What She Said

Amaya's version of Christmas:

"Did you get a present for you?"

Amaya got a lot of fun stuff, especially stuff that is eensy teensy and gets lost the second she takes it out. I am stressed trying to keep it all together because I assume she will have so much more fun if there are two Ariel shoes instead of one, and cups for Polly Pocket's kitchen instead of none. I think Amaya believes her gifts to be the disposable versions, like the paper cups at nursery we buy from Costco.

One thing I love about the way Amaya speaks is that she sprinkles in articles like furikake on rice. Unmistakable and fishy, taking the place of something more meaty.
"I want a go a Turtle Bay."
"I want a go a party."
I guess I should enunciate my prepositions better.

After Da told me how Enzo was answering all her questions about nursery on Sunday, I asked Amaya. "Did you go to Nursery?"
"Nursery."
"Amaya, who was your teacher at nursery?"
"Nursery. Teacher."
"Amaya, what did you do at nursery?"
"Nursery. Yeah," she said, while bobbing her head up and down in agreement.

The other thing Amaya mixes up is pronouns. She assumes "you" is herself. Because of Enzo's amazing ability with puzzles, I thought I would help Amaya with a puzzle. We spent several minutes on a puzzle, mostly with me telling her to turn the pieces around and her trying to force the piece into an obviously incorrectly shaped hole. After we finally got the pieces in I told her to put the puzzle away in the cupboard. She walked up there and tried to force the puzzle into the cupboard, which was too skinny width wise, which meant, she needed to turn the puzzle to fit it on the shelf. She backed up, walked up again, and hit the puzzle against the cupboard again. She did this several times, backing up, slamming, backing up, slamming, never once turning the puzzle to fit it in. She looked at me, who was laughing in a pained way, and said, "Help you?"

I think she's trying to tell me something: I am not allowed to be her teacher. She wants to learn everything herself, and if she doesn't want to learn it, she wants me to do it for her. This is probably why she closes the book any time I try to point out letters, colors, or numbers. It is an immediate show-stopper for her. So tell me, can kids learn all of these things without us, our flashcards, baby einstein DVD's, counting drills, and cultural field trips?

Teachers are Peeps 2

My evidence:

• we go #2
• we shop at Foodland (kids are always surprised by this)
• we are affected by kids calling us beeyatches
• we procrastinate
• we eat too many cookies
• we overreact to your underreactions
• we leave early when we think no one is watching or if everyone else is doing it.
• we laugh secretly about funny things our students do, especially if we kept a completely "I am not amused" serious face during class
• we misspell words
• we blame ourselves when students do poorly, even if it's obvious that it's not our FAULT!
• we only pretend to not be embarassed. So far, my bra has completely snapped during class, I dumped water all down the front of my jeans so it looked like I peed, I found my fly was open after several hours, and my top shirt button broke off.
• we don't know what to do when a student vomits in class, we just act like we do
• we're very happy to be on Christmas vacation, and count the days until summer break

Give Me Some Cheese

My dad always asks me if I want some cheese with my Whine. Yes. Please. Give it to me.

Here are my walls. Let me rephrase. Here is my lack of walls as I look into my wonderful neighbor's room. Oh, just the bottom 3rd. But you have no idea how much you like the bottom 3rd of your wall until it's gone. Then you wish you had showered it with kisses and let it know how much you loved it before it decided to pick up its skirts and walk out the door, carrying your heart away forever.

So, you, who take your bottom 3rd of a wall for granted, go home and tell it, "I know I don't say it very often, but you mean so much to me. You make my life complete. Without you, I don't know what I'd do."

Because, I'll tell you, what you do without the bottom 3rd of a wall. You whine. And you ask for cheese, and you look wistfully out the window hoping for its return.

The other thing I realize here. Fences don't make good neighbors, walls make good housemates. I suppose it could be worse. The middle third of my wall could have up and said, "ENOUGH!"

Fiddlesticks! Cheese and biscuits! Flotsam and Jetsam! BLURG! I HATE RAIN!

P.S. My super awesome sis-in-law and her awesome in-law family just got us into their condo at Turtle Bay until Dec. 31st. Wow. Although this won't be fixed by then, at least I can be in denial for a few more days.

More complaining

1. One of my not-so-super-conscientious-and-slightly-self-victimized and constantly-complains-about-me students, after I returned his ipod which was in captivity for using it during the FINAL, hands me a Starbucks gift card and says, "Here. My mom told me to give this to you." What a sweetie.

2. Amaya ate 2 habanero chocolates, some make up powder, chapstick, and was on her way to chug some bleach. Is it any wonder I am worried about her nutrition?

3. I was in the fitness center this morning (my last morning staying at Turtle Bay) before school and a man came in with his newborn baby in one of those carseat stroller combo things. After shushing the baby several times from his treadmill workout, he unbuckled the baby to make him more comfortable. Then he accidentally kicked the car seat as he got back on the treadmill, flipping the carseat over and the baby out head first. I left soon after to avoid yelling at the guy.

4. One of my students become verbally irate with me after I told him to pick up a piece of paper he had flicked across the room. This was right after 9 out of 13 people in the class had refused to help me rearrange the desks in proper order because "we're not maids, Miss."

5. I was just thinking today, "I bet there are going to be more centipedes in the house, now." And just now, I get a centipede 1 cm away from my foot, winding his 10 inch body like a hunter on the prowl. Jake killed the beast with much less determination than when he kills a cockroach, yet since it's a centipede, he gets to keep his manhood intact. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

Flood Warning

Evacuating after the rain actually stopped (briefly)

The morning after ripping up the carpet.

Most of the people on our street (block) and on the street behind us were flooded. Our next door neighbors had 2 feet of water, we had 2 feet outside and about 6 inches inside because of sandbagging and bailing. The neighbor on the other side was totally dry. We were the edge of what got hit.

2 houses in Waialua floated off their foundations, Haleiwa also had 4-5 foot flooding. Today I am in school, after 20 of us slept at Kaity's house, and I've been awake since 2:30 am, actually up and walking around at 4. Yesterday morning the rain woke me up at 2, so I'm pretty crusty. We basically flung stuff up off the ground, in total denial that the rain would make it in, especially while we were actually bailing water out the window at record speed.

So I'm grateful that our friends are here to help us, that our house did not actually float away, that not everything was ruined, and that we have a place to go and food to eat and water to drink.

BUT, if I may complain for a moment more. This is just not how I imagined spending my Christmas break.

Stuff I just don't like

This is not a comprehensive list, because if it was, you'd have to promote me to heaven, now.

1. OMG. I am so tired of acronyms that take as long to say as the real words, and also mean the real words.

2. I have 4 followers. I should put a button on my blog that says, "I AM SO LAME!"

3. Cream of mushroom soup. I so just do not understand cream of mushroom soup. I just swear that it's cheaper to put in cream and mushrooms, and a lot less globular.

4. Putting stuff away. I like my stuff to be ready to come.

5. Running wedgies. Can someone please create panties that do not do this?

6. Kids basing my knowledge of the English language on the fact that they think I dress like a teenager.

7. Looking at a woman's lipstick that is clearly outside of her lip lines.

8. Too much foam while brushing one's teeth. Do these people buy foam power toothpaste?

BAH! ARGH! GNASHING OF TEETH!

Cosmic Jokes

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

If you are offended by the "b" word, read no further. If you are, and want to pretend that you're too holy to read this post, but want to anyway, I won't tell anyone you're here. I promise there are no pictures.

I have always been completely happy with my A cup size. Enhancements? Reductions? Not for this girl. I enjoy running, and am so happy that I haven't had any chest pain associated with the up and down jostles of exercise.

Well, after I had Amaya, I had a natural enhancement. Like 5 sizes larger than I would have liked. Running did cause me pain, and I avoided certain movements.

Then I quit nursing. Joy of joys, I would soon return to my previous look, one that unmistakably says, "Girl," but not "moobs" or "stacked."

So the jostling of jogging and exercise returned. For some reason, the loss of elasticity in my body somehow dropped the fat to my middle, and I can see my gut more clearly than the area in between.
Plus I have a new problem, where my previous A cup is now unfilled. What do you do in such a case? Stuff? Less than an A is hard to find where I shop. If you look too closely at my shirt, the whole area just looks bunchy.

And here I am, with stretchmarks on my wall. Now that is a cosmic joke.