Bein’ Franklin

Posted by mommyfranklin at December 31st, 2007

Posted by mommyfranklin at December 27th, 2007

We’re home! It was a great visit, but it is so nice to be home again. For a while, we weren’t sure we would be home tonight or not. After spending most of the morning figuring out how we would get all our things into the van, we headed out after lunch. We had checked the weather and found that it would be fairly slow going until we made it to Plainview when things should clear up. We didn’t want a repeat of Christmas 2000, when we had been stranded in Sweetwater because of an icy patch on I-20.

We had one planned stop in Amarillo. Visibility wasn’t great and the roads were slick (Thank God Scott was driving!), but we made it with no problem. After a nice visit, we had dinner and then made our way back to the road home. The snow had picked up considerably while we were eating, so we were going slow. About 10 miles south of Amarillo, we were considering turning around. Scott kept going though. Around Happy, TX, we were going around 15 mph. A phone call to friend in Plainview revealed that their was some slick spots in Plainview, but no snow. So, there was hope that things would improve. So, we trudged along. In Tulia, the boys announced that they needed a pit stop. It was time for a break from driving, so we pulled in to the closest gas station. We offerred the dogs a chance to get out for a break here also, but only one of the dogs actually took us up on the offer. Lucy took one look at the snow and headed back to her seat.

Soon, we were back on the road. We had considered staying in Plainview to wait out the storm, but decided we would keep going. We had made it past the worst of it. As the roads went from slick to wet to dry, we became even more secure in our decision.

I have to say that the kids were quite good during the trip. We had to remind them to keep the volume down during the more treacherous spots in the road, but they really didn’t do too bad. We made it home around 9:00, and got the kids in bed. Then, I went through the mail and have done some of the work I needed to do for my online course.

Posted by mommyfranklin at December 27th, 2007

My day started with Scott and Zachary very sweetly asking me if I was going to sleep all day. They had been kind enough to let me sleep until 11:00. I feel better today. Not 100%, but definitely more like myself. The stomach bug seems to have run it’s course and the cold seems to be on it’s way out (I hope).

It was a good day. Considering that I slept most of it, there really is not much to say about today. We are still in Canadian. It has been a great, relaxing visit. Zachary has gotten very good use out of his playdoh (he now knows what happens if you mix blue, yellow, and green playdoh), Timothy has gotten pretty good on his vSmile (which he calls dSmile and Zachary calls a tSmile — don’t ask!) and on his Leapster, and Emily has taken very good care of her new Webkin poodle, Princess Leah. Scott and I have each gotten new books which we have spent a good bit of time reading. And I haven’t even mentioned the food. It’s been great!

Weather permitting, we plan to go home tomorrow. Scott has work to do not only to prepare for his new/old job that starts in a few weeks and some things to tie up at the job he is leaving, and I have things I need to do for my online class.

Posted by mommyfranklin at October 14th, 2007

So, it’s been about 6 weeks since my last blog. It’s not from lack of activity to blog about. I’m just having a difficult time deciding what is appropriate to blog about.

The children that I teach have given me tons of blog topics, but I am just not real comfortable blogging about them. Even if I leave their names off, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Thinking as a parent, I don’t know how I would feel if I were to come across the blog of one of my own kids’ teachers and found entries about my kids. So, in the interest of safety, I think it best I grant the children some privacy and leave them off the blog.

Another good resource is the online class that I teach. In general, I don’t think it is a good idea to use a blog to dish about current students. I have 10 students, and think it would be pretty easy for them to figure out who I was talking about. This particular group has been relatively quiet and do a good job of getting their work done.

So, that leaves me to focus my blog entries on my family. They are my favorite topic anyway, so that’s okay.

To help get me jumpstarted, here’s a list of posts I hope to get to soon –
* We will have a new niece or nephew next May
* We’ve almost decided on a church
* Shopping for Halloween costumes
* Timothy and Zachary have a crush on the same girl
* Timothy at school
* Friday mornings with Zachary
* Emily has joined Brownies
* Our routine

Alright, that gives me a place to start. Hopefully I’ll actually get to the posts eventually.

Posted by mommyfranklin at September 6th, 2007

I have officially survived my first week teaching two-year-olds at Calvary. Only 35 left. Not that I’m counting.

I am having a very nice time with my classes. I have 9 kids on Tuesday, 8 on Thursday and 5 on Monday & Wednesday. Two of the kids come all four days, two of the kids come only on Tuesdays, and one comes only on Thursdays. They will all be turning three sometime this Spring.

The first day was Tuesday. It was hard, but not as bad as I’d expected to it be. I guess it’s one of those things where you expect the worst but hope for the best and get somewhere in middle. When all the other classes were crying around me, my class was quiet. The hard part for my class was naptime. And it was just one child who made it hard. I felt bad for the child to be so upset, especially when grandma arrived to find the child still quite upset. That all ended fine. I talked with the child’s mom to assure her that her child was really happy during most of the day, and that I truly believed this is something that would pass quickly. Today I once again prepared for the heart wrenching screams, but instead the child gave me a solution. All that was needed was to be held for a bit. As I walked around the room helping the other children go to sleep, I had a little shadow waiting really patiently to be held. One child never did fall asleep but was very quiet. That child’s mom told me that they’ve never gone without a nap, so I need to figure out how to help that child too without bringing on the screams of the first one. All the children in the class seem to enjoy being at school and doing the activities, and the moms seem fairly pleased with the care their children are receiving.

My class on Wednesday was a dream with only five kids. They all slept and they all did every activity. They were a joy. This helped tremendously as Timothy and Zachary were both having pretty rough days. Zachary’s problem stemmed from a toothache. I took him to get it checked out today, and they found no root damage or gum damage. So, Tylenol and Baby Orajel is the answer. I suspect Timothy was tired, but he wasn’t quite himself that day either, so it was good that I had not had a stressful day.

Unfortunately, there is a side effect of working in a preschool. It’s hitting us a little odd though. This morning, Scott woke up with a 102 degree temperature and sore throat. The kids and I all checked out fine, so off we went to school leaving Scott to fend for himself. By the time we got home after school, my throat was hurting so I decided I better take my temperature too. Just over 100. Great! Now I’m tired and achy, and I don’t know if it’s from holding kids so much or from beginning to get sick. It’s probably both.

So far, the kids are fine. I thought they were the ones who were supposed to be getting sick from being around other children. Cute little carrier monkeys.

Posted by mommyfranklin at August 31st, 2007

Yesterday was Emily’s birthday. Even though we’d already had her party, we made sure she got to feel special all day long.
When I took her to school that morning, I asked her teacher when her class went to lunch. Our eye doctor appointments were mid-morning, and we were a little concerned that they would overlap with her lunch time since it would have overlapped with when she had lunch in Plainview last year. After talking with her teacher, I learned that we’d have about 30 minutes if everything went on a good schedule. We packed Emily some lunch money just in case, but told her we would do our best to be there. She asked that we bring food from Subway.

Our appointments lasted a little longer than we’d hoped, but we did manage to make it to lunch on time. In fact, we made it with about 10 minutes to spare. The four of us hung out in the cafeteria until it was time for her to class to come in. This was another change from her old school, when we would go to her class to pick her up whenever we had lunch with her. Scott thought she’d be worried we weren’t coming, so he met up with her in the hallway. He walked her in and we had a very nice lunch together.

After lunch, we headed home so Scott could finally go to work. The boys and I headed to the store to get cupcakes and treats for Emily’s class. We made it back home in time for Zachary to take a very short nap, and then headed to the school again for a class party. It was a lot of fun getting to meet Emily’s classmates. Zachary wandered around the class and Timothy stayed close to me. That’s pretty much how I expected things would go.

Emily had requested a special dinner of Chicken Fingers, Mashed Potatoes, and Lima Beans. After eating, we headed to Toys ‘R’ Us so she could spend some of the money she had received for her birthday. She bought a spirograph, a Monopoly Jr. game, a Groovy Girl doll, and some ColorSplitz markers. Then, we went out for Krispy Kreme’s for a special birthday dessert.

It was a fun day.

Posted by mommyfranklin at August 31st, 2007

It’s been a hard week for Timothy. Now that Emily is gone to school, he has lost his playmate. Zachary plays with him some, but a two-year-old isn’t much of a playmate for a four-year-old. It’s plain to see that he is a little lonely. I am really hoping that will improve with his school starting next week.

One way that he has kept himself busy is by playing with our Fridge Phonics Word Whammer toy. He spends hours putting different letters into the toy to find out what it spells. When he succeeds in spelling a word, he comes and tells us the word.

Four years old and putting together words. Once Scott even caught him looking at a piece of mail to find a three letter word and then putting those letters into the toy so it would read the word to him. Now that’s thinking.

Posted by mommyfranklin at August 31st, 2007

I’ve spent the week getting the paperwork filled out for the boys to go to preschool this year. One thing that was required was a copy of their birth certificates. That wasn’t a big deal to me. We didn’t get a birth certificate from the hospital when Zachary was born, so I needed to go to the Health Department to get one. The health department is located on the East side of town, not far from Tech. It took about 30 minutes to get there.

Now this is where we get to the part that bugs me.

It cost $23 to get my own child’s birth certificate. I was there less than 10 minutes, and I had to pay them $23. It’s just not right.

When I went to the church so they could make a copy of the boys’ birth certificates, I learned that we couldn’t use the hospital birth certificate anyway. This was not the school’s rule, but is a rule for the licensing board. So, the certificate we had for Timothy wouldn’t work either.

Scott saved me from having to drive all the way of there again. He went to get Timothy’s birth certificate during his lunch break. I turned it in today, so the boys are finally registered for school.

Posted by mommyfranklin at August 31st, 2007

Scott and I went to the eye doctor yesterday. We have been having some trouble with our contacts, and are in need of some new ones. When we arrived, we filled out the typical paperwork and I was soon called back to the room with all the little machines. I don’t know what they all do, but have gotten used to them. This doctor had one I hadn’t seen before. It had all these big bright red circles on it. I was told to sit with my chin angled so I would looking at the red circles through the side of my eye. I think this one took a picture of my eye, but really don’t know.

While we were waiting for the machines to print out the results, the doctor’s assistant asked me some questions about my contacts that I had before. She asked how long a pair generally lasted. I told her 1-2 months. She asked if I knew that the ones I had were only supposed to last two weeks. I had no clue! I figured there were at least one month contacts, so this came as quite a surprise. Turns out that Scott’s were also two week contacts, so we both got a mild talking to about it.

Despite the fact that we wore our contacts far longer than we were supposed to, the doctor said there was no irreparable damage to our eyes. We both had some slight corneal distortion, but nothing too serious. The doctor fitted us both with one-month contacts, so hopefully we’ll not have as much trouble with our contacts as we were having before. She said if we wear these the correct amount of time, our eyes would return to normal. I know my eyes feel better today than they have in months.

Posted by mommyfranklin at August 31st, 2007

It’s been a little over a week since my last post. Generally it wouldn’t phase me a bit to go that long without posting, but I had kind of gotten accustomed to blogging more often than that.

It’s been a busy week.

My last post was the 22nd. I’ve had plenty of blog topics jump into my mind since then, but just haven’t had a moment to sit down and blog. Since then, we’ve had meet the teacher night at Emily’s school, Emily’s sleepover for her birthday, visited another church, Emily’s first day of 2nd grade, meet the teacher night at Calvary, registration for the boy’s school, doctor’s visits, and Emily’s birthday. Not to mention that the Fall semester of the Virtual Campus is well underway.

And now I have about an hour before I need to go anwhere. The boys are watching cartoons and Emily’s at school. What should I blog about first?