T-Shirts...

I wish I would write stuff down during the day, after 2 kids I don't have much of a brain left :) This blog would be sooo much funnier, or at least it would have MORE stuff in it ;) Over the last 2 days my kids have said several things that Jay and I have felt were 'T-shirt' worthy. You know...when you hear it you say "hey that could be on a T-shirt" so here goes...

Savy and Jay were discussing dinner last night, I think she wanted Breakfast for dinner...Anyway on the subject of meats, which like her daddy she is RATHER opinionated..LOL she wanted SPAM. Because as she said "I'm a SPAM girl!"
Then Justice and I were on our way home yesterday (In the BLIZZARD..LOL)...of course we had to stop at our favorite store HT (AKA...Harris Teeters, the "Bread Store" - think about the logo ;) I had some prescriptions to pick up, but also wanted to take part in the 'ritualistic' frenzy HAHA So as we are in the check out line and Justice is already having a BLAST with the check-out lady...we start discussing getting a RED BOX movie. Now we are HUGE RED BOX fans...so the kid is pretty familiar with the process...and I'm trying to explain that at this point (calling for this storm ALL week) there may not be much left...so his understanding sweet and honest heart says..."I REALLY want to get a movie...even if all they have are ROMANTIC COMEDIES!!" I thought the check-out lady (late 40's /early 50's) and bagger-guy (60's) were going to bust a gut!!
This morning Savy and I were snuggling and playing on the bed...she looked SOO cute in just her shirt and pink underwear! I told her I was gonna bite her butt, just take a little nibble of that cute little tush. She said - That's OK - it's a Strawberry Cake BUTT! :) Little Blessings all day long...

Mini me...

I've had some eye opening moments over the last few days. Buts most of all I've had some great laughs like always. Savy has a sweet little friend at school, her 'boyfriend' Marshall (much to daddy's dismay LOL). His mom and I are friends also, since she is our school psychologist. They are a cute little mini 'Ken and Barbie' typical 'teacher's kids' couple... Their teacher adores them, they keep everyone in stitches, you can just imagine. Well, we were driving to school the other morning and of course Savy was talking...NON-STOP. I asked her 'Does everyone in your class talk as much as you?' No, she replied, 'just Marshall!' SHOCKER! LOL

Savy has been playing with one of my old phones lately. It is hilarious...she will get a 'status update' from Tuckin (Katrina, my best friend) and tell us it is SOO funny!! She is always texting, talking..but mostly texting ;) She NEVER puts it down, brings it to the table, in the bed...it's very telling and NOT necessarily in a good way...

Yesterday on the way to school, Savy had her phone (of course) and was talking to Justice. They were in the back seat chatting and this is what I overheard. 'Justice, I REALLY love you. I love you too Savy. But Justice, i love you SOOO much, I'm gonna BLOG about it on my phone!' LMAO - That's my girl!!

Justice has had a rough week :( poor boy. He doesn't do 'change' well, and well...this week has been FULL of different schedules. I think he may have snuck a GREEN day or 2 in there, but WOW it hasn't been easy. After school today he was playing with the secretary's son, he's a 7th grader and has a good tolerance for Justice. Apparently Hunter splashed / flicked some soap or water on Justice in the bathrooms...to which Justice felt the appropriate response was to run out in the hallway after him...calling him a DUMB A&$!! SOOO when I was talking to him about this, and asked if that was the right thing to do, his oh so honest response was...You are right! I should have just said DA. Gotta love his honesty :)

He lost another tooth at school this week. And AGAIN was THRILLED with his $1.00, this time a PAPER ONE!! I think the Tooth Fairy was caught by surprise and was all out of State Quarters ;) Again, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that he appreciates the dollar that he gets from that sweet ole Tooth Fairy. Sweet, sweet boy.

I think I've mentioned my kids' love and adoration for Paula Dean. I don't know what it is, the cooking, the southern-ness?? (neither of which are like their mama!! LOL) Well, whatever it is...they LOVE her...Savy and I were shopping the other night and I hear her say.."mama, there's my girl!" PRECIOUS...

He pooted on me...

Seriously...I have the funniest kids. I remember when I was in college I wanted to have 3 boys...what in the WORLD was I thinking??? The 2 sillies that I have keep me in stitches all day long. For instance...this is pretty much how our morning started...I had taken a shower and was getting dressed in our room. The kids were now up and had come down the hall, Savy gets right in front of our door and is laughing SO hard. I mean BELLY-LAUGHING! What's up? I ask...loaded question...He just POOTED on me! He just backed right up and POOTED on me, right on my belly!..HAHAHA! Now at this point...there is a part of me that is starting to chuckle...yet there is also a part of me that is a little disturbed that my PRECIOUS PRINCESS is so excited...about getting POOTED upon..LOL

My little man Justice...he just cracks me up by being himself...LOL He and I were watching CHOPPED the other day...first you need to know that the Food Network is BY FAR his favorite channel. As I'm sure it is for most other 7 year olds LMAO...NOT! He gets home from school and turns it on...he prefers Paula Dean and Rachel Ray, but will watch just about anyone... So the other day we are watching CHOPPED...great show, we love it. And he is carrying on the funniest conversations with me. Oh I can't believe they are going to try to make THAT. I really don't like this guy, he's very this or that.... He should think about putting some of ____ in there. I mean it was like sitting around with some 50 year old watching TV - freaking hilarious!

We had a 2 hour delay today because of flooded roads. Basically this meant that I had A LOT of help in my classroom for the first 2 hours of the day..ie Justice and Savy. They were actually very good and let me get some things done, I was able to get all of my 'Marks in Books' Benchmarks bubbled. You know what ALWAYS cracks me up?? When I'm bubbling them in...and I have to bubble...ACDC, or DA, or ADD...I LOL every time :)

I will leave you with this thought...Pants on the ground...pants on the ground...

Apparently that's how Savy rolls too ;)

Blog Envy...

Hi, my name is Shannon and I'm a jealous blogger. **uncomfortable pause** ...this is where you all say .. "Hello Shannon..." with sincere acceptance :) Actually, unfortunately I have the *jealous part down MUCH better than the blogger part :/ You see I WANT to be a Blogger SOOOO bad! It was one of my few resolutions last year, and I'm not a big resolution maker. But then life, and mom happened...and well priorities changed. Well, I have a few friends who are just these fabulous bloggers! They are funny, witty, (I can be too I think), relatively consistent (I suck) I mean they are just freakin HILARIOUS!! I really want to be like them when I grow up..well actually now would be great too :) I'm a super-phenomenal 'in my head' blogger. LOL For real...if I had a personal assistant who followed me around who I could dictate my blog to...I'd be set! But then again, if I HAD that assistant...to delegate this task to and that task to...I'd probably have time to blog in the first place!!

A few of my funny blessings from this weekend...

My little man who always keeps me laughing (when he isn't mad at me ;) saw the date of a meeting a church "oh... January 24th, that's when our milk expires!" WHY?? but I'm glad someone is keeping tabs lol

Savy and I were cuddling in the bed this morning, she is ALWAYS trying to convince us that she is getting SO BIG! She was on top of me stretched out and said "Mama, how many foot are me?"

She STILL says me for I - we LOVEEEEE this and don't ever want her to stop. We have 2 VERY talkative kids, they have always had relatively 'advanced' language skills....so we absolutely LOVE the little things that make them seem, well...little still. Like "what T are me?" (as in 2T, 3T) and poksicles, Frat Lock, as in...Middle School - where I work :)

I am constantly blessed by these two - by a boy who LOVES to make me lunch..salads and crackers and humus. And a girl who LOVES to clean! She was singing a song about this as she cleaned a toilet last week (crazy girl! she gets this from her mom-mom, NOT from me ;)

Well I must run...there is a baby doll who needs a bath...I think I might be onto something, I'm not feeling so jealous anymore ;)

Six Degrees of Seperation...

So I have been at an NCCAT Seminar this week, otherwise known as 'vacation' according to my dear husband Jay AND my 'school' husband Matt! Well, it has certainly been anything but (sorta lol) - although it HAS been tremendously enjoyable. I certainly would NOT suggest this particular seminar to just anyone, it is called Everyone Needs a Little Mystery: CSI in the Classroom.

On one hand, being at NCCAT IS like being on vacation...we are 'housed' in dorms that are like hotels. We have our own rooms, with a commons area on the floor. The commons area is like a living room (couches and rocking chairs) it's the evening 'circle-time' hang out place and it has a kitchen attached that is fully stocked - coffee, drinks, snacks, etc. There is a 24-hour computer lab and fitness center (yeah right LOL) and we get three meals a day that are simply AMAZING! Seriously - I would come back just for the food...especially the desserts YUM!

But NONE of that is even the best part - we had several different presenters / teachers throughout the week including a local booksellar, and the Destiny Lab from Moorehead Planetarium. BUT...our MAIN teachers this week were world-renowned forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass and nationally known fingerprint expert Art Bohanan. These men are inovators in their fields - forensic heros, if you will, of mine! You may have heard of Dr. Bill Bass' research facility in Tennessee - the 'body farm' or of the fingerprinting technique using superglue that was patented by Art Bohanan. OMG - to have spent the week learning from them has been simply amazing. We have gathered and analyzed fingerprints, analyzed handwriting samples, created a mold of our footprint, gathered and identified maggots (and other insects) from a corpse, learned how to test for blood, learned how to identify different bones (and age, sex, race from bones) and did DNA fingerprinting. In the end we solved a crime by using all of our new knowledge...

I met some other great, fun, amazing ladies this week too. I know we will be in touch for years - you have to wait 3 years before coming back to an NCCAT seminar. We are already planning a reunion for July 2012 - next time we are meeting at the Ocracoke campus...

Moving Forward...

I took some steps today - back, but forward. Back into the swing of our old lives, so I / we can start moving forward again. I am making myself type this with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, because it's time. I reread one of my favorite quotes today..."Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle." --Plato It is SO true of so many of my close friends yet they are the kindest people I know. This Blog was my New Year's Resolution - but then I just couldn't. There were more important things to do. Trips to the hospital, to rehab, therapy, healing - I just couldn't. Now I have come to realize that I have to - because life will never be the same, she will never be the same, I will never be the same...and I need to share some of those things. I'm still not used to not being able to call her all day long - it's hard during the summer. I used to call her before I was even out of bed most of the time. I still find it hard just to get out of the bed sometimes...I'm not being melodramatic - it's just that I think life has changed the most (most dramatically) for her and for me, and it is still a shock to my system at times.

So about today - we took some steps back into the swing of our old lives and the kids and I went to youth group...had a little Madness fun. It was just what we needed - to be surrounded by our friends and great kids. These are a bunch of people who have loved our crazy kids since before the existed - and love them even more when they do REALLY crazy things like pee in their shorts! And I needed to see that there's a part of my life that is marching forward, that IS staying the same. And that's the love and support of our Awesome friends!

Nightmare

So I thought that all of the deaths I (we) had suffered this past year had been horrible, with some of them being somewhat expected and some of them being sudden. With the ages ranging from a young girl of 8 years old to the ripe old age of 89 years old, these losses all rocked our world on one level or another. But not one of them ROCKED me like I was ROCKED on Monday, January 5, 2009.

My mom went in for a routine heart catheteration. Based on the results she may have needed a ballooning procedure or a stint. Unfortunately during the heart cath procedure, she SUFFERED A STROKE!! So a quick 1/2 hr procedure turned into HOURS of waiting for me. After hearing NOTHING for hours, I texted my dad, then called him. He then told me the news. I immediately left my school, called Jay, drove to his school to pick him up (so he could drive me - thank goodness it is close, because I was in NO state to drive!) We drove straight to the hospital and by the time we got there, mom had been stabilized in the CICU. She was sedated, on a ventilator and they had completed all surgeries. They were able to go in and 'clean up' as much as they could in the brain, they were hoping to treat what was left with meds. As far as assessing damage - it was in the left side of her brain, therefore the right side of her body is affected. As well as speech and understanding.

That day, Monday was horrible, horrific, tragic, numbing, there really aren't words...she was trapped within herself. I knew she was in there, I knew she could hear us, but she couldn't respond, talk, could barely squeeze with her GOOD hand. All I could do was tell her it would be okay, that we would get through this...and when I kissed her goodbye / goodnight and told her I'd be back in the morning she nodded her head, ever so slightly. HOPE!