Mcgilla’s Weblog

I haven’t written in quite a while… partly because of time restraints and partly because i haven’t really had anything to write. I’m not really writing now either…. But here’s a quick rundown.  tuesday i didn’t go to school because i ate something not so great and spent all night/morning throwing up…. it was rough.  Tonight was the YMCA fall festival… it was a ton of fun, but it wore me out. I was supposed to volunteer from 6:30-7:30 but i ended up being there nearly 3 hours.  The first part was the most fun because i was the face everyone saw as they came in I handed everyone their tickets for the hay ride.  I know it was completely different, but it felt a lot like working at the cafe, and i didn’t realized how much i missed it.  I wish mom could have been there to see it, i was “working the room” like a champ! I was on my way out the door, after everyone was in and my job was over (about 7:45) and my boss caught me and asked if i could cover a booth just until she could get me a replacement.  I helped set up giant blow up bowling pins while kids rolled a big yoga ball at them. I had to jump up and down and hoop and holler.  My replacement came about 8:15. I was ducking out as quickly as i could when tony, the ceo, stopped me and asked if i could be the trash girl…. so i walked around for the next 45min picking up wrappers, cups, napkins, and sticky candy leftovers…. awesome!  all in all, it was fun, but i’m ready for bed!!

I was looking through some pictures on my phone last night, and i found this one that i took last weekend when driving back to texas.  I snapped it as i was passing the stadium.  I didn’t take the time to really look at it, and when I did I saw that Jesus seems to be cardinal fan.  I mean, he’s right there in the pic in front of the stadium raising his hands.  And I just say, if the St. Louis Cardinals are good enough for Jesus, they’re good enough for me.

Cookin dinner tomorrow night.  We finally have fall-like weather so cozy food is the plan….. a stoup a choup and an apple crisp. yum

Every tuesday/thursday i have “literacy lab.” Basically, i’m in one of the local elementary schools, and i have kids at risk for reading difficulties that i pull out of their classrooms each for 30min twice a week to give them some extra help. Today, my first grader, Hunnar, was working on r controlled vowels, specifically -ar-.  “ar” is tricky because you can’t sound it out… you don’t hear the a like you should…. (think car… you don’t hear a as in apple you just hear r as in the pirate said AARRRR.)  So first we look at the word car, he recognizes this word and reads it immediately. Then i ask, do you hear the “a” sound in this word?  he says no he just hears the r… so then we talk about the r…. In AR combos, the R takes the sound from the a and it says it’s name “r”.  I’m expecting this to be a little troublesome and that we will need to go over and over it so that he gets the idea…. but pretty quick, Hunnar not only catches on, but he makes it his own…. he put it like this….

Hunnar: “So R is like a burglar?”

Me: Yeah, i think so… tell me what you mean

Hunnar: The R steals the a sound

Me: YES!! That’s exactly right!!! good for you!!! (i’m super excited) and then the boy in Hunnar comes out…

Hunnar: So the R is like… hey A i’m stealing your sound… and just so you know, my name is R!

he then went on to do other variations of this…. hey A i’m a pirate, and i’m stealing your treasure and putting a sock in your mouth… AARRRRRRRR  (he even made a hook hand when acting like the pirate)

i know i’ve mentioned this before, but at the Y, i have 3 main rules that the kids say everyday…. today, ethan decided we needed to add a fourth….

Me: Rule #1

the kids: Listen the very first time

Me: good, rule #2

the kids: no whining!

Me: fantastic, rule #3

The kids: stay with the group

Ethan: rule number 4, no poopin in your pants ever, but especially today cuz i’m not wearin any unnawear.

Yes ethan, i agree.

We’re back in texas…. the trip home was…. eventful.  A little ways outside st. louis, we got stuck in a parking lot.  There was a REALLY bad wreck and i-44 was shut down in both directions.  The eastbound lanes was even worse than our side… and it took us about an hour and half to go a little less than 3 miles.  When we got to the site, there was a tractor trailer that had been on fire, the cab was basically melted to the road.  Just a little further down there was a boat on it’s side…. but we had no idea it was once a boat until we got past it and saw the engine. And then there was an suv smashed up against the bluffs on the side of the road and it had once been on fire too… yikes!

Through finding groups of people driving fast, only stopping for gas, and making our gas stops as efficient as possible, we gained an hour of that hour and half back.  But just inside the texas border, there were a bunch of big rocks in the road and no way to really miss them…. however shayla didn’t see them in tme to even hit the smaller ones… so we drove over a giant one…. poor Lola.  We stopped and checked her out and all the tires were good and we made it home without a hitch.  However, when i got out this morning to go to my observations, my tire was flat. =(.  shayla helped me changed my tire, and now i’m off to get a new one.  Fun fun fun

i’m home for the weekend… and i found my favorite hat… i think it may have been my dad’s back in the day.

And elle found these awesome glasses that i did not know that we had…. i want to keep them forever.

Today i was getting CJ out of time out and we were talking about why he was there…. oh wait we can’t call it time out anymore… the YMCA thinks it’s too negative…. I was getting CJ our of “renewal time” or as we like to call it at Marvin, “park” he was parked for making farting sounds.  I know all boys should be allowed to make fartty sounds… but I have a strict no bathroom words/sounds policy.  Call me mean, call me a fun sucker, but i get tired of hearing the words, poop, butt, fart, and all their derivitives 87kX’s/min. The conversation went a little like this…

Me: Why were we sitting in the corner CJ?

CJ: cuth I made faw-ding thounds.

Me: right, and why don’t we do that?

CJ: cuth it’s nawt nith (not nice).

Me: right, and we don’t say bathroom words and body part words right?

CJ: right… but but we can thay awrm and head, we jutht can’t thay body parth that we have to cuhvuh up (we can say arm and head, we just can’t say body parts that we have to cover up)

Me: very good, that’s exactly right

CJ: and we can’t thay thut up ee-duh, cuth dats weally mean and weally bad.

Me: right, we should only say friendly words.

CJ: and we weally weally can’t thay what the f*** cuth that’s weally bad.

Me: (biting my cheek really hard to keep from cracking a smile) right, we should never ever say that ever… not even to say that we shouldn’t say it.

CJ. yeah!!

are you home? you ask. did you go to see him? you ask.  did you call him and tell him you’re sick? you ask. nope. nope. nope.  how did you get antibiotics without doing any of these things? you ask. Dr. K is awesome period

scene: CJ holding up his middle finger

CJ: Miss Squeakers, is this the finger that makes people mad?

Me: yes, that’s the finger that makes people mad, lets not put it up.

CJ: why does it make people mad?

Me: because putting up that finger at people is like cussing to them.

CJ: OOOOHHHHH!

then he turns around and talks to himself…. I wasn’t cussing, I wasn’t cussing! Wow, that’s cussing! I didn’t cuss. Did i cuss?