Going WAYYY back...all the way to Pre-K

Subtitled: Catch-up part 1

Well looking at my blog, it's been about 3 months since I last posted anything. I think that indicates one of two things: either that I've fallen off the face of the earth, or that I'm a teacher and in between school starting and coming home in the afternoons and feeding, bathing, playing with, reading to, and rocking the kids, there's just not much time to self-reflect or whatever this is that I do! Plus there are lots and lots of new TV shows on right now, most of which I fall asleep while watching, which is why I am totally in LOVE with our new DVR. I still can't remember to fast forward through the commercials, but I really, really love getting to watch the second half of Castle on Tuesdays instead of just having to wonder whodunnit!


Anyway, so I logged on this morning because I've taken a comp day that I earned from my CPR training this summer, only to find that someone has been leaving totally weird, anonymous comments on one of my posts! They're long and crazy and not even in English. It might be in wing-ding font, but I really think it's in another language. I dont' know how they get a font for another language, but whoever it is, stop it!

OK so what's been going on with us?? Layton started Pre-K back in August. He actually had to start a couple of weeks late so it was really September. He is in Ms. Blackstone's class and totally LOVES school. Being at school has really heightened his love of buses! I thought it was kind of cute last year, but this year it's a full-blown obsession. Every bus we see he wants to know which bus it is. I try to outsmart him and just tell him just some bus name, but it doesn't work. The other day I told him the bus was the parrot bus (our buses are named after animals..aren't everybody's??), but he very quickly and emphatically told me I was wrong with a "NUH-UHHH...the Parrot bus has a different front!!!" Buses have different fronts?? Who knew?? And apparently the Little Dragon bus doesn't make the chhhh sound like the Turtle bus does so I couldn't fool him there either! He gets to ride the bus over to the Middle School in the afternoons, which was nerve-racking for me, but awesome for him! I thought he would be scared, but he wasn't at all! Of course, the middle school is nothing if not the dog-capital of the world so getting him OFF the bus proved to be tricky in the beginning. I'm very happy to announce that, with the help of a very understanding mother who walked her dog to the school each afternoon to pick up her children, Layton can now get OFF the bus and walk all the way down the sidewalk to my room without me! If you're wondering how that sweet mom helped me, at first when I met him at the bus stop, she would just stand back and let me get Layton before she got her kids. Now that I don't meet him, I trust that she's still standing back and letting him go before walking herself.

One thing I've noticed since he started school is that I never, ever get the full story! Now I'm really worried about what my students went home and told their moms about ME! Lucky for me, my sister is a pre-k teacher too so I can call her up and get the rest of the story! Like when he was whining because he didn't get to go to recess "like AA's and Mrs. Pullen's class did." Here's how the conversation went:
Me: Well, why didn't you get to go outside?
Layton: I don't know
Me: Where did you go instead?
Layton: I just had to go in a another little room.
Me: Where was your teacher:
Layton: I don't know..I looked for her but she wasn't there so that girl just took us to the other room but Ms. Blackstone was not there!
Me: So did you go outside then?
Layton: No, we just had to watch a movie while the other classes played
So when I talked to my sister later I asked her to please explain because I knew there was some sort of logical explanation here, and of course there was! During PE, Layton's class had hearing/vision screening so the other classes played outside while they did that. They watched a movie while they waited for their turn!

I could go on and on, like when he got time-out at recess just for going down the slide the right way (He wasn't supposed to go down the slide at all! HELLO big mud puddle!) and how now anytime he mentions the nurse's office, he equates it with a fire drill just because when he went for his flu shot, that just happened to be the same time that they had a fire drill. Poor kid thinks it will always happen that way!

Well I believe I've rambled on and on enough. How does that happen when you start talking about your kids!?! Just wait! I'll give a catch-up post on Ainslee and Ava shortly! Feel free to skim right over unless you're their grandparent and then you're supposed to be truly fascinated at the wonders that are your grandchildren!