The Upside

I rag on the idea of being married to a teacher from time to time, but when it all boils down I can not imagine being married to someone who is not!  (Okay, so it's a stretch for me to imagine being married to anyone other than Anny, so I'm confined in my thinking!)

After our big snow storm that hit right before Christmas, I know a lot of people who were scrambling to figure out what to do with their children - they had planned all of their vacation days down to the hour, and use or lose had been used.  With schools closed, folks were forced to figure out which parent would take time off - for three extra days.  That's much harder than the occasional one day off.

But I didn't have to worry about that.  When Abby's school is closed, Anny's is too.  When Abby's school is delayed, I can still get to work on time (-ish, I still had to clean off cars!) and not worry about the ramifications.  It was a blessing to have that knowledge.

The summers-off thing is hard sometimes - and I do my fair share of complaining, I promise.  In the same breath I usually say that it's mostly because I'm jealous that the two of them get so much one-on-one time while I'm stuck doing the same thing I do for the rest of the year (now without windows in my office!) every day.  This summer Anny went out of her way to come to the office, with Abby of course, about once a week, though it is pretty far out of her way.

It is also wonderful to know that even if Anny is grading papers, we will all be home, every day for dinner and family time.  In reality, she's around more than I am because I fall asleep by 8:30 9:30 most nights.

An advantage that we have just begun to realize is access to a variety of events that are free for teachers.  We have been to more high school hockey games than I can count, as well as numerous basketball, soccer and football games!  Abby and I have perused the Science Fair projects in past years while Anny was working the room, and no matter what event we go to, our little one gets showered with attention.  That's a plus in my book any day!

As the new year has begun, I've begun to realize just how good I have it, and I believe that a lot of that comes from being married to Anny!

Halloween 2009

We did something strange last year - we grabbed two costumes from another teacher at Anny's school at a very good price.  I think we paid $10 for both, but their children had outgrown them and we were a year (and a hope) away from Abby being able to fit into them.  $10 is low risk, so we didn't really hesitate.  I did an even stranger thing this summer and bought another one on Ebay when I found out that Anny's schools Homecoming would fall on Halloween.  With that in mind, here are three stories from our Halloween...

Friday at School:

For those that do not know, Abby's daycare is contained within a school for children with special needs.  The daycare is in the last two classrooms on the back side of the building, but the two programs work together for special events, like Halloween!  All of Abby's classmates dressed up in their Halloween finery and went Trick-or-Treating to all of the classrooms in the school.  Even better than that was that they invited us parents!  I had a blast and it was quite possibly the cutest thing ever.

At Homecoming:

From 10 2009

The high school football game was scheduled for Saturday, and I had a plan.  We grabbed lunch at the grocery store and ate it in our seats, then we got Abby dressed up as the school mascot: A Gator!  She hopped on my legs for a while, then ran around a bit.  Once the Pom Squad sat down, Abby really got attention!  (This photo was taken by their coach.)  Abby was excited and happy, and most of all we tricked her into being warm on a chilly day!  (Okay, so it was about being adorable, but two birds/one stone!)

Saturday Night:

Saturday evening we had some rain, so we started by playing in the yard under (and around) the umbrella.  Once dinner was done, Abby knew that something great was supposed to be happening, so we could no longer keep her pent up in the house.  We only T-o-T'ed on our street, but Abby's bag was plenty full.  We started walking with a friend down the street, and the power of two-cute-toddlers can not be matched!  Abby even got candy twice at one house because we brought a friend!

We had a great Halloween, and hope that you did too!

Why I Am Glad Summer Is Over

This is really just a summer-in-review post since we have been fairly neglectful of Abby's blog in the last few months.   There has been lots going on... 

PHEW!  Summer Break is winding down for Anny and Abby.  Actually, they both go back to their regularly scheduled school days tomorrow and I have never been so happy to see someone go to work in my life.  As I have had to sit at my desk, day after day, they have been out doing wonderful things with each other. 

What kind of wonderful things?  This summer they spent chunks of time in Downtown Silver Spring - every Wednesday to be exact.  They have a wonderful children's program during the summer, which is perfectly located because if your child tires of the magician, workout routine or singer/songwriter, they can just go play in the massive play-on fountain area.


They also went on daytime dates with Anny's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Bill to the Museum of Natural History, complete with massive Mammoth and gigantor Whale.  I know this because Abby's eyes still get huge when she talks about that whale!  (no picture because it seems Anny does not carry either camera unless I am around.)

They have spent most Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the Fairland Sports and Aquatics Complex in Laurel.  During the summer they offer "Open Gym" two mornings a week where for $5 you get free run of their entire gymnastics room - trampolines, toddler-equipment, foam pit - for an hour.  The other upside to this activity has been seeing some of Abby's friends there from week to week!  (no picture again, sorry.  It is a trend.  The only reason we have the fountain picture is that Nana was there!)

On Thursday of last week they took advantage of cruddy weather and a great deal to go see Horton Hears a Who at Arundel Mills with friends.  I still have yet to see that movie.  It sounds like it was a good time.

They have had a few playdates with some of Abby's friends, including special trips to the pool.  They have also had a lot of fun painting, coloring, going for walks around the lake and, well, whatever else came to mind!  There has been lots of Elmo and Signing Time going on in our house, too. 

All in all, Anny and Abby have had an excellent summer and are headed back to school this week.  I've never been happier.

Happy Mother's Day

While I have neglected my duties just a little bit for Anny's special day*, I wish all of you mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day.  It is hard work no matter what the age of your children, or of yourself.  I pray today that you have peace and quiet, a cooked meal that someone else had made, and a feeling that you are loved. 

As I know the struggle that many people have, I am pasting my favorite (if that's the right word) Mother's Day prayer from a few years back written by my friend Jan Edmiston.  She wrote this the MD before Anny and I were parents and we were struggling mightily with our situation.  This brought me peace:

I'm thinking about and praying for all those for whom tomorrow will be a rough day: those with mean mothers, sick mothers, absent mothers, disappointing mothers. Those who would love to be mothers but are not. For mothers who have lost their children and children who have lost their mothers.

 *Due to a heavy work load this week I was not able to pick up a gift certificate, but the intent is there and that's all I can say right now due to the readership of this blog.  It's not dirty, there just might be other mom's involved.  If I keep typing, I'll spill the beans...

Operation Dinner Out

Finally finding time to blog this week. I'm working on several posts in my head, but have not had any extra time to sit and write. I'm going to start with a story about our first dinner out in a long, long time without Abby!

Last Friday night the Maryland State Teachers Association honored the 302 teachers from across the state that achieved Certification through the National Board for Teaching Standards.  Yes, there are lots of acrynoms that could be used, and they will be from here on out!  The dinner was at the Marriott Waterfront in Annapolis, Maryland.  I don't think I've ever been to that part of town, which is humorous just a bit since I've lived here for like 20 years and it's the state capital!

The dinner out process started about two months ago when Anny received an invitation to the dinner.  It was explicitly clear that I was not invited, and honestly that rubbed us both wrong.  I wrote, on Anny's behalf, and email to the contact and said that she respectfully declined the invitation if her significant other was not able to attend.  They said that they were dealing with space issues and had to wait to see how many teachers would be there before they could release seats to guests.  Obviously, they let me go or there would be no more story at this point!


Let me tell you, it's a ton of work for a teacher to achieve this certification and about 50% fail on their first attemps.  Anny went through the process twice, once she was pregnant and the second time we had an infant/early-toddler on our hands.  Every time that she need to work on her projects, I got the extra house and child rearing stuff.  I earned a spot at that table, as did every other significant other in the room.

My aunt Pam came over to watch Abby.  This was a big thing for us.  We have done two lunches out, and one evening when Anny and I each had meetings at different locations.  The evening babysitting was not pleasant for anyone involved, but it was more than a year ago so we were a bit more confident.  We left an extremely thorough "Abby's Normal Evening" list for Pam to use.  I'll probably post that later today or tomorrow on Abby's blog.

We got to the hotel almost exactly on time and got our nametags and drink tickets.  The thing is that we don't go out, obviously, so we had absolutely no idea what the tickets were for and ended up paying cash for Anny's first glass of wine.  No big deal, but felt pretty dumb about it later when someone pointed it out.  We were the first people from Howard County and found the table with the county name on it, along with Wicomico County's two teachers.  We found out, after setting ourselves up, that there was another full table of HoCo teachers.  It was not a big deal since Anny knew only one of them very well, and he ended up at our table with his wife.

They kicked off with speeches that included the MSTA president as well as the Lt Governor of Maryland.  It hit me at that point that these are people with their hands on the stimulus money that we hear about on the TV every day.  It's just so intangible in my head, but these people know it to be real, honest-to-goodness money.  It was the first time that we had heard that Maryland is the Number 1 state as far as education goes in the country according to Education Week.  That's pretty cool.  (See how your state stacks up HERE.)

Dinner was nice, especially considering it was buffet style!  They had four tables of meat, two (very rare) roast beef and two of turkey.  They had two tables of pasta with veggies, and bread.  It was surprising how quickly the lines seemed to move, but I realized that these are teachers, and they spend part of their day herding children through cafeteria lines.  They are pro's, so to speak!

After dinner they had each county line up to receive a certificate from the MSTA and a very cool plaque for their desk.  One county had only one recipient, and two counties had well over 25.  Anny's county had 13 total, and I think that about 9 of them were there.  This was a very, very long process and so we got to talking with our table mates and had a great time chatting.

We got home much earlier than we thought, which was kind of nice.  Pam offered to watch Abby again any time, of course, and that she was an angel.  She only asked about us twice, which is no more than when only one of us is home and the other is out.

Anny's certification lasts for ten years, so I don't think I can pull off a nice, fancy dinner again for a while.  Maybe she can work with next years participants and get an invite that way...  I should get to work on that right now!

What's with the Weather?!

On Monday of this week we had a snow day at our house! Everything but the Federal government closed (they were delayed) thanks to the 4-9 inches of snow that blanketed our area. We decided to get some things done around the house, like mopping the bathrooms (fun, right?) and finishing Abby's play kitchen (posting this weekend, probably) with our extra free time.

Since we only get a really good storm like this every other year it seems, we wanted to be sure that Abby got out into the snow. It was clear almost immediately that she was not going to have anything to do with it. I cleared out an 18 in hole in the snow to put her in, and she cried the moment her feet hit the floor. As you can see below, we ended up putting her in her red wagon and dragging her through the snow, sled-style, and up the street once. In her defense, the wind was quite harsh...



With all of the snow and wind that we dealt with on Monday, with a bonus two hour delay on Tuesday, it's pretty amazing that we are currently planning on a trip to the National Zoo on Saturday! The weather at the end of the week is slated to be 60 degrees warmer than at the beginning! It's a swing from 8 degrees on Monday to a predicted 68 on Saturday!

How is your weather?

A Day of Quiet

Don't think that I'm joining a Monastary or planning to avoid talking for a day!

Yesterday Anny and I took a mental health day off of work and spent a wonderful day together to celebrate our shared birthday on Tuesday.  We took Abby to school at the regular time so that her routine would remain the same.  Then we headed home to get laundry going and pick up the house a bit before our vacation to Saint Louis that starts on Saturday. 

If I was to confess, I would let everyone know that Anny and I have only had two dates on our own since Abby was born.  We did have a third double-date over the summer sans children, and that was fun too.  It became a goal for yesterday - have a really messy, non-child-friendly meal, and boy did we deliver.  We went to a barbecue joint and I got two kinds of ribs!  Completely messy and completely wonderful.

We love Abby dearly, but it was nice to not have to chase a toddler.

Okay - tell me that we're not the only ones who have been out less than five times in the first 18 months of a childs life.  Give me some hope, people! 

Happy Thanksgiving

There are many many things to be thankful for this November, and the list below is only a sample.

I'm thankful that....

...we have a warm place to live and enough money to keep it warm
...I have a wonderful family, both the ones that live inside this house and outside of it
...I have wonderful and supportive friends as close as next door and as far away as the other side of the globe
...Anny got her National Board Certification last week.  It's a great relief that the waiting is over.
...we will get to spend a little time with a lot of family today
...in less than a month we will be visiting with even more family in St Louis
...Abby is a wonderful child in every way
...I have friends that I've met through the net and keep up with
...for as much as I look for something to complain about, life is good

What are you thankful for today?

Married to a Teacher: Back to School

It's that time of year again - Back to School.  The sales have been in major chain stores for about a month already, but mostly for the early colleges.  Today, though, marks Anny's first day of Staff Week at her school.  Fun.

This also means that Abby goes back to school today!  She took a little bit of coaxing to get out of sleepiness, but once she has some grub she was excited to be up!  I think she has my genes in that department.  Here's the girls this morning:



But, and there is almost always a but...

Now is also the time of big transition for our little household, and for many other households across the nation.  Now is the time that things have to be planned for and done differently.  Everything from laundry to house cleaning; from dinner to alarm clocks.

I can no longer assume that all of the poopy diapers will be changed by mama.  I can no longer look forward to empty laundry hampers when I get home from work. 

This year will be a harder transition for the house than in years past.  I think that individually each of us will just keep on doing our thing - Abby playing at school with her friends and us parent-types will do our jobs, hopefully well.  I think that the real change will be in how we operate together. 

Different from last year is that Abby is now a little person, not just an infant.  She has preferences, and lets you know what they are.  She even has shoes that have been deemed better than others!  (thank goodness, from my pespective!)

We have to try and guess if she will eat certain things, but we're not sure what will work until we do some trial and error.  During the summer it was easy - if she won't eat a quesadilla, give her a cheese stick.  We'll play a new guessing game for a while.

It's going to take a few weeks to get into a groove.  I wish I could say that we're used to this, but I think it's going to be a bit different this year.