textbooks and toddlers

Rite of passage?

2007-02-06T23:30:00.000-05:00

I do believe I may be coming down with my first new preschool illness! Lucky me...
Maybe it's just exhaustion and soreness from being stuck in blocks on Monday for a loonnngggg time. My knees are so red from kneeling and crawling around at the kids' level. It may also be that the dining hall is trying (and succeeding) to poison me (I swear I'm not paranoid!).
Anyways... got nothing done today because of my icky-ness.
Tomorrow must be better, I will fake my way to health! Must write a paper, do laundry, work on Valentines, and read about 200 pages... all after spending 4 hours at Preschool. Wow, my life is fan-freekin-tastic.

Gosh- I sound like such a downer! I'll just cranky tonight, I'm sure a good night's sleep will fix my attitude problems.

Blocks!

2007-02-01T23:38:00.000-05:00

I had fun playing in blocks today as part of one of my classes! Early Childhood rocks! [well, it does until you have to do something not fun like clean the playground when it's 10 degrees out!]

Preschool is kicking my ass. The kids are cute and smart and funny, but the teachers are so uptight and rigid and patronizing it makes me crazy. We have a script for doing everything! I feel like I'm acting in a play rather than teaching children. Oh well, I'll survive... and maybe even have a little fun.

Tomorrow is Miss E day, so that'll be fun. I love that kid so much! She is so funny in how she acts with me- she plays shy for the first 5-10 mins, then warms up and begins treating me like her slave or playmate or substitute mommy (only if mommy isn't around). After the library last week she kept thanking me for getting her the books (I think she might have thought I bought them for her...), she was so genuinely greatful- it was sooo sweet!

At the lie-bary...

2007-02-01T23:35:00.000-05:00

I foolishly suggested E play with two boys around her age...

Miss E: I don't wanna play with boys
Me: You don't? Why not?
E: Because they not girls

School is ruining all my fun!

2007-01-11T23:17:00.000-05:00

So I finished my semester and got reallllly good grades- I guess all that damn work was worth it... I don't think my GPA has ever been so high!

I've been home for 3 weeks now and I'm starting to miss Beantown and all my friends up there, plus I really miss my kids! Miss E and the siblings are such cuties- I've been showing off pictures of them to everyone here. I miss all my E stories- she's such a trip. All fall long we argued over everything: Apparently "boots" are not a kind of shoe, but only the name of the monkey on Dora the Explora ("No Ju-ya, boots not shoes, boots a muh-key!"). BTW, have I mentioned how much I hate D*ra? Ugh- I don't get it, if she doesn't know where the hell she's going then why does her mother let her wander around the jungle with a monkey (who only wheres boots) and a stupid fox trying to steal her stuff?

Holidays are fun- I love seeing all my cousins and aunts... I can't believe that the baby cousin is now 6 years old. I've of course had to do all the usual errands while home- doctors appointments, new glasses, DMV, shopping galore (which is mostly lots of fun!).

My pseudo New Year's Resolution is to try and blog a bit more (aka maybe once a week)... I'll be in the preschool a few days a week, plus with my Boston kiddos, so that should provide good stories worth remembering!

All work and no play...

2006-10-09T15:27:00.000-04:00

Results in my still not getting very much done!
I think I might be coming down with the lovely illness that caused my time with Miss E on Friday to be cut short (oh the tears! the drama! God forbid I try to wake her up so we could go to the park- the place she's been asking to go to every day!). On the brightside, her sickliness allowed me the opportunity to go to Target (yay!) and spend the money I wasn't making from babysitting her.
If I keep writing about children's vocabulary development I think my head might explode! There are only so many things one can say about the topic. It seems pretty obvious to me that the quantity and quality of the language children are exposed to will influence their vocab. growth... so why am I on my fourth page of reading responses for this class? (which is my favorite class this semester, but this assignment blows!)
Perhaps I should move on to the party that is writing 8 pages about immigration and how it affects public education.

In other news... I took the job babysitting for baby Q. It wont start until next month, but I'm looking forward to it. His mom is super nice and it'll be great to hang out with the babe while she goes to class.

I cannot believe that this school gives us so many fake holidays off! Columbus was a murderer and an idiot (he didn't even realize that this wasn't India!)... we also get the day before Veteran's Day off- I can understand having off if it were actually Vet's Day (which falls on a Saturday this year), but the day before seems like they just wanted another long weekend (which I admit, is a nice thing to have)... The result of these fake Holidays is that Winter break starts later and the rearranging of our class schedule by having Tuesday become a Monday (in our little imaginary reality) which fucks things up for people who work or generally have lives outside this university!

Things that amuse/annoy me

2006-10-04T00:28:00.000-04:00

~So last night I was watching tv, when a commercial came on for Booger King. They have a new burger called 'Shrooms and Swiss... WTF? Did they think it was funny? Or were they just clueless as to how bad that sounds?
~Why do they call them "hot water heaters"? If the water were already hot then it wouldn't need to be heated
~Lastly... why is it that my ears hurt like hell, but are not infected, but my throat is apparently quite inflamed and isn't bugging me at all? (I know that my ears hurt b/c of the post-nasal drip and blocked up eustacian tubes... but still)
~Ok, really lastly... Why do the directions on the heating pad tell you not to lie on it? Cause if you just drape it over the pain it hardly does a thing... I'm also really afraid that I'll fall asleep on it (which I use for my ears) and catch on fire- although I hope I'd wake up if my head were on fire!

Back to School

2006-10-03T21:38:00.000-04:00

I keep telling myself to write more... but I'm finally feeling settled back into school.
Classes are decent, I like most of them, but have one professor who makes me crazy!
It's been great being back with Miss E- she's turned into a bossy little three-year-old. She makes me laugh with her commands - the other day on the swings she said "take a picture" I told her I didn't have a camera, so she said "Mommy does. It's inside. Go get it." Umm, no! silly girl!
I got wet 3 times last week though. The boy was responsible for two of these incidents, and one was my fault. I suppose I should expect it when taking him to swim class- but he's old enough to know better. First- he dropped the hand-held shower thing (while it was still on), which got my leg/foot/shoe soaked! Then while he was in class, I took E to the bathroom. While helping her wash her hands, I leaned against the counter, only to discover it was very, very wet- thus the bottom of my shirt was wet. Then finally, while helping the boy get dressed after swimming he tried to kick his wet bathing suit off- which, of course, splashed me- including my face, the glasses were covered in water droplets! The irony of it all- it was pouring down rain all day, but I managed not to get wet at all in the rain, just inside the YMCA! Oh well- they made me smile in the car on the way home- they were so sweet passing a baggie of Nilla Wafers back and forth in their car/booster seats- being polite, and not hogging the cookies... I almost forgot about how wet I was... almost!

Summer is winding down...

2006-08-22T21:22:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking I'll actually get back to blogging now that it's almost time for school to start.
It's been an interesting summer:

~my class went fine (not my fave subject, but I got a good grade and learned some stuff)

~my two newest charges were quite a bit of fun, E-I-E-I-O is now 18 months and his sister Sydalee just turned 3

~it's been fun watching 2 (and sometimes 3) children who are the same age, 15 months-18months over the time I've been with them, grow and develop over a couple months... they're very different- one very verbal and physically capable (E-I-E-I-O), another quieter and serious (but still loving and sweet) (Ree)... the third was a biter, and hair-puller, who wasn't terribly much fun to deal with (OllyOy, who I rarely cared for)

~the older kids I take care of have been great, A was being a bit of a pain early in the summer (something about 4 year-old boys...) but soon went back to his fantastic self! Sydalee is quite a trip. She's always happy to see me, but is such a busybody! That child is very concerned with everyone else's business. It's pretty cute to see her interact his her little bro- she calls him her baby (even though she's only 18 months older than him!)

~My last bunch of kids I saw not as frequently (occasional nights and weekend days)... I often refer to them as the triplets, but they're really 6-year-old (boy-girl) twins and their 5-year-old brother... Since they're only 14 months apart, they play nicely together most of the time. I really enjoyed these kids, even though the boys can be terrors sometimes. They've all learned that whoever talks/yells the loudest gets what s/he wants... which leads to them being VERY LOUD (and making Julia go crazy!)

~It's also been nice spending lots of time with my puppy (who's not really a puppy)... it'll be hard going back to school and leaving her.

wow- I'm such a mom!

2006-05-17T12:03:00.000-04:00

I wrote this about 2 weeks ago, but I've been too busy to post...

I have officially succumbed to the stereotypical mom tactic of threatening to pull the car over if the kids don't behave... except I took it a bit further, and actually DID pull over to discipline Ms. E (and tighten her carseat straps so she wouldn't be able to weasel her way out of them any more as I drove (she scared the bejesus of me by getting out of the top part of the harness as I looked in the rear-view mirror!)

I'm lame

2006-04-20T00:21:00.000-04:00

I'm so lame... I've been "working" on this lab all day, but still haven't gotten much done! It's going to be a long night.
Meanwhile- the roomates have been working hard at distracting me- with ice cream, pizza, dance parties, sing-a-longs, and television! (They're so supportive of my education)
No children today- Julia had the day off (during which time I was "studying")...
Oh well... I'm excited to see Miss Pina Colada's A Cappella concert tomorrow night.

The beginning

2006-04-18T22:37:00.000-04:00

I've decided to join in on the blog parade and created my own!
You can expect rants about crazy professors and papers and tests, fun annecdotes about my life (and the stupid stuff I think about sometimes), stories about the munchkins I care for (they are always up to something), and probably more exciting things (to me, anyway...).

Characters to know:
Me (Julia)- college student, babysitter extraordinaire, crafty/artsy type, hypochondriac
P- the roomate, busily absorbed in her business classes
Miss E- my favorite 2-year-old, who I spend 2 days/week with
Rambo- E's big bro... age 5, not sure if he likes me or is indifferent, but we spend a lot of time together anyways
Dev- the other two's big sis- she spends a lot of time at school, so we don't get to hang much
A- my favorite 4-year-old back home, who I've loved and been babysitter to since he was 2-months-old
Rach- A's mommy, a friend, mentor, "big-sis" type to me
Ree- A's 1-year-old baby sis, not quite talking or walking (ie doesn't give me too many stories to tell)
there are more... and I will add as necessary