It has been nearly a year since I last posted anything so I will recap (quickly) how the year has been... At the end of last summer I finally settled a lawsuit that I was involved in. A few years ago I lost my baby-pig, and by this I mean toe while crossing 45th street in Manhattan. To make a long, tedious story brief I will say the pain was agonizing, the recovery is still ongoing, but I did fare well in the lawsuit thanks to my incredible attorney, Gene Chertok. Prior to school starting I purchased a new Buick Enclave, black with leather interior. I love-love-love my car. I also gave my mother money to remodel her kitchen. It is gorgeous and she is very happy with the upgrade. My son's father and I rekindled our relationship after 8 months of him learning the hard way that the old saying "the grass isn't always greener on the other side" is a valuable lesson and not just a bumper sticker quote. The months that followed were blessed with bumps, turns and twists. Meanwhile, in my professional life I began attending workshops regularly. I became a certified Thinking Maps, Write From The Beginning trainer. I also attended a conference in Fort Lauderdale where we studied the ins and outs of Professional Learning Communities with the "founding fathers" of the concept. We immediately began to infuse that philosophy into our grade-level back at school and while it was a long road by the end of the year I did see it's benefits. Throughout all of this I, too learned a hard lesson about loaning money to friends. I may have seen multiple tv shows on the topic, stemming from Oprah to Judge Judy where the consensus was DO NOT DO IT! I was a sucker for tears and a good story. This mistake led to a rocky year on my grade level with hurt feelings, emotional co-workers, choosing sides, stories, gossip, and little girl antics. So, it might be enough to just say that like most years this one was wearing both personally and professionally.
One thing I can always count on is surprises from my darling son, Christian. After his 1st birthday he grew at rapid speed and his abilities flourished. He has become quite the dare-devil, climbing, jumping, running, sliding, and trying just about anything. He often will repeat a stunt he has seen on tv or by a peer but other times he dreams them up all on his own. Just yesterday, I hear this crash from upstairs and hurry up there to see what might have happened. My son has gathered pillow-like objects from around his room, built a pallet on the floor, climbed the railing on his toddler bed and used it as a springboard for his flying lesson. My heart leapt into my throat when I saw him fly off the bed and onto the pile of pillows. Not sure where this idea was born but he looked like he had done it before.
Shortly after hitting the pillows, he reaches for a book and drags it over to me. I believe this was a distraction technique as shortly after he ran back over to the bed for another round. He is not even 2 yet but already shows great baseball prowess. He attended all of my nephews baseball games this past season (they were undefeated), 2 Daytona Cubs games, as well as a BCU baseball game. He watched a player from Bethune-Cookman University's team slide into home and the catcher dive into the plate trying to tag him out. This incident spawned a fascination with "sliding". He will yell "2" as in 1-2-3, run around in a circle and slide into whatever ground there is. He will look up at you and wait for you to perofrm your best umpire's rendition of "SAFE" arm movements included of course.
He has also learned a lot of new words this year. "Oh GAWD, and Shit" being the least of my favorites. He has many names for people as well. I am "MommEeee", Mario is "Da-da, or Dadd-Eee", my dad is "Pop-pa", my mom is "Mom-ma or Pop-pa or occassionally Gwa-ma", my sister Shannon is "mom-ma or Nannon", Rachel was "Cock-ka" but then taught his to just say "Aun-tee". Alex is some sort of hissing noise (he taught him that), Andrew is "Bubba" of course and Kennedy is "Dee-Dee". My friends, Ayana is "Non-non", Jason is "Cool" and Shika is "SheeeeeeT". He calls Tina (his teacher), "Mom-ma or TeeTee", Alana is "Lana", Jasmine is "Jazz", Taylor is "Tay-Tay" and Meghan is "Meg" then he makes a wide-opened mouth facial expression at her as if he's going to chomp on her. Of course he yells the regulars, "no, oh-no, uh-oh, ahh-man, cup, eat, snack, pool, and Yes." He also knows many words with picture cues as well. He has a whole book that we flip through that he pretends to read. As a teacher, that is my favorite of all of his stunts.
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