hermit crabs!

We have hermit crabs! So much excitement! I brought them in on Friday and set up the tank.

Things they notice: "The shells are different." and "They have legs and claws and like to hide in their shell."

Things they want to know: "Can we please name them, Miz F?" and "Will they have babies?"

Things they want to do: watch them all day long and skip everything else.

My compromise: add a station to Reading time where they can observe and write questions.

So, I stayed after work today to rearrange a bit on one counter and make a more kid-friendly observational space. Here it is:

The empty tank on the far right is a gift from my work boyfriend, Angela. It will eventually hold fish, but probably not until January. I'm not sure the excitement level could take another notch right now.

Which is kind of awesome, if you ask me.

muscles...

Yesterday, in the midst of talking about a book we'd just read, I was gesticulating wildly (as I am wont to do). Hannah watched me, then cocked her head and raised her hand, "Miz F, I saw your muscles. They're nice."

Good to know that while they're not as finely developed as those of my sister in law, or my friend (not)Angela Lansbury, or Ms. Swamp... they are still there. :)

my work boyfriend...

Okay, so I have this teacher friend, not!Angela Lansbury. We'll just call her Angela.

We have a lot in common, and get along really well. I generally try to avoid going to chat with her in her classroom unless I have five hundred and sixteen minutes, because once we start talking, time seems to sink into this school-portal time warp that makes time go by extra-wicked quickly to the point where one of us says, "holy crap, is it really forty-seven o'clock??" and the other one says, "I didn't think the clock could GO that high..."

A big part of it is that Angela just "gets" me professionally. We have similar views on children, on teaching, and talking to her always helps give me greater perspective. We also do some extra curricular activities together: running a Dance club for some of the older kids, taking dance classes together, and going for lunch & giggles on teacher work days.

She's my work boyfriend.

I say this because one evening, a week or so ago, when the clock was doing it's school-portal time warp trick, Angela and I were sitting in her classroom, solving the problems of the educational world when the Speech & Language clinician poked her head in,

"Angela!" she called, "where's your other half?" (meaning the other teacher that works in Angela's room)

My immediate (internal) reaction was, "I'm right here!" with a strange sense of near indignation. Could she not SEE me? Sitting RIGHT NEXT to Angela??

Clearly having a close teaching buddy has some interesting implications.

I wonder if this counts as cheating on my husband...

self-perception

Tonight at my dance class, the dance teacher of the other (harder) tap class was absent, so they combined our two classes. Then, one of the students in the other class led us through the class.

It was really, really hard. Whoa. After the first ten minutes or so, I found myself sort of overwhelmed with these things we were doing that I just Could. Not. Do. Well. Also, I was at the end of the line as we practiced across the floor, so everyone could see me having trouble with the steps (naturally I assumed that everyone was watching me screw up. Of course they weren't, but it's easy to feel like everyone's eyes are on you...).

I turned to my friend (I'll call her Angela for now, because she hasn't yet picked a name to be called on my journal, and Angela Lansbury is our current *joke* name for her) Angela and said, "You know, it's sort of good to have this class right now before school starts to give me perspective. I'm about to start acting out."

I really meant it. I've found that when I try new things as an adult, I don't usually have a high tolerance for failure. Not that tonight was a failure, per se, just that it was a lot harder than what I'm used to and I could feel little niggling threads of: "this is too hard" "I'm not doing this" "this is stupid" weaving around inside me.

How appropriate to experience this just before the kids come back, to help me remember what it feels like to perceive myself as *dumb* at something and not want attention called to my shortcomings. I imagine I'm not the only one.