Logan and his friends in Cubscouts in Founder's Day Parade
Awwwwwww Mom!
Awesome seats!
Me attempting a pic with them not cooperating
Me taking their pic without them knowing it
Too cool Logan
1st day of school (they fixed their own hair)
Garrett's favorite food (pic taken for school project)
Auntie KK, Logan, and Garrett at Zio'sWell I'll just warn you this may be a longish post as I have some catching up to do and I'm feelin a little wordy. It's amazing I have any words left as I spent the whole day talking. I took on a new challenge in my life and today was my 1st day to put it into practice. My alma mater, Oklahoma Baptist University, called me a few weeks ago about the possibility of me being an adjunct clinical faculty for their nursing students needing a pediatric clinical experience. I had this same offer 3 yrs ago but was quite pregnant and not really in a position to take on that responsibility. This year however seemed like a great time for something new and exciting so I said yes! Well I shouldn't have been surprised when they asked me for my resume and official application but I must admit I haven't even thought about my resume in about 8 yrs. I begged my poor husband to help me as he is the one current in these endeavors and we sat down to a long Saturday afternoon at the computer. At first all I could seem to come up with were my achievements as a mother as that's what I've worked on for the past 8 yrs but eventually with the help of my college memorabilia box, I remembered I was once quite accomplished in my field. Anyhoo, we pulled together a respectable resume, list of references, and completed the application which required my statement of faith (easy) and my philosophy on higher education (not so easy)!! It wasn't too anxiety producing as I really already had the job. After all they pursued me but of course I wanted it to look good. So adjunct clinical instructor I now am and our first day was today. WOW, how I've forgotten how much I used to not know. My students are 1st semester nursing students so they are green as it gets. I have always loved to teach so this is a good fit for me. I had a good time but boy am I tired. I have 8 students in my group and I oriented them to 3 different clinical areas so we were busy.
But on to more intersting happenings. School is well underway and just when I thought we had weathered the storms of back to school and were sitting pretty with great teachers and children who were thriving under their instruction we get the letter. Logan came home from school today with news that he was getting a new teacher and a letter informing us in no certain terms that is was true. Well as any normal parent would react, we were shocked and frustrated and to be honest angry. You see, Logan's teacher is leaving to be the new librarian/media specialist and when we are reasonable we can be happy for her. However our frustration stems from the fact that this position has been knowingly vacant since prior to the start of school so why was this decision not made then. It seems to me that is would have made more sense to start the school year with a librarian in place and a teacher who would stay with the kids, rather than getting them all used to a great teacher only to out of the blue say, Oh yeah, today you are getting a new teacher! Now you are saying, Traci you need to be reasonable, I am sure there is some good explanantion for all this but I am telling you as a mother I don't want to be reasonable!! This is my child and we were happy with the way things were. So if there is so better explanation that what came home in that letter I'd sure like to hear it!!!! Moving on.....................
Garrett is good. We are working diligently to teach him his letters and sounds b/c when we attended kindergarten orientation a few weeks ago his teach informed us that thanks to a new curriculum they have adopted this year, they will be teaching 2 levels above what has previously been the primary school level. This means in no uncertain terms that they should come into kindergarten knowing their letters and sounds. Well long story short we are already behind. It was so easy with Logan as he is our studious child. Garrett on the other hand is carefree and not really interested in letters and sounds. Despite that we are making progress and we hope someday he will read :)
Addi Grace is status quo, hoping to get that girl in dance soon. She is very into ballerinas right now and loves to dance. Should be a natural! We are enjoying our days just us girls while the boys are at school. Our favorite thing to do is of course shop so we may have to find another past time as this is getting expensive fast. She can be a good little helper when she wants to be. Why just yesterday she was cleaning the toilet with her bubba's toothbrush (don't tell him, I changed it without him knowing).
Happy Birthday to me! Another year has come and gone for me as of last Friday. It was pretty much just another day as birthdays seem to be at this age. We did go out as a family Friday evening to Bricktown and got to take my baby sis with us. We had a lovely dinner at Zio's out on the patio as the weather was delightful. We then spent the evening riding the boats on the canal and visiting all the exciting places like the land run statues, Bass Pro, etc, etc. The kids had fun so I did too! I did get a great little treat the following day though. Some of our awesome friends gave Mark and I 2 tickets to the 1st home game for OSU. Now I have never been to an OSU game so we jumped at the chance. Mark's parents came and stayed with the kiddos so we left around noon and made a day of it. The game was at 6:00 pm so it was really late before we got home but a great game and we won, the best part! We were on the 3rd row from the field so we could practically feel the sweat! It was amazing to see it all in person and be so close to the action.
So as you can see things around here are crazy busy but running smoothly. I am up to full doses of my medicine which still makes me feel crummy at times but nothing incapacitating so for that I am truly grateful. As this whole process started one of my biggest fears was that I would feel bad to the point that I wouldn't be able to keep up my regular duties. That certainly hasn't been the case so I hope it only gets better from here. When I get tired I get bone tired and I ache all over which is definitely a common side effect but I haven't let it stop me. Ironically when I ache the most some mornings the more I get around and do the quicker I feel better. Imagine that!
As usual I will now attempt to download some pictures so we'll see how that goes.
