SUB!

First day of the school year that I subbed today. It was in the 4's room, where we have a new teacher. I was pretty certain it would be a bit of a hardship since her routines are not as familiar to me as the teacher's for whom I've subbed many times over the years. Also, 4's are notorious for their weird speech-habits and I pretty much have to guess at what they are saying most of the time. Luckily, I had the chance to bone up last week (haha nod to Halloween skeletons everywhere) and the extra study paid off.  I even forgot to take my preemptive ibuprofen and do not have a headache.  Now, the real test will be when I try to get up and walk after sitting down for the first time all day.  On Thursday, I get to go on the annual Pumpkin Patch field trip with 27 kids and 15 chaperones. It is supposed to rain tomorrow so we'll either get super muddy when we go or it'll be cancelled. Ya never know which it will be!

One of my favorite things to do when I sub is to surprise the teacher and go off track from the carefully laid out lesson plan for the day. Either the other teachers told on me or this gal was all like "ehhh, just have fun!" I came in to find CDs set out with a list of songs the kids like, a couple books to read, and an art project to paint 2 plates each orange to become jack-o-lanterns tomorrow. As I told my director, "I would've liked to SEE a lesson plan so I would know exactly WHAT I was disregarding!" So to surprise her, I took an informal lunch-time poll of what we thought their teacher should be for Halloween. Note: Lunch-time polls are written down on a paper plate and taped to the door. The boys' responses: a carrot (it WAS lunch); a train engineer; a beanbag, a bad guy (as opposed to what it sounded like the first time he said it - a black guy....a what?!). The girls' responses: a unicorn; a butterfly; a dragonfly; Belle or Ariel. The difference between the lovely artistic imagery that comes from the girls thoughts vs the boys looking around the room and yelling out something they see just cracks me up. Then I added my answer: a teacher. To which they all said NO!!! she already IS a teach-cho!

I was exceedingly happy to discover that one little guy dropped the word POOFY from his vocabulary after last week (or he just forgot it today) when we had a talk about how I knew he was really using poofy as a potty word and that calling a friend poof-head was still rude. Since he had been yelling poofy at the top of his lungs for a couple weeks I told him no more. I gave him a new word to use - SUPER because I knew he was a super kid who could take those inappropriate words for school and "zip it, lock it, put it in your preschool pocket". Then all the kids wanted a new word too.  I went down the line giving them words of reaffirmation (except for one little guy who we both knew WILD was the premier choice). With Super, Awesome, Brilliant, Amazing, Kind, and Wild...the last little guy holds up his hand and goes, "I'm COMPLICATED".  I am still laughing at that one!

We enjoyed our weekend because for Gib & Mariah it was Fall Break. Gib came home late Wednesday and returned Sunday afternoon. He enjoyed sleeping in his bed and playing Xbox. For added excitement Gib went to the dentist, the chiropractor, got a haircut, and got his 2nd Hep A shot! He also added a nice little message to the box I was mailing to Taryn with some halloween candy in it. Before leaving on Sunday, we loaded the car with bags of food & candy, some new clothes, and the dude's clean laundry that Grammy did for him this time. The only bummer was that the Titans played at 3pm and so the guys couldn't watch the game on TV together.

Mariah had her Fall Break with days off on Friday & Monday. That makes today feel like a Monday. Tomorrow she has to take the PLAN test so doesn't really have any classes. The entire week is just going to be odd. Mariah also spent her vacation in exciting and exotic locales such as: the doctor (Flu Shot & Hep A), the chiropractor, the dentist, and getting her hair tip-dyed blue! Amazingly enough, despite the similarities in how Gib and Mariah spent their Fall Break they did NOT visit any of the above mentioned places on the same day!

While the dude was here, Indie made arrangements for the guys to bring home her bday present: a new sofa! Now we can visit with and everyone can sit on furniture, and she can read, study, watch TV & have 2 cats settle in with her. Her little loveseat was not doing it! They all stretched out on the 7' sofa and had room to spare. Aussie has claimed the armrest on one side of the couch and Lillie gets the middle or under the sofa!