There have been times in my life where I was acting all philanthropical and decided to donate blood. I don’t mean to brag, but I am blood type O negative, so I am pretty much always in-demand. Unfortunately, they will not leave me alone. Audrey, from Vitalant, who may or may not be a real person, calls me daily. My phone doesn’t even allow the call to come through to me and just sends her straight to voicemail. Because even my phone is over her. And how annoying is voicemail? So I have to call my voicemail and waste 90 seconds of my life to get to the point where I hear my robot friend, Audrey, chipperly announce:
“Hi! This is Audrey, from Vitalant!”
And then I delete the message.
Kate: Mom. Why do you check your voicemail like that?
Me: How else am I supposed to check it?
Then Kate shows me on her phone how the voicemails come through in text form and she can just delete them without having to go through the whole song and dance of calling the voicemail and entering codes and all sorts of nonsense.
Kate: See? It is easier.
Me: My phone doesn’t do that!
Kate: Oh. Probably because you have that iPhone SE and not the cool iPhone. Both me and Hadley’s phones do the text voicemail.
Me: Did you upgrade to this? Am I paying for this?
Kate: I don’t know.
So then I had to waste an afternoon trying to dicipher my phone bill to see if I am paying extra for this voicemail. And I don’t think I am, but I am still annoyed about it.
Audrey and her Vitalant chums have now also started texting me. In addition to the voicemails. At the end of each text, it says: TextOptOut to stop receiving messages. And everytime I TextOptOut and then soon after they text me again.
The liars.
LD was using my phone when they texted me again.
LD: Mom.
Me: What?
LD: You have so many messages from this place. And then you have TextOptOut, but then they still text you.
Me: I know. It is the worst.
LD: Mom. I just texted: OptOut and they sent me back a reply that said, “You are now unsubscribed.”
Me: *mind blown*
LD: You weren’t supposed to include the word “text.”
Me: Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.
LD: That was kind of a boomer thing to do, Mom.
Me: I agree.
Let’s talk about my Emerald Vacuum. Do you remember the Emerald Vacuum, reader?
This is what has become of my Emerald Vacuum:
Tragic.
Let’s discuss.
Tragedy the first:
One of the puppies at one point in time ate the cord off. Because even though we love them dearly, they are all very ill-behaved. David, who is an electrician by trade, was able to put a new plug cord on even though I have absolutely no idea how that would even be possible. So that big round thing is the new plug he put on after one of the dogs ate the cord.
Tragedy the second:
This one’s a twofer, because not only is the vacuum destroyed, but it is a complete mystery to every single person living in this house as to how it happened.
The boys think it may have happened while they were cleaning their room? But no one was even touching the vacuum? It just broke?
Me: Can we fix it?
David, laughing at me like I am a fool who texts TextOptOut instead of OptOut: No! That thing is a goner.
Me: Duct tape?
(Is it duck tape or duct tape? I am unclear)
David: Nope.
Me: Well, you fixed the cord! And that seemed impossible! How did that happen?
David: It is almost like the boys were taking the vacuum and swinging it like a bat and hitting each other.
So, I ponder things. And would it be within the bounds of reason to think my boys would do something like that?
Yes. Yes, it is definitely a possibility.
But is it possible they did this without tattling?
No. I definitely would have heard about someone getting hit with a vacuum like it was a baseball bat. I don’t know. I never know what is going on over here.
And, so. We are laying the Emerald Vacuum to rest. She served us well for 17 months.
***
I made my first attempt at David’s grandmother’s famous huckleberry pie for his birthday:
It was almost too pretty to eat. I could look at it all day.
***
Son: Mom! I woke up in the middle of the night and my skin was so itchy! What do I do?
Me: Hmmm? Try putting lotion on?
*Half hour later*
Son: Mom! I am about to get in the shower.
Me: Sounds good.
Son: How do I do that skin thing?
Me: The lotion?
Son: Yeah?
Me: You put it on?
Son: How?
Me: You rub it on your skin?
Son: How?
Me: *face palm*
Son: I don’t understand.
***
Yesterday, Hadley , the dudes, and I, started to try and unpack/set up my classroom. And a more exhausting effort, setting up a classroom cannot be.
Hadley and HD were trying to set up my classroom library. This is a challenge because I have a partial system in place, and then at some point I stopped caring and so there is no clear direction on about half of the books.
For example, I have a bin labeled “Mo Willems #9” and I have about 7,245 copies of different Mo Willems books because, dude, the kids love those and can read them pretty early on. So the Mo Willems bin is easy.
But then I have bins that say like Animals #1 and Dogs and Cats #12 and Fiction #15, and #16 (because apparently I was tired of categorizing and just started to lump things into fiction. And then I stopped putting numbers on books because I got frazzled, so basically, my classroom library is a train wreck.
Me: Just do your best. Sort the books the best you can if there isn’t a number on it. I won’t be mad.
Hadley is able to handle this task with ease, but this task is blowing HD’s mind.
HD: Mom! Mom! Mom!
Me: What?
HD: I don’t know where to put this book!
Me: You can start a pile for books you don’t know what to do with and I will deal with them later.
HD: Mom! It says “Scholastic” on it! You don’t have a bin labeled “Scholastic!” Mom!
Me: I don’t have books based on publisher.
HD: Huh? Mom! Mom!
And I truly appreciate their help, but like, dude, I don’t even know what to do with all these books. It is all so overwhelming. And then my knee starts to fuss and I get hot because the AC doesn’t work right in our building and everything is just blech.
HD and Hadley had to leave for awhile, so it was just LD and I. I asked LD to help me put a shelf in a cabinet, and for reasons I will never understand, he went and found the custodian and borrowed a screw driver, took the hinges off, put the shelf in, and put the hinges back on. Took like an hour. I am 97% sure he did not need to take the hinges off. But he was quiet, so that was nice. Then he went and bought a pop from the vending machine and stretched his 5′ 10″ body in the middle of the floor while I tried to shove stupid classroom books into books bins without any rhyme or reason.
Me: Can you fill my water bottle up in the staff room?
LD: No way! I am not going in there so all your teacher friends can say, “Oh! Look at how tall you are! How tall are you now?” It is embarassing.
So, I went to go and fill my water bottle myself, shared the humorous tidbit with my teacher gal pals, and teacher gal pals all walked into the classroom to tell LD he had gotten SO tall and just how tall was he?
It was enjoyable.
I started off the day organizing my room to teach second grade, as that is what it was looking like I was going to teach, enrollment-wise, and then I ended the day being told there was a chance I would be teaching a kindergarten/1st combo class. So that is blowing my mind. I am trying to have confidence in me, but it is not easy.
And I asked the custodian if there were more book shelves, and he was so nice and magically put two additional book shelves in my classroom.
And then I pushed my luck and asked if there were more bulletin boards, and he brought a tape measurer down and is, and I quote, “seeing what he can do.” And that is just nice. And why is the beginning of each school year so insane? I ask?
Also, where are all my things? I cannot find my student book boxes, my clip boards, my tray for lunch count-it is all very vexing. So I woke up at 4am today so I could worry and wonder where all those things were.
Also. How does one teach kindergarteners and first graders at the same time and in the same room?
Please Advise.
Split your time, split the room, give busy or home work for one while the other group is being taught and one class for say an hour then the other back and forth.
I was in a kindergarten/first grade combo after being in a regular kindergarten when we moved to a different city. It was the worst as far as being a kindergartner with trikes to ride, nap time, graham crackers and milk, etc which all went out the door. It was the best for being interesting and able to listen to all the first grade lessons. My mom said we were way ahead when we entered first grade so there’s that. Might as well let your kinders work on coloring projects while you are teaching to the firsties because they are going to be listening in anyway. Hilarious bringing the teachers back to ask LD how tall he is!
I so remember setting up my classroom for the first of the year. What a nightmare that can be. I don’t know about teaching a split grade. Ugh! Have a great year. Blessings.
Um, I think I’ve done that textoptout just like you. I am a boomer too. Sometimes I am smarter than my kids and other times I am dumber. Too bad about the vacuum. It’s duct tape unless you are using the brand “duck tape” which has a green label and a white duck on it. Duct/duck tape is very sticky and useful.
My mom first taught in a one-room school that had 1st-8th grade. They had a pretty intense schedule. Here’s a link I found. You’ll be successful in translating this if you know what “Abecedarians” are. Ha!
https://csaa.typepad.com/country_school_associatio/2007/01/a_daily_schedul.html
That is just exhausting!