Happy Birthday Tiana (and an update on my busy week)

     A year ago today, my beautiful daughter came into this world at 7:04pm. It was such a wonderful day. Her birth was so peaceful (no, I am not lying). Her entrance to the world was accompanied by Bob Marley. I recall hearing, "Stir it up, little darling," right as she was placed in my arms. We bonded instantly. She took to nursing like a champ and pretty much never let go for the next 9 months. Haha. We snuggled for hours.  That night was much less peaceful, and as I sleep peacefully tonight with blood pulsing through my veins, I will again thank God for the life I am so very grateful to have.   :-)

     I was looking back on my blog about the experience, and you know, not that much has really changed. She is, of course, a beautiful toddler now, who is walking and talking (okay, sort of) and has quite the personality, but she still loves to cuddle (so much more than Vinny ever did). She is still very tolerant of her affectionate big brother, who is also still utterly in love with her. He still showers her with kisses. Well, except for when she makes a mad dash for his room. He has decided as of late that he does not want her in his room, especially while he listens to music. He plays it so loud, it is probably better if she is not in there, but of course she wants to be in there most when he is listening to music.  

     Ah... my kids. Hard to believe I have been a mother of two for a whole year. While I almost cannot even remember what it was like without her, there are still times I am in disbelief of the fact that I have kidS. Not kid- KIDS. Whoa.

     Funny, in my blog on September 26th last year, I talked about how hard it was to slow down enough to recover from a baby, because I am so used to having "a full stovetop of pots all boiling at the same time and 100 deadlines looming in the distance." Sounds about right. I am certainly back to normal now. Lots of pots boiling, lots of deadlines looming in the distance. I ran into a friend tonight and she mentioned that she hadn't read my blog in a while... and I confirmed that I hadn't posted one. Just too busy. Such a busy week. I felt like I was just "go go go" this week.  


    It was a fun week though. Vinny had his first soccer game. They didn't win, but I think he had fun. He must have, since he has been looking forward to this week's practice and game all week. Perhaps he will start to actually get the hang of the game itself soon. :-) 

I actually stood on the desk to take this picture.
Wasn't even thinking about the article when I did it.

Fun lessons this week too. I read this article last week about "Why Every Teacher Needs to Get on the Desk," and a random idea at the end of it gave me an idea. The idea in the article was for math, but I figured it could be applied to a literature discussion. I wrote discussion questions on balloons and decided to combine this idea with a Kagan structure my students are already used to- stand up hand up pair up. Basically, we played "musical balloons."  When the music was on, they tossed the balloons all over the place. When it stopped, they grabbed a balloon and paired up. They discussed the questions with their partners, using the book we are studying, Persepolis. 




I love teaching. Even if it is the most exhausting career I could ever imagine....