I like pickles

So I have a student; we'll call him Joey. Perhaps you have heard of him before. He's the one who thinks of a rap song for everything I say. Ex:

me: What rhymes with hat?
Joey: Tat tat tat it up...

He is a character. Yesterday I found a paper turned in with the name 'Bob' on it. As I went through the stack, I found another paper that said 'Bob' from the day before. The culprit was clear.

Today, Joey was coloring. He came up to me and asked, How do you spell Victor? I thought maybe he was drawing something for a student named Victor, but then it clicked.
me: No, you are not Victor. You are not Bob. You are Joey.
He just grinned at me.

Also, I have to give the kids first grade tests, because the county is all about acceleration. Joey hates doing any kind of assessment with me and pretty much bawls his eyes out every time he has to. Anyways, looking through a math test booklet, this is what I find:

question: A tricycle has 3 wheels. A bike has 2 wheels. How many wheels are on 2 tricycles and 1 bike. Use words, pictures, or numbers to show how you found your answer.
answer: Hot wheels

This kid will go far in life, but not without a lot of tears.

anyhow, that's over now. we owe it to ourselves...

What signifies the beginning of summer for you?

I was trying to figure this out for myself recently. Is it the first cookout of the year, or the first visit to the pool? First beach trip, first snowball, first trip longer than a weekend? First time in a lake, first outdoor concert? First twinkle from a lightning bug, first evening sitting outside while the crickets chirp and cicadas buzz? Last day of school? Last big project? Saying goodbye to certain people or hello to old friends?

I love to set little goals and structure my life around milestones like this. I realized though, that it's no one thing in particular for me, but a feeling of freedom that washes over me at some random time. Maybe I'm biting into a hot dog or talking to someone while sitting in the grass, and I suddenly realize, This is it. I have nowhere to be but fully here. There is nothing more important than this moment. The responsibility of the last several months has fallen off my shoulders and I won't miss it one bit for the next few months. Everything I enjoy most about life, like spending time with people and eating delicious food and feeling grass beneath my feet, is no longer a luxury to be put aside until I've earned it but an everyday part of life.

Maybe this feeling is particular to my profession, but I can't help that believe because of the society most of us were raised in, we feel a certain freedom that comes with summer, even if we have a job to be at the next morning. Even if your favorite season is winter and you don't particularly love hot weather, isn't there a nostalgia that it brings? A sense that the things weighing you down are losing importance and all of nature is telling you just to chill out for a little while?

Well, either way, do you have a beginning of summer moment?

I'm just sitting on the shelf

highs: Day's not over, but so far it would be listening to my favorite station on Pandora. Hopefully something else will top it this evening. I dare you to make my day.

lows: My team is consistently excluded from any type of recognition. It reminds me of elementary school when we would play Mother May I in the neighborhood. When Jacquie was the Mother, she would say, Everyone may take one fire engine (sprint until the Mother says stop) except for Anna. Play by the rules, Jacquie.

huhs: I went to My Organic Market, and I basically had to fight the guy at the checkout for him to let me carry my own bag. It was one bag, and my car was 2 feet away. He wouldn't give it to me! Is this standard MOM policy?

I'm sorry that your substitute teachers will all call you JoAnn...that's life I guess

Allow me to introduce, for the first time on my blog...

Johann Ezekiel

What a cutie!

He was born April 14, and his doting aunties and uncle flew out about a month later to meet him, bringing all the Grothe siblings to the same place for the first time since Kirsten and Chris's wedding, a year ago. (People kept saying, all the Grothe kids and no parents! for some reason. The only real difference this made was that there was no one to be embarrassed by us.)

We all began to take pretty much the same pictures of him. How could you not? He's wearing a hat! I need a picture of that! He's making a new face! He's throwing his arms up in the air! Did I mention that this kid is the first grandchild on both sides? He's pretty much a celebrity right now. I apologized to him a few times that he's not going to have any cousins to play with for a while. We'll see what happens next.

The trip boasted a picnic, a Mother's Day brunch, some delicious meals, baby videos, and a game of Boggle. Mostly though, there was a lot of holding Johann, burping, and diaper changing.

I love my nephew.

too bad my typing skills ruin my Scramble game

I love competition. Usually this is in relation to word games. You know - Taboo, Speed Scrabble, Boggle. I played a few mean games of Speed Scrabble this weekend, I must say. One of my other favorite parts of the weekend was the competition among a group of boys. It started with me flinging caterpillars onto rocks to see if they would survive. It then became 'who can hit the caterpillar with a smaller rock?' and 'who can shotput a large rock directly onto a caterpillar?' or 'decapetillar' as Alexis called it. I like a group of people who can turn everything into a game. The best was standing on a dock watching the group at a distance during their rock-skipping competition. It was pretty intense. They lined up about 20 different stones and had a draft beforehand. Sometimes when guys get together, you can imagine them all as 8 year old boys. I don't say that to sound condescending. Some of my best memories are of being 8 years old and making up games outside by the water. At that point, I didn't exactly like boys, but oh well. Now they're good to have around.

Just a moment of appreciation for the opposite sex.