Actually, it really is a laughing matter

The incredulous look on his face was pretty priceless. It was the morning of our Primary's Christmas activity, and several of us were at practicing for the puppet show we were going to put on for the kids. The script was a silly, cute one located somewhere on the far reaches of the internet. In it, animals in a stable find a small "intruder" lying in manger and try to figure who he is and what in the world he is doing there. One of our actors, a guy for whom English is a second language, was playing a camel with a Marxist streak. Anyway, the camel is supposed to soothe the intruder. "You want me to say what?!?" "Cootchie cootchie coo." Yeah, it's pretty absurd, but I'm sure there's an equivalent in his native language. After all, I've found that children turn even the most serious of adults into balls of silliness.

I have first hand evidence. Not that I would consider myself the most serious of people, but I do tend to have a shy streak in public. My hubby draws out the part of me that will make absurd noises and even give an encore performance, but it has taken our daughter to send us over the edge.

R first laughed in the middle of February, and we have since spent our time with her trying to elicit those wonderful sounds. We pop out from behind furniture, beeping, honking, and something akin to a bleat may have escaped, too. But one of her early favorites has been us singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." Apparently I have no sense of humor because I had missed its hilarity all these years. R pointed it out.

"Head, shoulders, knees and toes." Giggle
"Knees and toes." Giggle
"Knees and toes." Snicker
"Head, shoulders, knees and toes." Guffaw
"Eyes, ears, mouth and nose!"

It does seem that the punch line of the joke is somewhere between the knees and the toes because that is where she gets the most giddy. My husband tries to milk it for all it is worth. Up and down he goes over and over again. Sometimes it feels like listening to a broken record. "Knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes..." Do you know what it is like listening to that? The anticipation of the "eyes, ears, mouth and nose" is enough to kill you; what a relief when it finally comes.

I can only imagine what it looks like to others in public. Yes, I have sung a solo of that masterful song in public, trying to get that giggle to come. Of course she only smiled at me that time, perhaps a smile to her self about what a ridiculous mom she has. Oh well. I've resigned myself to years (especially if more wee ones come our way in the future) of singing, babbling, snorting and making other sundry sounds in public. If it makes her happy, a few funny looks is worth it.

A Brief Update

I hinted in the last post that I would be making more art. And I will...at some point. We've been a bit busy during the last few months, you see. First of all came the house hunting, with us finally settling on a house in the Tower Grove East neighborhood of St. Louis. We closed on the house at the end of April and moved in mid May. But I still don't have a studio. This is simply because the room that will become my studio is a total and complete mess.

There is a reason for that! A lot of you who may actually check this blog out probably already know, but I shouldn't be lifting anything too heavy right now. I shouldn't eat unpasteurized dairy products or sushi with raw fish, either. They also tell me that I should avoid cold cuts that haven't been heated to steaming. Yup, we're expecting a baby! It's really cute how excited my sweetheart is about it. He's also super excited that it's a girl (although he would have been just as excited for a boy)! Yup, a girl.

So, you can see that we've been a little occupied during the last while. Our house is slowly coming together, and my bump is slowly getting bigger. Here is to the next few months!

A New Beginning

It being the beginning of the year, a lot of people are trying to make some changes in their lives. Well, I'm one of them. In fact, I'm making a radical switch. After a lot of soul-searching and long discussions with my husband, I asked to be released from my teaching position. Last Monday was officially my last day, and I have turned in my keys. My school has been so supportive throughout, making this difficult decision just a little bit easier. It really was such a privilege to teach at that school, and I made a lot of good friends. There is a lot that I will miss. However, now I'll be able to do some things that had been shelved. One of those things was art. I haven't done anything truly substantial for a long time, and I'm looking forward to trying my hand at it again. I hope to have something for y'all to look at pretty soon. I'm excited, but still a little nervous. Wish me luck!

Go Fish

Luck struck again.

Maybe.

My hubby and I ran in the second annual Strides 4 Kids 5K this morning, which was a beautiful morning for a run. Almost as soon as we arrived several of the folks we know who help run it teased us, "Are you going to be as lucky this year?" Last year we won bread for a year from St. Louis Bread Co. and a night's stay at the Lumiere Place in the raffle. We assured them that we had used up our store of luck for the next decade. Apparently not--my bib number got pulled again for a prize! This year, however, luck had a sense of humor. I don't like to eat fried food much, but I won 5 meals from Captain D's while two brawny guys each won 10 free sessions of yoga at a local yoga studio. Go figure.

Proud Parents

Ben and I are now proud parents, although I didn't want to say anything about it until we were absolutely sure. We became positive yesterday. And it's a boy and a boy and a boy and a boy...and maybe a few girls in there, too. But with the pH, we think there are probably more boys than girls. That's right, our Kribensis fishies did their dance, and yesterday was the first time we saw the babies.

There they were, a little cloud of probably 40 to 50 wee ones (2 mm long?) swimming around along the gravel under the careful oversight of mom and dad. As strange as it sounds, it was adorable. Kribensis are a type of dwarf African cichlid and are known to be good parents, and we got to see this in action. The young parents have been taking turns watching over the kids and leading them around the tank. The most interesting part was their reaction to us cleaning the tank.

Here is a clip of the parents with their babies sitting on the doorstep to the house. The babies are the little specks wiggling around. You'll get the idea after only a few seconds, but the whole clip (about 2 min.) is there for anyone who just loves to watch fish.

We had been planning on doing it yesterday because it will be almost a week and a half until the next time we'll be able to do it again. (We also had planned to transfer them out of the quarantine tank into the larger tank. Then we found babies, and plans changed.) The babies in there made cleaning significantly harder--we didn't want to accidentally siphon up any fry. With the removal of the house decoration (the "cave" in which the parents had settled them in for the night), the babies got scattered from their school. Soon enough, we could tell that mom and dad were looking around for them and gathering them in a dip in the gravel. But we didn't see exactly how they did it until the tank was put back together and there were just a few stragglers that hadn't made it back to their hiding spot. The parents were hunting around for any extras when we saw them find the last few. When an adult found a baby, he or she sucked it into its mouth to later deposit back with the group. Animals never cease to make me marvel.

One problem: we won't be around for a few days. This is fine for the mature fish, but not so good for little ones. Oh, well...we don't have very much tank space anyway. So, if they do survive, does anyone want some fish in a couple of months?

The End...Sort Of.

I missed my deadline. Obviously, nothing got posted in May. *sigh* Oh, well. I don't feel quite so guilty because what needed to get done did. Yeah! Yesterday was the last official day of work for the school year. We finished up our faculty meetings, made sure all of our grades and reports were in, and checked out for the school year.

I am no longer a first year teacher. Yeah!

Unfortunately, the end was not as clean and sweet as everyone had hoped. The economy has impacted our enrollment significantly, which means that our budget has shrunk. A LOT. In order to deal with the shortfall, the school president announced that they laid off four of our staff members this week. I don't know how it is at other schools, but here our staff members are definitely part of the family and much beloved. Hopefully things will get better soon.

In the meantime, I am just happy that I have a job. So, while this school year has ended, it's now time to get working on the curriculum for next fall. Unfortunately, I have so much fun thinking about what I shouldn't have ninth graders read (how about the unbridged Moby Dick?) that I get distracted from figuring out what they should read...

It's that time of year.

Tomorrow is the first day of May. That means two things: 1. We're one step closer to the end of the school year. 2. If I'm going to continue my once-a-month posting pattern, I have to figure out something to write about. Well, other than getting really sick on Saturday and still feeling like I'm in a fog Thursday night, I haven't been up to too much. "School" just about sums it up, and school, as noted in number 1 above, is rapidly wrapping up (yeah!). This also means summer reading assignments. *sigh*

I don't remember having summer reading assignments in school, but then again, it has never taken too much to get me to read. The hundreds of books in our house attest to this. However, I know that won't be the case with all my ninth graders next year. This led me on a great hunt to find the perfect book for them.

In years past the rising freshmen have read Chaim Potok's The Chosen. The student reviews were not stellar, and this year's teacher was none too happy with it, either. I read it, thought it was really good but not thrilling for students (there are NO female characters, for one), and kept looking. Between this quest and the independent reading books the sophomores could choose this semester, I've done a lot of reading: over 5,000 pages since the beginning of January. This has included 15 full novels and the first chapters of multiple other books. I've found some great books...

Unfortunately for me, I haven't found anything that fits as well into the freshman curriculum that fits thematically and is an appropriate reading level. The time for searching is over, so my students will be jumping into The Chosen--about two days before they come back to school in the fall. Again, *sigh*. I'll have to go bury my sorrows in a good book.