The worth of my work

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1215

Nuff said.

Back to school, me and Bee

I'm SO glad that I'm done with coursework. I just have to worry about teaching, and I finally got my schedule. I'm only going to have to leave my babies for an hour on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday! Thanks to some good colleagues/friends who are willing to switch with me, I'll be teaching in the evening. I'm so excited that their desire to not teach in the evening coincided with my desire to not leave my kids during the day! I won't see Ben a whole lot those days, but the kids will be with one of us. Not that I'm terribly worried about leaving them...one of my great friends in the ward here is going to take care of my little ones. I'm so GLAD! There's something about being able to get my escape without feeling like I'm deserting my family.

And Bee is going to start ballet classes! She has been rather obsessed with ballet ever since she read the copy of Angelina Ballerina that my great grandma (Mamaw) gave me when I was a little girl. We found a place for her to go that does sort of basic movement things. I'm hoping it will help her with her jumping, running...big motor things. She can cut with big scissors and take DVDs out of the case without scratching them, but she can't kick a ball!

While I have those goals, her highlight of the whole thing is her new dance wardrobe: a black leotard that (shocker to a lot of you, I'll bet) was mine when I was little. (Courtesy of my Aunt T, who had it since her girls used it for their dance classes (thanks T!).) And I also bought her a pink one...which, once she didn't have Legos to be interested in, became her new favorite thing. When I asked if she would take it off to put on her pjs for bed, she said "I don't think so Momma. I'll just wear it." We did finally reach an agreement, but it took some doing.

I'm so glad that she's stand-uppy enough to tell me what she wants!!!

I'm officially a stay-at-home mom

And I know this at least in part because I have numerous things to blog about, none of which will be particularly interesting to anyone else, but I find at least amusing, if not exciting.

The first is (I hope) an actually exciting thing. We blessed baby today. (I still can't think of a nickname for him here) Ben did a great job, I thought the blessing was beautiful. Both granddads and a friend stood in the circle. And baby J was good and happy for the whole thing! Gran made him a blessing outfit (if I ever get to a good internet connection I'll post a pic) that was darling. So now we have a boy and a girl version of blessing garb. Hooray!

The next is (I'm sure) not even mildly exciting to anyone but me (with my compulsion for order in my existence). This week while my kids were taking SIMULTANEOUS NAPS (can't begin to express my happiness about THAT one, and yes, I know my days are numbered) I managed to clean out both Ben's and my clothes closet, the linen closet, the kids' closet, and the downstairs coat closet. And yes, that is ALL of my closets! And I'm talking a serious, really go through and throw stuff out version of cleaning them out. My little house is as ordered as it can possibly be. And that makes my brain function a lot better than it might otherwise.

The last is (I would swear to it) hilarious. We were listening to "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" from a Disney excerpts CD. After it was over, Bee hollered out "I want Baby Pocket, mom!" It was definitely the highlight of the day.

So I'm thinking about how it's odd that mundane things can be so fulfilling. I mean, during the school year there's no way I'd be excited about clean closets. I really think that I'm adaptable to my circumstances...and it's a good thing, or I'd be going absolutely nuts.