Nov. 13

The smell of paint is making me nauseous. The painters came today to start on the kitchen cabinets. I meant to photograph the kitchen before they started but forgot so this is the only picture I have of before. This was taken with my old co-worker, Melissa, the first week I moved in. You can kind of see what they looked like before. The picture makes them look like a beautiful cherry. They aren't. They are ugly oak.


This is what I see downstairs right now. Yikes! Hope I made the right decision!!





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Three year olds are so great. Can I just tell you how much I love being with them? (Although I said that about my second graders as well when I used to teach them. I guess I just really enjoy spending time with kids.) Today in the gym two little girls got hurt. Ella (in my class) fell off the scooter and split her chin and Sophia (in another class) got hit on the head with a ball. I took Ella to get some ice and then to get some antiseptic and a band aid. As I squirted some of the ointment out onto a QTip she looked at me with watery eyes and asked, "Is it going to hurt?" I told her "No, I promise." I was completely amazed when she didn't flinch when I applied it to her chin, completely trusting me. That really made me feel good to know that in three months she is bonded enough to me to trust my words. The other little girl, Sophia isn't in my class but her class joins mine on the playground. She sees me every day and she's a talker so I talk to her about 3 min. a day. (She's half Portuguese and has the cutest accent so I love to engage her in conversation). Anyway, she got hit in the head with a basketball and started to cry. Her teacher intervened and had the girl who threw the ball apologize and then told her she was fine and to go play. Well, she wasn't satisfied. She was still rubbing her head and looked over at me. I called her to me and she came right over. I saw she still had tears streaming down her face so I asked her if she wanted me to check it. She nodded and sat down in my lap. I asked her what happened and then took some time to examine her head. Three year olds just really want their feelings to be validated, I find. When I told her it wasn't bleeding and it was OK, she stopped crying, gave me a hug and was able to go back to playing. I saw her classroom teacher glance over at me with a surprised look on her face. I was kind of surprised myself, that she would come to me to comfort her over her own classroom teacher. As I was leaving the gym I passed another teacher with her kindergarten class on the steps. She said, "I don't know how you do it." I said, "Oh, they are so cute. They grow on you, trust me." She responded with "There's no way." To which I said, "Well, maybe they fulfill my maternal instinct." She said, "Well, forget these kids and go on and do that adoption or have one of your own!" I was thinking about that as I walked up the steps to my classroom. I wonder if I am dragging my feet because I am with children every day, and have been for 15 years. I bet if I didn't get to see kids every day I would be so much more pressed. Probably, but my time is coming. I look forward to nurturing and loving my own little one one day.



But meanwhile, my co-workers are still nuts so I looked on line for a new job.
~ 1 hour

Cleaned.
~1 hour.

Hope you had a productive day. See you tomorrow.