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 We gave official notice to daycare this afternoon that Roman would be withdrawn.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...