We went out for a family dinnner and I am soooo tired. I cannot believe how hard this sickness has hit me. I don’t know if it’s recovering from the e-coli or if it is the anemia, but I am wiped out. Being out of my routine has also made me sort of wonky. Plus, now I seem to have a cold, whee.  I have one more day left to the antibiotics and I can’t wait to be finished.

Mom and Dad head back Ea st tomorrow. They had a fun time of watching me sit around feeling terrible. Yeesh. Send more healthy thoughts this way, please.

Happy birthday Eli! For your birthday I got you two snow days! Enjoy!

Further investigation into my health indicates anemia. So now on top of two doses of tummyache-inducing antibiotic (take two hours apart from dairy or iron-containing supplements) I need to take three daily doses of tummy-upsetting iron supplements (take six hours before or two hours after antibiotic).  Anybody got that worked out? I also can’t take tums within two hours of either medication. So, blech.

My tummy hurts, send help. Also, let’s have tomorrow be a snow day. I need more sleep.

Oh, and tomorrow: Eli’s birthday. And my parents arrive in the evening, yay!

Well this wasn’t a very fun weekend. I think the antibiotics are finally in gear, but I am taking one more day home tomorrow to make sure I am rested and strong before going back to work. Which is very boring, I hate missing school. What if they learn something without me! Gasp!

Today I stayed in bed all day, but at least this evening I was able to pull out some schoolwork and make some progress. My head has been ringing all weekend, and it was good to finally be able to think semi-clearly. We’ll see if the work I did tonight makes any sense tomorrow.

Going to bed shortly. I will be glad to see this weekend behind me. Unfortunately, Eli’s birthday is on Tuesday and I have done very little… actually NOTHING to prepare for it. I think we may go 0 for 2 on son birthday parties this year. At least my parents are coming on Tuesday and that should distract Eli from my bad parenting for at least a little while. “And if you don’t shape up, there will be no birthday party NEXT YEAR either!!” Mother Of The Year!

in bed all day with fever up and down, horrible headache. can’t think straight enough to do anything productive so just lay in bed miserable. blergh.

Some kind of infection rose up and smacked me hard today. I got hit with a fever, dizziness, nausea, misery. Stayed in bed all day, took antibiotics. I even ate a banana, which tells you a lot if you know about my eating habits. My head is about to explode so there will be no more blogging today. Think healthy thoughts.

Middle school open house night. *gulp*

Crud! I didn’t blog last night! I was baking cupcakes and writing curriculum and I plum forgot. This is a make-up blog. Now – back on track!

So I got a delivery of yarn today from Debbie Stoller’s new yarn line, Stitch Nation. It feels pretty soft: bamboo and wool blend called Bamboo Ewe. So, there are 7 balls of a “sea glass” color that I’ll give away when I have my Great Big Blog Moving Party. Which is going to be as soon as my buddy Cynthia gets my new blog all spiffy like. Very soon!

I got the most delicious birthday letter from a student today. He taped candy to it, and folded it up origami-style. I feel like it’s a breach of confidence to post the photo of the letter for you, but here’s one of my favorite parts: I am really glad that you can teach my young brain once again with your 41 year old brain.Tee hee. Isnt’ that so special? I was his kindergarten teacher too. 41 is a great number to be as well as it is my favorite number. This kid is 8 years old! Third grade is amazing. I feel so lucky to be soaking up these wonderful students and stretching my 41-year-old brain.

Today I mentioned to some of my students that I would be writing in my “journal” every day, just as I expect them to write frequently in their author’s notebooks. One extremely capable little girl has been having trouble reaching the goal of writing four times a week. I told her how the last two nights I’ve woken myself up from a dead sleep to drag myself out of bed and write, just because I set that goal for myself. We’ll see if that hooks her.

Have I mentioned, I’m tired?

Today I got some interesting birthday presents. I got a vibra-slap. (Hey, it’s a musical instrument, shame on you.) I got an adorable Hello necklace. And I got a book of Langston Hughes poetry illustrated for children. Also, my students gave me “appreciations”  today, where they were invited to say what they appreciated about me. This is our birthday ritual. It was pretty funny that most of them started trying to say something nice and wound up saying some version of Wow, I had you in kindergarten and now I get to have you again, I didn’t expect it!

One student spoke in a truly articulate way, describing the type of books he chose to read at the beginning of the year that didn’t stretch him, and pointing out how I’d I pushed him to make different choices and we’d found a book he really liked to read. “So, thank you,” he said. It was actually rather challenging to get him to make that leap, and his self-awareness was pretty impressive. A few said they thought i made learning fun. Another started out kind of confusing and went on and on in what seemed an illogical manner and we all waited patiently for him to get to his point. He wound up getting across that he really has become someone who loves reading since he has been in my class, even though he has struggled with reading for a long while. Some gifts are worth waiting for.