Thee You on the Thee Thaw, Thindy

Anyone who knows me knows I'm an avid Brady Bunch fan. And I can totally relate to the struggles of Cindy "Thindy" Brady. I too had a bit of a lisp, struggling to pronounce my "S's" correctly. I had speech therapy in third and fourth grade, although, to be fair, I faked in in the fourth grade, recognizing the benefits of a 20 minute break 2x per week outside the classroom and including stickers and small, motivating prizes.

Speech therapy is not a new concept to me either. My brother George had ST and my brother Nick went to an early intervention preschool. In fact, Mr. Busypants started therapy at the ripe young age of 21 months. You name it--he had it. ST, OT, DT, DT/ST play groups, ST parenting groups. From 21 months to 3 years, we had quite the full schedule.

Now Jorie is approaching 3 and although she appears to be more than normal in her milestones (although her wardrobe choices, not so normal), she stutters.

This is not a big deal to me. It is what it is. But if I can do something to help her correct this problem early on, then I'm going to face it head on like I did with an admittedly scarier diagnosis of autism.

I called the school to schedule preschool screening and I'll read up on stuttering. For now, all I can do is be patient and listen as she struggles to get her points across. Believe me, she has many points to convey!

I Love Mommy, I Love Numbers

I know this is late, but here's my Valentine's Day Card. It looks like I rank above the numbers, so that's a relief since we know how much he loves his numbers.

Jorie is a Beast

Now before you judge me, let me explain that Jorie has been obsessed with Disney's Beauty and the Beast for a couple of months. What's worse, my husband Scott put the Beauty and the Beast sound track in MY car (although that has recently backfired on him as my car is now his car).

One can only be expected to sanely listen to a kid movie and soundtrack so many thousand times before they go insane. That's where re-wording songs come in handy.

Soon, the lyrics,
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
Beauty and the Beast become


Fingers full of grime
Whining all the time
Jorie is a Beast

The Leprechaun

Let's Get This Potty Started Right Now!

This morning my neighbor and I took Jorie, aka Miss Chattyshoes, and her spunky side-kick Miss Sassypants to the Wal-Mart down the street to do some serious potty shopping. Sweetie Girl, the little girl my neighbor babysits a few days a week, was also there.

Each girl excitedly picked out her dream seat: Jorie went for the princessy pink Fisher-Price royal throne, while Miss Sassypants opted for the Elmo seat. We also picked up an array of rewards ranging from bubble rings to lip gloss and nail polish to stick-on earrings to sweeten the deal.

On the way home, we stopped at the Sonic drive-thru for an enormous cup of Cherry Limeade, which we filled sippy cups with once we got back and unloaded the new chairs. I ran home to get a spare chair so that Sweetie Girl wouldn't be left out (although she's the youngest of the three--younger than Jorie by one day--she is the only one with pee-pee on the potty on her resume.

We loaded each girl up with a sippy cup and a book and sat them in a row in my neighbor's kitchen and waited for the action to begin. We even had two babies sitting on their potties among them.

Sweetie Girl was the first to go. We vigorously applauded like we had just sold a time-share to the first sucker in the room and Sweetie Girl picked out her prize--a highly coveted piece of gum.

Miss Sassypants kept announcing she'd gone, but every time my neighbor checked, she was met with an empty bowl. After she cried potty for the um-teenth time, my neighbor took her time making yet another check. We were elated to find a full bowl.

On we cheered as Miss Sassypants turned Jorie green with envy over her potty prize, a bubble ring.

Jorie jealously sat by as Miss Sassypants celebrated making pee pee with blowing bubbles.

I went into the other room and heard a faint royal chime in the background. I almost missed it. Jorie stood up to find her own full bowl. We celebrated with a bubble ring and each girl got herself a full mani-pedi for their successes.

Jor-Lo and her Cutie Pants

Mr. Busypants Loves Numbers

Mr. Busypants is in the middle of a love affair with numbers. No kidding! He writes numbers all day, every day.

It started a week before Christmas. He was tired and sitting in the shopping cart at Walmart. I was buying a notebook for one of my classes and as Mr. BP flipped through it, he found a piece of graph paper that he had to have--IMMEDIATELY.

I pulled the piece out and gave him a pencil and he shouted in delight: "Number Scroll." Then he started writing.

In first grade, one of the requirements is for students to write from 1 to 1,000. They're given ten sheets of paper that have 100 squares on it and when they're finished, they tape the sheets of paper together and attach them to a card-board tube from a roll of paper towels.

By the time we finished in line, Mr. Busypants was up to 34.

We stopped at Milettes to pick up a late dinner. When we left, he was mid-100.

By bed time he'd hit 300.

He took a pencil to bed with him and by the time I went to bed, he was in the 600s. I didn't bother stopping him; there are certain things that just have to run their course.

In the morning he was beyond 1,000 and ready to present his quickly filling piece of graph paper to the class.

Did you know there are 1,500 squares on a piece of graph paper? 1,497 if the paper is punched for a notebook.

To date, his number scroll is in the 11,000s, I think. He's moved on to other number projects, but that's another blog post.

Mr. Busypants loves numbers!

I Want to Be Blogging Again!

Not blogging leaves a void, that's for sure. I watch my kiddos do the quirkiest things, and all I want to do is write about their adventures.

The last several months have been tough. I've just been in over my head with all the teaching I've been doing. I taught five classes in the fall--seven if you count the two summer classes that overlapped into the first three weeks of September. I also lead a women's depression group at my church, which actually fed into my own depression over the constant busyness. Something had to give and even though blogging is fun for me and something I want to make a priority, some times even the best things in life need to be put aside for a time. I just couldn't cram another activity into my brain.

This spring I'm pretty much in the same position. I have eight classes on my schedule (although one is done and another is about to end; then two more will end in three weeks--so there's an end in sight.) I'm also taking a grad class at a local university. I know, that's insane, but the tuition was cheap and the content is awesome--everything I do in the class is basically curriculum I'll deliver in writing classes I teach, so it's just a way to force me to make some improvements to my classes and gives me peer and instructor support.

But here are some things I can't WAIT to blog about:

• Mr. Busypants and his number scrolls
• Mr. Busypants and his love affair with the clock
• Jorie and her love for all things princess
• Jorie and her love for nail polish
• The sucker bandit and other sneaky adventures
• First grade and PDO (parent's day out, aka school for Jorie) updates
• Creating cartoons online

Looking forward to getting myself back online. I'm really gonna try. :)