Gen X Y Z

I am a GenX-er and my daughter is a Millennial... I guess my son is a GenZ-er...

Kinda cray-cray...

Eleven years ago

I found this old entry I wrote when Janie was about 9 months old... Over eleven years ago!!!

10.12.2004 @ 10:57 am

everyday



janie is growing more and more curious every day. she can even stand up by herself now! well, maybe that isn't exactly correct... i have to stand her up, but she can stand there once someone else stands her up. understand?

she is also getting closer and closer to standing on her own literally. she will pull up to her knees. or she will put her hands down in front of her and straighten out her legs so that she is bent in an upside down "v". i keep worrying that she is going to topple over head first, but as far as i know, that has yet to happen.

she is getting more and more beautiful everyday.

Apparently I had an aversion to using any capital letters when I was blogging back then.  It is so very strange to look back at entries from my old blog. It goes from 2004 to this year. Thorough the births of 2 children and two marriages. Through 2 c-sections (one very uneventful and another almost too eventful). Through 3 different jobs and a hundred different friends.

There are so many things that are different, but yet so many things are the same... It doesn't make me sad to read through my old entries, but it does make me feel as though I have grown. Grown as a teacher, as a wife and especially as a mother. It has a been an amazing journey so far and I can't wait to see where it goes next!!

The worst students

So... I got in trouble for my behavior during our Google group hang out this past Thursday evening. It was the first time I had been successful in joining a hangout (Internet issues all summer at my house) and I found the draw feature while the meeting was going on. I didn't realize everyone in the meeting would be able to see what I was doing. 

I promise I meant no harm in what I was doing. I eluded to this in the post I made with the image from the Google Hangout from last week.

I am very excited to be a part of this group and I hope I have not caused any problems for anyone. I received an email from a group member (kind of like the team-leader actually -- much more seniority in the group than I have) that berated me any my actions. I was out to eat with my husband, son and father-in-law when I received the email (not exactly what I wanted to read in the middle of my meal) two days after the meeting.  I hope to be able to continue as a part of this (in my view) prestigious group. This is what I honestly believe God put me on this Earth for - to teach kids about computer science. I have never been this happy as a teacher before. 

I honestly hope they know I did not mean any harm, and I especially did not mean to hinder anyone from being able to pay attention or to receive help during the meeting (which is what I was accused of doing in the email). My personality is not that of a "normal" teacher; I have always felt more comfortable in a programming shop or in my computer lab at school than I ever have been in a normal classroom. 

This whole incident has caused me to feel anxiety whenever I see an email in my inbox about anything to do with the CS project from this summer.  It's ridiculous and I hope it goes away soon...

I guess teachers can be the worst students sometimes...

I didn't realize until I was in my twenties that I actually love to learn. I had already graduated from college and was working as a programmer and I couldn't get enough knowledge. I would read anything and everything I could on the Internet (this was in 2001 so that net was still young but not in its infancy -- kinda like a rebellious teenager -- everything looked kinda off and CSS was just coming to the forefront of web programming which was helping everything finally become more polished and professional). Up until that point learning had been my job. I was a student and had been since I was 5 in kindergarten. I learned something new every day and I took it for granted. I never looked at it as something I should be grateful for.

Now, I am absolutely grateful that I had wonderful teachers in elementary and high school, and college. Some of the teachers that taught me are the ones I currently work with now. (Some of them are teachers I never had, and I am grateful that I didn't have to sit through them lol)

I hope that both of my children are as blessed as I was in school. Having a bad teacher can change your life. If someone doesn't believe in you, or someone is mean just for the sake of being mean, that can color your judgement of learning and can change your entire life. I want to be a positive influence. I hope I have been over the past 11 years.

Back to school

Today I start my 12th year teaching. This is the first time I have not come home from school on the 1st day back and not been exhausted.

It probably has something to do with me not smoking anymore... Or the 75 pounds I have lost since January...

Yeah, that's probably it.

Happy Birthday to my baby Si! I cannot believe he is already 2... And Janie started middle school today... They are both going to be grown before I know it....

friends

I have realized lately that because of the changes in my life (my divorce, my marriage, the birth of my son, among others that I can’t right now place) I have gone from being a very popular friend, to having very few, if any, friends at all.

Honestly, this scares the crap out of me.

I have watched my mother be friendless almost her entire adult life. She spends virtually all of her time now taking care of her parents (my grandparents – one with Alzheimer’s and the other with more physical maladies that I can fit into one blog post). The days she is not there, she is working part-time for the health department helping mothers who are on the WIC program learn how to feed their children with allergies and sicknesses that I hope to never have to understand. Her best friend in my sister. She takes the time every now and then to make a trip to visit my sister and her family (which is about 3 hours away) and it gives her a nice break from being the sole caregiver for my grandparents.

I don’t want to be like her one day.

I can name four people I consider my true friends. Each I have known for over 10 years. I don’t talk to any of them every day.

I realize that there are people who once were a part of my life that no longer are because the only time they reach out to me is when they want something from me. I don’t care to be someone who is taken advantage of because of certain skills I possess. The people (some of them in my extended family) that I have chosen to exclude from my everyday life because of their snobbish behavior are assuredly not worried that I don’t include them in my inner circle. If they were, they would make more of an effort to be a part of mine and my children’s lives. I absolutely hope and pray that I raise both Janie and Si to be better people than some of the adults they encounter.  

Way too fast

I was laying on the bed next to Si as he was sleeping. Today we took him to the doctor for his 6 month check up and for his shots. He's been a little fussy this afternoon but that's to be expected.

I looked over at Jason and asked him, 

"Would you think I was crazy if I told you I wanted to have another baby?"

"No. I love kids. You know that Leigh," was his response. 

Maybe it's the latent pregnancy hormones or the antidepressant that's talking. I don't quite know.

But I do know this...

He is growing up way too fast...