ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

It's time for things to calm down!

We went to see the podiatrist and found out that my MRI shows "Achilles tendonosis with significant tearing". I don't have many choices...either surgery or continuing to limp and hurt until the tendon totally tears.

And on the way home, we were going 55mph when a car started to pull out of an addition on Leo Road right in our path. Stew slammed on the brakes, we skidded in a complete circle and ended up stuck in the muddy ditch with our hind end out in traffic. Amazingly enough, there doesn't seem to be any damage to our car and the damage to our nerves has been helped by a nice little wine.

So with a false heart attack/pleuritis and a torn tendon and a near miss serious accident...I'm ready to go back to the boring routine. Now! Please!

Yesterday's excitement

Pleurisy. It's not as bad as it looks. I was hooked up to many machines and now we know for certain that my heart has a nice steady rhythm. The machine said it did. And my lungs are clear. That's what the X-ray said. I know for certain that, as of yesterday, things were as they should be in some of my important organs. Whew!

(Thanks to Stew for the lovely photo and for being there with me.)

Potty training: further exploration

A few more thoughts on this interesting subject:

We all need to recognize Kate as the foremost authority on this topic. She has worked in the field with potty trainees for many years.

Ellen is quite bright and the exception to the "early trained/dim bulb" rule. And actually, since she did not stop wearing diapers until 2 and a half, only in our family would she be considered early.

Sam would prefer to have his children trained by 6 monthes. If that should happen, I will know that there is no God since frankly Sam was not a potty genius and truly does not deserve to change less than three million diapers per baby bearing his name. (If Gail deserves better, I'm sorry. In that case, she married the wrong fellow.)

Connection?

I was waiting at the doctor's office and in came one of my students with his mom and two younger brothers. I figured the two little guys would probably be bright. After all, they are Joey's siblings.

I was correct. Five year old Tony filled me in on the Colts' home games the family had attended, including date, scores, important plays, and times that the refs had muffed plays which Tony attibuted to their watching from the wrong angle. Then three year and a half year old Will started showing me the Sports Illustrated he was examining....football again. He was absorbed by a two page spread showing a play where one guy was flipping over the back of another player. Will looked at this page for 10 minutes, excited by the action. He talked about what had probably happened before the picture, every player's number, which team was which complete with city and team name, what body parts were probably injured in this fall, etc.

Impressive. I asked Will if he went to preschool and he said, "No. I can't go until I decide I want to be toilet trained." He wandered off, still engrossed in SI.

Their mom and I started talking. She said that their pediatrician said that in general, the brighter a little boy is, the later he is potty trained. Mom sighed and said, "My boys must be geniuses. All three were over three and a half."

I had noticed this same thing, often bright little girls too, and I've been wondering why this is. My guess would be that these bright little ones are so involved in noticing and exploring the world around them that they can't be bothered with something so mundane as toileting. Or maybe it's that the developmental drive for this type of independence is overshadowed by the excitement of other types of learning in these kids. Or maybe these young cherubs realize at an early age how to push buttons for mom and dad. In any case, it just makes these gifted preschoolers even more interesting in my opinion. Such uneven growth is fascinating as long as I don't have to buy, wash or change the diapers.

A big umbrella

I have a huge golf umbrella that I keep in the car for rainy days and we had one of those days this past week. It poured. When I got into my classroom, my umbrella was soaked so I left it open over in a corner so it could dry out.

What an attraction it was! I've done this before many times with this umbrella but kids on this day couldn't leave it alone! One picked it up and twirled it. Someone crouched under it. Two different kids rolled up into a ball beneath it at different times of the day. The second graders asked me to take a group shot of them under it (7 kids...they all fit...I'm telling you that I have a BIG umbrella!) My favorite was the chess game played while belly down underneath.

I was thinking about it. Sometimes we think that becasue gifted kids speak and think as if they were older that they will act older and be more mature. Nope. They are still kids and they still love a big old umbrella.

School talk: new parent reception

Whoa! I am not good at small talk!

We had a reception last night for parents of kids new to the program. I was able to stand up and talk to this large group of people about issues in gifted education, no problem. I could do it all day. But when it came time to mingle, I was not a shining star.

I think I told no less than fifteen parents that their child was doing well and now that I think about it, that is a fine thing to say at this type of gathering. Not the time to go deep. What bothers me in retrospect is my forced enthusiasm. Not "Your child is doing well." Instead "Your child is doing so well!" Bold letter indicate cheerleader pep and energy. Not my usual style.

My final social triumph was the father who, after talking with me, grabbed his car keys and said with anger that he would wait for his wife in the car. He did come back to remind me that he is a tax payer and thus, pays my salary. The implication was that this is not money well spent. In my defense, the fellow was a tad angry and odd to begin with. Maybe I should have picked up on those social cues. But when he said, after expounding for quite some time about how rotten public education is, that "I know I'm opinionated but any teacher who lets her kids sit on the floor during school is doing a bad job", I just let it slip. I said "You know, I'm opinionated too and I have a lot of experience in education and on this one, you are wrong."

When I started writing this entry, I was feeling kind of bad about my performance last night. After rereading this, I'm feeling okay. I have more important things to concern me than this. So there.

Indiana Association for the Gifted State Conference

A new state mandate for gifted education means twice as many people at the state conference on gifted education. A good thing except most sessions were geared for beginners and not to brag but I am not a beginner. There were good moments, most notably when Dr. Yong Zhao took State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett to task immediately after Bennett introduced Zhao. Zhao let those high stakes tests lovers have it and I loved it!

The view from our hotel room was spectacular. I took pictures every time I walked by the window.

Unfortunately I was sick and so had to leave most of my meals, including dinner at St. Elmo's, uneaten...okay, I ate a little but I enjoyed it not at all.

I did get to spend time with my partner teachers and I did get to see Ellen and Ashley. But all in all, home in bed would have been a better place for me.