Random Ramblings...

• My mom's middle name is Patricia. She went by her middle name when she was little...she went by Patty. When she started school she switched to her first name because Patty was too common. A couple months ago I was singing the "This old Man..." song to the girls that ends "Nick-nack, Patty-wack give a dog a bone..." and my mom told me that when she was little the kids use to call her "Patty-wack" because of that song. I thought that was so funny and so random!

• Sometimes opinions really stink. If any of you personally know M, you know that she does not shy away from expressing herself. She is extremely determined. She knows exactly what she wants. Well, now she's started having opinions about her clothing. For instance, she refuses to wear denim. I have like 30 pair of hand-me-down jeans my sister Mel gave me, and M refuses to wear them. I can sometimes get her into khaki or corduroy, but she prefers to wear cotton pants. It just stinks for me because I have some cute outfits that she refuses to wear. She prefers shirts with animals on them...especially her horse shirt. I know, I know...this is all part of life. It was just so much easier when I could pick out cute little outfits and put them on her. It's hard finding cotton pants to match the different shirts I have. I love denim because it matches everything! Oh well. Just because I want to live the rest of my life out in a pair of jeans doesn't mean M does... :)







• Mr. N has a very calming presence. He's told me a number of times that people frequently comment on his calming presence at school. They like having him around because he's so different...so soothing. As his wife, I can attest to this. He tends to be the calm...I tend to be the storm. Anyways, I remember last year he was telling me how he had switched from one night class to another and the people in the class he left said that they missed having him around because he had such a calming presence. Mr. N was telling me this year he has to spend the first half of his day working with the more advanced class because he missed the first week of school due to military commitments and when he returned there were no available spots in the room where his class works. So he got place with the more advanced class. In the afternoons he's back with his class. He told me last week that his class was apparently talking about him during the first part of the day while he was with the advanced class. They were commenting on how calm he always way, and then started speculating what would make him angry. He told me, "I knew something was up when about 4 people came up to me and asked me what would make me really angry." Finally the last guy explained the conversation. He told Mr. N they wanted to see him really angry, and that he had an idea of something that would make him really angry but didn't want to do it because he was afraid it would do a whole lot of damage...more than just momentary anger. (Mr. N speculated to me that he thinks this guy's plan involved a foot through his canvas or something). He asked Mr. N what made him angry. Mr. N responded, "I don't know. The only think I can think of that really makes me angry is my 2-year-old when she runs around not listening to me. If you threw your arms up and ran around the room yelling and not listening, maybe that would make me angry..." We had a good laugh over that. I wish I had asked what the guy had said in return. We talked a bit about the situation though, and that how his resisting rising to anger in response to things his classmates may do could end up being a great example to our family...particularly our children...when they are older and facing angering situations.






• Oh, and just to brand myself a total dork, in the Twilight book series I've always really liked the Edward character, not as much Jacob. In the movies, though, I think Jacob is way more attractive than Edward. Now I totally want her to ditch Edward and go for him. That's very different from how I feel about the book. That's all. Now I need a dork badge.

• Oh, and I wrote this past like Monday and forgot to post it. Nice.