Indestructible, round two

I never really realized that there was a numerical reason why Fridays are so much better than other days. I have the fewest (8) kiddos on Fridays - of course it feels more manageable!

I ordered Buddy a new toy the other day. It's supposed to be nearly indestructible.

It's also made in Bozeman, MT, which is cool because it's where Kate is from!

If your dog destroys it you can send it to them and they will mail you a replacement. Pretty cool.

So far so good.

It has already lasted longer than the last toys we got him!

I'm getting a new kiddo in my class. He's supposed to start in May, which (in theory) means my boss has until then to find a third teacher for my class or I will pretty much be out of ratio all the time. Since I'm still working 9 and 10 hour days because they can't find a part time person for the afternoons doesn't give me a lot of hope for this plan. We'll see how it goes.

This tiny little red ball is the start of my sensory bin for March. 

Allegedly it will soak up water and turn into some kind of big squishy marble. This is my test one before I take them to school.

This is after about an hour. The package says it takes 6-8 hours to reach full size. 

I'll let you know how it turns out!


What makes your Friday better than other days?

Any fun weekend plans?

Don't tell

We survived Thursday with only a few meltdowns and one temper tantrum. One of the girls was mad at me for telling her to line up after music (I'm very mean like that) so she was stomping around the room with her jacket on, yelling that she was going home. Luckily the door weighs more than she does, so I didn't really have much to worry about.

She later yelled at the "buttermilk people" to get off her nap mat, and yesterday when she was mad at me, (a daily occurrence) she told me she was going to turn me into ice cream. Toddlers are crazy.

I remembered to take a picture of our sun catchers today:

We managed to get everyone to sleep today. Not all at the same time, but I'm not picky at this point. Once the last munchkin fell asleep, my not grumpy anymore kiddo woke up, so we got to have some one on one time until everyone else woke up. It's nice to get those moments with them from time to time since we're always running around crazy with 9 or 10 other kids to worry about.

Don't tell my training plan, but I'm not running today. I'm supposed to, but I'm super tired and half my class is sick. I don't want to push too hard when I'm exhausted and end up getting sick - again.

Buddy loves his rope:

Oh and I was reminded of the other pronunciation of my name today: Gecky!

Would you like it if you were required to nap/rest every day? 

I wouldn't, but I just don't like being told what to do. Plus I can't nap.

So pretty!

I'm about two nap times away from shoveling the snow out of the play yard and just setting my kids loose out there for an hour or two. The snow needs to melt soon because I can't take too many more crazy nap days. Sleeping should not be the most stressful part of my day.

On the bright side, the rest of the day went really well. We made suncatchers (that I forgot to take a picture of) at art. I made construction paper frames and taped wax paper over the opening. Then the kiddos glued tissue paper squares to the wax paper. As one of the boys in my class told me when I put them in the window, "Becky, it's so pretty!"

My name has many variations of pronunciation within my class:

Bakey
Buggy
Beggy
Beekey

I think there's another one but I can't remember it right now.

We painted some "crayons" the other day so I made a box for them:

Today is a rest day on my training plan so I'm relaxing with a beer and am looking forward to some tasty fish tacos for dinner. Somehow tomorrow is already Thursday - this week is flying by!

What was the most stressful part of your day? The least?

Goldfish crackers are not always a good idea

I worked late again today, so I really didn't want to run. But it was only supposed to be 2 miles so I made myself do it anyway.

In case you were wondering, eating a whole bunch of goldfish crackers right before you run, even if it is just 2 miles, is not the best idea.

I feel like running a little when you're tired is good for the mental side of running. There's always a part in a race where there's a shift from the physical challenge to a mental challenge. The part of the race where your legs are tired and you have a cramp in your side/calf/thigh and you start to think about how nice it would feel to stop. That's when the mental part of your training kicks in and helps you push on to the finish.

Buddy uses his Kong as a pillow, even though he is laying on a giant pillow.

Tom made beef stew for dinner, in case you were wondering. It was delicious.

Feed me

Let's take a minute to discuss how hungry I am all the time. I'm at the point in my training where I eat and then a half hour later I'm hungry again. It gets to the point where I feel like all I do is eat and run.

Tomorrow I'm bringing one of these bad boys with me to work:

Well, that and a couple of extra granola bars.

Dinner last night was pulled chicken (courtesy of our new slow cooker) with broccoli coleslaw. It was fantastic. And messy. Fantastically messy.

Tonight is salmon, brussel sprouts and rice. My tummy is grumbling, I can't wait!

(Sorry, all I can think about is food right now.)

Have you been eating anything particularly delicious lately?

Suck it up, Buttercup

Happy Sunday! I had buttermilk leftover from cooking with the munchkins this week so Tom and I made buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. We used this recipe and they turned out delicious.

Prefect fuel for my long run this afternoon.

I have an excellent new tank top for running.

It's ridiculously soft too, which is an added bonus. I got it here.

My 8 mile run went really well and time went by pretty quickly, which was nice. I'm already better trained for this race than I was for my first half. In the month before my first half, the longest run I did was 3 miles because I had gotten sick. But even before then I wasn't training like I should have. I went into that race with my longest run ever being 6 miles. I finished the race, but I was slow and in pain. I haven't gone into a race that under-trained since. 

Buddy had a good time with his rope today:

Time for me to finish up my class newsletter and get my clothes in the dryer. Monday always comes so soon!

Do you make special breakfasts on the weekend?

Best part of your Sunday?

Sunshine!

There are a lot of Buddy pictures today - if you're tired of looking at how cute my dog is, you might want to skip this one.

Buddy and I went running outside today! It is finally warm out - almost 60 degrees - so I had to take advantage of the nice weather.

I had a three mile run to get in, but since he's not so good with the distance I planned on running with him until he was tired and finishing up the rest of my run on the treadmill. We did a little over a mile and a half and did some short sprints up the hill on the way home.

He was pretty excited to be out in the sunshine - though he kept trying to jump in snow banks while we were running.

And took full advantage of the sun back at home too.

I did another two miles down in the basement while Buddy napped.

I forced myself to work on my lesson plans this morning and it turns out I was right about them - they're almost done already. I guess planning my themes out in advance was helpful after all. Just a few more art projects, a cooking activity, and a sensory bin idea and I'll be done. That's nothing compared to what it looked like this morning.

I hate when all these little squares are blank.

This is what Buddy looks like when he's hoping you'll let him up on the couch.

I hope you're having a good weekend!

Fascinating Friday

•  One of my kids fell in the toilet today - the seat was up and she just sat down. She was pretty surprised!
• My assistant was changing a diaper that she thought was just wet and was surprised to find that it wasn't just wet. Lets just say it was messy - and fell on the floor. I might have laughed, a lot.
• I got a new credit card today. My credit card company sent me an email the other day that said my information might have been compromised so they were just going to go ahead and send me a new card. That was reassuring.
• I have to write all of my lesson plans for March this weekend. Despite my best intentions I did not actually get them done early. On the bright side I have my theme/focus all figured out. Dr Seuss' birthday is in March, so we'll be reading a lot of his books. March is National Nutrition Month, so we'll talk about nutrition during circle time and cooking. And for science we're going to talk about our five senses! See? It's practically written already!
• We had an unplanned science moment today after playing with a feather that fell out of someone's jacket. I showed them a feather from our art box, a beanbag and a scarf from music and had them guess which would hit the floor first when we dropped them. After the drop we talked about why we thought the beanbag fell faster than the scarf and the feather. It was really fun to stumble on something that they were really intrigued by.
• My class is obsessed with the two little blackbirds finger play. It's kind of adorable.

There was really good fog out today. My assistant decided it was like a horror movie.

 
We get to watch deer out our classroom windows, the munchkins love it.

My color wall - we now have orange, purple, pink, brown and black too! And yes, I know that my yellow isn't actually very yellow - they were also using black paint that day.

 

What was the best part of your Friday?

No big deal

Just a quick post today because I'm pretty much exhausted.

Aside from nap time and the fact that our weekly music guy didn't show up for some reason, work went really well. We even got our muffins made!

They're strawberry oatmeal muffins and they taste a lot better than they look. The kids were pretty excited to eat them for afternoon snack - it was cute.

I got off work at 5:30 and somehow stayed motivated to head to the basement for my run. Two miles relatively easy, then 4 at race pace and then one easy mile cool down. 7 miles after 9 1/2 hours of work. No big deal.

No nap

Working with little kids is draining. The same kid who is scratching you and screaming at you one minute really just needs a hug a few seconds later. We had some serious emotional roller coasters today.

We really need the snow to melt. The kids haven't gotten outside in weeks and their energy is close to a breaking point. Today we had 10 kids and nap time felt like there were 30 of them. Two didn't nap, even though one of them woke up at 5 this morning. They're getting a little crazy.

I'm hoping they aren't too insane tomorrow, we're baking muffins. I don't know if you've ever tried to bake with ten two year olds, but it gets interesting. And messy. 

The stunning view out my car window at lunch:

For some reason everyone was late picking up their kids today so I didn't leave until 6. I'm hoping that doesn't happen again tomorrow - I have 7 miles to put in after work.

Mental Block

Sometimes I think I have a mental block when it comes to the treadmill. Something about MPH throws me off. My comfortable pace is much slower than it is when I run outside - until I push myself.

I ran an 8:40 mile with no trouble today, because I actually pushed myself. And after that, my usual pace felt really slow. My treadmill doesn't show pace, just speed, and while I can convert it pretty quickly in my head I think I might find a pace chart to have on my treadmill for quick reference.

I got my tax refund so I did a little online shopping. I got this jacket in the mail today. It's a little more fitted than I am used to, but I wore it while I warmed up tonight and I really like it.

 I slept through my alarm this morning (and still made it to work on time) so I should probably head up to bed.

Do you feel like you run differently on the treadmill vs outside?

I need new music

There is no flow to this post, my mind is a little all over the place tonight. Sorry about that!

I officially dislike everything on the radio lately, which makes me feel old. Plus the one radio station that I can stand has the word "light" in its name, which also makes me feel old. Needless to say, I haven't found any new music in a while and my running playlist is getting a little stale.

I don't know if anyone has noticed but I moved moved my blog to its own fancy new address. The old address should redirect to the new one, but I'm new to this side of blog management so let me know if anything is misbehaving or out of whack!

Source

The other day I was catching up on my blog reading and saw this post on Tale of Two Teachers. The book looked interesting so I thought I'd check it out. I'm now almost halfway through The Spark - it's really good! I don't work with any children on the Autism spectrum right now, but I think it's really fascinating what things can help and what can hinder those that are.

Tomorrow is my 11 kid day. Hopefully the long weekend doesn't make the munchkins too crazy. Sometimes too much time at home makes them forget how to behave at school.

Any good music recommendations? 

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Rough life

Today's long run wasn't supposed to be very long - 4 miles - but since I missed my run in the middle of the week I went ahead and made it 5. Next week is really bumping up the mileage - only 5 more weeks until the Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon.

Decent pace for a "long" run.

Netflix cooperated today so I could watch the quality entertainment that is The Vampire Diaries - don't judge me, it's an addicting show.

I came upstairs to find the boys napping. Poor Buddy has such a rough life.

 

I saw a recipe on Pinterest the other day and just had to make it. Nutella stuffed chocolate chip muffins. The original recipe is here. The recipe says the batter is really thick, but mine was unreasonably thick so I thinned it out with a bit of milk.

They got a little huge when they cooked.

They're delicious - especially when you hit the Nutella in the center.

Dinner was buffalo burgers and sweet potato tator tots. Our burger patties turned out a little bigger than the buns.

Tomorrow is a training day at work so I don't have to go in until 10 - such luxury!

What was the best part of your weekend?

He's so helpful

This is how Buddy feels about me running on the treadmill.

I was planning on watching trashy tv shows on netflix but nothing would load so I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs instead. It was cute, but not really what I was looking for.

My run today was supposed to be 3 miles, but since I missed a run earlier this week I made it 4 instead.

This is what happens when I try to stretch after my run:

He's so helpful.

We got some more snow this afternoon.

On the bright side it is supposed to be the last of it for a little while.

I got a box of goodies for Valentine's Day from my grandma today. Getting a box of cookies and homemade jam will never get old. Plus this card is adorable.

It's "cupig." Get it?

Have you gotten anything fun in the mail lately?

Happy Valentine's Day

I got the 5am (way too early!) call that work was opening at 9 today. More time to drink coffee this morning.

While we were watching tv last night there was a weird sound outside. A kind of rumble. We thought maybe the rain was making snow shift on the roof. Then there was a flash. Thunder and lightning? But it's winter, and it was snowing all day...

No question about it, it was thunder and lightning. And rain. Lots of rain on top of the 8 inches of fresh snow. Then we got another 3 inches of snow during the night.

We had our little Valentine's Day party at work. There were cupcakes and strawberries and then the kids passed out their valentines. Only a couple of parents came, but it went well. One of the kids gave everyone M&Ms. They were all on a ridiculous sugar high the rest of the day.

I came home to flowers, chocolate and coconut oil. I know that coconut oil seems random, but it is the best thing ever when you pop popcorn with coconut oil. I have been meaning to buy some since Christmas and I keep forgetting, so it was sweet.

 

Colorful flowers are way better than the traditional red roses.

Now we're watching the Olympics and waiting for Chinese food to be delivered - excellent. 

Any fun plans for the weekend?

Have you been watching the Olympics?

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

The snow is here, for sure. Tom drove me to work this morning so I wouldn't have to worry about getting my car stuck anywhere.

None of my class showed up. I worked on my big scary portfolio for a while and finally got the go ahead to leave a little before 10.

We're estimating that around 8 inches of snow fell today. Then we had some rain. It's supposed to snow another 2-4 inches later and then a couple more on Saturday. We are running out of places to shovel the snow from the driveway!

Buddy was very confused when Tom was outside shoveling the back deck.

Instead of enjoying my day off, my stomach decided that it would hurt if I so much as stood up. So I wasted my whole day trying to figure out what would make it happy. Some mysterious combination of laying on the couch, stretching, icing/heating my back and advil seems to have helped. Hopefully it keeps improving.

I was supposed to have a 3 mile run today, which seemed like no big deal until my stomach issues. I might try to make it up tomorrow if all goes well.

I won't know until tomorrow morning if work is opening on time, hopefully the roads aren't too bad by then.


Do you have snow? Are you sick of it?

Whether we like it or not

I just remembered this poem today:

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not

It is definitely making an appearance in class tomorrow.

We are supposed to get snow tonight (again), then some rain in the afternoon and then some more snow. Work is closing at one tomorrow so we don't have to drive in the crazy rain/snow mess that's coming in the afternoon.

I'm pretty sure our mailman thinks we've been on vacation - we haven't checked the mail in a while and I could barely get all the mail out of the little box.

I like that my shoelaces pretty much glow. I also like that it looks a little like I'm levitating.

What's your weather doing? Do you like it or not?