The things that get me through a day....

Last Sunday, Madeline and I were riding with my mom and dad. Out of no where, Madeline began saying, "uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh, yeah..." This went on for a few seconds. I asked her what she was doing, she said,

"Talking on the phone like you do, Mama."

I can also tell that Madeline has no problem with her imagination: "Row, row, row your boat gently down the streammmmmm. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is just a popsicle."

Yesterday, we were riding with my parents again. Madeline said that she was a big girl and that mama was a big girl. I asked her if Granny was a big girl too; she smiled and said, "No, Granny's a boy!" (She does this kind of thing to get a rise out of me or whoever she's with) Then I asked her about Papa, "He's a girl!" We all laughed, and my (goofy) father did a falsetto, "Oh, really?" To which Madeline replied:

"See! I told you!"

I thought my mom was going to have to pull over. So if you were travelling in the home county, on the highway that leads from my church (in the town where I grew up) to where my parents live now, and you saw a silver SUV swerving and looking like it needed to pull over, that was just us, having a laugh.

School and school

Madeline's currently in a "funk." The kind of funk that makes her want to stay home from daycare everyday. She fights me almost every morning now. This may have started because of my lack of strict scheduling on my part. We got so used to not getting out of bed until at least seven that this semester six is just too early for us. And I do mean "us." I've bribed, I've rewarded, I've even tried to sneak her out while she's still sleeping. Everything seems to cause a fun fit. Last week, I told her that she wouldn't always have to go to daycare like she does now. We had the "kindergarten" talk.

I told her that after she turns five, she'll be able to go to kindergarten "like the big kids do." She was really excited about this. I'm not sure how exciting I can make this for the next two years though...

As I'm typing this from the general computer commons area at school, I have a morality "what would you do" question. There were just two guys sitting in the next "cubicle" over from me, one was obviously taking an on-line quiz or test of sorts, the other obviously helping him. Is this kind of think normal? I never have my friends help me with my on-line stuff other than studying. Is this the kind of situation that needs to be taken reported? Or is this the "norm," sad as it is?

Love this song...

"More Than A Memory"
Written by Lee Brice
Currently performed as a #1 hit by Garth Brooks

People say she's only in my head
Gonna take time but I'll forget
They say I need to get on with my life
But they don't realize

Is when you're dialing 6 numbers just to hang up the phone
Driving cross town just to see if she's home
Waking a friend in the dead of the night
just to hear him say it's going to be alright
When you're finding things to do, not to fall asleep
Cause you know she will be there in your dreams
that's when she's
more than a memory

I took a match to everything she ever wrote
watched her words go up in smoke
tore all her pictures off the wall that aint helping me at all

'Cause when you're talking out loud and nobody's there
you look like hell and you just don't care
you're drinking more than you ever drank
sinking down lower than you ever sank
when you find yourself falling down upon your knees
praying to God, begging him "please"
that's when she's
more than a memory

she's more
she's more

'Cause when you're dialing her number
just to hang up the phone
Driving cross town just to see if she's home
Waking a friend in the dead of the night
just to hear him say its going to be alright
When you're finding things to do, not to fall asleep
Cause you know she 's waiting in your dreams
that's when she's
more than a memory

People say she's only in my head
Gonna take time but I'll forget

Do you think it's too much when...

Do you think I watch too much Grey's if my daughter is pretending to be Dr. Bailey? And, is it bad that we're in a study room and the first thing that I though to do with this fun piece of information was to "blog" it?

Long Overdue for an Update

This school year has been a busy one so far. Among work, work, school, and Madeline, I feel a little (okay, a lot) overwhelmed with everything. I'm working at Taco Bell only on Fridays now (thank goodness), and I'm tutoring for one-two hours the other four days.

I love the tutoring. I'm not working with the age group that I plan to teach, but that's okay. My "favorite" (only because I have worked with him the longest) is a boy that I will call "James." James has come so far already with me. He is so much fun to work with. He has already written one story for me and is writing another one how. I love his creatvity. I had forgetten how much fun kids his age (8 or so) can be. I haven't been around them for so long...

I'm working on my senior thesis this semester... an enchanting twenty page paper. Did I already tell you what I'm writing about? If I haven't told you, you're going to laugh. Go here: and here:

Those two links take you to the subject of my official senior thesis. I'm analyzing them rhetorically. In a twenty page paper. Doesn't that sound like fun? I'm excited anyway...


In actual news, our President of these United States stated the following during a press conference yesterday:

"No Child Left Behind is helping replace a culture of low expectations with a commitment to high achievement for all. And the hard work being done by principals, teachers, parents and students across our country is producing results. Last month, we learned that 4th graders earned the highest math and reading scores in the history of our Nation's Report Card -- and that's good news. I'm able to report that because we actually measure now in the schools.

There is more work to be done. So long as there is an achievement gap, we have work to do. Our goal is to have every child reading and doing math at grade level by 2014. That seems reasonable to me. Seems like a reasonable thing to ask, is to have every child reading at grade level by 2014, or being able to do math at grade level by 2014. So now is the time not to roll back the accountability or water down standards.

It's reasonable to set an important goal such as that because..."

Now, if you know anything about NCLB, you know that it has many, many great features; however, you must also know that the above statement is a problem. It is stated like a poorly worded binary question. Not "every child" can achieve at grade level. I think DW and the Diva can back me up on that as they have both worked with children with disabilities. I don't know why politicians don't know this. Ugh.