life begins.

my neice is 12. ugh. do i need to say anything more? 12!! what was i doing at the age of 12? do i want to go back and remember that?

well i was in the 7th grade i think. so i was in middle school, playing volleyball after school, playing basketball after school (for some reason... ha i am awful at basketball) hanging out with friends. loving life. boys.

does she have a 'boyfriend?' i wonder... she says no, but did i admit that i had a 'boyfriend?'

hormones. oh hormones.

friends. i had a new group of friends. some old ones from elementary, some new friends that i met from other elementary schools. life seemed to be beginning.

i feel old. my once little neice is 12. i stopped keeping track of her age at i think 7 maybe 8. i don't want her to grow up. i do, but i don't. i do. i want to know what she's going to be like when she's in high school. i want to know what she's going to do after high schoool, what will her career be? I can't even imagine what my sister is thinking. ha. better her than me though.
next year i will be the aunt of two teenagers. ohhh goodness. i don't have kids so i don't even know the emotions or thoughts of a parent. i just know that when you're a teenager 'your life begins'

Sunday. Oh sundays. Tomorrow is Monday and that means back to work. In case you haven't heard, I thought I would fill you all in on my experience that I had about a week ago.....

8:00am- I'm working with 4 second graders on reading. I have another 2nd grader working on reading a book by herself, because she's been reading it all week and is about to be tested on it when I'm finished with my group.

8:30- My group is about finished, they are working on their independent work and i call her over and have her read a page, i read a page. I ask questions as we go along.

*Let me tell you here that this little girl is so sweet and spunky. She reminds me of my neices, sweet yet sassy. She loves attention, she loves hugs. She's in my room 3 out of 4 hours. She doesn't brush her hair. what 8 year old does right? to make it more obvious, i love her.

ok, so as our reading starts and about comes to an end, i think she's giggling on the table, because she's so spunky and silly, but in the matter of seconds (which felt like forever) she is not giggling on the table, she's collapsing. she quickly (but felt like slow motion) falls to the floor. unresponsive. i go into teacher/mother mode. i quickly get my radio, call the principal for help, run next door, get the other spec. ed teacher. my assistant is on the floor with her trying to get her to respond. i am down there rubbing her arm and holding her hand. assuring her that she's ok even though she's not responding. i can feel her muscles tensing up. she finally opens her eyes slightly. she's like a waking child, not sure whats going on, shes scared and wants to cry but can't. i start telling her she's ok and that noone is here, just her and i and my assistant. i start asking 21 questions. it may seem like an hour has gone by, but it's been a mere 5 minutes. The principal isn't sure who is calling for help because apparently I didn't state my name while calling for help., so i get a call on the PA in my room asking if it's me that needs help. seconds later i have a principal, assistant principal, nurse, and secretary in my room. Once the nurse takes over, i can feel myself about to cry. i asked if i can be excused for a second. actually i think i said "i need to use a break card" thats what my students use. they tell me to go take a walk down to the kindergarten rooms because no one is in there.

as i walk out of my room, my eyes well up with tears and as soon as i see the other spec ed teacher out there, i let it all out. as i'm being comforted, i start to tell her that i thought she was going to die. that was my first thought. how can i let this happen in my classroom? what could i have done better. i take a moment to walk to one end of the hallway and then back down to see whats happeing.

i meet them in the nurses office. shes sitting in a wheelchair. lathargic. trying to sip applejuice. tired. not looking at anyone. as her mom comes in and gets her, i wish her well and assure her she's going to be fine. but is she?

i get a call back from her doctor asking what happened and it seems as though shes had a seizure. we still haven't received all the test results. she hasn't actually received all the testing.

my first year has been one heck of a first year. it started off with small things and now we are at this experience. i don't want to know whats in store for me next. but i know that God isn't going to give me something that i can't handle. maybe this was a practice. i can only hope that my first year ends on a good note. i have about 2 months left. to be cont....

"and I just want to point this out..."

workshops. ugh. some of them are ridiculous. the reading workshop i've been attending once or twice a month, for the past 3 months has really been worth my while. to make a long story short, today was my last day. 830am test. what have i learned from this seminar? the leader of the class says "and I just want to point this out, amanda smallwood made the most growth from her pre-test to her post test and she received the highest score out of the class" my face goes red. i won a packet of nerds. apparently i am a nerd. i'm fine with that. what did i miss on the test? well to make another long story short, i second guessed myself. i choose an answer, then scribbled it out and wrote "no" next to it. ugh. seriously? i do this all the time. why? don't know. ugh. but whatever, i still did awesome. 99% .

if you're a teacher and reading this you get it... i hope. i've been teaching in my own room since August and i guess have doubted myself a few times. am i doing this right? i've not been trained in any of these programs. are my students truly learning? i had great ideas and they've failed before, how do i make these kids learn? their quarterly tests aren't showing much growth (granted its on grade level and most of them can't read on grade level) but i guess what i'm saying is, i felt really good today after receiving my test back. i got a lot of great ideas from this seminar that i can hopefully use and hopefully they work. fyi, just because i'm a first year teacher doesn't mean i don't know what i'm doing. i may not get it right the first time, but i will eventually get it.

to wrap this all up with a random ending, i felt so good about my test that i came home and worked out a little bit! made homemade lasagna, went up to my classroom (since i haven't been there since Saturday) then came home and made cinnamon rolls, ate two of them (totally defeating the purpose of working out) but whatever i did awesome on my test!

random

Post #2, wow. I was thinking today "I have a blog. I wonder how this is going to go." Everytime I sign on and view my blog, I smile the minute I hear "You" by Rascal Flatts. That's our wedding song :) I'm so excited for our big day. Excitement from the engagement leads to overwhelming feelings as you try to pick out what is known as the "perfect dress." Then the overwhelming feelings move to prices as you try to decide what vendors to go with. I'm not a big shopper so I felt like I could've gone with the firsts of everything. Now here I am with about 4 months to go and I am still not done planning. It's the one thing in life that you do once. I want to make sure that everthing is perfect. Things still left to plan or figure out: programs, centerpieces (kinda,) shoes, hmmm maybe that's it! woo hoo!!

Randomness, but I got so sun burned today. Please do not have a pity party. My previous white pasty face is now red like a tomato. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

And lastly, my other random comment. My nephew who will be 3 in about 9 days had to have a tooth pulled. He knocked it a couple times while playing and the first time was ok, the dentist said it would tighten up if he didn't hit it again, but luck has it that he hit it again. Dr. Dan put some numbing gel on it and pulled it out with no tears from the lil guy. his daddy put it under his pillow. tooth fairy showed up and left a whole dollar! little morgan thought to money was going to be under every pillow that morning :) poor guy. he has yet to learn that money doesn't grow on trees or under pillows.

Well welcome to my blog. I'm not sure how good this is going to be, but I thought I would give it a shot. I figure that emails aren't this colorful and if you don't want to read about my daily/weekly/monthly happenings or thoughts, then you don't have to. Since I am in my own world down here I thought this would be a fun way of keeping in touch. Plus Brian's sister has a blog and her writing is so creative and fun to read... keeping high hopes for mine :)


I really don't have anything exciting today. I went to school to figure out new centers for my self contained kids because my classroom is chaotic, went to Brian's basketball game for little kids, layed on a towel outside, grocery shopped, now I'm sitting here with the windows still open. ahhh nice weather. Tomorrow, probably cleaning, then laying out on the towel. the same one. my white skin hasn't seen sun for a long time. gross. pasty.

I don't know how my mind went to my new food chopper, but it did. My first Pampered Chef purchase. A food chopper. I chopped cucumbers and green peppers for my salad. Trying to eat healthy. The burrito I ate with it probably defeated the purpose, but hey, it's a start.

ok, enough with my randomness. Brian just said "wow, this is going to be the mandy blog isn't it?" I don't know what that means.