Update

Today I found myself saying the following to one of my sophomore boys:

"Can you please not peel your orange in the shape of a penis and two testicles?"

There's just plain not a lot of dignity in that. He tried to pass it off as an elephant with two big ears and a trunk, but seriously?

There are three more days. KC keeps reminding me that we're just trying to "keep the lid on." I fear the lid is off. Way off.

There are four more days before winter break

I believe my favorite part of today was during lunch when a colleague started a conversation with me like this:

"Hey Rach, you'll appreciate this, I made a kid cry today."

I can see her point. I mean, today Tim and I tagteamed the shaming of a student who left used kleenexes in the middle of Tim's classroom floor. I called his math teacher and had her send him back to Tim and me for the shaming. I sneered at the kid who responded to my gleeful, "Hey kids, I finished grading your essays!" with "Took ya long enough." I scoffed at the student who asked me how many sentences should appear in his essay test. When he didn't let up, I mocked his suggestion that I would be the kind of teacher that was going to be counting his sentences. And finally, I told a student that if she didn't stop talking while other students were finishing their test, not only would I give her a zero on it, but it would fill my heart with gladness to do it.

That's the holiday spirit, no? It's going to be a long four days, folks. A very long four days.

Christmas

It's currently 1:34 a.m. Around 10:00 p.m. tonight, I decided to do this:

I'm pretty proud of that. I even wrapped all of the presents we've purchased thus far. Dakota (as you can see) is wondering why in all hell we're not upstairs sleeping.

She's tired because this afternoon Jim and I took her for a walk, and then took her off the leash and let her run around in the snow at Groveland School. She ran back and forth between us, the sun was shining, the snow was still perfectly white, and I must say, it was a damn nice winter moment, even if it did make me miss the girls.

All these posts about Dakota, you've probably forgotten that I have a niece

Chakotay

I'm sure you've been dying to see pictures of our baby. I mean, our dog. What with me packing a backpack for Dakota every day filled with toys, an extra blanket, and treats for good behavior when she goes to Auntie Cyndy's for daycare, and Jim going to sleep with Dakota when she woke up at 4:00 a.m. last night with what we can only assume was a bad dream, you can see how we'd be confused.

5 months old on Wednesday. 38 pounds. Aw, whatagoodgirl.

Puppy Goodnight Song

I think Jim should try this with Dakota.

Whosagoodgirl?

I'm sure you've been wanting to see some more photos of Dakota. She's 14 weeks old now. She likes to take naps on Mom's lap, sleep, dig, and play at the beach, lounge around on camp chairs, and pose for photos in the front yard.

Intarshation

Today, Anya and I got to spend a little one on one time together. We talked about the normal stuff--you know, wanting to sit under a willow tree with a boy because, you know, that would be so nice, and how much we love Dakota, and how summer is really the best, and we can't wait for our next trip to Arizona because we get to sleep in comfy beds, and, you know, the stuff that happens to us when we die.

Yep. The stuff that happens to us when we die.

Anya: So, when you die, you come back to life as another little boy or girl, huh?

Me: Well, yeah, some people believe that.

Anya: But you come back to life as someone else, right?

Me: Um, well, lots of people believe that. And there's nothing wrong with believing that. But Christians believe that when you die you go to heaven to be with God.

Anya: Oh. Weird. I don't believe that. I believe I'm going to die and come back to life as another girl or boy. That's what I believe.

Me: Okay. That's called reincarnation. Can you say that?

Anya: Intarshation.

Me: Yep. That's it.

Not so baby anymore

Baby Brother is 24 today. Happy Birthday Mek!

Like a weed

When we first got Dakota three weeks ago, she weighed 13.3 pounds. Two days later when I took her to the vet, she weighed 14.8 pounds. Two days ago, she was just under 19 pounds. Neighbors have begun exclaiming, "Oh my GOD, look at how she's GROWN!!"


This is where she was:



And this is now where she is:

We've been taking more photos of her than any human could possibly want (we have about two hundred pictures of her sleeping, if you're interested).

I, of course, wanted a nice photo of us together, which we got. See above.

Good behavior never lasts. See below.

Sadly, below is the best of four photos I tried to take of her with Jim.

Last night, Jim, Scout and Anya took her out on Lake Minnetonka. Apparently, she has her sea legs about her and she loved it.

I'm sure the puppy posts will die off soon (can you imagine when I have a kid?), but come on...aren't you just loving her? :)

Double Whammy

Jim is out of town this weekend with some old buddies, so I'm home alone with The Hole in My Head.

I'm hoping to fully housetrain Dakota while Jim is gone so I can surprise (read, "impress") him with my training abilities. I've always dreamed of having a well-trained dog, but I have a poor track record in the area. When my first dog, a Bichon Frise (an idiot breed of dog that is incapable of learning ANYthing) named Doc, would escape from the house, we couldn't just call him with dignity back into the house. No, we had to run around the neighborhood shaking half-empty potato chip bags shouting, "Doc, wanna chip?!? Don't cha want a chip?!? Yum, CHIPS!" in an effort to lure him back home. Best Friend Nicki would literally hide behind bushes when cars would drive by during this shameful activity. There was no way she would be associated with such behavior, particularly since her Golden Retriever Buddy was both angelically sweet and well trained. Ugh.

So, I dream of a well-trained dog--not particularly the freak-show-well-trained dog that would make it on Letterman's Stupid Pet Tricks because she can do cartwheels, but the kind of dog that can walk beside my calmly and respectfully, the kind of dog that will sit and stay and lie down at a mere glance from me, the kind of dog, you know, at the very least, that isn't embarrassing.

And so, at the risk of jinxing everything, I'd like to announce that Dakota is now walking with purpose to the door consistently when she needs to go out. I've decided that peeing outdoors is step one to well-trained dog heaven.

I'm taking this purposeful walking as a testament to both my teaching and my mothering abilities.

Double whammy. Nice.

The Big Stuff

It occurs to me that I posted about Dakota, Puppy Extraordinaire, but have failed to post about the other major life changing event of the summer.

Jim and I got married.

There's obviously much to say about that, and I'm sure I'll post some photos as soon as they're available, but at this point, the truest and simplest thing I can say about Jim and me finally being married is that it fills me with the most beautiful, quiet calm--an assurance I didn't know I was missing until it arrived.

We spent a week in Mazatlan right after the wedding--Dad let us stay at his private villa at Pueblo Bonito Emerald Bay. For entertainment, we alternated between our own private pool and hot tub, the resort's pools (and swim-up bars), and, you know, the Pacific ocean. Rough, huh? Twice, Jim managed to pull me away from my agenda of nothing, followed up by nothing, to go into Old Town for awhile so we could get a small taste of real culture outside the resort.

It was perfect, perfect, perfect.