Here's another installment of 3 Up, 3 Down. As usual, I will start with a down so that I can end with an up (me being the ever optimist *cough*).


1 Down - Kindergartners and the bathroom

They have me. The kindergartners at phys ed. time are constantly asking to go to the bathroom. They're probably just wanting to walk around the big hallways all by themselves, and I should probably limit how often they can go, but who am I kidding? Would you take that chance? Better to have 3/4 of the class in the bathroom than to clean up one mess. Maybe I should tell them there's a boogie man in the hallways?

Nah, they'd probably just wet themselves.


1 Up -Prolife Walk

We had a prolife walk in Tisdale yesterday. The weather was nice and the walk up and down main street actually hit up a lot of traffic! Further, Joseph stole half of the door prizes, so we came away with a pretty good haul.


2 Down - Attendance

Sadly the attendance at these events continues to struggle. Didn't Pope Francis say something about warning those obsessed with the abortion debate to also preach other areas of the Gospel? Now obviously Pope Francis is talking about a very necessary balance when preaching and living the Gospel. The true Christian needs this balance. Nevertheless, where are these "obsessed" people? The obsession these days is with... Social Justice baby! SJ all the way! Just leave the unborn out of it. Right?


2 Up - Hockey

The NHL begins this week! I believe my Montreal Canadiens are once again favoured to win the Stanley cup this year. Oh wait, this isn't 1958. Well, anyway, we'll give it our best shot this year. And if nothing else, we'll be a lot tougher to play against with this beauty joining our lineup:

3 Down - Stewardship

So, according to our homily this Sunday, the readings with Lazarus and heaven and hell were actually all about stewardship. Really. And we're all supposed to get involved with the Church and join the never-ending list of ministries in order to be fully involved. Can you say obsessed?


3 Up - Fall

Changing leaves. Fall winds. Crispy sunny air. Barbecued ribs. It's nice to have fall. Needless to say, we're really enjoying this time of year!

Dead Birds

Just a random piece of useless information:

We had three dead birds by our window yesterday evening. There were another two this morning. Actually, one was still alive and in lots of pain (aka, it needed some help in being finished off, I thought a golf club was appropriate for the birdie). Thankfully I was able to get them all in the garbage can by the driveway before the garbage truck came by at noon. Five dead birds?!

Grandpa Blerot

It was a hectic week for us. It all started on Saturday night when we were informed, while making a visit in Saskatoon, that my Grandpa Blerot took a turn for the worse. On Sunday morning he passed away. We returned to Tisdale for two crazy days of preparing (and lesson planning for three days of subs), and then drove down to Redvers (5 hours) Wednesday morning and came back Thursday night. Here are a few thoughts on this past week:

- It's not a nice feeling not having a substitute teacher lined up when going away for three days. Thankfully my principal told me the night before to go anyway, and she would deal with it.

- Never leave your dress clothes on the hanger by the door. You will forget them.

- Back-tracking half an hour to go get your dress clothes makes an already long drive even longer.

- Wednesday night was the most prayerful prayer service I have ever been at.

- Playing organ and running a choir is a big responsibility, especially for Grandpa's prayer service and funeral. All went well! I can only imagine what the music would have been like if the local hippy choir did the Mass ("we put the 'fun' in funeral!"). Thankfully we'll never know.

- My sister Lynda sang the "Ave Maria" as best as I ever heard her on Thursday morning for the funeral.

- Can anything beat a congregation enthusiastically singing "Immaculate Mary" at the end of a Mass? There's just something about it that gets everyone going. Becca told me afterwards that Joseph also joined in loudly with the song.

- Eating sandwiches for four meals in a row combined with no exercise for two days and very little sleep is a bad combination. Needless to say, our usual go-to travel restaurant of Subway was bi-passed on Thursday night. We just couldn't handle anymore sandwiches. We caved in and went to the more expensive Boston Pizza in order to get some real food. No regrets.

- Thank you to the lady working at Boston Pizza who noticed Joseph was very miserable and hungry when we got there and promptly brought over a complementary order of fries for him. To be honest, I'm not sure if you were a lady or an angel.

- Living on a 77% salary is tough. It's great to have parents who generously footed the Wednesday night hotel bill.

- When building a hotel, do not open the hotel up for business until the parking lot is paved. People don't appreciate walking through slimy mud in their best suit in order to get inside the building. Also, mud on carpet really smells after a while.

- Wait for other people before driving to the cemetery for the burial. We were told to go the long way because the short way had a road closed. Well, we went the long way alright, and waited for others to join us. They never came. I guess the road wasn't closed afterall. Well we missed the cemetery portion, and, of course, tacked on an extra 55km to our trip. We seemed to do things the hard way this week. I blame a lack of sleep.

- Caving in and hooking up a laptop for Joseph to watch some videos during the drive basically saved our trip. I hope he doesn't cry too much when we next go on a trip and don't allow him to watch these videos.

- Finally, and very simply. I will miss you Grandpa Blerot. You taught me how to love Our Lady and always persevere in prayer. Grandpa couldn't really talk during the final years of his life. But he could always pray his rosary. You die as you live. Don't ever assume you will convert. You die as you live. Requiescat in pace.

"Baby in 'der"

While this news isn't exactly new, it hasn't been publicized online. Except for this little post which seems to have missed the eyes of interested readers. Either the only people who read this little blog already knew or those who didn't already know didn't read it or perhaps you didn't get it.

We're having a baby! To be more accurate: I'm having the baby, Dan takes some responsibility, and Joseph thinks he's having the baby!

"Baby in 'der"

I'm sorry, this is not a very flattering picture of Joseph. He really is much cuter than this, but it was first thing in the morning and he was walking around showing me the baby. 

When we told Joseph, before anyone else, that he was a big brother and we were going to have a baby, he immediately figured he was having a baby too. If you ask him where the baby is, he responds one of two ways: "Gone" or "Baby in 'der" pointing to his stomach. The first means he's too busy to talk about the question, the second the really believes. No surprise, either, because he looks a heck of a lot more pregnant than I do. On occasion, though, he likes to lift up my shirt to give the baby kisses and say "hello/bye baby."

I had to take it myself because we're just that organized.

See? There's the baby. You might not be able to tell, but I'm actually growing. Outgrowing my pants, unbuttoning my shorts, etc. I started out this pregnancy about 10 lbs lighter than I did with Joseph, so I figure all my crazy hunger and early too-tight pants are the result of needing to get back up there.

I'm 14 weeks pregnant and baby is due March 14th.

We are, of course, extremely excited and can't wait to have a new little one around. We are thrilled for Joseph to be a big brother and wonder whether it will be a little brother or sister that he will inevitably boss around 24/7. We are trying out names and with each new one test it out to see if Joseph can pronounce the name. So far, we haven't settled on any names! But we have some time... lots of time for a much bigger mama and a big brother to grow even more!

Retreat

Another quick update on life here.

Things are well here. I just spent the last two days on retreat. That's right, in the middle of my work week. The retreat had no Mass though. No adoration. No confession. In fact, it didn't even mention God once. Okl, the retreat was actually a "Welcome to the NESD" retreat (NESD is my school division). It was for all new teachers to the NESD. However, since I did not start with the NESD until last November, I technically am considered new, and thus had to go to this "retreat." Unfortunately it meant long hours of sitting (12 hours yesterday alone), and touched on pretty well everything I knew already (having already done report cards here, and booked subs, and filled out payroll information, and anything at all). So that was pretty dull. However, tomorrow will be full of excitement at school! We have a fire [Becca editing for Dan: He means a fire drill, not an actual fire. Haha!] scheduled for 11am, and it just so happens that I will be teaching kindergarten phys ed. at that time! What could possibly go wrong?

Anyway, I must help get Joseph ready for bed. Poor Becca's been doing all the work around here lately. Not that that's anything new.

Turning 2

Joseph turned 2 this week. Wow! Two!

We decided a long time ago that we needed to find him some kind of ride-on toy for his birthday. He has been asking and asking and asking for a bike all summer, but his feet still won't reach the pedals and we figured next summer would be better. So we turned to Toys R Us and Canadian Tire to find something else. And holy moly! Even the cheapest riding toys are in the range of $50 and not really that exciting or well-made. That's when I said a little prayer and decided to go garage-sale hopping!

And what do you know? We found this great little car for just $20.

But as Joseph was garage-sale shopping with me, he knew exactly what we bought and was totally thrilled. He played with the car all day and we moaned about how we could possibly hide it and have him forget for the next week until his birthday. We hid it that evening and headed to Grandma and Grandpa's for overnight and the next day. But low and behold, when we arrived home the following night, the first thing out of Joseph's mouth was, "were's car? were's car?" Telling him it was "gone" just didn't cut it as he became more and more worried. So we brought it up from the basement and had an ecstatic little boy again. He was so excited he wouldn't leave the car to eat or get changed or go to bed without a screech that first day. 

 We celebrated Joseph's birthday at Grandma & Grandpa's this past weekend with some of Dan's siblings and two of Joseph's cousins. I got it into my head a few weeks ago that I just had to make Joseph a Thomas the Tank Engine cake, seeing as he's been a little obsessed with the friendly blue engine of late. After a very difficult afternoon of battling with icing and food colouring (I need to get me some Wilton concentrated dyes!), I finally had a finished cake. But I didn't think it looked too much like the blue engine, so I decided to show Joseph in advance to see if he recognized him.

Me: "Joseph, who's that?" (showing cake)

Joseph: "Um, car?"

Me: "It's Thomas!"

Joseph: "Noooo!"

 

I convinced him it was his favourite little engine and from then on he was in love. "Thomas cake, Thomas cake," he chanted. He loved every bite of his two servings on his birthday and the following two nights. He wanted to show all his Ontario family the cake over Skype (repeatedly) and asked to eat some at every meal and in-between. One night, as I was putting him to sleep, he asked, "Thomas cake?" Um, isn't it your bedtime, little guy?! 

Joseph's other birthday favourite is a little toy farm from his Auntie Rheanne (his godmother). He is over the moon that all the little stalls make animal sounds. He has run to play with it first thing every morning and asked to take it on walks and to the park (requests that weren't fulfilled). We did give it a little washing the other day and, much to my horror, the sounds all stopped working. Yikes! Thankfully, over the past two days they've all started up again and the little farmer is very, very happy.

Joseph and Catherine. It took 3 pictures just to get them both looking, but this is as close to smiles as I got. Best of friends and worst of enemies, these two.

First Day of School

It was the first day of school today. How nice.
Yeah that was sarcasm. On the other hand, I feel like creating a meme with the words:

"I feel sorry for teachers who have to return to school after such a long break," said no one ever.

That's right, suck it up buttercup. Actually, I am thankful to be back at work. So is our bank account. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts from the day:

Kindergarten Chaos - I taught my first ever kindergarten classes today. Two classes of phys ed. Tomorrow I have the other two kindergarten classes for phys ed. But this wasn't just kindergarten, this was fresh, fresh, fresh kindergarten. This was their first day of school, ever. I walked into their classroom in the morning to go fetch them to the gym. What I saw was absolute chaos. The only thing I can describe it as is to think of Joseph, in one of his difficult I'm-not-going-to-pay-attention-to-you moods, x19. I wanted to yell at a bunch of them. I almost did. But then I remembered that this was their first day of school, and they don't really know any better. I'll leave the yelling for later in the week.

On the plus side I was introducing myself to one of the classes and a little boy blurted out: "I like you!" I responded by saying that I liked him too. But then another boy beside him one upped him by saying to me: "I love you!" Umm... "Thanks!" I responded.

I had the classes run three times around the gym. Some of the boys were just huffing and puffing and shouting to me: "this is *huff* fun!!!" Oh boys. Later on our game of "blob tag" turned into a game of running around the gym without any direction or purpose. I must be an awesome teacher.

Sarcasm again.

I'm not cut out for kindergarten.

Grade Five Fun - Then I got to teach a grade five class an hour each of phys ed. and arts. ed. This was by far the most fun. I instantly had a good connection with the class and we had a great time. It was interesting to see how they viewed me though. I had them guess my age. All the boys were guessing 23, 24, 25ish. The girls were guessing 37, 40, 50ish! I would guess that the boys will be getting better grades from me than the girls will.

Christmas Three - At the end of the day I taught an hour of grade three arts ed. They had a fun time as well. I can sense that their teacher will be spending a lot of time disciplining them this year (as will I). They would be what you call a "chatty" class. No big deal. I'll handle them.

At the end of the class I played "two truths and a lie" with them, where they guess which one of my three statements I make to them is a lie.. One of the points I stated was that I hated Halloween. The kids were all shocked, and almost unanimously voted that this was my one lie. But it wasn't. I do hate Halloween. They asked why. I said it was stupid, what with all these witches and warlocks and such. I told them I'm more of Christmas person. Then one shy little girl very seriously asked me why I was more of a Christmas person. I simply responded: "because of baby Jesus." She nodded very seriously in agreement and said: "yes, I am too."

So that was my first day of school. Amazingly I have all different class tomorrow, and another 100+ student names to learn. It'll be like another first day of classes again. How wonderful!

Sarcasm again.