From wal-reese to banana-moon...

The latest lesson on living in the moment and enjoying the little things. Caden used to say 'wal-reese' for 'walrus' & I thought it was the cutest thing I'd ever heard. In the car, I would constantly ask him to say it.

He says 'walrus' now. In the span of a few short weeks, we lost wal-reese.

BUT!

Looking out of the truck window this evening, he said "banana-moon". It was hard to make out at first. Stan & I looked at each other & asked him to say it again. Sure enough, he spat out "banana-moon". I told Stan that's what I thought he was saying & he looked out the window to see if we could see the moon.

He could. And it was only a quarter-moon, a crescent if you will.

A real, honest to goodness banana-moon!

One tough booger

This is a picture of Daddy holding Caden's big toenail.

Yes, you read correctly.

A week ago, Caden injured his toe at school causing it to bleed a little from around the toenail. Tonight he kicked a regulation-sized football barefooted & caused more damage. He started picking at it and both of us told him at different times to stop, but unbeknownst to us, he had pulled it almost all of the way off.

Stan got the nail scissors out. We sat Caden on his dresser. And I tried very hard to not let my squeamishness show.

Stan started cutting and the bottom lip immediately stuck out while crocodile tears welled up in Caden's eyes. Stan gently told him to be still and let him know that this was indeed going to hurt a bit. At this point, it's all I can do to remain strong for my poor little boy.

Poor little boy my foot. He watched the whole thing and barely whimpered. Then when Stan got the toenail off, he started giggling and playing with the afflicted toe. I cried more than he did!

All is well. Mama is a big girl and she's going to be OK. And, oh yeah - Caden fell asleep a mere fifteen minutes later.

This picture was taken IMMEDIATELY after the impromptu surgery.

This is the last time...

I can't say no. I've always had a problem with it. When the cute little cheerleaders come and ask me to be in the pep rallies because I'm "funny" (and also because no one else will do it) - I can't disappoint my fans.

So today, I was part of AC/DC. I had to lipsync "TNT" for TWO whole minutes. I then went out and backup danced for Vanilla Ice.

My principal asked me if I had ever thought about audtitioning for American Idol.

I PROMISE I really do get quite a bit of teaching done.

Pee pee in the potty...

and on the potty...and on the floor!

But it wasn't his fault. We have a ghetto training potty & the way he was sitting ('he' being the operative word) caused his pee to go up and over, but some went in to!

We sang the pee-pee-in-the-potty song and then went & put a diaper on him b/c he said he didn't need to go poo-poo in the potty...

All in a day's work...

I'm the one in the 'toga'.

The four of us were the homecoming nominees at last week's pep rally. I'm still bitter that I lost. I let my juniors know that they are ALL failing because they didn't yell loud enough for me. Seriously, I had on ferarri red lipstick and glitter and everything.

Yes, those are little kids in the background & yes I teach high school. Cameron is small enough to invite every student in the district to the homecoming pep rally.

One more thing - it's hard to be a 'serious' teacher when you have glitter all over your face & your kiddoes have seen you wearing a sheet.

Just FYI...

Trying to keep the sanity

The last 3 weeks of school have been great. It's been nice being happy in the mornings about where I'm going. The kids are awesome, I'm loving the new principal, & even the administrative nonsense isn't getting me down.

I've even reconnected with an old friend! I started a MySpace account a while back but never really did anything with it, and wouldn't you know it - my high school friend found me! I'm so excited; we haven't been able to talk yet, but just emailing back & forth has been so much fun.

I worked the varsity football gate last night. Every teacher is supposed to work 4 events in a year & I try to get mine done early. Right now I just have 2 to go. Oh my goodness! The bugs were horrible! It's so not worth the pittance we get paid for doing the duty. But...I had a substitute teacher run up and hug me and say she is so glad that I have her son in my class this year. I got to see 2 former students who are now in college & they BOTH said that I prepared them well. And I also got to see another former student who snuck up behind me & gave me a huge bearhug. Oh, it is so sad when they grow up and go away, but I guess that's part of my job - to prepare them for life after high school, but I DO miss my babies.

Caden is talking up a storm. He now says his name & he's even got a little headbob that goes with it. He's so social - the waitress the other night taught him how to work the nifty parmesan cheese shredder. Terrible twos? Poo on you. We're having more fun with him than we ever had.

Fall at our house is busy and awesome. There is just something exciting about living in CS when the Aggies come back & football starts & I get to play with high school juniors all day. They're so funny! They tell me the craziest things, probably more than I want to hear sometimes! But I love it when I hear kids say, "This is my most fun class" AS they are doing their writing assignment, turning it in, & then pulling their library book out to read for the last few minutes of class.

Now if I can just find the time to work in some scrapbooking...

I hope everyone has a great day!

SMOOCHES!!!!

Farewell faithful friend

For those of you who are pet people, you will get this. Everyone else will shrug & think I'm kooky.

My dear, sweet, first baby passed away last night at the age of 12 1/2.

Ashton.

We woke up on Friday & knew that something was wrong. He was very lethargic & laboring to breathe. We went to work & Stan said that he would check on him at lunch. We came home & he didn't seem to be any worse, but he still didn't look good. We went to a high school football game & when we came home, I realized that I couldn't keep kidding myself - this was bad.

Stan made some calls & eventually ended up at the Small Animal Clinic at A&M. We called my parents to come sit with Caden, who was asleep by now. We drove over there & they immediately took him back while we filled out paperwork. To make a long story short, he had 250 ml of fluid taken out from around his lungs & the doctor (intern?) thought it looked like cancer or heart failure. Just to get the cardiologist there to diagnose him would cost around $1200, so we decided to just put him out of his pain. Around 12:30 am, after being there for 2 hours, we came home.

It was really strange, almost like I was in denial about it. I spoke to my parents about it & I could tell that they were pretty shook up, but then we started talking about other stuff & laughing & joking. Surreal. When they left, I saw a picture of him and started sobbing, and Stan just held me. We then went to bed. I woke up a couple of hours later and was physically sick - I guess from all the crying and stress of it all.

He was with me almost my whole adult life. I drove to Wellborn with my future college roommate to pick him up. I wanted a female but she was already spoken for, so I 'settled' on the boy.

I'm using this blog as a journal, something I can look back on, so here's a list of things that I think show just how special he was.

He would hold his paw underneath the bathtub faucet, wait for the drip, and then lick himself clean. No wasted energy on his part.

He would sneak in the pantry, laundry room, closet - anywhere - constantly getting shut in. After a little while, I would notice he wasn't joined at my hip like usual & then I would go look for him, opening the door to wherever he was to let him out. Sometimes he was ready to come out & other times, not so much.

He loved cheese. We could not eat queso without him whining and trying to sneak around my hand to get some.

He was running to jump on the bed once & he timed it wrong. He jumped up and then started going down...the eyes got real big...and he splatted right against the side of the mattress. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life.

He also ran into a cleaned sliding glass door. (I never said he was the SMARTest cat)

Bailey & Jasper were born on our front porch in Houston. When they were six weeks old, some neighbors took the mama cat to their new house & we kept the babies. They apparently were weaned a little early b/c they would go up to Ashton - a neutered male cat - and knead & suckle on his belly. Ashton would merely roll over and go to sleep while they did this.

When I moved out of my first apartment (where I lived alone for awhile) into my new apartment with my roommate, I left him alone while I took a load over. When I got back to the old place, I saw that he had gotten into the fireplace & was covered with ashes. I'd already packed his cat shampoo but not my own, so I bathed him with Salon Selectives. He loved it.

Speaking of baths, he was the easiest animal to bathe. He would patiently wait for an opening, then stealthily sneak away. He was so slow, I could basically hold him with one hand; sometimes I could take that one hand off of him for a few seconds.

My parents came & spent Christmas with me in my apartment while my roommate was at home. We were asleep when this rumbling, combination growling/purring woke us up. Ashton had caught a mouse & was playing with it - I guess until he decided to eat it.

Ashton is the reason my parents have their cats. He was so much fun & my parents enjoyed him so much that they went and picked out 2 cats shortly after I got him.

**Gross-out alert** We shared yogurt. One bite for Mama, one bite for Ashton. Strawberry was his favorite.

He thought he was a dog for a long time. My roommate had 2 dachshunds & he learned to hide behind the couch and then pounce on them when they went by. They weren't allowed in my room, so he would then run in there & stop just over the threshold. This was fine until a visiting golden retriever chased him into my room. Ashton stopped. The retriever didn't. All we saw for a few seconds was cat and dog rolling on the floor.

He always came to me when I called his name. Always.

He thought everyone came to see him. He was incredibly social & would go up to people - even those who (gasp!) hate cats. I think he fell in love with the DirecTV guy; I've never seen him rub all over somebody like that before.

He knew when I was upset or sick and would come lay by me & not leave.

He never wanted to be away from me. If I took a nap, I had to make sure he was in the room with me before I shut the door.

He never really got used to the litter box idea. He would do his business and then scratch the sides of the box - sometimes for 10 minutes or more. This drove me and Stan crazy & we would tap (bang) on the box to get him to come out.

He played with me when I was in the tub. I would tap my fingers over the side & he would grab them & nibble on them. One time, I was ignoring him & I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked over just in time to see him dive down to wait for me to play with him.

If I was in the bathroom taking care of business, he would get in the tub on the other side of the shower curtain & play with me that way - pushing on the curtain from one side while I did the same from mine.

I loved him soooo much and I have found myself crying at the most inopportune times. I was just at the Aggie game & I would think about something stupid that Ashton did & giggle & tear up at the same time. He was with me from the time I lived alone in college until I got married and had my son. I distinctly remember looking at him the morning after I got him and thinking it was neat that this animal would be with me for some pretty momentous occasions.

I just remembered that when I woke up that first morning, Ashton was sleeping right next to me, in the EXACT same sleeping position as I was. I always felt that we were that in tune with each other.

Stan has said for years that this was a day he was dreading b/c he knew how attached I was to Ashton. While I 'get' that he was a pet, and NOT a human, I still feel like I lost a true friend. He was the very first pet I ever had in my whole life. He was with me when I was completely alone and single. I have shared almost every important thing that has ever happened to me with that cat.

So anyway...I'm sad & I'll be sad for awhile. I cannot believe he is gone & I will truly miss him.

Just say yes

The new pills are here & so far so good. No meltdowns. No ranting. No raging. Stan's happy. I'm happy. Heck - even the cats are happy.

Just say no

I started back to school this past week for staff development. I was working in my room when there was a knock on the door. One of my absolute favorite people at school, S, was standing there with a red face, red knuckles, and rapidly turning-red arms. She said she had taken zentrex - a diet/energy pill and she thought she was having an allergic reaction. We went back to her room and she took 2 Benadryl and then I walked her down to the nurse, all the while her face & arms are getting redder and redder. The nurse took her blood pressure and it was 130 over 86 - not high, but higher than it normally is. We talked her into letting me drive her to see the doctor and we started walking back towards our rooms.

S then says, "DeAnn, I think I need to go to the emergency room". I said OK & began walking a bit quicker.

She then says, "DeAnn, we need to hurry". I said OK & was almost running down the hall.

She then starts sobbing and begins crying out for help. We're right next to our rooms & I see that our friend's door is open & she's inside. I yelled "K Come quick!" while running into my room to get my purse & keys. K runs out (she told me later that she could tell something was wrong by the sound of my voice), sees S and goes over to help her walk outside. I brief her on what's going on, all the while our friend is barely walking and sobbing uncontrollably.

Thankfully a man teacher showed up and helped K and S walk outside. I run to my car and pull it up under the awning where they are all waiting. S is now on her knees, completely unable to stand. We can't get her into the car so another friend, J, calls 911.

We laid S out on the ground after the dispatcher told us to and we're trying to keep her awake but she's having a hard time keeping her eyes open. The paramedics arrived within 4 minutes, took one look at the bottle of pills, and said they'd been called about these several times before. They took her blood pressure and it was 160 over something, I can't remember, but it had shot up in just a few minutes.

S started coming around, sitting up and talking. Her blood pressure started going down. Apparently the Benadryl was really working at this point. After a few minutes the paramedics left and S started getting her normal color back.

It was the craziest, scariest thing I've ever had to go through. I watched her go from having a red face and arms to not even being able to stand up in the span of 2 or 3 minutes. We were all so filled with adrenaline that at this point - after we knew she was OK - all we could do was laugh. We told her that we called 911 after we realized that we weren't going to be able to put her in the car and she said, "No wonder I was taking diet pills!"

Just give me the ketchup & no one gets hurt

After I ranted and raved at Stan for not bringing home McDonald's ketchup to eat with McDonald's fries (I have to eat the ketchup that goes with the fries, each & every restaurant), he made the executive decision - for the good of the team - that I need to call the doctor to get on a new birth control pill.

Praise God for girlfriends

Ladies Night - in my opinion - was a rousing success tonight! I had a ball & I hope I wasn't too obnoxious & everyone else had fun as well.

I love that we can cut up and have fun together.

I love that we can be silly & giggle.

I love that we can joke & tease each other without feelings getting hurt.

I love that I can depend on these women at the drop of a hat.

I love that I can turn to any one of them with a problem and get good, sound, Christian advice.

I love the way that they are all raising their kids.

I love that - if needed - I can call any one of them to babysit my son & I would feel confident he was in good hands.

I love that they see a need for Christian women to fellowship and bond together.

I love that we're doing it again next month!

What a difference a couple of years makes

Yes, the cradle is still in the living room. I think Stan knows on some subconscious level that I need baby steps. The cradle's been taken apart, the legs are wrapped up and have mysteriously disappeared, and he knows that my psyche can't handle the big part disappearing as well.

We got in the other day from church & Caden immediately went & sat in it. I, ever on the lookout for a blogging moment, grabbed my camera & told him to lay completely flat. He barely fits! It made me laugh after my tearfest the other night.

I LOVE this kid!