enough to be My Bra?" I want thick straps, underwires, side stays, sturdy but smooth cups and as many hooks on the back as you want to provide! THAT is not an easy thing to find! But I found a couple at Penney's and they were 25% off, to boot!
So a Schlotzky's sandwich and well supported boobies...it was a good day!