The Scrooge of Theme Parties

Just call me the Scrooge of "Theme Parties."

I strongly dislike Theme Parties.

Let me start by saying, there is a place for "theme parties." I support them fully when they are done in the kindergarten classroom. Tomorrow is "Sports Day" in my classroom. I have an awesome little boy moving to Washington state on Friday and tomorrow is his last day at school (which I am REALLY sad about). I gave him a choice between a bunch of theme days and he picked "Sports Day." I asked the parents for indoor sports so we have some "gator" golf, bean bag toss, trampoline, hula hoops and a sports memory game (yea not a sport itself but I needed some activities the kids could do independently while I guard the trampoline with my life). The kids are all going to dress up in sports gear. Is this going to be awesomely fun and hopefully something he remembers for awhile as he transitions to a new town/school? I hope so!!!! At the end of the year I do a full out ABC Countdown where every single day is a theme of some sort from Career Day, to Pajama Day (which usually makes an appearance a few times a year), to Water Day and so on. Like I said, there is a place for Theme Parties.

However, as an adult Theme Parties kind of annoy me for a few reasons...

#1- It seems the general plan of a "theme" party is to make the party goers look as ridiculous as possible. Wear your ugliest Christmas sweater? Yup. 80s party? Yup. Maybe it's just me, but I spend plenty of time not looking awesome. Pretty much every weekday when I fall out of bed, take the fastest shower imaginable while still getting clean, throw on the first clean clothes I see, etc. On the weekend, if I am going to go out I don't want to go out wearing an ugly sweater, I want to wear a beautiful sparkly sweater that I don't get to wear too often. I want to possibly look like for once I did not fall out of bed. It's actually unlike me to care all that much how I look, but it's nice to spend more than 5 seconds getting ready every once in awhile.

#2- Clearly I do not object to the time and money I invest in theme parties for kindergarten kids, but I really have no desire to actually go out and BUY an ugly sweater. That's time and money I could've spent on NICE clothes, or I don't know... not shopping at all?!

#3- There is a certain kind of weird "pressure" involved in these parties. If, God forbid you sweater is not ugly ENOUGH, you will go to the party and people will give you crap. This even happens to Eric and let's face it... WHERE are you going to find a Christmas sweater made for a 6'4" former football player?! C'mon people!

It may seem like, in fact, I don't hate theme parties but rather just ugly sweater parties and I have to say it seems like that because that is the theme party I am invited to most frequently. It's getting to the point that it has really be overdone. Though it is becoming more clear that I should've just invested in a damn ugly sweater in the first place. Maybe I do only hate ugly sweater parties... I wouldn't object to a pajama party...

All I can say is, on Friday I am attending an ugly sweater party (followed by a normal 30th birthday party which I will clearly be changing before). All it said on the invitation was to wear "festive" attire (because no one EVER calls an ugly sweater party what it is!). Therefore, I will be wearing my awesome new sequin uggs, with red leggings, a not-at-all ugly white sweater dress and MAYBE just maybe if I feel particularly festive the pink sequin Santa hat will come out. If I can figure out how to get rid of hat hair before the normal party. Give me as much crap as you want crazy theme-loving people. I will stand my ground. Ugly sweaters will not be making a reappearance in my life until I have adorable little kiddos that I can dress in matching sweaters. And then they won't be called ugly, they will be called precious :)

End rant.

What Should I Do With My Life?

I think some time during high school (or was it college?) my dad bought me the book above. The author interviewed tons of people who had asked the question, "What Should I Do With My Life?" and found all sorts of different answers. I read the whole book and it was definitely interesting. I think his goal in giving me the book was to show me all the possible careers out there. Now that I'm a Kindergarten teacher I see from an adult perspective the careers that kids know about... doctor, professional athlete, vet (I can't tell you how many kids in the past 5 years have wanted to be a vet, is there something about that career I'm missing?!), teacher, police/fireman, astronaut, you know the drill... However there are SO many jobs out there beyond all of these jobs you know about as a kid, and in reality, you receive very little exposure to them unless you happen to have a parent who is a publicist or an event planner or basically anything out of the elementary school norm. No wonder no one really knows what in the world they actually want to do with their life...

My internal dialog about my career has gone something like this...

High School/ College:

Kids are fun, I think I want to be a teacher. Wait, I don't want to be a teacher then I'll be poor forever. But I like kids. Maybe I'll major in elementary ed. I should have a back up plan, Communications seems pretty random, how about that? I actually like a lot about teaching, maybe I will do this. I think I'm going to switch my major to early childhood because I like teaching kids to read. First grade is awesome, I want to teach first grade. Kindergarten is terrible, first or second grade but definitely not kindergarten. I need to get a job. Let's interview in random faraway towns I would never want to drive to. So I landed a job in the ideal school district/location but it's teaching kindergarten... here goes nothing :)

Kindergarten Teaching:

Wow, kids and their parents suck. Kindergarten is terrible. Actually I love the curriculum but not the kids... Maybe I should switch grades. Maybe I should quit teaching. Ah, this new class is making me love kindergarten. Yay Kindergarten. Boo Kindergarten. Maybe I should be a reading specialist. Maybe I should leave teaching all together. I love teaching, I was meant for this job.Maybe I should switch to 2nd grade. Maybe I love kindergarten. Yay kindergarten. Boo kindergarten. I love kids I could never leave teaching. Kids are the worst.

I have a few thoughts on the question, "What Should I Do WIth My Life?"

1. Job does not equal Life. So, in answering the question, "What should I do with my life?" also consider what you want to do with your time NOT at work. My job is often times all consuming, but I do get time off to pursue my other passion: trips! For me, what I do with my life is very connected to my job... for others the two may be almost unrelated.

2. I used to think people who said they "love" their job mean they love it all the time. Then one time I overheard Eric tell someone that he "loves" his job. WHAT? I thought... no you don't! What about our hour long complaining session every single night? That's not love. I've come to realize love is a relative word when it comes to work. Work is always work. Even the best boss will be annoying at times. Even the best "clients" will be annoying at times. Even the best job may not motivate you to wake up before the sun with a big smile on your face. But at the end of the day (and I mean "day" in the broad sense, not the daily sense), could I imagine doing anything else? no. I could not imagine a day without cards and drawings piling up on my desk. I could not imagine a day without the clean up songs. I could not imagine a day without being told what to do by 5 year olds. Or by people who have never actually taught children. I could not imagine a day without hearing the kindergarten rendition of "Dynamite" (it included "I'm gonna rock this club like it's a volcano... singing heyo, baby let's go"). I could not imagine a day without being asked "why?" at least 10 times per hour. etc. etc. etc.

3. You may change your mind about what you want to do with your life. It's a process. You have the luxury.

4. For me, the key has been to focus on what I know. I do want to be busy. I do want to be active. I do want to have purpose. I do want to be challenged. I do want to use my mind. I do want to work with others. I do want to feel confident. I do want the power to make someone's day (even if it means the pressure that I could break it). For now, teaching kindergarten provides these things.

What do you want to do with your life? Do you know? When did you figure it out?

What is something you DO know that you want to do?

If time and money were no object, what would you do differently? Believe it or not, I'd still teach, but I'd hire someone to do EVERYTHING else for me. This includes cooking, cleaning, landscaping, laundry, grocery shopping (might as well since they are cooking all my meals), clothes shopping, donating clothes I don't need anymore, etc etc :) Since we are living in my ideal world, I wouldn't really mind more vacation time too. Might also hire some sort of behaviorist to come and whip my class into shape... and a parent manager (for the kids parents, not my own parents lol) wouldn't be terrible either. Whoa I'm getting carried away...

Christmas Optimism

It's already Monday again and all I can say is, is it vacation yet? Sometimes I feel like people might actually be conspiring to get me to quit my job. And no, I don't mean the kids. Though I did have to spend an hour long meeting this afternoon entering data into a spreadsheet (yes massive waste of time I am aware) and realized you couldn't pay me enough to do that all day. Enough about that... let's get optimistic...

Anyway, it's been awhile since I discussed my old favorite subject: weddings!

Guess what? My cousin Kristen got engaged this weekend!!!!! Whoa hoooo! I'm 1000 million times excited for Kristen, and also a very excited for another family wedding one in which I am not the bride. She's getting married next September a few weeks after Eric's cousin's wedding so wedding season is beginning again, wahoo!!!! So yes, the days of my declaration, "I hate weddings!" are over.

In other good news, I stole these fun Christmas questions from Katie. Feel free to answer a few in the comments :)

Wrapping paper or gift bags? I like the ease of gift bags, but wrapping paper is more fun to open. I'm a terrible wrapper though. I used to work at a chocolate store in high school and I would dread when people wanted gift wrapping!

Real tree or artificial? I've always had a real tree and I don't think I could ever go fake. But to be honest there is no way I'll ever have to make this decision because Eric would probably die before ever having a fake tree.



When do you put up the tree? As early as reasonably possible :)



When do you take the tree down? Eric and I tend to take it down on Christmas night, which is kind of sad but we go away right after Christmas so it makes more sense to take it down.



Do you like eggnog? Not a big eggnog fan, but I make up for it in my Christmas obsession with peppermint.



Favorite gift received as a child? Hmm, so many great gifts to choose from. My Stephy cabbage patch kid that I received at my first Christmas (right?) was a great one. I also loved my dollhouse and any American Girl doll/accessories. Hmm, this makes me sound extremely girly.



Hardest person to buy for? I think Eric is hard to buy for. He says this is an insult, but I don't mean it that way :) I also think my parents are kinda hard to shop for as well.



Do you have a nativity scene? No I don't, but I tell lie and tell someone I do last week... don't ask, being a teacher is a weird job I'm telling you.




Mail or email Christmas cards? I mail mine, but that's cuz I'm on a personal mission to revive snail mail!




Favorite Christmas movie? Love Actually




When do you start shopping for Christmas? It really depends on the year. This year I started shopping/researching around Thanksgiving.




Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? I haven't really recycled, but I will sometimes give people presents I was given if I think they will enjoy them more, but I'm honest about the fact that it was a gift.




Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Totally agree with Katie on this one, HONEY BAKED HAM!




Lights on the tree (colored or clear)? Colors




Favorite Christmas song? Mele Kalikimaka is my all time favorite. I also love "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and the Irish version of "Christmas in Killarney." I also love the Kenny Chesney Christmas cd especially, "Thank God for Kids"




Travel at Christmas or stay home? I've always been home at Christmas, but my top priority is to be with the people I love, wherever that is (WOW this is getting corny).




Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Haha yes I can!


Angel, star, or ribbon at the top of the tree? We have an angel at the moment and for as long as I can remember the top at my parents house was my toilet paper roll Angel from 1st grade CCD, so I guess angel it is!




Open present Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? I think 1 on Christmas Eve, the rest on Christmas morning. You need a little tease. Pretty sure I was responsible for starting that tradition... patience = not my strong suit




Favorite children's Christmas song? Hmm... which songs are for kids?


Most annoying thing about this time of year? Traffic near any stores, finding a parking space, crowded stores, the fact that the mall takes so long to start holiday hours- the mall still not opening til 10 am in mid December is ridiculous to me.




Favorite ornament theme or color? Any ornament with meaning/memories behind it.



Turkey or ham on Christmas day? Ham




What do you want for Christmas this year? Quality time with amazing people... and trips, I love trips.



Does anyone in your family dress up as Santa? I think Pops used to... or did I make that up in my mind?


Age you discovered who Santa was? who's Santa?


Egg nog, hot chocolate, or apple cider? peppermint hot chocolate?



Traditional colors (red & green) or other colors? red, green gold and silver are all Christmas colors to me


Do you have any Christmas decorations on your roof? no... and that is okay


How does Santa get into your house? Chimney or magic key? Yeah so for some reason this year it occurred to me that Eric and I don't have a chimney! I consulted with the experts (aka children) and they said Santa can come in the front door if I don't have a chimney. Few!!!



Do you prefer gifts or gift cards? I like both... it's always nice to shop after Christmas. I used to get a lot of gift cards from families at work... but who knows this year since they encouraging parents to donate to the school instead of giving us gifts... yeah... I have nothing to say about this.




Favorite children's Christmas cartoon? I think probably The Grinch. I put the Grinch on my tutoring game for this morning and the little boy kept singing "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch" throughout the game. It was a pretty awesome way to start a Monday morning.

The Beginning of Holiday Fun

Ah, Saturday- why can't you always be here?

It was a busy week in the life of Kelly, involving some cool things. I'm doing a special family traditions project in my classroom and it began this week. The kids made collages of their family traditions and a few parents came in to teach us more. On Monday a mom came in to tell us about St. Nicholas Day One of the traditions of this holiday is that kids take off one boot, put it on the window sill and St. Nick fills it with treats. So... she had all the kids (and teachers actually) take off their shoes and we filled them with treats while she was talking. Wish I could show you the kids faces when they discovered their shoes filled with treats :)

On Wednesday, I got to try on an Indian sari (in my favorite color!)...

Very cool.

But the highlight of the week came on Thursday when I hosted my gingerbread decorating party for some of my old kiddos. Again, I can't show you the adorableness of the kids but I can show you their creations...

By P., 4th grader:

By E., 3rd grader:

By A., 2nd grader:

There was one more, but I didn't get a picture of her house without her :) Too bad because she was the most impulsive gingerbread house designer. She was all about taking a handful of frosting and a handful of marshmallows and just throwing them on the house. Surprisingly, it looked pretty cool in the end. They all did an awesome job and some had never decorated a gingerbread house before. Plus we had a lot of fun. Eric had his marshmallow "gun" out and was trying to knock down gingerbread houses with it- they thought it was pretty hilarious. We may or may not be finding random marshmallows around the house for weeks to come :) Oh well, it's worth it. Sometimes it's refreshing to hang out with well- behaved, fun children who do not need modeling, oral and written step by step directions, and perhaps a reward at the end to simply take off their coat and sit down at the table, forget actually making the gingerbread house.

Right now I'm gearing up write my first "paper" in a long, happy while. It needs to have a thesis statement and all... boooooo. By gearing up I mean I have papers spread out all around me, but am clearly blogging instead. I also think I'm going to go do a little more Christmas shopping as well. So maybe the thesis paper will have to wait. Maybe it could wait forever...

Just for the record, when I'm a college professor (ha), my assignments are ALL going to be "based on what you have learned in class/reading etc, what things are you already doing right in your classroom and what things do you think you could add to have more benefits for your students? I personally feel like this would be a LOT more useful over thesis statements. But I might be bias, I've always hated thesis statements.

What is everyone up to this weekend?

The Case of the Slow Cars

So I have this job on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I tutor a second grade boy before I go to my "regular" job. I have a love/hate relationship with the situation because it's nice to get it over with so early in the morning (and we all know I am a morning person), but it is a bit of a rushed crazy morning twice a week.

This morning was no exception.



Speed shower. Speed breakfast. Speed lunch cooking. Speed tea making. Speed grabbing of all bags to become bag lady. Speed getting into car.





The car clock reads 6:51. I could've sworn the clock said 6:45 upstairs! Shoot, it takes exactly 10 minutes to get to tutoring. Hopefully if I hit all the lights just right, I can make it there on time.



The car clock reads 6:52. Almost missed the first key green light due to incredibly slow person in front of me. Please let him go straight when I turn right.



The car clock reads 6:53. Obviously he is going the same way as me. Road rage is brewing inside. Why would anyone be out at 6:53 if they don't have anywhere to go? We'll call him "Nowhere To Be."



The car clock reads 6:54. I could rush to get in front of this guy merging in, but why bother, who could go slower than this guy in front of me? We'll call the new guy, "Guy I Let In."



The car clock reads 6:55. Kelly, Kelly, when will you ever learn? "Nowhere to Be" is now speeding ahead but "Guy I Let In" is going below the speed limit. I'm getting very angry. Eric has rubbed off on me.



The car clock reads 6:56. "Nowhere to Go" obviously decided he has somewhere to be, he speeds right through the 4th traffic light while it's still green. I, on the other hand, am stuck behind "Guy I Let In". Man, I stink at aggressive driving. Eric was right.



The car clock reads 6:58. The red light finally turns to green. Let's gun it! Ha, yeah right. "Guy I Let In" is not gunning anything. Let's slowly creep to the next light. Who needs to be on time for tutoring anyways?



The car clock reads 6:59. We are stuck at another red light, but guess who is right in front of us? "No Where To Be" is stuck at the same light. So you do always catch up with them at the next light. My mom was right.



The car clock reads 7:00. Just one quick rotary and I'll be there. Oh! It's a game of let's see how slow we can go in the rotary? Wait a minute, why are we yielding for people coming into the rotary? Hmm, will I ever get to tutoring?



The car clock reads 7:01. Yup, it takes 10 minutes no matter what. Luckily my watch still says 6:59 and the family hasn't opened the door yet. Wahoo, I'm not late.



Another Tuesday has begun.

Productive Weekend- Day 26

Good morning!

It's been a few days :) On Thursday night we celebrated Eric's mom's birthday...



Too bad her oldest son is a bit of a brat... he got his mom trick candles :)





And notice how happy Eric is about it. Haha. Don't worry though, we did get her the Captain Zoom Cheryl song, so she didn't have to miss out on her favorite birthday song :)



This weekend began with some delicious apple crisp...



and continued to with beautiful Christmas decorations everywhere we went...















Last night for dinner we went to Dante, which is a delicious Italian restaurant in the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge. I love hotel Christmas decorations...















If you live in the Boston area and haven't been to Dante you should. The food is amazing and the view into Boston over the Charles River really cannot be beat. Unfortunately I did try to take a picture but it didn't really work with all the lights and the glass :)



Anyway, the rest of the weekend so far was spent Christmas shopping. Yesterday I got Eric's present, some books for the boy I tutor, presents for my classroom assistants and I ordered the "event gift" for my family. Eric and I also did some serious wrapping last night. Most of what I have left to do is finish organizing our present for Eric's family, stocking stuffers for Eric and that's about it. I started early this year and the event gifts thing definitely makes things easier. I don't think it was necessarily a money saver, but it takes a lot less time (time is money right?) and I think they will remember the present for longer because it's going to be a memory instead of another thing. I hope so anyways!



Speaking of family, day 26 of the blog challenge is supposed to be a picture of my family... this may sound simple but apparently it's more complicated than I thought. On Friday I was starting my Family Traditions journal with my kiddos and on the first page the kids were supposed to draw a picture of their family. I wanted to show them a model but I also wanted it to go quick because they had already been sitting for awhile and with kindergartners, the less sitting the better. So I drew a really fast picture of me and Eric and I said, "ok that's my family!" Silly me I thought I could get away with drawing what is now just my immediate family. Wrong! All of a sudden my child with autism starts yelling, "JAKE! JAKE! WHAT ABOUT JAKE! DON'T FORGET JAKE!" haha, so I had to add my mom, dad, sister and brother before he would be satisfied. Fortunately he did not think of Eric's family that is also my family or we would've been there all day with me trying to draw everyone in the tiny box! So, my student approved family pictures:

Family 1:





Family 2:





Family 3:





Hopefully I didn't forget anyone or I will face the wrath of the 6 year old :)



Now I must go clean my house and then head to yoga & lunch with the birthday girl (actually her birthday was technically yesterday but why not get a whole weekend of fun?)



As I ask my students every Monday morning, what was the BEST thing you did this weekend?

Music Randomness- Day 25

It's going to be a quick post, but I didn't want to leave for multiple days in a row when I'm supposed to be blogging every day, oops :)

I started my class last night that I have been dreading. It's definitely not going to be that bad, but it was weird to be back in a class. You know how there is always, "that person" in your classes? You know... the one who talks a lot about things that aren't relevant? Or is just weird in general? Yeah... we have that woman. Why can't these people just stay at home and not take classes?





For the blog challenge today I'm supposed to put my ipod on shuffle and tell you the first 10 songs. I am using my itunes since it's closer, but this is probably a bad idea. You never know what crazy Kindergarten song is going to come up... oh well, here it goes!







Def Leppard- When Love and Hate Collide

Counting Crows- A Long December

Brad Paisley- Wrapped Around

Dr. Jean- Addition Pokey (and that's the first Kindergarten Song!)

Olivia Newton John- Hopelessly Devoted To You

Tim McGraw- Drugs or Jesus (first time I heard this song at a Tim McGraw concert I was like what is going on, but I actually really like it haha- crap now is my blog going to come up on really weird searches?)

Kenny Chesney- I'll Be Home For Christmas

Billy Joel- Uptown Girl

Toby Keith- I Love This Bar

Shaggy- Mr. Boombastic (I mean really, could I end on a better note?)





Wow, I'm not sure that really reflects my actual taste in music at all, but it's pretty random, which I guess in fact does describe my taste in music! But isn't everyone's taste in music pretty random? I love music. I can't sing or play an instrument to save my life, but there is really not much better than music. As some of you mentioned in my post on life lessons the other day, there is music to go with any possible feeling/experience you could have. So good.





Plus I'm kind of a music nut in kindergarten. I have songs for basically everything. My class this year basically will not clean up unless I put on a clean up song, so I downloaded some pretty awesome ones including "The Clean Up Robot."



Anyone want to tell me 10 random songs on their ipod? Come on, spread the randomness!