Another Class Off to a Great Start

I usually try to refrain from blogging about work because I want to keep this as a personal blog. But last night's class went really really well, so well that I have to share. I have a great group of students, a full class and some extras, a grandma and another local birth support person. Class went smoothly, they got it right off the bat and I think that all of them will get a lot of information out of it. One of the parents was so excited afterwards she wanted to share with everyone in the area and suggested that I get a newspaper reporter to sit in on a class. A bit intimidating for little me who enjoys small, infrequent classes so I can work it around family, birth support and Camp Fire. The class is 5 weeks long and last night was the first of 5 and I was quite surprised at the end of the first class when they clapped. It really felt nice. It's nice to be around people who appreciate and use the knowledge that you have inside you. I hold my tongue for the most part around friends and family and only answer questions when they're asked. But to be a teacher and have people come to me for advice is a great feeling.

The Real Banana Hammock

Look what I'm reduced to, the crappiest, crap quality of my precious cell phone camera which I can't even simply upload images to my computer from but I have to email myself a pix message. I'm being so raped by Verizon! My poor little cannon can't even hold it batteries in anymore and even if that worked I get the E18 message of death. I sure do miss posting my lunches...

Anyway, on with the blog posting! My sister came down for a pre-christmas week with her family and for her baby shower... while she was here some friends visited ken and I and we were discussing a banana hammock that was given away at a white elephant gift exchange they went to. My sister is pretty ignorant (innocent doesn't really apply to her) and thought she knew exactly what they were talking about. "You mean one of those fruit thingies they sell at Pier 1?" she said. All in the room were somewhat confused by her comment, I for one had never heard of this "version" of a banana hammock and I'm not sure anyone else in the room had either. We clarified that we were talking about a male thong, she turned red and laughed and we all thought she was a little nutty in the head.

A few days later she wanted to give Kenny and I our Christmas gift early since she wasn't going to be in town to see us open it. Low and behold it was a banana hammock. I opened it and smiled, "You know, we WILL use this a lot!" (We buy out the produce section each week, it'll be nice to have another place to store some of the fruit.) She laughed and said, oh no it was supposed to be a gag gift not something you'd take seriously. It was funny and appropriately timed. Anyway, thats the story. Now I have a Real Banana Hammock!

Nic's Room is Sparkling Clean

The girls have been doing a pretty good job keeping their rooms tidy. I'm not sure if it's the looming anticipation of Santa's visit or if their actually just trying to keep them picked up. However for the past two weeks I've been pulling Nic's arm trying to get him to pick up the disaster area that was his room. I was afraid he might disappear amongst the mega blocks and dirty laundry. Unfortunately he doesn't quite have enough stuff for me to pull a Mrs. Piggly Wiggly.

Hubert refused to clean his room. After a few weeks, it was in such a state that he could no longer get to his bed, nor to the door, and he slept atop a pile of toy parts. His mother made him meals which he hoisted up in a basket from his window. After things had gotten as bad as they possibly could, up came a note from Mrs. P-W with lunch - "the circus is coming to town, and we're going to go see it! Come play with us!" Toots of horns and happy shouts and a parade of kids (led by Mrs. P-W of course) came trotting past outside the house - oh, but Hubert couldn't even get to the door! Galvanized, he put away his toys in a furious hurry, got out of his room and caught up with his friends.

While it wasn't nearly as bad as Huberts room, it was still pretty bad. I talked with him about cleaning his room.

me, "Nic, you have to clean your room."
Nic, "But it...will...take...for...ev..er." (if you know nic, you know he takes a breath in between syllables when he's really mad)
me, "Santa doesn't give presents to little boys with messy rooms. Don't you want santa to visit and leave you toys?"
Nic shruggs and shakes his head! (HE'S ALREADY GIVEN UP!!)

It took me about 4 days of no Wii or Computer games (he can live without santa visiting but shut down the computer use and we have motivation). I also spent a few sessions helping him in his room to finally get it accomplished. I had to get creative too because if it wasn't fun or "his idea" he wasn't going to do any work. Quite a few times I went up there and started to "help" him only to leave after 5 minutes of doing the work all by myself. So, we played a few games... such as 10 minute pick up, and I spy. I actually said, "can you find" and then named the object.

me, "Can you find the red train bridge and put it in the yellow toy box" etc etc etc.

In the end he actually suggested that we go clean his room and it ended up working the best by me grabbing an object and handing it to him to put away. It probably took us two hours or so once we focused and got down to cleaning.

He actually went up there of his own volition today and did some maintenance cleaning on it which is nice. Now if I can get that same urge and clean the house so that when I have company come to the door I don't have to think twice about inviting them in.