To Move or Not To Move...

Kevin and I have an adorable Wash Park townhome that we love. It was updated before we moved in and it's only 5 blocks from Wash Park which is a fantastic location. We are two blocks from Wild Oats and a little cafe, 4 blocks from the light rail station and we're about 3 blocks from an I-25 entrance which is super-convenient for our commutes. We have concrete countertops (which according to HGTV is very "in the now..."), original hardwood floors, french doors into Maelin's room, original tile in the kitchen and bathroom and an European feel on the outside. We also love our neighbors. (my neighbor Anne brought me gelato from the gelato place which is also just a few blocks away last week without me even asking her!) Our place was built in 1910 so it has great character and we LOVE it.

So, why would we move now in this horrible housing market? I'll tell you why: we have 880 sq feet upstairs and 200 sq ft downstairs in the basement (which we only use for laundry, cats and storage.)

We knew we wouldn't be able to stay here forever but I thought we could just power through having a tiny house with two adults and one growing baby. People in New York do it all the time, right?

Turns out, it's driving me CRAZY! Upon reflection, I think it's one of the things that's fueling my depression: not having anywhere do do anything sucks. Just to put Maelin on the floor to let her roll around takes a herculean feat of engineering: we have to move the coffee table into the kitchen or on top of the couch and then we have to jump over the couch onto the rug and then sit around her. Then we have to put everything back (keep in mind I'm tripping over bouncy seat and bumbo and all sorts of stuff while we're doing this.)

Chores are fun. I usually fold the laundry upstairs on the coffee table...it's the only place where I can spread it out and organize it. However, I was putting some pictures into albums yesterday and I had to try to put the laundry on top of my pictures and then they all fell over from the weight and I burst into tears because I do that now at a drop of a hat and threw the laundry across the room in frustration.

See why we need to move????

So we drove around the last two weekends looking at which neighborhoods we would like and it turns out...not many. We like downtown! We like the neighborhood feel of Wash Park and we like the way the houses are brick and different: we also like being so close to everything. How do we compromise with the space we need but keep the downtown feel?

We think we've found something though. We decided we like Englewood...it's about 30 blocks south of us so it's still close to everything and it has a pretty nice feel to it. The houses aren't as big as what we would find in other subdivisions, but we think they'll be big enough for what we need:

I want at least 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I want a yard with a fence. I want a garage. I want a basement where there's room for Maelin to roll around and we can childproof it and where there's space for Kevin to have a "man room". We think we've found that in Englewood and the kicker is this: some of the houses we've looked at cost THE SAME amount as what we paid for our tiny bit of Wash Park.

So now we've got to get our house staged and sold. I'll get busy on that. Wish me luck...

You Know You're From Colorado If...

My sister-in-law Jess sent me this today and I got a chuckle out of it...

You're from Colorado if----

You'll eat ice cream in the winter.

When the weather report says it's going to be 65 degrees, you shave your
legs and wear a skirt.

It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be cancelled.

You'll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature.

You have no accent at all, but can hear other people's. And then you make
fun of them.

'Humid' is over 25%.

Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the
mountains.

You say 'the interstate' and everybody knows which one.

You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard.

You grew up planning your holloween costumes around your coat.

You know what the Continental Divide is.

You don't think Coors beer is that big a deal.

You went to Casa Bonita as a kid.

You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such
activities.

You always know the elevation of where you are.

You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to
snow tomorrow.

You don't care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High.

Every movie theater has military and student discounts.

Everybody wears jeans to church.

You actually know that South Park is a real place not just a show on TV.

You know what a 'trust fund hippy' is, and you know its natural habitat is
Boulder.

You know you're talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags.

A bear on your front porch doesn't bother you.

When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you
just laugh.

You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels 'sticky'
and you notice the sky is no longer blue.

Go Rockies!!!

Such True Words...

Those of you who used to hang out w/ me (ie...before Maelin) probably have gotten to know my good friend Dan. He's such a cool guy: he's the child psychologist at the school I work at and we've been instant friends since we went through new teacher training together 4 years ago when we started at our building.

I chatted with him for a bit today and we had a really interesting talk. I've been too overwhelmed to visit with him much this year and he's so easy to talk to (hence the child psychologist part....) so it wasn't long before he got me teary-eyed.

The fact is...I'm just not happy this year. I don't want to be working: I want to be with Maelin while she's still young and needs me. Kids grow up so fast: no one knows that better than I do because I see every day how quickly these kids become independent and start growing into their own little persons. It happens in the blink of an eye and I'm missing it.

I had no idea how much I would love being a mom. I adore Maelin and I count every single second I have with her as such a blessing. She's the most perfect and precious thing I have ever had the privilege of being around...and she belongs to Kevin and I...I can't get over how lucky I am to be her mom.

Dan told me today..."It's too bad you had to spend so much money and time in college and in training only to discover you wanted to be a mom...it's too bad you didn't get knocked up when you were 16: you could have saved yourself a lot of time!" He makes me laugh through my tears.

I'm not sure yet what the answer is...all I know now is that I'm depressed and sad most of the time: when I'm at work and then when I get home because I know my time with Maelin is so limited. I'm thinking of all sorts of alternatives: I've even contemplated working at Starbucks in order to get the health insurance. If you have any ideas, feel free to send them my way. Kat suggested Prozac: I'm even giving that a thought.

6 Month Checkup

Miss MaeMae had her 6 month checkup complete with shots today. I got to take a day off of work and spend it with her...how much fun would being a stay-at-home mom with her be????

Anyway, I digress...

Our little sweetie has now grown to 15 1/2 pounds and she's 26 inches long. If you don't remember, she was 6 1/2 pounds and 19 inches when she was born, so we're movin' right along!

One funny note...she's in the 25% for her weight (not surprising...she's such a petite little thing), the 50% for her height and the 75% for her head circumfence! Our little one is Sputnik!!!! She's got a huge head! :-)

No Child Left Behind...What Do I Think About It?

I had an email this morning about this article that was in the Washington Post and a question about what I thought about it. I was typing out my response and figured I'd put the whole conversation here to see what you all think about it...

(I don't want this to turn into a political discussion though...just what do we think is best for kids!)

So here's the article and then my thoughts are below it...

Why 'No Child' Was Needed
By Karin Chenoweth Saturday, October 13, 2007; Page A19

A very odd notion is circulating these days that the No Child Left Behind law has forced schools to become boring, dull places where children do endless worksheets and are discouraged from thinking for themselves. This argument holds that under "No Child," students are forced to simply regurgitate what teachers tell them, which -- because of flawed standardized tests -- is often confusing and sometimes demonstrably false. Get rid of the tests, or at least pay less attention to their results, critics say, and schools can return to their pre-NCLB excellence.

Particularly with Congress considering reauthorization of the law, versions of this argument are heard almost any time No Child Left Behind is discussed. I find it very puzzling.

I keep wondering: Don't the people making this and similar arguments know that long before No Child Left Behind, far too many classrooms were boring, dull places where children were forced to do endless worksheets, discouraged from independent thinking and subjected to teachers providing confusing and sometimes demonstrably false information?

For example, my eighth-grade history teacher in suburban New Jersey taught that the American system of slavery was fair not only to the slaveholders but also to the slaves. He did not present his assessment as opinion but fact, and (hard as it is to believe today) was backed up by the textbook we studied. At least he tried to teach us something. My eighth-grade science teacher told our class point-blank, "You aren't going to college anyway, so it doesn't matter what I do." He didn't teach much of anything, and his class was a zoo, teetering on dangerous. My elementary school teachers had been able to control their classrooms, but they didn't teach a whole lot of history, science, art or music. In introducing a unit on batteries, for instance, my fifth-grade teacher said: "I don't like science either, but we are supposed to cover this." She never bothered finding out whether we learned anything about batteries -- tedious "covering" was enough.

Educators often complain that every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he's an expert because he went to school, so I try not to draw too many conclusions from my personal experiences. But they are consistent with every serious history of education I have read, and they are hardly unusual. Most baby boomers I have talked with consider themselves lucky if they had one or two really good teachers in their school careers -- which means they sat through a lot of not-so-good instruction.

Fast-forward to my children's educational experience in Montgomery County. Now in college, my daughters went to public school before No Child Left Behind was passed and as it was taking effect. Though in many ways they had an education superior to mine, they both had their share of tedious, confusing and demonstrably false instruction.

In fact, once they entered middle school, I noticed that if there was no outside assessment, it was a tossup whether the teachers taught much of anything at all. Sixth-grade English was pretty much a waste for my older daughter, in part because her teacher spent inordinate amounts of class time updating her computerized inventory of Beanie Babies.

Those teachers were able to get away with such low levels of instruction because no outside assessment held them responsible for whether their students learned anything.
My younger daughter, more than her sister, benefited from two trends now sweeping the country: accountability and rigorous curriculum. Because her high school adopted the International Baccalaureate curriculum, which has assessments scored by professionals outside the school she attended, my younger daughter enjoyed both a high-level curriculum and teachers who were not afraid of being held accountable.

Every child deserves that. The International Baccalaureate curriculum may be a bit of overkill, but a deep, rich curriculum that aims at helping children become educated citizens should be available to every child.

If teachers have little incentive to teach anything that is not on the state tests, we should fix that. Teachers need to be supported by good standards and curriculum, high-quality materials, orderly learning environments, and rigorous assessments. They certainly shouldn't be focused only on teaching what is tested by what are mostly low-level state assessments.
But people should keep in mind that if there are no tests, some teachers have little incentive to teach anything at all.

Karin Chenoweth is the author of "It's Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools." She wrote the Homeroom column for The Post from 1999 to 2004.

I put the part I thought was the most important in bold...

This was an interesting article. However, I don't think the author is fully versed in the impact that NCLB is having on schools. Unfortunately, there have always been bad teachers and there will continue to be bad teachers...NCLB does NOT have the authority to get rid of teachers!!!! I think that's the misconception that a lot of people have about NCLB. All it has the authority to do is CLOSE UNDER-PERFORMING SCHOOLS. That's it.

The reason I bolded a statement above is because what NCLB has done and will continue to do is demand that EVERY student be at grade level by 2014. They want 100% of kids to be at grade level. Now I agree that is what should happen, but is it realistic? Of course not! NCLB does not take into account special education students, 2nd language learners, learning disabilities, etc.

Most importantly, NCLB has continued to demand this of our schools and teachers and then not give us any funding or materials or resources to make sure that it happens!! Not only is the government not giving us extra materials to get 100% of our kids to grade level in 7 years, they are cutting programs and resources all the time and expecting us to make up the difference! Our district just had the technology and GT programs cut. Gone. No computers for you kids!! However, our standards still test the kids on technology...so where does that leave the teachers?

I am very much in favor of high-stakes testing: in fact, I'm in favor of pay-for-performance as well. Let's get rid of teacher tenure!! No more hanging out in the classroom for 30 years unless you really want to be there!! NCLB does not have the authority to get rid of the kind of teachers that were described in the article above (by the way, I teach at an International Baccalaureate school...). All it can do is close the school. How does that help the kids?

Here's my thoughts: get rid of NCLB and the outrageous expectations it forces on teachers and schools. Get rid of teacher tenure that allows poor teachers job security. Implement pay-for-performance raises: in other words, if my students raise their scores on MANY tests (not just one...what if my kids were having a bad day that day?) I get a raise the next year...and I get to keep my job. Implement Peer-Evaluations amongst teachers. Believe me, teachers know who is doing great in their building and who needs to go. Give me an incentive to help the higher kids succeed; don't overload me with pressure to get my 2 low kids to grade level at any cost...forcing me to ignore the higher kids. Give me resources and master teachers to help: stop cutting funds that would help me put technology in my classroom or buy books we desperately need. Finally, leave me alone and let me do my job.

Can You Believe It????

Last week one of my favorite students was home sick with pneumonia. She had it so bad, she was in Children's Hospital for two nights on oxygen. She's back now, but I just got a phone call from another parent: another of my students has bacterial pneumonia and will be home for a week, at least. Of all years for this to be going around my classroom: the year I have a new baby at home and I have 3 sick days left...

Keep your fingers crossed that my student teacher Ann doesn't get it...

Student Teachers...Where Would I Be Without Them?

Just want to post quickly about how much work my student teacher has done for me so far this year. She's home sick today (get better soon Ann!) so I'm really feeling how much I've come to depend on student teachers and how wonderful it is to have two professionals in the classroom all day long. It's invaluable: I've had time to get so much done that I wouldn't have been able to do thus far: I'm not as crazed, my room is clean and organized and the kids have two adults to talk to all day long.

Here is a look at what my student teacher does and how much I'm going to miss her when she graduates in January:

*Created and wrote and printed my center lists (computer, listening, word work, math facts, journals, etc...)
* Created and wrote and printed the spelling lists for the entire year
* Created and wrote the modified spelling lists for 6 months for the low kids (the normal list is too hard for them)
*Created table signs for each table and an instructional sign for me to use while teaching
*Gives me bathroom breaks (INVALUABLE)
*Gets me water when I'm out and I'm right in the middle of teaching
*Made every single one of my student files/notebooks (all 90 of them because each kid needs 3-4)
*Lends support during lessons when 5 kids have their hands raised and there's only one of me
*She was able to be my sub during the week I had pneumonia: she carried on as if I was here and I didn't even really have any sub plans created. Had she not been here, I would have had to drag my sick self down here every day to create, copy and explain sub plans
*Helped me create my back-to-school night powerpoint
*Does my recess duty every Wednesday morning AND Wednesday afternoon so I can pump
*Takes care of the kids who are acting up so I can concentrate on the rest of the class
*Runs small reading groups while I'm working with other kids, doing lesson plans, grading, etc.
*Takes care of the teaching while I'm doing the testing of every child every week. This is great because otherwise I'd have to give "busy work" to the kids while I'm doing the testing
*Teaching an entire unit for the next 2-3 weeks in the afternoon for her class. This frees me up to get a lot of the administrative stuff done that I don't have time for during the day
*Attends all grade-level meetings and contributes to our planning
*Sits with the lower kids for their support so I can attend to the rest of the class
*Allows me to have bathrooms breaks!!(I said this twice because you have no idea how horrible it is when you have to go and you know you can't leave your class and lunch time isn't for another hour)
*Takes care of the class when one of my autistic kids is rolling around moaning on the floor
*Is a general support and company throughout the day

This last point is huge. Teaching is somewhat solitary: we have each other to talk to but we're so busy throughout the day, we never have the time. The majority of the day, we're in our classrooms by ourselves. Having someone else in here to chat with is great!

So thank you to all the student teachers out there: I know how hard you work (FOR FREE!) and all of us veteran teachers really appreciate you!

****Can someone calm me down about what's going to happen when Ann leaves in January????

Our Night Out Without Baby!

Kevin and I have been feeling really house-bound and isolated lately so I called my good friend Emily who has asked to babysit and got her to come over on Sat evening so Kevin and I could go out and pretend we are child-less for one night. Emily was happy to do it and we are SO lucky to have such great friends who we can trust with the baby who live close by who can babysit for us.


We got Kat and Jeff to go with us and we went to dinner at 730 South which is a kind-of upscale Chili's. I had a glass of wine at the bar while we waited for our table and then we had an adult dinner where I only thought of the baby once (okay, maybe twice). Then we went to the Wash Park Grill to have a drink at the bar but they were too crowded so we went over to Reivers. We sat and chatted and played video Bowling (can you believe the video games have credit card slots now?????) and watched the Av's game.

We really had a nice time being out and being slightly dressed up and acting like adults, but the problem is that once you're a parent, you are always a parent. There is no "break". I had the phone out the whole time (I only called home one time to see how she was doing...for the record, she was a bit out-of-sorts but doing okay), I was exhausted and by 8:45pm I was ready for bed. We stayed out till about 10:15pm and then went home because I was so tired and couldn't have taken much more! Good thing for me Kat and Kevin weren't feeling great either so I wasn't the only one who had had enough.

We walked in and Mae Mae and Emily were sitting on the couch watching Maelin's Baby Einstein video. She was so cute...Emily said they had a good time but Maelin was a bit cranky and didn't want to sleep so they stayed up and watched her movie together. It was so cute to come home and see the living room torn apart because they needed more room to play and see them sitting together.

I know it wasn't easy for me to be gone from my baby...especially since I'm gone from her so much during the week, and it wasn't easy for Maelin to be with someone new but I'm so glad we did it. I want so much for Maelin to be comfortable with the people who love her (ie: our friends and family) and to know that Mommy does leave sometimes but always comes home.

We had a great time but deep down, I missed my baby and wanted to be at home. I just wish I didn't work so much...I may have to do something about that before the 08-09 school year starts. Let me know if you have any ideas!

6 Month Picture Time

Can you believe it that little Mae Mae is already 6 months old? We went back to Portrait Innovations today (thanks for coming with us Auntie Kat!) for Maelin's 6 month old pictures and was she cute!

I promised Kevin I would stay on a budget because these aren't even going to be the Christmas pictures because Christmas is still 2 months away: these are her 6 month old pictures. The problem is that our house is so small, we're running out of room to put them all. I've been putting her recent pictures over the older ones, but we're still running out of room because she's so darn cute! What to do...buy a bigger house, I say!

Hope you enjoy these: I'm sure you'll also be getting them attached in an email or in hard copy form from me very shortly...the cutest part of the whole experience was when Maelin decided that she was no longer interested in smiling for the nice lady: she wanted to eat the fake flowers and then she wanted to eat her new black shoes. Hey, at least she's consistent! (btw: these are the raw form: the edited ones are much cuter and you can click on any of these pictures to see them bigger....)

Race For The Cure

Yesterday Maelin and I went to the the Komen Race For The Cure. I wasn't sure if we were going to go or not because of her ear infection, but when we woke up on Sunday morning, the sky was clear and all we needed to do was bundle her up. We went with our really good friends Steve, Sherry and their 4 year old twins, Hannah and Jacob. Steve's mom passed away from breast cancer about 5 years ago, so they race in her honor and I wanted to go with them to support a great cause.

Kevin got up early and helped us get ready. We layered Maelin in long sleeved pants and shirt, then a long sleeved fleece thing then her boots and two hats and her coat. She looked like the stay-puft marshmallow man, but she was warm and happy! Our friends came to our house at 7:30am and we walked to the light rail station. Maelin was so good: it was a bit chilly out and she just sat in her stroller and watched Jacob and Hannah and took everything in. We got on the train and went downtown where it was so crowded! Just a sea of people in pink: we saw pink dogs, people with pink wigs, and all sorts of breast cancer survivors and their families celebrating. It was beautiful.

We had to walk about 1/2 mile just to get to the start line (we entered the 5k coed walk) and by the time we got there, Maelin had fallen asleep in the stroller. The start line was so powerful: there were all sorts of bands playing and people with signs and everyone was in a great mood. It was also a bit somber: I saw a man walking with a group of people and he had a sign on his back saying "In Remembrance" of his wife and he had two little girls with him who couldn't be more than 6 or 8. I couldn't even imagine what Maelin and I would do without Kevin, so it was sobering to see first-hand how many people just in our own city that breast cancer affects.

We got about 20 minutes into the race when I happened to peek into the stroller and poor Maelin was sobbing! I couldn't hear her because of all the noise! I quickly got her out and strapped her into the baby Bjorn carrier: and that's where she stayed for the rest of the race. She ate her bottle in there, spit up in there, sucked on binky in there and made her momma really work for it. If you've ever walked a few feet (from the car to the house, for example) carrying a bag of cat litter or something equaling 15 pounds, you know it's heavy and kind of awkward. Imagine walking 3+ miles with 15 pounds hanging off of your shoulders and you'll understand why I'm exhausted today.

She was so good! She didn't cry once and she had a great time watching all the people, the music and just being outside. She was a little trooper.

Turns out our race had over 67,000 people yesterday! If you've never done the race, it was fantastic. We had a great walk (honestly, by the time I felt I couldn't take another step, it was about over. 5k is a pretty good amount to walk to make you feel like you've worked but it doesn't kill you), we were with amazing people, we contributed to a fantastic cause and we really felt uplifted by the whole experience. We're definitely going to do it again next year and we'd love for any of you to join us!

My Baby is 6 Months Old Today!

Can you believe it? Seems like just yesterday that little Mae Mae was born and now she's 6 months old. Time sure does fly when you're having fun.

Of course we had a cake for her. Even though she couldn't eat it. It was just whipped cream (and I kept her hands well away from the strawberries) but she loved it! It was pretty funny: she had a great time just mashing the cake because she loved the way it felt and then I got her to put her hand in her mouth and wow! I think she was thinking, "Boy, my hands have never tasted this good!" I only let her have a little then we washed up and had oatmeal mush mixed with breastmilk. That's the same as birthday cake, right?

Happy 1/2 Birthday Sweet Baby!!

Crazy Week

On top of having parent-teacher conferences (which are super stressful not only because you have to work 12 hour days but because it's stressful to talk to that many parents and I really miss the baby on those days), my mom is out for a visit which is great and then Mae Mae decided to get sick. Really sick.

She caught my cold. Of course, of all weeks for her to get sick, she gets sick on the one week where I can't stay home with her because of conferences. So on Wed night, I'm giving her her bath and I noticed a red, welty rash on her arm. Hmmmmmm, I think. She's running a low fever and has a cold, so maybe it's just a reaction to her clothes or something. I try not to worry about it and put her to sleep.

She's up many times during the night because of her cough anyway so when she woke up at 1am, I didn't think it was any big deal. The light was dim but I noticed something red on her face. I thought it was just a mark from her bed and I didn't want to turn on the light to investigate so I put her back to sleep.

Morning comes and I'm all ready for work as usual. I go in to get the baby up and I almost screamed when I saw her: she was covered head to toe in a horrible, red, raised, welty, itchy, bumpy rash. I had no idea what was wrong: did she have scarlet fever or fifth's disease or what? What the *&%*$ was wrong with my baby????

I called my principal and student teacher in hysterics telling them I would not be in today: I was going to take the baby straight to the doctor. The thing that worried me wasn't so much the rash but that she had a fever with it. I called a sub and got a doctors appointment. The whole time, Kevin and my mom were trying to tell me to calm down, that no one has ever died from a rash, (and deep down I knew that) but it was so scary looking! Maelin was just kicking and squealing away: she seemed a bit subdued, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Kevin went to work and mom and I went to the doctor. As soon as we got Maelin undressed, the doctor said, "Oh, look at her hives. Poor thing." It was just an extreme case of hives. Whew... then the doctor said she also has an ear infection and got her on antibiotics. Good thing we brought her in because she's such a happy little thing, I don't know that we would have brought her in for the ear infection because she wasn't really acting sick. The doctor said the hives were just her body's reaction to having the cold and just give her benadryl and oatmeal baths till they go away.

We went home and followed the advice and gave the little one her medicine and poor baby slept for a while. She was so tired. Her hives were already starting to look better by the time I left her with mom to go to conferences. As sad as I am that mom was here when Maelin was sick and Mom didn't get to see her at her best, I'm so lucky that I didn't have to take her to daycare while she was sick. I'm back at work this morning and I just talked to Nana: she and Maelin are watching Sesame Street and having her bottle and playing with Gizmo. They're having a grand old time.

So we've survived our first parent teacher conferences and our first ear infection. I love how everything hits at once: I wonder what will happen when report cards are due??? Or Thanksgiving? Or Christmas???

Lots of Updates

I know I don't post as much as I'd like to: I don't sleep or shower or read or see my friends as much as I'd like to any more either, so there you go. Here's a few updates about things that a few of you have been asking me about:

**I'm feeling much better. I still have the horrible cough and I'm still sleeping propped up on pillows, but I am sleeping and the cough is manageable. I talked to my doctor yesterday and she said it could take up to 2 months for me to feel back to normal and I still need to get lots of rest (that's funny) but I'm feeling 100% better. One side note: because I was so weak and couldn't eat anything when I was sick, I lost almost 5 pounds!

**One of the questions I get almost every day from someone (if I manage to actually talk to them: it's usually just a message on my phone) is how work is going and how are Maelin and I adjusting and whether or not it's getting any easier. The answer to that is no, it's not any easier. I think I'm just getting used to it. My heart breaks every single morning that she's squealing and kicking and eating my face and being so amazingly cute and I have to strap her in her seat and take her away from me for over 9 hours. I don't think that will ever be "easy" but I am getting used to crying a little bit every day in the car after I've left her. She's doing great at daycare: I almost have to wrestle her away from Sandra when I pick her up. They absolutely adore her there and she smiles and laughs and is in a great mood all day long. I realize how lucky I am that at least I don't have to worry about her once she's there, but I hate that I'm missing so much of her life now. Being at work 4-5 hours every day would be perfect: where's that job???

**Work is going okay. Being gone for a week has been really hard because I was just getting ahead with grading and planning and everything and then I fell back behind. However, I have a great student teacher who's going to start her "solo" time in my classroom in a few weeks so I'll have time to get all the data and administrative stuff done while she's teaching that I haven't been able to do thus far. My class is okay this year. I have some great, amazing and creative kids but I don't have the time to spend with them because I'm dealing with my incredibly low kids or my kids who start crying uncontrollably because they're autistic or calling home about my rude kids, etc. I just read a great article in the New York Times about how the NCLB act is forcing "higher" kids to leave public schools for private schools because the teachers have to be so focused on getting 100% of the kids up to grade level (how realistic is that, really?) so the higher kids are bored. I may post that article for you all when I get some time: it was pretty interesting.

**My mom is coming for a visit tomorrow! I called her crying a couple of times and told her how cute Maelin was and how she was missing it and I needed her to come out and babysit for a few days so she could spend time with her Nana and I wanted to just be with my mom so she's coming tomorrow and staying till Saturday afternoon. She'll get to babysit while I'm doing parent-teacher conferences on Thursday and then again Friday morning and then I'll get to see her Friday afternoon and evening before she leaves on Saturday. I think we're going to hang out with Jeff and Kat and my aunt Laura wants to see her too, so we may all get together on Friday night, but that's still up in the air.

**I don't do anything anymore. People ask me to do stuff and I usually just say no because I'm either too tired (or sick) or I just want to be with Maelin. I miss her so much during the day and only having two days on the weekends to "reconnect" with her doesn't really work either because I'm usually trying to catch up on laundry or grocery shopping or stuff like that. I haven't seen a few of my friends in months. So if you're one of the people that I haven't seen in a while, I miss you!!

**We desperately want to sell our house and move someplace where the young princess will have room to crawl around (she's getting close), but with the housing market being what it is, it looks like we'll have to stay in our current place for about a year longer at least. We plan on moving almost all of our stuff into storage for the time being. Any volunteers to help out????

That's about it. Maelin is almost 6 months old (can you believe it?) so I'm sure there will be more posts coming soon about the little pumpkin. Her new trick is to only have one poopy pants per day so it's usually a big one that goes up her back. Yesterday, Sandra told me it went into her neck! I guess there are some benefits of daycare...