Whenever I have the day off, I always feel like I should DO something. You know, to celebrate having the day off. Otherwise, it’s just another day that goes by in which nothing exciting happens. Granted, sometimes days of absolute sloth are essential to our well-being as humans. But today, I just want to… I don’t know. I’d fly to Mars, if I could. (Dude, wouldn’t that be sweet?)

I tried calling people, but no one’s home! Not the pet-sitting guy with the crazy cat I love and fear simultaneously. Not Bobbi whose sweet Loki-man I absolutely must visit soon (he’s been asking for me, I’m told). And not my brother or his wife who just moved back to the Bay Area all of two days ago.

Where is everyone?

Well, no matter. I’ll take this time to recap what’s been up with me lately.

My classes:

When we were talking about flying animals, I passed around a bat mount. It’s in a plastic case and we always have to tell kids, “Yes, it’s real. No, it’s not alive.”

Three parents in a row said, “It looks kind of like a mouse, with wings.”

Every single time a parent said that, including her own dad, a three year old little girl looked at me, perplexed and said, “But it’s not.”

So after the third time she said it, I said to her, “That’s right! What is it?”

And she said, “A bat!” with a giant smile on her face.

I smiled back and said, “Very good!”

I love that child...

* * *

One time, in the middle of class, I was talking, trying to teach them some cool animal facts. One little girl suddenly pointed at me and shouted, “My teacher’s name is Meghan!”

I laughed. I pointed back and said, “My student’s name is Jenny!”

What else was I to do?

* * *

I learned in a very unpleasant manner that handling the classroom tarantula causes my eczema to go absolutely haywire. Ouch.

I also learned that when my left thumb hurts from handling chalk (still sore sometimes, but no longer bandaged!), I can write the name of my class with my right hand (my non-dominant hand) in big letters on the board, and it looks perfectly legible. More than legible, it looks like I wrote it with my left hand. There's no difference! Weird!

Vic-Care

Vic was way cranky early in the week. Wednesday morning, he was even doing that thing where he sits on the floor directly in front of me and cries. And when I reach out to pick him up, he throws himself away from me and screams this blood-curdling scream at the top of his lungs. I just sighed and waited for him to stop, to go back to just crying. Once he did, I changed his diaper and his clothes as he continued to cry, then took him and our stuff down to the stroller. Once inside the stroller, he stopped crying. He didn’t even freak out when I put sunscreen on him! Yay! We walked to the park, and as we did, I felt frustrated and sad and extremely lethargic. But then! Something magical happened. Victor just brightened up, so obviously excited and happy to be at the park! He just played and played and played some more.

~ He touched a little girl’s long hair and twirled his fingers through it. So funny!

~ A different little girl was walking around, and apparently, she must be a bit of a trouble-maker, because her mom said in a very serious tone, “Be gentle,” as she approached Vic. She laid her head on his back as he was trying to crawl out of the sand pit, and put her hands on his shoulders. Then she crawled off to do something else. It was quite possibly the cutest thing ever.

~ At one point, Vic was walking a push-car around the tree, on top of the wooden platform there. Another boy came up and did the same, but this boy was able to run with his car. The fact that he was going so fast was a total delight to Victor. He smiled and laughed as he watched the other boy and attempted to follow him and keep up. The boy’s dad was standing near him, and he started trying to crash the car into his dad, which became a big game. The dad jumped out of the way very dramatically, saying, “WOAH!” every time.

Vic could not get enough of this. I have never seen him laugh so much in his life. At one point, I swear to you, he was standing with one hand on the push-car, as he stamped his feet and slapped his thigh with his other hand! He looked like a little old man (because he's so small and hardly has any teeth!), laughing and laughing as hard as he could. Other parents even turned to watch what was so funny and got a kick out of Vic’s enjoyment of the whole spectacle. Of course, watching Vic laugh like that was utterly contagious and all I could do was stand to the side and laugh right along with him. It was just awesome.

~ Vic takes my hand when I offer it to him, now. I reached out to him, and he let me pull him up to standing. I just started walking with him, and he walked right along with me, for about twenty steps! Then he decided crawling would be easier, so he did that instead. I was so excited about his walking that I must confess, I jumped up and down in place a little bit. I think I said, "Yay!" out loud. It was SO COOL!

~ Usually, when Vic’s had enough of the park, he gets cranky and cries over a toy battle, or over the fact that I won’t let him fling himself off the top floor of the fort. But on Wednesday, he played for three hours straight! Then, he let go of the toy he was playing with, crawled over to me, and pulled himself up to a standing position by grabbing onto my jeans. Then he threw his hands straight up into the air, so I picked him up. Settled into my arms, he looked around, waved, and said, “Bah-bye!” I just giggled and said, “Okay, we’ll go home!”

~ On the way home, Vic was conking out in the stroller. “No, you can’t sleep now!” I said. It was already 6:00pm, and Beth was coming home in a half hour. If he slept so soon, he’d be up super late! So I actually kept stopping the stroller and swerving it in odd angles and saying, “La la la!” in an obnoxious way, all just to keep him awake. I’m so glad no one saw me acting like such a huge freak.

~ When Beth came home, she handed me a flower! She’d bought me a purple Iris. So cool, and so beautiful! It’s in water on my kitchen counter right now, and it looks great.

Other Fun Stuff:

Joe and I went out to dinner Wednesday night for his co-worker’s birthday. I wasn’t sure how much fun it would be, as I didn’t know the restaurant or whether it would be all work-talk, or what. It turned out to be an incredibly fun evening! We got bread, wine, and champagne right when we got there. I finished the champagne before my salad even arrived, and I hadn’t eaten since much earlier in the day! I was immediately buzzed and tried not to show it, though I felt extremely weird. We argued over French stuff (pronunciation of words, the famousness or not of various French landmarks, etc), and there was much bantering back and forth between the guest of honor and the waiter. Apparently, he and the waiter know each other from his frequent visits to the restaurant, and watching the two of them go back and forth over stuff was quite amusing.

The food was outstanding! I had a salad with sweet dressing, and on the side were three pieces of toast with grilled goat cheese on them! I also had some of Joe’s Cesar salad, which was quite a bit more “fishy” than other Cesar salads I’ve had before. I liked it. I tasted one of the mussels from someone’s appetizer. Interesting stuff. And I had the grilled salmon as my entrée, which came with many yummy vegetables. I drank a glass of white wine with dinner. And then came dessert. Oh my god, people. It was this amazing chocolate cake, all gooey and delicious, with two sauces you could dip it in. Also, it was served with this amazingly sweet and strong alcohol. I don’t know what it was, but damn, was it tasty!

The best part of the whole evening was how much we laughed. There were many work stories told, which were just too funny, mostly because of the delivery of the story-tellers. Much silliness and many dirty jokes were shared among all. Well, among all sitting at our half of the table. The other end of the table kept looking at us funny, as did a few of the other restaurant-goers. But it was cool. We had a great time! During the drive home, my face and stomach muscles positively ached from laughing so hard. Joe had even had me in tears at one point during dinner. It was awesome! There’s nothing like laughing with fun, funny people. Good times.

So I think that about wraps up the highlights of what's been going on as of late. Now I think I'll post this up and go find something else to do to entertain myself! Time to enjoy the rest of my day off! Wooo!