Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

Roman has had to be woken up 3 out of 4 mornings this week to get rolling. We have to leave the house around 7:10 for me to make it to school by 7:40ish, which is the latest I would want to arrive once school starts. This is not going to be a pleasant year. I volunteered to be "on hand" for students who can have access to our building tomorrow for 2 hours, so at least Roman can sleep in a little. He was Sybil again tonight, sweet and cheery and then wham! spittin' nails at us. He threw a cat toy at me, scratched his daddy, kicked and fought. All this because it was bedtime. School is a mess. We were rehabbed this year as part of a bond issue passed a couple years ago. Brand new floors in all classrooms, fresh coats of paint on every wall (glorious white!), and new lighting. Air conditioning, too, and new windows. It's so bright and airy, and cool (within our 4-degree window of 68-72 degrees). On the other hand... we were told they wouldn't be truly done unt...

Day One of meetings. I giggle every time I remember that commercial for office supplies from some store, with the parents doing a coordinated happy dance-with-shopping-carts number to the song "Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Kids, of course, were dragging their heels after them. I feel that way about school supplies. Both Doug and I could spend hours in an office supply store just wandering the aisles and collecting stuff for our desks. It's wonderful. Today was back to school day for me, heralded by 6 hours of meetings. Followed by tomorrow's 6 hours of meetings. Our district is trying to get collaborative, and the buzz-letters are PLCs - professional learning communities. Or in other words, as Doug says, "starting to do what the business world has been doing for years now." The problem is, we're still talking. They aren't giving us time to DO what we need to do. We don't need 2 days of meetings about this, when we've heard it all last...

Roman is very proud of the fact that he's potty trained. He informed his Daddy of this tonight, while pointing to himself. Of course, we did have a half-accident; he "leaked" a little bit before running to us to say he had to go. He also did #2 on his own tonight with no help. We gave official notice to daycare this afternoon that Roman would be withdrawn. We talked to the director, who was very supportive. She actually admitted her own son went to the preschool we're transferring to! She said we'd be very pleased with it. Daddy and I want to do something nice for Miss Katie (we gave Miss Elaine a gift when we transitioned out of the Toddler room). I asked Roman what he thought she'd like. "A new necklace," he said, "... or a new train." How sweet and thoughtful. He says it like this - "neck-a-liss." I asked if he'd like to make one for her, like our cousin Sadie made a bracelet for him once. "Oh, yes... but I don...

It can be done! And Roman has proved it! We have gone all day, six days in a ROW, with only one accident - and that was during quiet time when he was told he couldn't get up. Oops. :) On Thursday afternoon, after Roman had 2 accidents at daycare, Daddy told Roman very frankly, "no more accidents. They are not allowed." Friday afternoon Roman and I happened to go to the new daycare, which we're now calling preschool, to pay the fee. The director spoke a lot to Roman about how he has to be in underwear and no accidents, etc. I think these two things combined put a fire under him. Consider the wonderful evidence: 1. Roman stayed dry the entire 2-1/2 hour trip to my parents', including informing us that he wanted to "stop at a gas station so I can use the potty." 2. Roman stayed dry the entire day Saturday at the youth fair, even when sidetracked by animals, rides, and his cousins Iris & Eli. 3. Roman rode a train home from my parents' and stayed dry...

Worn out. It's been a dramatic week work-wise, not even counting the 5-day inter-disciplinary unit myself and five others have thrown together in 6 hours - plus some typing time at home. On top of all the brain-busting (The New Deal: Relief, Recovery, Rhetoric, or Revolution? Discuss.) and networking, our principal jumped into the action by rearranging mine and a few other coworker's schedules for the school year. A lot. Not only my subjects, but hours have been shifted - most unhappily. And we have officially lost my mentee, who has been displaced to an elementary school. The drama in detail: Tuesday night was a board meeting, where final "counts" were taken of each school and the board decides if a school can hire any last-minute people. This is all done on per-hour basis, stupidly. West was given 0.4 FTE, or translated into 2 classes. We needed 1.0 to keep my mentee. So he's gone. Now my principal had to decide - add classes to part-timers, or hire some...

My alma mater has fired the president of the university, 8 months after extending her contract. I don't know what could have changed in 8 months when the official position is "enrollment has declined 15% in the three years of her tenure." They offered quite a nice little package to get her out but she refused, so they fired her. Apparently she's thinking about fighting the "wrongful" termination. I guess the only bright spot is that my beloved President, Diether Haenicke, has been named interim. Diether was prez when I attended and what I remember about him is what I think universities lack these days - I saw him walking on campus, he held open office hours a few times a month where kids could walk in and talk about anything that was on their mind, and I guess mainly that people KNEW him. Who he was, about his family, his love of Western. A good choice for the trustees to make. My thought about why enrollment is declining at WMU? The only news I receive is a...

Today's day of the History Grant was, as usual, mind-melting. Headache began about 1:30 and I had to take 3 Advil to get it under control. My brain has been laying wasted all summer, and what a jerk back to reality today was! Today's deep thoughts: Democracy, being an experiment, needs to be constantly tested. The Founding Fathers, knowing their history, knew that a republic will eventually decay; see Rome, et.al. Time is the enemy of a democracy. The way to analyze a democracy - whether it is "good" or "bad" - is to study what kind of culture it produces. What does it do for an individual person? Does it develop or prevent the full potential of a person? Finally, some discussion on character (under the auspices of Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter"). In today's society, one professor argued, we are more interested in personality than character; that is, we build ourselves from the outside in, instead of the inside out. To fight the decay of a d...

I like doing these. Thought it was interesting - and not at all surprising. Your Political Profile: Overall : 60% Conservative, 40% Liberal Social Issues : 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal Personal Responsibility : 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal Fiscal Issues : 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Ethics : 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Defense and Crime : 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

We have returned from two whirlwind weekends of camping. Last weekend we were at Yogi Bear's house in Frankenmuth with Grandma and Papa Van Eeuwen. We visited "the Christmas Store" (Bronner's) and the Cheese Haus downtown, played around the campsite, and went swimming a lot. Doug and I played a lot of Hand & Foot cards and are determined to practice at home to get better (and for me to learn how to add up the points!). This weekend we camped for the first time with our friends Mark & Jen and their 3 kids aged 3, 5, and almost-9. Roman hit it off best with the 5-year-old. We were at Sleeper State Park in Caseville, Michigan - in "the thumb." We had a great time... went to the beach, rode bikes, Roman got great at pedaling his Tigger bike. But the thing that took us by surprise was The Celebration. More specifically, the Cheeseburger in Caseville festival. It "celebrates the lifestyle and music made popular by Jimmy Buffett" according to t...

We are gearing up for Roman's return to full-time daycare. Most people don't understand why we take Roman to daycare during the summer, surprised that I wouldn't want to spend all day every day with him. To be honest, it's boring! Do other women find playing trains for 2 hours a day exciting? My mind melts after about 10 minutes, especially because Roman doesn't really want me to play with him... he wants me to do the voices for a few minutes, move a train around, and then just sit and be next to him. Or he tells me exactly how I should play. But woe to the person who decides to multitask while Roman does something, be it reading, coloring, Playdoh, trains, even a video. He pesters and whines, sometimes gets physical (launching himself onto your lap, or playing doggy). And when I am "game" for playing with him, he changes his mind every 5 to 10 minutes, never satisfied. It is annoying. I have noticed that at this age, it would be good to have a sibling in...

The scrapbooking world is slowly leaking onto "things" with the help of decoupage. A couple years ago at the scrap convention I attended, there was a store from Plainwell selling wood block "puzzle" kind of things that they decoupaged pretty papers & photos onto. Since then, I've seen more and more scrapbooking on everyday items - coasters, storage boxes, photo albums, all kinds of things which people want to personalize. Well, I finally did it. I picked up a couple cheap plastic binders that I'll need for the American History Grant & grad school, and thought I'd prettify the one for the grant. I had some Mod Podge, which works as both glue and sealer, grabbed some old 4th-of-July style paper that I hadn't used in a scrapbook lately, and had some fun. It turned out nice for a first project. A couple bubbles I should have smoothed out but not noticeable. Our house better watch out - I've got a ton of scrapbook paper and an almost-full bo...

Just wanted to post the link if you care to see the scrapbook pages I've done this summer. Three of them are 2-page spreads so I put them next to each other, so you can get an idea. Plus, you can get a glimpse of the infamous Miss Katie!

I completed requirements for my professional teaching certificate about a year ago, but why get it early when my provisional didn't expire until June? And so, upon completion of "18 semester hours in a planned course of study after the issuance of the Provisional certificate, completion of Michigan's reading requirement (6 semester hours of teaching reading for elementary teachers or 3 semester hours for secondary teachers) and 3 years of successful teaching experience" (according to the State of Michigan's website), oh, and a $125 processing fee, I received my professional education certificate in the mail yesterday. I am qualified to teach History and Social Science in grades 7-12. (Social Science includes specialized classes in Economics, Geography, Civics, & Psychology). It's really just a paperwork thing, but it did make me pretty happy to accomplish it. I am "Highly Qualified" in Michigan as well, having taken both certification tests when ...

For the first time since his arrival, Roman chose to read the book "Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born." It was written by JL Curtis about her experience adopting a daughter. I have read the book myself a few times but never out loud, to Roman. I explained to him what it was about, and as we read I compared the story to our own journey to adopt Roman. He asked all kinds of questions, also for the first time. "What's a baby home?" "Was I a baby or a little boy?" At one point he pointed to a picture of the exhausted parents on the first night of having a baby and asked, "are those my parents?" I explained that we did not have any pictures of his Russian parents but told him a little about each one. Between tears, of course. Tears of happiness because he's ours, regret that we can't connect him to his homeland very well, melancholy because I can't fill in all the holes for him yet and make him understand. Not sure I want t...