Pre-Halloween

Spent last weekend at the Dayton Tall Timbers KOA for one of their Halloween-themed weekends. We have been doing this the last few years at the Cross Creek Camping Resort north of Columbus, but for various reasons couldn't make their weekend. We had stayed at the Dayton KOA before, so we knew it was very nice. We had a really good weekend.

The twins were really cute trick-or-treating for the first time - although Hannah had some trouble with the idea. You see, Hannah's favorite thing in the world to do right now is to take things out of one container and put them in another. She will sit and do this for an hour if we let her. So, here she is, walking around with a brightly colored pumpkin-shaped container, and she goes up to someone holding a bowl full of candy. So...of course she wants to put ALL that candy into her container. Which...looks really bad if you don't know the whole backstory. So we had to keep telling her to only take one, and man did she look offended. Never got upset, because there was always another bowl right ahead, but she definitely was confused why we were killing her fun. I mean, she would have put them all back eventually! Anyway, they both did fine, although Robby did get pretty scared by some of the more gruesomely decorated sites.

It was of course the anniversary of the last RV Halloween weekend, which ended at Columbus Children's Hospital with Robby's epic croup case. But no major illness this year. I did get laryngitis again just like last year, but this is simply an annoyance. (I still don't have my voice completely back, for the record. I can talk fine, but I still can't demonstrate singing voice for my students.)

When we got back, plop, right into the stress pan. (I know that's not a real expression but I just made it up and I like it a lot) It's been said that the human mind can only think about a certain number of things at once, without something dropping out. I can feel this when there is so much going on in my life that I get overwhelmed...and then I just take care of ONE thing, and all of a sudden everything seems clear. Well, this week I got a different end of this. I had about 7 things to think about and worry about and then I got an additional really big dose of bad news...and I discovered that I had absolutely no where else to put it. So it sat there, piled on top of my worries, but not really being dealt with.

The bad news actually went away very quickly on its own, so all is fine now...but it was an odd sensation.

The next 2-3 weeks are a grind. I'll check in when I can. Stay sane (or just sane enough)...

Matt

Wearing down

It's been a busy stretch lately. Not bad, not overly stressful, just busy. Something has to take a back seat, and the blog has suffered. The recent news:

Hard at work on a surprisingly complicated mess of a 4th grade program. Just got done assigning the parts - way too many - if kids don't show it will be a nightmare. Luckily I feel like I've managed to instill in most of my students the sense that actually showing up for something that you've worked hard at and that other people are counting on you for is a good thing.

Just got done with a Brass Fellowship peformance with the Cincinnati October Festival Choir - played, among other things, Hindemith's Apparebit Repentina Dies (think I typed that right). Truthfully, one of the most difficult things I have ever had to perform. Not necessarily the most technically challenging but the most mentally demanding from start to finish. Felt totally drained by the end of it. Very thankful to have been a part of that.

Kids are well - although Hannah this morning threw us all for a loop with an exploded diaper. Faith had an ear infection recently, which was our first trip to the doctor in months. We know more are coming, but it was nice to have such a good run of health. Mari is adjusting exceptionally well to 5-day preschool. No reports of any trouble yet. Sadly, she's back in the habit of growling at us when we correct her or ask her to do things. But, she's being a good Specter lately...keeps her problems in-house. Faith is also doing well in 1st grade - seems to be doing quite well socially, including claiming to have a boyfriend. We all got quite interested until we realized that it wasn't a big deal because the boy in question is also several other girls' boyfriend. The twins are also doing well, with the exception of when Steph has to take them in to pick up Mari on days when the twins DON'T go to preschool. At which point they proceed to throw textbook tantrums and have to be dragged kicking and screaming out the door. Nice. And, as referenced in an earlier pic, their artistic skills are bordering on special needs.

In the midst of all this I've been doing some pretty good teaching and am feeling more and more comfortable with the flow of the year. I'm trying to new things and most of it is working. The days kind of zip by most of the time.

And at home, movie work slowly progresses. Just about done with Hilton Head 2010. Look for those movies to appear on Youtube soon.

This weekend, last trailer trip of the year, to Dayton Tall Timbers KOA for a Halloween themed weekend. Should be fun. Here's hoping that things don't go like they did last year at our Halloween trailer weekend.

God bless,
Matt

My RedHawk Experience

This is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to Team Towner's latest blog entry. They get to go to Nebraska games - big time college football - one of the premier experiences in the nation.

Today, dad and I took Faith and Mari up to Oxford for the big Miami-Kent State game.

Stand back.

Okay, in fairness, I used to go to Miami games a lot, back when my brother was in college there. It is, at its best, a wonderful football atmosphere, a beautiful location, just on a small scale. Which is a good thing.

But the team has struggled of late and the energy seemed a bit lacking today. Admittedly it was a typical early October day in Ohio - temp in the upper 50s, overcast, steady rain. But after just having read Gina's post, I couldn't help but compare. At any rate, it was a good day, the girls were wonderful, and we got to see cousin Kevin march - very entertaining Queen show, I must say.

Some pics - enjoy, Gina and Cliff...

Dad sprung for some sweatshirts for the girls - and it was a good thing too, they would have been absolutely drenched if he hadn't:



Big crowd for the opening kickoff:



When the rains came, it REALLY emptied out:



We had the whole place to ourselves.



Time to get out of the rain - game over. Miami won, in case you needed to know.

Okay, so I feel bad now. First time I put a pretty negative post on the blog and then it sits there for almost 2 weeks.

Things are better. I'm in a pretty 'routine' stretch right now. Our next big event to look forward to is our pre-Halloween trailer weekend trip in mid-October. That's a ways away at this point, but it's something to work towards. Steph starts her job up again full-speed very soon as well, so everyone is going to be a little busier soon.

The weather has finally broken and I think we're done with the heat. There are starting to be lows in the 40s in the forecast, which after 90+ heat as recently as last week, looks really nice. We are still looking for a decent firepit we can get on the cheap, to be able to go outside and enjoy the cool evenings, but so far no luck.

Kids are all loving school. I will probably have more to say about that coming up soon. But for now, that's all I got.

MS

Reality

Lest anyone get the mistaken impression that we only post the happy feelgood stuff on here...

Boy, these kids are a pain sometimes. Faith and Mari can't be in the same room without fighting over the air molecules. Hannah says "Ouch" now if you touch her at all and screams over everything. Faith, when she knows she's done something wrong, now likes to weepily exaggerate what she's done into truly epic proportions and then tries to command the situation by interrupting us and saying what she thinks we're going to say about WHY it was bad - again usually with a keen sense of hyperbole...and incorrectness. Mari has again taken to slamming doors and shouting unintelligibly at us when she gets in trouble, along with attempting to variously run away, hide her face, or every so often, growling. Hannah doesn't understand that there are necessarily some moments at the dinner table when food isn't actually IN your mouth, nor does she understand that her mouth can't hold 2 hot dogs all at once.

Robby...well, actually he's been pretty okay lately.

It's been a rough week behavior wise. Here's hoping things improve.

Matt

Preschool first day (part 2 - more pics)

Part 1 of this post is below - here are a few more pics.

Robby got right to work on puzzles:

Please, let this be a picture full of symbolism.



All done!




Ugh...Robby and Hannah have a long way to go in the art department...

Preschool first day

The following is an email Steph sent me this morning - I thought it made for as good a blog post as any I could have typed up:

____

Well, all 4 of my children are in school at the moment for the first time!
:-) :-(

Mommy did fine -- I really didn't even tear up too much. It was nice to be able to stay for a few minutes after they got settled in to their classrooms to kinda "sneakily" watch them and snap some more pics while they weren't watching.

Mari, of course, barely even remembered to give me a hug and went right in, found her name tag and got on with playing with My Little Ponies. No problems.

The twins were so cute with putting their bags and lunch boxes in their cubbies. Robby went right in, no problems, all smiles. Found his name tag right away w/ out help (big surprise -- picture him saying, "A B C C's!!!!" then got to work on a puzzle. Hannah went in, but gave Mrs. O'Brien her shy but if you don't know her well it seems nasty kinda look -- classic Hannah! Hannah found her name tag by herself as well. Had to be convinced a little more to start a puzzle. I went to see how Mari was doing (great of course) and then went back to look at the twins and I hear, "Hannah, we're all sitting at the table right now! Hannah! Can you come sit at the table with us? Thank you, great job!" Yeah. I believe Hannah will be the one with the biggest learning curve! :-)

So, all is well! I'll post/send pics later.

____

So, here are some pics:

Good morning!



Ready to go...but where's Hannah?


Grumpy as usual.


Nothing a little tickle can't cure...


More pics coming in a moment...

Random teaching thoughts

When I am working, when I am teaching, I'm not really me. I suppose that is true of all of us to an extent, but as a teacher, especially a teacher of very young kids, you really are putting on an act when the kids get there. I suppose that maybe SOME of my colleagues are genuine and they really are just being themselves, but...well, anyone who knows me and my 'real' personality know that me singing happy songs and making people feel good about themselves is a little bit unnatural for me. I'm sarcastic, and a little dark (not as dark as I like to think, Steph would say - she's probably right, too), and my humor fluctuates wildly between inappropriately immature and incoherently esoteric. Not the stuff for Kindergarteners who are just learning self-control and manners.
But I have my act down, and it has become very natural for me to fall into that place. And it's not completely 'not me' at all. I do feel good for the kid who finally 'gets' something or who shows real promise at something. I feel good being able to facilitate that moment or help a kid turn a bad day around just a little bit. I just have to be more demonstrative and overt and 'cheery' than I normally would in real life. So, as I said, it's not really me. And I sort of go through this transformation and step into the background and let "Mr. Specter" take over.
But the funny thing is this:
Every now and then, my regular, normal, everyday personality unexpectedly creeps back up into my brain and I suddenly realize what I'm doing at that moment. It's unnerving, it's freaky, it's unpleasant, and it's nearly paralyzing. I HATE it when that happens. Being a self-made Kindergarten teacher is a lot like enjoying a thick, juicy cheeseburger. You can't think too hard about how it got there or you start to realize just how icky it is and how many things are just WRONG about it. You can ruin it for yourself. Best thing to do is just keep on eating out of habit and hope that your thinking self will get lost in the routine again.
I don't know what this says about me. Nothing too bad, I think, but I welcome your thoughts on the matter.

Matt

Date Night and Couples Night

Friday night Steph and I had a rare date night. Very rare. Very nice. We had the rare combination of some spare spending cash, and a free babysitter. So, Steph and I enjoyed a bizarre amalgamation of old and new. We went grocery shopping. Yup. And it was nice. Then, we went to see the "Mysteries of the Great Lakes" Omnimax at Cincinnati Museum Center. Back when we were dating, Steph and I saw the new Omnimax movies whenever they came out. So it was very much a nostalgic trip. The movie was...okay. Honestly it should probably have been named "Saving the Sturgeon" which would have been more accurate. As much as we've come to love the great lakes scenery, there wasn't enough of it. Still, beats watching another Barbie classic.

Dinner was at Don Pablo's on the river. For those who don't know the history here...back before we understood both the massive amounts of debt and the massive amounts of calories, and before doing so was a major headache with even 2, let alone 4 kids in tow...we used to eat out a LOT. I mean, ALL. THE. TIME. And Don Pablo's was the high shrine of gluttony and credit card expense. "Hey, it's Wednesday, let's go eat at Don Pablo's!!!" We hadn't been for a long long time. Nowadays, when we go out, it's usually Cici's because it's cheap and it's already loud there so if the kids scream, no harm done. The food is not bad but it's not good, and after you stuff your face with it a few times, the thought of going back is less and less appealing. So a few weeks ago when the planets aligned, we decided to make Don Pablo's our first date night back.

So how was it? Honestly, not as good as previously remembered...but still very satisfying in a guilty pleasures kind of way. I can still eat a ridiculous amount of food when I want to...and the nice thing is I can usually skip the next 2 meals. We reminisced a lot about the REALLY old days in Peebles and how terrible we were with food and money back then. It was a very nice evening, but next time we might opt for something a LITTLE more highbrow in the food department.

That was Friday. Saturday night was our inaugural couples evening with B&K and M&B - we're starting an every 2 months rotation, and we hosted this time around. It was very nice to have everyone over and be adults. I sincerely hope that this can keep up - we have a good time together - I hope they had as good a time as we did. I generally abhor social situations like that, but it felt very comfortable, which is saying something for me. If they are reading this I reassure them that my occasional distance is not disinterest...I may have made that mistake in the past but I'm trying to correct it. Friends are few and far between in this world, and I've got some good ones. Not a lot, but the ones I've got are good.

All in all, all is well. We are entering a 'grind' now - lots of full weeks at work with no breaks in sight. At the other end is Thanksgiving. Let's do this.

Matt

Why I hate August

August is the worst. It's not just that teachers have to go back to work then. But it puts the whole month in limbo.

August starts off with a dreadful unease, knowing that you're in the final days of your all-too-easy existence. It's coming. You know it. And even though the stress of going back has decreased markedly in recent years, there's still a major lifestyle change that occurs when you make the switch from doing pretty much what you choose all day to having a job again. It all culminates in the last few days, where no matter how much you want to 'make the most' of the end of summer, the fact is you're just so USED to it that you can't appreciate it.

When work actually starts, it's almost a relief - the thing that's been a big unknown in your mind is finally able to be made real. And it's a lot easier mentally dealing with 'the devil you know'.

And then there's late August. First, it's hot. Stinking hot. And my room at school has no A/C and is situated by the parking lot where the sun beats right into the windows all afternoon. So by the end of every day I am melted and beaten down. Every day I check the weather, and every day, the 90s seem to continue. And usually, as happened this year, it gets nice and cool on the weekends, then heats up again all week. It makes me yearn achingly for fall. But even worse than the temperature is the late August time phenomenon. As a teacher, I always need to feel like I'm progressing through the calendar towards something. The problem with late August is that no matter how good you feel about the progress you're making...IT'S STILL ONLY AUGUST!!! It's like you haven't even started yet. Think about it. In the same month, you were still on break! So each day that the calendar still says "August" is another day that doesn't even seem to COUNT.

It isn't until the month finally turns over that all the days you put in actually feel completed. And suddenly, you can see all the work you've done, realize that you're firmly planted in your routine once again, and not feel like every day is a drop in the bucket.

So farewell, August, I hated you like I always do. I will see you again next year and I will hate you again. September, you aint much better. But you aint August so I welcome you. Thanks for getting here.

Matt