Things you should never say to middle schoolers

I am sure there have been more than two instances I can think of, but one of them happened today, which is the reason for this post.

The first story is something I said about 6 years ago to my class...

Example 1: the kids were working on colonial letters. I was showing them how to darken their paper and make it look "old" by taking a tea bag, soaking it in water and then coloring the paper until they reached the darkness they were seeking.

Me: So when you are tea-bagging it, make sure you soak the bag for only about 10-15 seconds"

Student: Ms. Fitz, you sure you want us to tea bag it?

Kids: die laughing

Me: you guys are nasty!



Example 2: This one happened today. I handed out the letters regarding swine flu to all the students. It went a little something like this.

Me: It is really important that you take this letter home to your parents. You also need to know this letter lists all the possible symptoms of the flu and if you have any of them, you should probably stay home and go see a doctor. It's also important that you keep washing your hands often: after you go to the bathroom, after you eat, before you use the computers and especially after you've played in the gym at lunchtime with those dirty balls!"

Conner: starts giggling and just loses it. some other kids laugh too.

ME: I start laughing so hard I start crying.

Me: Get your minds out of the gutter!

Kids: laughing and laughing

Conner: haha she said dirty balls!

gotta love middle schoolers

Mister Mister

you are growing up too fast on me. He now runs around and says "nnnnnoo!" "No! No!" It is really cute, but now he's learning how to say it when I tell him, "Baylen, come here." "NO!" he says smiling as he runs away. So funny!

Audition update

Brynn had her audition this morning and it did not go well. The guy who wanted to talk to her was nice, but she is not always keen on talking to strangers. As soon as Dj went back to try and film and the guy asked her to sit down and talk with him, she started crying. We're guessing that they will not call her back. She had fun and talked about it and when I picked her up from school today, I asked her how it went and she said, "No mommy. I don't like that guy." So, that tells you how she felt and that's that! :) Needless to say, Dj and I were not surprised, and not disappointed. We know our little girl pretty well.

Movie Star?

Brynna has her first movie audition tomorrow morning. For real, I'm NOT lying! They are filming a movie here in Seattle at the end of June and looking for a young toddler to fill a role. We'll see if she will talk to strangers or if she'll clam up. More on this later! (P.S.: Thanks, T. for the lead!)

Arghhhh!

In case you had a bad day today, hopefully these pirate pics will cheer you up. Dj found these in his archive and I forgot how funny they were when we were taking them. Pure awesomeness.

Coming soon

Pictures of our new bike trailer...can't wait to try it out hopefully next weekend or even this week before the kids have to bathe and go to bed. We'll see...weather pending, of course! Dj and I used to bike the numerous trails around our house and ride miles and miles. I am so excited to get back out on the trails in the fresh air!

More on the buget cuts meeting I attended this evening. We met in small groups and looked at the list of potential cuts for the entire district. We had to try to cut $6 million. Our group was able to cut $2.5 million...and we wouldn't budge on anything else. Good thing we are not the Supt. b/c seriously, it sucks to be him right now. Yikes. That was horribly depressing. The turn out was tremendous.

More pics from our photo session on Sunday. I posted one just because it's so stinkin' cute.

I've been jogging again. It feels so GOOD.

More on our vacation plans for the summer. Estes Park, here we come!

New family pics

We had new pictures taken today and here is just one of the many that turned out nicely. :)

3 is the magic number:

3=the number of nights Brynn has woken up DRY in the morning wearing big-girl underwear. She asked to wear it several nights ago so I made a deal with her that she had to start with plastic pants for a couple nights to prove she could stay dry. She agreed.
Night one: plastic pants: DRY
Night two: Plastic pants: DRY
Night three: no plastic pants: DRY
Night four: no plastic pants: DRY
Night five: no plastic pants: DRY

So far so good. We tried this about 3 weeks ago (during my spring break) but she was not ready (the plastic pants thing overnight) and ended up waking up at like 3 in the morning and wet the bed. So, we put it off and decided to wait until she was emotionally ready to take this on. She all of a sudden this week decided she didn't like the bulkiness of the pull-up.

On another completely different note, did you guys see that Heidi Klum is pregnant with her 4th child?! Pretty amazing. Her body looks awesome after having 3 kids. I hope that she is still going to host Project Runway and maybe this season at least one of the challenges will be designing maternity clothes. That would be sweet! haha

Danno is all grown up

For those of you who grew up with my "little" brother, Daniel is now 17 and went to prom this year. I can't believe he's a Junior in high school already. Time has sure flown.

Dear BSB (Beloved School Board),

Please think about how some of these possible cuts could negatively affect your hard working teachers, paras, office staff and administrators next year before you make any decisions.

It would be great if you could remove the following possible options off of your list:

1. cutting 228 teachers

2. taking 50 Literacy and Math coaching positions and scaling it down to 10 total.

3. cutting the Dean of Students positions

4. eliminating the AVID and Read Right programs

5. changing the middle school schedule to a 5-period day instead of 6, with no planning period and a pay cut for teachers

6. cutting middle school sports

7. eliminating middle school electives

8. Riff-ing people/positions

I know that your projection of $9 million in the hole is terrifying, but, there has to be another way...

SIncerely,
a dedicated middle school teacher and coach in your beloved district

Run Down

I am run down, literally. Sick w/ some sort of cold or sinus infection. I am filling myself full of DayQuil and NyQuil.

I lost my voice. Really--it's been gone since Friday.

Baylen recently started saying "no" and "moh" for More

Brynn has been pooping in the potty at school and has slept in big girl undies for 3 nights in a row...woke up dry all 3 mornings so far. This was ALL her--she started to refuse to wear pull-ups. My pocketbook thanks her as pull-ups are ridiculously priced. We are so proud of her.

Baylen has been okay the past 3 nights drinking from a sippy instead of his beloved bottle. But since Friday he's been fighting bedtime a bit. Not sure what that is about.

Bay has his ENT check-up tomorrow to check in on his tubes situation.

WASL testing has been going on last week and this week. I now know why I hate WASL testing. ugh. Kids are nutty rest of the day and we don't get our planning periods every day, which is rough!

The weather has been beautiful lately. Love it. But it does not help the WASL testing and students calming down issue one bit.

We are in 4th quarter...I can't believe school will be over in a short 2 months. This time of year brings: busy, crazy yahoo-ish days. This quarter brings 8th graders who are looney, nutty, scared-to-go-to-high school-so-they-act-like-5th graders-syndrome. Argh...some days that syndrome drives me bananas. I think I have been doing a good job of staying calm, however. My 5th period class, which was one of my favorites, has now gone completely nuts with the arrival of a new student (not her fault) and right after we filled out high school applications they have not regained their self control...and my once nutty 6th period has become very pleasant and well behaved (ever since we had our "power player" leave our class and the school). The tables have turned, it seems. I'm okay with it though. I always knew 6th period had it in them.

B/c the weather has been nice and I've finally had some time after school, I've been walking and jogging the track outside. It feels good to do something for just me for a change.

I need to vote for American Idol b/f I go to bed. I'm planning to vote for Adam like 100 times. LOL

Baylen and Brynn Fighting on video

I was able to capture them fighting on video. Although they don't think it's funny, sometimes we do laugh when they fight. Most of the time we're breaking them up, though. At the end of the video you'll hear Dj trying to cheer up Brynn by telling her how proud he is of her for going potty earlier that day. I don't remember if it worked or if she kept trying to fight with her brother.

More Easter pics revealed

Here are a few more Easter pics from Dj's camera. B & B were hungry and not really into smiling for an Easter pic in their cute clothes and no one was around to take our family pic, so we'll try again next weekend and hopefully the pic. place at the mall can get some shots where they are BOTH smiling at the same time. Regardless, these are pretty darn cute. :) You'll see Brynn would not check out her basket by herself b/c she was so afraid and thought the EB was still in our house.

First M's Game of the Season

Despite the fact that I picked up a cold earlier this week, we decided to go to the Mariner's home opener last night (well, home-opening week/weekend) and saw them play the Detroit Tigers. It was a great game and we had a fab. time. B & T offered to keep Baylen while we took Brynn and it was such a pleasant evening not having to worry about how we would all eat, how we would all be able to watch the game, how we'd carry stuff, etc. We were so grateful for T & B's offer!!!!! Brynn LOVED the game and the atmosphere. She was talking about how she wanted to see the M's Moose and as soon as we passed the Moose den, there he was ready for pictures. As soon as we started walking up, she wanted NOTHING to do with him, as you'll see in the pics! She did wave goodbye to him, though, of course! We really enjoyed having some mom-dad-Brynn time last night and so did she. Brynn ate a hot dog, some popcorn and other snacks I brought along. She was loving getting all of the attention and stayed awake for the entire game, cheering, jumping, clapping and singing. (I am sure she's going to love the Elmo show next month!)

Hopefully we'll be able to go to a few more games this summer, as we try to every year. We love going down to the ball field and catching some baseball. Ichiro is always fun to watch, and with Griffey returning this year, it makes it that much more exciting. :)

Favorite snack

One of Brynn's favorite snacks is microwave popcorn. After Baylen goes to bed, sometimes Dj, Bee and I snack on a bowl and have a little QT with just her. She loves it.

Battle Wound!

Baylen received his first black eye from daycare this afternoon. Apparently, another Waddler tackled him and then hit him in the eye with a toy truck. It looks so sore, but he's totally acting fine, like it's no big deal. Every time I look at it, it breaks my heart!!! His teacher said he needs to learn how to fight back a little bit. He's one of the bigger guys in there, so I'm sure he'll get that kid back eventually. Brynn waited to fight back until she was 2 and then started biting. Yikes. Let's hope when he decides to start retaliating that he sticks to pushing and tackling like his cousin Parker. Haha

I'm hoping his eye will heal by Sunday when we go get some new pictures taken at the mall. If not, we'll reschedule when it doesn't look so purple and swollen.

(btw: if you click to blow up this photo, yes his face is dirty. He refused to let me wash his face all the way after dinner and since a bath was in his near future and no one was around, I let it go tonight. but normally he does not run around with a dirty face...that is one of my pet peeves!!!)

Easter Recap

Here are a few pics from Easter weekend. After we went to church, we spent the rest of Sunday w/ the M family and had an Easter Egg hunt and brunch. It was a really fun day despite the rainy weather. The kids, especially Cade, loved the egg hunt. I was cracking up watching him run around his huge yard gathering as many eggs as he could. It was so funny and cute to watch. He was soooo excited!

Before we left for the afternoon, the Easter Bunny visited our house and left baskets for the kids. I don't know if Dj got a picture of them beforehand or not, but as soon as we walked in and told Brynn and Baylen they were in the living room, Brynn refused to go in. She thought the Easter Bunny was still in our house. We had to convince her for several HOURS later that he was not at our house and had left to go leave baskets at other houses. Needless to say, she was not too thrilled to even open her basket or anything in it. So, maybe next year. Baylen, on the other hand, did enjoy his basket of goodies. The EB brought Brynn a new swimsuit and cover-up and 2 pairs of sunglasses, as well as some smaller stuff like stickers and flash cards, candy, etc. Baylen received a pair of plaid shorts, a new bucket hat, a new beach towel, a new rubber ducky and some other little stuff. He was really into the plastic eggs, so he received a bunch of eggs filled with goldfish. I think next year we'll get a little bit more "toy" friendly and maybe she'll decide she likes the EB better. ??? haha

Baylen LOVED his marshmallow sucker and eating his first Twix. :) Brynn loved opening all of her eggs to see what was inside.

HOpefully Dj got a few good ones on his camera and if so, I'll share later!

Friday Night Fun

On Friday night, we dyed Easter eggs. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it. Baylen cried until I let him try one or two. He just can't handle Brynn being able to do something without him. :) Brynn really enjoyed the activity even though it was definitely a lot more messy than I expected it to be...oh well, we all had fun! :)

Project PROMise

A couple of weeks ago, we received an email at school about a local fundraising group who was asking for gently used or new prom dresses for girls in our district who could not afford to buy one. I LOVED this idea and wanted to help. Even though I'm a teacher and "give back" quite often, I felt VERY Strongly about giving back in this way. After all, I know quite a few girls who are in high school these days and one of them I might be able to help feel a little less stressful about going to the prom. At first, I thought that I could donate a couple of my old prom and formal dresses and then quickly remembered they are all in Iowa in my bedroom closet downstairs. That wasn't going to work. There wasn't enough time to ask my mom and dad to send them. So, after some thinking, I decided to e-mail the staff at school and ask if anyone wanted to donate some money (any amount) towards a NEW prom dress. I received a wonderful response and quite a few donations. I drug Dj to the outlet mall first to see if I could find any deals, but no such luck. Then, I went to Penney's and found all of the prom dresses on sale....SCORE! With about $100, I found the perfect (what I Thought) dress. When we were shopping at the outlet mall and again at Penney's I asked a few high school girls their opinions on prom dresses that were in and out. They kindly gave me all the information I needed and were so sweet.

As I was looking at all of the dresses, I came upon "the one" at Penney's after looking for quite some time. I decided to pick something that was a little "less" traditional and more for something original. After all, as a high school girl, we all wanted our dress to be the only one of its kind at the prom, right?! Many girls told me the same thing: originality was a must at the prom. I fell in love with this particular dress and after talking to the sales clerk and 3 high school girls, I didn't need any more convincing. So, I am SOOOO hoping that a young high school girl picks OUR dress b/c it rocks! :) The dress on the hanger does not do it justice. This dress is beautiful in person. :)

When I dropped it off today, the women were SOOOO excited that we had a NEW donation to give and made the comment that they thought our dress would be picked right away. They invited me to help dress and fit the girls in May when they invite them to pick and try on dresses. I just might go down and help out.

Happy Easter to you!

Hello Mister Easter Bunny, it's nice to meet you...

Well Baylen didn't cry but he wasn't too sure of this particular Easter Bunny. Meet Pet Cemetery Easter Bunny. He only makes appearances at our daycare and scares the living hell out of everyone 2 1/2 and younger. They really need to fundraise for a new bunny suit. I'm serious this time. Yikes!

Oh and by the way, as you might have guessed, Brynn did not go anywhere NEAR the Easter Bunny. The night before at dinner she told me, "Mommy, I don't want to sit on the Easter Bunny's lap tomorrow." I told her it was fine if she didn't want to. But I asked her if she would give him a high 5 and she shook her head NOOOOOOOO. I think I'm glad we didn't try Disneyland this year.


P.S. this is a scanned photo so if you click on it to see it larger, check out how big Baylen's hands are. I told you they were big! He is going to make one great linebacker.

This is what happens when...

you try and shove a 25 pound kid into a very tiny Easter basket.

Happy Easter Every Bunny!

Funny comment #182.5

Maria (Baylen's daycare teacher): Baylen is so smart. He can't talk but he totally understands what we ask him or what we tell him to do.

Me: :) haha I know. His vocabulary consists of about 4 words and 2 animal sounds. But he has this contagious smile and he can scream like nobody's business.

A new baby in the family

Brynn's new baby arrived on Sunday. (well, actually, she arrived like Wednesday but we didn't give her to Bee until Sunday). First she was baby Juna, then Mary, then Noah and now Baby Addie. She carries this doll everywhere. Baby Addie even eats supper with us in her own high chair. Baby A. sleeps with Brynn at night and travels with her to school in the car each morning. She gets the royal treatment. And she should. This baby was something she picked out all on her own one day when an American Girl catalog came in the mail. I let her look at the mag. and as soon as she looked at the end at the last few pages and saw the "babies" she just stopped and looked at me and said, "ohhhhhh mommmy look! Look at those babies! I want that pink baby, mom!" I had not intended to buy her this baby any time soon. But I saw my window of opportunity and dove in...I told her if she went potty and poo-poo in the potty chair ALL the time, that mommy would buy her that baby. She said, "Okay mommy!" And from that day on, she started going in the p.c. like seriously every single time she sat on it. I was amazed! She kept telling everyone, "I get a new baby if I go peepees and poopoos Allllllll the time." So cute. We looked at the catalog quite a bit and I let her pick out which baby she wanted. I ordered it the week before spring break. When we brought the box in and let her open it, as soon as that baby was out, she hugged it and has not put it down since. She kept saying, "Thank you for the new baby, daddy. Thank you for the new baby, mommy!"

Needless to say, we're thankful Baby Addie worked. Now she's trying to tell me she needs the swimsuit and a baby bed for her baby so I told her she had to give up her paci to get that suit and a crib for her doll. She tells me every day on the drive home she's going to throw the "paci in the trashy," but so far, she "forgets" she said that earlier and takes it to bed w/ her. ha!