Long time, no blog

It's been a busy week but it's also been a good week. I've felt good and the kids haven't gone out of their way to make me extra crazy.

Monday, I left from school (with only Beth with me) to drive an hour and a half to a funeral home. A co-worker's father had died and I really felt like I needed to make an appearance at the visitation, at least. Beth didn't grumble too much about being kidnapped, although I'm sure she'd rather to have been at home on myspace. I handed her the mapquest directions and made her responsible for telling me where to turn. She did pretty well...better than I'd expected anyway. I let her choose the snack and fast food dinner of her choice to make the trip a little more fun. We also worked on that geometry project along the way. (She had to photograph examples of geometric concepts that we could find in the world. Like we used a picture of a tire to represent a circle. The Target logo was an example of concentric circles.) So, we had some fun and some bonding time. It was well worth the effort.

Wednesday was the fund-raising walk-a-thon for my school. (For those without kids in elementary school - Rather than sell overpriced, useless crap, the kids ask people to sponsor them. They can pledge a flat rate or a certain amount per lap the child walks/runs.) I tend to dread those days ahead of time but enjoy them once we get to it. Beth ditched school to come help. (And it ended up being an excused absence because she had a doctor's appointment that afternoon.) A good time was had by all. Beth and I are both sunburned. The kids had fun. We had fun. Another success!

I was expecting a regular school day today but got a little surprise. As I was starting my day with the kids, our literacy coach came into my room and announced that one of our school assistants was on her way to cover my class. The principal had chosen me (for whatever reason) to do an audit of all the classrooms in the school and look for classroom items/teaching practices that we are all supposed to be using. I was to go in every classroom and look for the four items on a checklist. I hate doing things like that but didn't have a choice. And, other than now being really behind in what I need to get taught this week, I enjoyed having a break from my students and our routine. Luckily, the checklist was fairly simple and no teachers really griped at my presence, as has happened with others chosen for similar tasks.

I had a four-hour foster parent inservice tonight on the administration of medication to kids in state custody. I dreaded it all day but it wasn't too bad. As I pulled in the parking lot, I spotted the truck of one of my favorite foster dads in our county. (He and his wife take kids with medical needs. We have traded off respite and child care since we are each used to the issues with special needs kids.) Anyway, I enjoyed catching up with him and met a new foster father who seemed pretty cool, too. He's an Air Force recruiter and has great people skills. It was a nice evening with adult conversations, even though the actual training was all stuff I already knew. Just for fun, I took the post test while waiting for the class to start and got them all right. Waste of time? Yes. However, it was required and I'm glad to cross it off my to-do list.

Tomorrow is Friday. It's been a long week and I'm ready for the weekend. Elvis hasn't slept well all week. We've all (except Cori, of course) taken our turns with him at night. Alli finally took him to the doctor today just to get me off her back. One of his ears it still infected. The doctor prescribed his 3rd round of antibiotics and said if this one doesn't clear it up, we'll have to bring him in every day for 3 days for Rocephin injections. I'm hoping this one works. And, I really hope he sleeps tonight because I really want to sleep tonight.